In compliance with the order from H. T. W., Bengal (see G. W.'s Current Notes for July last, p. 61), the Church of his family burial-place is here represented, to the exclusion of much interesting matter, for which G. W. has to apologize to his Correspondents. GARRICK'S FRIBBLERIAD. As a Collector of Curiosities connected with the Drama, I have of course a copy of Garrick's Fribbleriad. Notes, whether any other collector can and will oblige I wish to know, through the medium of Current me with information as to the characters introduced. After the hero, Fitzpatrick, to whom Tom Davies has devoted one gossiping chapter in his Life of Garrick, there seems to be no clue to the speakers in the Fribble Conclave; nor am I sure that any real persons were intended, but the spirit of the day would be sure to introduce real, rather than fictitious characters, so that one would be glad to hear what well-read collectors have to say about Lord Trip, Sir Cock-a-doodle, Phil Whiffle, Sir Diddler Patty-pan, and the Rev. Mister Marjoram. I am, sir, your subscriber and constant reader, FELTHAM. AMERICAN GO-A-HEADISM. September 20th. SIR,-Allow me to suggest to your New York Correspondent [Current Notes for August, No. XX. p. 69,] that the language he has addressed towards Mr. Dickens is neither civil nor polite, and is quite uncalled for, and his insinuation respecting Lord Mahon unjustifiable. Pray, in what relation does Lord Mahon stand to Mr. Dickens that they should thus be put side by side like two criminals? Do they write on the same subjects? and is there any similarity in their style? I think not. Further, his logic is bad-we are said to patronize both Lord Mahon and Mr. Dickens, and that the English patronize a snobbish taste and style. Yet he asserts his lordship to be a gentleman, Mr. Dickens a snob. Now it is quite clear that a gentleman and a snob are incompatible. Yet Lord Mahon is a gentleman, and writes in a snobbish style. Mr. Dickens also writes in a snobbish style, but is not a gentleman. So it plainly appears from your correspondent that, because Lord Mahon is a nobleman, that therefore he is a gentleman; and because Mr. Dickens is not a nobleman, that therefore he is not a gentleman! It is a well-known fact that purse-proud people, as the Americans are, who originally were the offscouring of this country, which now they so ungraciously and undutifully assail, always look with supreme contempt on those who are their superiors in education. Mr. Willis. I am, sir, your obedient servant, AN ENGLISHMAN. BELOE'S SEXAGENARIAN. SIR, I lately purchased from your Catalogue a copy of the first edition of "Beloe's Sexagenarian" with "a Manuscript Key to the Names,"-but I find that this MS. Key only deciphers thirty names in the first volume, and twenty-eight in the second-which bear no proportion to the number left unexplained. Can you or any of your Correspondents enable me to procure a more complete list of the persons who are described in these volumes? which lose much of their value and interest from the want of knowing precisely to what individuals they refer. In spite of the obloquy with which the work has been assailed in some quarters, I feel convinced that it is a valuable piece of literary biography, delineating, with little reserve perhaps, but still delineating truthfully, the more prominent features of most of the various characters which he had met with in the course of his life. I confess my partiality to this sort of literary gossip, and shall be much obliged by your furnishing me with a more full and complete Index to the Names mentioned in these volumes. AMERICAN PROPHECY ON THE GOLD DISCOVERIES. THE effect likely to be produced upon our population by the recent discoveries in California, certainly seems to tend towards a fulfilment of the almanac prophecy of 1798: "When the country is ruled by a tailor bold, ANCIENT CHINESE LITERATURE. A translation from the Chinese, entitled, The Ceremonial Usages of the Chinese, is a book forming a category for itself. It is done into decent English by W. Raymond Gingell, and the original being a work of great antiquity, bearing date eleven hundred and twenty years before Christ, it gives us some very curious pictures of Eastern life prior to the siege of Troy and the building of the Pyramids, that is, supposing the old chronologies of the world could be reconciled or