Various

“ The history of the Rosicrucians,—or rather the inquiry as to whether actually existed at any time such a college or brotherhood, and, if so, to what degree of antiquity can it lay claim,—forms another and, perhaps, somewhat more profitable subject of attention. This question, however, having been fully discussed elsewhere, I will conclude by a catalogue raisonné of such books and essays (the most important of which are readily obtainable) as will enable your correspondent to acquire for himself the information he seeks. ”

“ It may farther be mentioned that the French, who have a good acquaintance with Madagascar, "have found Drury's statement of the geography, the natural history, the manners of the people, and the conspicuous men of the time, in Madagascar, remarkably accurate." (Bib. Gén. des Voyages, Paris, 1808.) Archdeacon Wrangham says: "Duncombe (?) calls Drury's Madagascar the best and most genuine account ever given of the island;" and the missionary Ellis quoted Drury without the slightest suspicion that any doubt hangs over the genuineness of his narrative. ”

“ In Devonshire, particularly among the farmers and poorer classes, the ridged coffin is very general, the end being gabled. The top, instead of being flat with one board, is made of two boards, like the double roof of a house; in other respects the shape is of the common form. The idea is, that such coffins resist much longer the weight of the superincumbent earth; but there can be no doubt that it is a very ancient shape. Many years ago I heard that in some parish in this county the coffin was shaped like a flat-bottomed boat; the boat shape is known to have been an old form. ”

“ Were one to set about accumulating the reasons for the abandonment of pseudo-names and initials, many of the valuable columns of this periodical might be easily filled; such an essay it is not, however, my intention to inflict on its readers, who by a little thought can easily do for themselves more than a large effusion of ink on the part of any correspondent could effect. I shall content myself with recounting the good which, in one instance, has resulted from a knowledge of the real name and address of a contributor. ”

“ Company's ship "Degrave," whose wreck upon Madagascar I take to be an undoubted fact? What so probable as this recognition, in a small provision for a man in his old age, whose misfortunes commenced while in their service? Finally, to me the whole narrative of Robert Drury seems so probable, and so well vouched for, that I have given in my adhesion thereto by removing him to a higher shelf in my library than that occupied by such apocryphal persons as Crusoe, Quarle, Boyle, Falconer, and a host of the like. ”

“ By no other hypothesis can we intelligibly account for the immense expanse of pelvis, the great bulk of hind-legs, the solid tail, the massive anterior limbs furnished with such powerful claws, and the extraordinary large spinal chord—all these the characteristic features of the Mylodon. ”

“ Now here it is precisely, that we find in the corrector what we should anticipate, and what it is difficult to account for on any theory disparaging his authority. What could have induced him to make such substitutions as swift for "sweet," then for "there," all arose for "are arose," solemn for "sorry," fortune for "nature," to quote from a single play, the Comedy of Errors, which happens to lie before me,—none of them necessary emendations, most of them trivial, unless he had under his eye some original containing those variations, to which he wished his own copy to conform? ”

“ The period was certainly unpropitious for any but a writer of fiction, and Drury seems to have anticipated no higher rank for his Treatise, in point of authenticity, than that occupied by the several members of the Robinson Crusoe school. He, however, positively affirms it to be "a plain honest narrative of the matter of fact;" which is endorsed in the following terms by "Capt. William Mackett:"
"This is to certify, that Robert Drury, fifteen years a slave in Madagascar, now living in London, was redeemed from thence and brought into England, his native country, by myself. ”

“ P. S.—It is rather singular that A. E. B., who, as I have already shown, has so completely shelved me in his remarks upon "Aristotle's checks," should now complain of the very same thing himself, and say that his "humble auxilia have been coolly appropriated, without the slightest acknowledgment." However, as our opinions coincide upon the passage in question, I am not disposed to pick a quarrel with him. I cannot, however, at all concur in his alteration of the passage in King Lear: "Our means secure us," to "Our means recuse us." ”

