Various

“ I am disposed to take a middle course between your correspondent and Dryden's two biographers, and submit that there is quite sufficient internal evidence of joint ownership. I cannot think such lines as—
"I, who so wise and humble seem to be,
Now my own vanity and pride can't see;" ”

“ The Scaligers are well known, not only as having held the lordship of Verona for some generations, but also as having been among the friends of Dante in his exile, no mean reputation in itself; and, at a later period, as taking very high rank among the first scholars of their day. To which of them the passage above properly belongs—whether to Can Grande, or his brother Bartolommeo, or even his father Alberto, commentators are by no means agreed. ”

“ Why the 3rd of May is particularly mentioned as the time of Palamon's escape, I cannot tell: there is probably some astrological reason. The mixture of astrological notions with mythology is curious: "the pale Saturnus the colde" is once more a dweller on Olympus, and interposes to reconcile Mars and Venus. By his influence Arcite is made to perish after having obtained from Mars the fulfilment of his prayer—
"Yeve me the victorie, I axe thee no more." ”

“ This imposing tiara is frequently represented on ancient monuments, where it varies in some details, though always preserving the characteristic peculiarity of a tall upright head-dress. It is sometimes truncated at its upper extremity, at others a genuine round-topped bonnet, like the Phrygian cap when pulled out to its full length, and stiffened so as to stand erect—each a variety of form peculiar to certain classes or degrees of rank, which at this period we are not able to decide and distinguish with certainty. ”

“ A captious person is not primarily a deceitful person, but either one who catches at any argument to uphold his own cause, or, more generally, one who catches or cavils at arguments or expressions used by another, and fastens a frivolous objection on them ”

“ In astrology, the heavens are divided into twelve houses, corresponding to a division of the ecliptic into twelve equal parts, the first of which is measured from the point of the ecliptic which is on the horizon and about to rise above it, at the instant which the astrologer has to consider, namely, the instant of birth in the case of a nativity, or that in which a journey or any other enterprise is undertaken. ”

“ I may add that the upright tiaras represented on works of ancient art, which can be proved, or are known to be worn by royal personages, are truncated at the summit; whence it does not seem an improper inference to conclude that the round and conical ones belonged to persons inferior to the kings alone in rank and influence, the Magi; which is the more probable, since it is clear that they were adopted by the highest priests of two other religions, those of Pagan and of Christian Rome. ”

“ Nothing seems to depend on their coming on one day of the week rather than on another. In reality, however, this apparently insignificant circumstance is astrologically connected with the issue of the contest. Palamon, who on the morning of the following day makes his prayer to Venus, succeeds at last in winning Emelie, though Arcite, who commends himself to Mars, conquers him in the tournament. The prayers of both are granted, because both address themselves to their tutelary deities at hours over which these deities respectively preside. ”

“ Thus, for instance, Saturn presides over the first hour of the day, which is called by his name; Jupiter over the second, and so on; the Moon, as the lowest of the planets, presiding over the seventh. Again, the eighth is subject to Saturn, and the same cycle recommences at the fifteenth and at the twenty-second hours. The twenty-third hour is therefore subject to Jupiter, and the twenty-fourth to Mars. Consequently, the first hour of the following day is subject to the sun, and the day itself is accordingly dies Solis, or Sunday. ”

“ Laurentius, cited by Fuller in the page already given, was, it seems, physician in ordinary to King Henry IV. of France. In a treatise entitled De Mirabili Strumarum Curatione, he stated that the kings of England never cured the evil. "To cry quits with him," Dr. W. Tucker, chaplain to Queen Elizabeth, in his Charismate, denied that the kings of France ever originally cured the evil
"but per aliquam propaginem, 'by a sprig of right,' derived from the primitive power of our English kings, under whose jurisdiction most of the French provinces were once subjected." ”

“ Advantage of a Bad Ear.—Can any of your readers supply the name of the man of mark in English history, who says "he encouraged in himself a bad ear, because it enabled him to enjoy music he would not have enjoyed without?" ”

“ The Query proposed by your correspondent, as to the authorship of the Essay on Satire, is a very interesting one, and I am rather surprised that it has not yet been replied to. In favour of your correspondent's view, and I think it is perhaps the strongest argument which can be alleged, is Dean Lockier's remark:—
"Could anything be more impudent than his (Sheffield's) publishing that satire, for writing which Dryden was beaten in Rose Alley (and which was so remarkably known by the name of the 'Rose Alley Satire') as his own? ”

