April 3. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



317 



rectly, nor in order of sequence, in which the 

 traastbrmation of the lady into a viol is described : 



" And what did he do with her fair bodye? 



Fal the lal the lal laral lody. 

 He made it a case for his melodye, 



Fal, &c. 

 And what did he do with her legs so strong ? 



Fal, &c. 

 He made them a stand for his violon, 



Fal, &c. 

 And what did he do with her hair so fine ? 



Fal, &c. 

 He made of it strings for his violine, 



Fal, &c. 

 And what did he do with her arms so long? 



Fal, &c. 

 He made them bows for his violon, 



Fal, &c. 

 And what did he do with her nose so thin? 



Fal, &c. 

 He made it a bridge for his violin, 



Fal, &c. 

 And what did he do with her eyes so bright ? 



Fal, &c. 

 He made them spectacles to put to his sight, 



Fal, &c. 

 And what did he do with her petty toes ? 



Fal, &c. 

 He made them a nosegay to put to his nose, 



Fal, &c." 



G. A. C. 



Doctor Johnson a Prophet. — Can any of your 

 readers inform me where the following anecdote is 

 recorded ? It bears the mark of authenticity, and 

 if so adds, to the extraoi'dinary gifts of the great 

 moralist, that of prophecy ; be it observed, how- 

 ever, that the prognostication is founded on a de- 

 duction of science. As the Doctor was one even- 

 ing leaning out of the window of his house in Bolt 

 Court, Fleet Street, he observed the parish lamp- 

 lighter nimbly ascend a ladder for the purpose of 

 lighting one of the old glimmering oil lamps which 

 only served to make " darkness visible." Tlie 

 man had scarcely descended the ladder half way, 

 when he discovered that the flame had expired ; 

 quickly returning he lifted the cover partially, and 

 thrusting the end of his torch beneath it, the flame 

 was instantly communicated to the wick by the 

 tiilck vapour which issued from it. 



" Ah ! " exclaimed the Doctor, after a pause, 

 and giving utterance to his thoughts, " Ah ! one 

 of these days the streets of London will be lighted 

 by smoke ! " It is needless to add that in the suc- 

 ceeding century the prediction was verified. 



M. W. B. 



Coleridge and Plato. — Without becoming "a 

 piddler in minute plagiarisms " (as GIffbrd called 

 Warton), I think the following coincidence worth 



noting. S. T. Coleridge, in his "Lines on an 

 Autumnal Evening," has these lines : 



" On seraph wing I'd float a dream by night. 

 To soothe my love with shadows of delight ; 

 Or soar aloft to be the spangled skies. 

 And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes." 

 Plato had written ("To Stella," in AnthoU 

 Palat.) : 



'AiTTepas elaadpeh 'Acrr-J/p tfiSs' (tde yevoiixT}v 

 Oipavhs ws jxvpiois 6,ufj.aTiv (Is ere /3Ae7r«. 



I cannot withhold Shelley's exquisite version : 

 " Fair star of life and love, my soul's delight ! 

 Why lookest thou on the crystalline skies ? 

 O that my spirit were yon heaven of night. 

 Which gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!" 

 Revolt of Islam, c. ix. St. 36. 



Dr. Wellesley's Anthologia Pohjglotta contains 

 several versions of Plato's lines. There is also one 

 by Swynfen Jervis, in Lewis's Biographical His- 

 tory of Philosophy, s. v. Plato. C. P. Pu***. 



Epitaph in St. Ones' Church, Norwich. — 



" Elizabetha Bedingfield, 

 Sorori Francisce Sve 

 S. R. Q. P. 

 " My name speaks what I was, and am, and have, 

 A Bedding field, a piece of earth, a grave, 

 Where I expect, untill my soule shall bring 

 Unto the field an everlasting spring ; 

 For rayse and rayse out of the earth and slime, 

 God did the first, and will the second time. 

 Obiit Die 10 Maii 1637." 



The above epitaph is curious ; but what is the 

 meaning of the letters " S. R. Q. P. ?" Nedlam. 



Hair in Seals. — Stillingfleet, referring to a MS. 

 author, who wrote a chronicle of St. Augustine's, 

 says : 



" He observes one particular custom of the Normans, 

 that they were wont to put some of the hair of their heads 

 or beards into the wax of their seals : I suppose rather 

 to be kept as monuments than as adding any strength 

 or weight to their charters. So he observes, that some 

 of the hair of William, Earl of Warren, was in his time 

 kept in the Priory of Lewis." — Oriff. Brit., chap. 1., 

 Works, Lond. 1710, tom. iii. p. 13. 



J. Sansom. 



To " eliminate." — The meaning of this word, 

 according both to its etymology and Its usage in 

 the Latin authors, is quite clear ; it is to " turn 

 out of doors." Figuratively, it has been used by 

 mathematicians to denote the process by which all 

 incidental matters are gradually thrown out of an 

 equation to be solved, &c., so that only its essential 

 conditions at last remain. Of late, however, I 

 have observed it used not of the act of elimination, 

 but of the result; a sense quite foreign to its true 

 meaning, and producing great ambiguity. Thus, 

 in a recent Discourse, the object of biblical exe- 

 sresis Is declared to be " the elimination of the state- 



