144 MR. WILLIAM E. A. AXON ON THE 



Steady vortex motion will^ I think^ generally occur in 

 cases allied to the surfaces of discontinuity investigated 

 by Helmholtz ; and the surface Ci will then be such a 

 surface. 



XVII. The Literary History of ParnelVs 'Hermit.' 

 By William E. A. Axon, M.R.S.L., &c. 



Read December 28th, 1880. 



Although ParnelFs poem of the ' Hermit ' can no longer 

 be considered what Mitford declared it to be, " one of the 

 most popular in our language/^ it still holds a certain and 

 assured place in English literature. But, apart from 

 its interest as a piece o£ English verse that has been a 

 favourite with several generations, the ' Hermit ' demands 

 attention as one link in a curious chain of the history 

 of fiction. 



The readers of Voltaire are never likely to forget his 

 romance of ' Zadig ;' and one of the most striking passages 

 in that remarkable work is the twentieth chapter, in which 

 Zadig travels in company with an angel disguised as an 

 hermit who steals a gold cup from a dispenser of ostenta- 

 tious hospitality to give it to a miserly curmudgeon, burns 

 down the house of a man who has received them with true 

 liberality, and drowns the nephew of a widow lady by whom 

 they had been most honourably entertained. These seem- 

 ingly imjust and atrocious actions are all justified by the 



