2'"» S. N» 53., Jan. 3, '57.} 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Scrobes," says Tacitus, by the bye !), i. e. pit and 

 gallows, were very permanent there; and while 

 we mostly contented ourselves with the " three- 

 legged colt foaled by an acorn," they built their 

 three-legged colt of stone. I may observe, by 

 the way, that the gallows itself is symbolised as a 

 Iiorse (Hengest, a stallion), and the being hanged 

 by riding. In old Norse, the mythical name for 

 it is " Hagbard's horse," — a hero of that name 

 having perished upon it. Hence our "colt ;" and 

 possibly the dragging of Hengest's name into the 

 etymology of Stonehenge, and the ridiculous story 

 of the British chieftains murdered on the spot by 

 the Saxons. I think it, however, quite possible 

 that the Triliths may have served as gallowses on 

 some grand occasion ; and that after a defeat, 

 some British leaders may have been sacrificed by 

 tying them up to Woden, on the same. But as 

 long as the Anglo-Saxon language is Anglo- 

 Saxon, Stonehenge can mean nothing but " the 

 stone gallowses." J. M. Kbmble. 



THE ESSAY ON MAN, 



This work was published anonymously ; but, 

 says Johnson, " he [Pope] avowed the fourth 

 Part, and claimed the honor of a moral poet." 

 Mr. Carruthers seems to have understood this 

 literally, and, in his Life of Pope (p. 211.) he 

 says, " to the fourth Epistle of the Essay Pope 

 prefixed his name, and thus dispelled all doubt 

 and mystery." 



This is a mistake. The fourth Epistle was 

 published, as the three former had been, anony- 

 mously ; and at the end is an advertisement of the 

 three former Epistles, but no mention of the name 

 of the writer. 



There is a confusion, by the biographers, in the 

 use of the word "Part" and "Epistle," which 

 leads me to doubt ^whether the exact facts were 

 known to them. 



To speak critically, there was but one " Part " 

 published; the second, third, and fourth were 

 from the first entitled "Epistles;" and it was 

 only after the second and third Epistles had 

 been published that there was a new edition of the 

 first " Part " — not called a second edition, though 

 announced in the title-page as " corrected by the 

 Author" — and this edition was entitled "Epi- 

 stle I." 



Mr. Carruthers, in his List of Pope's works, 

 gives the title-page of " Part I." correctly ; but I 

 suspect that he merely followed Warburton. Mr. 

 Carruthers occasionally qualifies and modifies 

 Warburton's notes ; but I see no evidence of his 

 having higher authority than the quarto of 1735. 

 As to Warburton, he quotes all sorts of authorities 

 — the MS. — the Pol. — the Quarto — the First 

 Edition, and so forth. Of the MS. I cannot 



speak ; but all the rest are " the same with a dif- 

 ference." That Pope furnished the notes refer- 

 ring to the " Variations," or that Warburton had 

 seen the first edition — the " Part 1." — I cannot 

 doubt ; and yet neither Warburton nor any 

 other editor refer to the extraordinary trans- 

 positions and changes which appear in all later 

 editions — even in "Epistle L" Further, and 

 still more strange, Warburton, followed by sub- 

 sequent editors, professes to quote passages from 

 the first edition which are not to be found in it. 

 Thus, of edition 1751, and subsequent editions, he 

 thus writes : 



" After the verse 68. the following lines in first edit. : 



" If to be perfect in a certain sphere, 

 What matters soon or late, or here or there ? 

 The blest to-day is as completely so 

 As who began ten thousand years ago." 



Now the lines referred to do not appear, after 

 verse 68., "in first edition," nor in connexion with 

 the lines preceding or following verse 68. ; and 

 strange as it may seem, I must believe that War- 

 burton, at the moment he wrote that note, had 

 overlooked or forgotten the fact, that the very 

 lines quoted as a " variation " from the first edi- 

 tion actually occur, with the slight difference only 

 of one for ten, on the same page as the note — that 

 is, following line 72. 



Mr. Carruthers appears to have suspected some 

 blunder — to have assumed that the "Variations" 

 differed from Warburton's edition, as Warburton 

 naturally led him to believe, only by the substitu- 

 tion o? one for ten. This again is a mistake. The 

 lines "in first edition" follow verse 94. — there 

 are six lines and not four — and they differ essen- 

 tially from the lines as published by Warburton, 

 and in all subsequent editions. Here they are : 



" If to be perfect in a certain State, 

 What matter, here or there, or soon or late? 

 Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r, 

 Or in the natal or the mortal hour : 

 And he that's bless'd to day, as fully so. 

 As who began ten thousand years ago." 



I may further observe that these six lines were 

 struck out on republication ; that they do not 

 appear in " Epistle I.," and never, I believe, re- 

 appeared until the Essay on Man, with " Com- 

 mentary and Notes" by Warburton, was published, 

 in 1743 ; and then these six lines were reduced to 

 the established four lines in the text, with the 

 equally established four lines of non-" Variations" 

 in the notes. 



In thus drawing attention to an error I must 

 not be understood as in any way censuring Mr. 

 Carruthers. He offered to the public not a critical 

 but a popular edition of the poet. 



While on the subject I will add that the " first 

 edition " has the following advertisement prefixed, 

 which I have not seen quoted or referred to by 

 either editors or biographers ; and yet it is cha- 



