"Children in the Wood."—Was Weyland Wood in Norfolk the scene of the "Children in the Wood?"
S. Z. Z. S.
[The following account of this tradition is given in Beauties of England and Wales, vol. xi. p. 269., Norfolk:—"Near the town of Watton is Weyland Wood, vulgarly called Wailing Wood, from a tradition that two infants were basely murdered in it by their uncle; and which furnished the story of a beautifully pathetic and well-known ancient ballad, entitled "The Children in the Wood, or the Norfolk Gentleman's Last Will and Testament," preserved in Percy's Reliques.]
Replies.
BRYDONE THE TOURIST.
(Vol. ix., pp. 138. 255.)
In reply to H. R. NÉE F., I beg to state that the writer of the remarks alluded to, on Brydone's Tour in Sicily and Malta, was the Rev. Robert Finch, M.A., formerly of Balliol College in this University, and who died about the year 1830. When I met with Mr. Finch's honest and somewhat blunt expression of opinion, recorded in a
copy which once belonged to him, of Brydone's Tour, I was quite ignorant of the hostile criticisms that had appeared at different times on that once popular work; but knowing Mr. Finch's high character for scholarship, and a knowledge of Italy, I thought his remark worth sending to a publication intended, like "N. & Q.," as "A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, Antiquaries," &c., who are well able to examine a Note of the kind; and either to accept it as valid, or to reject it as untenable. On referring now to some standard works, in order to discover the opinions of learned men respecting Mr. Brydone's Tour, the first work I looked into was the Biographie Universelle (in eighty-three volumes, and not yet completed, Paris, 1811-1853), in vol. lix. of which the following observations occur, under the name of Brydone (Patrice):
"On lui a reproché d'avoir sacrifié la vérité au plaisir de raconter des choses piquantes. On l'avait accusé aussi d'avoir, par son indiscretion, suscité à l'Abbé Recupero, Chanoine de Catane, une persécution de la part de son évêque. Cette indiscretion n'eut pas heureusement un résultat aussi facheux; mais ses erreurs sur plusieurs points sont évidentes; il donne 4000 toises de hauteur à l'Etna qui n'en a que 1662; il commet d'autres fautes qui ont été relevées par les voyageurs venus après lui. Bartels (Briefe über Kalabrien und Sicilien, 2te Auflage, 3 Bd., 8vo., Götting. 1791-92) est même persuadé que le voyage au sommet de l'Etna, chef-d'œuvre de narration, n'est qu'un roman, et cet avis est partagé par d'autres."