152 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. ifa ge.^ Aug. 22. >67. 



Bodleian Library at Oxford (vide Sims'a Manual for the 

 Genealogist, p. 1G3.). A list of the pedigrees and arms 

 conttiined in the copies at the British Museum may be 

 found in Sims's Index to tlte Heralds' Visitations, Lend. 

 1849.] 



William Julius MicMe. — I have lately discovered 

 that Mickle, the poet, resided at Wheatley. I 

 have been looking at his residence to-daj, and 

 walked to Forest Hill, where he was buried. I 

 should like to know who wrote his epitaph : — 



" William Julius Mickle, born 29th Sept. 1734. Died 

 2oth Oct. 1788. 



" Mickle, who bade the strong poetic tide 

 Roll o'er Britannia's shores, in Lusitanian pride." 



Where shall I find the best account of his life ? 

 Is it not singular that both Milton and Mickle 

 should have married their wives from the same 

 house at Forest Hill, the village and neighbour- 

 hood referred to in "L' Allegro." W. Sanders. 

 Chilworth Farm, Tetsworth. 



[The two lines quoted as an epitaph on Mickle are 

 from the first book of llie Pursuits of Literature, by T. J. 

 Mathias, and form part of the following eulogium : 



" To worth untitled would your fancy turn? 

 The Muse all friendless wept o'er Mickle's urn : 

 Mickle, who bade the strong poetic tide 

 Roll o'er Britannia's shores in Lusitanian pride." 



Mr. Isaac Reed, who knew Mickle well, drew up the 

 first published account of his life in the European Maga- 

 zine for Sept. and Nov. 1789, pp. 155. 317., accompanied 

 with a portrait. The best account, however, of this poet, 

 is by his friend the Rev. John Sim, late of St. Alban 

 Hall, Oxford, prefixed to Mickle's Poetical Works, 12mo., 

 1806.] 



Olaus Magnus. — Is there an English trans- 

 lation of Olaus Magnus ? Who is the translator, 

 if there Is one ? and where may it be seen ? 



Menyanthes. 



Chirnside. 



[Cornelius Scribonius Grapheus abridged the work of 

 Olaus Magnus, which has been translated into English, 

 and is entitled A Compendious History of the Goths, 

 Swedes, Vandals, and other Northern Nations, bv J. S. ; 

 London, printed by J. Streater, 1658, fol. Two copies of 

 it are in the British Museum.] 



" Rule the roast." — Is this phrase a corruption 

 of " rule the roost," and analogous to the pro- 

 verbial expression, " to be cock of the walk ? " 



Will any of your correspondents explain the 

 force of ♦' ruling the roast" in the sense of being 

 master ? 



Any one who has watched the interior of a hen- 

 house at roosting time, and has witnessed the 

 jealousy of the " cock of the walk," in not sufier- 

 ing any of his subalterns to roost on the same 

 perch as himself, will confess the force of "rule 

 the roost.'' 



I want some illustrations to prove that " roast " 



is the correct word. X. X. X. 



[Webster informs us that, "In the phrase 'to rule the 



roast,' the word roast is a corrupt pronunciation of the 

 German rath, counsel, Dan. raad, and Sw. rod." Richard- 

 son offers the following explanation : " To rule the roast 

 (sc.) as king of the feast, orderer, purveyor, president ; or 

 maj- it not be to rule the most, an expression of which 

 ever}' poultry-yard would supply an explanation? 



"Geate you nowe vp into your pulpites like bragginge 

 cockes on the rowst, llappe your whinges, and crow out 

 aloude." — Jewell, Defence of the Apologie, p. 35. 



Cleland, in his Specimen of an Etymological Vocabulary, 

 p. 7., has suggested the following as the origin of the 

 phrase: " The Ridings of •Yorkshire is a corruption from 

 Radtings, governments. liadt signifies a subaltern ruler, 

 or provincial minister. A counsellor of state was of old 

 called a Raadt; the council was called the Raadst : thence 

 whoever had the capital influence in council was said ' to 

 rule the raadst,' or in the present pronunciation ♦ to rulo 

 the roast.' "] 



Who compo.%ed *' Rule Britannia ?" — A para- 

 graph has appeared in the papers purporting to 

 be an extract from Handel : his Life personal and 

 professional, by Mrs. Bray, in which it is said that 

 " Rule Britannia, which is taken from Alfred, a 

 Masque, by Dr. Arne, is in great part borrowed 

 from the poor Occasional Oratorio. In reality it 

 is hy Handel ; for in the whole air there are only 

 two bar,s which do not belong to him." 



Can any of your readers point out the passage 

 or passages in the Occasional Oratorio to which 

 Mrs. Bray alludes. J. AV. Phillips. 



Haverfordwest. 



[The "celebrated Ode in Honour of Great Britain," 

 was a song well known in 1740, and performed as part 

 of Alfred, in that year, and in the Judgment of Paris in 

 1741. Handel must therefore have stolen the melody 

 from Arne, if it be in the Occasional Oratorio, for that was 

 not composed for some j'cars afterwards. No doubt Dr. 

 Arne composed Rule Britannia, and without doubt also 

 Handel in the song, " Prophetic visions strike my ej'e," 

 at the words, " War shall cease, welcome peace," pur- 

 posely introduced the first phrase of Dr. Arne's tune, to 

 please the people, and to show what he could do with it. 

 But Arne's melody cannot be said to be bodilj' incor- 

 porated in Handel's composition. Alfred was written by 

 Mallet and Thomson, and played in 1740 ; but Mallet 

 wrote the " celebrated ode," which Southey describes as 

 " the political hj'mn of this country as long as she main- 

 tains her political power." Alfred was altered by Mallet 

 in 1751, and three stanzas of the ode were omitted and 

 three others supplied by Lord Bolingbroke ; but the ori- 

 ginal ode is that which has taken root, and now known 

 as one of our national anthems. Consult Dinsdale's new 

 edition of David Mallet's Ballads and Songs, pp. 292 — 294. 

 1857.] 



southet's cowpeb. 



(2°d S. iv, 101.) 



Harvabdiensis is not quite correct when he. 

 says that " an additional volume " of Cowper's 

 letters "appeared from the hands of the Rev. 

 John Johnson (1824)." The fact— -and it is one 

 which fully accounts for " poor success and heavy 



