May 20. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



469 



on the left her daughters, should, as so many houghs, 

 be spread forth. Her grandchildren should have their 

 names inscribed on the branches of those boughs ; the 

 great-grandchildren on the twigs of those branches ; 

 the great-great-grandchildren on the leaves of those 

 twigs. Such as survived her death should be done in 

 a lively green, the rest (as blasted) in a pale and yellow 

 fading colour. 



" Pliny, lib. vii. cap. 13., (who reports it as a wonder 

 worthy the chronicle, that Chrispinus Hilarus, prceiata 

 pompa, ' with open ostentation,' sacrificed in the capitol 

 seventy-four of his children and children's children 

 attending on him,) would more admire, if admitted to 

 this spectacle. 



«' Vives telleth us of a village in Spain, of about an 

 hundred houses, whereof all the inhabitants were issued 

 from one certain old man who then lived, when as that 

 village was so peopled, so as the name of propinquity, 

 how the youngest of the children should call him, 

 could not be given.* ' Lingua enim nostra supra 

 abavum non ascendit;' ('Our language,' saith he, 

 meaning the Spanish, ' affords not a name above the 

 great-grandfather's father'). But, had the offspring of 

 this lady been contracted into one place, they were 

 enough to have peopled a city of a competent propor- 

 tion, though her issue was not so long in succession, as 

 broad in extent. 



" I confess very many of her descendants died before 

 her death ; in which respect she was far surpassed by 

 a Roman matron, on which the poet thus epitapheth it, 

 in her own person f : 



* Viginti atque novem, genitrici Callicratece, 



Nullius sexus mors mihi visa fuit. 

 Sed centum et quinque erplevi bene messibus annos, 

 In tremulam baculo non subeunte tnanum.' 



* Twenty-nine births Callicrate I told, 

 And of both sexes saw none sent to grave, 

 I was an hundred and five winters old, 

 Yet stay from staff my hand did never crave.' 



Thus, in all ages, God bestoweth personal felicities on 

 some far above the proportion of others. The Lady 

 Temple died a.d. 1656."] 



Samuel White. — In Bishop Horsley's Biblical 

 Criticism, he refers several times to a Samuel 

 White, whom he speaks of in terms of contempt, 

 and calls him, in one place, " that contemptible 

 ape of Grotius ;" and in another, "so dull a man." 

 Query, who was this Mr. White, and what work 

 did he publish ? I. E. E. 



[Samuel White, M.A., was a Fellow of Trinity 

 College, Cambridge, and Chaplain to the Earl of Port- 

 land. His work, so severely criticised by Bishop 

 Horsley, is entitled A Commentary on the Prophet 

 Isaiah, wherein the literal Sense of his Prophecies is 

 briefly explained: London, 4to., 1709. In his Dedi- 

 cation he says : " I have endeavoured to set in a true 

 light one of the most difficult parts of Holy Scripture, 



* In Comment upon 8th chapter of lib. xv. de Civi- 

 tate Dei. 



f Ausonius, Epitaph. Heroum, num. 34. 



following the footsteps of the learned Grotius as far as 

 I find him in the right ; but taking the liberty to leave 

 him where I think him wide of the prophet's mean- 

 ing-"] 



Heralds College. — Are the books in the Heralds' 

 College open to the public on payment of reason- 

 able fees ? Y. S. M. 



[The fee for a search is 5s. ; that for copying of 

 pedigrees is 6s. 8d. for the first, and 5s. for every other 

 generation. A general search is 11. 2s. The hours of 

 attendance are from ten till four.] 



Pope. — Where, in Pope's Works, does the pas- 

 sage occur which is referred to as follows by 

 Eichter in his Gronlandische Prozesse, vol. i. ? 



" Pope vom Menschen (eigentlich vom Manne) 

 sagt, ' Er tritt auf, um sich einmal umzusehen, und 

 zu sterben.' " 



A. E. 



Aberdeen. 



[" Awake, my St. John ! leave all meaner things 

 To low ambition, and the pride of kings. 

 Let us (since life can little more supply 

 Than just to look about us, and to die') 

 Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man." 



Essay on Man, Epist. i. 1. 1 — 5.] 



BLANCO WHITE'S SONNET. 



(Vol. vii., pp. 404. 486.) 

 This sonnet first appeared in The Bijou, an 

 annual published by Pickering in 1828. It is en- 

 titled : 



" NIGHT AND DEATH. 



A Sonnet: dedicated to S. T. Coleridge, Esq., by his 

 sincere friend Joseph Blanco White. 



Mysterious night, when the first man but knew 

 Thee by report, unseen, and heard thy name, 

 Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, 

 This glorious canopy of light and blue? 



Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 

 Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 

 Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came, 

 And lo ! creation widen'd on his view. 



Who could have thought what darkness lay con- 

 cealed 

 Within thy beams, O Sun ? Or who could find, 



Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood reveal'd, 

 That to such endless orbs thou mad'st us blind? 

 Weak man ! Why to shun death this anxious strife ? 

 If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ?" 



In a letter from Coleridge to White, dated 

 Nov. 28, 1827, he thus speaks of it : 



" I have now before me two fragments of letters 

 begun, the one in acknowledgment of the finest and 

 most graceful sonnet in our language (at least, it is 

 only in Milton's and Wordsworth's sonnets that I 



