Chapter 2

Thompson follows Pliny, and says that man is "taught _alone_ to weep" ("Spring," 350.); but--not to speak of the

"Cruel crafty crocodile, Which, in false grief hiding his harmful guile, Doth weep full sore and sheddeth tender tears,"

as Spenser sings--the camel weeps when over-loaded, and the deer when chased sobs piteously. Thompson himself in a passage he has stolen from Shakspeare, makes the stag weep:

----"he stands at bay; _The big round tears_ run down his dappled face; He groans in anguish."--Autumn, 452.

"Steller relates this of the _Phoca Ursina_, Pallas of the camel, and Humboldt of a small American monkey."--Laurence _On Man_, Lond. 1844, p. 161.

Risibility, and a sense of the ridiculous, is generally considered to be the property of man, though _Le Cat_ states that he has seen a chimpanzee laugh.

The notion with regard to a child crying at baptism has been already touched on in these pages, Vol. vi., p. 601.; Vol. vii., p. 96.

Grose (quoted in Brand) tells us there is a superstition that a child who does not cry when sprinkled in baptism will not live; and the same is recorded in Hone's _Year-Book_.

EIRIONNACH.

* * * * *

UNPUBLISHED LETTER OF LORD NELSON.

The following letter of Lord Nelson may, especially at the present moment, interest and amuse some of the readers of "N. & Q." The original is in my possession, and was given me by the late Miss Churchey of Brecon, daughter of the gentleman to whom it was addressed. Can any of your readers inform me where the "old lines" quoted by the great hero are to be found?

E. G. BASS.

Ryde, Isle of Wight.

Merton, Oct. 20, 1802.

Sir,

Your idea is most just and proper, that a provision should be made for midshipmen who have served a certain time with good characters, and certainly twenty pounds is a very small allowance; but how will your surprise be increased, when I tell you that their _full_ pay, when watching, fighting and bleeding for their country at sea, is not equal to that sum. An admiral's half-pay is scarcely equal, including the run of a kitchen, to that of a French cook; a captain's but little better than a valet's; and a lieutenant's certainly not equal to a London footman's; a midshipman's nothing. But as I am a seaman, and faring with them, I can say nothing. I will only apply some very old lines wrote at the end of some former war:

"Our God and sailor we adore, In time of danger, not before; The danger past, both are alike requited, God is forgotten, and the sailor slighted."

Your feelings do you great honour, and I only wish all others in the kingdom were the same. However, if ever I should be placed in a situation to be useful to such a deserving set of young men as our mids, nothing shall be left undone which may be in the power of,

Dear Sir, Your most obedient servant, NELSON AND BRONTE.

Walton Churchey, Esq., Brecon, S. Wales.

* * * * *

FOLK LORE.

_Devonshire Superstitions._--Seeing that you sometimes insert extracts from newspapers, I forward you a copy of a paragraph which appeared in _The Times_ of March 7, 1854, and which is worth a corner in your folk-lore columns:

"The following gross case of superstition, which occurred as late as Sunday se'nnight, in one of the largest {345} market towns in the north of Devon, is related by an eye-witness:--A young woman, living in the neighbourhood of Holsworthy, having for some time past been subject to periodical fits of illness, endeavoured to effect a cure by attendance at the afternoon service at the parish church, accompanied by thirty young men, her near neighbours. Service over, she sat in the porch of the church, and each of the young men, as they passed out in succession, dropped a penny into her lap; but the last, instead of a penny, gave her half-a-crown, taking from her the twenty-nine pennies which she had already received. With this half-crown in her hand, she walked three times round the communion-table, and afterwards had it made into a ring, by the wearing of which she believes she will recover her health."

HAUGHMOND ST. CLAIR.

_Quacks._--In the neighbourhood of Sevenoaks, Kent, a little girl was bitten by a mad dog lately. Instead of sending for the doctor, her father posted off to an old woman famous for her treatment of hydrophobia. The old woman sent a quart bottle of some dark liquid, which the patient is to take twice or thrice daily: and for this the father, though but a poor labourer, had to pay one pound. The liquid is said by the "country sort" to be infallible. It is made of herbs plucked by the old woman, and mixed with milk. Its preparation is of course a grand secret. As yet, the child keeps well.

