Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/359

 us. ix. MAY 2, 19U.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

353

MILTON'S EPITAPH : THE SECOND FOLIO OF THE SHAKESPEARE PLAYS (11 S. viii. 141, 196, 232, 294, 317 ; ix. 11, 73, 114, 172, 217, 237, 257, 294). To my question whether he does or does not deny that Sir Philip Sidney had translated part of ' Bartas His Dei line Weekes and Workes,' and so could have been referred to by Sylvester in 1605 as a previous translator of part thereof, SIR EDWIN BURNING-LAWRENCE replies that the entry to W. Ponsonby of Sidney's transla- tion in the Stationers' Register at the same time as Sidney's ' Arcadia ' was entered to him

"teaches us that originally it was intended to bring out the translation of Du Bartas under the pseudonym of Sidney, just as the ' Arcadia,' which was wholly Bacon's work, was likewise produced under the pseudonym of Sidney, who in fact did not write anything."

And SIR EDWIN at the same time affirms that in showing that Sylvester's reference to " Apelles Table " was followed by Beling's re- ference to " Apelles Picture," I but " proved " that the earlier reference does, as he from the first said, " mean the list of Bacon's anonymous works."

Concerning the matter last named, I must submit to other readers of ' N. & Q.' that that quotation of mine from the Preface to the sixth book added to the ' Arcadia ' in 1627 proves exactly the reverse of what SIR EDWIN claims. For the word " Table," as used by Sylvester, quite obviously stood for what it stood for when Shakespeare penned the lines :

Drawn in the flattering table of her eye.

'King John, 'II. i. 503. and

Thy beauty's form in table of my heart.

Sonnet XXIV. 2.

Francis Meres, but seven years before Syl- vester wrote, had retold the story of the un- finished picture of Venus by Apelles in his often - cited work ' Palladis Tamia ' ; and Sylvester's reference to that story is clear.

As to Sidney not having translated Du Bartas, I may now make a further reference. This is to Florio's ' Montaigne,' and is to the effect that in the dedication of the second book Florio will be found incidentally to mention that Sir Philip Sidney wrote a translation of the first of the ' Deuine Weekes ' of Du Bartas.

I willingly admit that I am not of the " initiated " like SIR EDWIN, but only a plain literary man, unable to boast of privileged access to secrets, and to that extent " un- informed." But if he is of the " A.A. Rouge Croix No. 33 'Masons," to whom, as

he says, " Bacon's secrets have from the- beginning been entrusted," cannot he per- suade even one of the other thirty-two " grand possessors " of Bacon's secrets at least to confirm his permitted statement that they do hold them ? And if not, why not ? Why, too, if "fully informed," his seeming trust see ' The Shakespeare Myth,' p. 5 in the Gallup decipherings ?

In the " cancel leaf " of three surviving copies of the Second Folio SIR EDWIN has a legitimate bone of contention. But, as Sylvester's pyramid-shaped address to the departed Sidney can be accounted for by the entry in the Stationers' Register and by Florio's reference, and Sylvester's bracketed " (that Holy RELIQVE being shri'nd In some- High-Place, close lockt fro common light) 5T can fairly be held to be a reference to Sidney's translation of the first of the ' Deuine Weekes,' it is a bone he has failed to show in any connexion with Milton's alleged know- ledge of Bacon's authorship of the Shake- spearian plays. J. DENHAM PARSONS.

[The above reply was in type before the death of SIR EDWIN DURNING - LAWRENCE, which we regret to say took place suddenly early last week. Although we cannot pretend to any agreement with him in his views on Shakespeare, we are sorrjr he cannot now answer MR. DENHAM PARSONS'^ challenge about the " initiated." ]

VOLTAIRE IN ENGLAND (11 S. ix. 308). A document recently discovered in St. Peters- burg was printed as * An English Notebook of Voltaire ' in The English Review for Feb- ruary last. The curious spelling was left unedited, but two paragraphs were omitted from the original, owing to their obscenity. A. R. BAYLEY.

[G., MR. JOHN HARRISON, and QUIEN SABE are thanked for replies.!

DIDO'S PURCHASE OF LAND (11 S. ix. 47)* The three analogues of this tradition given in my query are of Indian and Chinese growth, although one of them appears ta have been preserved only in an old itinerary in China of a Japanese priest. But I am now able to add to the list the following Japanese legend that attaches to the church Dounji in the northern province of Riku- zen :

" Anciently there lived in this locality a strange- couple, man and wife, with rosy faces and beau- tiful figures. They ever looked like blooming youth, but their talks evinced their personal ac- quaintance with the events that had occurred five or six centuries ago in fact, senility could never affect them. It happened during the period of Keiun (A.D. 704-7) that a Buddhist priest named Joe came to stay in their house, when he discovered