A querist in your last number (J.C.R.) points out that D'Aubigné, or his translator, spells the word Fallicus, and refers it to the deceitful character of Farel.
Phallicus is a Greek word, and has a meaning—φαλλικος, of or belonging to the φαλλος. Fallicus, to the best of my knowledge, is neither Greek nor Latin, and has no meaning. Erasmus, in his epistles, constantly spells the word Phallicus. (See Epp. 698. 707. &c. Leyden, ed. 1706.) And that I was justified in drawing from it an inference which is in analogy with its meaning, the following passages, in the last of the epistles just cited, will establish:—
"Hunc stomachum in me concepit (Phallicus) quod in spongia dubitem de Lutheri spiritu: præterea quod scripserim, quosdam sordidos, et impuræ vitæ se jactitare nomine Evangelii."
And a little farther on—
"At tamen quicquid hactenus in me blateravit Phallicus, non minus vane quam virulente, facite condonabitur hominis morbo, modo posthac sumat mores Evangelii præcone dignos."
THOS. H. DYER.
London, Jan. 20. 1851.
Early Culture of the Imagination, (Vol. iii., p. 38.).—The interesting article to which MR. GATTY refers will be found in the Quarterly Review, No. XLI. Sir Walter Scott, in a letter addressed to Edgar Taylor, Esq. (the translator of German Fairy Tales and Popular Stories by M.M. Grimm), dated Edinburgh, 16th Jan. 1823, says—
"There is also a sort of wild fairy interest in them [the Tales] which makes me think them fully better adapted to awaken the imagination and soften the heart of childhood, than the good-boy stories which have been in later years composed for them. In the latter case, their minds are, as it were, put into the stocks, like their feet at the dancing-school, and the moral always consists in good moral conduct being crowned with temporal success. Truth is, I would not give one tear shed over Little Red Riding-Hood for all the benefit to be derived from a hundred Histories of Jemmy Goodchild.... In a word, I think the selfish tendencies will be soon enough acquired in this arithmetical age; and that, to make the higher class of character, our wild fictions—like our own simple music—will have more effect in awakening the fancy and elevating the disposition, than the colder and more elaborate compositions of modern authors and composers."
F.R.R.