Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/129

 i2s.vm.FEB.5,i92i.j NOTES AND QUERIES. 101 LOS DON, FEBRUARY '>, 1S2J. CONTENTS. No. 147. NOTES : Gray's Eton Exercise and Pope, 101 London Coaching and Carriers Inns in 1732, 102 Gaimar's Patron : ' Ran! le FIB Gilehert.." 104 Errors in Carlyle's French Revolution,' 105 The Pancake Bell The Knowle Hotel, Sidmouth Note .to Wordsworth's ' Prelude,' Bk. v. 26 Joseph Hatton The Site of the Boston Tea Party, 106 The School of Samuel Butler, 107. QUERIES : Vanessa, 107 Thomas Chatterton Suther- land of Ackergill- Jack's Coffee House, 108 ' Wash ' (' Wassh ') Blacksmith's Tool Cripplegate : Drawings Wanted Charles Hollingbery ' Auster" land ten Lamb in Russell Street Colonel Owen Rowe Major- General the Hon. William Herbert, 109 Cowper: Pronunciation of Name St. Andrew's, Scotland: Pre- Reformation Seal "The Ashes" The Honourable Mr. Cardinal da Rohan Chabot Wat Tyler, 110 Old .Song Wanted Rodger Mompesson The Packership of London, 111. REPLIES : Representative County Libraries, Public and Private, 111 So. Thomas's Day Custom, 112 Dr. Wells : Paper on The Dew and Single Vision ' The Green Man, Ashnourne, 113 -Chatterton's Apprenticeship to Lambert Portrait of Lord Monteagle Loretto Countess Macnamara " Over against, Catherine Street in the Strand," 114 St. Leonard's Priory Armorial Bearings upon Tombs Hamiltons at, Holyrood Frankincense Among the Shakespeare Archives, 115 London Coaching and Carriers' Inns in 1732 Lady Anne Graham New Style Voucher = Rail way Ticket Grey in sense of Brown Christmas Pudding and Mince Pie, 116 Stone- henge "To Outrun the Constable "The Tragedy of New England Wideawake Hats Emerson's 'English TraitV 117 Daniel Defoe in the Pillory Authors of Quotations Wanted Tercentenary Handlist of News- papers, 118. NOTES ON BOOKS: 'The Burford Records: a Study in Minor Town Government.' Revised Edition of Liddell and Scott's Greek English Lexicon. Notices to Correspondents. GRAY'S ETON EXERCISE AND POPE. THIS note is intended to catch the eye of ome future editor or biographer of the poet Gray. As far as the writer is aware, the close connexion in thought and language between Gray's Latin Poem, designated Epistle of Pope's ' Essay on Man ' has never been noticed, or at least is nowhere set forth. But it is of interest because it shows that Gray read the Essay, or the first part of it, at Eton, and that he based his " play- exercise " almost entirely on it. Gray went to Eton in 1727, and entered Peterhouse in July 1734. The first part of the "Essay " Tvas published in 1733, anonymously, and in 1734 Pope avowed himself its author. Gray therefore, if he read it at Eton, must have come across it soon after publication. His Latin poem written to the motto : quern te Deus esse Jussit, et humana qia parte locatus es in re Disce, consists of some 75 hexameter lines. How close the imitation is the following passages will show : Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for what use ? Pride answers " 'Tis for mine : For me kind nature wakes her genial pow'r, Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flow'r ; Annual for me, the grape, the rose renew The juice nectareous and the balmy dew ; For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings ; For me, health gushes from a thousand springs ; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise ; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies." Gray's equivalent is pretty close : Et quodcunque videt, proprios assumit in usus. Me propter jam vere expergefacta virescit Natura in flores, herbisque illudit, amatque Pingere telluris gremium, mihi vinea fetu Purpureo turget, dulcique rubescit honore ; Me rosa, me propter liquidos exhalat odores ; Luna mihi pallet, mihi Olympum Phoebus inaurat, Sidera mi lucent, volvunturque aequora ponti. Incidentally these lines, like others later, show Gray's acquaintance with Lucretius. Let us proceed with Pope : What would this Man ? Now upward would he soar, And little less than angel, would be more ; Now looking downward just as grieved appears To want the strength of bulls, the fur of bears. Gray has : Plurimus (hie error demensque libido lacessit) In superos coelumque ruit, sedesque relinquit, Quas Natura dedit proprias, jussitque tueri. Humani sortem generis pars altera luget, Invidet armento et campi se vindicat herbam. " Oh quis me in pecoris felicia transferat arva." continues his Man, who after adopting a whole line straight from Lucretius, asks why he has not a lynx's eye : " Cur mihi non lyncisve oculi, vel odora canum vis Additur, aut gressus cursu glomerare potestas ? Aspice ubi tenues dum texit aranea casses, Funditur in telam et late per stamina vivit ! Quid mihi non tactus eadem exquisita facultas Taurorumve tori solidi, pennaeque volucrum." This recalls : - Why has not man a microscopic eye ? and the lynx's beam .... And hound sagacious on the tainted green .... The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine ! Feels at each thread and lives along the line. (Gray clearly liked his Latin for this last line for it occurs again in another Latin poem of his 'De Principiis cogitandi.') Then
 * Play- exercise at Eton,' and the First