To serve my God when I awake."
I have never seen this curious coincidence noticed by any of the good bishop's biographers, Hawkins, Bowles, or Mr. Anderdon.
Mackenzie Walcott, M.A.
The English School of Painting.—In a note to a volume of poems by Victor Hugo, published in 1836, occur these remarks:
"M. Louis Boulanger, à qui ces deux ballades sont dédiées, s'est placé bien jeune au premier rang de cette nouvelle génération de peintres, qui promet d'élever notre école au niveau des magnifiques écoles d'Italie, d'Espagne, de Flandre, et d'Angleterre."
Does this praise of the English school of painting show a correct appreciation of its claims to distinction? or am I in error in supposing, as I have done, that our school of painting is not entitled to the pompous epithet of "magnifique," nor to be named in the same category with the Italian, Spanish, and Flemish schools? I am aware of the hackneyed and somewhat hyperbolical employment, by French writers and speakers, of such terms as magnifique, superbe, grandiose; and that they do not convey to a French ear the same idea of superiority, as they do to our more sober English judgment; but making every allowance on this score, I confess I was not a little startled to find such a term as magnifique, even in its most moderate acceptation, applied to our efforts in that branch of art. Magnifique, in truth, must be our school, when the French can condescend to speak of it in such language!
Henry H. Breen.
St. Lucia.
"A Feather in your Cap."—My good friend Dr. Wolff mentioned in conversation a circumstance (also stated, I fancy, in his Journey to Bokhara) which seemed to afford a solution of the common expression, "That's a feather in your cap." I begged he would give it me in writing, and he has done so. "The Kaffr Seeyah Poosh (meaning the infidels in black clothing) living around Cabul upon the height of the mountains of the Himalaya, who worship a god called Dagon and Imra, are great enemies of the Muhamedans; and for each Muhamedan they kill, they wear a feather in their heads. The same is done among the Abyssinians and Turcomans."
Has the feather head-dress of the American Indian, and the eagle's feather in the bonnet of the Highlander, any connexion with keeping a score of the deaths of the enemies or game they have killed?