83 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



[No. 195. 



marks, "it must have been well known and in 

 general use before it would thus be referred to as 

 a familiar illustration." 



I do not think that any of your correspondents 

 have quoted the halting lines with which Byron 

 mars the pathos of the Rousseau-like letter of 

 Donna Julia (Dora Juan^ canto i. stanza cxcvi.) : 



" My heart is feminine, nor can forget — 

 To all, except one image, madly blind ; 

 So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole, 

 As vibrates my fond heart to my fix'd soul." 



William Bates. 



Birmingham. 



Gibbon's Library (Yol. vii., pp. 407. 455. 535.). 

 — The following quotation from Cyrus Redding's 

 " Recollections of the Author of Vathek " (New 

 Monthly Magazine, vol. Ixxi. p. 308.) may interest 

 J. H. M. and your other correspondents under this 

 head : 



" ' I bought it (says Beckford) to have something to 

 read when 1 passed through Lausanne. I have not 

 been there since. I shut myself up for six weeks, from 

 early in the morning until night, only how and then 

 taking a ride. The people thought me mad. I read 

 myself nearly blind.' 



" I inquired if the books were rare or curious. He 

 replied in the negative. There were excellent editions 

 of the principal historical writers, and an extensive 

 collection of travels. The most valuable work was an 

 edition of Eustathius ; there was also a MS. or two. 

 All the books were in excellent condition ; in number, 

 considerably above six thousand, near seven perhaps. 

 He should have read himself mad if there had been 

 novelty enough, and he had stayed much longer. 



" * I broke away, and dashed among the mountains. 

 There is excellent reading there, too, equally to my 

 taste. Did you ever travel alone among mountains? ' 



" I replied that I had, and been fully sensible of 

 their mighty impressions. • Do you retain Gibbon's 

 library ? ' 



«' ' It is now dispersed, I believe. I made it a pre- 

 sent to my excellent physician. Dr. Schall or Sclioll 

 (I am not certain of the name). I never saw it after 

 turning hermit there.*" 



William Bates. 



Birmingham. 



Si. Paul's Epistles to Seneca (Vol. vii., pp. 500. 

 583.). — The affirmation so frequently made and 

 alluded to by J. M. S. of Hull, that Seneca became, 

 in the last year of his life, a convert to Christianity, 

 is an old tradition, which has just been revived by 

 a French author, M. Amedee Fleury, and is dis- 

 cussed and attempted to be established by him at 

 great length in two octavo volumes. I have not 

 read the book, but a learned reviewer of it, M. S. 

 De Sacy, shows, with the greatest appearance of 

 reason and authority, that the tradition, instead 

 of being strengthened, is weakened by all that 

 M. Fleury has said about it. M. De Sacy's re- 

 view is contained in the Journal des Dibats of 



June 30, in which excellent paper he is a frequent 

 and delightful writer on literary subjects. In the 

 hope that it may interest and gratify J. M. S. to 

 be informed of M. Fleury's new work, I send this 

 scrap of information to the " N. & Q." 



John Macrat. 

 Oxford. 



" Hip, Hip, Hurrah ! " (Vol. vii., pp. 595. G33.). 

 — The reply suggested by your correspondent 

 R. S. F., that the above exclamation originated in 

 the Crusades, and is a corruption of the initial 

 letters of " Hierosolyma est perdita," never ap- 

 peared to me to be very apposite. 



In A Collection of National English Ballads, 

 edited and published by W. Chappie, 1838, in a 

 description of the song " Old Simon, the King," 

 the favourite of Squire Western in Tom Jones, the 

 following lines are quoted : 



" ' Hang up all the poor hep drinkers,' 

 Cries old Sim, the king of skinkers."* 



A note to the above states, in reference to the 

 word " hep," that it was a term of derision, ap- 

 plied to those who drank a weak infusion of the 

 " hep " (hip) berry, or sloe. " Hence," says the 

 writer, " the exclamation of ' Hip, hip, hurrah,' 

 corrupted from ' Hip, hip, away.' " The couplet; 

 quoted above was written up in the Apollo Room 

 at the Devil Tavern, 'J'emple Bar, where Ben 

 Jonson's club, the " Apollo Club," used to meet. 

 Many a drinker of modern Port has equally good 

 reason to exclaim with his brethren of old, " Hip, 

 hip, away ! " J. Brent. 



Emblemata (Vol. vii., 'p. 614.). — I have a small 

 edition of the Emblemata Horatiana, with the fol- 

 lowing title-page : 



" Othonis Vsenl Emblemata Horatiana Imaglnlbus 

 in ces incisis atque Latino, Germanico, Galileo et 

 Belgico carmine lUustrata: Amstelsedami, apud Hen- 

 ricum Wetstenium, cId . loc. lxxxiv." 



The engravings, of which there are 103, measure 

 about four inches by three ; the book contains 

 207 pages, exclusive of the index. " Amicitiaj 

 Trutlna," mentioned by Mr. Weld Taylor, is 

 the sixty-sixth plate on page 133. 



There is another volume of Emblems by Otho 

 Venius, of which I have a copy : 



" Amorum Emblemata Figurls jEneis Incisa, studio 

 Othonis Vaen I : Batavo Lugdunensls Antverpiae Venalia 

 apud Auctorem prostant apud Hieronymum Ver- 

 dussen, mdciix." 



The engravings, of which (besides an allegorical 

 frontispiece representing the power of Venus) 

 there are 124, are oval, measuring five inches in 

 length by three and a half inches in height. The 

 designs appear to me to be very good. On the 



* A skinker is one who serves drink. 



