430 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"* S. VI. 152., Nov. 27. '58. 



often i-eared infants exposed by unnatural mothers ; that 

 in King Cassimer's reign, some huntsmen had taken two 

 of these infants alive, which, although they went on all- 

 fours, could not run so fast as the bears which nourished 

 them ; the)' roared in the same manner, and fled from the 

 sight of men as they did ; the one, by his growth, was com- 

 puted to be eleven or twelve j-ears old, and the other nine 

 or ten. It was a great while before they could be brought 

 to talk, to eat any cooked victuals or bread, or walk on their 

 feet as other men do ; particularly the one who was kept at 

 court ; and the other, being put to a convent at War- 

 saw, there learned a few Polish words, but never to that 

 perfection as to understand or be understood well. Their 

 bodies were very hairj', their skins tawny, and so hardened I 

 that they could bear cold 'weather better than hot ; in a 

 •word, they had nothing to distinguish them from beasts 

 bat their shape and figure. However, as it was believed they 

 ■were human creatures, they were baptized. The king j 

 made a present of that which had been kept some time , 

 at court to the vice-chamberlain of Pomerania, who em- i 

 ployed him in his kitchen, but he could not be reconciled 

 to the heat thereof, nor weaned from his brutish customs. 

 He often took a ramble into the forest to visit his friends 

 the bears, which alwaj'S used him with all the tenderness 

 imaginable; and he always brought home some wild- 

 fruit, which he used to eat with more pleasure than any- 

 thing the kitchen afforded.' " 



EXUL. 



Confession. — In the great question relative to 

 " Confession," which has agitated and is agitating 

 our religious world so violently, — when quota- 

 tions are wrested either way, sometimes by able, 

 oftener by unable hands, — I am surprised that 

 the following passage, illustrating the feelings of 

 the day, has not been brought forward more pro- 

 minently. It is from Fielding's Tovi Jones, edit. 

 1749, vol. ii. p. 182. The model churchman, All- 

 worthy, is supposed to be in ariiculo mortis, when 

 in reply to the philosopher Square : — 



" I wish," cries Tliwackum, in a rage, " I wish, for the 

 ^ake of bis soul, j'our damnable doctrines had not per- 

 verted his faith. It is to this I impute his present be- 

 haviour, so unbecoming a Christian. Who but an Atheist 

 could think of leaving the world without having first 

 made up his account? without confessing his sins, and 

 receiving that Absolution which he knew he had one in 

 the house duly authorised to give him." 



Cesteiensis. 

 Descendant of Goldsmith. — 



" On the 25th July, at Sea, Oliver Goldsmith, aged 24, 

 second officer of the DitnsanJle, third son of the late 

 Commander Charles Goldsmith, R.N., and a great grand- 

 nephew of the poet Oliver Goldsmith." 



From the " deaths " recorded in The Hampshire 

 Advertiser of October 23rd, 1858. Anon. 



The Restoration of the Abbey Church, Dor- 

 chester (0.ron.) — I venture to call the attention of 

 the readers of " N. & Q." to the restoratio.i of 

 this noble church, which is proceeding very slowly, 

 from the want of adequate funds : — 



" Public attention having been called to the state of 

 the Abbey Church of Dorchester . . . works are now about 

 to commence, in connexion with the Oxford Architec- 

 tural Society, and under the direction of G. G. Scott, Esq. 

 The estimated expense is about 600/., towards which 



there is at present in hand about 250?." — Circular from 

 the Inaimbent, dated Jul]/, 1858. 



Should any of your correspondents feel disposed 

 to assist in this good work, subscriptions are 

 " thankfully received " at the Oxford Old Bank, 

 or by the incumbent, the Kev. W. C. Macfarlane, 

 Dorchester, Wallingford. J. Virtue Wynen. 



Hacknev. 



eaucrtcs. 



CHATTERTON AND COLLINS. 



Mr. Moy Thomas, in the Memoir prefixed to 

 his edition of Collins, in Messrs. Bell & Daldy's 

 reissue of the Aldine Poets, tells us that — 



" It is remarkable that Chatterton, with whom Collins 

 has been long associated on that melancholy roll, and 

 who has been said to have imitated Collins in one of his 

 African Eclogues, more than once mentions the poetiy of 

 Collins in terms of contempt." — P. 48. 



The fact is certainly remarkable, if it be a fact; 

 but I confess that I have doubts. Being in- 

 terested in all that relates to Chatterton, I have 

 gone again through his unacknowledged and ac- 

 knowledged writings, but have found no reference 

 to Collins, save in the satire of Kew Gardens 

 (Cambridge edit., ii. 387.). Here Chatterton 

 speaks of 



" What Collins' happy Genius titles verse." 



This is, I have little doubt, the warrant for Mr. 

 Moy Thomas's assertion ; but waiving the objec- 

 tion that 07ice cannot, in plain prose, be converted 

 into ^'■more than once," I would ask what is the 

 proof that this line refers to the poet William Col- 

 lins, the author of the Oriental Eclogues, in which 

 Miss Seward traces the germ of the African 

 Eclogues of his unhappy associate on the roll of 

 fame ? A taste so fine as Chatterton's could 

 hardly have failed to appreciate the beauties of 

 Collins ; and Collins had been too long dead be- 

 fore Chatterton appeared on the scene, and had 

 met with too much misfortune to excite the envy 

 or attract the satire of Chatterton. It is, I think, 

 far more probable that the "Collins" referred to 

 in Kew Gardens was some contemporary verse- 

 writer — perhaps some obscure contributor to 

 Felix Farley's Journal who had provoked the 

 anger of "the marvellous boy." Mr. Thomas's 

 Memoir of Collins is so pleasantly written, and in 

 other respects so accurate, that I trust he will 

 correct this, if he sees fit to modify his opinion, in 

 any future edition. G. H. A. 



Richardson's " Pamela." — About 1750, a volume 

 of Letters was published between a Mrs. Argens (?) 

 and some other correspondents, in which, among 

 other literary subjects, Richardson's Pamela was 



