The Eastern Question.—The following extract from Tatler, No. 155., April 6, 1710, appears remarkable, considering the events of the present day:
"The chief politician of the Bench was a great assertor of paradoxes. He told us, with a seeming concern, 'that by some news he had lately read from Muscovy, it appeared to him there was a storm gathering in the Black Sea, which might in time do hurt to the naval forces of this nation.' To this he added, 'that, for his part, he could not wish to see the Turk driven out of Europe, which he believed could not but be prejudicial to our woollen manufacture.' He then told us, 'that he looked upon those extraordinary revolutions which had lately happened in those parts of the world, to have risen chiefly from two persons who were not much talked of; and those,' says he, 'are Prince Menzicoff and the Duchess of Mirandola.' He backed his assertions with so many broken hints, and such a show of depth and wisdom, that we gave ourselves up to his opinions."
F. B. Relton.
Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin.—It is remarkable (and yet it has not been noticed, I believe, by his biographers) that Dean Swift was suspended from his degree of B.A. in Trinity College, Dublin, for exciting disturbances within the college, and insulting the junior dean. He and another were sentenced by the Board to ask pardon publicly of the junior dean, on their knees, as having offended more atrociously than the rest. These facts afford the true solution of Swift's animosity towards the University of Dublin, and account for his determination to take the degree of M.A. at Oxford; and the solution receives confirmation from this, that the junior dean, for insulting whom he was punished, was the same Mr. Owen Lloyd (afterwards professor of divinity and Dean of Down) whom Swift has treated with so much severity in his account of Lord Wharton.
Abhba.
English Literature.—Some French writer (Victor Hugo, I believe) has said that English literature consists of four distinct literatures, English, American, Scottish, and Irish, each having a different character. Has this view of our literature been taken, and exhibited in all its aspects, by any English writer and if so, by whom?
J. M.
Oxford.
Irish Legislation.—I have met with the following statement: is it to be received as true? In May, 1784, a bill, intended to limit the privilege of franking, was sent from Ireland for the royal sanction; and in it was a clause enacting that any member who, from illness or other cause, should be unable to write, might authorise some other person to frank for him, provided that on the back of the letter so franked the member gave at the same time, under his hand, a full certificate of his inability to write.