Oct. 22. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



383 



without emotiorr by the Portuguese peasantry. They 

 believe that if a woman be delivered of seven male 

 infants successively, the seventh, by an inexplicable 

 fatality, becomes subject to the powers of darkness ; 

 and is compelled, on every Saturday evening, to 

 assume the likeness of an ass. So changed, and fol- 

 lowed by a horrid train of dogs, he is forced to run an 

 impious race over the moors and tlirough the villages ; 

 nor is allowed an interval of rest until the dawning 

 Sabbath terminates his sufferings, and restores him to 

 his human shape." — From Lord Carnarvon's Portugal 

 and Gallicia, vol. ii, p. 268. 



E. H. A. 



POPE AND COWPEB. 



In Cowper's letter to Lady Hesketh, dated 

 January 18, 1787, oceurs a notice for the first 

 time of Mr. Samuel Rose, with whom Cowper sub- 

 sequently corresponded. He informs Lady Hes- 

 keth that — 



" A young gentleman called here yesterday, who 

 came six miles out of his way to see me. He was on 

 a journey to London from Glasgow, having, just left 

 the University there. He came, I suppose, partly to 

 satisfy his own curiosity, but chiefly, as it seemed, to 

 bring me the thanks of some of the Scotch professors 

 for my two volumes. His name is Rose, an English- 

 man." 



Prefixed to a copy of Hayley's Life and Letters 

 of William Cowper, Esq., in the British Museum, 

 is an extract in MS. of a letter from the late 

 Samuel Rose, Esq., to his favourite sister, Miss 

 Harriet Rose, written in the year before his mar- 

 riage, at the age of twenty-two, and which, I be- 

 lieve, has never been printed. It may, perhaps, 

 merit a corner of " N. & Q." 



•'Weston Lodge, Sept. 9, 1789. 



" Last week Mr. Cowper finished the Odyssey, and 

 we drank an unreluctant bumper to its success. The 

 labour of translation is now at an end, and the less 

 arduous work of revision remains to be done, and then 

 we shall see it published. I promise both you and 

 myself much pleasure from its perusal. You will 

 most probably find it at first less pleasing than Pope's 

 versification, owing to the difference subsisting between 

 blank verse and rhyme — a difference which is not 

 sufficiently attended to, and whereby people are led 

 into injudicious comparisons. You will find Mr. 

 Pope more refined: Mr. Cowper more simple, grand, 

 and majestic ; and, indeed, insomuch as Mr. Pope is 

 more refined than Mr. Cowper, he is more refined than 

 bis original, and in the same proportion departs from 

 Homer himself. Pope's .must universally be allowed 

 to be a beautiful poem : Mr. Cowper's will be found a 

 striking and a faithful portrait, and a pleasing picture 

 to those who enjoy his style of colouring, which I am 

 apprehensive is not so generally acceptable as the other 

 master's. Pope possesses the gentle and amiable graces 

 of a Guido : Cowper is endowed with the bold sub- 

 lime genius of a Raphael. After having said so much 



upon their comparative merits, enough, I hope, to re- 

 fute your second assertion, which was, that women, in 

 the opinion of men, have little to do with literature. 

 I may inform you, that the Iliad is to be dedicated to 

 Earl Cowper, and the Odyssey to the Dowager Lady 

 Spencer ; but this information need not be extensively 

 circulated." 



J. Yeoweuu 

 50. Burton Street. 



suaespeabe correspondence. 



" As You Like It.''' — Believing that whatever 

 illustrates, even to a trifling extent, the great 

 dramatic poet of England will interest the readers 

 of " N. & Q.," I solicit their attention to the re- 

 semblance between the two following passages : 



" All the world's a stage, 

 And all the men and women merely players." 



" Si recte aspicias, vita hcec est fabula qiccedam. 

 Scena autem, mundus versatilis : histrio et actor 

 Quilibet est hominum — mortaks nam propria cuncti 

 Sunt personati, et falsa sub imagine, vulgi 

 Praestringunt oculos: ita JDiis, risumque jocumque, 

 Slultitiis, nuffisqwe suis per sacula prcebent. 



" Jam mala quse humanum patitur genus, adnumerabo. 

 Principid postquam e latebris male olentibus alvi 

 Eductus tandem est, materno sanguine foedus, 

 Vagit, et auspicio lacrymarum nascitur infans, , 



" Vix natus jam vincla subit, tenerosque coercet 

 Fascia longa artus : praesagia dira futuri 

 Servitii. . . . . . 



" Post ubi jam valido se poplite sustinet, et jam 

 Rite loqui didicit, tunc servire incipit, atque 

 Jussa pati, sentitque minas ictusque magistri, 

 Saspe patris matrisque manu fratrisque frequenter 

 Pulsatur : facient quid vitricus atque noverca ? 

 Fit juvenis, crescunt vires : jam spernit habenas, 

 Occluditque aures monitis, furere incipit, ardens 

 Luxuria atque ira : et temerarius omnia nuUo 

 Consilio aggreditur, dictis melioribus obstat, 

 Deteriora fovens : non uUa pericula curat, 

 Dummodo id efiSciat, suadet quod cceca libido. 



" Suceedit gravior, melior, prudentior cetas, 

 Cumque ipsa curae adveniunt, durique labores ; 

 Tunc homo mille modis, studioque enititur omni 

 Rem facere, et nunquam sibi multa negotia desunt. 

 Nunc peregre it, nunc ille domi, nunc rure laborat, 

 Ut sese, uxorem, natos, famulosque gubernet, 

 Ac servet, solus pro cunctis sollicitus, nee 

 Jucundis fruitur dapibus, nee nocte quietS. 

 Ambitio hunc etiam impellens, ad puhlica mittit 

 Mania : dumque inhiat vano male sanus lionori, 

 Invidise 'atque odii patitur mala plurima: deinceps 

 Obrepit canis rugosa senecta capillis, 

 Secum multa trahens incommoda corporis atque 

 Mentis : nam vires abeant, speciesque colorque. 

 Nee non deficiunt sensus : audire, videre 



