Notes and Queries, Number 40, August 3, 1850

    Sat. iii. 17.
In imitating this passage, Mr. Rhodes, finding no fons Egeriæ, no Numa, and perhaps no Muses in London, transfers his regrets from a rivulet to a navigable stream; and makes the whole ridiculous, by suggesting that the Thames would look infinitely better if it flowed through grass, as every ordinary brook would do.

"Next he departed to the river side,
Crowded with buildings, tow'ring in their pride.
How much, much better would this river look,
Flowing 'twixt grass, like every other brook,
If native sand its tedious course beguil'd,
Nor any foreign ornament defil'd."

    W (1.)

DEDICATION TO MILTON BY ANTONIO MALATESTI

Dr. Todd, in his Life of Milton, ed. 1826, mentions the accidental discovery of a manuscript by Antonio Malatesti, bearing the following title:

"La Tina Equivoci Rusticali di Antonio Malatesti, c[=o]posti nella sua Villa di Taiano il Settembre dell' Anno 1637. Sonetti Cinqu[=a]nta. Dedicati al' III'mo Signore et Padrone Oss'mo Signor Giovanni Milton, Nobil' Inghilese."

It seems that this MS. had been presented, together with Milton's works, to the Academy della Crusca, by Mr. Brand Hollis, but had by some chance again found its way to England, and was sold by auction at Evans's some short time before Mr. Todd published this second edition of Milton's Life.

I know not if there has been any further notice of this MS., which is interesting as a monument of the respect and attention our great poet received from the most distinguished literary men of Italy at the time of his visit, and I should be glad if any of your correspondents can indicate its existence, and the place where it is now preserved. When it was on sale, I had permission to copy the title and a few of the sonnets, which were such as we could not imagine would have given pleasure to the chaste mind of Milton; each of them containing, as the title indicates, an équivoque, which would bear an obscene sense, yet very ingeniously wrapped up. The first sonnet opens thus:—

"Queste Sonnetti, o Tina, ch' i' hó composto,
Me gl' há dettati una Musa buffona,
Cantando d' improviso, alla Carlona,
Sul suono, spinto dal oalor del Mosto."

The second may serve to show the nature of the équivoque:—

"Tina, I' so legger bene, e rilevato
La Storia di Liombrune, e Josafatte,
Se ben, per esser noto in queste fratte
Sotto il Maestro mai non sono stato.

"E il lere del dificio m' ha giurato,
Quand' egli ha visto le Poesie ch' i' hó fatte,
Ch' elle son belle, e i piedi in terra batte,
E vuol ch' io mi sia in Pisa adottorato.

"Io canto, quand' io son ben ben satollo,
Sul Chitarrin con voce si sottile,
Ch'io ne disgrado insien Maestro Apollo.

"Vien un poco da me, Tina gentile,
Che s' egli avvien che tu mi segga in collo,
M' sentirai ben tosto alzar lo stile."

Antonio Malatesti was a man of mark in his time, being distinguished for his talent as an improvisatore. Among his friends were Galileo, Coltellini, and Valerio Chimentelli, who have all commendatory poems prefixed to Malatesti's "Sphinx," a collection of poetical enigmas, which has been frequently reprinted. Beside his poetical talent, he studied astronomy, probably under Galileo; and painting, in which he was a pupil of Lorenzo Lippi, author of the "Malmantile Raqquistato," who thus designates him under his academical name of Amostante Latoni (canto i. stanza 61.):—

"E General di tutta questa Mandra
Amostante Laton Poeta insigne.
Canta improviso, come un Calandra:
Stampa gli Enigmi, 'Strologia, e Dipigne."

