Feb 21.1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



187 



Homchurch (Vol. v., p. 106.)- — Permit me to 

 call the attention of your correspondents to some 

 other peculiarities relating to Hornchurch. There 

 once, I believe, were (are there now ?) a pair of 

 horns over the east window of tlie church ; thence 

 the name is probably derived. The great tithes 

 were once the property of the monks of the cele- 

 brated monastery of St. Bernard in Savoy. Are 

 not the horns connected with the arms of Savoy ? 

 New College received the great tithes directly 

 from the monks, and have in their possession the 

 license from the crown to alienate. 



A. Holt White. 



Buzz (Vol. v., p. 104.). — Corruption of bouse 

 or booze, to drink to excess. In Scotland they 

 say " bouse a'," drink all. J. K.. J. 



" Buzz" to empty the Bottle (Vol. v., p. 104.). — 

 The connexion between this and the drunken man, 

 " with his head full of bees " (Vol. iv., p. 308.), 

 must strike every thoughtful reader ! A. A. D. 



Melody of the Dying Swan (Vol. v., p. 107.). — 

 A reference to Platon's Phtsdon, p. 84. sub fin., 

 with Fischer's note, forms a tolerable answer to a 

 Query on this subject. Fischer says — 



" De cantu cygnorum, qui jam multls veterum fabu- 

 losus, V. Lucian. de Electro, c. 5. ; JElian. H. A. ii. 32. ; 

 xi. 1.; xiv. 13.; Pausan., i. 30.; Eutecniiis Paraphr. 

 Ixeut. Oppian., p. 78. 5. ; Eustathius ad 11. 0., p. i!54., 

 aliosque qui a Jac. Tbomasio laudati sunt in libelli 

 singular! de cantu cygnorum." 



[Where is this to be heard of?] Add Arist. 

 H.A., viii. 11. ; Ovid. Heroid. vii. 1. ; Hesiod. Sc. 

 316. ; Msch. Ag. 1444. A. A. D. 



" From the Sublime! to the Ridiculous is but a 

 Step" (Vol. v., p. 100.). — In Mr. Bbeen's inte- 

 resting article entitled "Idees Napoleonienpes " 

 (p. 100.), is the following passage : 



'' It will be seen that the original saying has under- 

 gone a sliglit modification, Longinus making the 

 transition a gradual one, «ot' oKiyos/, while Blair, Payne, 

 and Napoleon make it but ' a step.' " 



Now there is nothing in the whole range of 

 scholarship and philology that requires more ten- 

 der handling than the Greek preposition, unless it 

 be the prepositional adverb, which results from 

 the combination of a preposition with an adjective. 

 I would not be so bold as to assert that kut' oKlyov 

 does not mean "gradually, by little and little." 

 I feel convinced that I have seen it so used before 

 now ; but I beg to submit that in the powerful 

 passage quoted from Longinus it can only mean 

 '^^ presently, at once, with little" delay or interval. 

 The purport of the passage seems to be this : — 

 [The instances which I have cited] " exhibit 

 rather a turbid diction, and a confused imagery, 

 than a striking and forcible discourse. For, take 

 them one by one, and hold them up to the light, 

 and what first looked terrible shall presently take 

 its true colour, and appear contemptible." 



Longinus had quoted certain turgid and empty 

 attempts at a very high rhetorical strain : he then 

 in the passage before us condemns them for their 

 confusion both of thought and phrase ; and says, 

 that they won't bear looking into for a minute 

 (kot' 6\iyov^. 



If these remarks are correct, I fear they must 

 damage the parallelism so Industriously instituted 

 by your correspondent ; but if he will not be 

 ofiended, I shall not regret it : for I confess to 

 some feeling of jealousy in favour of modern forms 

 of thought, and their claims to originality. The 

 field of thought Is finite, and great minds have 

 tilled It before us ; so that scarcely in Its remotest 

 corners shall you find a patch of virgin soil, or a bud 

 till now unseen. But originality is not excluded 

 for all that. He that culls a flower in the nine- 

 teenth century, and has an eye for its beauty, is as 

 original an admirer as he who did the same on the 

 day of creation. And he who with quick percep- 

 tions combines the thoughts which have arrested 

 his attention, and with a lively and apt expression, 

 fresh and free from conventional formalism, gives 

 them out to another, that man may be called 

 original. The opposite of originality is not repe- 

 tition, but imitation. When, therefore, we would 

 prove that a writer is not original, it is not enough 

 to produce similar thoughts or phrases in older 

 writers, unless our Instances are so numerous as 

 to afibrd an appearance of systematic copyism, or 

 historical evidence of the fact of imitation be forth- 

 coming from some external source. J. E, 



Oxford. 



" Carmen perpetuum" &c. (Vol. v., p. 104.). — ' 

 The words in Ham's Bible are from the Metamor- 

 phoses of Ovid (i. 3.) : 



" Primdque ab origine mundi \ 



Ad mea. perpetuum deducite tempora carmen." 

 This book has been called the Heathen Bible. It 

 should be studied with the Greek translation of 

 Tzetzes (Boisaunade's edition), to show the identity 

 of the gods and heroes of Greece and Rome under 

 their different names in the two languages. Ovid 

 was by profession a learned priest ; and it is pro- 

 bable that the subjects of his verse were the subf 

 jects of scenic representations in the mysteries, to 

 which probably moral and natural or theological 

 instruction was added, much after the manner of 

 the Greek choruses. That these mysteries taught 

 something worth the attention of a philosopher 

 and moralist is manifest from the encomiums of 

 Cicero : 



" Nam mlhl cum multa eximia, divinaque videntu* 

 Athenae tuae peperisse, atque in vita hominum attulisse, 

 turn nihil melius illis viysteriis, quibus ex agresti im- 

 manique vitaexculti ad humanitatem et mitigati sumus : 

 initiaque lit appellantur, ita revera principia vitce cog- 

 Dovimus; neque soliim cum lastitia yivendi rationera 

 accepimus, sed etiam. cum spe meliore moriendi"—' De. 

 ie^f. lib. ii, c. ] 4, . i,.v>si 



