Jan. 1. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



25 



Baptist. In Acts viii. 32., and 1 Pet. i. 19., the term 

 is manifestly derived from Isa. liii. 7., the Septua- 

 gint translation. But, in the Revelation, the word 

 selected by the apostle is simply to be viewed as 

 characteristic of his style. Taken in connexion 

 with John i. 29. 36., the difference presents one of 

 those points which so strikingly attest the authen- 

 ticity of the Scripture. If the writer had drawn 

 upon his imagination, in all likelihood he would 

 have used the word apviov in the Gospel ; but he 

 employed another, because the Baptist actually 

 made use of a different one, i. e. one different 

 from that which he was in the habit of employing, 



B. H. COWPEB. 



Who was the greatest General (Vol. vi., p. 509.). 

 — In reply to the following Query, " Who was 

 the greatest general, and why and wherefore did 

 the Duke of Wellington give the palm to Han- 

 nibal ? " I think the following note appended to 

 the eloquent sermon of Dr. Croly, preached on 

 the death of the Duke, Sept. 19th, not only shows 

 the humility of the Duke in giving preference to 

 Hannibal over himself, but it contains so just a 

 comparison between the two generals, that it de- 

 serves recording in the valuable and useful pages 

 of the " N. & Q.," as well as being a perfect and 

 true answer to C. T. : 



" It has been usual," the note says, " to compare 

 Wellington with Hannibal. But those who make the 

 comparison seem to forget the facts : — 



" Hannibal, descending from the Alps with a disci- 

 plined force of 26,000 men, met the brave Roman 

 Militia, commanded by brave blockheads, and beat 

 them accordingly. But, as soon as he was met by a 

 man of common sense, Fabius, he could do nothing 

 with him ; when he met a manoeuvring officer, the 

 Consul Nero, he was outmanoeuvred, and lost his 

 brother Asdrubal's army, which was equivalent to his 

 losing Italy ; and when he met an active officer, Scipio, 

 he was beaten on his own ground. Finally, forced to 

 take refuge with a foreign power, he was there a pri- 

 soner, and there he died." 



" His administrative qualities seem to have been of 

 the humblest, or of the most indolent, order. For 

 fourteen years he was in possession of, or in influence 

 with, all the powers of southern Italy, then the richest 

 portion of the peninsula. Yet this possession was 

 wrested from him without an effiirt ; and where he 

 might have been a monarch, he was only a pensioner. 

 His punic faith, his flight, his refuge, and his death in 

 captivity, might find a more complete resemblance in 

 the history of Napoleon." 



The following concluding sentence of Dr. Croly's 

 note conveys a truer and far more just comparison 

 with another great general : 



" The life of the first Casar forms a much fairer 

 comparison with that of Wellington. Both nobly born ; 

 both forcing their way up through the gradations of 

 service, outstripping all their age ; forming their cha- 

 racters by warfare in foreign countries ; always com- 



manding'small armies, yet always invincible (Caesar won 

 the World at Pharsalia with only 25,000 men) : both 

 alike courageous and clement, unfailing in resources, 

 and indefatigable in their objects ; receiving the highest 

 rewards, and rising to the highest rank of their times ; 

 never beaten : both of first-rate ability in council. The 

 difference being in their objects : one to serve himself, 

 the other to serve his country ; one impelled by ambi- 

 tion, the other by duty ; one destroyhig the constitu- 

 tion of his country, the other sustaining it. Wellington, 

 too, has given the soldier and statesman his ' Commen- 

 taries,' one of the noblest transcripts of a great admini- 

 strative mind." 



J. M. G. 

 Worcester. 



Beech-trees struck hy Lightning (Vol. vi., p. 129.). 

 — On Thinnigrove Common, near Nettlebed, 

 Oxon, a beech-tree, one of three or four growing 

 round a pit, was shattered by lightning about 

 thirteen or fourteen years ago. A gentleman who 

 has lived sixty years in the neighbourhood of the 

 beech woods near Henly, tells me that he re- 

 members three or four similar cases. Single beech- 

 trees, which are very ornamental, generally grow 

 very low and wide-spreading, which may be the 

 reason why they often escape. On the other hand, 

 in the woods, where they run up close and very 

 high, they present so many points of attraction to 

 the electric fluid, that probably for that cause it is 

 not often the case that one tree in particular is 

 struck. CoEYLUs. 



Portsmouth. 



Passage in Tennyson (Vol. vi., p. 272.). — It 

 appears to me that Tennyson has fallen into the 

 error of a Latin construction. I call it an error, 

 because in that language the varied terminations 

 of the cases and numbers make that plain which 

 we have no means of evidencing in JEnglish. I 

 should translate it " Numenii strepitus volantis " — 

 " The call of the curlew dreary (drearily) gleams 

 about the moorland, as he flies o'er Locksley Hall." 

 The summer note of the curlew is a shrill clear 

 whistle, but in winter they sometimes indulge in a 

 wild melancholy scream. Coetlus. 



Portsmouth. 



Inscriptions in Churches (Vol. vi., p. 510.). — 

 I differ from your reply to Noewood's Query, in 

 which you refer to the colloquy between Queen 

 Elizabeth and Dean Nowell as the origin of these 

 inscriptions. No doubt they were derived from 

 the custom of our ante-Reformation ancestors, of 

 painting figures and legends of saints upon the 

 walls of churches ; but the following instance will 

 sufiice to prove that they originated in the reign 

 of Edward VI., and not in Queen Elizabeth's. 



In the interesting paper by the Rev. E. Ve- 

 nables in the I'l-ansactions of the Cambridge 

 Camden Societij, on " The Church of St. Mary the 

 Great, Cambridge," he gives, under the year 



