506 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 161. 



And there is a line in Collins's Ode to the Passions, 

 •which ascribes to sound the effect attributed by 

 Campbell to sight : 



" Pale Melancholy sat apart, 

 And from her wild sequester'd seat, 

 In notes by distance made more sweet, 

 Pour'd thro' the mellow horn her pensive soul." 



The passage in Campbell, however, appears to me 

 to have been appropriated from these lines in 

 Otway's Venice Preserved: 



" Ambition is at distance 

 A goodly prospect, tempting to the view ; 

 The height delights us, and the mountain top 

 Looks beautiful, because 'tis nigh to Heav'n." 



Another example is the famous line in LochieVs 

 Warning : 



" And coming events cast their shadows before." 



The origin of this will be found in Leibnitz's re- 

 mark, " Le present est gros de I'avenir," and in 

 the comments made thereon by Isaac D'Israeli; 

 the latter, referring to Leibnitz's words, says, 

 " The multitude live only among the shadows of 

 things in the appearances of the present ; " and in 

 another passage he couples the word " shadow " 

 with the word " precursor " in such a manner as 

 to express, in the clearest language, the whole 

 thought in Campbell's line. These are his words : 



" This volume of Reynolds seems to have been the 

 shadow and precursor of one of the most substantial 

 of literary monsters, the Histriomastix, or Player's 

 Scourge, of Prynne in 1663." 



An instance of the same thought occurs in 

 Chapman's tragedy of Bussy d'Ambois, his Re- 

 venge : 



" These true shadows of the Guise and Cardinal, 

 Fore-running thus their bodies, may approve, 

 That all things to be done, as here we live, 

 Are done before all time in th' other life." 



A fourth imitation by Campbell is a passage in 

 Gertrude of Wyoming, where he describes the 

 white child led to the house of Albert, by an 

 Indian of swarthy lineament, as 



" Led by his dusky guide, like morning brought by 

 night." 



Mr. Hazlitt says this is an admirable simile ; and 

 Mr. Jeffrey deems it somewhat fantastical. But 

 whether it be admirable or fantastical, or neither, 

 certain it is that, in so far as Campbell is con- 

 cerned, it is not original. Two hundred years 

 ago Cowley, in his Hymn to Light, compared 

 darkness to an old negro, and light, its offspring, 

 to a fair child. He is addressing the light : 



" First-born of chaos, who so fair didst come 

 From the old negro's darksome womb, 

 "Which, when it saw the lovely child. 

 The melancholy mass put on kind looks and smil'd." 



Thomas Yalden, too, has borrowed this from 

 Cowley : 



" Parent of day, whose beauteous beams of light 

 Spring from the darksome womb of night, 

 And 'midst their native horrors show. 

 Like gems adorning of the negro's brow." 



To these instances may be added the line in The 

 Soldier's Dream : 



« And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky." 



which has been adopted from Lee's Theodisius : 



" The stars, heav'n sentry, wink and seem to die." 



Mr. R, Montgomery has the same image in his 

 Omnipresence of the Deity : 



" Ye quenchless stars, so eloquently bright, 

 Untroubled sentries of the shadowy night." 



And I have met with it in one of Abbe De La 

 Mennais' works ; but having no access to them 

 here, I am unable to quote the exact words. 



Henry H. Bbeen.. 

 St. Lucia. 



THE ORIGINAL REAPING MACHINE. 



It may interest your readers, and be worth re- 

 cording, that the original reaping machine is the in- 

 vention of a Scotch clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Bell, of 

 Carmylie, Forfarshire, and that it has been worked 

 by his brother, Mr. G. Bell, on his farm of Inch- 

 michael, Perthshire, for more than twenty years. 



On the 4th September, 1852, pursuant to a 

 challenge given by Hugh Watson, Esq., and Mr. 

 G. Bell, a trial of reaping machines took place at 

 Keillor Farm, Forfarshire, when Hussey's Ame- 

 rican machine, and a similar machine, with some 

 important improvements, exhibited by Lord Kin- 

 naird, competed with that invented by the Rev. 

 Mr. Bell, and the decision of the judges at the 

 trial was unanimously given in favour of the ori- 

 ginal Scotch machine. It did one-third more 

 work than the others, its machinery was considered 

 more effective, and less liable to damage ; it could 

 be managed by a single man, and was propelled 

 before the horses, who could thrust it into the 

 heaviest crop of grain, and at once open a lane six 

 feet wide. It also disposed the corn conveniently 

 for the shears to cut it, and laid the corn, when 

 cut, so as to be easily gathered into sheaf Mr. 

 Love, as the agent of Mr. Crosskill, superintended 

 the working of Hussey's machine, and Mr. M'Cor- 

 mack, from America, is said to have witnessed the 

 trial, but the machine which bears his name did 

 not compete. 



Mr. Bell's original discovery will, no doubt, be 

 duly estimated by the agricultural community. 

 The fact of its dating so much earlier than the 

 American inventions, seems to me to be a point 

 in harmony with other valuable memoranda in 

 "N. &Q." Alfred Gatty. 



