NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[July 7. 1855. 



Coleridge : 



" It is said that the first years were three moons •. that 

 the ideal of each animal's life (of the warm-blooded) is 

 eight times its full growth : that man is at his full at 

 twenty-five, which x by 8 = 200 : and that, taking three 

 as the" first perfection of number by [&?] unity (that is, 

 three is tri-une), and three moons as the first year, this 

 would agree with the age of Methusaleni, the only man 

 who ever reached the ideal. A negro in Peru, who was 

 still living eight years back, was then one hundred and 

 eiehtv-six, as known by public registers of sales. 



"1817 [or 1807?]" 



From this note we arrive at the date at which 

 these marginalia were written. The second 1 is 

 thick, and might have been intended for a 0. 

 Book I. p. 132. : 



" These riddles are also rife among the Athenians and 

 ■Arcadians, who dare afiirme, that they are more ancient 

 than Jupiter and the Moon ; whereof Ovid — 



* Ante Jovem genitum terras habuisse feruntur 

 Arcades : et Luna gens prior ilia fuit.' " 



Coleridge : 



" This may be equally true, whether the moon were a 

 comet stopped by the attraction of the earth, and com- 

 pelled, though not without some staggering, to assimilate 

 its orbit; or whether the inward fire-matter of the earth, 

 turning an ocean suddenly into steam, projected a con- 

 tinent from that hollow which is now filled up by the 

 Pacific and South Sea, which is about the size of the 

 moon." 



I can find nothing like the chronological or 

 geological views expressed in the last two notes 

 in the published works of Coleridge. 



C. Mansfield Ingleby. 



Birmingham. 



COWLEY AND WALLER. 



There is a passage in one of Cowley's poems- 

 which exhibits a blank in all the editions to which 

 I have ready access. The poem is entitled " An 

 Answer to a Copy of Verses sent me to Jersey." 



" . . . . One lately dM not fear 

 (Without the Muses leave) to plant it [verse] here. 

 But it produc'd such base, rough, crabbed, hedge- 

 Ehymes, as e'en set the hearers ears on edge : 



Written by Esqui-re, the 



Year of our Lord, six hundred thirty-three. 

 Brave Jersey Muse ! and he's for this high stile 

 Call'd to this day the Homer of the Isle." 



Now Lean fill up the blank. The name omitted 

 is that of William Prynne ; and my authority is 

 Pope, in a note to The Dunciad, 8vo., 1729, 2nd 

 edit., p. 64. Will Mr. John Bruce kindly throw 

 some light on this Jersey allusion to his favourite 

 Prynne? When Mr. Bell comes to Cowley he 

 will not, I am sure, let this annotation escape 

 bim. 



There is a passage in one of Waller's poems, 

 that " Of Divine Love," which in all the modern 

 editions that I have seen contains a corruption. 

 My attention was first called to the passage by a 



JSTo. 297.] 



letter from Bishop Warburton to Dr. Birch (Ni- 

 chols's Illustrations, ii. 931.). The couplet runs 

 thus in Fenton and his followers : 



" Who for himself no miracle would make, 

 Dispens'd with several for the people's sake." 



Now several, as Warburton says, is nonsense. 

 The true reading is nature, as Warburton ga- 

 thered from a MS. of the poem in his possession. 



Thus far Warburton ; and my Note is, that the 

 edition of 1686 of Waller now before me reads 

 nature, and thus confirms the reading which future 

 editors should certainly adopt. 



Peter Cunningham. 



Kensington. 



:^tKar 3oUS, 

 An ^^ Army Works Corps" in 1598. — 



" The generall of the artillery hath vnder his charge a 

 great number of labourers or pioners, which of necessity 

 must be had in a camp, and follow an army, to make 

 trenches, rampiers, minings, countermines, ditches, caues ; 

 to make plaine the waves for the army to march ; to ac- 

 commodate the passages for the artillery to passe; to 

 raise mounts to plant ordinance vpon ; to place and fill 

 the gabbions ; to digge earth for the same ; to undermine 

 wals, and townes, and to raze those of any gained places 

 downe ; to cut timber to fortify withall ; to digge wells 

 for water, and great pits to bury and to cast therein, the 

 garbedge, filthinesse, and offalls of the campe; and 

 seruing to a number of such necessary uses. 



" Ouer the sayd pioners there are captaines appointed 

 to gouerne them, which should be men verv expert ia 

 fortifications, trenching, mining, counter-mining, and in 

 all sorts of engines concerning a campe, and battery 

 actions; and therefore besides their experience, they 

 ought to be learned and well skilled in all maner of for- 

 tifications, both in campe, towne, or fortresse. These 

 pioners do go before the campe with a sufficient band of 

 souldiers for their guard, carrying with them mattockes, 

 spades, shouells, pikaxes, crowes of iron, barrells, baskets, 

 hampiers, and such other tooles ; and ouer euery three or 

 foure hundred pioners a captaine." 



The above is from The theorike and practike 

 of moderns warres, discoursed in dialogue wise. 

 Written by Robert Barret. London, printed for 

 William Ponsonby. 1598. Folio. 



Bolton Cornet. 



A " Crannock." —There is not, I believe, any 

 recorded proof to be found in " N. & Q.," or else- 

 where in a printed form, of the contents of an 

 Irish measure called the crannoch. Having lately 

 met with this term upon one of the records of the 

 Exchequer of Ireland, I shall feel obliged by the 

 insertion in " N. & Q." of the following extracts, 

 which have been taken from the Memoranda Roll 

 of the 13 & 14 Edward II., membranes 8 and 9 : 



" Memorandum quod, etc., et Johannes de Grene re- 

 cognoverunt se teneri Philippe Braoun janitori castri 

 Uublinensis in tribus crannocis frumenti quolibet vide- 

 licet crannoco continente octo pecks boni sicci et muadi 

 bladi." 



