Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/469

 ii s. vii. JUNE 14, MS.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

461

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE U, 1913.

CONTENTS.-No. 181.

NOTES : Danteiana, 461 The Tailors' Riot at the Hay- market Theatre, 1805 St. Mary's, Amersham : Church- yard Inscriptions, 464 The Founder of the Bank Holiday Webster's ' Appius and Virginia,' 466 Ale-Taster, 467. .

QUERIES : The Younger Van Helmont, 467 ' The Reader' and Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, 468 Portrait of Charles Dillon, Actor Walbeoff Family Theatre lit by Gas The Auctioneer's Hammer Purnell Edwards of Stancombe Park" The Four S's "Major John Andre" "Attainting royal blood," 469 Stephens and Boger Families " Docky down " Biographical Information Wanted Coaching Clubs Rev. William Jones of Nay- land Acts XXIX. Largest Square in London McPhun Family in Scotland, 470.

REPLIES: 'Stamford Mercury': Earliest Provincial Newspaper, 471 Job Charnock, 472 Cardinal New- man and his Brothers, 473 Grillion's Club Colleges : Matriculation and Graduation, 474 Author of Quotation Wanted Extraordinary Fountains The Hessian Con- tingent : American War of Independence, 475 Heraldic : Albert Smith entitled to bear Arms" The querke of the sea" The Cathedral at Pisa Henry Morris, 476 East Anglian Families The Book of Lecan Dancing on " Mid- summer Night" Button-Makers Taylor's ' Holy Dying' : Charles Lamb, 477 British Ambassador in France, 1595 Matthew Arnold's Poems " Feast of Poetry " "Brexen journeys" "Bob's" Discovery of Australia, 478.

NOTES ON BOOKS : "The Aldermen of the City of London' Argentine Number of * The Sphere.'

Booksellers' Catalogues.

DANTEIANA.

4 INFERNO,' XIX. 124, &c.

Per6 con ambo le braccia mi prese.

" The ever-recurring tenderness of Virgil in supporting the pilgrim over rough places may be only a touch of the poet's personal affection for him, but probably it is also a symbol of the light and strength which he had found in Virgil's teaching when the corruptions of the Church weighed heavily on his mind. His
 * f eet had well-nigh slipped,' when some lines

from the ' ^Eneid ' came to his mind and kept him steadfast."

So Dean Plumptre on a passage which commentators generally ignore, and which is admirable for the insight into motives which it displays. But, whilst I admit the felicity of the " touch," the explana- tion of the " symbol " seems to me un- duly far - fetched. For assuredly Dante would have found more abundant " light and strength" in the teaching of the Church, as an antidote to her " corruptions,"

than in that of Virgil, and this notwith- standing the last sentence of the passage.* But it is less to find fault with the comment than to use it as a foreword to a brief refer- ence to the relationship between the two poets that I place it in the forefront of this inquiry.

Dante had many precursors in the misty labyrinth of eschatology, Hebrew and Chris- tian, yet he chose no one of them as " duca " therein. (See my articles ' Some Precursors of Dante ' in The Antiquary, Nov. and Dec., 1910; Jan., 1911.) Amongst the former Enoch would have proved a serviceable companion, judging from the nature of the two apocalyptic works bearing that name, known as the Ethiopic and Slavonic Enoch respectively, both edited by Dr. R. H. Charles. The first dates from 170 to 64 B.C., and Mr. Marcus Dods describes it suc- cinctly in a single sentence ( ' Forerunners of Dante,' 1903) :

" The site of heaven and its imagery vary in the different sections of the work ; and as for hell, Enoch does not go far beyond a chaos of fire, chains of iron, scourges, and such commonplaces of physical torture."

And Dr. C. H. H. Wright ('Intermediate State ') calls it "a strange medley, which many of the early Fathers looked upon as almost an inspired production." Appa- rently it also influenced the New Testament writers, notably St. Jude (Epis., vv. 14, 15).

' The Book of the Secrets of Enoch ' is assigned from A.D. 1 to A.D. 50, was pro- bably written in Hebrew, and is even more Dantean than its counterpart in the scope and treatment of its topography and escha- tology. But Dante, if he knew of the exis- tence of these visions, was not minded to make Enoch his conductor in his own inimit- able apocalypse.

Moses fared no better, though three apocalypses stand to his credit : ' The Apo- calypse of Moses ' in Greek ; ' The Assump- tion of Moses ' in Latin (sixth century, in

Kitchin's statement (' Dante and Virgil ' in ' Studies,' 1904, vii. 255) that " Dante quotes him [Virgil] as on a level with Holy Writ." It may have been (to quote him again) that " to Dante the lay-Empire was older and more august than the Church-Empire, the Papacy," and that " of this Empire Virgil was the Prophet, the inspired Seer ' in persona di Dio parlando,' " but I disbelieve utterly that to Dante the words of Virgil and those of the Bible were on a common level of authority and inspiration, or even of veneration. It may have been a question with him of pitting the word of the Papacy or Church against the word of the Caesar or Empire, but never of pitting either against the Word of God.
 * I venture to question still further Dean