Verses in Pope—"Bug" or "Bee."—Pope, in the Dunciad, speaking of the purloining propensities of Bays, has the lines:

In reading these lines, some time ago, I was forcibly struck with the incongruity of the terms "sipp'd" and "industrious" as applied to "bug;" and it occurred to me that Pope may have originally written the passage with the words "free" and "bee," as the rhymes of the two last lines. My reasons for this conjecture are these: 1st. Because Pope is known to have been very fastidious on the score of coarse or vulgar expressions; and his better judgment would have recoiled from the use of so offensive a word as "bug." 2ndly. Because, as already stated, the terms "sipp'd" and "industrious" are inapplicable to a bug. Of the bug it may be said, that it "sucks" and "plunders;" but it cannot, with any propriety, be predicated of it, as of the bee, that it "sips" and is "industrious." My impression is, that when Pope found he was doing too much honour to Tibbald by comparing him to a bee, he substituted the word "bug" and its corresponding rhyme, without reflecting that some of the epithets, already applied to the one, are wholly inapplicable to the other.

Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia, March, 1851.

Rub-a-dub.—This word is put forward as an instance of how new words are still formed with a view to similarity of sound with the sound of what they are intended to express, by Dr. Francis Lieber, in a "Paper on the Vocal Sounds of Laura Bridgeman compared with the Elements of Phonetic Language," and its authorship is assigned to Daniel Webster, who said in a speech of July 17, 1850:

"They have been beaten incessantly every month, and every day, and every hour, by the din, and roll, and rub-a-dub of the Abolition presses."

Dr. L. adds:

"No dictionary in my possession has rub-a-dub; by and by the lexicographer will admit this, as yet, half-wild word."

My note is, that though this word be not recognised by the dictionaries, yet it is by no means so new as Dr. L. supposes; for I distinctly remember that, some four-and-twenty years ago, one of those gay-coloured books so common on the shelves of nursery libraries had, amongst other equally recherchÉ couplets, the following attached to a gaudy print of a military drum:

—no great authority certainly, but sufficient to give the word a greater antiquity than Dr. L. claims for it; and no doubt some of your readers will be able to furnish more dignified instances of its use.

J. Eastwood.

Ecclesfield.

Quotations.—

1. "In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke."

Quoted in Much Ado about Nothing, Act I. Sc. 1.

Mr. Knight (Library Edition, ii. 379.) says this line is from Hieronymo, but gives no reference, and I have not found it. In a sonnet by Thomas Watson (A.D. 1560-91) occurs the line (see Ellis's Specimens)—

"In time the bull is brought to bear the yoke."

Whence did Shakspeare quote the line?

2. "Nature's mother-wit." This phrase is found in Dryden's "Ode to St. Cecilia," and also in Spenser, Faerie Queene, book iv. canto x. verse 21. Where does it first occur?

3. "The divine chit-chat of Cowper." Query, Who first designated the "Task" thus? Charles Lamb uses the phrase as a quotation. (See Final Memorials of Charles Lamb, i. 72.)

J. H. C.

Adelaide, South Australia.

Minnis.—There are (or there were) in East Kent seven Commons known by the local term "Minnis," viz., 1. Ewell Minnis; 2. River do.; 3. Cocclescombe do.; 4. Swingfield do.; 5. Worth do.; 6. Stelling do.; 7. Rhode do. Hasted (History of Kent) says he is at a loss for the origin of the word, unless it be in the Latin "Mina," a certain quantity of land, among different nations of different sizes; and he refers to Spelman's Glossary, verbum "Mina."

Now the only three with which I am acquainted, River, Ewell, and Swingfield Minnis, near Dover, are all on high ground; the two former considerably elevated above their respective villages.

One would rather look for a Saxon than a Celtic derivation in East Kent; but many localities, &c. there still retain British or Celtic names, and eminently so the stream that runs through River and Ewell, the Dour or Dwr, unde, no doubt, Dover, where it disembogues into the sea. May we not therefore likewise seek in the same language an interpretation of this (at least as far as I know) hitherto unexplained term?

In Armorican we find "Menez" and "Mene," a mount. In the kindred dialect, Cornish, "Menhars" means a boundary-stone; "Maenan" (Brit.), stoney moor; "Mynydh" (Brit.), a mountain, &c.

As my means of research are very limited, I can only hazard a conjecture, which it will give me much pleasure to see either refuted or confirmed by those better informed.

A. C. M.

Brighton.—It is stated in Lyell's Principles of Geology, that in the reign of Elizabeth the town of Brighton was situated on that tract where the Chain Pier now extends into the sea; that in 1665 twenty-two tenements still remained under the cliffs; that no traces of the town are perceptible; that the sea has resumed its ancient position, the site of the old town having been merely a beach abandoned by the ocean for ages. On referring to the "Attack of the French on Brighton in 1545," as represented in the engraving in the ArchÆologia, April 14, 1831, I find the town standing apparently just where it is now, with "a felde in the middle," but with some houses on the beach opposite what is not Pool Valley, on the east side of which houses the French are landing; the beach end of the road from Lewes.

A. C.

Voltaire's "Henriade."—I have somewhere seen an admirable translation of this poem into English verse. Perhaps you can inform me of the author's name. The work seems to be scarce, as I recollect having seen it but once: it was published, I think, about thirty years ago. (See antÈ, p. 330.)

The house in which Voltaire was born, at Chatnaye, about ten miles from Paris, is now the property of the Comtesse de Boigne, widow of the General de Boigne, and daughter of the Marquis d'Osmond, who was ambassador here during the reign of Louis XVIII. The mother of the poet being on a visit with the then proprietor (whose name I cannot recollect), was unexpectedly confined. There is a street in the village called the Rue Voltaire. The Comtesse de Boigne is my authority for the fact of the poet's birth having taken place in her house.

A. J. M.

Alfred Club.