How comparatively easy would it be for the readers of the "NOTES AND QUERIES," in each county, to transmit to its pages a short note of any privately engraved portrait, or privately printed volume, of which they may be possessed, or of which they have a perfect knowledge. Collectors could in most instances, if they felt inclined to open their stores, give the required information in a complete list, and no doubt would do so; but still a great assistance to those engaged in the toils of biographical or other study could be afforded by the transmission to these pages of the casual "Note," which happens to have been taken at a moment when the book or portrait passed under the inspection of a recorder who did not amass graphic or literary treasures.
As respects some counties, much less has been done by the printing press to furnish this desideratum; at least that of privately engraved portraits. In Warwickshire, a list of all the portraits (with a few omissions) has within a few years been brought before the public in a volume. In Norfolk, the Illustrations of Norfolk Topography, a volume containing an enumeration of many thousand drawings and engravings, collected by Dawson Turner, Esq., of Great Yarmouth, to illustrate Blomefield's History of the county, is also a repertory of this kind of instruction, as far as portraits are concerned. Privately printed books are entirely unrecorded in this and most other localities. Without the publication now mentioned, persons having no personal knowledge of Mr. Turner's ample stores would be not only unacquainted with that gentleman's wonderful Norfolk collection, but also ignorant that through his liberality, and the elegant genius and labours of several members of his family, the portfolios of many of his friends have been enriched by the addition of portraits of many persons of great virtues, attainments, and learning, with whom he had become acquainted. In Suffolk, the veteran collectors, Mr. Elisha Davy, of Ufford, and Mr. William Fitch, of Ipswich, have compiled lists of portraits belonging to that county. These are, however, in manuscript, and therefore comparatively useless; though, to the honour of both these gentlemen let it be said, that no one ever asks in vain for assistance from their collections.
I trust it can only be necessary to call attention to this source of knowledge, to be supported in a view of the necessity of a record open to all. I have taken the liberty to name the "NOTES AND QUERIES" as the storehouse for gathering these scattered memorabilia together, knowing no means of permanence superior, or more convenient, to literary persons, although I am not without fears indeed, perhaps convictions, that your present space would be too much burthened thereby.
As the volume of "NOTES AND QUERIES" just completed has comprised a large amount of intelligence respecting the preservation of epitaphs, the present would, perhaps, be appropriately opened by a new subject of, I am inclined to think, nearly equal value.
JOHN WODDERSPOON.
Norwich.
SARDONIC SMILES.
A few words on the Γέλως σαρδάνιος, or Sardonius Risus, so celebrated in antiquity, may not be amiss, especially as the expression "a Sardonic smile" is a common one in our language.
We find this epithet used by several Greek writers; it is even as old as Homer's time, for we read in the Odyssey, μείδησε δὲ θυμῷ σαρδάνιον μάλα τοῖον, "but he laughed in his soul a very bitter laugh." The word was written indifferently σαρδάνιος and σαρδόνιος; and some lexicographers derive it from the verb σαίρω, of σέσηρα, "to show the teeth, grin like a dog:" especially in scorn or malice. The more usual derivation is from σαρδόνιον, a plant of Sardinia (Σαρδώ), which was said to distort the face of the eater. In the English of the present day, a Sardonic laugh means a derisive, fiendish laugh, full of bitterness and mocking; stinging with insult and rancour. Lord Byron has hit it off in his portraiture of the Corsair, Conrad:
"There was a laughing devil in his sneer,