Near Whitechapel, London, is another old woman, equally famous; but her peculiar talent is not for hydrophobia, but for scalds. Whenever any of the Germans employed in the numerous sugar-refineries in that neighbourhood scald themselves, they beg, instead of being sent to the hospital, to be taken to the old woman. For a few sovereigns, she will take them in, nurse, and cure them; and I was informed by a proprietor of a large sugar-house there, that often in a week she will heal a scald as thoroughly as the hospital will in a month, and send the men back hearty and fit for work to boot. She uses a good deal of linseed-oil, I am told; but her great secret, they say, is, that she gives the whole of her time and attention to the patient.

P. M. M.

Temple.

_Burning a Tooth with Salt._--Can any one tell us whence originates the custom, very scrupulously observed by many amongst the common people, when a tooth has been taken out, of burning it--generally with salt?

TWO SURGEONS.

Half Moon Street.

* * * * *

PARALLEL PASSAGES.

"The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of."--_Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 3.

"These spells are spent, and, spent with these, The wine of life is on the lees."--_Marmion_, introd. to canto i.

* * * * *

"The _old_ and true saying, that a man is generally more inclined to feel kindly towards one on whom he has conferred favours than towards one from whom he has received them."--Macaulay, _Essay on Bacon_, p. 367. (1-vol. edit.)--Query, whose saying?

"On s'attache par les services qu'on rend, bien plus qu'on n'est attaché par les services qu'on reçoit. C'est qu'il y a, dans le coeur de l'homme, bien plus d'orgueil que de reconnaissance."--Alex. Dumas, _La Comtesse de Charny_, II. ch. iii.

* * * * *

"But earthlier happy is the rose distilled Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn, Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness."--_Midsum. Night's Dream_, Act I. Sc. 1.

"_Maria._ Responde tu mihi vicissim:--utrum spectaculum amoenius: rosa nitens et lactea in suo frutice, an decerpta digitis ac paulatim marcescens?

"_Pamphilus._ Ego rosam existimo feliciorem quæ marcescit in hominis manu, delectans interim et oculos et nares, quam quæ senescit in frutice."--Erasmus, _Procus et Puella_.

* * * * *

"And spires whose silent finger points to heaven." (?)

"And the white spire that points a world of rest."--Mrs. Sigourney, _Connecticut River_.

* * * * *

"She walks the waters _like a thing of life_."--_Byron._

"The master bold, The high-soul'd and the brave, Who ruled her _like a thing of life_ Amid the crested wave."--Mrs. Sigourney, _Bell of the Wreck_.

* * * * *

"Thy heroes, tho' the general doom Have swept the column from the tomb, A mightier monument command,-- The mountains of their native land!"--_Byron._

"Your mountains build their monument, Tho' ye destroy their dust."--Mrs. Sigourney, _Indian Names_.

* * * * *

"Else had I heard the steps, tho' low And light they fell, as when earth receives, In morn of frost, the wither'd leaves That drop when no winds blow."--Scott, _Triermain_, i. _5._

"Dropp'd, like shed blossoms, silent to the grass."--Hood, _Mids. Fairies_, viii.

"There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass."--Tennyson, _Lotos-eaters_.

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"Two such I saw, what time the labour'd ox In his loose traces from the furrow came."--Milton, _Comus_.

"While labouring oxen, spent with toil and heat, In their loose traces from the field retreat."--Pope, _Pastoral_, iii.

* * * * *

"It is the curse of kings, to be attended By slaves that take their humours for a warrant To break into the bloody house of life, And, on the winking of authority, To understand a law: to know the meaning Of dangerous majesty, when perchance it frowns More upon humour than advised respect."--_King John_, Act IV. Sc. 2.

"O curse of kings! Infusing a dread life into their words, And linking to the sudden transient thought The unchangeable, irrevocable deed!"--Coleridge, _Death of Wallenstein_, v. 9.

* * * * *

"Conscience! . . . . . . Your lank jawed, hungry judge will dine upon 't, And hang the guiltless rather than eat his mutton cold."--C. Cibber, _Richard III_.