Malatesti was a member of the Academy degli Apatisti, of which Milton's friends Coltellini and Carlo Dati had been the principal founders. The house of the latter was a court of the Muses, and it was at the evening parties there that all who were distinguished for science or literature assembled: "Era in Firenze la sua Casa la Magione de' Letterati, particolarmente Oltramontani, da lui ricevuti in essa, e trattati con ogni sorta di gentilezza."[1 - Salvino Salvini Fasti Consolari dell' Academia Fiorentina, 1717, p. 548. Milton's stay of two months at Florence must have been to him a period of pure enjoyment, and seems to have been always remembered with delight:—"Illa in urbe, quam prae ceteris propter elegantiam cum linguæ tum ingeniorum semper colui, ad duos circiter menses substiti; illie multorum et nobilium sanè et doctorum hominum familiaritatem statim contraxi; quorum etiam privatas academias (qui mos illie cum ad literas humaniores assiduè frequentavi). Tui enim Jacobe Gaddi, Carole Dati, Frescobalde, Cultelline, Bonmatthaei, Chimentille Francine, aliorumque plurium memoriam apud me semper gratam atque jucundam, nulla dies delebit."—Defensio Secunda, p. 96., ed. 1698.] Heinsius, Menage, Chapelain, and other distinguished foreigners were members of this academy; and it is more than probable that, were its annals consulted, our poet's name would also be found there.

    S.W. SINGER.

Mickleham, July 15, 1850.

PULTENEY'S BALLAD OF "THE HONEST JURY."

On the application for a new trial, in the case of The King against William Davies Shipley, Dean of St. Asaph (1784), wherein was raised the important and interesting question, whether in libel cases the jury were judges of the law as well as the fact, Lord Mansfield, in giving judgment, remarked in reference to trials for libel, before Lord Raymond:

"I by accident (from memory only I speak now) recollect one where the Craftsman was acquitted; and I recollect it from a famous, witty, and ingenious ballad that was made at the time by Mr. Pulteney; and though it is a ballad, I will cite the stanza I remember from it, because it will show you the idea of the able men in opposition, and the leaders of the popular party in those days. They had not an idea of assuming that the jury put it upon another and much better ground. The stanza I allude to is this:—

"'For Sir Philip well knows,
That his innuendos
Will serve him no longer,
In verse or in prose;
For twelve honest men have decided the cause,
Who are judges of fact, though not judges of laws.'

"It was the admission of the whole of that party; they put it right; they put it upon the meaning of the innuendos; upon that the jury acquitted the defendant; and they never put up a pretence of any other power, except when talking to the jury themselves."

In Howell's State Trials (xxi. 1038.) is a note on this passage. This note (stated to be from the Speeches of Hon. Thomas Erskine) is as follows:—

"It appears by a pamphlet printed in 1754, that Lord Mansfield is mistaken. The verse runs thus:—

"'Sir Philip well knows,
That his innuendos
Will serve him no longer in verse or in prose:
For twelve honest men have determined the cause,
Who are judges alike of the facts and the laws.'"

Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors (v. 25.) and Lives of the Lord Chief Justices (ii. 543.), and Mr. Harris, in his Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke (i. 221.), give the lines as quoted by Lord Mansfield, with the exception of the last and only important line, which they give, after the note to Erskine's speeches, as

"Who are judges alike of the facts and the laws."

And Lord Campbell (who refers to State Trials, xxi.) says that Lord Mansfield, in the Dean of St. Asaph's Case, misquoted the lines "to suit his purpose, or from lapse of memory."

I know not what is the pamphlet referred to as printed in 1754; but on consulting the song itself, as given in the 5th volume of the Craftsman, 337., and there entitled "The Honest Jury; or, Caleb Triumphant. To the tune of 'Packington's Pound,'" I find not only that Lord Mansfield's recollection of the stanza he referred to was substantially correct, but that the opinion in support of which he cited it is expressed in another stanza besides that which he quoted. The first verse of the song is as follows:

"Rejoice, ye good writers, your pens are set free;
Your thoughts and the press are at full liberty;
For your king and your country you safely may write,
You may say black is black, and prove white is white;
Let no pamphleteers
Be concerned for their ears;