Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/519

 i2s. vii. NOV. 27, 1920] NOTES AND QUERIES.

427

Other incidental points of similarity anay be observed. Though both are " sea- ipoems," Edgar was no nearer the sea when She spoke his lines than was Tennyson when 'he wrote his poem. There is a certain 'parallelism between the crushed state of ' feeling of Gloucester, who would " shake patiently (his) great affliction off " and 'Tennyson's grief -struck state over the loss of Hallam. The perfect little picture of the "Dover Cliff " passage Tennyson would naturally emulate. And, finally, the imi- tative harmony and subtle music of the expression, "the murmuring surge," &c., could scarcely have been lost upon Tenny- son's ear if he had read the passage at all, as he surely had. ,

The arguments are, of course, not con- clusive. Neither are they altogether in- conclusive. They offer some grounds for reasonable assumption of indebtedness, con- rscious or otherwise, on Tennyson's part. If we keep in mind the statement of Mr. -J. H. Lobban on ' The Charge of the Light Brigade ' ; " There are some general re- semblances in the poem to Drayton's 'Ballad of Agincourt,' but Tennyson tells us that he had not this in mind," we may also recall the statement of Arthur Waugh (' Tennyson, ' p. 6):

" Poetry is not always inspired by its surround- ings. ' Break, break, break,' for instance, has been generally ascribed to the influence of Clevedon. But we have Tennyson's own denial."

A. H. R. FAIRCHILD.

University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri.

THE REGISTERS OF THE COMPANY OF STATIONERS. The registers of the Company of Stationers have been recently transcribed and published (1914) in continuation, as far as the seventeenth century is concerned, of the original transcript published by Arber.

It has often been pointed out that the existing register books by no means contain the whole of the publications of the times and, as far as the Civil Wars are concerned, the 'Catalogue of the Thomason Tracts' gives a much fuller list.

But a contemporary accusation, often repeated, was that many pages of the registers were torn out. I have recently stumbled upon a curious proof of this fact. In the * Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series/ for 1677-78, there is on p. 444 a selection from a list sent to Sir Joseph Williamson. The Calendar describes it as a " Catalogue of all the books entered in the register .book of the Stationers Company from 26 March,

1676 to 2 Nov., 1677 ; a true copy, by John Lilly, Clerk of the Company."

The titles and dates of a selection follow the original document (which I have not seen), consisting of 18| pages. All those noted, till nearly the end of January, 1676/7, are to be found in the transcript. After this there is a gap, for the following items are not in it :

Jan. 22. A play called ' Pastor Fido.'

Feb. 8. A play called ' Titus and Berenice,' with a farce called ' The Cheats of Scappin ' [sic], by Thomas Otway.

March 10. ' DeHonorum Titulis,' by John Selden.

March 29. ' The Works of Nicholas Machiavell.' All these are missing, as well as the final item :

Sept. 15. ' The True Intellectual System of the Universe,' by R. Cudworth.

Evidently many pages must have been torn from the registers if so. many entries are wanting for so short a period. February and March, 1677, seem to be quite lost.

X.

"EMINERE." This word occurs as a verb (to eminere ; to attain eminence or distinction) in a passage quoted in the work of the late Prof. Montagu Burrows, 'Worthies of All Souls,' p. 91, from the writings of Sir William Boswell (died 1649), British Ambassador to the Hague, "a successful diplomatist, man of letters, and a scholar " ('D.N.B.').

" Queen Elizabeth gave a strict charge and command to both the Chancellors of both the Universities to bring her a just, true, and im- partial list of all the eminent and hopeful students that were Graduates in each University, to set down punctually their names, their Colleges, their standings, their Faculties in which they did eminere or were likely so to do."

It may be worth while to note this employment of the word, as it has not found a place in Murray's ' Oxford Dictionary.'

HUGH SADLER.

LADY HAMILTON AS THE "MESSALINA OF THE SEA." Napoleon has been compared with Julius Caesar, and Washington with Cincinnatus, but probably few readers of 'N. & Q.' have come across a comparison of the mistress of Lord Nelson with the Roman Empress Messalina. The following extract is from the ' Memoires de 1 'Adjutant- General Jean Landrieux, Chef d'etat -major de la cavalerie de I'armee d'ltalie charge du bureau secret, 1795-1797 ' ;

"L'Fjtat populaire e"rig6 en France a la place de la monarchle faisait les plus grands efforts pour resister a 1'Europe entiere. . . . L' Angleterre avait 6te la premiere a combattre, me me sans