“ Every one who knew the late Mr. Douce must have full confidence in his intimate knowledge of mediæval antiquity, and would not easily be led to imagine that he could be deceived on a point like this; but are we to presume, from a vague idea of your correspondent's, that the executive body of the Society of Antiquaries would fail to detect a forgery of this nature? ”

“ In the third or fourth century, an Indian prince names Josaphat was converted to Christianity by a holy hermit called Barlaam. This subject was afterwards treated of by some Alexandrian priest, probably in the sixth century, in a beautiful tale, legend, or spiritual romance, in Greek, and in a style of great ease, beauty, warmth, and colouring. The work was afterwards attributed to Johannes Damascenus, who died in 760. In this half-Asiatic Christian prose epic, Barlaam employs a number of even then ancient folk-tales and fables, spiritually interpreted, in Josaphat's conversion. ”

“ Now we see from Skelton's verse that in his time the peeling of garlick was proverbially a degraded employment—one which was probably thrust off upon the lowest inmate of the servants' hall, in an age when garlick entered largely into the composition of all made dishes. The disagreeable nature of the occupation is sufficient to account for this. Accordingly we may well suppose that the epithet "a poor pill-garlick" would be applied to any person, in miserable circumstances, who might be ready to undertake mean employment for a trifling gratuity. ”

“ The members of the Percy Society have just received the third and concluding volume of The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, a new Text, with Illustrative Notes, edited by Thomas Wright, Esq. It is urged as an objection to Tyrwhitt's excellent edition of the Canterbury Tales, that one does not know his authority for any particular reading, inasmuch as he has given what he considered the best among the different MSS. he consulted. Mr. Wright has gone on an entirely different principle. ”

“ Such an observer, if he goes the right way to work, will make sure of a high degree of entertainment and instruction, and may reasonably hope to light on a discovery or two, worthy, even in the present day, of being recorded. ”

“ He adds—
"We trace the same radical in the Welsh more, the sea, and in the Latin mare, humor, humidus. [27]
"All these people cannot be supposed to have derived their sound from each other. It must have descended to them from some primitive source, common to all."
From the expression used by J. W. H., "the connexion of the Welsh dwr with the Greek ὕδωρ is remarkable," he appears not to have known that Vezron found so many resemblances in the Doric or Laconic dialect, and the Celtic, that he thereupon raised the theory that the Lacedæmonians and the Celts were of the same—the Titanic—stock. ”

“ If other Princes do not the like, they are to blame, for continuall a great number are troubled with that disease." [20]
Pierre Desrey, in his Great Chronicles of Charles VIII., has the following passage relating to that monarch's proceedings at Rome in January, 1494-5:—
"Tuesday the 20th, the king heard mass in the French chapel, and afterwards touched and cured many afflicted with the king's evil, to the great astonishment of the Italians who witnessed the miracle." ”

“ But as we descend in time, and remove in distance from the country where this object was worn, we find that the Romans affixed another notion to the word, which they used very commonly to designate the Asiatic or Phrygian cap (Virg. Æn. iv. 216.; Servius, l.c.) ; and this sense has likewise been adopted in our own language:
"That Paris now with his unmanly sort,
With mitred hat."—Surrey, Virgil, Æn. iv.
Thus the word mitra in its later usage came to signify a cap or bonnet, instead of a turban ”

“ On first seeing your correspondent's Query, it occurred to me that perhaps "poor Pillgarlick" was in some way akin to "Pillicock," of whom Edgar, in King Lear, records that "Pillicock sat on Pillicock's hill;" but the connexion between these two worthies, if any, I confess myself quite unable to trace.
I conceive that Pillgarlick means "peeler of garlick," i.e. scullion; or, to borrow a phrase from a witness in a late case at the Middlesex sessions, {151}which has attracted some attention, "a person in a low way of life." ”

“ Obeahism.—In answer to T. H.'s Query regarding Obeahism, though I cannot answer his question fully, as to its origin, &c., yet I have thought that what I can communicate may serve to piece out the more valuable information of your better informed correspondents. I was for a short time in the island of Jamaica, and from what I could learn there of Obeahism, the power seemed to be obtained by the Obeah-man or woman, by working upon the fears of their fellow-negroes, who are notoriously superstitious. ”

