264 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[Oct. 26, 1883. 



eminent Tvriters of blank verse to correct their metres. For 

 instance how sad to think that a person called John Milton wrote 

 two such lines as these : — 



" Princes of Hell ? for so the popular vote 

 Inclines here to continue, and build up here," 

 &c. Now if " H. B.," had gone counting along after him llr. 

 Milton would have sat corrected. Then Shakespeare, — why, dear 

 me, he (you may have heard of him perhaps ?) was quite a gross 

 offender against your blank verse rule. Here are a few lines for 

 you to count over, — don't trouble to read them, still less think 

 what they may mean, — keep on counting syllables, that's the only 

 true way to enjoy poetry 



" For iiot alone 

 The death of Fulvia with more earnest touches. 

 Do strongly speak to us ; but the letters, too, 

 Of many our contriving friends in Eome 

 Petition us at home : Sextus Pompeius 

 Hath given the dare to Caesar, and commands 

 The empire of the sea : our slippery jjeople 

 Whose love is never link'd to the deserver, 

 (Till his deserts are past) begin to throw 

 Pompey the Great, and all his dignities. 

 Upon his son ; who high in name and power. 

 Higher than both in blood and life, stands up 

 For the main soldier ; whose quality, going on, 

 The sides o' the world may danger : much is breeding. 

 Which, like the courser's hair, hath yet but life. 

 And not a serpent's poison. Say our pleasure," &c. 

 You may perhaps have noticed also that the page of Knowledge 

 on which the lines appear is not perfectly rectangular. I fancy 

 Yega could give a tolerably good reason, though yon might not 

 perhaps be convinced by it, for dropping a syllable (to be replaced 

 in reading I imagine by a pause — appropriate enough — after the 

 word " dead ") in the line 



" And dead. — Their ruling sun shone on them," &c. 

 And even for the eight syllable line, — though the licence is unusual 



" Till — sweeping onwards — shone its orb," &c. 

 It would have been so easy to have completed the ten syllables 

 you think essential — but others do not — by throwing in the word 

 "swiftly" before " sweeping " that — do you know ? — I shall be not 

 at all surprised to learn that Yega thought the change of measure, 

 and the suggestion of pause, more effective. But pray do some 

 more counting and give us some more rules. Should the number 

 of words in a paragraph be odd or even, a perfect square or a 

 perfect cube, prime or resolvable into factors ? You might find 

 time to glance over Macaulay's essay on Byron, to learn 

 what he (Macaulaj') thought of such rules— if yon can give 

 an}' attention to mere thoughts. — J. Haerisox. Your comparison 

 to Thomson will please Y. Xo; Y. is not Mr. Spurgeon. — Miss 

 Ryall (Yentnor) should send such communications to the pub- 

 lishers, the Editor has nothing to do with the matter. — Jas. 

 Dixox. Thanks for notes suggestions about American English, 

 Mr. Foster's " Nursery Ehymes," &c. That sentence about Shake- 

 speare's Salisbury should have run, " Shakespeare knew only tri- 

 syllabic Salisbniy." " Well-natured " has as good a right to exist 

 as " goodnatured." Everyone who writes much is apt to make 

 words to his use if he wants them : I know, I do — freely. Is not 

 your criticism hypercritical that " the French " and not " we " have 

 Gnillaume, &c. \ Are not the French of us ? or does " we " always 

 mean " we English " ? If it is to be restricted, why not take it to 

 mean " we Londoners " ? or " we the taUors of Tooley-street " 'i or 

 we the Fortescne-Montgomeries ? or " my wife and I " ? Js Hert- 

 ford always called Harford, without the "t"? That cannot be 

 right to a " t." I must show Mr. Foster your remarks, perfectly 

 just, about Nurseiw Ehymes. — Avgustcs J. Harvey. Feeir pub- 

 lication of your letter would bring on us a shower of similar 

 communications. Haert. — That puzzle. 



Sisters and brothers have I none 

 But that man's father is my father's son 

 must be a good one, since you say the majority of your friends 

 think " that man " is the speaker himself : for that is not the 

 answer. I remember the question was propounded over our desert 

 at the captain's table on the Pacific S.S. Australasia, and in about 

 five minutes every one had out card and pencil and was loudly 

 maintaining his own particular view. Captain Cargill said at last, 

 jokingly, that he would put in irons the first who resumed the sub- 

 ject ; but it so chanced that had he carried out his threat Mrs. 

