Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851

"Owing to the difficulty of procuring the early numbers of 'NOTES AND QUERIES,' especially at this distance from Britain, I have been compelled to wait for its publication in a collected form. I am now in possession of the first volume, and beg leave to offer you a few Notes which have occurred to me on perusing its contents. I am fully sensible of the disadvantage of corresponding with you from so remote a corner of the globe, and am prepared to find some of my remarks anticipated by other correspondents nearer home; but having deeply suffered from the literary isolation consequent upon a residence of twenty-one years in this country, I shall gladly submit to any disadvantage which shall not involve a total exclusion from the means of inter-communication so opportunely afforded by your excellent periodical.

    "HENRY H. BREEN."]

THE NINEVEH MONUMENTS AND MILTON'S NATIVITY ODE ILLUSTRATED FROM LUCIAN

Layard in his Nineveh, vol. ii., p. 471., in his description of "the sacred emblems carried by the priests," says, they are principally the fruit or cone of the pine.

"… and the square utensil which, as I have already remarked, appears to have been of embossed or engraved metal, or of metal carved to represent wicker work, or sometimes actually of wicker work."

He adds, that M. Lajard "has shown the connection between the cone of the cypress and the worship of Venus in the religious systems of the East;" that it has been suggested that "the square vessel held the holy water," that, "however this may be, it is evident from their constant occurrence on Assyrian monuments, that they were very important objects in religious ceremonies. Any attempt to explain their use and their typical meaning, can at present be little better than ingenious speculation."

There is a passage in Lucian De Dea Syria, §. 13., which may serve to elucidate this feature in the Nineveh marbles. He is referring to the temple of Hierapolis and a ceremony which Deucalion was said to have introduced, as a memorial of the great flood and the escaping of the waters:

"Δις εκαστου ετεος εκ θαλασσης υδωρ ες τον νηον απικνεεται· φερουσι δε ουκ ιρεες μουνον αλλα πασα Συριη και Αραβιη, και περηθεν του Ευφρητεω, πολλοι ανθρωποι ες θαλασσαν ερχονται, και παντες υδωρ φερουσαι, τα, πρωτα μεν εν τωι νηωι εκχρουσι," &c.

"Twice every year water is brought from the sea to the temple. Not only the priests, but" all Syria and Arabia, "and many from the country beyond the Euphrates come to the sea, and all bring away water, which they first pour out in the temple," and then into a chasm which Lucian had previously explained had suddenly opened and swallowed up the flood of waters which had threatened to destroy the world. Tyndale, in his recent book on Sardinia, refers to this passage in support of a similar utensil appearing in the Sarde paganism.

It may be interesting to refer to another passage in the Dea Syria, in which Lucian is describing the splendour of the temple of Hierapolis; he says that the deities themselves are really present:—

"Και Θεοι δε καρτα αυτοισι εμφανεες· ιδρωει γαρ δη ων παρα σφισι τα ξοατα,"

When the very images sweat, and he adds, are moved and utter oracles. It is probable Milton had this in recollection when, in his noble Nativity Ode, he sings of the approach of the true Deity, at whose coming

"… the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat."

    L.I.M.

MINOR NOTES

Gaudentio di Lucca.—Sir James Mackinstosh, in his Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, adverts to the belief that Bishop Berkeley was the author of Gaudentio di Lucca, but without adopting it.

"A romance," he says, "of which a journey to an Utopia, in the centre of Africa, forms the chief part, called The Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca, has been commonly ascribed to him; probably on no other ground than its union of pleasing invention with benevolence and elegance."—Works, vol. i. p. 132. ed. 1846.

Sir J. Mackintosh, like most other modern writers who mention the book, seems not to have been aware of the decisive denial of this report, by Bishop Berkeley's son, inserted in the third volume of Kippis's Biographia Britannica.

    L.

George Wither, the Poet, a Printer (Vol. ii., p. 390.).—In addition to DR. RIMBAULT'S extract from Wither's Britain's Remembrancer, showing that he printed (or rather composed) every sheet thereof with his own hand, I find, in a note to Mr. R.A. Willmott's volume of the Lives of the English Sacred Poets, in that interesting one of George Wither, the following corroboration of this singular labour of his: the poem, independent of the address to the King and the præmonition, consisting of between nine and ten thousand lines, many of which, I doubt not, were the production of his brain while he stood at the printing-case. A MS. note of Mr. Park's, in one of the many volumes of Wither which I possess, confirms me in this opinion.

"Ben Jonson, in Time Vindicated, has satirized the custom, then very prevalent among the pamphleteers of the day, of providing themselves with a portable press, which they moved from one hiding-place to another with great facility. He insinuates that Chronomastix, under whom he intended to represent Wither, employed one of these presses. Thus, upon the entrance of the Mutes,—

"Fame. What are this pair?

Eyes. The ragged rascals?

Fame. Yes.

Eyes. These rogues; you'd think them rogues,
But they are friends;
One is his printer in disguise, and keeps
His press in a hollow tree."

From this extract it should seem that Wither not only composed the poem at case (the printer's phrase), but worked it off at press with his own hands.

    J.M.G.

Worcester.

"Preached as a dying Man to dying Men" (Vol. i., p. 415.; Vol. ii., p. 28.).—Some time ago there appeared in this series (Vol. i., p. 415.) a question respecting a pulpit-phrase which has occasionally been used by preachers, delivering their messages as "dying men to dying men." This was rightly traced (Vol. ii., p. 28.) to a couplet of the celebrated Richard Baxter, who, in one of his latest works, speaking of his ministerial exercises, says,—

"I preach'd as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men."

The passage occurs in one of his "Poetical Fragments," entitled "Love breathing Thanks and Praise."

This small volume of devotional verse is further entitled, Heart Imployment with GOD and Itself; the concordant Discord of a Broken-healed Heart; Sorrowing, Rejoicing, Fearing, Hoping, Dying, Living: published for the Use of the Afflicted. The Introduction is dated "London: at the Door of Eternity, Aug. 7. 1681."

He yet survived ten years, in the course of which he was twice imprisoned and fined under the profligate and persecuting reigns of Charles II. and James II. for his zeal and piety.

    J.M.G.

Hallamshire.

Authors of Anonymous Works.—On the title-page of the first volume of my copy of The Monthly Intelligencer for 1728 and 1729, which was published anonymously, is written in MS., "By the Rev. Mr. Kimber."

This book belonged to, and is marked with the autograph of D. Hughes, 1730; but the MS. note was written by another hand.

    P.H.F.

Umbrellas (Vol. ii., pp. 491. 523., &c.).—I have talked with an old lady who remembered the first umbrella used in Oxford, and with another who described the surprise elicited by the first in Birmingham. An aunt of mine, born 1754, could not remember when the house was without one, though in her youth they were little used. May not the word umbrella have been applied to various sorts of impluvia? Swift, in his "Description of a City Shower," says:—

"Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the dangled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The Templar spruce, while every spout's abroach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.
The tuck'd-up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides."

    Tatler, No. 238. Oct. 17. 1710.
This might be applied to an oiled cape, but I think the passage quoted by MR. CORNEY (Vol. ii., p. 523.) signifies something carried over the head.

By the way, the "Description of a City Shower" contains one of the latest examples of ache as a dissyllable:—

"A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old aches throb, your hollow tooth will rage."