2»<> S. No 67., April 11. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



281 



LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL nj867. 

 MSOT ILLUSTRATED. 



The old folio of Sir Roger L'Estrange * fills up 

 pleasantly some of the vacant intervals or odds 

 and ends of time. Sir Roger's taste for pro- 

 verbial philosophy, and his homely yet vigorous 

 and idiomatic English, as well as shrewd sense, 

 render him fit, so far, for the task he has under- 

 taken : but he is wanting in depth and refinement, 

 is prosy and tedious, and often coarse both in se- 

 lection and comment. As I turn over his pages, 

 I often wish that some one with the requisite taste 

 and learning would bring out a choice selection 

 of Fables, giving the most remarkable applications 

 and illustrations of them wheresoever met with. 

 The different applications of the same Fables 

 made by different writers, — and of which they are 

 often really capable, according as we view them 

 from different standing-points, — and* the scope 

 they give to a writer's ingenuity, who — 



" Strikes life into their speech, and shows much more 

 His own conceiving," 



would render such a work full of variety and in- 

 struction ; for, as Sir Roger says, " An Emblem 

 without a Key to it, is no more than a Tale of a 

 Tub." 



In illustration of my remarks, I shall select one 

 of the intrinsically poorest and most jejune of the 

 iEsopic Fables, viz. that of " A Boy and Cockles." 

 « Fab. CLXIII. 



" Some people were roasting of Cockles, and they 

 hissed in the fire. * Well (says a blockheaded Boy) these 

 are villanous creatures to be sure, to sing when their 

 hotaes are afire over their heads.' 



« The Moral. 

 " Nothing can be well that's out of season. 

 " Rejiexion. 

 " There's a time for jest, and a time for earnest, and it 

 is a dangerous mistake not to distinguish the one" from 

 the other. The fool's conceit here had both clownery 

 and ill nature in it, for there's nothing more brutal or 

 barbarous then the humor of insulting over the miser- 

 able ; Nothing more contrary to humanity and common 

 sense, then this scandalous way of grinning and jeering 

 out of season," &c. 



So far. Sir R. L'Estrange. Now let us turn to 

 Bishop Taylor : — The Christian religion 



" represents all the flatteries of Sin to be a mere couzen- 

 age and deception of the Understanding ; and we find by 

 this scrutiny, that evil and unchristian persons are in- 



* Fables of JEsop and other Eminent Mytholngists : with 

 Morals and Reflexions. By Sir Roger L'Estrange, Knt., 

 4th edit., Lond., 1704, folio. 



The "other Eminent Mythologists" are Barlandus, 

 Anianus, Abstemins, Poggius, Phsedrus, Avienus, Came- 

 rarius, Neveletus, Apthonius, Gabrias, Babrias, Alciatns, 

 Boccalini, Baudoin, De la Fontaine, &c. 



finitely unwise, because they neglect the counsel of their 

 superiors and their guides. They dote passionately upoa 

 trifles; they rely upon false foundations and deceiving 

 principles; they are the most confident when they are 

 most abused ; they are like shelled fish, singing Imtdest 

 when their house is on fire about their ears, and being mer- 

 riest when they are most miserable and perishing." — Life of 

 Christ, Part in.. Ad sect. xiii. 34. (edit. 1694, p. 311.) 



The writer of the article entitled " Infant! Per- 

 duti," in the Edinburgh Essays, for 1856, treating 

 of the " Connection of Genius and Misery," thus 

 makes use of the Fable : 



" In ^sop, a countryman remarks to the shell-fish he 

 is roasting : ' ye Cockles ! being about to die, why do 

 you sing ? ' A similar pathetic question might be put to 

 unfortunate Artists ; and in both cases an acute observer 

 might perceive that without the roasting there could be 

 no singing, or at least none of that peculiarly affecting 

 kind which alone can pierce the dull ear of the world. 

 There is evidently some connection between the misery 

 of a man's fate and the valuable products which he 

 leaves.* Literary men, and artists of even the greatest 

 activity, who in life are highly prosperous both outwardly 

 and inwardly, such as Titian, be Vega, and Sir W. Scott f, 

 do not serioiislj' touch the heart of the country and of the 

 world. Shakspeare is often adduced as an exception to 

 this rule ; but those who so adduce him have failed to 

 appreciate the inner spirit of his writings, and have not 

 given due weight to the argument of his lines : 



" ' When words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain ; 

 For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in 

 pain.' 



" . . . . Shakspeare lived in that middle position in 

 which the great artist must be suspended, when, like 

 Melanthius, ' for a long time, being alive, he may suffer 

 terrible griefs,' in order that he may greatlj* influence his 

 fellows. Is not his life, so far as known to us, a proof 

 that, had it not been for his necessities and his sufferings, 

 he would have written nothing? He also, like the 

 Cockles, required to be roasted, that he might sing. 



" .... In our limited experience, the reflex of our 

 life usually follows after failure. The very Cockle, so 

 long as it is in its proper situation, and living as a Cockle 

 ought to live, resolutely refuses to sing, — and opens its 

 lips, not to emit sweet sounds, but only to admit un- 

 fortunate young eolids. Perfected naturally-unrolled 

 existence requires no reflex, no vindication in speech or 

 song. Am I perfect, unhindered? — then I will not sing, 

 but live; not to contemplate myself, but go forth on my 

 objects. . . . ' Most of Gothe's writings,' said his friend. 

 Chancellor von Muller, * arose from the absolute necessity 

 of freeing himself from some inward discord or distressing 

 impression.' ' Most wretched Men,' said Shelley, 



" ' Are cradled into poetry by wrong : 



They learn in suffering what they teach in song.' 



All the Poets may, with a little explanation, be shown to 

 illustrate this." — Pp. 145, 146. 150. 155. 



* King David, Luther, Johnson, Goldsmith, and Cole- 

 ridge may be mentioned as striking instances. We may 

 sa3' with Mr. Helps, that "What has been well written, 

 has been well suffered : — 



" * He best can paint them who has felt them most.' " 



t Surely Scott is not a case in point ? The last few years 

 of his life, and such of his works as The Bride of Lam' 

 mermoor, Kenilworth, Heart of Midlothian, Sfc, cannot fail 

 to " touch the heart of the world." 