 Cargill would have beep, manacled very unsuitably for a lady. I 

 was offered a wager of five pounds that the man referred to was 

 the speaker, and other wagers were offered round the table in. favour 

 of other solutions equally incorrect. But by the following morning 

 the whole company (for the trouble spread to the whole saloon) had 

 accepted the correct view. Such puzzles as these are useful 

 mental exercises; though, of course, they involve no difficulty 



if reasoned straight out. Thus in the present case, we see 

 from the first line that the speaker is an only child, and therefore his 

 father's son can be no other than himself ; so in the second line we 

 may say "myself" instead of "my father's son," — getting "That 

 man's father is myself," a statement which is assuredly not very 

 perplexing. " That man " is of course the speaker's son. Another 

 puzzle was propounded the same afternoon by Mrs. Cargill on the 

 Australasia which took in most of us : — A train starts daily from 

 New York to gan Francisco, and one daily from San Francisco to 

 New York, the journey lasting seven days ; in travelling from San 

 Francisco to New York how many trains do you meet 'i Now I had 

 made the journey, and had noticed the interval between the succes- 

 sive trains met : so I had no excuse for blundering. Yet did I 

 incontinently blurt out the wrong answer. Seven, with the proviso 

 that six or eight may be met if the train starts (1), just after or (2) 

 just before, a train has arrived. The real answer of course is not 

 ^lear this. — F. W. WooLER. Am unable to say : never reply on such 

 matters by post. — Chas. E. Bell. Your solution implies that each 

 of the 21 possible endings is equally probable. Is that so ? There 

 was never any question except on that point. Not knowing the 

 game, I could not reply. Your solution of the chess problem is 

 correct. What a pretty little problem is is ; except that it suggests 

 the thought, Lo ! the poor Indian. Such solutions should be 

 separately addressed to Chess Editor. — H. Hcdsox. Eegret that 

 cannot find room for the suggested seven articles on Postage 

 Stamps. — R. G. Aexold. Yon have not quite caught Jlr. W. M. 

 Williams's idea. Besides, the overwork and tasteless food do their 

 work usually before recourse is had to strong drink. But yon 

 are quite right in saying that poor living alone (i.e., without the 

 use of alcohol) will not make a drtmkard. People do not 

 get drunk without first drinking. In that sense drink and 

 not poor food is the cliief cause of drunkenness. — C. E. You 

 misconceive the way in which Parallax, or Goulbourn, or 

 Eowbotham, or whatever his real name may be, is viewed by 

 students of science. There was some interest in Hampden's case, 

 in the evidence it gave as to the possibilities of human brain-weak- 

 ness. His abuse even was but amusing, to those who knew that he 

 really was in earnest in considering astronomers rogues, villains, 

 scoundrels, and the rest of it. With Parallax the case is quite 

 different. You tell me I have an entire misconception of his pur- 

 poses. I beg to say that you are mistaken. I have seen and read 

 his book, I have been at the pains (it was as far back as 1864) to 

 verify all his references, filling up all his garbled extracts 

 and tracing out every winding by which he justifies his 

 assumed name, an apt name for a "dodger" (see Liddell 

 and Scott). Seeing his cleverness I utterly refuse to believe 

 that he believes the earth flat, and therefore I utterly decline to 

 enter into any argument with him, or to have anything whatever 

 to do with him. That you believe in him, as you evidently do, 

 gives you the same sort of claim as Hampden to an answer about 

 any arguments which may have misled you. If yon can cite any 

 properly-attested case of a light, mountain, hill, or the like, seen 

 beyond the distaiice corresponding with the ascertained shape of 

 the earth. I will examine the case, and show (as, if the case is 

 really well attested, I undertake to do) that the observation is . 

 entirely consistent with " the laws and conditions which must of 

 necessity exist if the earth is a globe of a'oout 2.5,000 miles in cir- 

 cumference." I except, of course, such cases of visibility as have 

 occasionally been noted through effects of mirage or the like ; as 

 when Dover Castle was seen above hiUs known to lie directly 

 between it and the observer, and to be high enough usually to 

 hide it. Abnormally-arranged atmospheric layers will at times do 

 stranger things even than that, even showing objects upside down 

 instead of the right way up. But doubtless the cases which perplex 

 you are not of that kind. In fine, I am ready to answer 

 I/O?;, or any one who has been deluded by Parallax, respecting any 

 difficulty yon may wish to submit to me. But I will enter into no 

 argument with a man who has approved himself wanting in the 

 qualities essential to fair and profitable controversy. — iEo.v. You are 

 right. It has not been actually proved that Uranus turns on its axis 

 in a retrograde manner; but the belts of Uranus are visibly parallel 

 to the plane of his satellites' revolution, and it may safely be inferred 

 his rotation corresponds in direction with their revolution. — N. P. 

 Betts. Your theory about gravitation cannot appear in Knowledge, 

 and ought not to appear in any scientific publication, being unsound. 

 — A Friendly Waexer. You " thank God that you wear the Blue 

 Eibbon." If there were another coloured ribbon for good manners, 

 you could not honestly wear it. Nor would you be entitled to a 

 medal for good reasoning. Strange that while one feeling causes you 

 to obtrude your avoidance of stimulants on the notice of the 

 people yon meet, another (as worthy, perhaps) causes you to 

 conceal your identity from the person you strive to insult. 

 Your case is interesting and typical. — N.aggdrie. Many thanks for 

 paragraph. — Jos. Swift. See answer last week about Eeason why 



