Mae. 26. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



313 



party is assembled at Mr. Pope's, when the con- 

 versation takes this turn : 



" Mr. Walscott asked if he (Dryden) was an En- 

 glishman or an Irishman, for he never could find out. 

 « You would find out,' answered Mr. Pope, ' if you 

 heard him talk, for he cannot get rid of the habit of 

 saying a for e. He would be an Englishman with all 

 his heart, if he could ; but he is an Irishman, that is 

 certain, and with all his heart too in one sense, for he 



is the truest patriot that country ever saw 



You must not talk to him about Irish rhymes,' added 

 Mr. Pope, * any more than you must talk to me about 

 the gods and abodes in my Homer, which he quarrels 

 with me for. The truth is, we all write Irish rhymes, 

 and the Dean contrives to be more exact that way than 

 most of us.' 'What!' said Mr. Walscott, 'does he 

 carry his Irish accent into his writings, and yet think 

 to conceal himself? ' Mr. Pope read to us an odd 

 kind of Latin-English effusion of the Dean's, which 

 made us shake with laughter. It was about a consult- 

 ation of physicians. The words, thougli Latin in 

 themselves, make English when put together ; and the 

 Hibernianism of the spelling is very plain. I re- 

 member a taste of it. A doctor begins by inquiring, 



" ' Is his Honor sic ? Vrse Isetus felis pulse. It do 

 es beat veris loto c?e.' 



" Here dt spells day. An Englishman would have 

 "Used the word da. 



" ' No,' says tlie second doctor ; ' no, notis as qui cassi 

 e ver feltu metri it,' &c. 



" Metri for may try. 



" Mr. Pope told us that there were two bad rhymes 

 in the Jiape of the Lock, and in the space of eight 

 lines : 



" ' The doubtful beam long nods from side to side ; 

 At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside. 



But this bold lord, with manly strength endued. 

 She with one finger and a thumb subdued.' 



" Mr. Walscott. ' These would be very good French 

 rhymes.' 



" Afr. Pope. ' Yes, the French make a merit of ne- 

 cessity, and force their poverty upon us for riches. 

 But it is bad in English. However, it is too late to 

 alter what I wrote. I now care less about them, not- 

 withstanding the Doctor. When I was a young man, 

 1 was for the free disinvolte way of Dryden, as in the 

 Essay on Criticism; but the town preferred the style 

 of my pastorals, and somehow or other I agreed with 

 them. I then became very cautious, and wonder how 

 those lines in the Lock escaped me. But I have come 

 to this conclusion, that when a man has established his 

 reputation for being able to do a thing, he may take 

 liberties. Weakness is one thing, and the carelessness 

 of power another.' " — New Monthly Magazine, vol. xiii. 

 (1825), pp. 551, 552. 



AVith regard to the French rhyme, T see, in a 

 note to Odes and other Poems, by Henry Neele, 

 1821, that he apologises for rhyming multitude 

 with solitude, by saying : 



" It is of that kind which is very common in French, 

 but I fear hardly justified by Engh'sh practice. Still^ 

 • La rime est une esclave, et ne doit qu'obeir.' " 



I would append to this Note a Query. Where 

 in Swift's works is the "Latin-English effusion 

 of the Dean's" to be met with ? * or is it composed 

 for him by the writer of the article ? I only know 

 of two such effusions really written by Swift; the 

 Love Song, "Apud in is almi des ire," &c., and 

 the Epigram on Die : 



" Die, heris agro at an da quarto finale 

 Fora ringat ure nos an da stringat ure tale." 



I should also like to know the author of the clever 

 series of papers from which I have quoted. 



CUTHBEKT BeDB, B.A. 



COUNT GONDOMAR. i 



(Vol. v., p. 489.) 



Your correspondent W. Stanley Simmonds will 

 find a lengthy account of this notable Spanish Don 



— Diego Sarmiento de Acuiia, Conde de Gondomar 



— in the Nohiliario genealogico de los Reyes y 

 Titulos de Espana of Lopez de Haro, folio, Madrid, 

 1622, vol. i. pp. 236—238. In this notice he chiefly 

 figures, strange to say, as a military character I 

 At the ripe age of seventeen this " famous captain '* 

 is said to have chastised the insolence of that bold 

 "English pirate, Francisco Draques," who in 

 1584 had had the temerity to land somewhere 

 near Bayona, his sole object being of course 

 plunder. Don Diego guarded well his territory 

 of Tuy when the same formidable " dragon," in 

 the year 1589, made his appearance before Co- 

 ruiia ; and again in 1596, when the English Ar- 

 mada visited ill-fated Cadiz. Being a person of 

 " great parts," the Count was despatched to Eng- 

 land as ambassador in 1613, and during the five 

 years that he resided in this country, " the king' 

 and his nobility showered upon him favours and 

 honours innumerable." He once told James that; 

 the flour of England (meaning the gentry) wa* 

 very fine, but the bran (meaning the common 

 people) was very coarse ; " La harina de Ligla- 

 tierra es muy delgada y fina, pero el a/recho es 

 muy grossero" — for Gondomar, like the learned 

 Isaac Casaubon, had been subject to the grossest 

 insults from the London rabble. We next find 

 ranked among his praiseworthy deeds the follow- 

 ing atrocious one : 



" Hizo cortar la cabefa al General Ingles Wbaltero 

 Rale (Sir Walter Raleigh) por aver intentado descu- 

 brimiento en las Indias Occideutales de Castilla a su 

 partida." 



Another meritorious action is added : 



" A su instancia perdono la Magestad de aquel Re 

 (James I.) a sesenta sacerdotes que estavan presos y 

 condenados por causa de la religion, y a otros muchos 

 Catolicos, passandolos todos consigo a Flandes." 



['•' See " Consultation upon a Lord that was Dying,'* 

 in Swift's Works, ed. Scott, vol. xiii. p. 471. — Ed.} 



