Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/181

 12 S. III. MARCH 3, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

175

the text given in Dr. Maty's ' Memoirs. The longer version runs :

ON

MR. NASH'S PICTURE, AT FULL LENGTH,

^Between the busts of Sir ISAAC NEWTON and Mr. POPE, at Bath.

BY THE E OF C.

The old Egyptians hid their wit

In hieroglyphic dress, To give men pains in search of it,

And please themselves with guess.

Moderns, to hit the self-same path,

And exercise their parts, Place figures in a room at Bath ;

Forgive them, God of arts !

NEWTON, if I can judge aright,

All wisdom does express ; His knowledge gives mankind delight,

Adds to their happiness.

POPE is the emblem of true wit,

The sun-shine of the mind ; Bead o'er his works in search of it,

You'll endless pleasures find.

iNASH represents man in the mass,

Made up of wrong and right : Sometimes a k, sometimes an a

Now blunt, and now polite.

The Picture plac'd the busts between, Adds to the thought much strength,

Wisdom and wit, are little seen, But folly at full length.

'This and Maty's version were published after the Earl's death. Maty's ' Memoirs ' first .-appeared in 1777, and ' W T ater Poetry ' probably was published about the same time. It is curious that the first stanza given by Maty does not appear in the above at all ; the improvement of the last stanza in Maty's version is great but one wonders who revised it !

The other poem by Lord Chesterfield given in ' Water Poetry ' runs :

ON

THE D ss OF R D.

What do scholars, and bards, and astronomers

wise, Mean by stuffing our heads with nonsense and

lies ;

By telling us Venus must always appear In a car, or a shell, or a twinkling star : Drawn by sparrows, or swans, or dolphins, and

doves,

Attended in form by the graces, and loves : That ambrosia and nectar is all she will taste, And her passport to hearts on a belt round her

waist. Without all this bustle I saw the bright dame,

'To supper last night at P y's she came.

In a good warm sedan, no fine open car ;

Two chairmen her doves, and a flambeau her star.

rso nectar she drank, no ambrosia she eat;

Her cup was plain claret, a chicken her meat ;

Nor wanted a cestus her bosom to grace,

iFor R d that night, had lent her her face.

May I take this opportunity to thank my correspondents for their letters evincing their interest in this subject ?

MARCUS GILBART.

Letchworth.

SHAKESPEARE ON SATAN AS AN ANGEL OF LIGHT (12 S. ii. 181 ; iii. 75). MR. M. P. TILLEY has surely misapprehended the significance of the words :

How long have I beheld the devil in crystal !

quoted by him, at the latter reference, from Webster's play ' The White Devil.' They refer, no doubt, to the fair appearance but evil nature of Vittoria, but the direct allu- sion is to the beryl or other crystal used by astrologers for conjuring up spirits. Thomas Lodge in his ' Wit's Miserie and The World's Madnesse ; Discoverie of the Devils Incarnate of this Age,' 1596, p. 12 (quoted in Brand's 'Popular Antiquities'), observes of the superstitious follower of the planetary Houses : " He will shew you the devill in a christal, calculate the nativitie of his gelding, talk of nothing but gold and silver, elixir, calcination, &c."

Dyce, in his note on Webster's play, quotes S. Rowlands' s ' The Letting of Humor's Blood in the Head-Vaine,' 1611, Sat. 3 : " He [i.e., a dealer in magic] can transform himself unto an asse, Shewe you the Divell in a Christall-glasse." Prof. Sampson adds that the method of using the crystal is fully described in Scot's 'Discoverie of Witchcraft,' 1584, xv. ch. xii. H. DTJGDALE SYKES.

Enfield.

ST. BARBARA,V.M.(12 S. iii. 41, 136, 158). I was glad to read PREBENDARY DEEDES'S article, because my interest in this saint was aroused as far back as 1905. I was stationed in Peking at the time, and was invited to dine by an artillery officer at the German Legation Guard's mess, in order to celebrate her fete day. My friend was an officer in the Prussian Guard Artillery. When I expressed ignorance as to St. Barbara's history, he told me that every good artillery- man (Pulverkopf) in Germany and Austria regarded her as the patroness of gunners, [t was always my intention to find out about ler, but I never did so beyond looking her up in the ' Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.' As far as I can now recollect, her end was there described as due to being burnt at the stake, her father being killed by a flash of ightning while lighting the fire. Perhaps that is the version I was told by the German officer.