Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/201

 10 s. x. AUG. 29, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

161

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 1908.

CONTENTS.-No. 244.

NOTES :- Jean Paul in English, 161 Napoleon's Arrival at St. Helena, 162 Shakespeariana, 164-Cheshire the Hangman Regimental Marches of the British Army, 167,

QUERIES : Sheriffs and Aldermen of London, 167 Pharmacopoeia Buxton Calligraphy : F. Billieul and Chambon Corbet = Valletort Norman-French Deed temp. Edward III. John Chamberlin Ruthwell Cross Dumfriesshire Authors of Quotations Wanted Hoppne and Sir Thomas Frankland's Daughters, 168 Rugge or Rudge Family' Baal ; or, Sketches of Social Evils ' " Vergel " " As the farmer sows his seed," 169 Arch bishop of Dover Christopher Thomson Llechylched, Anglesey" Buff," 170.

REPLIES : Attorney-General to the Queen, 170 Old English Dramatists Toothache, 171 Oxgate Manor, Willesden St. Margaret's Hospital, Westminster Jacob Philadelphia Edward Sharpham, 172 One-Tree Hill, Greenwich " Cardinal " of St. Paul's Authors of Quota- tions Wanted, 173 ' Sobriquets and Nicknames ' Roses as Badges Harvey's Birthplace John of Gaunt's Arms, 174 Inferior Clergy : " Sir " Vowel-shortening, 175 Salarino, Salanio, a.nd Salerio Initial Letters instead of Words, 176 "Pearl" Widkirk: 'The Wakefleld Mys- teries '' Epulum Parasiticum,' 177 Swimming Bath: William Kemp" Entente Cordiale " St. Martha, 178.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Hill Burton's 'Book-Hunter'' The Edinburgh Review.'

OBITUARY : Mr. Frederic Norgate.

Notices to Correspondents.

JEAN PAUL IN ENGLISH.

WHITING in 1830, Thomas Carlyle said : " It is some six years since the name of printed with English types." This is not strictly accurate, for De Quincey wrote of Hichter in 1821.
 * Jean Paul Friedrich Richter ' was first

I have just come across an even earlier effort to make Jean Paul familiar to English readers, and as it is in an out-of-the-way publication, the circumstance is worth noting. The Salopian Magazine, printed at Shrewsbury by Charles Hulbert, who was also its editor, contained in the number for January, 1816, a partial translation of one of Jean Paul's famous ' Dreams.' It is worth quoting, that it may be compared with the complete and magnificent transla- tion published by Carlyle in 1830 :

A VISION.

(From the German of Jean Paul Richter.) Translated by a Correspondent.

The design of this fiction, says the Author, will be a sufficient apology for the boldness of it. If my heart were ever so wretched, so lost to all feel-

ing, that the sentiments which affirm the existence of a God might be annihilated : I would again read the pages; I should be deeply affected by them, and again find my salvation and my faith. There are some who deny the existence of Deity, with as much indifference as others admit it ; and some have believed it during twenty years, who have not till the twenty-first discovered the awful minute, in which they have found, with ravish- ment and delight, the rich portion of that belief the vivifying heat of that fountain of Naptha.

When, in our childhood, we are told that towards midnight, at the hour when sleep has nearly over- powered us, our dreams become more dreadful ; the dead awake and perform the pious orgies of the living, in the deserted temples of the Most High. Dead affright us because of the dead. When dark- ness and obscurity approach, we turn our eyes from the church and its dismal windows ; the terrors of infancy, still greater than its pleasures, take wing and fly around us during the uncertain night of the drowsy soul. Oh ! let us enjoy our dreams, even the most gloomy ; they are yet more agreeable than our actual existence. Do not quench these sparks ; their scintillations lead us back to that age, when the untroubled streams of life, still reflected back the Heavens in their calm and cloudless purity.

One fine summer evening, I lay me down on the summit of a hill, and fell asleep. I dreamed that I awoke at midnight in a cemetry ; the clock heavily tolled twelve ; the graves were half open, and the massive doors of the Church, agitated by an in- visible hand, opened and shut with a great noise. I saw the ghastly shadows flit with velocity upon the walls though projected by no earthly substance. Other livid spectres arose in the air, and the infants alone reposed in their coffins.

There was in Heaven, as it were a greyish, heavy, suffocating cloud, bound and pressed into long plaits by a gigantic phantom. Above I heard the distant fall or the avalanche, and under my feet the beginning of a great earthquake. The temple rocked to its foundations and the air was rentjby the discordant sounds of horror. Some glimmering lamps threw a pale light around ; I felt myself unged forward, even by terror, to seek an asylum in the sacred edifice ; two flaming basilisks guarded its dreadful entrance.

I advanced among the crowd of unknown shades, upon whom the seal of other years was imprinted ; all of them pressed round the ruined altar, and their breasts alone respired and were violently agitated; one of them, who had but been shortlj interred, remained in his shroud ; there was yet no palpitation in his bosom, and a happy dream caused a smile on his livid countenance ; but at the ap- proach of an earthly being he awoke, ceased to smile, and opened with a painful effort his stiffened eyelids ; the place of the eye was void, and that of
 * he heart was marked by a deep wound. He raised

lis hands to pray, joined them together ; but his arms lengthened, separated themselves from the jody, and the clasped hand fell to the ground.

In the midst of the roof. of the church, was the dial of Eternity ; there were neither index nor igures to it ; but a human finger, black as night, the high place upon the altar, a radiant and najestic figure, which bore the marks of ceaseless sorrow; the dead cried out, "Oh, Jesus, is there no God ?" He answered, " There is no God ! " All
 * urned slowly round,' and the dead were compelled
 * o read the time thereon. Then I saw descend from