As regards the Fairy Morgana, who was married to a mortal, I confess, with your kind permission, I had rather not accept her as a satisfactory reply.  It is as though you would accept “once upon a time” as a chronological date!  She was married to a mortal—­true; but morganatically, I doubt it.  If morganatic came from this, it should appear the Fairy Morgana was the first lady who so underwent the ceremony.  Do not forget Lurline, who married also a mortal, of whom the poet so prettily sings: 

“Lurline hung her head,
Turned pale, and then red;
And declared his abruptness in popping the question
So soon after dinner had spoilt her digestion.”

This lady’s marriage resembled the other in all respects, and I leave you to decide, and no man is more competent, from your extensive knowledge of the mythology of Medieval Europe, whether Morgana, beyond the mere accident of her name, was more likely than Lurline to have added a word with a puzzling etymology to the languages of Europe.  The word will, I think, be found of Eastern origin, clothed in a Teutonic form.

After all, Jacob Grimm and Cancianus may interest your readers, and so I send the Note.

S.H.

Athenaeum, Sept. 6. 1850

* * * * *

MINOR NOTES.

Alderman Beckford.—­Gifford (Ben Jonson, vol. vi. p. 481.) has the following note:—­

“The giants of Guildhall, thank heaven, yet defend their charge:  it only remains to wish that the citizens may take example by the fate of Holmeby, and not expose them to an attack to which they will assuredly be found unequal.  It is not altogether owing to their wisdom that this has not already taken place.  For twenty years they were chained to the car of a profligate buffoon, who dragged them through every species of ignominy to the verge of rebellion; and their hall is even yet disgraced with the statue of a worthless negro-monger, in the act of insulting their sovereign with a speech of which (factious and brutal as he was) he never uttered one syllable.” ...  “By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.”

But Gifford was generally correct in his assertions; and twenty-two years after his note, I made the following one:—­

“It is a curious fact, but a true one, that Beckford did not utter one syllable of this speech.  It was penned by Horne Tooke, and by his art put on the records of the city and on Beckford’s statue, as he told me, Mr. Braithwaite, Mr. Seyers, &c., at the Athenian Club.

    “ISAAC REED.

    “See the Times Of July 23. 1838, p. 6.”

The worshipful Company of Ironmongers have relegated their statue from their hall to a lower position:  but it still disgraces the Guildhall, and will continue to do so, as long as any factious demagogue is permitted to have a place among its members.