Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/85

 ii s. v. JAX. 27, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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The Rev. H. F. Tozer annotates this in ' An English Commentary on Dante's " Divina Commedia " ' by :

" These are the keys of the kingdom of heaven' The golden key is the power of absolution, the silver key the knowledge possessed by the con- fessor, which enables him to judge of the condition of the penitent. Hence in opening the gate the silver key is used first and the golden afterwards. On this subject Aquinas says ' distinguuntur duae claves, quarum una pertinet ad indicium de idoneitate eius qui absolvendus est, et alia ad ipsain absolutionem,' 'Summa,' P. 3, Suppl. Q. 17, Art. 3."

ST. SWITHIN.

THE FIRST PERSON IN WORDSWORTH AND SHAKESPEARE. Several reviewers of the ' Concordance to Wordsworth,' published by Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., have called attention to what is deemed an excessive use of the first personal pronoun in the works of the poet. Thus J. P. C., in The Pall Mall Gazette for 30 Nov., 1911, points out that /, me, myself, &c., are recorded over 2,000 times.

It must be remembered, however, that verbal indexes of the sort commonly do not list the occurrences of the simple pronouns. Fay's Concordance of the ' Divina Corn- media,' for example, merely indicates the very frequent use by Dante of the words io, mia, mie, &c., by the term " sovente." The ' Concordance to Wordsworth ' includes a large number of quotations for certain pro- nouns, in spite of their frequency, because of their importance in a lyrical and meditative poet. Much depends upon the kind of poetry which happens to be in question, and upon the special aim of the writer. As Augustine, Bunyan, and Rousseau are bound to refer to themselves when they undertake to write their confessions, so Wordsworth is bound to speak of himself in ' The Prelude.' In the yet longer poem of ' The Excursion ' his references to himself are far less nume- rous ; here he is but a minor personage in the dialogue. The personal utterances of Milton in ' Paradise Lost,' an epic, may be thought to be more of an intrusion of ex- traneous matter. In his sonnets, of course, the practice of Wordsworth varies with his subject and purpose. The 'Concordance' lists a dozen occurrences of the pronoun / in the 131 ' Ecclesiastical Sonnets.' The Con- cordance of Mrs. Furness to the minor poems of Shakespeare shows that the words /, me, mine, and my occur, all told, over 900 times in 144 sonnets. This is quite the equal of anything in Dante, or Words- worth, or Pindar ; though perhaps the chief thought it suggests is that, when a great

poet wishes to write about himself, he is likely to choose the simplest and most direct forms of expression. LANE COOPER.

Ithaca, New York.

[Poems in the nature of personal confessions, such as Tennyson's ' In Memoriam ' and ' The Kuba'iyat of Omar Khayyam,' must be expected to revel in the Ego. Even so it may be a question how often, as in the Introduction to 'In Memoriam,' "we" takes the place of " I."]

THE FIRST WOMEN DOCTORS. The death of Dr. Sophia .lex-Blake on Sunday, the 7th of January, should be made a note of, as she was the first to secure for women the right of entry into the medical profes- sion in Great Britain.

She was born January, 1840, and was sister of Dr. Jex- Blake, formerly Head Master of Rugby, afterwards Dean of Wells. From 1858 to 1864 she was Mathematical Tutor at Queen's College, London, but after travelling in the United States she became interested in the movement started by the late Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell for the admission of -women to medical degrees; and when Dr. Blackwell had obtained her degree and become lecturer in the New York College for Women, Miss Jex-Blako became a member of her first class, and resolved to devote herself to medicine. After a course of study at Boston she re- turned to England in the hope of securing admission to the Medical Register, but at that time none of the British medical schools would admit a woman to their classes.

In 1869 Miss Jex-Blake, with other ladies, succeeded in inducing the University of Edinburgh to adopt regulations for the educa- tion of women in medicine in the University in separate classes, and, when the class lists were issued, it was announced that " the female students had attained a ^higher degree of success than the males." The women's claims to be admitted to the wards of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, the litigation that followed, the severe articles written by Mrs. Lynn Linton in The Saturday Review, and the' subsequent triumph, are matters of history. Miss Jex-Blake came to London, founded the School of Medicine for Women, and in 1876 Russell Gurney's Bill was passed. Dr. Sophia Jex-Blake returned to Edinburgh, and there practised and established a school of medicine^ for women ; she retired in 1899. 7\

Another pioneer is still with us": Miss Elizabeth Garrett, afterwards Dr. "Garrett Anderson. The number of women now practising as doctors may make the present generation forget the struggle to secure that position. - ;jj A. N. Q.