118 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 94. 



Totnes). From this it appears that John Bodley 

 was long resident at Geneva — 



" Where [says Sir Thomas], as far as I remember, 

 the English church consisted of some hundred persons. 

 I was at that time of twelve years of age, but tlirough 

 my father's cost and care sufficiently instructed to 

 become an auditor of Chevalerius in Hebrew, of 

 Beraldus in Greek, of Calvin and Beza in divinity, 

 and of some other profes5ors in the university, which 

 was then newly erected: besides my domestical teachers 

 in the house of Philibertus Saracenus, a famous phy- 

 sician in that city, with whom I was boarded, where 

 Robertu5 Constantinus, that made the Greek Lexicon, 

 read Homer unto me." 



There is, however, no mention of John Bodley's 

 having been one of the transLitors of the Bible. 



R. J. King. 



WITHER S " HALLELUJAH. 



(Vol. iii., p. 330.) 



A correspondent, S. S. S., inquires concerning 

 one of the numberless, and now almost fanieless, 

 works of George Wither, a poet of the seventeenth 

 century, famous in his generation, but unworthily 

 disparaged in that which followed him; the names 

 of Quarles and Wither being proverbially classed 

 with those of Bavins and Majvius in the Augustan 

 age. The Hallelujah of the latter has become 

 precious from its rarity. A copy of this volume 

 (of nearly 500 pages) was lent to me several 

 3'ears ago, by a collector of such treasures. On 

 the blank at the l)ack of the cover, there was 

 written a memorandum that it had been bought 

 at Heber's sale by Thorpe the bookseller for 

 sixteen guineas ; ray friend, I had reason to be- 

 lieve, paid a much higher price for it, when it fell 

 into his hands. The contents consist of several 

 hundreds of hymns for all sorts and conditions of 

 men, on all the ordinary, and on many of the 

 extraordinary circumstances of human life. Of 

 course they are very heterogeneous, yet no small 

 number are beyond the average of such compo- 

 sitions in point of devotional and poetical excel- 

 lence. 



The author himself, with the consciousness of 

 Horace, in his 



" Exegl raonumentum asre perennius," 

 crowns his labours at the 487th page with the 

 following " lo triumphe" lines: — 



" Although my Muse flies yet far short of those. 

 Who perfect Hallelujahs can compose, 

 Here to affirm I am not now afraid, 

 What once in part a healhen prophet said. 

 With slighter warrant, when to end was bi'ought 

 What he for meaner purposes had wrought ; 

 2'/ie ivork is finished, which nor human power, 

 Nor flames, nor time, nor envy shall devour, 

 But with devotion to God's praise be sung 

 As long as Britain speaks her English tongue, 



Or shall that Christian saving faith possess, 

 Which will preserve these Isles in happiness ; 

 And, if conjecture fail not, some, that speak 

 In other languages, shall notice take 

 Of what my humble musings have composed. 

 And, by these helps, be often more disposed 

 To celebrate His praises in their songs. 

 To whom all honour and all praise belongs." 



How has this fond anticipation been fulfilled ? 

 Tiiere are not known (says my authority) to be 

 more than tJu-ee ov four copies in existence of this 

 indestructible work ; and the price in gold which 

 a solitary specimen can command, is no evidence 

 of anything but its market value. Had its poetic 

 worth been proportionate, its currency might have 

 been as common as that of Milton's masterpiece, 

 and its trade price as low as Paternoster Row 

 could afford a cheap edition of the Pilgrim's 

 Progress. J. M. G. 



Hallamshire. 



P. S. — Lowndes says : 



" Few books of a cotemporary date can more readily 

 be procured than Wither's first Eemembrancer in 1628 ; 

 few, it is believed, can be more difficult of attainment 

 than his second Remembrancer, licensed in 1640, of 

 which latter Dahymple observes, 'there are some things 

 interspersed in it, nowhere, perhaps, to be surpassed.'" 

 — Bibliographer's Manual, p. 1971. 



FIRST PANORAMA. 



(Vol. iv., p. 54.) 



I did not speak of my own recollection of GIrtln's 

 panorama ; my memory cannot reach so far back. 

 It was my father who does perfectly remember 

 Girtitis semicircular panorama. I think the mistake 

 must be with H. T. E. Some years back a large col- 

 lection of GIrtln's drawings and sketches were sold 

 at PImlico ; my father went to see them, and was 

 delighted to find among them some of the original 

 sketches for this panorama, which he immediately 



recogniseil and bought. He afterwards showed 

 . . .... 



them to GIrtln's son, now llvmg in practice as a 



surgeon at Islington (I believe), who identified 

 them as his father's work, and with whom I went 

 to see the painting, when not many years back it 

 was found in a carpenter's loft. Girtin certainly 

 was a painter principally in water colour, and one 

 who, with the present J. M. W. Turner, contri- 

 buted much to the advancement of that branch of 

 art ; but I do not see how that is a reason why he 

 did not paint a panorama. I should think it not 

 unlikely that two semicircular panoramas of the 

 same subject were painted ; and, therefore, with all 

 deference, believe that the mistake is with H. T. E. 

 GIrtin's son, if applied to, could, and I am sure 

 would, give any Information he possessed readily. 



E. N. W. 



