Aug. 7. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



119 



They are three milking-maids, that 



My mother sent to me.' 



' Odds bobs ! here's fun ! 



Milking-maids with breeclies on I 



The likes I never see. 



I cannot go a mile from home, 



But a cuckold I must be !' " 



The unhappy husband next wanders into the 

 pantry, and discovers " three pairs of hunting- 

 boots," which his spouse declares are 

 " ' Milking-churns, which 



My mother sent to me.' 



' Odds bobs ! here's fun ! 



Milking-churns with spurs on ! 



The likes I never see. 



I cannot go a mile from home, 



But a cuckold I must be !'" 



The gentlemen's coats, discovered in the kitchen, 

 are next disposed of; but here my memory fails 

 me. I have a dim recollection of a winding-up 

 verse, in which the " Milking-cows with saddles 

 on," the " Milking-maids with breeches on," and 

 all the other bones of contention mentioned in the 

 ballad, are figured. I should feel obliged by a re- 

 ference to where this ancient ballad may be found. 

 Has any collection of Shropshire songs and ballads 

 ever been printed ? Many are the curious " tales 

 of warlike deeds" shrined in verse, with which the 

 long nights are whiled away in this county. A 

 rich harvest yet remains to be gathered, particu- 

 larly on Folk Lore. I may, perhaps, send you 

 shortly extracts from my " Note Book" upon this 

 subject. R. C. Wabde. 



Kidderminster. 



COWLET AND GRAY, NO. IV. 



(Vol. iv., pp. 204. 252, 465.) 

 The three former communications received from 

 me on the subject of "Gray and Cowley" were 

 written in complete unconsciousness of the amount 

 of learned labour and research ably and judiciously 

 expended upon Gray's Poenis by Mr. Mitford. I 

 therefore most gladly withdraw any remarks I 

 may have made as to the necessity of another 

 edition, with parallel passages ; for I do not think 

 we have a better and more satisfactorily executed 

 volume in our language than Mr. Pickering's 

 Aldine edition of Gray. And I must also thank 

 your correspondent K. S. for reminding me of the 

 Eton edition, which I will get as speedily as pos- 

 sible. However, as the few unconnected remarks 

 I have already made, or am now about to make, do 

 not appear to have been anticipated, I will still 

 ramble on in my own incoherent way, and not 

 hold myself responsible for anything that the 

 learning and diligence of others may have col- 

 lected. Indeed, I set out with the intention of 

 comparing Gray with Cowley, in some few pas- 

 sages, and with Cowley alone; for I never could 



have entered upon the wide field of Gray's simi- 

 larities to other poets in general, within the nar<- 

 row and otherwise well-occupied columns Of the 

 " N. & Q." 



Disraeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, " Poet- 

 ical Imitations and Similarities," vol. ii., Londoi*, 

 1824, seems to think the connexion between the 

 sublime and the ridiculous to be so close, that Gray 

 borrowed his description of the hair and heard of 

 his bard from the memorable description of Hudi- 

 bras : 



" This hairy meteor did denounce 

 The fall of sceptres and of crowns," &c. 



Part i. cant. i. 247. 



Butler used the same comparison again in the 

 Cobler and Vicar of Bray, to which the learned 

 notes of Dr. Zachary Grey's edition refer me : 

 "A grisly meteor on his face," &c. 



I do not know whether any one has ever sug- 

 gested Thomas Tickell's "Imitation of the Pro- 

 phecy of Nereus," from Horace, as something not 

 quite unknown to Gray : 



" On Perth's bleak hills he chanc'd to spy 

 An aged wizard six foot high, 

 "With bristled hair and visage blighted, 

 Wall-eyed, bare-haunched, and second- sighted. 

 The grisly sage, in thought profound, 

 Beheld the chief with back so round. 

 Then roU'd his eye-balls to and fro 

 O'er his paternal hills of snow, 

 And into these tremendous speeches 

 Broke forth the prophet without breeches," &c. 



However, I feel quite justified in my former 

 assertion, that Gray was alluding to hair, and not 

 to a standard, and in having given a reference or 

 two which any one who doubted the fact of such 

 an allusion being common might investigate for 

 himself. The occurrence of the word loose in the 

 couplet of Gray, and also in that of Cowley, seems 

 at least singular, if Gray knew nothing of Cowley's 

 description. 



The same idea is found in a passage of Nonnus 

 (Dionysiacks, lib. ii. p. 43., Antverpiae, 1569), but 

 it is too long to give at full length ; and we must 

 not forget the seventh book of Tasso's Jerusalem 

 Delivered, even as translated by Hoole, line 581 ; 

 " As shaking terrors from his blazing hair, 

 A sanguine comet gleams through dusky air 

 To ruin states and dire diseases spread, 

 And baleful light on purple tyrants shed. 

 So flam'd the chief in arms, and sparkling ire 

 He roU'd his eyes, sufFus'd with blood and fire." 



I will now only add the Poet-Bishop to a list 

 which might be indefinitely multiplied, by refer- 

 ring from one book to another : 



(sic) 

 " The stars shall be rent into threds of light. 



And scatter'd like the beards of comets." 

 J. Taylor, Sermon i., Christ's Advent to Jiulgntent. 



