408 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»<» S. VI. 161., Nov. 20. '68. 



on by Norris of Bemerton. Thus, in his poem 

 called The Grant: — 



" What bliss do we oft to Delusion owe? 

 Who would not still be cheated so ? 

 Opinion 's an ingredient 

 That goes so far to make up true Content, 

 That even a Dream of Happiness 

 With real Joy the Soul does bless ; 

 Let me but always dream of this, 

 And I will envy none their waking Bliss." 



Again, in his poem Against}Knoivledge : — 



" Our Joys, like Tricks, do all on Cheats depend. 

 And when once known, are at an end. 

 Happy and Wise, two blessings are 

 Which meet not in this mortal sphere ; 

 Let me be ignorant below, 

 And when I've solid good, then let me know." 



See .also his "Idea of Happiness;" and cf. Pas- 

 cal's Thoughts on the Vanity, Weakness, and Misery 

 of Man. 



II. " iEsop's Damsel, turned from a Cat to a Woman." 

 — xxsviii. 148. 



In the Rev. Thos. James's charming edition of 

 ^sop's Fables (London, 1 852), the above is given 

 at p. 139. under the title of " Venus and the Cat." 

 See also L'Estrange's JEsop, p. 61. Fab. 61. 



III. " He that builds a fair House upon an ill Seat 

 committeth himself to Prison. . . . Neither is it ill Air 

 only that niaketh an ill Seat ; but ill Ways, ill Markets ; 

 and, if you will consult with Momus, ill Neighbours." — 

 xlv. 167. 



As Lord Bacon's allusion here has been misun- 

 derstood by some editors, and as he refers to the 

 same Fable in his Advancement of Learning, it 

 may be well to subjoin it. The Fable of " Jupiter, 

 Neptune, Minerva, and Momus," is as follows : — 



" Jupiter, Neptune, and Minerva (as the story goes) 

 once contended which of them should make the most per- 

 fect thing. .Jupiter made a M.an ; Pallas made a House ; 

 and Neptune made a Bull; and Momus — for he had not 

 yet been turned out of Olympus — was chosen judge to 

 decide which production had the greatest merit. He 

 began by finding fault with the Bull, because his horns 

 ■were not below his eyes, so that he might see when he 

 butted with them. Next he found fault with the Man, 

 because there jvas no Windoiv hi his breast, that all might 

 see his inward thoughts and feelings. And lastly he 

 found fault with the House, because it had no wheels to 

 enable its inhabitants to remove from bad Neighbours. But 

 Jupiter forthwith drove the critic out of Heaven, telling 

 him that a fault-finder could never be pleased, and that it 

 was time to criticise the works of others when he had 

 done some good thing himself." 



In the Advancement of Learning, Bacon ad- 

 vises : — 



" That we procure to ourselves, as far as possible, the 

 Windoiv once required by Momus, who, seeing sj many 

 corners and recesses in the structure of the Human Heart, 

 found fault that it should want a Window, through which 

 those dark and crooked turnings might be viewed." — B. 

 viii. ch. ii. § xssiv., Devey's edit, p. 320. 



IV. " Like the dust of a Bent." — xlvi. 175. 



In the 8th edition of Johnson's Diet. (London, 



1799), "Bent" is defined as "a stalk of grass, 

 called bent-grass." Bacon and Peacham are quoted, 

 also the following lines of Drayton : — 



" His spear, a Bent both stiff and strong, 

 And well near of two inches long." 



But bent not only signifies " a stalk of grass," as 

 Bacon uses it, but also ivild fields where bents and 

 long grass groiv. Thus in the ballad of Chevy 

 Chace, stan. 28., in the line — 



" Yet bides Erie Douglas on the bent," 



" the bent" may either mean the long grass or the 

 field itself. 



V. " It is not good to look too long upon these turning 

 Wheels of Vicissitude, lest we become giddy. As for the 

 Philology of them, that is but a Circle of Tales, and 

 therefore not fit for this writing." — Iviii. 219. 



There is a Revolution and Anamnesis of His- 

 tory as of Knowledge, and this truth is well 

 expressed by Dr. Newman in a poem in the 

 Lyra Apostolica, entitled " Faith against Sight," 

 with the motto, " As it was in the days of Lot, so 

 shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man :" — 

 " The World has Cycles in its course, when all 

 That once has been, is acted o'er again : — 

 Not by some fated law which need appal 



Our faith, or binds our deeds as with a chain ; 

 But by men's separate sins, which blended still 

 The same bad round fulfil." — cxxxviii. 



In one of Howell's Familiar Letters, addressed 

 to Sir Kenelm Digby at Rome, and dated "Fleet, 

 3 March, 1646," occurs an illustrative passage 

 (11th edit, p. 406.): — 



" There have been (since you shook hands with 

 England) manj' strange things happened here, which 

 Posterity must have a strong faith to believe ; but 

 for my part I wonder not at anything, I have seen such 

 monstrous things. You know there is nothing that can 

 be casual, there is no success good or bad, but is con- 

 tingent to Man some time or other ; nor are there any 

 Contingencies, Present or Future, but they have their 

 Parallels from time Past. For the great Wheel of For- 

 tune, upon whose Rim (as the twelve Signs upon the 

 Zodiac) all worldly Chances are embossed, turned round 

 perpetually ; and the Spokes of that Wheel, which point 

 of all Human Actions, return exactly to the same place 

 after such a time of Revolution : which makes me little 

 marvel at any of the strange traverses of these distracted 

 times, in regard there hath been the like, or siich like, 

 formerly. If the Liturgy is now suppressed, the Missal 

 and the Roman Breviary were used so a hundred 3'ears 

 since. If Crosses, Church-windows, Org.ans and Fonts, 

 are now battered down, 1 little wonder at it; for Chapels, 

 Monasteries, Herniitaries, Nunneries, and other Religious 

 Houses, were used so in the time of old King Henry. If 

 Bishops and Deans are now in danger to be demolished, 

 I little wonder at it ; for Abbots, Priors, and the Pope 

 himself had that fortune here an age since. . . . You know 

 better than I, that all Events, good or bad, come from 

 the all-disposing high Deity of Heaven : If good. He 

 produceth them; if bad, He permits them. He is the Pilot 

 that sits at the stern, and steers the great Vessel of the 

 World, and we must not presume to direct Him in His 

 Course, for He understands the use of the Compass better 

 than we. He commands also the Winds and the Wea- 

 ther ; and after a Storm He never fails to send us a Calm, 



