Dutch Commentary on Pope (Vol. v., p. 27.).
—The passage in Pope has nothing to do with ducks and drakes.
"Verbum quo utitur Popius, monstrat, cogitâsse eum de quodam quod cadit, non quod jacitur. Sed neque est lapis. Cur de Hollandico loquitur? quia ut puto, latrinæ in Hollandiâ peditæ sunt aliquando super aquam, ibi abundantem, circuli sunt ii, quos omne quod cadit in aquam, naturâ facit."
There is the same idea, as Warburton observes, in the Essay on Man, ep. iv. 364.
C. B.
Sir William Hankford (Vol. v., p. 43.).
—I see that MR. FOSS (Judges of England, vol. iv. p. 325.) disbelieves the story of the suicide of Sir William Hankford, as told by Prince in his Worthies of Devon, because there was then nothing in the political horizon to justify the "direful apprehension of dangerous approaching evils," assigned by Prince as the judge's inducement for wishing to die. His death, however it occurred, happened in 1422.
MR. FOSS'S doubts seem in some measure to be warranted by the fact that Holinshed places the incident about half a century later, in 1470 or 1471; and he thinks it more probable (Ibid. p. 427.) that the suicidal story may apply to Sir Robert Danby, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, because that judge disappeared in the latter year; and the circumstances of the time were really such as were likely to excite the fears described as the cause of the catastrophe. Sir Robert Danby, who had been a judge of the Common Pleas under Henry VI., was made chief justice of that court by Edward IV. in 1461, the first year of that king's reign. On the restoration of Henry VI. in 1470, he was continued in his office, and the sudden return of Edward IV. in the following year might occasion an apprehension in a weak mind sufficiently strong to lead to the tragical result. Certain it is that a new chief justice, Sir Thomas Brian, was then appointed, and nothing more is told of Sir Robert Danby.
The Hankford's Oak at Annery, the remains of which were seen by Prince, was as likely to have received its name from its having been planted by Hankford, as from its being the spot where he died.
Perhaps some correspondents may be able to throw more light on the transaction, and assist in deciding which is the correct version.