Replies to Minor Queries.

Warnings to Scotland (Vol. iv., p. 233.).

—Thomas Dutton, Guy Nutt, and John Glover, who published the Warnings to Scotland, were three of the French prophets who went as missionaries, first to Edinburgh and afterwards to Dublin. I have a continuation in manuscript, in a very thick 4to., of the printed book. They appear to have been succeeded at Edinburgh by James Cunningham and Margaret Mackenzie. Cunningham was the grandson of the murdered Archbishop of St. Andrews, and prophecied himself into the Tolbooth, his warnings from which place, with the autograph of the prophet, are contained in a volume entitled, Warnings of the Eternal Spirit pronounced by the Mouth of James Cunningham during his Imprisonment in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, Lond. 1712, 12mo. pp. 547. 131. In the very curious and amusing account of the French prophets given in Keimer's Brand pluck'd from the burning, exemplify'd in the unparall'd Case of Samuel Keimer, Lond. printed by W. Boreman, 1718, Dutton, Nutt, Glover, and Cunningham, are frequently mentioned. "Thomas Dutton," he says, "was an eminent prophet, a sober ingenious man, by profession a lawyer, who wrote a letter against John Lacy's taking E. Gray." "Guy Nutt, a prophet, a formal whimsical man, who goes in plain habit, but not owned by the people called Quakers." Of Glover he gives an extraordinary account, p. 54., but which will scarcely admit of quotation. He observes, p. 115., that Glover acted the Devil "under agitations, five people standing upon him, as commanded by the spirit, he all the while making grimaces mixt with a strange mocking, yanging noise to the affrightment of the believers." Whether the prophet produced an abiding impression at Edinburgh by these yanging noises I know not, but in England the sect continued for many years. I have a collection of the manifestations of one of them, Hannah Wharton, published in 1732, 12mo. She appears to have preached and prophecied at Birmingham. I may here observe, that Keimer's tract above mentioned contains a very interesting letter from Daniel Defoe, which has not been noticed by his biographers. Keimer was one of the numerous publishers for Defoe. He afterwards went to America, and we find him frequently noticed in the autobiography of Dr. Franklin.

JAS. CROSSLEY.

Fides Carbonaria (Vol. iv., p. 233.).

—Fides carbonarii, as it ought to be written, originated in an anecdote told with approbation by Dr. Milner, or some controversial writer on the same side, and ridiculed by Protestants. A coal porter being asked what he believed, replied "What the church believes;" and being asked what the church believed, replied "What I believe." He could give no further information.

E. H. D. D.

Fire Unknown. (Vol. iv., p. 209.).

—In answer to C. W. G., I find that Pickering, in his Races of Man, p 32., states that in Interior Oregon his friends Messrs. Agate and Brackenridge observed "no marks of fire;" and, p. 61., that in the Otafuan group the use of fire was apparently absent; and that he does not remember to have seen any signs of fire at the Disappointment Islands. Perhaps further inquiry, which he suggests, might prove that fire is not really wanting among the inhabitants of these islands.

THEOPHYLACT.

Pope and Flatman (Vol. iv., p. 210.).

—Flatman's Poems were first published in the year 1682—his death took place in 1688: these dates, therefore, supply an answer to E. V., as far as regards the question of borrowing. The edition now before me is that of 1686, being the fourth, "with many additions and amendments." It is dedicated to "His Grace the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland," &c., and has twenty-eight pages of recommendatory poems prefixed to it; one of which bears the name of Charles Cotton, the adopted son of honest Izaak Walton.

Although Campbell speaks with great contempt of Flatman, and quotes Granger, who says that "one of his heads (he painted portraits in miniature) is worth a ream of his pindarics," I cannot but think he has been unduly depreciated; there being many passages in his poems (brief ones it is true) possessed of considerable beauty, and which I would gladly extract in proof of my assertion, were your pages available for such a purpose.

T. C. S.

Pope's Translations or Imitations of Horace (Vol. i., p. 230.; Vol. iv., pp. 58. 122. 139. 239.).

