—Fides carbonarii, as it ought to be written, originated in an anecdote told with approbation by Dr. Milner, or some controversial writer on the same side, and ridiculed by Protestants. A coal porter being asked what he believed, replied "What the church believes;" and being asked what the church believed, replied "What I believe." He could give no further information.
E. H. D. D.
Fire Unknown. (Vol. iv., p. 209.).
—In answer to C. W. G., I find that Pickering, in his Races of Man, p 32., states that in Interior Oregon his friends Messrs. Agate and Brackenridge observed "no marks of fire;" and, p. 61., that in the Otafuan group the use of fire was apparently absent; and that he does not remember to have seen any signs of fire at the Disappointment Islands. Perhaps further inquiry, which he suggests, might prove that fire is not really wanting among the inhabitants of these islands.
THEOPHYLACT.
Pope and Flatman (Vol. iv., p. 210.).
—Flatman's Poems were first published in the year 1682—his death took place in 1688: these dates, therefore, supply an answer to E. V., as far as regards the question of borrowing. The edition now before me is that of 1686, being the fourth, "with many additions and amendments." It is dedicated to "His Grace the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland," &c., and has twenty-eight pages of recommendatory poems prefixed to it; one of which bears the name of Charles Cotton, the adopted son of honest Izaak Walton.
Although Campbell speaks with great contempt of Flatman, and quotes Granger, who says that "one of his heads (he painted portraits in miniature) is worth a ream of his pindarics," I cannot but think he has been unduly depreciated; there being many passages in his poems (brief ones it is true) possessed of considerable beauty, and which I would gladly extract in proof of my assertion, were your pages available for such a purpose.
T. C. S.