Various

“ Amidst such a number of book-learned correspondents as you have, surely I may "lay the flattering unction to my soul" that some interesting discoveries could be made.
Collins is well worthy of all that can be done for his memory, for if his Ode on the Passions and his Ode to Evening be not true poetry, I fear that the English language has not much poetry to produce. ”

“ Shall we Register our Deeds? answered by Sir Edward Sugden. This clever pamphlet proposes an important Query, and replies to it thus: "Let us therefore to the question proposed, Shall we register our deeds? answer with one voice, No!"
If the study of Natural History be one which may with advantage be introduced into the family circle (and who can doubt it?) we know no better medium than the clever and well-conducted little weekly paper which has just been commenced under the title of Kidd's London Journal, of which the first five numbers are before us. ”

“ But a modern and far more indefensible attempt has been made in the opposite extreme, to deprive era of all duration, and to restrict its meaning to that of a mere initial point—such a meaning, already well supplied by the word epoch, is, in the case of era, opposed alike to reason, analogy, usefulness, and usage. ”

“ Some of this is invented by the writers, and ascribed to Napoleon; some of it is no wisdom at all; and some is what may be called second-hand wisdom, an old familiar face with a new dress. Of the latter sort is the famous saying:
"From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step."
For this remark Napoleon has obtained considerable notice: but the truth is, he borrowed it from Tom Paine; Tom Paine borrowed it from Hugh Blair, and Hugh Blair from Longinus. Napoleon's words are:—
"Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas." ”

“ Besides, he was a highly accomplished classical scholar, an accurate linguist, was well read in early English poetry and black-letter books, was passionately fond of music; and some of his poems, if nothing else, prove him to have viewed nature with a painter's eye. In his own line of poetry, the personification of abstract qualities, Collins stands unrivalled. Let us but compare him with all or any of his numerous imitators, and we ever find him in the calm dignity of genius,
"Sitting where they durst not soar." ”

“ I must therefore presume that the signature of J. B. Eardley Wilmot is entirely a fictitious one, and adopted for sinister purposes.
I beg to express my acknowledgments to you, for enabling me to set myself right with the literary world, more especially as I have lately brought out a little work of my own on a subject entirely professional. ”

“ And that her people be not so eagerly set to bite and tear one another (like dogs or other testie creatures) until all become a prey to wolves and bears, or other great ravenous beasts, which seek not so much to tear or rent in heat of revenge, as lie in wait continually to devour and swallow with insatiate greediness the whole bodies of mighty kingdoms, and to die her robes, that rides as queen of monsters upon that many headed beast, with streams of bloud that issue from the bodies squeezed and crushed between their violent teeth ”

“ It is sufficiently capacious for a man to stand in, having an arched entrance six feet in height, with a turning to the westward of about two feet, and is formed completely within the thickness of the wall. The village tradition, that it was formerly used as a confessional, founded on the existence of an opening into the interior part of the tower, now blocked up, has long been disesteemed. In the volume by the Cambridge Camden Society, on the Churches in Cambridgeshire, it is said to have been made for an ecclesiastic to stand in, to ring the Sanctus bell. ”

“ The third finger is the only recognised ring-finger. Hence all who wear rings ex officio, wear them on that finger. Cardinals, bishops, doctors, abbots, &c., wear their ring on the third finger. The reason is that it is the first vacant finger. The thumb and the first two fingers have always been reserved as symbols of the three persons of the Blessed Trinity. When a bishop gives his blessing, [115] he blesses with the thumb and first two fingers. ”

“ I mean the Scholiasts, who have been treated most unjustly. A goodly host of scribblers looks forth from the grave of antiquity. And here, before proceeding to speak of the theories of later times, it may be permitted me to suggest that casual allusions by writers who write not expressly on the subject, and who are sufficiently accurate on those points to which they have directed their attention, are often more valuable than the folios of writers who go on the principle of book-making. ”

“ The passage in Tom Paine, whose writings were translated into French as early as 1791, stands thus:—
"The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately; one step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again."
Blair has a remark akin to this:
"It is indeed extremely difficult to hit the precise point where true wit ends and buffoonery begins." ”

“ The left hand signifies dependence or subjection. Married women, then, wear the wedding-ring on the third finger of the left hand, because they are subject to their husbands.
Bishops, because they have ecclesiastical authority, and doctors, because they have authority to teach, wear the ring on the ring-finger of the right hand. ”

“ In recent numbers of "N. & Q." there have been several allusions to spectacles, and as I am not aware of any clear and satisfactory data relative to the origin or antiquity of this most important auxiliary to the extension and usefulness of that sense upon which the enjoyment and value of life so much depends, I beg to submit the Query, What is the earliest form in which evidence of the existence of this invaluable optical aid to the human eye presents itself? ”

“ Reichenbach says, that "thousands of ghost stories will now receive a natural explanation," from his discovery that the decomposition of animal matter is accompanied by light, or luminous vapour, which is visible to certain sensitive persons. As I originally stated, "my Query is, where to find the 'thousands of ghost stories' which are explained by it." I now repeat that Query in unaffected ignorance. I have read a good many ghost stories, British and foreign; but I know that some of the writers in "N. & Q." are much better acquainted with German literature and superstitions than I am ”

“ Pearson has afforded some evidence, he may have become acquainted with Hebrew.
If H. H. H. V. desires to know more of Coverdale, he can find all that late researches have been able to discover in the first volume of Mr C. Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, and in the biographical notice of Coverdale prefixed to the Parker Society's edition of his Remains, by the Rev. G. Pearson. But when that gentleman describes Coverdale's portion of Matthew's Bible, and says that the book of Jonah is of Tyndale's version, he has made a mistake. ”

