Minor Notes.
Dean Swift on Herbert's Travels.
—In a copy, now in my library, of Herbert's Travels in Africa, Asia, &c., folio, 1634, there is a very characteristic note in the autograph of Dean Swift, to whom the book formerly belonged. Thinking that it may not be uninteresting to some of the readers of "N. & Q.," I send a copy of it:
"If this book were stript of its impertinence, conceitedness, and tedious digressions, it would be almost worth reading, and would then be two-thirds smaller than it is.
"1720. J. SWIFT."
"The author published a new edition in his older days, with many additions, upon the whole more insufferable than this. He lived several years after the Restoration, and some friends of mine knew him in Ireland. He seems to have been a coxcomb both ævi vitio et sui."
W. SNEYD.
Denton.
Joe Miller.
—The remains of this patriarch of puns and jokes, hitherto peaceably resting in the burial-ground in Portugal Street, will now be disturbed to make way for the new buildings of King's College Hospital. Surely "Old Joe" ought not to be carted away, and shot as rubbish. Some plain memorial of him might soon be raised, if an appeal were made to the public; and if every one whose conscience told him he had ever been indebted to Miller, would subscribe only a penny to the memorial fund, the requisite sum would soon be collected.
JAYDEE.
Hints to Book-buyers.
—Inquirers buy books on subjects which they have, at the time, no particular intention of closely investigating: when such intention afterwards arises, they begin to collect more extensively. But it often happens, I suspect, that it does not come into their heads to examine what they have already got, as to which their memory is not good, because their acquisitions were not made under any strong purpose of using them. The warning which suggests itself is as follows: Always remember to examine the old library as if it were that of a stranger, when you begin any new subject, and before you buy any new books.
Here is another warning, not wholly unconnected with the former: Never judge of a book, that is, of all which comes between the two boards, by the title-page, which may be only the first title-page, in spite of the lettering at the back. Persons who bind their books will not always be bound themselves, either by law of congruity or convenience. I once hunted shop and stall for a speech delivered in parliament a century ago, not knowing that I had long possessed it bound up at the end of a Latin summary of Leibnitzian philosophy. At the risk of posthumously revealing my real name, I will add that I wrote on the fly-leaf that I was not the blockhead who bound the book.
M.
Birmingham Antiquities.
—I wish to put on record in your journal a fact concerning the antiquities of Birmingham. There is a street in this borough, called Camden Street, which after crossing Worstone Lane, acquires the name of Lower Camden Street. On the right-hand side of Lower Camden Street (as you go from Camden Street), is some pasture ground, bounded on one side by a stream called Chub-brook, which formerly flowed into the old Hockley Pool. This pasture ground shows the evident traces of a moat, and the foundations of several walls of a large building. I apprehend this is the spot referred to in Hutton's History of Birmingham, p. 254., fourth edition:
"The lord Clinton and his lady seem to have occupied the Manor-house, and Sir Thomas (de Birmingham), unwilling to quit the place of his affections and of his nativity, erected a castle for himself at Worstone; where, though the building is totally gone, the vestiges of its liquid security are yet complete."
As the field will probably be built on in a short time, I wish to identify the spot referred to by Hutton.
C. M. I.
Buchanan and Voltaire.
—Voltaire has obtained credit for a very smart epigram, and one which the Edinburgh Review (vol. xxi. p. 271.) calls "one of his happiest repartees." It was, however, stolen by him, either designedly or unwittingly, from the celebrated Buchanan. Here are the two versions, and the point will be observed to be the same in both:
"An Englishman visiting Voltaire in his retreat at Ferney, happened to mention Haller, in whose praise the philosopher enlarged with great warmth. The other observed that this was very handsome on the part of M. de Voltaire, as Haller was by no means so liberal to M. de Voltaire. 'Alas!' said the patriarch, 'I dare say we are both of us very much mistaken!'"
Is not this the same as Buchanan's epigram (Ep., lib. 1. ed. Wets.)?
"IN ZOILUM.
"Frustra ego te laudo, frustra me, Zoile, lædas Nemo mihi credit, Zoile nemo tibi."
PHILOBIBLION.
Indignities on the Bodies of Suicides.
—We are all aware of the popular repugnance to permitting the bodies of suicides to be interred within the "consecrated" or "hallowed" precincts of a churchyard. Burial at cross-roads was the usual mode. In many parts of Scotland such burials had to take place under cloud of night, to avoid the interference of the rabble. But it would appear from the extract given below, that public indignities were inflicted upon such corpses, to testify public detestation of this crime. The extract is taken from the Diarey of Robert Birrel, Burges of Edinburghe:
"1598, Feb. 20. The 20 day of Februar, Thomas Dobie drounit himself in the Quarrel holes besyde the Abbay, and upone the morne, he wes harlit throw the toune backward, and therafter hangit on the gallows."
Perhaps some correspondent of "N. & Q." may be able to point out similar instances of such a revolting procedure.
The "Abbay" referred to was the Abbey of Holyrood.
The "Quarrel," or Quarry holes, seem to have been fatal, in many cases, both to "man and beast;" for Sir David Lyndsay, in one of his poems, says:
"Marry, I lent my gossip my mare, to fetch hame coals,
And he her drounit into the quarry holes."
R. S. F.
Perth.