“ Now it is excessively unlikely that a truly corrected copy, could we find one, would remove all the impossible readings, and leave all the improbable ones.
It is still more unlikely that, in correcting the improbable passages, it would leave those to which Mr. A., or Mr. B., or Mr. C., ay, or all of us together, have formed an attachment from habit, predilection, or prejudice of some kind. Such phrases as "the blanket of the dark," "a man that hath had losses," "unthread the rude eye of rebellion," and many more, have become consecrated in our eyes by habit ”

“ The Bogie and the Farmer.
Once upon a time a Bogie asserted a claim to a field which had been hitherto in the possession of a farmer; and after a great deal of disputing, they came to an arrangement by agreeing to divide its produce between them. At seed time, the farmer asks the Bogie what part of the crop he will have, "tops or bottoms." "Bottoms," said the spirit: upon which the crafty farmer sows the field with wheat, so that when harvest arrives the corn falls to his share, while the poor Bogie is obliged to content himself with the stubble. ”

“ Mysterious Personage (Vol. viii., p. 34.) .—There is no mystery about the legitimate claimant of the British throne. He is the Duke of Modena, lineally descended from Henrietta of England, youngest daughter of Charles I.: she married Philip Duke of Orleans, son of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria, and had two daughters; Louisa married to Charles II. of Spain (she died without issue) , and Anna Maria, married to Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy and King of Sardinia. ”

“ With reference to the passage quoted in p. 437., I can hardly believe that Shakspeare ever wrote such a poor unmeaning line as—
" . . . they are false as dead blacks."
nor can I perceive any possible objection to the original words "o'er dyed blacks." They may either mean false mourners, putting an over dark semblance of grief; or they may allude figuratively to the material of mourning, the colours of which if over-dyed will not stand. In either of these senses, the passage is poetical; but there is nothing like poetry in "our dead blacks." ”

“ In p. 460. Mr. Collier says that the passage, "dangerous, unsafe lunes i' the king," is mere tautology, and therefore he follows the old corrector in substituting "unsane lunes." Now it strikes me that there is quite as much tautology in "unsane lunes" as in the double epithet, "dangerous, unsafe." It is, in fact, equivalent to "insane madness;" and, moreover, drags in quite needlessly a very unusual and uncouth word.
In p. 481. we have the last word of the following passage—
"I never saw a vessel of like sorrow,
So fill'd and so becoming,"—
converted into "o'er-running." ”

“ Blindness, for instance, will make a man more careful of himself; and then the other faculties he enjoys will secure him from harm.
"King Lear," Act IV. Sc. 1.—
"Our means secure us, and our mere defects
Prove our commodities."
I should not object to your correspondent A. E. B.'s conjectural emendation, "recuse" for "secure," but that, unless my memory and Ayscough are both deceptive, the word "recuse" is nowhere to be found in Shakspeare; nor, as far as I know, in any dramatist of the age. ”

“ If I may be excused a play upon the words, I should say the sense of the passage is not at all improved, and the force is entirely lost.
I must protest most decidedly against the correction of the following lines, p. 507.:
" . . . Can he speak? hear?
Know man from man? dispute his own estate?"
Dispute his own estate means, defend his property, dispute with any one who questions his rights. The original passage expresses the sense quite perfectly, while "dispose his own estate" appears to me poor and insipid in comparison. ”

“ George Browne, who married Elizabeth or Eleanor, the daughter of Sir Richard Blount, was of Wickhambreux, Caversham, and also of West Shefford in co. Berks; his name appears as thus in the Visitation of this county anno 1623. Of the nineteen children, he had three sons whose names are not given, and who died in the Royal cause during the civil wars: but as Richard, the third son, is expressly mentioned, he certainly was not one of the three killed in the service of King Charles I. Sir George Browne, second, but eldest surviving son, was made a K.B. at the coronation of King Charles II. ”

