W. Dn.
Episcopal Mitre.—The origin of the peculiar form of the episcopal mitre is the cloven tongues which descended on the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Of this the mitre is an emblem.
L. M. M. R.
DRYDEN'S ESSAY UPON SATIRE.
(Vol. ii., pp. 422. 462.)
The Query proposed by your correspondent, as to the authorship of the Essay on Satire, is a very interesting one, and I am rather surprised that it has not yet been replied to. In favour of your correspondent's view, and I think it is perhaps the strongest argument which can be alleged, is Dean Lockier's remark:—
"Could anything be more impudent than his (Sheffield's) publishing that satire, for writing which Dryden was beaten in Rose Alley (and which was so remarkably known by the name of the 'Rose Alley Satire') as his own? Indeed he made a few alterations in it, but these were only verbal, and generally for the worse."—Spence's Anecdotes, edit. Singer, p. 64.
Dean Lockier, it must be observed, was well acquainted with Dryden from 1685 to the time of his death; and appears to speak so positively that he would seem to have acquired his knowledge from Dryden's own information. His first introduction to that great poet arose from an observation made in Dryden's hearing about his Mac Fleckno; and it is therefore the more likely that he would be correctly informed as to the author's other satires. Dean Lockier was, it may be added, a good critic; and his opinions on literary subjects are so just, that it is to be regretted we have only very few of them.
I confess I do not attach much weight to the argument arising from the lines on the Earl of Mulgrave himself contained in the poem. To transfer suspicion from himself, in so general a satire, it was necessary to include his own name amongst the rest; but, though the lines are somewhat obscure, it is, after all, as respects him, compared with the other persons mentioned, a very gentle flagellation, and something like what children call a make-believe. Indeed Rochester, in a letter to his friend Henry Saville (21st Nov. 1679), speaks of it as a panegyric.