Читать книгу: «Notes and Queries, Number 07, December 15, 1849», страница 5
In reference to the discovery of America by Madoc, pp. 7. 12. 25. 57., it may amuse your readers to be informed that Seneca shadows forth such a discovery:—
"Venient annis sæcula seris
Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum
Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus,
Ichthysque novos deteget orbes;
Nec sit terris ultima Thule."
Medea, act ii, ad finem, v. 375.
"A vaticination," says the commentator, "of the Spanish discovery of America." It is certainly a curious passage.
C.
QUERIES
BERKELEY'S THEORY OF VISION VINDICATED
In Mr. Dugald Stewart's Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysical Philosophy he says of Lord Shaftesbury's work entitled Characteristics—
"It seemed to have the power of changing the temper of its critics. It provoked the amiable Berkeley to a harshness equally unwonted and unwarranted; while it softened the rugged Warburton so far as to dispose the fierce, yet not altogether ungenerous, polemic to price an enemy in the very heat of conflict."
To this passage is appended the following note:—
"Berkeley's Minute Philosopher, Dialogue 3.; but especially his Theory of Vision Vindicated, London, 1733 (not republished in the quarto edition of his works), where this most excellent man sinks for a moment to the level of a railing polemic."
Can you or any of your readers do me the favour to inform me whether the tract here referred to has been included in any subsequent edition of the Bishop's works, and, if not, where it is to be met with?
B.G.
DR. JOHNSON AND PROFESSOR DE MORGAN
Mr. Editor,—Although your cleverly conceived publication may be considered as more applicable to men of letters than to men of figures, yet I doubt not you will entertain the subject I am about to propound: because, in the first place, "whole generations of men of letters" are implicated in the criticism; and, in the next place, because however great, as a man of figures, the critic may be, the man of letters criticised was assuredly greater.
Professor de Morgan has discovered a flaw in the great Johnson! and, in obedience to your epigraph, "when found make a note of it," he has made a note of it at the foot of page 7, of The Companion to the Almanac for 1850,—eccola:—
"The following will show that a palpable absurdity will pass before the eyes of generations of men of letters without notice. In Boswell's Life of Johnson (chapter viii. of the edition with chapters), there is given a conversation between Dr. Adams and Johnson, in which the latter asserts that he could finish his Dictionary in three years.
"ADAMS. 'But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary.'—JOHNSON. 'Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see: forty times forty is sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.'
No one of the numerous editors of Boswell has made a note upon this, although many things as slight have been commented upon: it was certainly not Johnson's mistake, for he was a clear-headed arithmetician. How many of our readers will stare and wonder what we are talking about, and what the mistake is!"
Certes, I for one, plead guilty to staring, and wondering what the Professor is talking about.
I cannot for a moment imagine it possible, that he could base such a criticism, so announced, upon no better foundation than that mere verbal transposition of the words Englishman and Frenchman.
The inversion deceives no person, and it is almost more appropriate to the colloquial jocularity of the great Lexicographer's bombast than if the enunciation had been more strictly according to rule. Besides, the correctness of the expression, even as it stand, is capable of defence. Let the third and fourth terms be understood as referring to time instead of to power, and the proportion becomes "as three to sixteen hundred, so is" (the time required by) "an Englishman to" (that required for the same work by) "a Frenchman."
Or, if natives be referred to in the plural,—then, as three to sixteen hundred, so are
Englishmen to Frenchmen;
that is, such is the number of each required for the same amount of work.
But I repeat that I cannot conceive a criticism so trifling and questionable can have been the true aim of professor de Morgan's note, and as I am unable to discover any other flaw in the Doctor's proportion, according to the premises, my query, Mr. Editor, has for its object to learn
"What the mistake is?"
B.
CARACCIOLLI'S LIFE OF LORD CLIVE
Sir,—Can you, or any of your readers, give me any information relating to Caraccioli's Life of Lord Clive? It is a book in four bulky octavo volumes, without date published, I believe, at different periods, about the year 1780—perhaps some years later. It enjoys the distinction of being about the worst book that was ever published. It bears, on its title-page, the name of "Charles Caraccioli, Gent." A writer in the Calcutta Review, incidentally alluding to the book, says that "it is said to have been written by a member of one of the councils over which Clive presided; but the writer, being obviously better acquainted with his lordship's personal doings in Europe than in Asia, the work savours strongly of home-manufacture, and has all the appearance of being the joint composition of a discarded valet and a bookseller's hack." The last hypothesis appears very probable. Internal evidence is greatly in its favour. Can any of your readers tell me who was "Charles Caraccioli, Gent.,"—when the atrocity which bears his name was published,—or any thing about the man or his book? Probably some notice of it may be found in the Monthly Review, the Gentleman's Magazine, or some other periodical of the last century. The writer, indeed, speaks of his first volume having been reviewed with "unprecedented" severity. Perhaps you can help me to the dates of some notices of this book. The work I believe to be scarce. The copy in my possession is the only complete one I have seen; but I once stumbled upon an odd volume at a book-stall. It is such a book as Lord Clive's family would have done well in buying up; and it is not improbable that an attempt was made to suppress it. The success of your journal is greatly dependent upon the brevity of your correspondents; so no more, even in commendation of its design, from yours obediently,
K.
