"Milton Blind."—A little poem bearing this title, and commencing,— "Though I am old and blind," is said to have been included in an edition of the poet's works recently published at Oxford. It was written by Miss Lloyd, a lady of this city, a short time ago. Philadelphia. Hydropathy.—For a long time, I believe in common with many others, I have imagined that the water cure is of late origin, and that we are indebted for it to Germany, to which we look for all novel quackeries (good and bad) in medicine and theology. This belief was put to flight a short time ago by a pamphlet which I discovered among others rare and curious. It is entitled Curiosities of Common Water, or the Advantages thereof in preventing and curing many Distempers. The price of the pamphlet was one shilling, and the author rejoices in the name of John Smith. After his name follows a motto, the doctrine of which it "That's the best physick which doth cure our ills Without the charge of pothecaries pills." Crawley. Cassie.—Mr. M. A. Lower (a correspondent of "N. & Q."), in his Essays on English Surnames (see vol. ii. p. 63.), quotes from a brochure on Scottish family names. He seems, from a footnote, to be in difficulty about the word cassie. May I suggest to him that it is a corruption of "causeway?" The "causeway" is, in Scotch towns, an usual name for a particular street; and of a man's surname, his place of residence is a most common source of derivation. The Duke of Wellington.—Lord de Grey, in his Characteristics of the Duke of Wellington, pp. 171, 172., gives the following extract from the despatches published by Colonel Gurwood, and refers to vol. viii. p. 292.
Compare this passage with the following advice which Don Quixote gives to Sancho Panza before he sets off to take possession of his government:
See translation of Don Quixote by Jarvis, vol. iv. b. III. ch. x. p. 76.[1] The very depreciatory terms in which the Emperor Napoleon used to speak of the Duke of Wellington as a general is well known. The following extract from Forsyth's Napoleon at St. Helena and Sir Hudson Lowe, appears to me worthy of being brought under the notice of the readers of "N. & Q.:"
Jarvis translates the passage in Don Quixote,—"Him you are to punish with deeds, do no evil; intreat with words, for the pain of the punishment is enough for the wretch to bear, without the addition of ill-language." Romford Jury.—The following entry appears on the court register of the Romford Petty Sessions (in Havering Liberty) for the year 1730, relating to the trial of two men charged with an assault on Andrew Palmer. As a curious illustration of the manner in which justice was administered in country parts in "the good old times," I think it may be interesting to the readers of "N. & Q."
Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough), Chief Justice.—J.M.'s quotation of the song in the Supplement to the Court of Sessions Garland (Vol. ix., p. 221.), reminds me of the lines on Mr. Law's being made Chief Justice: "What signifies now, quirk, quibble, or flaw, Since Law is made Justice, seek justice from Law." Drewsteignton. Chamisso.—Chamisso, in his poem of "The Three Sisters," who, crushed with misery, contended that each had the hardest lot, has this fine passage by the last speaker:
The above is written in a beautiful Italian female hand on the fly-leaf-of the Basia, 1775. Dates of Maps.—It is very much to be wished that map-makers would always affix to their maps the date of their execution; the want of this in the maps of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge has often been an annoyance to me, for it frequently happens that one or both of two maps including the same district are without date, Walton.—The following cotemporary notice of the decease and character of honest Isaac's son, is from a MS. Diary of the Rev. John Lewis, Rector of Chalfield and Curate of Tilbury:
Whittington's Stone on Highgate Hill.—It is well that there is a "N. & Q." to record the removal and disappearance of noted objects and relics of antiquity, as one after another disappears before the destroying hand of Time, and more ruthless and relentless spirit of enterprise. I have to ask you on the present occasion to record the removal of Whittington's stone on Highgate Hill. I discovered it as I strolled up the hill a few days since. I was informed that it was removed about a fortnight since, and a public-house is now being built where it stood. Turkey and France.—The following fact, taken from the foreign correspondence of The Times, may suitably seek perpetuity in a corner of "N. & Q."
It will not invalidate the force of the foregoing extract to state, that Selim II. did not become sultan until 1566, and that it must have been his father Suleyman (whom he succeeded) who came to the rescue of France in 1543. The same Turkish fleet was afterwards nearly annihilated by the Venetians in 1571, at the battle of Lepanto. |