2«d S. No 74., May 30. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



42^ 



when contemplating liig intended work, much in 

 want of a name, and that when out walking or 

 riding one day, I know not where, a cart passed 

 him with " Gulliver " on it, which he at once de- 

 cided should be the name of his hero, as it was 

 quite uncommon. For the same reason my fa- 

 ther also informed me he chose Lemuel. I do not 

 at all know my father's authority for this little 

 history, but I well remember his giving it me. 

 Mh. Rilet's suggestion as to the probable mean- 

 ing of the word is certainly very ingenious ; but 

 from the name being an old one in the county 

 mentioned (and it may be in others), I am inclined 

 to believe Swift himself saw it during one of his 

 journeys, and that he did not invent it. Henri. 



Swift, Portrait of (2°^ S. ii. 21. 96. 158. 199. 

 509.) — I do not observe that any of your corre- 

 spondents have made reference to Swift's Miscel- 

 lanies (published by H. Curll, 1727, during his 

 father's disgrace), " with his effigies curiously en- 

 graven by Mr. Vertue." The work is advertised 

 in a voluminous catalogue of Curll's publications, 

 appended to Memoirs of the late Bishop Atterbury, 

 by Thomas Stackhouse, and published by Curll. 

 It would be worth inquiry whether this "effigies" 

 really was by Vertue, and whether it is not the 

 earliest mentioned portrait of Swift. 



Henry T. Riley. 



WILKIE S " RENT DAY. 



The principal group of figures in Wilkie's 

 "Rent Day," is accurately explained in the letter- 

 press description of his published works. When 

 the picture first appeared, I was told by an inti- 

 mate friend of Wilkie what the painter intended 

 to represent. 



It will be remembered that the most prominent 

 figure is an old man, in a light-coloured great- 

 coat, standing at the steward's table. The key to 

 the explanation is, that this old man is supposed 

 to be completely deaf. He has paid his money, 

 as he supposes correctly. But the steward, whose 

 countenance expresses craft and rapacity, imagines 

 there is some mistake. He grasps with one hand 

 the bank notes, and is endeavouring to under- 

 stand the explanation which a friend of the deaf 

 man, leaning behind him, is attempting to give, 

 with the help of money, spread upon the table, as 

 counters. This perplexity is shared by two men 

 standing farther back ; one of them puzzling him- 

 self by endeavouring to do the sum upon paper, 

 and the other, not more successful, in reckoning 

 the account on his fingers. 



Meanwhile, the deaf man, the occasion of all 

 this difficulty, stands entirely unmoved, his coun- 

 tenance expressing only stolid indifierence. 



It is remarkable that in this picture, and in his 



" Blind Fiddler," Wilkie should have concentrated 

 so much interest about two men Suffering under 

 the infirmities of want of sight and hearing. 



In the " Rent Day," there is a triumph of art in 

 the representation of a familiar and almost instan- 

 taneous effect, in the man coughing in the centre 

 of the picture. 



Did any painter ever represent a sneeze ? 



T. C. 



Durham. 



THEOSOPIIY. 



The word theosophy answers to the Hebrew 

 Al-hakameh, or divine wisdom ; being immediately 

 derived from the Greek Theos, god, and Sophia, 

 wisdom*, divine understanding. We are aware 

 that this wisdom of God is extolled in the Old and 

 New Testaments in many texts, and pre-eminently 

 in the Book of Ecclesiasticus in the Apocrypha. 

 The word theosophy occurs in the writings of the 

 Christian Fathers, especially in the writings of 

 Dionysius the Areopagite, quoted by Stephenus in 

 his Thesaurus. Dionysius defines theosophy to be 

 " the divine or central apprehension of things ; " 

 and says it is essentially connected with Chris- 

 tianity f, as affording the means of its intellectual 

 demonstration, and final universal establishment. 

 He speaks of theosophers as regenerated souls, 

 and accordingly inhabited by the Divine light. 

 Clemens Alexandrinus, and other fathers also, 

 extol theosophy under this name. In the Middle 

 Ages, theosophy was the sublime study of 

 the Schoolmen ; was recommended by Scotus 

 Erigene, and by the Mystics, as involving the 

 purification of the soul, and, by consequence, the 

 knowledge of the best means and instrumental 

 media thereunto. Theosophy is, in fact, the fun- 

 damental science of the religious philosophy of 

 Buddhism, which, as most readers are aware, has 

 become during the last few weeks, a topic of great 

 interest in the columns of the daily journals. The 

 theological difference between the religious philo- 

 sophy of Buddhism J, and that of "Evangelical 



* Theosophy, in conjunction with the sublime practice 

 of animal magnetism, is what is understood by the " di- 

 vine art of Alchemy." 



f Richard Greaves interprets theosophy, " such a know- 

 ledge of God as a believer enjoj-s, from the triple testi- 

 mony of the Spirit, the Scriptures, and the Book of 

 Nature." 



X In reference to this subject, it may be further ob- 

 served, ih&t Buddhism inaj'be considered as the Reformed 

 Religion of the ancient corrupted and effete " patriarchal 

 Christianit}'," Druidism or Brahmism of the East, de- 

 scended to them in a direct line from Shem, the son of 

 Noah ; out of which " Covenant line," Abrara, who was 

 DOW to be the head of the " Covenant line " of the pro- 

 mised "seed of the woman" to all people, branched out, 

 and took with him both its theology and philosophy; 

 which Moses afterwards acquired in the original schools 

 of the same in Egypt. Whence, indeed, could the true 



