A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough!"
In Ovid we find the following parallel:—
"… jacet ecce Tibullus,
Vix manet e toto parva quod urna capit."
A second one appears in the pretended lines on the sepulchre of Scipio Africanus:—
"Cui non Europa, non obstitit Africa unquam,
Respiceres hominem, quem brevis urna premit."
The same reflection we find in Ossian:—
"With three steps I measure thy grave,
O thou, so great heretofore!"
It is very difficult indeed to determine in which of these passages the leading thought is expressed best, in which is to be found the most energy, the deepest feeling, the most touching shortness. I think one should prefer the passage of Shakspeare, because the direct mention of the corporal existence gives a magnificent liveliness to the picture, and because the very contrast of the space appears most lively by it; whereas, at the first reading of the other passages, it is not the human being, consisting of body and soul, which comes in our mind, but only the human spirit, of which we know already that it cannot be buried in the grave.
One of the most eminent modern authors seems to have imitated the passage of Shakspeare's Henry IV. Schiller, in his Jungfrau von Orleans, says:—
"Und von dem mächt'gen Talbot, der die Welt
Mit seinem Kriegeruhm füllte, bleibet nichts
Als eine Hand voll leichten Staubs."
(And of the mighty Talbot, whose warlike
Glory fill'd the world, nothing remains
But a handful of light dust.)
Berlin.
Minor Notes
True or False Papal Bulls.—
"Utrum bulla papalis sit vera an non.
"Si vis scire utrum literæ domini Papæ sint veraces vel non, numera punctos quæ sunt in bulla. Et si inveneris circulum ubi sunt capita apostolorum habentem 73 punctos, alium vero circulum 46, alium super caput Beati Petri habentem 26, alium super caput Sancti Pauli habentem 25 punctos, et punctos quæ sunt in barbâ 26, veraces sunt; alioquin falsæ.—Sir Matthew Hale's Manuscripts, Library of Lincoln's Inn, vol. lxxiii. p. 176.
To which may be added, that in digging for the foundations of the new (or present) London Bridge, an instrument was dug up for counterfeiting the seals or Bullæ? Where is it now deposited?
Burning Bush of Sinai.—
"Pococke asserts that the monks have planted in their garden a bush similar to those which grow in Europe, and that by the most ridiculous imposture, they hesitate not to affirm that it is the same which Moses saw—the miraculous bush. The assertion is false, and the alleged fact a mere invention."—Geramb's Pilgrimage to Palestine, &c., English trans.
March 1. 1847. The bush was exhibited by two of the monks at the back of the eastern apse of the church, but having its root within the walls of the chapel of the burning bush. It was the common English bramble, not more than two years old, and in a very sickly state, as the monks allowed the leaves to be plucked by the English party then in the convent. The plant grows on the mountain, and therefore could be easily replaced.
The Crocodile (Vol. ii., p. 277.).—February, 1847, a small crocodile was seen in the channel, between the island of Rhoda and the right bank of the Nile.
Umbrella.—It was introduced at Bristol about 1780. A lady, now eighty-three years of age, remembers its first appearance, which occasioned a great sensation. Its colour was red, and it probably came from Leghorn, with which place Bristol at that time maintained a great trade. Leghorn has been called Bristol on a visit to Italy.
Rollin's Ancient History, and History of the Arts and Sciences.—Your correspondent Iota inquires (Vol. ii., p. 357.), "How comes it that the editions" (of Rollin) "since 1740 have been so castrated?" i.e. divested of an integral portion of the work, the History of the Arts and Sciences. It is not easy to state how this has come to pass. During the last century comparatively little interest was felt in the subjects embraced in the History of the Arts and Sciences; and probably the publishers might on that account omit this portion, with the view of making the book cheaper and more saleable. It is more difficult to assign any reason why Rollin's Prefaces to the various sections of his History should have been mutilated and manufactured into a general Introduction or Preface, to make up which the whole of chap. iii. book x. was also taken out of its proper place and order. A more remarkable instance of merciless distortion of an author's labours is not to be found in the records of literature. Iota may take it as a fact—and that a remarkable one—that since 1740 there had appeared no edition of Rollin having any claim to integrity, until the one edited by Bell, and published by Blackie, in 1826, and reissued in 1837.
Glasgow, Dec. 7. 1850.
MSS. of Locke.—E.A. Sandford, Esq., of Nynehead, near Taunton, has a number of valuable letters, and other papers, of Locke, and also an original MS. of his Treatise on Education. Locke was much at Chipley in that neighbourhood, for the possessor of which this treatise was, I believe composed.
The Letter ⌧.—Dr. Todd, in his Apology for the Lollards, published by the Camden Society, alludes to the pronunciation of the old letter ⌧ in various words, and remarks that "it has been altogether dropped in the modern spelling of ⌧erþ, 'earth,' fru⌧t, 'fruit,' ⌧erle, 'earl,' abi⌧d, 'abide.'" The Doctor is, however, mistaken; for I have heard the words "earl" and "earth" repeatedly pronounced, in Warwickshire, yarl and yarth.
A Hint to Publishers (Vol. ii., p. 439.) reminds me of a particular grievance in Alison's History of Europe. I have the first edition, but delay binding it, there being no index. Two other editions have since been published, possessing each an index. Surely the patrons and possessors of the first have a claim upon the Messrs. Blackwood, independent of the probability of its repaying them as a business transaction.
Queries
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL QUERIES
(25.) Has there been but a single effort made to immortalise among printers Valentine Tag? Mercier, Abbé de Saint-Léger, in his Supplément à l'Hist. de l'Imprimerie, by Marchand, p. 111., accuses Baron Heinecken of having stated that this fictitious typographer set forth the Fables Allemandes in 1461. Heinecken, however, had merely quoted six German lines, the penultimate of which is
intimating only that the work had been concluded on St. Valentine's day.
(26.) Can there be any more fruitful source of error with respect to the age of early printed books than the convenient system of esteeming as the primary edition that in which the date is for the first time visible? It might be thought that experienced bibliographers would invariably avoid such a palpable mistake; but the reverse of this hypothesis is unfortunately true. Let us select for an example the case of the Vita Jesu Christi, by the Carthusian Ludolphus de Saxonia, a work not unlikely to have been promulgated in the infancy of the typographic art. Panzer, Santander, and Dr. Kloss