EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
Henry Headley, B.A. (Vol. iii., p. 280.).
—E. B. PRICE styles "Henry Headley, B.A., of Norwich, a now forgotten critic." He might have added, "but who deserved to be remembered, as one whose Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry, with Remarks, &c., in 2 vols., 1787, contributed something towards the revival of a taste for that species of literature which Percy's Reliques exalted into a fashion, if not a passion, never to be discountenanced again." The work of course is become scarce, and not the less valuable, though that recommendation constitutes its least value.
J. M. G.
Hallamshire.
Cycle of Cathay (Vol. iv., p. 37.).
—Without reflecting much on the matter, I have always supposed the "cycle" in Tennyson's line—
"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay"—
to be the Platonic cycle, or great year, the space of time in which all the stars and constellations return to their former places in respect of the equinoxes; which space of time is calculated by Tycho Brahe at 25,816 years, and by Riccioli at 25,920: and I understood the passage (whether rightly or wrongly I shall be glad to be informed) to mean, that fifty years of life in Europe were better than any amount of existence, however extended, in the Celestial Empire.
W. FRASER.