408 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



C2«4 S. No 47., Nov. 22. '56. 



"If a staff made of this wood, -vvhen thrown at any 

 animal, from want of strength in the part}' throwing it, 

 happens to fall short of the mark, it will ftvU back again 

 towards the thrower of its own accord — so remarkable 

 are the properties of this tree." 



This translation, be it observed, is given with 

 some diffidence, as the readings of the passage 

 vary, and it is probably in a corrupt state, " cu- 

 bitu " being given in some MSS. for " recubitu." 

 Pythagoras may probably have heard of it from 

 the Magi during his travels in the East, and, being 

 at a loss to understand how the wood could be 

 possessed of those properties with which the pecu- 

 liar formation of the boomerang endows it, may 

 have been induced to believe that this peculiarity 

 was owing to the nature of the tree. 



Henry T. Riley. 



Cambridge Jeu d^Esprit. — My father, an old 

 Johnian, says he thinks that the following lines 

 were composed by William Wilson Todd, for- 

 merly of St. John's, sometime in the interval 

 1822-6 ; at all events, Todd was given to rhyming, 

 and the verses, as they lie before me, are in his 

 handwriting. The assumed author came from 

 Durham or Newcastle, and at the time of writing 

 was a sizar, a fact which explains the last three 

 lines. 



" Such comical characters honour our table, 

 As never were heard of since Adam and Abel ; 

 Some wondrous witty — some poor silly elves, 

 Who are witty and learned alone to themselves ; 

 Some full of politeness, some rough as a boar. 

 In their outward appearance and manners much more ; 

 Some carnally given to women and wine. 

 Some apostles of Simeon all pure and divine, — 

 Some poets whose brains are most vacantly wise. 

 Suspended halfway 'tween the earth and the skies. 

 Some stiff as a poker, some crooked as a pin, 

 And some like a skeleton, shamefully thin ; 

 Some fair as the cedars of Lebanon, some 

 As yellow and pale as the great China Chum ; 

 Some perfumed and scented — some dirty in knowledge. 

 As the gyps are with cooking the meat of the College. 

 All such characters scramble like dogs in the street. 

 To gnarl at the half-plundered relics of meat. 

 Which fall from the tables of wealthier Dons, 

 While we, like poor Lazarus, pick up the crumbs." 



St. John. 



Epitaph.. — I copied the following lines lately 

 from a plain upright stone in the churchyard of 

 St. Thomas, at Ryde : 



" Calm on the bosom of thy God, 



Fair Spirit ! rest thee now ; 

 E'en while with ours thy footsteps trod, 



His seal was on thy brow. 

 Dust to its narrow house beneath, 



Soul to its place on high ! 

 They who have seen thy look in death 



No more may fear to die." 



The stone Is inscribed to the memory of a 

 female named Ballard, who died at the age of 

 thirty-one, a.d. 1841. Most of your readers will, 

 I think, agree with me in pronouncing this epitaph 



one of great beauty ; but the question Is, are the 

 lines original ? N. L. T. 



Mottoes for a Bibliographical Scrap-booh. — For 

 some years I have been forming a book which 

 now proves of great service to me : it consists of 

 a collection of cuttings from Catalogues, giving 

 the titles of the most remarkable books treating 

 of such subjects as I feel most interested in, ar- 

 ranged In order under each head. The first two 

 mottoes I have prefixed to my Bibliotheca Selecta 

 on book-titles. The first is : 



" Si Jeunesse savait, si Vieillesse pouvait, par Soulie, 

 Paris, 1844." 



The second is : 



" Le Roy's (Loys) Interchangeable Course of Variety 

 in the World, and the Concurrence of Amies and Learn- 

 ing ; moreover, whether it be true or no, that there can 

 be nothing sayd which hath not been saj'd heretofore, 

 translated by R. Ashley. London, 1594. Folio." 



The third is a remark of that extraordinary 

 man, John Henderson*, who, on Joseph Cottle 

 expressing his regret that he had not benefited 

 mankind by the result of his deep and varied In- 

 vestigations, replied, " More men become writers 

 from ignorance than from knowledge, not know- 

 ing that they have been anticipated by others. 

 Let us decide with caution, and write late." 



EiRIONNACH. 



White and Black Beans. — In 1643 a law was 



enacted in Ipswich, Massachusetts, that white and 



black beans should be used when voting, " the 



white being yes, and the black no." W. W. 



Malta. 



On a Passage in Alfred's " Boethius." — In Mr. 

 Wright's work, entitled Biographia Britannica 

 Literaria, Anglo-Saxon Period^ occurs the fol- 

 lowing : 



" In the metrical version of the metres of Boethius, also 

 attributed to Alfred, the matter is placed quite in another 

 light; and Homer not only becomes Virgil's teacher, but 

 his friend also : — 



" ' Homer was 



in the east among the Greeks 

 in that nation 

 the most skilful of poets, 

 Virgil's 



friend and teacher, 

 to that great bard 

 the best of masters.' 

 " We will, however, willingly relieve the Anglo-Saxon 

 monarch from all responsibility for this error, which 



* John Henderson was born in Limerick in 1756, and 

 died at Oxford in 1788, in the thirty-second year of his 

 age. The only attempt to rescue this wonderful man from 

 oblivion, thati am aware of, is the notice of him which oc- 

 curs in Cottle's Reminiscences of Coleridge, §-c., and Cottle's 

 Malvern Hills ; Poems and Essays. He is referred to in " N. 

 & Q.," 1*' S. X. 26. A life of Henderson is a desideratum. 

 I should be glad to know whether he left any papers or 

 literary remains ; and ivhether any such be extant ? 



