Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/43

 12 S. V. FEB., 1919.J

NOTES AND QUERIES.

37

It should be noted that the letter was written when Tennyson was a young man of twenty -two to an intimate friend of equal age.

It may be that the unhappy propensity of the friend was shifted by rumour to Tenny- son himself. The preservation of the letter leads one to believe that it had an effective influence. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

8 Cleveland Square, W.

DICKENS' s * OUR MUTUAL FRIEND ' : A TOPOGRAPHICAL SLIP. Dickens was so famed for his exact knowledge of London topography that I was surprised, on re-read- ing ' Our Mutual Friend ' recently, to come across what appears to be a departure from his usual accuracy. In chap, iii., where Mor- timer and Eugene pay their visit to Jesse Hexham's abode, we are told concerning the oab in which they took their journey, " The wheels rolled on, and rolled down by the Monument, and by the Tower, and by the docks, down by Ratclifie and by Rother- hithe," &c. Rotherhithe is, of course, on the other side of the river. I do not know whether this inaccuracy has been noticed before. F. A. RUSSELL.

HERRICK'S DEBT TO ANDREW WILLET. In looking through the commentaries and -evident to me that the poet Herrick was familiar with these volumes. Some of Willet 's quotations from the Fathers and other writers have been skilfully translated by the poet into English verse. I could give many instances, but confine myself to one.
 * Synopsis Papismi ' of Andrew Willet, it is

Willet quotes Augustine on predestination : " Indurare Deus dicitur, quern mollire noluerit " ; which Herrick translates (' Noble Numbers,' 250) :

God's said our hearts to harden then, Whenas His grace not supples men.

JOSEPH HEALD WARD. Exmouth.

SHERIDAN ON PUFFS. It is evident that Sheridan took some hints for the well-known passage about puffs in ' The Critic ' from an Essay on Puffs printed in The London Magazine for June, 1735, p. 295 ; with a reference to Grubstreet Journal, June 12, Bo. 285. If it has not been noticed, the latter part of it may be worth reproducing :

" These Puffs may be divided logically into material and formal, true and false, affirmative and negative. The material puff differs from the formal, in that it is not inserted as a Paragraph of &ews, with the Introduction we hear, or the like ; but often makes part of an Advertisement, and sometimes of a Title Page. In the two other

Divisions the Branches are very unequal ; the false being much more numerous than the true, and the affirmative than the negative. For tho' the Generality of puffs are not literally false, they are expressed so equivocally, that they may be taken in a double Sense.

" They may be divided mathematically into direct, oblique, and circular. The direct is thai, in which the Subject Matter of the puff is related directly as a Piece of News, of which every Circumstance makes an essential Part of the Puff ; as this in Fog's Journal, April 12. ' We hear, that several Gentlemen from' Rome, Paris, and other foreign Universities, have been ordered to send thither an Account of the Disputations of the Oratory.' In the oblique puff, a Piece of News is related which seems at first to have no Tendency to a puff, and yet concludes with some Circumstance, for the Sake of which alone the whole was inserted. As when it is said, ' That at such a Time, in such a Place, such a Person fell from his Horse, and broke his Leg : which being set by such a Surgeon, he is in a fair Way of Recovery.' The circular puff is that which men- tions nothing directly to recommend either Things or Persons, and yet is published with no other View. Such is "that material puff which has appeared so often in the Form of an Advertise- ment, * Just published, and given Gratis, Marriage Ceremonies with a long &c. given Gratis up one Pair of Stairs, at the Sign of Dr. Chamberlen's famous Anodyne Necklace, &c.' "

G. E. P. A.

GEORGE STEPNEY AT VIENNA. (See 2 S. xi. 225 ; 10 S. vii. 8.) Some new data of interest in relation to Dr. Edmond Halley's two missions to Vienna (1702-3) might, perhaps, be recovered upon examination of item 8 in Catalogue 114 issued by Mr. P. M. Barnard of Tunbridge Wells. The item is described as follows :

" Austria, Hungary, and the Grand Alliance, 1702-5 and 6. The Stepney-Cardonnel Corre- spondence. A collection of 180 official copies of letters and documents sent during the years 1702-5-6 by George Stepney, British Envoy at Vienna, to Adam de Cardonnel, secretary to the Duke of Marlborough from about 1692 throughout the campaigns to about 1707. 1702-6."

From the notes appended I extract the ollowing :

" This is a most remarkable series of letters which, up to the present, does not appear to have seen published .... It is doubtful whether there s another account of these transactions available n English. . . .The correspondence seems to have escaped the notice of the Historical Manuscripts Commission." Chicago. EUGENE F. McPiKE.

BADULLA, CEYLON : TOMBSTONE INSCRIP- TION. An interesting photograph of an ancient bo tree at Badulla, Ceylon, shows a tombstone embedded in its trunk. As far as I can make out, the inscription refers to Mrs. Sophia Wilson, daughter of the Rev.