“ Might I beg leave to add, for the information of your correspondent, that no British naturalist "of any mark or likelihood," has ever assumed that (though undoubtedly sloths) either the Mylodon, Scelidotherium, or Megatherium, were climbers. Indeed, the whole osseous structure of those animals proves that they were formed to uprend the trees that gave them sustenance. ”

“ Mackett was a commander in the E. I. Comp. service; and the condenser of Drury's MSS., after showing the opportunities the Captain had of assuring himself upon the points he certifies to, characterises him as a well-known person, of the highest integrity and honour: a man, indeed, as unlikely to be imposed upon, as to be guilty of lending himself to others, to carry out a deception upon the public. {105}
Mr. Burton, in his lately published "Narratives," points out another source of information regarding Drury, in the Gent. ”

“ The last correction I have now to notice is in the soliloquy of Autolycus in p. 522.: where Mr. Collier proposes to read, "who knows how that may turn luck to my advantage," instead of "may turn back to my advantage." I see no advantage in the change, but the very reverse. "Who knows but my availing myself of the means to do the prince my master a service, may come back to me in the shape of some advancement?" This seems to me to be the author's meaning, and it is legitimately expressed. How frequently it has been said that an evil deed recoils upon the head of the perpetrator! ”

“ Mrs. Tighe, Author of "Psyche."—There is a monument in Inistioge churchyard, co. Kilkenny, to the memory of the authoress of that beautiful poem Psyche, Mrs. Mary Tighe, with a statue of her, said to be by Flaxman, which statement, as to its being from the chisel of that celebrated sculptor, I have seen contradicted. She was the daughter of the Rev. W. Blackford, and married Mr. Henry Tighe of Woodstock, Ireland, in 1793. The inscription, which, I believe, is in existence, was not added to the monument in 1845. Can any of your correspondents favour me with a copy of it? ”

“ Manners of the Irish (Vol. viii., p. 5.) .—In the very curious extract given by your correspondent H., boyranne is very likely to stand for borbhan, the Irish for "lamentation" or "complaint." An Irish landlord knows full well that, even up to the present day, his tenants "keep the bread, and make borbhan." Molchan, I suspect, comes from miolc, whey. Localran stands for loisgrean, corn turned out of the ear. As to the concluding line of the extract, I must leave it to some better Irish scholar than I can boast myself. ”

“ Character of the Song of the Nightingale (Vol. vii., p. 397.) .—I imagine that many of the writers quoted by your correspondent lived in places too far removed to the north or west (as is my own case) ever to have heard the nightingale, and are, in consequence, not competent authorities as to a song they can only have described at second hand; but that Shelley was not far wrong in styling it voluptuous, and placing it amidst the luxurious bowers of Daphne, may receive some confirmation from an anecdote told by Nimrod ("Life and Times," Fraser's Magazine, vol. xxv. p. 301.) ”

“ What is this problem? for until that be known, we cannot hope for a solution. I would ask, is it this?—Stereoscopic pictures should create in the mind precisely such a conception as the two eyes would if viewing the object represented by the stereograph. If this be the problem (and I cannot conceive otherwise) , its solution is simple enough, as it consists in placing the cameras invariably 21⁄2 inches apart, on a line parallel to the building, or a plane passing through such a figure as a statue, &c. ”

“ But who then was the decapitated man? He was evidently an offender of consequence, from his having been beheaded, and from the careful embalming and the three coffins in which his remains were inclosed. The only conjecture I see hazarded in your pages is that of Mr. Hesleden (Vol. vi., p. 488.) , who suggests Monmouth; but he has overlooked the fact stated in the original communication of L. M. M. R., that Nuneham only came into the possession of the Buccleuch family through the Montagues, i.e. by the marriage of Henry, third Duke of Buccleuch, to Lady Elizabeth Montagu ”

“ It is a cupboard, forming the upper part of a five-sided structure, which has a base projecting equally with the top, which itself hangs over a hollow between the cupboard and the base, and is finished off with pendants below the cupboard. The panel which forms the door of the cupboard is wider than the sides. ”