trusted! WAS SHAKSPERE LAME? SCHLEGEL says that sufficient use has not been made biography. Let us see what that might lead to. of Shakspere's Sonnets, as important materials for his In Sonnet XXXVIII. he writes: "As a decrepit father takes delight To see his active child do deeds of youth, "Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, Against thy reasons making no defence." and there is nothing in the inquiry repugnant to poetic Was Shakspere lame? "A question to be asked;" justice, for he has made Julius Cæsar deaf in his left Where did he get his authority? ear. DR. DARWIN'S PROPHECY ON STEAM. THE following curious prophecy is from Dr. Darwin's "Botanic Garden," published in 1789, but written, it is well known, at least twenty years before the date of its publication: "Soon shall thy arm, unconquer'd Steam, afar Shall wave their fluttering 'kerchiefs as they move; SPORTSMEN'S TERMS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. THE sporting vocabulary of the middle ages furnishes many terms curiously happy in description: a route of wolves; a pace of asses; a barren of mules; a tribe of goats; a skulk of foxes; a singular of boars; a sownder of wild swine; a harras of horses; a rag of colts; a richess of martens; a husk, or a down of hares; a clowder of cats; a shrewdness of apes; and a labor of moles. A hart was said to be harbored, a buck lodged, a roe-buck bedded, a hare formed, a rabbit set, &c. We have also a litter of whelps, and a cowardice of curs. THE ALCHYMISTS. 66 Birmingham. SIR,-Your correspondent "A Customer and an Alchymist" [Current Notes for July, No. XIX. p. 64] is informed that a list of books on Alchymy will be found in the Bibliotheca Chymica of P. Borellus, 12mo.; and that a Catalogue of Chymicall Books" was published in 1675 by William Cooper, Bookseller, at the Pelican in Little Britain, London, 12mo. This latter is in three parts; the first had been published separately, and the two latter added, upon the work being appended to the "Philosophical Epitaph of W. C., Esq." London, 12mo. 1673. It is under this title that your correspondent must search for the Catalogue which will be found to contain a most curious and complete list of Chemical-or what is the same Alchemical-works published in Europe up to that time. Mr. Willis. WILLIAM BATES. known to be fictitious document, that it must be familiar to most of the readers of G. W.'s Current Notes. It is neither more nor less than a common Jesuitical school boy exercise, many specimens of which have been forwarded to G. W. ALBUM POETRY.-E. thanked. Specimens of the poetry of Saml. Rogers, May 13, 1839, although copied from his Autograph, were in print, or in ladies' albums, certainly thirty years before that date. Roscoe's lines are perfectly familiar to the ear. So are those signed "J. Montgomery," and dated from "the Mount near Sheffield," Jan. 25, 1840. Bernard Barton's have probably been printed, but they are not remembered, and therefore are here printed or reprinted. "My signature and date when penn'd BERNARD BARTON. Woodbridge, Suffolk, Oct. 16, 1848. "A COLLECTOR OF COINS," Northampton, Oct. 9, will inscription on which he reads inaccurately. if he forwards 108 for engraving the Jetton; the appear C. M. J. versus the Senior Church Warden, 20th Sept. M. A. S. (Falstaff's Comic Annual), 1st Oct.—A. F. K. (Francis Hanksbee) 2nd October-F. W. E. (Nursery Rhymes)-L. (The Fate of Genius, King's Bench Walk, Temple)-R. (Theodore Hook)-F. W. Fairholt, 11 Montpelier Square, Brompton (Hone's History of Parody)-B. N. (Bermondsey Tokens), and T. F. D. C. (Joseph Ashbury and Oxberry's Dramatic Chronology) thanked, and in type, but must stand over. Albert Smith and his "Soft Soap" on albums received too late as a puff to do him any good. Will look again at it. Literary and Scientific Obituary. BARNES, John. (Director of the Construction of Steam BRADFIELD, Henry Joseph. Poet. Suicide. St. Alban's FINDEN, William. Engraver. Upper Cheyne-row, Chelsea. 20th September. Aged 66. FISHER, William (Rear Admiral). Novelist. 38, Blandford Square. 30th September. Aged 72. LITTA, Pompeo (Count). Italian Genealogist and Antiquary. 17th August. THOMSON, Thomas. Edinburgh Reviewer, Edinburgh. 2nd October. TOWNSEND, Thomas Stuart, D.D. (Lord Bishop of Meath). Theology and Education. Malaga. 