104 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 62,, Mae. 7. '57. 



which would otherwise have been lost to us. 

 There is also in it a beautiful simplicity and 

 naturalness well according with those primitive 

 times. The second class, of which the Dutch pic- 

 tures especially afford innumerable examples, 

 cannot be too severely reprobated ; they sprang, 

 not from simplicity, but base vulgarity, coarse- 

 ness, and not unfrequently obscenity. The intro- 

 duction of portraits is common to all times and 

 places, e.g. the Duke of Bedford as Gabriel in the 

 Bed. Missal ; King Henry VIII. as David in his 

 Psalter; Rubens' wife, &c. &c. My principal rea- 

 son for writing this is to point out that even as late 

 as Queen Elizabeth's times our great writers, espe- 

 cially Shakspeare, committed as many anachro- 

 nisms as the old painters. Thus we find in Julius 

 CcBsar, " The clock has stricken three." 2. Night 

 caps (?). 3. ^^ As \f it were doomsday." 4. Corio- 

 lanus speaks of "Hob and Dick." 5. In Troilus 

 and Cressida, Aristotle is mentioned. 6. Ulysses 

 speaks of Milo. 7. Thersites talks of a " sarcenet 

 flap for a sore eye," and of a shoeing horn. He 

 also speaks of a "potatoe " finger, and lastly of a 

 parrot. 8. Pandarus speaks of a " galled goose of 

 Winchester." 9. In Pericles, we have " pistols " 

 and " a tennis court." 10. In Julius Ccesar, 

 "plucked up his doublet." 11. In King John, 

 " cannons'' malice," and " bullets wrapped in fire " 

 — "swifter spleen than powder,'" than poicder can 

 enforce, with many others too numerous to set 

 down. J. C. J. 



Surely your correspondents do not flatter 

 themselves they ever saw from an old master a 

 correct historical painting ! All such paintings, 

 except the subjects be comparatively recent, 

 and the scene laid in very well-known coun- 

 tries, muSt of 7iecessity be full of blunders and 

 anachronisms, in costume, in architecture, in fur- 

 niture, in vegetation, &c. The only reason we 

 are not always struck by this is because we 

 generally know no better than the painter did. 

 Works of art must therefore be criticised as 

 such, and we must not expect from old masters 

 a degree of accuracy which only modern lite- 

 rature has put within an artist's reach. The 

 red and blue blankets in which it is customary 

 to clothe the Virgin and the Apostles, the Roman 

 armour in which Egyptian, Ninevite, and Israeli- 

 tish warriors are usually depicted, and the me- 

 diasval armour and fancy costume common in 

 New Testament subjects, are quite as ridiculous 

 as any of the anachronisms quoted by your corre- 

 spondents ; and the paintings wherem they occur 

 may nevertheless be among our most glorious 

 treasures of art. Nortbcote's scenes from Shak- 

 speare perhaps carry error in costume as far as 

 error can go ; but the subject had been so little 

 studied in his day, that it is hardly fair to laugh at 

 him. Nowadays such blunders would be quite 



unpardonable, but an artist only merits ridicule 

 when he might have known better had he taken 

 the proper trouble. The difference between fair 

 and unfair criticism is well illustrated by your 

 correspondent's mention of Cigoli's painting Si- 

 meon at the Circumcision in a pair of spectacles. 

 Every Bible reader knows the difference between 

 the Circumcision and the Presentation, and Cigoli 

 as a son of the Church ought to have known that 

 the 1st of January is not the same as the 2nd of 

 February. Therefore, lythe writer meant to point 

 out the anachronism of putting in Simeon at the 

 Circumcision at all, his criticism is a fair one (pro- 

 vided Cigoli has really made the blunder imputed 

 to him). But spectacles are emblematic of old 

 age : Cigoli had probably no means of ascertaining 

 when they first came into use, and more probable 

 still, he did not know that some commentators 

 deny that Simeon was an aged man at all ; and 

 therefore to object to the spectacles is a piece of 

 hyper-criticism. P. P. 



3RcjjticjS to Minax ^utxiti. 



Epitaph on an Infant (P' S. xi. 252. 347.) — 

 The author of the epitaph commencing, — 



" Beneath a sleeping infant lies. 

 To earth whose ashes lent," &c. 



was the Rev. Samuel Wesley, Usher of the West- 

 minster School, whose satirical piece on Curll was 

 given in the last volume of " N. & Q." The 

 epitaph occurs in his Poems, 2nd edition, 1743, 

 p. 42. J. Y. 



Stone Pillar Worship (P' S. v. 121. ; vii. 383.; 

 viii.413.) — 



" The Chinese anciently offered oblations to their deities 

 on the summits of hills and on rude altars of unhewn 

 stone ; and even now, though the altar maj' glitter in all 

 the gorgeousness of gilding and elaborate workmanship, 

 a large loose stone is placed at each corner. 



" On comparing these with the high places and unhewn 

 altars of the Pentateuch, and with the monoliths and 

 Druidical memorials of the primitive European races, 

 we may infer, that all have a common origin, however 

 dimly traceable in the Avithdrawing glooms of Antiquity." 

 — John Locke, Lectures on the Chinese Empire, reported 

 in Limerick Chronicle, Dec. 1841. 



Anon. 



St. Bees' College (2"'^ S. iii. 112.) — Most pro- 

 bably there is no record of the parentage and 

 schooling of St. Bees' men, and assuredly there 

 ought to be none. That college educates for the 

 Church young men whose social position and small 

 means exclude them from the universities, and 

 many a pious and useful man has thus been added 

 to the ministry, whose usefulness would by no 

 means be increased by the publication of his pa- 

 rentage. Unfortunately a St. Bees' man generally 

 proclaims his r^nk quite sufficiently by the breadth 



