Which made old Ben, and sturdy Dennis swear,
No Lord's Annointed, but a Russian bear!"
The passage in Horace, of which this purports to be an "Imitation," is the well-known
"Boeotum in crasso jurares äere natum,"
and it is clear enough that Pope meant to represent kings Charles and William as so devoid of the taste which should guide royal patronage, that, in selecting such objects of their favour as Blackmore and Quarles, they showed themselves to be as uncouth and unpolished as the animal to which he likens them. But the principal motive of this inquiry is to ascertain whether there exist in their writings any record of the indignation supposed to have been expressed by Jonson and Dennis at the favour shown by majesty to their less worthy rivals.
P.C.S.S.
Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood.— There is a passage in Longinus (ch. xxii.), familiar perhaps to some of the readers of the "NOTES AND QUERIES," which indicates that the fact of the circulation of the blood was well established in the days of Plato. The father of critics, to exemplify, and illustrate the use and value of trope in writing, has garbled from the Timaeus, a number of sentences descriptive of the anatomy of the human body, where the circulation of the blood is pointed at in terms singularly graphic. The exact extent of professional knowledge arrived at in the time of the great philosopher is by no means clearly defined: he speaks of the fact, however, not with a view to prove what was contested or chimerical, but avails himself of it to figure out the surpassing wisdom of the gods in constructing the human frame. Perhaps some of the readers of the "NOTES," who are more thoroughly conversant with the subject, may think it worth while to inquire how much was known on that subject before Harvey wrote his Exercitationes Anatomiae. The Prooemium of that author seems hardly sufficient to satisfy the desire of every reader, who has looked with some care to the passage in Longinus to which I have taken the liberty of calling public attention.
A.W.
Brighton.
The Meaning of "Pallace."—A lease granted by the corporation of Totness in Devon, in the year 1703, demises premises by this description: "All that cellar and the chambers over the same, and the little pallace and landing-place adjoining to the river Dart." Can your readers give an explanation of the term "pallace?"