Dec. 7. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



459 



Plato Sympos. § 32. (p. 207. D. Stepli.) : 



" Mortal natures seek to attain, sa far as they can, 

 to immortality ; but tliey can attain to it by tliis ,a;ene- 

 ration only; for thus thev ever leave a new behind 

 them to supply the place of the old." Compare § .31. 

 " Generation immortalises tlie mortal, so fiir as it 

 can be immortalised." — Plato Leg. iv. (p. 721. G.), vi. 

 § 17. (p. Ti?^. E.) ; Ocell. Luean. iv, §2. 



Butler, Serm. I. on Human Nature (p. 12. Ox- 

 ford, 1844) : 



" "Which [external goods], according to a very 

 ancient observation, the most abandoned would choose 

 to obtain by innocent means, if they were as easy, and 

 as effectual to their end." 



Dr. 'Whewell lias not, I tliink, in liis edition, 

 pointed out the passage alluded to, Cic. de Fin. III., 

 c. 11. §3G. : 



" Quis est enlm, aut quis unrjuam fuit aut avarilia 

 tam ardenti, aut tam eftrenatis cupiditatibus, ut eamdem 

 illam rem, quam adipisci scelere quovis velit, non 

 multis partibus malit ad sese, etiam omni impunitate 

 proposita, sine facinore, quam illo moJo perveiiire ? " 



J. E. B. Mayor. 



Marlborouoli College. 



SHAKSPEAKE AND THE OLD ENGLISH ACTORS IN 

 GERMANY. 



My studies on the first appearance of Shak- 

 speare on the German stage, by means of the so- 

 called " English Comedians " who from the end of 

 the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth 

 century visited Germany and the Netherlands, led 

 me to the following passage of a Dutch author: 



" In the Voyages of Vincent le Blanc through 

 England, I met with a description of the representa- 

 tion of a most absurd tragedy, which I recognised to 

 be the Titits Andrn/iicKS of Shakspeare." 



I have examined the Voyages of Vincentle Blanc 

 without having been able to discover the passage 

 alluded to; ami as the Dutch author says that 

 some time had elapsed between his first reading 

 tliose Voyages and the composition of his treatise, 

 and as he seems to quote only from memory, I 

 am led to believe his liaving confounded Vincent 

 le Blanc with some other traveller of the same 

 period. 



Undoubtedly one of your numerous readers can 

 furnish mc witii the title of the work in which such 

 a descri[)lion occurs, or with the name of some 

 other foreign traveller who may have visited 

 Englanil at the period alluded to, and in whose 

 works I may find the description mentioned above. 



Albert Coun. 



Berlin, Nov. 19. 1850. 



TEX ClIILDUEN AT A niBTII. 



The following circumstance, although perhaps 

 liardly coming within the ordinary scope of the 



" Notes and Queries," appears to me too curious 

 to allow a slight doubt to prevent the attempt to 

 place it on permanent and accessible record. 

 Chancing, the other day, to overhear an ancient 

 gossip say that there was living in her neighbour- 

 hood a woman who was one oiien children born at 

 the same time, I laughed at her for her credulity, 

 — as well I might! As, however, she mentioned a 

 name and place where I might satisfy myself, I 

 called the next day at a small greengrocer's shop 

 in this town, the mistress of which, a good-looking, 

 respectable woman, aged seventy, at once assured 

 me that her mother, whose name was Birch, and 

 carae from Derby, had been delivered of ten 

 children; my informant having been the only one 

 that lived, " the other nine" she added, " being in 

 bottle in the Museum in London ! " On mentioning 

 the matter to a respectable professional gentleman 

 of this place, he said "he had a recollection of the 

 existence of a glass jar, which was alleged to con- 

 tain some such preparation, in the Museum of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, as mentioned when he 

 was a pupil in London. Of the question, or the 

 fact, of so marvellous a gestation and survivorship 

 in the history of human nature should strike the 

 editor of "Notes and Queries" as forcibly as 

 his correspondent, the former, should he publish 

 this article, may perhaps be kind enough to accom- 

 pany it with the result of at least an inquiry, as to 

 whether or not the Museum of the Royal College 

 of Surgeons does contain anything like corrobora- 

 tive evidence of so strange, and, if true, surely so 

 unprecedented a phenomenon. N. D. 



[Ve are enabled by the courtesy of Professor Owen 

 to state that there exists no corroboration of this re- 

 markable statement in the IMuseimi of the College of 

 Surgeons. The largest number at a birth, of which 

 any authentic record appears, is five, and the Museum 

 contains, in case No. 3681, five children, of about five 

 months, all females, which were born at the same 

 time. Three were still-born, two were born alive, and 

 survived their birth but a short time. The mother, 

 Margaret Vvaddington, aged twenty-one, was a poor 

 woman of the township of Lower Darling, near Black- 

 burn in Lancashiie. This remarkable birth took place 

 on the 24th April, 178G, and was the subject of a com- 

 munieation to the Royal Society, which contained also 

 the result of an investigation into similar eases which 

 could be well authenticated, and which may be seen in 

 a note in the admirable Catalogue of the College 

 Museum, vol. v. pp. 177 — 185. As the remarkable 

 birth described by our correspondent N. D. took place 

 five years previously to these iiKjuiries, and is not men- 

 tioned, it is scarcely possible to doubt that his inform- 

 ant must be labouring under some great mistake. If 

 such a birth took place, it is probable that the parish 

 register will contain fome record of the fact. Our 

 correspondent will, ))erhaps, take the trouble to make 

 some f(Uther investigations, so as to trace the source of 

 the error, for error there nuist be, in the statement of 

 his informant.] 



