54 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 91. 



she did this. Suspecting, by her manner, that 

 she had some object in view, judge of his surprise, 

 when she rephed : — "I always, when I cut the 

 nails of ray children, let the cuttings fall on the 

 open Bible, that they may grow up to be honest. 

 They will never steal, if the nails are cut over the 

 Bible ! ! " Do we not yet require the educator 

 to be abroad ? T. We. 



iHtiiar -^^otc^. 



The Word ^'■Repudiate." — I cannot lielji fol- 

 lowing Dr. Kennedy's example, and calling at- 

 tention to another word in our language which is 

 now-a-days, on many occasions, used very erro- 

 neously ; I allude to the word repudiation, or 

 rather the verb 9'epudiate. 



How frequently does one hear at public meet- 

 ings such phrases as these : " I utterly repudiate 

 the idea," " I repudiate the sentiment," " 1 re- 

 pudiate the insinuation." A page niiglit be filled 

 with phrases of t'.iis description occurring in re- 

 ported speeches of iccent date. The word, in fiict, 

 is made by public speakers of " unadorned elo- 

 quence" and newspaper writers, to do duty for 

 such words as to refuse, repel, ?-eject, abandon, 

 disoicn, cast off. 



Now, Sir, 1 humbly conceive that repudiation 

 means simply a dissolving of the marriage contract, 

 hence of any contract or obligation ; and I believe 

 I may say with safet}', that in no standard classical 

 author, ancient or modern, is the term repudiation, 

 or the verb repudiate, used, except in connexion 

 with some obligation expressed, or in figurative 

 allusion to such obligation. The term, when ap- 

 plied to tlie " drab-coloured men of Pennsylvania," 

 is undoubtedly proper; they have indeed i-epu- 

 diated their debt, and perhaps brought the word 

 and the thing into vogue ; but to use such a j)hrase 

 as "I repudiate the notion," is, I submit, surely to 

 talk nonsense. II. C. K. 



■ Rectory, Hereford. 



The First Panorama (Vol. iii., p. 526.).— E. N.W. 

 must have made some mistake in his recollection. 

 Girton was a painter, and may have worked at the 

 Panorama of London ; but the " first Panorama" 

 was by Mr. Robert Ijarker. The sketches were 

 made by his son, Henry Aston Barker, when only 

 a lad aged fifteen. Tliey were taken from the top 

 of the Albion IMills : they were also etched by 

 H. A. Barker at the same age, and aqua-tinted by 

 Birnie, and published in six sheets, 22 by 17, a set 

 of which I possess, with a note of their history, as 

 herein communicated, written in dot-so, long a^o, 

 from ]\Ir. B.'s own lips. H. T.^E. 



E.N. W. is correct in saying, that a semicircular 

 view of London from the top of tlie Albion ilills, 

 near Blackfriar's bridge, preceded Barker's pano- 

 ramas. It must have been painted about the year 



1 793. I saw it at the end of that year, or at the very 

 beginning of 1794. But it was not exhibited in 

 St. IMartin's Lane, but in Castle Street, in a rough 

 building — not, I believe, erected for the purpose — 

 at the back of a small house on the eastern side of 

 that street. Perhaps some other of your octo- 

 genarian readers may recollect its being there, as 

 well as mjself. The scene on the Thames was 

 the water-procession on Lord Mayor's day. 



W.D. 



Chaucer and Gray (Vol. iii., p. 492.). — Mb. 

 Thoms suggests a very interesting parallel between 

 a line in Chaucer, and Gray's " Even in our ashes," 

 &c. Gray himself refers to Petrarch as his ori- 

 ginal, and the thought occurs in Shakspeare : 

 " In me thou seest the glowing of sucli fire, 

 That on the ashes of his youth doth lie." 



And ]Malone, in a note on the passage {Supplement 

 to Shakspeare, 1780, vol. i. p. 640.), adduces the 

 passage in Ciiaucer quoted by Mr. Thoms as an 

 illustration. Steevens has mentioned the following 

 passage in Sir P. Sidney's Arcadia : " In ashes of 

 despaire, though burnt, shall make thee live." 

 Compare, also, Aidov.y ami Cleopatra, Act V. 

 Sc. 2. J. O. H. 



To the verse, 



" Even in our ashes live their wonted fires," 

 Gray has himself appended a note, indicating that 

 it was suggested by Petrarch, sonnet 169.; and 

 " I will take the poet's word lor a thousand 

 pounds." It was originally written — 



" Awake and faltliful to her wonted fires," 

 which has but little to do witli Chaucer. Varro. 



Burns and Propej'tius. — There is a strange in- 

 clination to attribute similarity of sentiment to 

 plagiarism; as if it were almost impossible for two 

 men of genius to hit upon the same notions, inde- 

 pendently of each other. In Propertius (II. i. 3, 4.) 

 we find — 



'■ Noil haDC Calliope, non hasc mihi cantat Apollo, 

 Ingenlum nobis ipsa puella facit.'' 



In Burns we read — 



" O, were I on Parnassus' hill 1 

 Or had of Helicon my fill ; 

 That I might catch poetic skill. 



To sing how dear I love thee. 

 But Nitli maun be my Muse's well. 

 Ml/ Muse maun be thy bonnie sel'." 



Had Burns been much of a Latin scholar, he 

 would probably have been accused of stealing from 

 Propertius. Varro. 



Shakspeare in Sweden. — Tlie writings of Shak- 

 speare would appear from the following fact to be 

 read with as much avidity and delight in Sweden 

 as in his native country. A translation of his 

 plays by Hagberg, Professor of Greek in the 



