North Side of Churchyards (Vol. ii., pp. 253. 346.).—The subjoined extract from Bishop Wilkins's Discourse concerning a New Planet, tending to prove that it is probable our Earth is one of the Planets, 8vo., 1640, pp. 64-66., will serve to illustrate the passage from Milton, of the north being "the devoted region of Satan and his hosts:"
"It was the opinion of the Jewish rabbies, that man was created with his face to the east; therefore the Hebrew word signifies ante, or the east; post, or the west; dextra, or the south; sinistra, or the north. You may see all of them put together in that place of Job xxiii. 8, 9.: 'Behold I go forward, and he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him. He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.' Which expressions are, by some interpreters, referred unto the four coasts of heaven, according to the common use of those original words. From hence it is that many of the ancients have concluded hell to be in the north, which is signified by the left hand; unto which side, our Saviour tells us, that the goats shall be divided. Which opinion likewise seems to be favoured by that place in Job xxvi. 6, 7., where it is said, "Hell is naked before God, and destruction hath no covering.' And presently it is added, 'He stretcheth out the north over the empty place.' Upon these grounds, St. Jerome interprets that speech of the Preacher, Eccles. xi. 3.: 'If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there shall it be,' concerning those who shall go either to heaven or hell. And in this sense also do some expound that of Zechariah (xiv. 4.), where it is said that 'the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst: half of it shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.' By which it is intimated, that amongst those Gentiles, who shall take upon them the profession of Christ, there are two sorts: some that go to the north, that is, to hell; and others to the south, that is, to heaven. And therefore it is, say they, that God so often threatens evil out of the north: and upon this ground it is, saith Besoldus, that there is no religion that worships that way. We read of the Mahometans, that they adore towards the south; the Jews towards the west; Christians towards the east; but none to the north."
J. Y.
Hoxton.
THE ROLLIAD, AND SOME OF ITS WRITERS.
(Vol. iii., p. 276.)
Mr. Dawson Turner asks for information regarding three writers in the Rolliad, viz.: Tickell, Richardson, and Fitzpatrick. Memoirs of the first two are given in Chalmers's Dictionary; but in Moore's Life of Sheridan, Mr. Turner will find several notices of them, far more attractive than dry biographical details. They were both intimately associated with Sheridan; Tickell, indeed, was his brother-in-law. One would prefer calling them his friends, but steady friendship must rest upon a firmer basis than those gifts of wit, talent, and a keen sense of the ridiculous, which prevailed so largely amongst this clever trio.
Tickell's production, Anticipation, is still remembered from its cleverness and humour; but when every speaker introduced into its pages has long been dead, and some of them were little known to fame, the pamphlet is preserved by a few solely from the celebrity which it once possessed.
His death in 1793 was a most melancholy one. It is described by Professor Smyth in in his interesting Memoir of Sheridan, a book printed some years ago for distribution among his friends, and which well deserves publication.