Aphil 7. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



269 



CURIOUS INCIDENT. 



(Vol. xL, pp. 63. 134.) 



I think it probable that the play alluded to is 

 The Oi-phan, in which occurs the following pas- 



" You took her up a little tender flower, 

 Just sprouted on a bank, which the next frost 

 Had nip'd ; and with a careful loving hand, 

 Transplanted her into your own fair garden. 

 Where the sun always shines: there long she flou- 



rish'd, 

 Grew sweet to sense and lovely to the eye, 

 Till at the last a cruel spoiler came, 

 Cropt this fair rose, and rifled all its sweetness, 

 Then cast it like a loathsome weed away." 



This very passaj^e, almost word for word, forms a 

 popular modern sentimental song of the present 

 day, while the simile is of the highest antiquity. 

 Pope gives it thus in The Dunciad : 



" Fair from its humble bed I rear'd this flower. 

 Suckled, and cheer'd, with air, and sun, and shower ; 

 Soft on the paper ruff its leaves I spread. 

 Bright with the gilded button tipp'd its head. 

 Then throned in glass and named it Caroline : 

 Each maid cried 'Charming ! ' and each youth ' Divine ! ' 

 Did Nature's pencil ever blend such rays. 

 Such varied light in one promiscuous blaze? 

 Now prostrate ! dead ! behold that Caroline, 

 No maid cries ' Charming ! ' and no youth ' Divine ! ' 

 And lo, the wretch ! whose vile, whose insect lust, 

 Laid this gay daughter of the spring in dust." 



Ariosto, in the Orlando Furioso, cant. i. 42, 43., 

 though inferior to the original, gives the simile in 

 a completer form than attempted by Pope : 

 " La verginella h simile alia rosa ; 

 Che 'n bel giardin su la nativa spina, 

 Mentre sola, e sicura si riposa, 

 Nfe gregge, nh pastor se le avvicina ; 

 L' aura soave, e 1' alba rugiadosa, 

 L' acqua, e la terra al suo favor s' inchina; 

 Giovefti vaghi, e Donne innamorate 

 Amano averne, e seni, e tempie ornate. 

 " Ma non si tosto dal materno stelo 

 Rimosa viene, e dal suo ceppo verde, 

 Che quanto avea dagli uomini e del cielo 

 Favor, grazia, e bellezza, tutto perde. 

 La vergine, che '1 fior, di che pin zelo, 

 Che de' begli occhi e della vita aver de', 

 Lascia altnii corre ; il pregio ch' avea innanti 

 Perde nel cor di tutti gli altri amanti." 



That which I presume to be the original of the 

 foregoing imitations, will be found in the following 

 beautiful lines of Catullus, carm. Ixii. : 



" Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis, 

 Ignotus pecori, nullo contusus aratro, 

 Quern mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber, 

 Multi ilium pueri, multa cupiere puellae; 

 Idem, cum tenui carptus deflorait ungui, 

 Nulli ilium pueri, nullse cupiere puellte: 

 Sic virgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara suis ; sed 

 Cum castuni amisit, poUuto corpore, florem. 

 Nee pueris jucunda manet, nee cara puellis." 



W. PiNKEBTON. 



Hammersmith. 



" THE TELLIAMED. 



(Vol. xi., pp. 88. 155.) 



The following Note on this singular production 

 may interest your Leamington correspondent, 

 which I extract from Mr. Hugh Miller's work on 

 the Old Red Sandstone, p. 73. (5 th edit., Edin- 

 burgh, 1852) : 



" One of the first geological works I ever read was a 

 philosophical romance, entitled Teliamed, by a M. Maillet, 

 an ingenious Frenchman of the days of Louis XV. This 

 Maillet was by much too great a philosopher to credit 

 the scriptural account of Noah's flood, and yet he could 

 believe like Lamarck that the whole family of birds had 

 existed one time as fishes, which, on being thrown ashore 

 by the waves, had got feathers by accident; and that 

 men themselves are but the descendants of a tribe of sea 

 monsters, who, tiring of their proper element, crawled up 

 on the beach one sunny morning, and, taking a fancy to 

 the land, forgot to return." * 



This extract, though tedious, will give those 

 who have never met with the book inquired after 

 a juster idea of its contents and style than a 

 mere bibliographical notice. It would appear 

 that there were three editions, dated respectively 

 1748, 1750, and 1755. Can any correspondent say 



" * Few men could describe better than Maillet. Hia 

 extravagances are as amusing as those of a fairytale, and 

 quite as extreme. Take the following extract as an in- 

 stance : 



" ' Winged or flying fish, stimulated by the desire of 

 prey, or the fear of death, or pushed near the shore by 

 the billows, have fallen among the reeds or herbage; 

 whence it was not possible for them to resume their flight 

 to the sea, by means of which they had contracted their 

 first facility of flying. Then, their fins, being do longer 

 bathed in the sea water, were split, and became warped 

 by their dryness. While they found among the reeds and 

 herbage among which they fell many aliments to support 

 them, the vessels of their fins being separated, were 

 lengthened and clothed with beards, or, to speak more 

 justly, the membranes, which before kept them adherent 

 to each other, were metamorphosed. The beard formed of 

 these warped membranes was lengthened. The skin of 

 these animals was insensibly covered with a down of the 

 same colour with the skin, and this down gradually in- 

 creased. The little wings they had under their belly, and 

 which, like their wings, helped them to walk in the sea, 

 became feet, and served them to walk on the land. There 

 were also other small changes in their figure. The beak 

 and neck of some were lengthened, and of others shortened. 

 The conformity however of the first figure subsists in the 

 whole, and it will be always easy to know it. Examine 

 all the sprecies of fowl, even those of the Indies, those 

 which are tufted or not, those whose feathers are reversed 

 — such as we see at Damietta, that is to say, whose 

 plumage runs from the tail to the head — and you will 

 find species of fish quite similar, scaly or without scales. 

 All species of parrots, whose plumages are so different, the 

 rarest and most singular marked birds, are, conformable 

 to fact, painted like them black, brown, grey, yellow, 

 green, red, violet colour, and those of gold and azure : and 

 all this precisely in the same parts, where the plumages 

 of those birds are diversified in so curious a manner.' " — 

 Teliamed, p. 224., edit. 1750. 



