Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/434

 426 NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. vn. may 31,1913. Fuller, Burton, and Lipsius.—In the Bibliography of J. E. Bailey's 'Life of Thomas Fuller,' p. 754, a criticism by Mr. W. E. A. Axon is quoted from The Tem- perance Spectator, May, 1866 (the date may remind us of the length of Mr. Axon's literary activity), where it is justly observed - of Fuller's Preface to John Spencer's ' Things New and Old ' that " it absolutely sparkles with the glittering wit of the fine old moralist.'' There is one point, however, in the following paragraph for which Fuller was not so much beholden to his wit as to that other famous gift of his memory :— " Against the matter of the Book it may be •objected; That it is taken out of other Mens Books, and Sermons ; But was it not, I pray, true of the Ax, of the Sons of the Prophet[s], 2 Kings 6. 5. Alas, it was borrowed? Is the Spiders Soyson the better for being suokt out of her self, or iees hony the worse, for being extracted from flowers! Some Mens Books are indeed meer Kites- nests, a collection of stoln things, such are pure Plagiares, without any grateful acknowledgement; but herein the Ingenuity of our Author is com- mendable, that on the Margin he hath entred the names of such, at whose Torch he hath lighted his Taper; and I am confident, that by such quota- tions, he hath revived the memories of many Worthies, and of their speeches, which otherwise had utterly been lost." Robert Burton, when handling a similar topic near the beginning of ' The Anatomy of Melancholy,' puts in his margin :— " Nee aranearum textus ideo melior quia ex se fila gignuntur, nee noster ideo vilior quia ex alienis libamus vt apes. Lipsius aduersus dialogiat."— Ed. 2, 1624, p. 7. The quotation is taken, not from the ' De Una Religione. adversus Dialogistam Liber,' but from the immediately preceding ' Ad Libros Politicorum Notse,' cap. i., Lipsii ' Opera Omnia,' 1637, torn. iv. p. 121. ' That Fuller's debt here to Lipsius was direct, and not through the medium of Burton, is, I think, more than probable. It might be a mere coincidence when Fuller wrote, "What he lacks in Learning, he hath supplyed in industry; Indeed, tilling stones, which require more pains for portage, then art for polishing, are in their kind (though not so graeefull) as useful as squared stones," after Lipsius had written, just before the Spider and Bee comparison, " Lapides & ligna ab aliis ccipio: (edificii tamen exstruotio u forma, tota nostra. Archi- tects ego sum, sed materiam varie undique con- duxi." It might be no more when Fidler speaks of " changeable Taffata, having the woof, and the warp of different colour"; and Lipsius, with a less elaborate simile, of " vt phrygiones e varii coloris filo vnum aliquod aulanun formant" ('De Consilio et Forma nostri Operis,' prefixed to his ' Politica,' near the beginning of torn. iv.). When, however, in addition to this, Fuller begins his last sentence with " But the Reader will catch cold, by keeping him too long in the porch of this Preface," while Lipsius opens his ' De Consilio,' &c, with the words " Quisquis es Lector, paullum in vestibulo hoc siste," it seems clear that Fuller has been indebted to a writer who, though strangely neglected at the present day, is, I venture to think, in spite of his faults, singularly readable, and who cannot be neglected as a literary influence in the seventeenth century. Edward Bensly. Vanishing London : the Sweeny Todd Myth.—The Star of the 10th inst., in giving an illustration of the demolition of 186, Fleet Street, next to St. Dunstan's Church, refers to S. P.'s statement in 'N. & Q.' in 1878 (5 S. x. 227) that he could " trace this credulity back' (by report, of course) for at least seventy years,' and to Mr. H. C. Porter's history of the myth in 'N. <fc Q.' in 1902 (9 S. ix. 345). The house has been pointed out for years as the residence of Sweeny Todd, the barber who had a trapdoor under the shaving chair. When ho drew a bolt in another room, the trapdoor turned over, and threw the victim into a cellar, where he was murdered, his remains being made into pies, which were sold at a neighbouring pieshop. So prevalent was the story that, as all know, Dickens mentions it in ' Martin Chuzzlewit.' A correspondent writes to The Star stating, as a curious fact, that " 30 years ago a deep pit, filled with rubbish and human remains, was found under the base- ment of No. 186, and it took hours of labour to remove them." The Star in reference to the bones that were found explains : " They were part of the interments in the vaults of St. Dunstan's. The old ohurch stood nearer to Fleet Street than the present one, and was built east and west, so that one end of it was close to 186, and the vaults may well have run under the house." Vanishing London : " The Bolt-in- Tun," Fleet Street.—The Daily Telegraph of the 13th of May, in an article under the heading ' Historic Fleet-street,' dealing with the changes resulting from the widening of that thoroughfare, states :— " In its progress Fleet-street is likely to lose almost the last vestige of its old self, as Cheapside has already done. Midway on the south side yon