Covent Garden, Dec. 5. 1849.
ON SOME SUPPRESSED PASSAGES IN W. CARTWRIGHT'S POEMS
As I want my doubts cleared up on a literary point of some importance, I thought I could not do better than state them in your "NOTES AND QUERIES."
I have before me a copy of the not by any means rare volume, called Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, with other Poems, by Mr. William Cartwright, 8vo. 1651, with the portrait by Lombart. Though the book may be called a common one, I apprehend that my copy of it is in an uncommon state, for I find in it certain leaves as they were originally printed, and certain other leaves as they were afterwards substituted. The fact must have been that after the volume was published by H. Moseley, the bookseller, it was called in again, and particular passages suppressed and excluded.
These passages are three in number, and occur respectively on pp. 301, 302, and 305; and the two first occur in a poem headed "On the Queen's Return from the Low Countries," an event which occurred only shortly before the death of Cartwright, which took place on 23d Dec. 1643.
This poem consists, in my perfect copy, of eight stanzas, but two stanzas are expunged on the cancelled leaf, viz. the second and the fifth; the second runs as follows:—
"When greater tempests, than on sea before,
Receiv'd her on the shore,
When she was shot at for the king's own good,
By legions hir'd to bloud;
How bravely did she do, how bravely bear!
And shew'd, though they durst rage, she durst not fear."
The queen landed at Burlington on 22nd Feb. 1642, so that Cartwright may have written what precedes; but how could he have written what follows, the fifth stanza of the poem, which mentions an event that did not occur until six or seven years afterwards?
"Look on her enemies, on their Godly lies,
Their holy perjuries,
Their curs'd encrease of much ill gotten wealth,
By rapine or by stealth,
Their crafty friendship knit in equall guilt,
And the Crown-Martyr's bloud so lately spilt."
Hence arises my first question—if Cartwright were not the author of this poem, who was? Although Izaac Walton, Jasper Mayne, James Howell, Sir John Birkenhead, and a host of other versifyers, introduce the volume with "laudatory lays," we are not to suppose that they meant to vouch for the genuineness of every production therein inserted and imputed to Cartwright. Was the whole poem "On the Queen's Return" foisted in, or only the two stanzas above quoted, which were excluded when the book was called in?
The next poem on which I have any remark to make immediately succeeds that "on the Queen's Return," and is entitled "Upon the Death of the Right Valiant Sir Bevill Grenvill, Knight," who, we know from Lord Clarendon, was killed at Lansdown on 5th July, 1643, only five months before the death of Cartwright, who is supposed to have celebrated his fall. This production is incomplete, and the subsequent twelve lines on p. 305, are omitted in the ordinary copies of Cartwright's Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, with other Poems:—
"You now that boast the spirit, and its sway,
Shew us his second, and wee'l give the day:
We know your politique axiom, Lurk, or fly;
Ye cannot conquer, 'cause you dare not dye:
And though you thank God that you lost none there,
'Cause they were such who liv'd not when they were;
Yet your great Generall (who doth rise and fall,
As his successes do, whom you dare call,
As Fame unto you doth reports dispence,
Either a – or his Excellence)
Howe'r he reigns now by unheard-of laws,
Could wish his fate together with his cause."
It is clear to me, that these lines could not have been written in 1643, soon after the death of Sir B. Grenvill; and, supposing any part of the poem to have come from the pen of Cartwright, they must have been interpolated after the elevation of Cromwell to supreme power.
I have thrown out these points for information, and it is probable that some of your readers will be able to afford it: if able, I conclude they will be willing.
It may be an error to fancy that the copy of Cartwright now in my hands, containing the cancelled and uncancelled leaves, is a rarity; but although in my time I have inspected at least thirty copies of his Comedies, Tragi-Comedies, with other Poems, I certainly never met with one before with this peculiarity. On this matter, also, I hope for enlightenment.
Do the stanzas "on the Queen's Return" and the lines on the Death of Sir B. Grenvill exist in any of the various collections of State Poems?
INVESTIGATOR.