"The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine."--Pope, _Rape of the Lock_, iii. 21.

HARRY LEROY TEMPLE.

"Death and his brother Sleep." Quoted (from Shelley) with parallel passages from Sir T. Browne, Coleridge, and Byron in "N. & Q.," Vol. iv., p. 435. Add to them the following:

"Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, Brother to Death, in silent darkness born."

_Samuel Daniel_, Spenser's successor as "voluntary Laureate."

"Care-charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes, Brother to Death."--Fletcher, _Valentinian_.

"The death of each day's life."--Shakspeare, _Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 2.

"Teach me to live, that I may dread The grave as little as my bed."--_Bishop Ken._

"We thought her sleeping when she died; And dying, when she slept."--_Hood._

"Somne levis, quanquam certissima mortis imago Consortem cupio te tamen esse tori; Alma quies, optata, veni, nam sic sine vitâ Vivere quam suave est; sic sine morte mori."--_T. Warton._ [_Finely translated by Wolcot._] "Come, gentle sleep! attend thy vot'ry's pray'r, And, though Death's image, to my couch repair; How sweet, though lifeless, yet with life to lie, And, without dying, oh, how sweet to die!"

"While sleep the weary world reliev'd, By counterfeiting death revived."--Butler, _Hudibras_.

"Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit, And look on death itself!"--Shakspeare, _Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 3.

"Nature, alas! why are thou so Obliged unto thy greatest foe? Sleep that is thy best repast, Yet of death it bears a taste, And both are the same things at last."--Dennis, _Sophonisba_.

"Great Nature's second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast."--Shakspeare, _Macbeth_, Act II. Sc. 2.

CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A.

"Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend."--_Ecclesias._ vi. 15.

"Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico."--Hor. _Sat._ v. 44.

"If thou wouldst get a friend, _prove him_ first, and be not hasty to credit him."--_Ecclesias._ v. 7.

"_Diu cogita_, an tibi in amicitiam aliquis recipiendus sit: cum placuerit fieri, toto illum pectore admitte: tam audacter cum illo loquere, quam tecum."--Seneca, _Epist._ iii.

"Quid dulcius, quam habere amicum quicum omnia audeas sic loquere quam tecum."--Cic., _de Amic._ 6.

"The friends thou hast, and their _adoption tried_, Grapple them to thy heart with hoops of steel."

* * * * *

"But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade."--Shakspeare, _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 3.

"Bring not every man into thy house."--_Ecclesias._ vi. 7.

* * * * *

"A man's attire, and excessive laughter, and gait, show what he is."--_Ecclesias._ xix. 30.

"---- The apparel oft proclaims the man."--_Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 3.

* * * * *

"Unus Pellæo juveni non sufficit orbis: Æstuat infelix angusto limite mundi, Ut Gyaræ clausus scopulis, parvâque Seripho."--_Juv._ x. 168.

"_Hamlet._ What have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison here?

_Guildenstern._ Prison, my lord!

_Ham._ Denmark's a prison.

_Rosencrantz._ Then is the _world_ one.

_Ham._ A goodly one, in which there are many confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst.

_Ros._ We think not so, my lord.

_Ham._ Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

_Ros._ Why, then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind."--Shakspeare, _Hamlet_, Act II. Sc. 2.

* * * * *

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"Ad hanc legem natus es; hoc patri tuo accidit, hoc matri, hoc majoribus, hoc omnibus ante te, hoc omnibus post te, series invicta, et nullâ mutabilis ope, illigat ac trahit cuncta."

"_King._ ---- You must know, your father lost a father; That father lost--lost his; . . . . . . . . . . . To reason most absurd, whose common theme Is death of fathers, and who still hath cry'd, From the first corse, 'till he that died to-day, _This must be so_."--_Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 2.

* * * * *

"[Greek: Apo de tou mê echontos]," &c.--_Ante_, Vol. viii., p. 372.

"Besides this, _nothing_ that he so plentifully gives me."--Shakspeare, _As You Like It_, Act I. Sc. 1.

