2nd s, V, 123., May 8. '68.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



373 



eyes ; then, as my sight grew daily less, darker colours 

 seemed to burst forth with vehemence, and a kind of in- 

 ternal noise ; but now, as if everything lucid were extin- 

 guished, blackness, either absolute or checquered, and 

 interwoven as it were with ash colour, is accustomed to 

 form itself in my eyes ; yet the darkness perpetually be- 

 fore them, as well during' the night as in the day, seems 

 always approaching rather to white than to black, ad- 

 mitting as the eye rolls a minute portion of light as thro' 

 a crevice." 



The great poet was not altogether free from a 

 regard to his personal appearance, and seems to 

 have prided himself not a little upon the fact that 

 although his vision had fled, yet externally the 

 eye, to an ordinary observer, presented no un- 

 sightly deformity ; for in his answer to the author 

 of Clamor Regii Sanguinis, he says that his " eye 

 to all outward appearance is as clear and free 

 from spot as those who see farthest." This was 

 written when he was over forty years of age. 

 And, again, the well-known sonnet to his friend 

 Cynriac Skinner, commencing 



" Cynriac, this three years' day these eyes, tho' clear 

 To outward view of blemish or of spot," &c. &c. 



Some time since I had the pleasure of disco- 

 vering the Hartlib correspondence, consisting of 

 some thousands of letters, treatises, and other 

 curious MSS., and although my examination was 

 but very cursory, I saw enough to convince my- 

 self of the probability of its being a mine for 

 researches, especially for hitherto unknown par- 

 ticulars touching Milton and his contemporaries, 

 which would amply repay the zealous inquirer 

 into history. As one of the above-named letters, 

 viz. from the Rev. Mr. Durie to Samuel Hartlib, 

 dated Zurich, Nov. 18, 1654, refers to Milton and 

 his blindness, I may be excused in giving the 

 extract : — 



"I wish that Mr. Milton may recover his sight; and I 

 would not have him to despaire of it, because I was told 

 y' an old man of three score and odd years, blind in the 

 territorie of Sclaphausen, was cured by an oculist, an 

 husbandman in those parts, who took a cataract from his 

 eyes w* had covered them so long time, and now he sees 

 perfectly againe. 1 pray you remember my service to 

 him, and tell him that'Vlack hath sent copies of his 

 Defensio Secunda into these parts, but in many places 

 vitiously printed, w<=i» wrongs the sense, and y* none of 

 the London print were brought to the Mart of Frankfort. 

 Many here are well pleased that hee hath handled Moras 

 rough; but some think that Morus is wronged. I cannot 

 make any certain judgment of w' is said of him, but 

 perhaps at Geneva I maj' learn something more exactly. 

 However it doth not much conceme mee to be curious 

 therein, only, by the bj% I may listen after the things Wh 

 are so much contradictorily debated amongst some here ; 

 but truly I believe where "there is so much smoke there 

 must bee some fire." 



Another letter from Durie to Hartlib, under 

 date of June 5, 1652, also mentions the author of 

 Paradise Lost : — 



" Mr. Bouchart, one of the ministers of the French 

 church, coming through Holland, did lodge with Salma- 

 sius at Leiden ; tells me that Salmasius is making readie 



an answer to Mr. Milton. I pray salute Mr. Milton from 

 me, and let him know this." 



Here no allusion whatever is made to his blind- 

 ness, so I think we may consider that Wilmott has 

 fallen into error in affixing this year as the date, 

 more especially as Hartlib's letter above quoted 

 would seem to intimate that this misfortune over- 

 took the poet in 1654. Cl. Hopper. 



ME. JEFFERSON HOGGS LIFE OF PERCY BYSSHE 

 SHELLEY. 



In his recently published Life of the poet Shel- 

 ley, Mr. Hogg has reprinted, in extenso, from the 

 notes to Queen Mob, a striking version of the 

 legend of the Wandering Jew, which Shelley de- 

 scribes as " a translation of part of some German 

 work, whose title he had vainly endeavoured to 

 discover, which he had picked up dirty and 

 torn In Lincoln's Inn Fields." Mr. Hogg pro- 

 fesses to believe that this powerful fragment was, 

 in reality, the production of Shelley's own pen ; 

 and he refers to several similar attempts at mysti- 

 fication. In confirmation of his Impression that 

 Shelley's disclaimer ought not upon this occasion 

 to be accepted as final. This assumption is, how- 

 ever, wholly unfounded. The legend of "Aha- 

 suerus," as given by the poet. Is a translation 

 from Schubart, and was first published, In 1802, 

 in a monthly magazine devoted exclusively to 

 German literature, entitled The German Museum. 

 This periodical was printed by C. Whittingham, 

 Dean Street, Fetter Lane, for E. Geisweiler and 

 the other proprietors, and the only volumes pub- 

 lished bear date respectively 1800, 1801, and 1802. 

 The version adopted by Shelley will be found in 

 Its third volume. 



Apropos of one or two of Mr. Hogg's own mys- 

 tifications. He speaks of the father of Harriet 

 Westbrook (the first wife of the poet), as an " ex- 

 coffee-house-keeper," In a tone which is calculated 

 to suggest inferences wholly unwarranted by facts 

 within his own knowledge. The tavern, formerly 

 kept by Mr. Westbrook, was the Mount Street 

 Coffee House (a place of fashionable resort In Its 

 day), from which he had retired with competent 

 means, some years before the marriage of his 

 daughter. Although tediously minute on many 

 points which are of the slightest possible Interest 

 to the admirers of the poet, Mr. Hogg is singu- 

 larly reticent on some of the more important fea- 

 tures of his hero's biography. The circumstances 

 which led to Shelley s connexion with Harriet 

 Westbrook are very Imperfectly explained by 

 Mr. Hogg. The "ex-coffee- house- keeper" had, 

 unhappily for her, placed his daughter at the same 

 school as that in which Shelley's sister was re- 

 ceiving her education ; and it was on the occasion 

 of his visits to that expensive but not very care- 