—I am very much obliged to MR. CROSSLEY for his information and obliging offer; but until he is able to find the publication of the piece in question by Curll, and with the date of 1716, he will forgive my doubting whether his memory has not failed him as to the date, as the fact is directly at variance with Pope's own statement to Spence. MR. CROSSLEY is certainly mistaken in thinking that "The two quarto volumes are the only collection of Pope's works that can be called his own, and that Dodsley's edition of 1738 was a mere bookseller's collection." There is abundant evidence that this edition was Pope's own just as much as the quartos, as was also a prior edition of the same small shape of 1736.

Lord Mayor not a Privy Councillor (Vol. iv., pp. 9. 137. 180. 236.).

—The main question is, I think, settled; that there is no pretence whatsoever for the supposition that the Lord Mayor is a Privy Councillor; but your last correspondent DN. has fallen into a slight error, which it may be as well to correct. He confounds a summons to the Privy Council with an invitation or notice which is sent (as he truly states) from the Home Office to such noblemen and gentlemen as are known to be at hand to attend at the meeting for proclaiming the sovereign; but which meeting any one may, and the majority do, attend without any such notice. This is the notice that DN. received, and that I myself have received at two accessions; and which no doubt the Lord Mayor and Alderman, and city officers, also receive; but this has nothing whatsoever to do with the Privy Council.

Herschel anticipated (Vol. iv., p. 233.).

—Thomas Wright suspected the motion of the sun in 1750; but I never heard that he was thought mad. See Phil. Mag., April, 1848, where an account of Wright is given.

Sanford's Descensus (Vol. iv., p. 232.).

—ÆGROTUS will find the following in the Bodleian: De descensu Domini nostri Jesu Christi ad Inferos, libri quatuor, ab Hugone Sanfordo inchoati, opera Rob. Parkeri ad umbilicum perducti, 4to. Amst. 1611.

SAXONICUS.

Pope's "honest Factor" (Vol. iv., pp. 6. 244.).

—In the European Magazine for September, 1791, under the head of "Anecdotes of the Pitt Family," there is a memoir given of Governor Pitt, from which I extract the following passages as illustrative of the Queries of your correspondents J. SWAN and C.:—

"The most extraordinary incident in this gentleman's life was, his obtaining and disposing of the celebrated diamond which is still called by his name. It was purchased by him during the time he was Governor of Fort St. George, for 48,000 pagodas, i.e. 20,400l. sterling, instead of 200,000, which the seller first asked for it. It was consigned to Sir Stephen Evance, Knt., in London, in the ship Bedford, Captain John Hudson, Commander, by a bill of lading dated March 8, 1701-2, and charged to the Captain at 6,500 pagodas only. It was reckoned the largest jewel in Europe, and weighed one hundred and twenty-seven carats. When polished it was as big as a pullet's egg. The cuttings amounted to eight or ten thousand pounds."

"It appears, that the acquisition of this diamond occasioned many reflections injurious to the honour of Governor Pitt; and Mr. Pope has been thought to have had the insinuations, then floating in the world, in his mind when he wrote the following lines:

'Asleep and naked as an Indian lay,

An honest factor stole a gem away:

He pledg'd it to the Knight; the Knight had wit;

So kept the di'mond, and the rogue was bit.'

"These reports, however, never obtained much credit; though they were loud enough to reach the ears of the person against whom they were directed, who condescended to vindicate himself against the aspersions thrown out upon him."

T. C. S.

"A little Bird told me" (Vol. iv., p. 232.).

—C. W. might have discovered the origin of this saying in an authority much older and much more familiar to English readers than the Koran. Instead of going to Mahomet in search for legends of King Solomon, if he had opened his Bible, and turned to the Book of Ecclesiastes x. 20., he would there have found the wise monarch of Israel himself saying,

"Curse not the king, no, not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bed-chamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."

TYRO.

Dublin.

[R. G., MACKENZIE WALCOTT, P. S. Q., ROVERT, H. T. E., A. H. B., J. A. PICTON, and other friends, have kindly forwarded similar replies.]

The Winchester Execution (Vol. iv., pp. 191. 243.).

