Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853

    Milton, Par. Lost, i. 535.
4.   "The dying man to Sweden turn'd his eye,
Thought of his home, and clos'd it with a sigh."

    Pleasures of Hope.
"Sternitur infelix alieno vulnere, cœlumque
Aspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos."

    Virgil, Æn., x. 782.
5.   "… Red meteors flash'd along the sky,
And conscious Nature shudder'd at the cry."

    Pleasures of Hope.
"… Fulsere ignes, et conscius æther."

    Virgil, Æn., iv. 167.
6.   "In hollow winds he hears a spirit moan."

    Pleasures of Hope.
Shakespeare has the hollow whistling of the southern wind.

7.   "The strings of Nature crack'd with agony."

    Pleasures of Hope.
"His grief grew puissant. and the strings of life
Began to crack."—Shakspeare, King Lear.
8.   "The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook."

    Gertrude of Wyoming.
"… And feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce."

    Milton, Par. Lost, ii. 599.
9.   "His tassell'd horn beside him laid."

    O'Connor's Child.
"… Ere th' odorous breath of morn
Awakes the slumbering leaves, or tassell'd horn
Shakes the high thicket."—Milton, Arcades.
10. "The scented wild-weeds and enamell'd moss."

    Theodric.
Campbell thinks it necessary to explain this latter epithet in a note: "The moss of Switzerland, as well as that of the Tyrol, is remarkable for a bright smoothness approaching to the appearance of enamel." And yet was no one, or both, of the following passages floating in his brain when his pen traced the line?

"O'er the smooth enamell'd green
Where no print of sleep hath been."

    Milton, Arcades.
"Here blushing Flora paints th' enamell'd ground."

    Pope, Winsdor Forest.
    W. T. M.
Hong Kong.

"THE HANOVER RAT."

(Vol. vii. p. 206.)

An Essay on Irish Bulls is said to have found its way into a catalogue of works upon natural history; with which precedent in my favour, and pending the inquiries of naturalists, ratcatchers, and farmers into the history of the above-named formidable invader, I hope Mr. Hibberd will have no objection to my intruding a bibliographical curiosity under the convenient head he has opened for it in "N. & Q."

My book, then, bears the appropriate title, An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Hanover Rat, dedicated to P***m M******r, M.D., and S–y to the Royal Society, 8vo., pp. 24.: London, 1744.

The writer of this curious piece takes his cue from that remarkable production, An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Polype, 1743; in which the learned Mr. Henry Baker, in a letter to Martin Folkes, of 218 pages, 8vo., illustrated by a profusion of woodcuts, elaborately describes this link between the animal and vegetable creation, and the experiments he practised upon the same: commencing with "cutting off a polype's head," and so on through a series of scientific barbarities upon his little creature, which ended only in "turning a polype inside out!"

Following the plan of Mr. Baker, the anonymous author of The Hanover Rat tells us, that, after thirty years' laborious research, he had satisfied himself that this animal was not a native of these islands: "I cannot," he says, "particularly mark the date of its first appearance, yet I think it is within the memory of man;" and finding favour in its original mine affamée state with a few of the most starved and hungry of the English rats from the common sewer, he proceeds to show that it did extirpate the natives; but whether this is the best account, or whether the facts of the case as here set forth will satisfy your correspondent, is another thing. According to my authority, the aboriginal rat was, at the period of writing, sorely put to it to maintain his ground against the invading colonists and their unnatural allies the providers; and the present work seems to have been an effort on the part of one in the interest of the former to awaken them to a sense of their danger. In his laudable attempts to rally their courage, this advocate reminds them of a similar crisis when their country was infested with a species of frog called Dutch frogs: "which no sooner," says he, "began to be mischievous, than its growth and progress was stopped by the natives." "Had we," he continues, "but the same public spirit with our ancestors, we need not complain to-day of being eaten up by rats. Our country is the same, but alas! we feel no more the same affection for it." In this way he stimulates the invaded to a combined attack upon the common enemy, and we need not tell our readers how successfully, nor how desperate the struggle, the very next year; which ended in the complete ascendancy of the Hanover rat, or reigning family, over the unlucky Jacobite native. Under his figure of a rat, this Jacobite is very scurrilous indeed upon the Hanoverian succession; and, continuing his polypian imitations, relates a few coarse experiments upon his subject illustrative of its destructive properties, voracity, and sagacity, which set at nought "all the contrivances of the farmer to defend his barns; the trailer his warehouse; the gentleman his land; or the inferior people their cup-boards and small beer cellars. No bars or bolts can keep them out, nor can any gin or trap lay hold of them."

Luckily for us living in these latter days, we can extract amusement from topics of this nature, which would have subjected our forefathers to severe pains and penalties; and looking at the character and mischievous tendency of The Hanover Rat, I am curious to know if Mary Cooper, the publisher, was put under surveillance for her share in its production; for to me it appears a more aggravated libel upon the reigning family than that of the Norfolk Prophecy—for the publication of which, Boswell says, the great Samuel Johnson had to play at hide and seek with the officers of justice.

The advent of both Pretenders was preceded by straws like these cast out by their adherents, to try how the current set. The present jeu d'esprit, however, is a double-shotted one: for, not content with tampering with the public allegiance, this aboriginal rat seems more innocently enjoying a laugh at the Royal Society, and its ingenious fellow Mr. Baker, in as far as regards the aforesaid elaborate treatise upon polypes.

    J. O.

FONT INSCRIPTIONS

(Vol. vii., p. 408.)

Mr. Ellacombe desires examples of these. I can supply the following:—

At Bradley, Lincolnshire, is a very large font, of the Decorated period, with this inscription round the bowl in black letter:

"Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Criede, leren ye chyld yt es nede."

This is an early instance of the use of English for inscriptions. The sketch was engraved in the work on Baptismal Fonts.

At Threckingham, Lincolnshire, I believe I succeeded in deciphering an inscription round the font, which was said to have been previously studied in vain. It is somewhat defaced; but in all probability the words are,—

"Ave Maria gracia p… d… t…"

i. e. of course, "plena, dominus tecum." The bowl of the font is Early English; but the base, round which the inscription runs, appears to be of the fifteenth century.

At Burgate, Suffolk, an inscription in black letter is incised on the upper step of the font:

"[Orate pro an—b'] Will'mi Burgate militis et dne Elionore uxoris eius qui istum fontem fieri fecerunt."

Sir William Burgate died in 1409. It is engraved in the Proceedings of the Bury and West Suffolk Archæological Institute.

At Caistor, by Norwich:

"Orate pro animab … liis … ici de Castre."