J. W. F.

Having observed several Notes in different Numbers of your interesting publication, in which sentences have been quoted from the works of ancient and modern authors that are almost alike in words, or contain the same ideas clothed in different language, I would only add, that those of your readers or correspondents who take an interest in such inquiries will find instances enough, in a work which was published in Venice in 1624, to fill several columns of "N. & Q." The volume is entitled _Il Seminario de Governi di Stato, et di Guerra_.

W. W.

Malta.

* * * * *

Minor Notes.

_Vallancey's Green Book._--Perhaps your readers are not aware of the existence of the curious and interesting volume mentioned in the following cutting from Jones's last _Catalogue_ (D'Olier St. Dublin). It may therefore be worth making a note of in your columns:

"1008. Vallancey's Green Book, _manuscript, folio_.

*** Vallancey's Green Book, so named from being bound in green vellum, was the volume in which the celebrated Irish antiquary, General Charles Vallancey, entered the titles of all the manuscripts and printed works relative to Ireland which he had occasion to consult in his antiquarian researches. The copy now offered for sale is believed to be the only one extant. Bound in the same volume is a collection of the titles of all the manuscripts relating to Ireland, which are preserved in the Archbishop of Canterbury's library, at Lambeth, London."

R. H.

Trin. Coll., Dublin.

_Herrings._--"The lovers of fish" may be glad to learn what a bloater is, a mystery which I endeavoured to unravel when lately on the Norfolk coast. A bloater, I was informed, is a large, plump herring (as we say a _bloated_ toad); and the genuine claimants of the title fall by their own weight from the meshes of the net.

The origin of the simile--"As dead as a herring"--may not be generally known. This fish dies immediately upon its removal from the native element (strange to say) from want of air; for swimming near the surface it requires much, and the gills, when dry, cannot perform their function.

C. T.

_Byron and Rochefoucauld._--The following almost word-for-word renderings of two of Rochefoucauld's _Réflexions_ occur in the third and fourth stanzas of the third canto of Byron's _Don Juan_. I am not aware that any notice has been taken of them beyond a note appended to the first passage, in Moore's edition of Byron's _Works_, attributing the _mot_ to Montaigne:

"Yet there are some, they say, who have had _none_, But those who have ne'er end with only _one_."--_Byron._

"On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie; mais il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu qu'une."--Rochefoucauld's _Maximes et Réflexions Morales_.

"In her first passion, woman loves her lover, In all the others all she loves is love."--_Byron_

"Dans les premières passions les femmes aiment l'amant; dans les autres elles aiment l'amour."--Rochefoucauld's _Maximes et Réflexions Morales_.

SIGMA.

Customs, London.

"_Abscond._"--This is a word which appears to have lost its primary meaning of concealment, apart from that of escape. Horace Walpole, however, uses it in the former sense:

"Virette _absconds_, and has sent M. de Pecquigny word that _he shall abscond_ till he can find a proper opportunity of fighting him."

CHEVERELLS.

_Garlands, Broadsheets, &c._--Will you allow me to suggest to your correspondents, that it would be very desirable, for literary and antiquarian purposes, to form as complete a list as possible of public and private collections of garlands, broadsheets, chap-books, ballads, tracts, &c.; and to ask them to forward to "N. & Q." the names of any such public or private collections as they may be acquainted with. I need not say anything of the importance and value of the ballads, &c., contained in such collections, to the historical student and the archæologist, for their value is too well known to require it; but I would earnestly urge the formation of such a list as the one I now {348} suggest, which will greatly facilitate literary researches.

J.

_Life-belts._--Suppose that each person on board the Tayleur had been supplied with a life-belt, how many hundreds of lives would have been saved? And when it is considered that such belts can be made for less than half-a-crown each, what reason can there be that government should not require them to be carried, at least in emigrant vessels, if passengers are so ignorant and stupid as not voluntarily to provide them for themselves?

THINKS I TO MYSELF.

