Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/305

 I. MARCH 26, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the Royal Academy of Sciences to Sir Isaac Newton, 1703." What was the Royal Academy of Sciences 1 The miniature is signed either Blake or Black. I cannot find the name in Bryan's ' Dictionary of Painters ' as a minia- ture painter of that date.

ROBERT BIRKBECK.

GREEK PATRIARCHS. Can any reader refer ine to or supply me with a list of the (Ecu- menical Patriarchs of Constantinople from Photius to the present Anthimus VII. ?

J. B. McGovERN. St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.

IRISH EJACULATORY PRAYERS. Twenty or thirty years ago, a number of more or less stereotyped greetings, ejaculatory prayers, and so forth, of ten falling into the form of versicle and response, were common among the Irish peasantry e.g., " God bless the work ! " on coming into a place where work was in progress; answered by "Thank you kindly." "God be praised ! now we have the light"; answered, I think, by "The Lord send us all the light of heaven ! " 1 should be very grateful for any additions to my store of these generally beautiful formulae from those whose knowledge of the subjec is more extensive than my own.

A. WALLACE. Pennthorpe, Mead Road, Chislehurst.

TASSO AND MILTON.

(10 th S. i. 202.) THE several instances of similar thought, and sometimes even similar phrase, between these two great poets which MR. INGLEBY gives are certainly interesting. They do not prove, and were not intended to prove, that Milton was a plagiarist. Lauder tried to show that, and failed disgracefully, long ago. But such instances certainly lead us to infer- that Milton was a great admirer and reader of Tasso's epic. However, since Milton's fine epic on the Armada has been presented to the present century and been accepted by competent critics, lovers of our great poet will naturally expect to find traces of Tasso either there or in some other part of the varied prose and poetry of 'Nova Solyma.' They will not be disappointed in their ex- pectation. The poem on the Armada consists of three lengthy fragments, which are quoted by Milton in his romance as specimens of epic poetry, and we are reminded of Tasso at the very outset. For the first fragment begins with the heavenly mission of Mars,

sent from Jove in disguise to Philip of Spain ; and this is described in much the same manner as the heavenly mission of Gabriel, sent from the Almighty to Godfrey of Bul- loigne in Tasso's ' Jerusalem Delivered.' There is no copying of phrases or " convey- ing " of uncommon similes no plagiarism really ; but any one who compares the mis- sion of Mars at the beginning of Milton's epic, and the mission of Gabriel at the begin- ning of Tasso's poem, cannot fail to see that Milton had Tasso's descriptive lines clearly in his mind (though no doubt unconsciously) when he began his own fragment with the similar mission of Mars.

But closely as Tasso is followed here, there is another Italian who is imitated far more closely further on in the third fragment of the same Armada epic : I mean Marcus Hieronymus Vida, and a passage in the fifth book of his ' Christiad.' There Fear is called forth by Satan from a horrid cave-like abode, and sent to frighten Pilate, just as Terror is called from his cave to put to flight the ships of the Armada, and two unusual adjectives meaning "volant" and "importunate" are used in both accounts similarly. The recur- rence of such words shows clearly that they came from the earlier poet, and were retained in Milton's mind, and reproduced as his own minting when he was building up " the lofty rime" of his earlier epic. Vida's fame has always been very great as a Latin poet ; but I think few judges will deny that the de- scription of Terror's "awful laugh," when summoned to exert his power against the Spanish fleet, beats anything in Vida or his coetaneous Latinists :

Then overjoyed to take

His share in such wild deeds, that awful Shape As answer raised a peal most horrible Of echoing laughter long and loud, far worse Than rumbling roar of twin contending seas, Or when the pregnant thunder-clouds displode From hill to hill. A tremor ran along The Arctic ground ; the mountain tops were rent By that dread peal ; it flawed the eternal ice ; Thick as it lay upon the Cronian Sea ;] E'en Heaven itself did tremble to the pole.

The original Latin is somewhat less diffuse than the above ; but the idealized sublimity of the conception contained in it is far above Vida's powers or Tasso's either :

Tali sermone ciebat Lzetantem nimiuni tantos miscere tumultus : [lie fremens, quantum displosa tonitrua reddunt, 3t quantum freta qu^ sese gemina sequora rumpunt, rlorrenduni attollit risum : tremit Arctica telfus, 3iffisseque jugis rupes, aeternaque ponti <Yacta sono glacies ; moto caelum axe tremiscit.

But it is in the description of the cave and ?ear its occupant that Vida is so closely