THE DEVOTEE.
(From the Latin.)
Balbus, in vain you urge the notion
That Ignorance begets Devotion—
We can't believe it till we see
Yourself a fervent devotee.
RUFUS.
By Hook or by Crook.—It is said that Strongbow, when debating with his followers on the best mode of capturing Ireland, said, that it must be taken "by Hook or by Crook." "The Hook" is the name of a well-known promontory, forming the N.E. boundary of Waterford Harbour; and Crook-haven is an equally well-known harbour, on the south coast. Could this have any thing to do with the proverb?
J.G.
Kilkenny.
Macaulay's Young Levite.—I send you an advertisement, from a local paper of 1767, which shows what stipend was offered to a curate at that period. The population of Burton Bradstich and Shepton Gorge, in 1821, was respectively 854 and 311. I do not know what it was in 1767.
The value of the rectory of Burton, with the chapelry of Shepton, was returned, in 1650, as 201l. In 1826 it was computed to be 500l.
A.D.M.
From "Cruthwell's Sherborne, Shaftesbury, and Dorchester Journal; or Yeovil, Taunton, and Bridgewater Chronicle of 10th July, 1767."
"A Curate is wanted, at Old Michaelmas next, to serve the Churches of Burton and Shipton, in Dorsetshire; Salary 36l. per annum, Easter Offerings, and Surplice Fees; together with a good House, pleasant Gardens, and a Pigeon House well stock'd. The Churches are within a mile and a half of each other, served once a Day, and alternately. The Village of Burton is sweetly situated, within half a mile of the Sea, about a mile and a half from Bridport Harbour, and is noted in the Summer for its fine Mackarel Fishery. Application to be made to the Rev. Mr. Richards, Rector.
"A married gentleman will be most agreeable."
Praise undeserved.—Does any one know where the oft-quoted line,
"Praise undeserved in censure in disguise,"
is to be found? A long search for it has hitherto proved ineffectual.
D.S.
[This line, which is so often quoted, with the variation—
"Praise undeserved is Satire in disguise,"
is to be found in Pope's First Epistle of the Second Book of Horace; where, however, we find that neither Censure nor Satire is the correct reading. It is moreover, both in Warton's edition and in the Aldine Poets, edited by the Rev. A. Dyce, marked as a quotation, as will be seen in the following extract; so that Pope, it appears, is not the author of it. Perhaps some of our correspondents can trace the source from which he derived it:—
"Besides, a fate attends on all I write,
That when i aim at praise they say I bite.
A vile encomium doubly ridicules;
There's nothing blackens like the ink of fools.
If true, a woeful likeness; and, if lies,
'Praise undeserved is Scandal in disguise.'">[
Passage in Cowper's "Task."—In all early editions of Cowper's Task the opening lines of the 4th book are punctuated as follows:—
"Hark! 'tis the twanging horn! O'er yonder bridge,
(That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright,)
He comes, the herald of a noisy world," &c.
In modern editions, I believe universally, we find the following corruption of the passage:—
"Hark! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge,
That with," &c.
closing with a colon or period at "bright," and beginning a new sentence with "He comes;" and thus making the poet use the vulgar colloquialism "'tis the horn over the bridge," instead of the remark, that the postman is coming over it.
W.P.P.