332 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



2nd S. VIII. Oct. 22. '69, 



then one of the most powerful sovereigns of Eu- 

 rope. This work was never published, or, as far as 

 we know, saving the illustrations in question, ever 

 commenced. 



About the year 1820, a Col. Roettiers, a Bel- 

 gian gentleman in the service of the Russian 

 government, happening to be at Antwerp, was in- 

 formed that a descendant of the printer Plantin — 

 in whose family these drawings had continued 

 from the middle of the sixteenth century (1558) — 

 intended to dispose of a portion of his collection, 

 requiring the room in which it was placed for a 

 harness-room. In addition to many prints and 

 other works of art in this room were the draw- 

 ings mentioned above. The Colonel became the 

 purchaser of the whole of this collection. 



Some years subsequent to this acquisition. Col. 

 Roettiers being in London disposed of the whole 

 of the drawings to Messrs. Colnaghi, who, as we 

 have stated, sold the English portion to Mrs. 

 Sutherland : the foreign drawings were purchased 

 by Dr. Wellesley, the Principal of New Inn Hall, 

 Oxford, in whose possession they are believed still 

 to remain. 



The large folded view of London has been en- 

 graved — by permission of the trustees of the 

 Bodleian Library — byN. Wbittock, and was pub- 

 lished a few years since by Messrs. Wbittock & 

 Hyde of Islington. These drawings also afforded 

 valuable assistance to Mr. William Newton in 

 constructing his " Pictorial Map of the City and 

 its Suburbs as they existed in the Reign of Henry 

 VIII.," &c. 



In conclusion, we must all deeply regret that 

 drawings of a character so interesting should not 

 be found, where assuredly they ought to be, in 

 the national collection at the British Museum : 

 and still more so, when we find that they were 

 first offered to that institution, and rejected on 

 the ground of expence. J. H. W. 



Onslow Square, Brompton. 



I am not able to say where the extremely in- 

 tei'esting drawings your correspondent W. P. refers 

 to are ; but Antonio Van Wynergard, or I believe 

 more correctly, Wyngrerde, came to England with 

 Philip II. of Spain, and made a perspective view of 

 London in 1543, now in the Sutherland collection 

 in the Bodleian Library; this has been litho- 

 graphed by Messrs. Whittock and Hyde of Is- 

 lington. Doubtless the drawings alluded to are 

 by him, and it will be very gratifying to know 

 where they_are. F. G. T. 



bacon's essays. 

 {Continued from 2"'^ S. vi. 407.) 



I. A mixture of a Lie doth ever add Pleasure ..... 

 One of the Fathers, in great severity, called POESY, 



Vinum Daemonum, because it fiUeth the Imagination, and 

 yet it is but with the Shadow of a Lie." — Essay I. p. 2. 



As an additional illustration of this passage, I 

 may quote Mr. Knight's introduction to an ex- 

 tract from Sir P. Sidney's Defence of Poesie : — 



" A clever critic says, ' One would think that to write a 

 Defence of Poesy were something like writing an Apology 

 for the Bible,' The Editor of ' Half Hours' has called 

 attention to the circumstances that demanded this De- 

 fence (' W. Shakspere, a Biography'). A little pre- 

 vious to 1580, two or three fanatical writers put forth a 

 succession of the most violent attacks, not only upon the 

 Stage, but against Music and Poetry in all its forms. 

 When Sidney says, 'I think truly that of all writers 

 under the sun, the Poet is the least liar, he was answering 

 one Stephen Gosson, and other pamphleteers, who held 

 that a Fiction and a Lie were the same. The high- 

 minded Sidney came, with his chivalrous spirit, to the 

 rescue of ' Divine' Poesy, who was trembling before the 

 great Dragon of Fanaticism ; and manfully did he chase 

 the beast to its hiding-place." * 



Dr. Maitland, however, seems to be of Touch- 

 stone's opinion : — 



"The truth is — one is sorry to acknowledge it, but 

 the truth is that foetry is not the language of reality. 

 It is not the language of the World, as it now is, and of 

 Man, as he has now become; yet there is something 

 within him of recollection and anticipation, which lis- 

 tens to this dead language with instinctive interest, and 

 recognises it as his mother tongue, long lost in the land 

 of his captivity, but still sufficiently intelligible to rouse 

 his spirit with the imagery of better times, and better 

 things. The danger lies in'this; that Poetry is not the 

 language of Truth ; and that Man loves to escape from 

 Truth. He loves to frame and fancy things that are not, 

 because he seeks in vain for satisfaction in things that 

 are ; and he tricks himself into a forgetfulness of hard 

 truths, that he may revel in his ideal creation." — Enivin, 

 Lond. 1850, p. 58. 



EiRIONNACH. 



PS. — As the Editor has inadvertently inserted 

 Clammild's Note in this week's " N. & Q." (2"'> 

 S. viii. 297.), I must request him to give an 

 early insertion to my reply. At first I did not 

 think it worth while to refer more directly to 

 the Fable of Momus, as it is so well known, and 

 Bacon's allusion is so obvious ; but on second 

 thoughts I did give It, and that at full lengtli. If 

 Clammild had taken the trouble to read my last 



* Cf. some remarks on the Connexion between Poetry 

 and Religion in the London Review, 1829, vol. i. p. 159. 

 "The connexion between the want of the religious prin- 

 ciple, and the want of poetical feeling, is seen in Hume 

 and Gibbon. They had radically unpoetical minds. 



" Revealed Religion is especially poetical .... With 

 Christians, a Poetical view of things is a duty. We are 

 bid to color all things with the views of Faith ; to see a 

 Divine meaning in every event, and a superhuman ten- 

 dency. Even our friends around are invested with un- 

 earthly brightness; no longer imperfect men, but beings 

 taken into Divine favor, stamped with His seal, and in 

 training for future happiness. 



" The Virtues, peculiarly Christian, are also essentially 

 poetical," &c. See the whole passage quoted by Sharon 

 Turner in his Sacred Hist, of the World, Lond. 1841, vol. 

 ii. p. 231. 