_Turkey and Russia--The Eastern Question_ (Vol. ix., p. 244.).--The past history of these rival states presents more than one parallel passage like the following, extracted from Watkins's _Travels through Switzerland, Italy, the Greek Islands, to Constantinople, &c._ (2nd edit., two vols. 8vo. 1794):

"The Turks have been, and indeed deserve to be, praised for the manner in which they declared war against the Russians. They sent by Mr. Bulgakoff, her Imperial Majesty's minister at the Porte, to demand the restitution of the Crimea, which had been extorted from them by the merciless despot of R----a, (_sic_) when too much distressed by a rebellion in Egypt to protect it. On his return without an answer they put him in the Seven Towers, and commenced hostilities. They hate the Russians; and to show it the more, frequently call a Frank _Moscoff_. To the English they are more partial than to any other Christian nation, from a tradition that Mahomet was prevented by death from converting our ancestors to his faith."--Vol. ii. pp. 276-7.

J. MACRAY.

Oxford.

"_Verbatim et literatim._"--As this phrase often finds insertion, even in the pages of "N. & Q.," it may be well to call attention to the fact that there is no such adverb as _literatim_ in the Latin language. There is the adverb _literate_, which means after the manner of a literate man, learnedly; but to express the idea intended by the coined word _literatim_, I think we must use the form _ad literam_--"_Verbatim et ad literam._"

L. H. J. TONNA.

* * * * *

Queries.

PRINTS OF LONDON BEFORE THE GREAT FIRE.

In addition to the Tower, there was in Cromwell's time the fortification of Baynard's Castle, near Blackfriars, and the city gates were also fortifications on a small scale; they were rebuilt (St. John's, Clerkenwell, excepted, which was spared) after the Great Fire, and were taken down somewhere about 1760. Can any of your readers tell me whether there is any series of prints extant of the most remarkable buildings which were destroyed by the fire? There are some few maps, and a print or two interspersed here and there, in the British Museum; but is there any regular series of plates? We know that Inigo Jones built a Grecian portico on to the east end of the Gothic cathedral of old St. Paul's, surmounted with statues of Charles I., &c.; that the Puritans destroyed a beautiful conduit at the top of Cheapside; that Sir Thomas Gresham's Exchange was standing. But among the many city halls burnt down, were there any fine specimens of architecture, any churches worthy of note? And as Guildhall was not entirely consumed, what parts of the present edifice belong to the olden time?

You are doubtless aware that the fire did not extend to St. Giles's Cripplegate, and that at the back of the church are remains of the old city walls.

ARDELIO.

* * * * *

BATTLE OF OTTERBURN.

On what authority does Mr. Tytler (_History of Scotland_, vol. iii. pp. 45--53.), in his otherwise very fair account of this celebrated battle, assert that the Earl of Douglas was a younger man than Hotspur? I have no doubt that he found it so recorded somewhere, and willingly believed that his countrymen had prevailed, not only over superior numbers of the enemy, but also over greater experience on the part of the hostile general; but a little more investigation would have shown him that the difference of age lay the other way. Henry Percy, by his own account (in the Scrope and Grosvenor Controversy), was born in 1366, and was therefore twenty-two when the battle was fought. I do not know that there is any direct evidence to Douglas's age, but the following considerations appear to me decisive as to his being much older than his rival.

1. Froissart's visit to Scotland was undoubtedly prior to 1366 (although the exact date is not given), and during his stay of fifteen days at Dalkeith, he saw much of the youthful heir of that castle, the future hero of Otterburn, and describes him as a "promising youth."

2. Hotspur, in his deposition above mentioned, says that he first bore arms at the siege of Berwick in 1378; but his antagonist must have commenced his military career long before, as Froissart mentions him as knighted on the occasion of the battle fought a few days after the surrender of that place, between Sir Archibald Douglas and Sir Thomas Musgrave; none but kings' sons were knighted in childhood in those days, or without undergoing a long previous probation in the inferior grades of chivalry.

3. An early and constant family (if not general) tradition asserts that Douglas had a natural son {349} (ancestor of the Cavers family), old enough to bear his father's banner in the battle; on this, however, I lay little stress, as Froissart distinctly assigns that honourable post to another person, David Campbell, who was slain by the side of his lord.

Mr. Tytler is also evidently wrong in placing, on the authority of Macpherson's _Notes on Winton_, this battle on the 5th of August, 1388. Froissart gives the date as the 19th of August, and as the moon was full on the 18th, the combatants would have bright moonlight all night, which agrees with all the narratives; on the 5th they would have little moonlight, and would have lost it soon.