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NOTES AND QUERIES. [n s. vn. JAN. 11, 1013.

FOURIER SOCIETY (11 S. vi. 250, 418, 431). It was a society formed to carry out the elaborate, but impracticable communistic scheme formulated by Franois Marie Charles Fourier (1772-1837), a French Socialist, \vhose views differed in certain particulars from those of Saint -Simon and Robert Owen. He believed that while man was still ignorant of the laws that ought to govern society, he would eventually, through reason, discover and perfect a true method of organization, which he maintained would be found to have a mathematical or scientific basis. His most important work is his ' Theorie de 1'Unite Universelle.' After his death several societies in France adopted his principles, but those that followed them exclusively proved unsuccessful. In the United States between 1840 and 1850 he had many advocates, who founded upwards of thirty institutions, of which the most notable was that of Brook Farm, at West Roxbury, Mass. None of them, however, was destined to take root in the country. See the article on ' Fourierism ' in the ' New International Encyclopaedia ' (Dodd, Mead & Co., New York). N. W. HILL.

San Francisco.

THE TEXT OP SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS CXXV. AND CXXVI. (US. vi. 446). I find no reference to jealousy in Sonnet CXXV. In this, as in the Sonnet immediately preced- ing it, Shakespeare is protesting the dis- interestedness of his affection, its freedom from all worldly or selfish motives ; it is not " the child of state," not " mix'd with seconds." And clearly he is defending himself from some charge of that kind, either originating with the object of his love or suggested to him by a third person. The last couplet of the Sonnet, as usually interpreted, forces us to accept the latter theory, which is on all accounts the more likely one. The slanderer may have been moved by jealousy of Shakespeare's hold on Mr. W. H., but it is the man himself, not his motive, that is the " suborn'd informer." Indeed, I do not see how jealousy could be said to be " suborned."

In Sonnet CXXVI. all that is needed to make the second line perfectly clear is to print it as it appears in most of the modern editions I know :

who in thy power

Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour.

" Fickle " evidently refers, not to the glass itself, but to the shifting sand in it. The " brittleness " of the glass has no significance in this connexion. C. C. B.

The meaning given by MR. BROWN as that of the first four lines of Sonnet CXXVI. arises out of the original text rather than out of his proposed reading of the second line, which is as follows :

Dost hold Time's brittle glass, his/cHe hour. It is known that the nature of glass is its brittleness, and that Shakespeare uses " brittle " in a metaphorical sense elsewhere. Here the poet is not describing the nature of glass, and it is not the glass that is fickle, but the sands of time which the glass con- tains. The second line, properly punctuated, reads :

Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour. For " sickle " compare Dekker, ' Honest Whore ' : For all time's sickle has gone over you, you are

Orlando still.

And Young's ' Night Thoughts,' i. 194 : Each moment has its sickle, emulous Of Time's enormous scythe.

TOM JONES.

BENJAMIN HARRIS AND ' THE PROTESTANT TUTOR' (US. vi. 449, 515). The 1679 edition of ' The Protestant Tutor '(which has a por- trait of the King as frontispiece, a woodcut title-page, and several illustrations in the text) contains, next to the title-page, an ' Advertisement ' that extols Robert Bate- man's spirits of scurvy-grass, sold by Bateman in bottles sealed with his coat of arms the half -moon and ermins to prevent counterfeits, and it continues :

" They are also to be sold by Benjamin Harris Author and Publisher of this Book at the Stationers Arms in the Piazza of the Royal Exchange and at his shop against the Kings Bench in South wark."

In addition to the facts given in the 40,000th number of The Times, it may be stated that the Stationers' Company received a search warrant, issued by Earl Middleton on 11 Nov., 1685,

"to damask 'English Liberties or Freeborn Subjects Inheritance ' and deface a copper-plate for printing off seditious figures or emblems entituled what we must expect under a Popish Successor,' which were issued at the house of Benjamin Harris near the Royal Exchange, London, Victualler. "- Arber's ' Stationers' Registers,' v. Iv.
 * A scheme of Popish Cruelties, or a prospect of

At a period of bitter religious and political animosities and violent language, hasty judgments were formed and often expressed in harsh terms. John Dunton, a rival bookseller at the sign of " The Black Raven " opposite to the Poultry compter, writing in his wrath, said :

"I should have been much concerned if Ben Harris had given me a good word, for his com- mendation is the greatest reproach that an honest