Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/539

 10 s. x. DEC. 5, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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for? his errors of assignment. Sylvester's works, apparently, came late into Allot' s hands, and he had only time to pick out from his last gleanings a comparatively small number of the passages that are em- bodied in the finished portion of his book. It would seem that these miscellaneous quotations at the end, huddled together without any kind of order, were collected after the work of printing had begun. Note how differently Allot renders the follow- ing from Sylvester in two places of the ' Parnassus ' :

' Windes,' p. 564.

O heavens fresh fannes, (quoth hee,)

Earths sweeping broomes, of forrests enemie : O you, my heraulds and my messengers, My nimble posts and speedy messengers, My armes, my sinewes, and my eagles swift, That through the aire my rolling chariot lift.

Compare :

' Of Winds,' p. 413.

heavens fresh flames! quoth hee,

Earths sweeping broomes ! forrests enmitie ! O you ! my haraulds and my harbengers, My nimble posts, and speedie messengers ; My armes, my sinewes, and my eagles swift. That through the ayre my rowling chariot lift.

The latter version is the correct one, except that for " flames " we should read " fans," as shown in the more corrupt quotation ; and, with this correction, it tallies word for word with the lines printed in the 1641 edition of Sylvester, ' The Ark,' 11. 344-9.

No author is named under the following quotation, which I have traced to Thomas Lodge's ' Marius and Sylla,' V. i. Instead of " feares to fall," Allot should have written " feares no fall " : ' Content,' p. 47.

Inconstant change such tickle turnes hath lent,

As who so feares to fall must seeke Content.

Collier did not assign the next passage to the * Tragedy of Cleopatra,' but left it open, having, perhaps, omitted to notice that it was signed ** S. Daniell." It comes from the ' Civil Wars,' Book III. st. 46 ; and Allot should have put the word " with " between " boldeneth " and " dread " : 'Courage,' p. 49.

Valour mixt with feare, boldeneth dread,

May march more circumspect, with better heed.

It is no wonder that Collier could not find the following in Spenser :

' Reason,' p. 296.

The eye of Reason is with raging ybent. That is what one would call a. " free render- ing " of Spenser, who said,

The eie of reason was with rage yblent.

' Faerie Queene,' I. ii. 5.

Robert Greene is badly misquoted by Allot more than once ; and in one case he is modified to suit the heading under which the passage is ranged.

Under ' Heart,' in order to make the quotation fit in its place, Allot (p. 151) alters " grief es of mindes " to " grief es of heart " : ,

The bodies wound by medicines may be eased, But griel'es of heart by salves are not appeased. See 'James IV. of Scotland'

(Dyce, p. 210, col. 1). And here is a bad misquotation : ' Court,' p. 51.

The Court is counted Venus net,

Where gifts and vows, forestalls, are often set :

None be so chaste as Vesta, but shall meete

A curteous tongue to charme her eares with sweete^

The passage should read thus :

Ida. the court is counted Venus' net

Where gifts, and vows for stales are often set : None, be she chaste as Vesta, but shall meet A curious tongue to charm her ears with sweet.

'James IV. of Scotland' (Dyce, p. 190, col. 2).

C. CRAWFORD. (To be continued.)

MILTON : ENGRAVED PORTRAITS. It may- be of service in view of the forthcoming celebrations to draw attention to an elaborate paper ' On the Engraved Portraits of Milton,' by J. F. Marsh, in Trans. Hist. Soc. of Lanc& and Cheshire, vol. xii. p. 135. A catalogue of 164 portraits is given, and 150 of them were produced for inspection when the paper was read in 1860. R. S. B.

THE TENTH WAVE. In the account of Dr. Sven Hedin's lecture at Simla, given in The Times, 10 November, he is reported to have said : " On the ocean every ninth wave was held to be higher than the rest.'* But this is contrary to the old tradition, which assigned the superiority to the tenth. It is as old at least as the time of Ovid, who mentions it in his ' Metamorphoses,' xi. 530, " Vastius insurgens decimsB ruit impetus undse," and elsewhere ; and it is quite a commonplace of our own literature. Bishop John Kinge, ' Lectvres vpon lonas/ 1597, p. 347, says : " The tenth waue com- meth further and fiercer than all the rest." In Bishop John Pearson's Pythagorean book, ' Hierocles,' 1673, p. 153, reference is made to what " nostri scripserunt " con- cerning " decumana porta, decumana ova, decumani fluctus." It is mentioned by Christopher Ness, ' History and Mystery,' 1690, i. 143 : " The tenth wave upon the sea shore, some observe to be the strongest" ;