were short nearly a column; but there stood on the galleys a tempting
column of pie. It suddenly struck me that this might be thought
Dutch. I made up the column, overcame the scruples of the foreman,
and so away the country edition went with its philological puzzle,
to worry the honest agricultural reader's head. There was plenty of
time to set up a column of plain English for the local edition." Sir
Richard tells of one man whom he met in Nottingham who for thirty-four
years preserved a copy of the Leicester _Herald_, hoping that some
day the matter would be explained.

I doubt if any one nation is braver than any other; and the fact that
from Holland we get the contemptuous term "Dutch courage," meaning
the courage which is dependent upon spirits (originally as supplied
to malefactors about to mount the scaffold), is no indication that
the Dutch lack bravery. To one who inquired as to the derivation of
the phrase a poet unknown to me thus replied, somewhen in the reign
of William IV. The retort, I think, was sound:--


Do _you_ ask what is Dutch courage?
Ask the Thames, and ask the fleet,
That, in London's fire and plague years,
With De Ruyter yards could mete:
Ask Prince Robert and d'Estrées,
Ask your Solebay and the Boyne,
Ask the Duke, whose iron valour
With our chivalry did join,
Ask your Wellington, oh ask him,
Of our Prince of Orange bold,
And a tale of nobler spirit