—The story, of which a summary appears under this title in a recent Number, resembles one I have repeatedly heard told in the city of Durham by those who had personal recollection of the facts and persons; it occurred about thirty years ago. A servant girl was capitally convicted of administering poison to the household of a farmer, in a fit of passion at some petty injury: a legal doubt raised in her behalf was submitted for consideration in London, and some months elapsed in determining it. During the interval, her character and conduct being good, she came to be employed as a servant in the household of the governor of the gaol, then situated in an old gatehouse at the entrance of the Bailey; and one of my informants has seen her drawing water at the pant in the market place, two or three hundred yards from the gaol, in the heart of the town. One morning the governor and all Durham were struck with horror at the receipt of an order for her execution, within three days; the city being then two days by coach from London, and an appeal for compassion impossible. The execution, singularly, was attended with distressing circumstances. The rope employed broke, another was not at hand: and the wretched girl sat crying under the beam, until a man sent into the town (in a field outside of which, on the Newcastle road, this scene occurred) could return with another cord, with which he was seen flogging his horse up to the gallows. So I have been told by grave and trustworthy witnesses.

Stanzas in "Childe Harold" (Vol. iv., p. 223.).

—Surely nothing can be clearer than the construction in the lines quoted by our correspondent T. W.:

"Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—

Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?

Thy waters wasted them while they were free,

And many a tyrant since (has wasted them)."

To add one word to confirm what is so transparent, would be merely occupying your space without the slightest necessity.

JAS. CROSSLEY.

[J. G. R., H. C. K., J. MN., H. L., CHAS. PASLAM, J. A. PICTON, A. E. B., G. S., C. B., SELEUCUS, EDW. S. JACKSON, H. M. A., and many other friends, have kindly furnished similar replies to T. W.'s Query, some at considerable length. We have therefore selected the above, as one of the shortest and first that reached us.]

Gray and Virgil.

—Your correspondent on Gray's plagiarisms (Vol. iii., p. 445.) quotes Davenant and Prior as having both forestalled his idea with regard to sorrow, that—

"Where ignorance is bliss,

'Tis folly to be wise."

I long since noted these lines as parallel to—

Φρονῶ δ', ἃ πάσχω· καὶ τόδ' οὐ σμικρὸν κακόν·

τὸ μὴ εἰδέναι γὰρ ἡδονὴν ἔχει τινὰ

νοσοῦντα· κέρδος δ' ἐν κακοῖς ἀγνωσία.

Euripid. Frag. Antiop. xiii.

In the next page of "NOTES AND QUERIES," Q. E. D. reasonably defends the expression "Thamesini littoris hospes." The exact distinction between littus and ripa is marked indeed by Ovid, where he says of the rivers:

"In mare perveniunt partim, campoque recepta

Liberioris aquæ, pro ripis littora pulsant."

—Met. i. 41.

But this did not prevent his applying littora to a lake:

"Sint tibi Flaminius Thrasymenaque littora testes."

Fast. vi. 765.

Both he and Virgil use littus, speaking of the same river:

"Littus adit Laurens; ubi tectus arundine serpit

In freta flumineis vicina Numicius undis."

Met. xiv. 598.

Here, however, there might be a question from the context: not so, however, in Æn. vii. 797.:

"Qui saltus, Tiberiae, tuos, sacrumque Numici

Littus arant."

On the other hand we have ripa for littus:

"Æquoris nigri fremitum, et trementes

Verbere ripas."

Hor. Od. III. xxvii. 23.

EFFIGIES.

Stamford.

Aulus Gellius' Description of a Dimple (Vol. iv., p. 134.).

—The couplet quoted by your correspondent RT. is from Varro, and I think he will find it given by Mad. Dacier in her edition of Anacreon, under Ode xxviii., line 26.:

"τρυφεροῦ δ' ἔσω γενείου," &c.

.ת.א

If your correspondent RT. will refer to Gray's Works, vol. ii. p. 164., edited by Mitford, and published by Pickering, 1836, he will find the following note:—

"The fragment is not to be found in Aulus Gellius, but in Mori Marcellus, under the word 'Mollitudo.'"

Now what Mori Marcellus means, I know not: perhaps some of your correspondents may enlighten me on that point.

HENRY DYKE.

Gretworth, near Brackley, Aug. 25. 1851.

This Mori Marcellus I take to be the same person as Marcellus Nonius, of whom an account is to be found in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, &c., vol. ii. p. 937.

F. BW.