62 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 274. 



shallow" (Croker's ed. 1847, p. 277.)> is curiously 

 illustrated by the following characteristic anec- 

 dote, which I have just disinterred from the Town 

 and Country Magazine for Sept. 1769. 



Dr. Johnson, being one evening in company 

 with some of the first-rate literati of the age, the 

 conversation turned chiefly upon the posthumous 

 volumes of Swift, which had not been long pub- 

 lished. After having sat a good while collected 

 in himself, and looking as if he thought himself 

 prodigiously superior in point of erudition to his 

 companions, he roundly asserted in his rough way 

 that " Swift was a shallow fellow ; a very shallow 

 fellow." The ingenious Mr. Sheridan, not relish- 

 ing so despotic an assertion, and in his opinion so 

 false a one, as he almost venerated the Dean of 

 St. Patrick's literary talents, replied, warmly but 

 modestly, " Pardon me, Sir, for differing from 

 you, but I always thought the Dean a very clear 

 writer." To this modest reply the following la- 

 conic answer was immediately vociferated, " All 

 shallows are clear ! " M. N. S. 



Lord Derby and Manzoni. — While Lord Derby's 

 quotations are a matter of interest, let me recall 

 attention to one which he made in a speech on the 

 death of the Duke of Wellington. It was, re- 

 markably enough, taken from Manzoni's Ode on 

 the Death of Napoleon* 



" Ov'e silenzio e tenebre 

 La gloria clie passb." 



But where was the speech made ? I cannot now 

 recall, and should be thankful to any one who 

 would inform me, and say how I may obtain a 

 copy. I do not find the quotation in his speeches 

 in the House, and believe it was made in one 

 spoken at some public dinner. 



The Classics have for so long a time usurped 

 the foremost place as subjects for quotation, that 

 it was delightful to find so great a man as Lord 

 Derby breaking through conventional rules and 

 doing honour to the beauties of the Italian muse ! 



Hebmes. 



Vessels of Observation. — Vegetlus (de re Mil,, 

 iv. 37.) has the following : 



" Ne candore prodantur, colore Veneto, qui marinis est 

 iiuctibus similis, vela tinguntur et funes: cera etiam qua 

 unguere sclent naves, inficitur : nauta; quoque vel milites 

 Venetam vestem induunt, ut non solum per noctem, sed 

 etiam per diem facilius lateant explorantes." 



Is this the origin of our Blue-jackets ? And 

 would our present Board of Admiralty pooh-pooh 

 the introduction of blue or sea-green sails ? 



Young Verdant. 



* // Cinque Maggio. 



caucriciS. 



VACCINATION. 



In the interesting Journal of John Byrom, 

 F. R. S., one of the latest publications of the 

 Chetham Society*, he states, under the date of 

 June 3rd, 1725, that — 



" At a meeting of the Royal Society, Sir Isaac Xewton 

 presiding, Dr. Jurin f read a case of small-pox, where a 

 girl who had been inoculated and had been vaccinated, 

 was tried and had them not again, but another (a) boy 

 caught the small-pox from this girl, and had the confluent 

 kind and died." 



The paper referred to by Byrom was commu- 

 nicated by Mr. Sergeant Amand. It has been 

 kindly transcribed for me by Mr. Weld, the libra- 

 rian of the Royal Society. The case occurred at 

 Hanover. The inoculation of the girl seems to 

 have failed entirely. It was suspected that she 

 had not taken the true small-pox. Doubts, how- 

 ever, were removed, as a boy, who daily saw the 

 girl, fell ill and died, " having had a very bad 

 small-pox of the confluent sort." 



The point to which I would draw your readers' 

 attention is the mention of " vaccination " in this 

 journal in 1725 ; it is one of some interest and 

 curiosity, as it is supposed that no one, before 

 the time of Jenner, attempted to introduce the 

 virus from the cow into the human species. The 

 word does not occur in Amand's paper, of which 

 Byrom is speaking. Nor is it to be found in the 

 dictionaries of Bailey, Ash, or Johnson, until in- 

 troduced into the last by Todd. Richardson, in 

 his Dictionai-y, says that " it is a word of modern 

 formation." Did Byrom borrow it, or was it hi& 

 own invention ? He studied medicine, and it was 

 suggested to him to practise as a physician in his 

 native place. He so far obtained the title of 

 doctor from his acquaintance, that he was com- 

 monly so addressed; and on one occasion he desired 

 that his letters should be directed Mr., not Dr. 

 In 1727 he says that he had not health or ex- 

 perience to practise in Manchester. 



Byrom's attention appears to have been much 

 turned to the subject of inoculation. Other refer- 

 ences to the practice will be found in the Diary^ 

 and he mentions reading Dr. Wm. Wagstaffe's 

 Letter to Friend, on the danger and uncertainty of 

 Inoculation, published in 1722 {Diary, p. 140.). 



It was in 1762 or 1768 that Jenner's attention 

 seems to have been first awakened to the subject 



* This diary, with a striking portrait, was generously 

 given to the Chetham Society by its accomplished possessor, 

 the poet's descendant. The MS. was happily committed 

 to the hands of an editor, most competent to do full justice 

 to it. In his preface and notes, Canon Parkinson has 

 heightened the vivid picture which Byrom has drawn of 

 the habits and manners of our grandsires, by his own 

 observations. 



t At one time President of the College of Physicians. 



