"O'er Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow,
Her blood-red waters murmuring far below,"
the author has confounded Prague, the capital of Bohemia, with Praga, the suburb of Warsaw. The bridge over the Moldau, at the former place, is a stone one of European celebrity; and to it Campbell must have referred when using terms not at all applicable to that over the Vistula, which is of much humbler form and material.
In Campbell's "Ode to the Highland Society on 21st March," he describes the 42nd Regiment as having been at Vimiera, which it assuredly was not; and no Highland regiment was in the battle except the 71st. I suspect he confounded the "Black Watch" with the distinguished corps next to it on the army list,—an error into which the author of Charles O'Malley also must have fallen, as he makes Highlanders form a part of the Light Division, which consisted of the 43rd, 52nd, and 95th.
J. S. Warden.
Palindromical Lines.—In addition to the verses given by your correspondent H. H. Breen (Vol. vi., p. 449.), I send you the following, as perhaps the most remarkable of its kind in existence. It is mentioned by Jeremy Taylor as the inscription somewhere on a font. Letter by letter it reads the same, whether taken backward or forwards:
"ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ."
"Wash my guilt, and not my face only."
Agricola de Monte.
"Derrick" and "Ship's Painter."—The following Note may perhaps interest some of your readers:—The ancient British word derrick, or some such word, still exists in our marine. It is used in sea phrase to define a crane for temporary purposes, and is not unusually represented by a single spar, which is stepped near a hatchway, provided with a tackle or purchase, in order to the removal of goods from the hold of a vessel. The use of Derry, both as a termination in the names of places, and in the old ballad chorus of Down derry down, is familiar to every one.