514 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 296. 



Roasting of Eggs (Vol. xi., p. 445.)- — In reply 

 to your correspondent F. on the above subject, I 

 should Imagine that, unless the use of coal has 

 been substituted for that of timber, the practice of 

 roasting eggs has not ceased at Winchester Col- 

 lege. I well remember, some forty years since, 

 how great was our enjoyment of these delicacies, 

 roasted in the ashes of our wood fires in the col- 

 lege chambers of an evening ; and I should marvel 

 if°they no longer formed a portion of the viands 

 surreptitiously provided for the "Noctes Wic- 

 camicae," unless modern grates and coal have now 

 taken the place of the spacious hearths and crack- 

 ling fao-ots in the time-honoured dormitories above 

 mentioned. N. L. T. 



F. wants information about roasting eggs. He 

 will find that all Celtic nations roast eggs, though 

 not so generally as they did before the invention 

 of grates, and the use of coal instead of wood. Sir 

 Walter Scott makes David Gellatly acquainted 

 with this art ; and 'it would be curious for epicures 

 to decide, whether an egg well roasted in wood 

 ashes (where alone they can be roasted) has not a 

 very superior flavour to a boiled egg : as it is well 

 known that the bread, baked in the field by Welsh 

 peasants on a stone, covered with an iron pot, and 

 heaped all over with hot wood-ashes or burning 

 turf, is as superior in flavour to bread baked in an 

 iron oven, as is the bread of a brick oven heated 

 by wood to that of an iron oven with a coal fire 

 under it. There is little doubt that inquiry into 

 the primitive cookery of a rural people would be 

 not only amusing, but useful ; as many a method, 

 which experience taught to be best, and which is 

 nearly lost, may be explained scientifically on ex- 

 amination ; and the difierent results of heat when 

 produced by charcoal, or by the steady embers of 

 a heap of ignited wood-ashes in powder, in oppo- 

 sition to the flames of lumps of coal placed under 

 an iron plate, are well known to the best cooks. 



G. G. 



Lord Byron's " Monody on the Death of Sheri- 

 dan" (Vol. xi., p. 423.).— I beg to refer Eric to 

 the Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord 

 Byron, with Anecdotes of some of his Contempo- 

 raries, published in 1822 by Colburn & Co. The 

 book is dedicated to Mr. GIfibrd. It is an anony- 

 mous publication ; the dedication being only signed 

 with **** *******. (Who was the author ?) * 

 At pp. 275, 276. will be found the following pas- 

 sage, after quoting the ten concluding lines of the 

 monody : 



" Such is the extravagance of the last two lines, and 

 their forced connexion, if they can be said to connect at 

 all with the former part of the encomium, that we are 

 rather disposed to be pleased than offended on learning 

 the source from whence the conceit was derived. Lord 

 Byron, however, must have been in a very dull humour. 



[* John Watkins, LL.D.] 



or not over-zealous in the work which he undertook, 

 when he had recourse to Ariosto for an illustration with 

 which to wind up his panegyric. Yet so it is, that the 

 whole of this fine compliment, in which one man, and he 

 none of the best, is praised at the expense of the species, 

 is literally translated from the Italian romancer, whose 

 Arords are, 'Natura il fece, e poi ruppi la stampa.'" 



W. H Y. 



''Poetical Epistle to Dr. W. K" (Vol. xi., 

 p. 444.). — 



" Mvii(TTrjp<Ti. Se IlaAAds 'ABrjVT) 

 'A<rPe(TTOv YeAov Sipcre, TrapeTrKay^ev Se voijjio. 

 Oi S' ■qSri yva6iJ,oi<n, yeKiomv dAAoTpiOKTtv • 

 Alfiio<j>6pvKTa Se Srj Kpea rjaOLov ' o<T(Te S' apa (rtftEiof 

 AaKpud</>iv TrCp-nKavTO. yoov S' io'Cero 0vp.6s." 



Homeri Odyss. xx. 1. 345. 



The author has translated yvadfio^ari aWoTpioiffi 

 "borrowed jaws," after Madame Dacier's bouche 

 d'emprunt. (See Clark and Ernestl's notes in the 

 Leipzig edition, 1824.) I think " crude " and 

 " underdone " at least as good a rendering of 

 alfjio<p6pvKra as Voss's " blutbesudeltes," and very 

 much better than Pope's "floating in gore." 



" The starved assassin," I presume, is Ugolino. 

 In 1713 Dante had few English readers, and the 

 author of the Poetical Epistle probably derived 

 his knowledge of the story from some work which 

 mentioned the cannibalism in hell generally, with- 

 out pointing out the precise place, — the second 

 circle of perpetual frost. The 



" Due ghiacciati in una buca 

 Si, che 1' un capo al altro fu capello," 



certainly had not "fire so near" as to be available 

 for culinary purposes. H. B. C. 



U. U. Club. 



Sir Cloudesley Shovel (Vol. xi., p. 184.).— It is 

 rather doubtful whether Sir C. Shovel was a 

 " Cockthorpe Admiral." Hastings claims the 

 honour of the brave seaman's birth-place ; " The 

 house he lived in stood on the spot now occupied 

 by 117. All Saints Street, and was taken down in 

 1838." (See Ross's Guide to Hastings, p. 56.) 



^ H. G. D. 



Knightsbridge. 



" Dialogus de Lamiis et Pythonicis " (Vol. xi., 

 p. 426.). — I possess a copy of one of the original 

 editions of this tract ; the following is 'a correct 

 transcript of the first leaf or title-page : 



" De Laniis * {sic') et phitonicis mulieribus ad illustris- 

 simum principem dorainum Sigismundum archiducem 

 austrie tractatus pulcherrimus per Ulricum mohtons de 

 Constantia : studii Papiensis decretorum doctorem. Cu- 

 riaque Constantiensis causarum patronum, ad honorem 

 dementis principis sueque; sub celsitudinis emendatione 

 conscriptus." ' 



* Lamia, a she devil or hag, a witch or sorceress that 

 does mischief to children ; a fairy that stealeth or cbangeth 

 children; a bullbeggar. Apuleius, in his exquisite fable 

 of " Cupid and Psyche," calls the envious sisters of Psyche 

 LamicB, which Taylor has translated « sorcerers." — Jfe- 

 tamorph., lib. 6. 



