Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/331

. ii. OCT. 1,190*.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

271

These, who behind thy back, dare rail at thee,

Would, (if they knew Themselves) thy Scholars be.

But they against thy Harmony are Arm'd

They 're duller Beasts than any Orpheus charm'd.

In thy Invention, and thy Singing too

Thy Fancy 'a ever Various, ever New.

Thou to each Temper canst the Heart engage,

To Grief canst soften, and inflame to Rage.

With Horrour fright, with Love canst make us burn,

Make us Rejoyce one Moment, and next Mourn,

And canst the Mind to every Passion turn.

And to each Grace and Cadence, thy great Art,

Such soft Harmonious Sweetness does impart,

AVith gentle Violence thou dost storm a Heart.

How oft dost thou my Anxious Cares destroy,

And make me want, or wish no other Joy !

For when thy Ayres, perform 'd by Thee, I hear,

No Wealth I envy, and no Power, I fear ;

Nor Misery, nor Death I apprehend,

For Fame nor Liberty can I contend,

When I am Charm'd by Thee, my Excellent Friend.

And thou art so ; and every Qualitie

Which in a Friend's requir'd does shine in Thee.

Thou hast read much, and canst Philosophise,

Ouick in thy Reason, Fancy-full, yet Wise,

Honest and Kind art, Gentle, and yet Brave,

Modest, not Bashful ; Humble, yet no Slave :

In your own Language Y' are a Poet too,

So good, I wish that Ours as well you knew,

Though I should blush at what you then would do :

Yet th' English Tongue so well thou canst command,

Great COWLEY'S Virtues thou dost understand,

Thou on each Excellence of His canst hit,

On every Master-stroak of his Unbounded Wit.

And which yet makes me Love, and Praise thee

more,

Thou above All, dost his Illustrious Name adore. But to thy Praise I now must put an end. 'Tis using of Self-Int'rest with my Friend For whoe'r Praises Thee, does then Himself com- mend. THOMAS SHADWELL.

So far as I know, no part of Purcell's and then only a single song.
 * Tempest' music was printed before 1695,

WILLIAM H. CUMMINGS.

NAVAL ACTION OF 1779 (10 th S. ii. 228). The best available French account of this action is probably that in * Batailles Navales de la France,' par O. Troude, torn. ii. pp. 55-9. There are no means of knowing on what authority Troude based his narrative, but he implies that he had before him an account by " M. de Lostanges, un des officiers de la Surveillante." A French print of the action, after a French painting, is reproduced in mv
 * Seafights and Adventures.'

J. K. LAUGHTON.

ZOLA'S ' ROME ' (9 th S. xii. 68, 135). Having occasion lately at the British Museum Library to consult some recent volumes of 4 N. & Q.,' I came upon the query from the REV. J. B. McGovERN, who desired to know whom Zola had in mind when he pictured his Abbe' Pierre Froment going to Rome to plead his

cause with the Pope and the Congregation of the Index. MR. McGovERN mentioned that in Gladstone's opinion the Abbe Froment of 1 Rome ' had been suggested by Lamennais ; and an appeal was made to me to throw some light on the subject. I fancy I was abroad at the time ; at all events, I missed the query. If an answer to it is now of any interest, 1 would say that Zola, in building up his character Abbe Froment, may well have thought of Lamennais more than once ; but he also undoubtedly thought of a member of his own family, the Abate Giuseppe Zola, of Brescia (1739-1806), of whom some account will be found in various French and Italian biographical dictionaries. The Abate was a man who dreamed of reforming and rejuvenat- ing the Roman Church exactly like Abbe Froment but a work of his on the early Christians and some volumes of his theological lectures were denounced to the Congregation of the Index, whereupon, in this instance also like Abbe Froment (and, to name a later example, like Abbe Loisy), he repaired to Rome to justify himself. In the end, once more like Abbe Froment, he had to make his submission. Subsequently he again got into trouble, having on the whole a somewhat eventful career, which I have sketched in the opening chapter of my life of Emile Zola, which has just been published.

As for some 'other characters in 'Rome' mentioned by MR. McGovERN, I think the discreet course is not to attempt to identify them, as the portraits are scarcely of a "flattering" kind. ERNEST A. VIZETELLY.

PIN WITCHERY (10 Lh S. ii. 205). An Assyrian version of an incantation used by Chaldean sorcerers contains the line : He who enchants images has charmed away my life by image.

Charming away life by means of a wax figure seems to have been one of the most frequent practices of the Chaldean sorcerers (see further Lenormant's ' Chaldean Magic,' p. 63). But is not MR. RATCLIFFE'S description of the toad stuck with pins a hitnerto ungarnered item of folk-lore 1 Many are the associations of the toad with ancient rural beliefs, but one has never before heard that it served the purpose of the clay or the wax image, also stuck with pins, in dwining away the life of the victim of another's vengeance. King Edward VI. was said to have been killed through witchcraft by figures after this manner; and in like manner the Duke of Buckingham's mother was killed in Ireland by her second husband's (Lord Ancrum) brother's nurse, who bewitched her