Various

“ For if any one inquires why the Father, who communicates in all things to the Son, is yet by our Lord declared to know alone that day and hour, he cannot at present find any better, or more decent, or indeed any other safe answer at all, than this, that since our Lord is the only teacher of truth, we should learn of him, that the Father is above all ”

“ DUTCH TRANSLATION OF A TRACT BY ROBERT GREENE.
I was thinking of sending you a note or two on an early Dutch translation of a very celebrated English tract when your last number came to hand, by which I find that so much interest has been produced by "Notes and Queries" in Holland, that certain literati are about to establish a similar work in that country. If I mistake not, what I now transmit will be acceptable to your Batavian friends, and not unwelcome to those who approve of your undertaking on this side of the water. ”

“ Rosalind asks Orlando, "I pray you what is it a clock?" to which he replies, "You should ask me what time o' day; there's no clock in the forest." Again, when Jacques declares that he did laugh "an hour by his dial," do we not immediately recall Falstaff's similar phrase, "an hour by Shrewsbury clock?"
If it shall be said that the word "dial" is more used in reference to a natural than to a mechanical indicator of time, I should point, in reply, to Hotspur's allusion:
"Tho' life did ride upon a dial's point
Still ending with the arrival of an hour" ”

“ However it be, it is no small Comfort to me that that wise Commonwealth of Holland, the Parent and Nursing-Mother of Liberty, thought him worthy of their Protection when he was a sufferer for the common Cause of Religion and Liberty: and he must ever remain a noble Instance of the Generosity of that State, and of that potent Head of it, ye City of Amsterdam; where yourself and other Great Men have met with a Reception yt will redound to their Honour. ”

“ Ring dials, as I am informed, are in demand to go out to India, where they are in use among surveyors and military men; and, no doubt, such instruments as the astrolabe above-mentioned, which, though pretty old, does not pretend to be an antique, are in use among the educated of the natives all over the East. ”

“ Knight's interpretation, and, were it necessary to realize the scene between Jacques and Touchstone at all, I should prefer doing so by imagining some old turnip-faced atrocity in clock-making presented to the fool's lack-lustre eye, than the nice astronomical observation supposed by Mr. Knight.
The ring-dial, as described by him, and by your correspondents, is likewise described in most of the encyclopædias. It is available for the latitude of construction only, and was no doubt common enough a hundred years ago; but it is scarcely an object as yet for deposit in the British Museum. ”

“ Knight's suggestion of a ring dial, as though it were so self-evident as to admit of no denial. Nevertheless, neither he nor they have shown any good reason for its adoption: even its superior antiquity over the portable time-piece is mere surmise on their parts, unaccompanied as yet by any direct proof. In point of fact, the sole argument advanced by Mr. Knight why Touchstone's dial should be a ring dial is, that "it was not likely that the fool would have a pocket watch." ”

“ Such records may ere long become invaluable, and every day is hastening them to oblivion. Already hundreds of such churches, with the several monuments and inscriptions they contained, have entirely passed away. I have been making some investigation into the demolished and desecrated churches of Buckinghamshire, and am astonished at the number of monumental records which have thus perished. Thirty-one churches at least have been lost to the county, and some of them were rich in monumental memorials. ”

“ The "Winter's Tale."—As Mr. Payne Collier is making inquiries as to the origin of Shakspeare's Winter's Tale, perhaps he will allow me to call his attention to an oversight he has committed in his edition of Greene's Pandosto, in the series called Shakspeare's Library. In a note to the introduction, p. ii., Mr. Collier says,
"Some verbal resemblances and trifling obligations have been pointed out by the commentators in their notes to the Winter's Tale. ”

“ A good deal has been advanced lately regarding the interest taken by the inhabitants of Holland, Belgium, and Germany, in our ancient drama; and in consistency with what was said by Thomas Heywood more than 200 years ago, some new information has been supplied respecting the encouragement given to English players abroad. The fact itself was well-known, and the author last cited (Shakspeare Society's reprint of the Apology for Actors, 1841, p. 58.) furnishes the name of the very play performed on one occasion at Amsterdam. ”

