Wm. Hazel.
Mousehunt (Vol. ix., p. 65. &c.).—G. Tennyson identifies the mousehunt with the beechmartin, the very largest of our Mustelidæ, on the authority of Henley "the dramatic commentator." Was he a naturalist too? I never heard of him as such.
Now, Mr. W. R. D. Salmon, who first asked the question, speaks of it as less than the common weasel, and quotes Mr. Colquhoun's opinion, that it is only "the young of the year." I have no doubt at all that this is correct. The young of all the Mustelidæ hunt, and to a casual observer exhibit all the actions of full-grown animals, when not more than half the size of their parents. There seems no reason to suppose that there are more than four species known in England, the weasel, the stoat or ermine, the polecat, and the martin. The full-grown female of the weasel is much smaller than the male. Go to any zealous gamekeeper's exhibition, and you will see them of many gradations in size.
Wm. Hazel.
Longfellow's "Hyperion" (Vol. ix., p. 495.).—I would offer the following rather as a suggestion than as an answer to Mordan Gillott. But it has always appeared to me that Longfellow has himself explained, by a simple allusion in the work, the reason which dictated the name of his Hyperion. As the ancients fabled Hyperion to be the offspring of the heavens and the earth; so, in his aspirations, and his weakness and sorrows, Flemming (the hero of the work) personifies, as it were, the mingling of heaven and earth in the heart and
mind of a man of true nobility. The passage to which I allude is the following:
"Noble examples of a high purpose, and a fixed will! Do they not move, Hyperion-like, on high? Were they not likewise sons of heaven and earth?"—Book iv. ch. 1.
Seleucus.
Benjamin Rush (Vol. ix., p. 451.).—Inquirer asks "Why the freedom of Edinburgh was conferred upon him?" I have looked into the Records of the Town Council, and found the following entry:
"4th March, 1767. The Council admit and receive Richard Stocktoun, Esquire, of New Jersey, Councillour at Law, and Benjamin Rush, Esquire, of Philadelphia, to be burgesses and gild brethren of this city, in the most ample form."