Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/44

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vi. FEB., 1920,

BRONTOSAURI EXISTENCE.

SEARCH for possible survival of the Bron- tosaurus brings to mind that the subject of extinct monsters was under discussion nearly a century ago, seriously in Davy's ' Conso- lation of Travel,' and in lire's ' Geology,' and humorously in a poem by Chandos Leigh entitled ' The Sauri,' printed in his 'Fifth Epistle to a Friend, 1835,' full of amusing literary references. Brief extracts will show Leigh's style :

Ere as it is the world its course begun.

The world o'erteemed with children of the sun

Goliath lizards of a former age

When a hot temperature was all the rage

Though heat-begotten monsters we encase

Jn our museums, perish'd have the race.

Whether they were herbivorous, or ate

Dirt like an Otomac, I cannot state.

They thirsted not, like monsters since the flood

Begot the taste is ancient too for blood

Perchance, as Waterton a crocodile

Rode, they were ridden though in length a mile !

Conjecture here geologists advance

But sober truths loves somewhat to romance.

The freeborn Sauri scorned a reigning lord.

Half-monkey and half-tiger, beast-abhorred,

That rides, like tailors on their fluttering geese,

A many-headed hydra, not with ease

Shallow, as Trinculo deem'd Caliban,

Whether through fens they paddled, crept, or ran

Singing in chorus marshy songs, devouring

Fern salads, like our idlers bored, and boring.

They lived chronologists may guess the time

And then returned to what they came from

slime

Ere Alorus they lived ; or to go higher Ere lived forefathers of a Cambrian squire* They may, sublimed into another sort Of beings, through ethereal space transport Themselves with a rapidity intense, With tubes provided, every tube a sense. Such Davy sa-w, or dreamed he saw, at Rome. Philosophers have sober views at home

Would (hey were now alive, consuming wheat,

And kept by rich zoologists to eat

They, like Napoleon, prices might exalt

More than remission of the tax on malt ;

And land-owners would cease to grieve, that they

With crippled means increased rent-charges pay.

Soon would they disappear on Erin's bogs,

Cherished, as Isaac Walton cherished frogs,

To be impaled by Orange seers, who hope

To prove that monsters symbolize the Pope

Especially if their long tails emit

A phosphorescent light like Irish wit !

W. JAGGARD, Capt.

Central Registry, Repatriation Records, Winchester.

ing to Foote's " Author," was older than the creation.
 * Refers to Cadwallader, whose ancestry, accord"

ELIZABETHAN GUESSES,

' A MAUSOLEAN LAMENT,' 1651, by Samuel Sheppard, has some rather cryptic allusions, not yet cleared up. He makes quite obvious references in his catalogue of poets to- Spenser and to Sidney, and says, after paying tribute to this latter idol of all England :

Alter him rose as sweet a Swaine As ever pip'd upon the Plain. He sang of warres, and Tragedies He warbled forth : on him the eye{sl Of all the Shepheards fixed were, Rejoicing much his songs to hear.'

Of course, it is just possible that the man- pointed at here is Drayton ; the verse might be accepted as somewhat descriptive of ' Piers Gaveston,' ' Matilda,' and ' The Tragicall Legend of Robert, Duke of Nor- mandy,' or of the better known ' Morti- meriados,' republished as ' The Barrens Wars ' in 1603. Drayton of the satires and the lovely pastorals, the useful, if rather boring, ' Polyolbion,' and the ringing shorter ' Agincourt,' is barely recognisable as a "warbler" of "tragedies." Whom else, then, would the lines suit ? Not Marlowe : for his own day thought him not " sweet," but bold and dangerous. Would not Daniel be a safe guess ? Drummond, perhaps with his eye chiefly upon ' Delia ' and ' The Complaynt of Rosamond,' commends Daniel precisely for his " sweetnesse of rhyming " ; and certainly ' Cleopatra ' and ' Philotas ' and ' The Civill Warres ' in eight books come forward well, as candidates for Shep- pard' s clumsy praise. Bibliographically, also, Daniel follows Sidney even more closely than Drayton does. Sidney's first (posthumous) publications appeared in 1590- and 1591 ; Daniel's in 1592 ; Drayton's in 1593.

And then lived He who sweetly sung

Orlando's fate in his own tongue.

Who wpuld not deigne t' divulge his own,

But by another would be known, . O gentle Shepheard ! we to thee

Are bound in a supream degree.

It would seem as if this translator of Afiosto, dignified with a capital letter, can be no other than Sir John Harington. Queen Elizabeth, his dreaded godmother, made him do the ' Orlando Furioso.' The circumstances were a matter of public know- ledge ; there was no attempt not to "divulge " Sir John's name or " fate " : this latter Sheppard actually says, but does not in the least mean ! Is the first edition of the 'Orlando' in English, 1591, anonymous