Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/277

 io» 8. iv. SEPT. IB, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 227 " Now for similitudes, in certaine printed dis- courses, I thinke all Herbarists, all stories of Beasts, Foules and Fishes, are rifled up, that they come in multitudes to waite upon any of our con- ceits ; which certainly is as absurd a surfet to tho eares, as is possible: for the force of a similitude, not being to prove anything to a contrary Disputer, but onely to explane to a willing hearer, when that is done, the rest is a most tedious pratling," &c. There is nothing complimentary here, and the reference must surely be to Lyly's two works. I do not know if either this or Sidney's other reference has been previously cited. H. C. HAKT. (To be continued.) DEKKEE'S 'GULL'S HORNBOOK.' (See ante, p. 163.)—At this reference MR. H. C. HAET draws attention to a "very quaint misprint" in this book, " flawes that (like the Mole on Hatten's cheeke, being os amoris,) stuck upon it and made it looke most lovely," and he quotes Grosart's note to the effect that "certainly the Lord Chancellor, Hatton. was meant." As MR. HART says he has not Nott's edition to refer to, I will venture to quote that editor's note for his information :— "A scholar of no mean judgment persuades him- self, that Helen's cheek were the words intended; a mole being esteemed an ornament to a pretty face. Another of equal acumen fancies, and perhaps he is right, that allusion is made to some celebrated fair-one of the day, whose name was Hattcn. and who had a very conspicuous mole. How much the Easterns prized this beauty-spot may be seen from an ode of the .Persian poet Hafez, who, ' for the dark mole on his mistress's cheek, would cive all the wealth of Saniarcand and Bokhara.' Patches, .•Mice so much worn, originated in the imitition of this graceful stamp of nature. But I rather think some singularly marked personage, at I bit time well-known, was here intended. John Taylor, the water-poet. Decker's contemporary, records Richard and George Halton, to whom he dedicateshis poem of the 'Thief; but, in all his balderdash, he does act mention the mole on the cheek of either, which he was very likely to have done. Sir Clristopher i 1'itii,H could hardly have been designated, as he died eighteen years before Decker wrote tie present tract; and, had any such Ciceronian stamp belonged -jo his face, various writers would have noticed it." I have two very interesting copies of this edition of ' The Gull's Hornbook,' one con- sisting of the proof-sheets, with numerous corrections by Dr. Nott, and a few by John Mathew Gutch, for whom the book was reprinted, and the other bearing the book- plates of Joseph Haslewood, FS.A., and J. M. Gutch. Mr. Haslewood mede a very careful collation of this edition with tho reissue of 1674, which was entitled, 'The Voting Gallant's Academy,' and ias marked with red ink all the variations of the latter. Many of these variations are interesting, the text being brought up to date—for instance, in the place of " It is no more like the old theatre du monde than old Paris Garden is like the King's Garden at Paris " of the old edition, we have in the later one, " It is now no more like the old theatre du monde than the Bear Garden is like St. James his Parke," and a little further on " Mullineux his globe" is altered into " the ordinary globe." But in neither of these copies is any reference made to " Hatten's " mole, beyond the note that I have quoted. ., It was reserved for Mr. 11. B. McKerrow, in the scholarly edition of 'The Gull's Horn- book ' which has lately been issued from the De La More Press (" King's Classics" series), to make the needful correction in the text, which he does on the authority of the passage in Lyly's ' Euphues' which is quoted by MR. HART. The passage should, therefore, run: " Like the mole on Helen's cheek, being cos amoris." Mr. McKerrow says he adopts this emendation after some hesitation; but it is obviously correct. The frequent spelling " Hellen " might easily be misprinted " Hatten," and it is evident that the phrase in Dekker was a literary commonplace among the classicists of his day. W. F. PKIDEA.UX. CHASSEUK.—The Westminster Gazette asks why this functionary in a French hotel is so named and specially clothed, and wishes to know how the word came in. The institution is German. Every great German family had, and every great Russian family still has, its chasseur, who wears green, and, when on duties not connected with the supply of game, a cocked hat and feathers. In Russia the town variety of the article has gradually become the " carriage footman." Every private sledge on the Nevski has the chasseur, in uniform and cocked hat and feathers, by the side of the coachman, who wears the Russian national costume. The German hotels followed the German families, and France first adopted the custom when French hotels fell into German hands. D. ISAAC JOHNSON, OP MASSACHUSETTS.—In the 'D.N.B.,' xxx. 15, there is a short account of Isaac Johnson, one of the founders of Massachusetts, wherein nothing is said of his ancestry. On 5 April, 1623, Isaack Johnson, of Sempringham, gent., act. twenty-two, had a licence to marry Lady Arbella ffynes, of the same, spinster, cet. 22; and consent is given by his grandfather, Rob. Johnson, B.D., Archdeacon of Leicester, and by her mother, the Countess of Lincoln (Gibbons, 'Lincoln Marriage Licences,' 1888, p. 108). The Archdeacon was the founder of the