Sardonic Smiles (Vol. iv., p. 18.).
—I beg to refer such of your readers as take an interest in the discussion of "Sardonic Smiles" to a treatise or memoir on the subject, by a learned scholar and antiquary in the St. Petersburgh Transactions for 1851. The title of the memoir is as follows: Die Talos-Sage und das Sardonische Lachen. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte Griechischer Sage und Kunst, von Ludwig Mercklin. The memoir is also printed separately, from the Mémoires des Savants Etrangers.
J. M.
Oxford, August 4.
Darby and Joan (Vol. iii., p. 38.).
—As no one has answered your correspondent by referring him to a copy of this ballad, I have great pleasure in calling his attention to A Collection of Songs, Moral, Sentimental, Instructive, and Amusing, 4to. Cambridge, 1805. At p. 152. of this volume, the "pleasant old ditty" of "Darby and Joan" is given at length, accompanied with the music. The editor, the Rev. James Plumptre, M.A., tells us that it is "attributed to Matthew Prior." As this book is somewhat difficult to procure, your correspondent is welcome to the loan of my copy.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
Marriage of Bishops (Vol. iv., pp. 57. 125.).
—In reference to the inquiry of your correspondent A. B. C., for any instances of bishops and priests who, during the first three centuries, were married after ordination, I may suggest that the Council of Nice in 325 declared it to be then "an ancient tradition of the Church that they who were unmarried when promoted to holy orders should not afterwards marry."—Socrates, Hist. Eccl., lib. i. cap. ii.; Sozomen, Hist. Eccl., lib. i. c. xxiii.
May not the proper translation in the text which he quotes, 1 Cor. ix. 5., be "woman," instead of "wife;" and might not the passage be more accurately rendered by the expression "sister-woman?" Clemens Alexandrinus says (Stromat., lib. iii. edit. Poterii, Venet. 1757, tom. i. p. 526.): "Not as wives but as sisters did the women go round with the apostles:" and see also Matt. xxvii. 55., Mark xv. 41., and Luke viii. 3.