492 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 86. 



and that the other edition came not out both parts 

 together, because of the additions. I am sorry 

 you find it not among Mr. Anstey's books, nor 

 can I find it here. With my humble service to your 

 good hidy, I am, dearest sir, your most aflTectionate 

 humble servant, Tho. Browne. 



The letter, of which the above is a transcript, 

 may be interesting to some of your readers ; I 

 therefore send it you for publication : the name of 

 the person to whom it was addressed, and the date, 

 have been torn off. to. 



[Tlioiras Browne, the writer of the foregoing letter, 

 was a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge ; but 

 subsequently, with his friend Mr. Baker, became a 

 Nonjuror. The letter appears to have been written to 

 the Rev. Hilkiah Bedford, a Nonjuiing clergyman, who 

 was at this time preparing his masterly reply to An- 

 thony Collins' work, Priestcraft in Perfection, which was 

 published in 1709. Mr. Bedford's work was published 

 anonymously, and is entitled, A I'inrlication of the 

 Church of Enc/land from the Aspersions of a late Libel 

 entituled " Priestcraft in Perfection," Sfc. By a Priest of 

 the Church of England : London, 1 710. The preface 

 has been attributed to Dr. Joseph Trapp. Mr. Bed- 

 ford has availed himself of the information conveyed to 

 him in the letter given .above, especially in pages 32. 

 35. 42. 78. 84. At page 101. he says, "I shall set 

 down what farther account concerning this ancient MS. 

 I have received in several letters from two persons of 

 great learning and integrity at Cambridge, who hare 

 consulted these MSS. of Corpus Christi formerly, and 

 been so obliging to examine them again now for my 

 satisfaction, with all the care and exactness due to a 

 matter of such moment." The minium mentioned by 

 the writer of the letter is the red lead pencil commonly 

 used by Archbishop Parker, for noting particular pas- 

 sages in the documents he perused.] 



ON TWO PASSAGES IN DRTDEN. 



I have met with a notion in Dryden's Poems, 

 which reads very like a blunder. It occurs in the 

 " Spanish Friar," as follows : — 



" There Is a pleasure sure in being mad, 

 Which none but madmen know." 



And again in this couplet : 



" And frantic men in their mad actions show 

 A happiness, that none but madmen know " 



There is a description of madness to which all 

 men are more or less subject, and which Pascal 

 alludes to in one of his " Pensees : " 



" Les hommes sont si necessairement fous, que ce 

 serait etre fou par un autre tour de folic, que de ne pas 

 etre fou : " 



or, as Boileau has it in the couplet : 

 " Tous les hommes sont fous, ct malgre leurs soins, 

 Ne dlHTerent, entre eux, que du plus ou du moins." 



There is another sort of madness which is de- 

 scribed by Terence as 



"cum ratione insanire." 



And there is a third species of it, which Dryden 

 himself speaks of in the well-known line adopted 

 from Seneca : 



" Great wits are sure to madness near allied." 



Now, it is obvious that, in the passages above 

 quoted from Dryden, he does not refer to any of 

 these three kinds of madness. As a man, he could 

 say in regard to the first : 



" Homo sum : humani nihil a me alienum puto." 



As a man of the world his whole life was an ex- 

 emplification of the second ; for no one knew 

 better than he how to be mad by rule. And as 

 one of our greatest wits lie was entitled to claim a 

 near alliance to that madness which is character- 

 istic of men of genius. It is clear, therefore, 

 that, in the lines cpmted above, he speaks of that 

 total deprivation of reason, which is emphatically 

 described as stark, staring madness ; and hence 

 the blunder. In point of fact, Dryden either 

 knew the pleasure and happiness of which he 

 speaks, as belonging to that sort of madness, or 

 he did not know them. If he knew them, then by 

 liis own showing lie was a madman. If he did 

 not know them, how could he affirm that none but 

 madmen knew them ? 



Should my view of this matter be incorrect, I 

 shall be thankful to any of your readers who will 

 take the trouble to set me riglit. 



IIenrt II. Breen. 



St. Lucia, April 15. 185L 



iMt'iior i^ntcrf. 



Lord Edioard Fitzgerald's Mother. — A highly 

 respectable woman, recently living in my service, 

 and who was born and bred in tlie household of 

 the late Duke of Leinster, told me that, when 

 she was a child, she was much about the person 

 of "the old Duchess;" .and that she had often 

 seen the bloody handkerchief that was taken off 

 Lord Edward Fitzgerald, after he had been shot 

 at his capture. This relic of her unfortunate son 

 the venerable and noble lady always wore stitched 

 inside her dress. The peerage states that she was 

 a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, was married 

 in 1746-7, and bore seventeen children. As the 

 arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald was not until 

 1798, she must have been full seventy years old 

 when she thus mourned ; reminding one in the 

 sternness of her grief of the " Ladye of Brnnk- 

 some." A. G. 



Chaucer and Gray. — Of all the oft-quoted lines 

 from Gray's Elegy, there is not one which is more 

 frequently introduced than the well-known 

 " E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires." 



Now Gray was an antiquary, and there is no 

 doubt too well read in Chaucer. Is it too much, 