16th September. Aged 51. WELSFORD, Henry. Philologist. London Street, Fitzroy Square. October 4. No. XXIII.] FOR THE MONTH. "I will make a prief of it in my Note-Book."-SHAKSPERE. WAS SHAKSPERE LAME? THIS question, first suggested, I believe, by Capell, and now revived by your Correspondent (Current Notes, p. 8), can only have arisen, as it seems to me, from an inconsiderate perusal of the passages which have led to the supposition, and a disregard of the immediate context. Nevertheless, a few words upon the subject may not be thought wholly supererogatory, as the belief has, somehow, obtained the sanction of high authority-that of Sir Walter Scott, for instance, who seems to have introduced Shakspere into his novel of "Kenilworth for no other purpose than to make a gratuitous allusion to his deformity," He is a stout man at quarter-staff; and single falchion," says the novelist, "though, as I am told, a halting fellow." In Sonnet XXXVII. I must admit, that there appears to be some ambiguity of meaning : "As a decrepit father takes delight To see his active child do deeds of youth; [NOVEMBER, 1852. Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault, Against thy reason making no defence." This, amplified into prose, would read, I imagine :— "Whenever you may be disposed to make me appear light, I, taking part with thee against myself, will aid as of little worth, and set my qualities in a contemptible thee in thy object, so that, forsworn as thou art, no suspicion may arise of thy candour and truth. * * * * * "Thus, ascribe your desertion of me to some fault of mine-whatever that may be I will speak of it as if I were actually guilty; shouldst thou say that I labour under some bodily infirmity-lameness, for instanceI would actually assume a limp, lest by my upright gait discredit might be thrown upon thy assertion." but it will surely be evident, that as in the first t wo Now if I have taken an erroneous view, and Shakspere lines the illustration is purely physical, the senile decrepitude of the father being opposed to the youthful in case of his imperfection being alluded to, becomes was actually lame, his promise to "make no defence vigour of his offspring; so in the two latter, Shakspere, simply ridiculous, and he would scarcely make a proproceeding in the adulatory vein of the preceding sonnets, has ascribed to himself a merely moral or social mise to "halt," and claim merit for so doing, if he inferiority, to heighten by the contrast the "worth and could not help it. What, too, can he mean by "beartruth" of his idolized friend. But if this interpretationing all wrong," unless some injustice were done to him of the passage be not accepted, and the literal meaning be insisted on, I must take refuge in the 9th line of the same sonnet "So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised," and ask with Malone, "If the words are to be understood literally, we must then suppose that our admired poet was also poor and despised, for neither of which suppositions there is the smallest ground." I now proceed to quote from Sonnet LXXXIX. the other passage in which Shakspere is supposed to assert his lameness; placing before it a few lines from the preceding sonnet, which tend to illustrate what I conceive to be its only true meaning. The italics are my own :"When thou shalt be disposed to set me light, And place my merit in the eye of scorn, And prove Such is my love, to thee I so belong in the accusations, of which he immediately after Speaks; and "fighting against himself" can only mean in this place, his assenting to injurious imputations. Indeed, except upon the supposition of his moral and physical integrity, the two Sonnets, from which I have quoted, lose all point and force, and become simply absurd. It may be also asked, how can the fame which it is known Shakspere attained by his performance of the Ghost in Hamlet-his greatest character- be reconciled with the notion of his physical deformity. Your correspondent will find that Charles Knight, in his "Shakspere, a Biography," has made considerable and ingenious use of the Sonnets; and the matter which they, as well as the Dramatic works, afford, for the elimination of an imaginative biography of the great Bard, has been still further improved in a clever and amusing little volume, entitled "Shakspere's Autobiographical Poems, being his Sonnets clearly developed, with his character drawn chiefly from his works, by Charles