“ Johnson having in 1775 written the preface to Baretti's Easy Lessons in Italian and English; but neither he nor his editors appear to have been aware of the preface which Dr. Johnson contributed to an earlier work by Baretti, his Introduction to the Italian Language, London, 1775, 8vo. It is accompanied by an Italian translation, and is written with all his usual vigour, and commences:
"Unjust objections commonly proceed from unreasonable expectation; writers are often censured for omitting what they never intended to perform." ”

“ In ancient times, we are informed by Tatian, [1] there were many writers on Homer, whose works, it is to be lamented, have perished with the nominal exception of a few fragments,—though, perhaps, scholars will once learn to use those as a clue, and find, as Burges did in the case of Thucydides, [2] that many valuable passages are lying hid in the pages of the lexicographers, who spared themselves the trouble of writing fresh matter, by merely slightly changing the expressions of their sources, and not "bothering" their lexicographical brains by attempting original composition. ”

“ Whether the symbol of the sun was ever employed for any such purpose as our modern broad arrow, is a question on which I hope some of your readers may be able to throw some light. Meanwhile, being quite ignorant as to the antiquity of our Ordnance mark, the above is merely thrown out as a conjecture. ”

“ The Spaniards, who have the best right to the word, have never adopted the diphthong. With them it is still era, and Scaliger asserts that there is not in all Spain a single inscription in which the diphthong is recognised. ”

“ Spelman therefore had sufficient reason to contend that the origin of era might be Gothic and not Roman, and that it is but a variation of our own word year. He says that Isidorus, when dating from the Roman epoch, used the Roman word, but that when dating from the Gothic epoch, he conformed to the idiom of the Goths, "apud quos," he adds, "eram annum significasse ex eo liqueat, quod prisci Saxones (quibus magna Gothis sermonis affinitas) annum 'Ȝear' dicebant—Angli hodie 'year'—Belgi 'iaer.'"
The absence of the diphthong in era is attributed by Facciolatus to the barbarism of the age ”

“ In what books the old spelling should be retained is a matter of individual question, upon which no rules can be laid down. Walpole complained that the Paston Letters were printed with the old spelling, and that, though a version is on the opposite page; but few persons will agree with him in that. In such books we have a right to see the old spelling in order to judge whether the version is right, as well as for general information.
C. B.
The Ring-finger (Vol. iv., pp. 150. 198. 261.) .
—The two questions mooted concerning the ring-finger, i.e. ”

“ It will be seen that the original saying, in its various peregrinations, has undergone a slight modification, Longinus making the translation a gradual one, "κατ' ὀλίγον," while Blair, Paine, and Napoleon make it but "a step." Yet, notwithstanding this disguise, the marks of its paternity are sufficiently traceable.
So much for this celebrated "mot." And, after all, there is very little wit or wisdom in it, that is not expressed or suggested by La Rochefoucauld's Maxims:—
"La plus subtile folie se fait de la plus subtile sagesse."
"Plus on aime une maîtresse, plus on est près de la haïr;" ”

“ And in reference to this it seems somewhat surprising that it should not have struck those who first raised this question, that the evidence of the "wise and virtuous pontiff" was at least as good as that of the historian who might be neither wise nor virtuous. Gregory is surely as powerful to raise Brunehilda, as Brunehilda to pull down Gregory. But the plain fact is, that there is a [109] tendency to be hyperbolical in our estimation of crowned heads; in all probability, if one was no monster the other was no saint. ”

“ Such instances might be multiplied to any extent. Their effect upon my mind was to convince me that Coverdale did not even know the Hebrew letters when he published his version of the Bible. In fact, the Jews being then expelled from England, and the only Hebrew Lexicon, that of Xantes Pagninus, having probably not arrived here, it was scarcely possible for an Englishman to master the Hebrew tongue, without going abroad to obtain access to learned Jews, as Tyndale did, and as Coverdale himself did after the appearance of his Bible ”

“ The men who wrote thus were, probably, persons either engaged in itinerant vocal pursuits, or regular verse makers, who wrote "on a subject," as our own street writers on the present day. Indeed, I may say, that the state of the rhapsodists of Greece resembles much that of our own "itinerant violinists," as an eminent counsel once apostrophized the class which the excellent judge on the bench named, according to general custom, "blin' fiddlers." The probable reason for the introduction of passages into the original Homeric compositions was the necessity of a novelty. ”

“ MR. J. B. COLMAN has directed attention to the special act of attainder passed in 22 Hen. VIII. in order to punish Richard Roose for poisoning the family of the Bishop of Rochester; but I have reason to believe that he is wrong in his assertion that, prior to that statute, "there was no peculiarity in the mode of punishment" for the crime in question. In the Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, which I am now engaged in editing for the Camden Society, I find an instance of the like punishment being inflicted for the same crime in the 13th Hen. ”

“ The Cyclic poems are to Homer what the letters of Poplicola, Anti-Sejanus, Correggio, Moderator, and the rest, were to Junius. However, they prove in a remarkable manner how great the excitement regarding "the poet," as Aristoteles calls him, ever continued to be in Hellas.
These gentlemen, whose object was not to disgrace Homer by their puling compositions, but only to practically observe the maxims subsequently instilled by Iago into Roderigo's mind (viz., to "put money in their purse") , were the precursors of another race of writers. ”

“ That of the living swan also requires consideration. Mr. Nicol, in his valuable Iceland, Greenland, &c., thus describes the Cygnus musicus which frequents the lakes and rivers of Iceland:
"The largest and noblest of this class [the natatorial] is undoubtedly THE WILD OR WHISTLING SWAN, with pure white plumage, slightly tinged on the head with orange-yellow. This majestic bird is five feet long, and, with extended wings, eight broad. It is rarely seen in Greenland, and appears merely to rest in Faroe, on its journeys to and from Iceland in the spring and autumn. ”