Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/361

 10 s. VIL APRIL is, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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anciently been called Buckdine Hill, the Deer Harbour, or the Paddock. This spot was surrounded on three sides by the park wall, Kensington Gardens, and the Serpen- tine. On the fourth side it was divided from the main body of the park by a fence. -Its beauty was greatly enhanced by the small gardens of the keeper's lodge, which stood on the side of the park, the whole being backed by the noble trees of Kensington Gardens. Beneath a row of trees running parallel with the keeper's garden were two -springs, greatly resorted to in those days. The one was supposed to be slightly mineral, <and was used for drinking ; the other was for bathing weak eyes. W. H. Draper informs us in his ' Morning Walk ; or, the City Encompassed' (1751), that the Ser- pen ine was a favourite place for drowning illegitimate children. He also mentions what he calls " Bethesda's sacred pool," with its " pure healing power," and in high- flown verses describes the little spring noticed before. There appears at that time to have been a small building near the spring called the " Queen's Bath," with an /inscription of seven lines on the left hand on entering :

How are Bethesda'h wonders here renew'd,

Nay more, that sacred pool but annual heal'd,

And then but one : this happier, myriads cures,

The wondrous miracle restor'd to all.

Hail, salutary spring ! blest source of health !

Thy vital fire gives vigour to the limbs,

And lights afresh the brilliant lamp of life !

I think the above is most probably the Dipping Well referred to by W. E. B.

ALFRED SYDNEY LEWIS. Library, Constitutional Club.

This well appears to have been situated in the north-west corner of Hyde Park, where, beneath a row of trees, running parallel with the small gardens of the keeper's lodge, were two springs, greatly resorted to for the alleged curative properties of their waters. One of these was a mineral spring, the water of which was taken in- wardly ; while the water of the other presumably the one in question was used to bathe weak eyes, and the brim was, in 1803, frequently surrounded by persons of the lower orders bathing their eyes. stantly clear, from the vast quantity the spring casts up, and its continually running off by an outlet from a small square reservoir The drinking well was, however, the more fashionable resort. In fine weather a woman sat by it with a table, chairs, and ^glasses. It was situated more than a
 * ' The water," says one account, " s con-

hundred yards from the other ; and people of fashion often went in their carriages to the entrance of the enclosure, or sent their servants with jugs for its water. They also sent their children to drink the water. Across the enclosure ran a footpath from the park to Kensington Gardens. See ' The Picture of London ' for 1803, p. 64. J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

GOLDSMITH'S ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF A MAD DOG (10 S. vii. 246). The quatrain which MB. WELFOBD has found in his MS. commonplace book is well known, and was quoted by Mr. Austin Dobson in the notes to his edition of Goldsmith's ' Selected, Poems' (p. 178), which was published by the Clarendon Press nearly twenty years ago. The authorship of the quatrain is unknown, but it was imitated by Voltaire in his epi- gram on Freron :

L'autre jour, au fond d'un vallon,

Un serpent mordit Jean Freron.

Devinez ce qu'il arriva?

Ce fut le serpent qui creva. According to M. Edouard Fournier, ' L' Esprit des Autres ' (sixth ed., 1881, p. 288), the quatrain is simply the readjust- ment of a Latin distich in the ' Epigram- matum Delectus,' 1659. But the idea originated in a couplet from the ' Greek Anthology,' ed. Jacobs, 1813-17, ii. 387. Another Greek version on the same subject will be found at 2 S. iv. 500.

W. F. PRIDE AUX.

Constantino Porphyrogenitus quotes the epigram which is the original of these lines. Gibbon, in a note to chap. liii. of his history, refers to him thus :

"After observing that the demerit of the Cappa- docians rose in proportion to their rank and riches, he inserts a more pointed epigram, which is ascribed to Demodocus :

TTOT' f^dva Kauri daicev, a\\a *ai avrrj

fiarog io8o\ov. The sting is precisely the same with the French epigram against Freron : ' Un serpent mordit Jean Freron FJh bieii ? Le serpent en mourut.' " Gibbon always omits accents.

E. YABDLEY.

O. W. HOLMES ON CITIZENSHIP (10 S. vii. 249). What your querist really is in search of will be found near the end of the first chapter of * The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.' It does not occur in the form given, but the essence of the idea is there, and is charmingly and sagaciously elaborated by Holmes. " What do I m^an by a man of f amity ? " he begins by asking, and proceeds to furnish us with details of what he does mean. These details I need not transcribe