Armitage Brown." London, James Bohn, 1838, PP. 306. WILLIAM BATES. Birmingham, Nov. 1852. M PHOENICIAN INSCRIPTIONS. I HAVE Somewhere read, that Bishop Clayton offered a considerable sum of money for a copy of all the inscriptions in the Wady Elmocatteb, in order that an attempt might be made to interpret them: I am, therefore, inclined to think that the learned readers of your excellent "Current Notes" will not object to have a little peep into the general character of these compositions, which have, of late, excited some little curiosity. I have diligently read, here and there, many of the 187 collected in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature; and beg you to admit three of them among your interesting notes. No. 16. "The soldiers of the army of the Rephaim, being confounded at the terrible peals of thunder, were put to flight at Murait, in the neighbourhood of Sina, by the spears of the sons of Turk" (the eldest son of Japhet). No. 14. "I am left at the murmuring sound, at Sina, weak and afflicted with grief." No. 1. "At Sina, the star of the constellation Virgo shot forth a diffusion of rays in the midst of heaven; the inner circle being of a white" (pearl)" colour, and the outer circle being of a golden colour. Nathan Hafi, the Grandfather." The star here described, is given in the same terms in Chinese, Sanscrit, Persian, &c. records. See a picture of it in Kampfer's Amoenitates Exoticæ, p. 313. These writings have, I think, been represented as the handy-work of the Israelites during their passage through the Wady Elmocatteb; but, independent of the idea that the Israelites either could not, or woULD not have been allowed to engrave figures on a rock; the inscriptions themselves shew that they were the work of those who made a pilgrimage to Sina, or passed through the valley to or from Jerusalem, etc., to which may be added, that the language is not Hebrew, but Phoenician. I think I may also venture to affirm that there is no such thing as a catalogue of proper names in the whole valley. According to the specimens in my possession, there are not more than three or four proper names contained in twenty inscriptions. I am, sir, yours very truly, AN ALLEGORY OF MORTALITY. THE following stanzas from "Ritson's Ancient Songs and Ballads," vol. 1, p. 15. He says that it is prefixed, though not connected with a ballad in French, on the death of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, slain at the Battle of Evesham, 4th August, 1265. It presents the same play upon words as in the verses inserted in the "Current Notes," vol. 1, p. 78, entitled 66 An Allegory of Mortality." The version in the Harleian MSS. mentioned by "T. R." (p. 82), might possibly prove a connection of the two, as parts of one original. "Erthe toc of erthe erthe wyth woh Erthe other erthe to the erthe droh Erthe leyde erthe in erthe ne throh Tho hevede erthe of erthe erthe ynoh." JOHN EVELYN, Esq. SYLV. IN the blank leaf of a copy of the "Sylva" of this great general scholar, in the possession of the philosophical editor of the last edition of that useful work, is the following inscription: To the memory Of JOHN EVELYN, Esq. A man of great learning, of sound judgment, From an early entrance into public life, He considered himself as living only for the benefit Do justice to this illustrious character, That as long as there remains one page of his And as long as Virtue and Science hold their The memory of the illustrious EVELYN will be held in the highest veneration. In the Dedication to the English translation of the celebrated Life of Peyresc, by Gassendi, Mr. Evelyn is deservedly styled the English Peyresc; Mr. Evelyn, in the general extent of his knowledge, and in his ardent zeal for the improvement and communication of science and of literature, completely resembling that learned Counsellor of the Parliament of Aix in Provence. The translation was some time ago presented to a great niece of Mr. Evelyn, a lady of great talents for epistolary writing. 66 Some races are for talents fam'd, And parallels display; England's Peyresc is Evelyn nam'd, His niece its Sévigné. ARMS OF THE ISLE OF MAN. My signet-my signet-Oh! you mean that with the three monstrous legs, which I suppose was devised as the most preposterous device, to represent our most absurd majesty of Man."-Peveril of the Peak, vol. ii. VERBUM SAPIENTI. P. 73. |