Sept. 15. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



211 



words, and in what I have elsewhere called 

 hyphenic collections (Vol. iv., p. 203.). 



The following phrases are certainly good En- 

 glish : " a two-foot rule," " a six-foot telescope," 

 "a four-horse carriage." Lindley Murray and 

 the school-mistresses may deny it, but they are 

 wrong. Shakspeare makes Falstaff, I think, talk 

 of a " three-man beetle." 



Throughout the country, the uneducated speak 

 of " five year," " seven year." The singular enters 

 whenever the notion is cumulative. They do not 

 say, "I saw five horse in the field," but "five 

 horses." But cumulation, thought of the whole as 

 a whole, without separation into parts, will bear a 

 sin<»ular, even when an adjective enters which 

 applies to each of the things stated. As in — 

 "... rats and mice and such small deer, 

 Have been Tom's food for seven long year." 



The following is an instance in which modern 

 grammar has added the last letter, in defiance of 

 rhyme. It is from the ballad of " The Boy and 

 the Mantle:" 



" He plucked out of his potemer, 

 And longer wold not dwell ; 

 He pulled forth a pretty mantle 

 Betweene two nut-shells." 



There are many cases in which the indefinite 

 would demand a plural, where the definite would 

 demand a singular. Of an article usually sold for 

 pence, our ear would instruct us to say that 

 "shillings are a fearful price;" and that "three 

 shillings is a fearful price." And we talk English 

 by ear, not by rule ; our grammars do not settle 

 half the points, to say nothing of there being no 

 grammar to which common appeal is made. The 

 rule seems to be that a definite plurality, collec- 

 tively considered, takes a singular verb. But 

 perhaps the first person to whom the rule is pre- 

 sented will find an instance to the contrary : in 

 fact, a modification immediately suggests itself. 

 As happens so frequently in other cases, our 

 grammar is not purely formal ; the meaning in- 

 fluences the phrase. The collection must be of 

 that kind in which the part is lost in the whole, 

 and is of no significance except as contributing to 

 the whole. We may say that " ten shillings is a 

 good price ;" but we may not say that " ten men 

 is a large committee." 



This want of entire formality in our grammar 

 will probably cause all attempt at construction of 

 rules to fail. M. 



A Man Six Foot high (Vol. xii., p. 65.). — 

 W. M. T. wishes for authorities from other lan- 

 guages for this form of speech, — a singular noun 

 with a plural numeral pronoun. It is found in 

 Hindustani, Persian, Magyar, and Welsh. 



W. Babnes. 



No. 307.] 



NOTES ON TREES AND FLOWERS. 



(Vol. xi., p. 460. ; Vol. xii., p. 70.) 



I have much pleasure in following Mr. Mac- 

 kenzie Walcott with a spicilegium of Notes on 

 books which treat of trees and flowers. 



Of Rene Rapin's Horti, a copy of which is now 

 before me, and of which there is a translation by 

 J. Evelyn, Hallam says : 



" A far superior performance is the poem on Gardens by 

 the Jesuit Rene Rapin. For skill in varjang and adorn- 

 ing his subject, for a truly Virgilian spirit in expression, 

 for the exclusion of feeble, prosaic, or awkward lines, he 

 may perhaps be equal to any poet, to Sammarthanus, or 

 to Sannazarus himself. His cadences are generally very 

 gratifying to the ear, and in this respect he is much 

 above Vida. But his subject or his genius has prevented 

 him from rising very high ; he is the poet of gardens, and 

 what gardens are to nature, that is he to mightier poets. 

 There is also too monotonous a repetition of nearly the 

 same images, as in his long enumeration of flowers in the 

 first book : the descriptions are separately good, and great 

 artifice is shown in varying them ; but the variety could 

 not be sufficient to remove the general sameness that be- 

 longs to an horticultural catalogue." 



See Rapin's preface, in which he vindicates his 

 use of fables or legends, "Ne carmen langueret 

 insita jejunitate prseceptionis, quam profitebatur." 



" The first book of the Gardens of Eapin is on flowers, 

 the second on trees, the third on waters, and the fourth 

 on fruits. The poem is of about three thousand lines, 

 sustained with equable dignity. All kinds of graceful 

 associations are mingled with the description of his 

 flowers, in the fanciful style of Ovid and Darwin : the 

 violet is lanthis, who lurked in valleys to shun the love 

 of Apollo, and stained her face with purple to preserve 

 her chastity ; the rose is Rhodanthe, proud of her beauty, 

 and worshipped by the people in the place of Diana, but 

 changed by the indignant Apollo to a tree; while the 

 populace, who had adored her, are converted into her 

 thorns, and her chief lovers into snails and butterflies." 



" As the poem of Rapin," continues Mr. Hallam, "is 

 not in the hands of every one who has taste for Latin 

 poetry, I will give as a specimen the introduction to the 

 second book." 



I have here the pleasure of adding some of the 

 lines containing the associations above referred to, 

 and on a future occasion I hope to illustrate other 

 objects of curious legends : 



" The Violet. 



" Hanc olim vaccas quando pavisse Pheraeas _ 

 Dicitur, errantem vidit cum Phcebus, amavit: 

 Nee vulnus celavit amans, perterrita virgo 

 Proripuit sese in sylvas, monuitque Dianam. 

 Ilia, soror colles, iiiquit, fuge ; namque supremos 

 Phoebus amat colles, et ccclo gaudet aperto. 

 Ibat per valles Virgo, fontesque petebat 

 Umbriferos, sepesque inter deserta latebat. 



.... Jam furta Deus fraudesque parabat. 

 Cum dea : formosse si non licet esse pudicam : 

 Ah ! pereat potius quae non fert forma pudorem. ' 

 Dixit, et obscura infecit ferrugine vultum." 



