Jan. 18. 1851.] 



:^fOTES AND QUERIES, 



35 



" Tempt no more, I may not yeeld 

 Although thine eyes 

 A Kingdome may surpiize : 

 Leave off thy wanton toiles 

 The high borne Prince of Wales 

 Is mounted in the field, 



AVhere the Royall Gentry flocke. 



Though alone 



Nobly borne 

 or a ne're decaying Stocke, 

 Cavaleers be bold 

 Bravely hold your hold, 

 He that loyters 

 Is by Trayto" 



Bought and sold. 



" One Kissc more and y" farewell 



Oh no, no more, 



I prethee giue me o're. 

 'Why eloudest thou thy beames, 

 I see by these extreames, 

 A Woman's Heaven or Hell. 



Pray the King may haue his owne, 



And the Queen 



May be seen 

 With her babes on England's Throne. 

 Rally up your Men, 

 One shall vanquish ten. 

 Victory we 

 Come to try thee 



Once agen. 



Query : Who was the author of the above ? 



F. H. 



GBAC S £LEGY. 



J. F. M. (Vol. i., p. 101.) remarks, "I would 

 venture to throw out a hint, that an edition of 

 this Elegy, exhibiting all the known translations, 

 arranged in double columns, might be made a 

 noble monument to the memory of Gray." It has 

 been asserted that there is scarcely a thought in 

 this Elegy that Gray lias not borrowed from some 

 writer, ancient or modern ; and if this be true, I 

 would take the liberty of adding a hint to that of 

 J. F. M., namely, that the pro[)osed edition should 

 contain a third column, exhibiting all the known 

 plagiarisms in this famous Elegy. To begin with 

 the first line — 



" The curfew tolls the knell of parting day." 



Lord Byron, in his notes to the third canto of 

 Don Jua?i, says that this was adopted from the 

 following passage in Dante's Purgatory, canto viii. : 



"si ode squilla di iontaiio 



Clie paja '1 gionio piangcr die si niuore." 



And it is worthy of notice that this passage cor- 



responds with the first line of Giannini's transla- 

 tion of the Elegy, as quoted by J. F. M. : — 

 " Piange la squilla '1 giorno, che si muore." 



1 must add, however, that long before Lord Byron 

 thought of writing Don Juan, Mr. Gary, in his ex- 

 cellent translation of the Italian poet, had noticed 

 this plagiarism in Gray ; and what is more, had 

 shown that the principal thought, the " giorno 

 die si muore," was borrowed by Dante from 

 Statius's 



" Jam moriente die." 



Henet H. Breen. 



St. Lucia, West Indies, Nov. 1850. 



[The preceding communication was accompanied by 

 several others, and by the following gratifying letter, 

 which we print as a fresh proof that our paper is ful- 

 filling the object for which it was instituted, namely, 

 that of promoting literary intercourse between men of 

 letters throughout the world ; and that it is as favour- 

 ably received by our fellow countrymen abroad, as it 

 has been by those who are enabled to receive it wet 

 from the press: — 



" Owing to the difficulty of procuring the early 

 numbers of ' Notes and Queries,' especially at this 

 distance from Britain, I have been compelled to wait 

 for its publication in a collected form. I am now in 

 possession of the first volume, and beg leavf to offer 

 you a few Notes which have occurred to me on pe- 

 rusing its contents. I am fully sensible of the disad- 

 vantage of corresponding with you from so remote a 

 corner of the globe, and am prepared to find some of 

 my remarks anticipated by other correspondents nearer 

 home ; but having deeply suffered from the literary 

 isolation consequent upon a residence of twenty-one 

 years in this country, I shall gladly submit to any dis- 

 advantage which shall not involve a total exclusion 

 from the means of inter-communication so opportunely 

 afforded by your excellent periodical 



"Henry II. Breen."] 



THE NINEVEH MONUMENTS AND MILTON S NA- 

 TIVITY ODE ILLUSTRATED FROM LUCIAN. 



Layard in \ns Nineveh, vol. ii., p. 471., in his 

 description of " the sacred emblems carried by 

 the priests," says, they ai'e principally the fruit or 

 cone of the pine. 



" . . . . and the square utensil which, as I have 

 already remarked, appears to have been of embossed or 

 engraved metal, or of metal carved to represent wicker 

 work, or sometimes actually of wicker work." 



He adds, that M. Lajard "has shown the con- 

 nection between the cone of the cypress and the 

 worship of Venus in the religious systems of the 

 East ;" that it has been suggested that " the square 

 vessel held the holy water," that, " however this 

 may be, it is evident liom their constant occur- 

 rence on Assyrian monuments, that they wore 

 very inqiortant objects in religious ceremonies. 

 Any attempt to explain their use and their typical 