“ From the language to The Natural History of the Varieties of Man, the transition is an easy one. The same preliminary studies lead to a mastery of both divisions of this one great subject: and having so lately seen how successfully Dr. Latham had pursued his researches into the languages of the earth, we were quite prepared to find, as we have done, the same learning, acumen, and philosophical spirit of investigation leading to the same satisfactory results in this kindred, but new field of inquiry. ”

“ In Campbell's British Poems, 1819, vol. vi., p. 93., with a Life of John Gilbert Cooper, to whom Campbell attributes the authorship, stating that he was born in 1723, and died in 1769; he was, consequently, only three years old when the poem was printed, which would settle the question, even if his disclaimer had been merely a trick to deceive his friend.
Lord Chesterfield's claim is hardly worth notice; his name seems to have been used to promote the sale of the "Engraven old Song;" and no one can doubt that he would gladly have avowed a production which would have added to his literary fame. ”

“ Arun.
"Beauty Retire."—Will the noble editor of Pepys's Diary permit me to ask him whether he has seen, in the Pepysian library, or elsewhere, a copy, either in print or MS., of Pepys's song, "Beauty Retire," words and music; or is it to be found in any miscellaneous collection of songs? ”

“ The above is one of the few books I purchased when I was in Holland some thirty years ago; and as I have quoted enough for the purpose of {104}identification, I may conclude with asking some of your Dutch correspondents, whether the tract, in this or in any other edition, is of considerable rarity with them? In England I never saw a copy of it but that in my possession. I may add that every paragraph is separately numbered from 1 to 110, as if the production were one of importance to which more particular reference might be made than even by the pagination. ”

“ Latham has at once done justice to that distinguished man, and expressed very neatly the opinion which will be entertained by the great majority of his readers of his own acquirements, and of the merits of this his last contribution to our stock of knowledge.
The Family Almanack and Educational Register for 1851, with what its editor justly describes as "its noble list of grammar schools," to a great extent the "offspring of the English Reformation in the sixteenth {111}century," will be a very acceptable book to every parent who belongs to the middle classes of society ”

“ Formerly, ring dials were made of a larger diameter, with much costly graduation bestowed upon them; too heavy to be portable, and too expensive for the occasion. For example, at the apartments of the Royal Astronomical Society, at Somerset House, a ring dial, eighteen inches in diameter, may be seen, constructed by Abraham Sharp, contemporary and correspondent of Newton and Flamstead ”

“ He was a very extraordinary and ingenious man, and wrote upon everything, from farriery to carving. With life in all its varieties he was perfectly acquainted, and had personally known almost every eminent man of his day. ”

“ Words are men's daughters (Vol. iii., p. 38.) .—I take this to be a proverbial sentence. In the Gnomologia of Fuller we have "Words are for women; actions for men"—but there is a nearer approach to it in a letter written by Sir Thomas Bodley to his librarian about the year 1604. He says,
"Sir John Parker hath promised more than you have signified: but words are women, and deeds are men."
It was no doubt an adoption of the worthy knight, and I shall leave it to others to trace out the true author—hoping it may never be ascribed to an ancestor of
Bolton Corney.
Passage in St. ”

“ Gough's scarce volume, I am anxious to learn by whom the original French work was written, and where a copy may be purchased. It is one of much erudition; sound in doctrine and principle; pleasing and familiar in its language, and would, I should think, well repay the publisher of a new edition, after a careful correction of a few deficiencies in composition, incidental to the early period at which Mr. Gough translated it. There is nothing in the preface, or in any part of the volume, to indicate the name of the original author. Should Mr. J. B. Nichols still possess Mr. ”

“ Query, Did Anna Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII., ever spell her name so? I need not to be reminded that some lexicographers define "Blowen" to be a rude woman. Query, origin of that appellation, so used?
We have been citizens and liverymen of London from Richard Blowen, who married, at {107}the close of the seventeenth century, the sister of Dr. Hugh Boulter (who became chaplain to George I., and afterwards Lord Archbishop of Armagh) .
Blowen.
Replies. TOUCHSTONE'S DIAL. (Vol. ii., p. 405.; vol. iii., p. 52.) ”

