506 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2''d S. No 78., June 27, '57. 



sensible object from a mental or spiritual act or 

 exercise ? The question suggested itself after 

 reading the very just, though little known, Re- 

 marks on the Talents of Lord Byron, and the Ten- 

 dencies of Don Juan, published in 1819 by the 

 Rev. C. Colton, author of Lacon. At p. 34., Mr. 

 Colton remarks, that — 



" It is an admitted axiom of poetry, that we must not 

 draw images from the immaterial or intellectual world, to 

 illustrate the natural or artificial ; although it is both 

 allowable and elegant to draw images from the latter 

 to illustrate the former. Thus, for instance, a correct but 

 cold and tame translation has been wittily compared to 

 the reversed side of a piece of tapestry ; very exact, but 

 devoid of all spirit, life, and colouring ; now it would be 

 neither just nor witty to attempt to give a man a notion 

 of the wrong side of a piece of tapestry, by comparing it 

 to a bad translation. Such an illustration would be open 

 to the charge of ' obscurum per obscurius.' But, alas ! it is 

 as difficult to prescribe rules to genius, as limits to the 

 wave, or laws to the whirlwind. This difficulty has been 

 overcome, and this rule transgressed at various times by 

 his Lordship; but with such inimitable grace, and un- 

 rivalled talent, that we cheerfully surrender up both the 

 constitution and the laws of poetry, into the hands of that 

 despot who can please us more by breaking them than 

 petty kings by preserving them; and can render even 

 our slavery to him more sweet than our subjection to an- 

 other. I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of quoting 

 one passage from Childe Harold, Canto iv., because there 

 happen to be three examples in the small space of two 

 stanzas; the poet is describing the cataract of Velino, 

 &c. : — 



" ' Lo, where it sweeps, like an eternity,* &c. 



" ' An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, 

 Like hope upon a death-bed.' 

 And — 



" ' Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, 

 Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.' " 



Assuming the critical canon, the violation of 

 which Mr. Colton thus commends in the hand of 

 such a poet, as being founded in nature, it would 

 be referrible to the same principle upon which the 

 structure of language has proceeded, viz., that of 

 deducing metaphorical terms for immaterial things 

 from the natural world ; and not vice versa, ex- 

 cept In instances so rare as is presented by the 

 term beads. Y. B, N. J. 



Miviav fiatti. 



Hatching Machines in the Middle Ages. — • Sir 

 John Maundeville, an Englishman, and great 

 eastern traveller of the fourteenth century, in a 

 very entertaining account of his travels, has the 

 following. He is giving a description of Cairo 

 (a.d. 1322) : 



" And there is a common house in that city, which is 

 all full of small furnaces, to which the towns-women 

 bring their eggs of hens, geese, and ducks, to be put into 

 the furnaces ; and they that keep that house cover them 

 with horse-dung, without hen, goose, or duck, or any 

 fowl, and at the end of three weeks or a month they come 

 again and take their chickens, and nourish them and 



bring them forth, so that all the country is full of them. 

 And this they do there both winter and summer." — 

 Early Travels in Palestine, p. 152,, Bohn's Antiquarian 

 Library. 



Mercator, A.B. 



Curiom Criticism. — If the errors of those ter- 

 rible individuals the critics are worth noticing, 

 may I call your attention to two which they have 

 made lately ? The Athenceum of a few weeks ago, 

 in its article on the Academy Exhibition, talks of 

 the " rabbit " in Landseer's picture of the " Muc- 

 kle Staig." And what is still more odd, the same 

 mistake Is made by the Saturday Revieiv. Does 

 it not somewhat take off from the criticisms of 

 these sons of Cockayne, that they know not a 

 rabbit from a "blue hare ?" G. H. K. 



Dr. Moor, Greek Professor at Glasgow. — Your 

 recent publication of Notes from the margins of 

 Professor Moor's class-book reminds me of a 

 work that I saw many years since. It was a kind 

 of supplement to Dr. Johnson's Life of the poet 

 Gray. In that Life it will be remembered that 

 Dr. Johnson, after analysing the other poems of 

 Gray, dismisses the Elegy in a few complimentary 

 lines. This omission was supplied by the Pro- 

 fessor Moor who filled the Greek Chair at Glas- 

 gow University about 1818, His critique, though 

 I have seen it in print, was never published (I 

 believe), only a few copies having been printed 

 for private circulation. But, whether as an imi- 

 tation of Johnson's style, or as a piece of sound 

 criticism, It was admirable, and well worthy of 

 being given to the public. If any correspondent, 

 happy in the possession of a copy, would favour 

 "N. & Q," with a few specimens, I feel confident 

 that my opinion would be confirmed, 



Y. B. N. J. 



An impromptu Verse. — Mr. Farrer's amusing 

 school-boy epigram (2""* S. ill. 406.) has reminded 

 me of the following impromptu version of Horace, 

 Sat. II. ill. 60—62., made by a clever contempo- 

 rary of mine at Winchester, now, alas ! no more, 

 on the subject "Et consanguineus Leti Sopor :" 



" An Actor once had drinking been, 

 And had to play a sleeping Queen : 

 Then up there came another fellow. 

 With a voice as gruff as a violoncello, 

 And loudly he began to bellow, 

 ' Mater, mater, te appello ; ' 

 But, when he found he could not wake her, 

 He went and fetched the Undertaker." 



C. W. B. 



TindaVs " Rights of the Christian Church As- 

 sertedr — This book was first called A Vindication 

 of the King's Supremacy in Matters Ecclesiastical, 

 which appears upon an affidavit made Oct. 28, 

 1710, by John Silke, M.A., Rector of Bradford in 

 the Diocese of Exeter, who made oath that in the 

 years 1699, 1700, 1701, and 1702, he (then a 

 servitor of All Souls, Oxford) did several times 