“ For this must be the gradation more or less gone through in all such things, whether Obeism, Fetichism, the Evil Eye, or any sort of sorcery or witchcraft, in whatever variousness of form practised; cheats on the one hand, and dupes on the other the primum mobile in every case being, some shape or other of gain to the practitioner.
It seems, however, hardly likely that Obeism should now be "rapidly gaining ground again" there, from the greater spread of Christianity and diffusion of enlightenment and information in general since the slave-emancipation ”

“ To transfer suspicion from himself, in so general a satire, it was necessary to include his own name amongst the rest; but, though the lines are somewhat obscure, it is, after all, as respects him, compared with the other persons mentioned, a very gentle flagellation, and something like what children call a make-believe. Indeed Rochester, in a letter to his friend Henry Saville (21st Nov. 1679) , speaks of it as a panegyric.
On the other hand, Mulgrave expressly denied Dryden's being the author, in the lines in his Essay on Poetry,—
"Tho' praised and punished for another's rhymes." ”

“ And if any accident, or loss, or sickness should happen to him about the time, it is immediately imputed to the dreaded influence of Obeah! But I have heard of cases where the unfortunate victim has gradually wasted away, and died under this powerful spell, which, I have been informed by old residents in the island, is to be attributed to a more natural cause, namely, the influence of poison. The Obeah-man causes a quantity of ground glass to be mixed with the food of the person who has incurred his displeasure ”

“ Chaucer has the word truston in this sense.
Land-louper, one who runs over the country, a vagabond.
Dukes-couper I take to be a petty dealer in ducks or poultry, and to be used in a reproachful sense, as we find "pedlar," "jockey," &c.
Gang-y-gate swinger, a fighting man, who goes swaggering in the road (or gate) ; a roisterer who takes the wall of every one. Swing is an old word for a stroke or blow.
Durdam is an old word meaning an uproar, and akin to the Welsh word dowrd. ”

“ The passage from Skelton, cited by your correspondent F. S. Q., may, I think, be explained thus: the will is so powerful in man's moral constitution, that the reason must content itself with an inferior place (as that of a scullion compared with that of the master of the house) ; or if it attempts to assert its proper place, it will find it a hopeless endeavour—as hopeless as that of "rosting a stone."
X. Z.
Hornbooks (Vol. ii., pp. 167. 236.) .—In answer to Mr. Timbs, I send you the following particulars of a Hornbook in the British Museum, which I have this morning examined. ”

“ But words would fail to tell her worth: think
What a woman ought to be,
And she was that."
They are to be found on several tombstones throughout the country.
Scrutator.
{144}
Replies. THE EPISCOPAL MITRE AND PAPAL TIARA. (Vol. iii., p. 62.)
In answer to the question of an "Inquirer" respecting the origin of the peculiar form and first use of the episcopal mitre, I take the liberty of suggesting that it will be found to be of Oriental extraction, and to have descended from that country, either directly, or through the medium of other nations, to the ecclesiastics of Christian Rome. ”

“ It is obvious that these astrological hours will be of unequal length, as equal portions of the ecliptic subtend unequal angles at the pole of the equator.
With regard to the time of year at which the tournament takes place, there seems to be an inconsistency. Palamon escapes from prison on the 3rd of May, and is discovered by Theseus on the 5th. Theseus fixes "this day fifty wekes" for the rendezvous at Athens, so that the tournament seems to fall in April. Chaucer, however, says that ”

“ W. A.
Lady Fights at Atherton.—A poem, published in 1643, in honour of the King's successes in the West, has the following reference to a circumstance connected with Fairfax's retreat at Atherton Moor:
"When none but lady staid to fight." ”

“ Cane would at first sight appear to be a designation borrowed from the animal of that name. There would be parallels enough in Italy and elsewhere, as the Ursini, Lewis the Lion (VIII. of France) , our own Cœur de Lion, and Harold Harefoot. Dante, too, refers to him under the name "Il Veltro," Inferno, canto 1. l. 101. But Joseph Scaliger, in the letter to which I referred before, gives the following account of it:—
"Nomen illi fuerat Franscisco, à sacro lavacro, Cani à gentilitate, Magno à merito rerum gestarum. ”