“ Janus Dousa, for judging of Vondel's Lucifer by an apparently unjust review rather than by perusal,—and his beautiful chorus having so fully "established his case,"—I am rather shy of making any remarks upon this inscription: otherwise I would venture (errors excepted) to observe that there may be a mistake in the position of the last three letters of the third word.
If Mr. Dousa would kindly inform a very imperfect Dutch scholar whether this sentence is intended as a quotation from Ecclesiastes xii., 13th verse,—
"Vreest Godt ende hout sÿne geboden;" ”

“ Lock grew so much in esteem with my Grand-Father that as great a Man as he had experienc'd him in Physick; he look'd upon this but as his least part. He encourag'd him to turn his Thoughts another way. Nor would he suffer him to practice Physick except in his own Family and as a kindness to some particular Friend. He put him upon the studdy of the Religiouse and Civil affaires of the Nation with whatsoever related to the Business of a Minister of State: in wch he was so successfull, that my Gd Father begun soon to use him as a Friend, and consult with him on all occasions of that kind. ”

“ He entrusted him with his secretest negotiations, and made use of his assistant Pen in matters that nearly concerned the State, and were fitt to be made publick, to raise that spirit in the Nation which was necessary against the prevailing Popish Party.
"It was for something of this kind that got air, and out of great Tenderness to Mr. Lock that my Grandfather in the year 1674 sent him abroad to travell: an Improvement wch my Gd father was gladd to add to those he had allready given him. His Health servd as a very just Excuse: he being consumptive as early in his Life as that was. ”

“ The Sententiæ Variorum referred to by your correspondent is, I presume, what was published under the title of—
"Detached Philosophic Thoughts of near 300 of the best Writers, Ancient and Modern, on Man, Life, Death, and Immortality, systematically arranged under the Authors' Names." 2 vols. 12mo. 1810.
Jas. Crossley.
Manchester, Jan. 25. 1851.
Miscellaneous. NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.
Dr. Latham seems to have adopted as his literary motto the dictum of the poet,
"The proper study of mankind is man." ”

“ P. S. We should gladly receive any such succinct yet correct and comprehensive definitions of new terms in science, or new words in literature, as our correspondent suggests. Will he kindly set the example?
T. F. R. (Oriel) . What are the coins? In one part they are spoken of as farthings, in another as sixpences.
K. R. H. M. received. Next double number.
Volume the Second of Notes and Queries, with very copious Index, is now ready, price 9s. 6d. strongly bound in cloth. Vol. I. is reprinted, and may also be had at the same price. ”

“ Winifreda (Vol. iii., p. 27.) .—Lord Braybrooke has revived a Query which I instituted above forty years ago (see Gent.'s Magazine for 1808, vol. lxxviii., Part I. p. 129.) . The correspondent, C. K., who replied to my letter in the same magazine, mentioned the appearance of this song in Dodsley's Letters on Taste (3rd edition, 1757.) These letters, being edited by John Gilbert Cooper, doubtless led Aikin, in his collection of songs, and Park, in his edition of Ritson's English Songs, to ascribe it to Cooper. ”

“ Subjoined is a brief notice of the various printed forms in which the old song called "Winifreda" has, from time to time, been brought before the public. I am indebted for these particulars to a kind friend in the British Museum, but we have hitherto failed in discovering the author.
1. The song first occurs as a translation from the ancient British language in D. Lewis's Collection of Miscellaneous Poems, 8vo. 1726, vol. i., p. 53., pointed out by your correspondent, Mr. Hickson. (Vol. ii., p. 519.) ”

“ Margaret which, as Lord Hailes says, "was of gold, about the length of a palm; the figure of ebony, studded and inlaid with gold. A piece of the true cross was enclosed in it"?
5. As to the cross "miraculously received by David I., and in honour of which he founded Holyrood Abbey in 1128," and which some antiquaries (see A Brief Account of Durham Cathedral; Newcastle, 1833, p. 46.) ”

“ Nor in a way so chaste.'
"'This,' says Malone, 'is taken almost literally from the novel'—when, in fact, the resemblance merely consists in the adoption by Shakspeare of part of the mythological knowledge supplied by Greene. 'The gods above disdaine not to love women beneath. Phœbus liked Daphne; Jupiter Io; and why not I then Fawnia?' The resemblance is anything but literal."
It would appear, however, that the passage cited by Mr. Collier is not the one referred to by Malone. Mr. Collier's passage is at p. 34. of his edition of the novel ”