Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/63

 12 s. v. MAKOH, i9ia] NOTES AND QUERIES.

57

LONDON, MARCH, 1919

C N T E N T S. No. 90.

NOTES .-Classical Parallelisms to the War, 57 London - Paris Airship, 58 'Double Falsehood,' 60 Inscriptions in St. John's, Waterloo Road, 63 Aviation in Eighteenth Century Inscription on Seal Flamsteed: Halley Mr. Justice Maule on Bigamy, 64 Bewdley Apprentices and Mothering Sunday J E. Scripps " Sheer hulk": "The Spanish Main " Snodgrass Surname, 65.

QUERIES : ' Alumni Cantabrigienses ' ' The Poor Thresher 'Richard Baxter" Nablette " : " Bontefeu " Henry Bunnett, Artist Virgil on Quarrels Creighton on History. 66 Fable of Countryman Garnham and Hillman Glamorgan Volunteer Rangers Tennyson Herodias and St. John the Baptist's Head R. Simp- son, Royal Farrier Boumpbrey Family W. Fisher Shrapnel Hawks to catch (salmon, 67 Francis Harvey of Natal Cheveley and Tudgay, Painters Cantwell Family Abanazar Dudley Bernard J. Haggatt Helicon Lloyd Susannah Owens Bibliography of Epitaphs 'Struwwelpeter' in English, 68 "Lick into shape "Coleridge on " Bully " J. Turner, Painter 'Irrelagh' Morland Gallery Finkle Street Bp. M. Heton Dr. E. Hyde French Proverb on Politics St. Dunstan's-in-the-East ' Crest " of Crest-Cloth, 69 St. Hilda's, South Shields' Life of Marlborough 'Toad- Juice Whistler : Pope School Prize Compositions- Stained Glass Submerged Tracks Author Wanted, 70.

REPLIES : Foundling Entries in Parish Registers. 71 Henry I. : a Gloucester Charter, 72 William Fleete of Selworthy Pre-Raphaelite Stained Glass, 74' Greek Anthology': Westminster and Eton Maw Family Prudentius's ' Psychomachia ' " Mantle-maker's twist " Hon. Lieut. George Stewart, 75 Lady Tynte Col. Macdonell's Duel with Norman Macleod Hengler Family St. Cuthman, 76' The Newcomes 'Richard I. in Captivity, 77 Markshall, Honywood Family, and Fuller Family Andrew B. Wright Bad ulla Tomb- etone Inscription, 78 War Slang'' Dinkuna " " Camou- flage" Golds worthy as Place-Name Clay Balls for Christmas Boxes, 79 ''Kimono" Byron in Fiction- Sable, on a Chevron Argent Ainslie Bond, 80 Epitaphs to Slaves W> borne Family Robert Blake-Rain and Mowing Henslowe and Ben Jonson, 81 Christmas Verses Byronic Statue in Fleet Street Napoleon and Lord John Russell Smoking in England, 82 Panton Street Puppet Show Matthew Arnold : Proving a Nega- tive E. Clerke Authors Wanted, 83.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'Characters from the Seventeenth Century ' ' Chats on Royal Copenhagen Porcelain' ' Genealogist,' Vol. XXXIV. ' Oxford Almanack.'

OBITUARY : The Right Hon. G. W. E. Russell.

Notices to Correspondents.

CLASSICAL PARALLELISMS TO THE WAR.

AFTER lecturing recently in camp for the Khaki University of Canada, I was travelling in the train with an officer, and in the course of conversation on classical subjects, he asked me if the popular expression " Gone west " took its origin in some Greek or Latin equivalent.* Undoubtedly the thought of the sunset of life does find ex- pression in Greek and Latin writers.

In the first chorus of Sophocles's ' GEdipus Rex ' we read of the souls of hapless infants winging their way

in English see 12 S. iv. 218, 280, 337.
 * For suggestions as to the history of the phrase

The Greeks had a proverb o

and Aristotle, I think, speaks of fttov ca-iTfpav. The Homeric spirit-world is in the region of sunset : TTCOS rJA&s inrb 6ov

'II.' XV. 191.

The word oos, darkness, came to be the equivalent of SiVts. Again in the ' Odyssey ' (XX. 356) we have

VTTO o<>ov.

II.' XL 155.

The idea of death as a departure westward will be found, I think, in the ' Greek Anthology ' ; but I cannot recall a passage, though in the epitaph on Heracleitus of Halicarnassus the poet, speaking of their nights of happy converse, says,

Ovid has a beautiful line

Labitur occiduae per iter declive senectse. Surely the expression " the sloping path of westering age " is a very cognate idea.

But indeed the parallels suggested by ancient wars are manifold. We might trace them in the strife of Greeks and Persians, but more forcibly still in the conflicts of Carthage and Rome.

The hatred long fostered by Germany, the cold, calculating strategy of Bernhardi, the fiery ' Hymn of Hate,' the toast of " Der Tag ! " and the " strafing " of Ger- many's enemies, are fully matched by the simple episode of Hamilcar taking the nine-year-old Hannibal to the altar to swear undying hostility to the Romans " altaribus admotum tactis sacris iure iurando adactum se . . . . hostem fore populo Romano " (Livy, xxi. 1). The breaking of treaties, "scraps of paper," and the like, seem aptly foreshadowed by the brief expression " Punica fides."

The reciprocation of feeling as shown by the Roman " Delenda est Carthago " has its counterpart in the " Eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth " school now.

The torture and inhumanity to prisoners of old are more than hinted at by Horace, when he says of Regulus :

Atqui sciebatquse sibi barbarus Tortor pararet.

Verily, history repeats itself, and hum&n nature repeats itself, in all ages !