Oct. ]1. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



277 



THE PENDULUM DEMONSTRATION, ETC. 



(Vol. iv., pp. 129. 177. 2-35.) 



It would have been more cnurteoiis in H. C. K. 

 to have requested me to exhibit my authority for 

 the assertion that the pendulum phenomenon had 

 been latterly attributed to differences in the earth's 

 superficial velocity, than to have assumed that 

 explanation as having originated with myself. 

 There is certainly nothing to justify H. C.K. in 

 calling it " A. E. B.'s theory ; " on the contrary, 

 my avowed object was to suggest objections to it, 

 and even my approval of it was limited to this, 

 that, providing certain difficulties in it could be 

 removed, it would then become the most reasonable 

 explanation as yet offered of the alleged phe- 

 nomenon, — the only one, I might have added, that 

 I had the slightest hope of comprehending. 



I can understand what is meant by the paral- 

 lelism of the earth's axis ; and, with the slight ex- 

 ceptions caused by jjrecession and nutation, I take 

 that to be the standard of fixity of direction in 

 space. "W^hen, therefore, I am told that the plane 

 of a pendulum's oscillation is also fixed in direction, 

 and yet that it is continually changing its relative 

 position with respect to the otlier fixity, the 

 axis of the earth, not only does it not present to 

 my mind a comprehensible idea, but it does present 

 to it a palpable contradiction of the commonest 

 axiom of philosophy. 



I am therefore in a disposition of mind the re- 

 verse of H. C. K.'s ; that which to him is only 

 " hard enough to credit," to me is wholly incom- 

 prehensible ; while that which to him is " utterly 

 impossible to conceive," appears to me a rational 

 hypothesis iu which I can understand at least the 

 ground of assertion. 



H. C. K. asks me to " reduce to paper " the as- 

 sertion of the difference of velocity between two 

 parallels of latitude ten feet apart. He is not 

 surely so unplnlosophical as to imagine that a 

 theory, to be true, must necessarily be palpable to 

 the senses. If the element of increase exist at all, 

 however minute and imperceptible it may be in a 

 single oscillation, repetition of effect must even- 

 tually render it observable. But I shall even 

 gratify H. C. K., and inform him that the difference 

 in linear circumference between two such parallels 

 in the latitude of London would be about fifty 

 feet, so that the northern end of a ton-feet rod, 



[)laced horizontally in the meridian, would travel 

 ess by that number of feet in twenty-four hours 

 than tiie southern end. This, so far from being 

 inadequate, is greatly in excess of the alleged 

 apparent motion in the plane of a pendulum's 

 vibration. 



In the remarks of another correspondent, 

 E. II. Y. (Yo\. iv., p. 177.), tliere is but one point 

 that seems to require observation from mc ; it is 



his assertion that " there is no force by which a 

 body unconnecteil with the earth would have any 

 tendency to rotate with it ! " Is then the rotation 

 of forty miles of atmosphere, "and all that it in- 

 herit," due to friction alone? And even so, can 

 any object, immersed in that atmosphere, be said 

 to be " unconnected with the earth" ? A. E. B. 



WINIFREDA.. " CHILDE HAROLD. 



(Vol. iii., pp. 27. 108. 155. ; Vol. iv., p. 196.) 



I have not yet thanked Lord Bratbrooke for 

 the obliging manner in which, in reply to my in- 

 quiry, he furnished a list of the reputed au- 

 thors of " Winifreda." His recent note on the 

 same subject gives me an occasion for doing so, 

 while expressing my concurrence in his view that 

 G. A. Stevens was not the author. In short, it may 

 be taken now I think as an established fact, that 

 the author is unknown. 



Nevertheless, I do not believe that this poem 

 was written in any part of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury. It appears to me to be the work of a true 

 poet in the most vicious age of English poetry, 

 and infected with all its faults. Weakened with 

 epithets, and its language poor and artificial, it 

 rises to nature at the close, than which nothing of 

 the kind can be much better. In the following 

 stanza I do not altogether like the personification 

 of Time : — 



" And when with envy, Time transported, , 



Shall think to rob us of our joys, 

 You'll in your girls again be courted. 



And I'll go wooing iu my boys." 



A likely thought, truly, for a boy of sixteen! 

 Lly own impression is, that it did not long precede 

 the age of " the little folks on Strawberry Hill." 



Since writing the above I have referred to my 

 copy of Stevens's songs, which I had not at hand 

 before. It is the Oxford edition mentioned by 

 Lord Bratbrooke ; and although it does not con- 

 tain " AVinifreda," a clue, it appears to me, may 

 be drawn from it as to Stevens's connexion with 

 this piece. In the first place, it is to be remarked 

 that the title of the book is. Songs, Comic and 

 Satyrical, by George Alexander Stevens. The 

 motto is from the author's Lecture on Heads, " / 

 love fun! — keep it up!" These circumstances 

 are important, as one would hardly expect to find 

 " AVinifreda " in such a volume, though it were by 

 the same author. Yet, there is a song which, 

 though written in a more lilting measure, is quite 

 as much out of place; and this song shows evi- 

 dence, in my opinion, of Stevens having known 

 and admired "Winifreda." It is entitled "Kural 

 Felicity," anil is to be found at page 71 of the 

 volume. Compare the two following stanzas with 

 the last two of " Winifreda : " — 



