Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/457

 2"* S. N 23., JUNE 7. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

449

yet get admittance, the Commissioners are so busie set- ting Leases. The Bishop of Corke's Case, which you will find in the Votes, and wherein the Parliament refused him Redress, was this: Several of his Tenants owed him arrears of Rent, the King seiz'd upon their Goods because they were absent; be desires to be paid his Arrears out of the Goods found on the Lands, which he desired leave to Distrain on ; but he was told, he must Sue the Tenants on the Covenants of their Leases, and recover his Rent as he could. This is like to be a President, and no Creditor, Landlord, or Mortgagee, whose Tenant is absent, is like to get any thing, because the King has seiz'd the Goods and Lands which were his Security. I hear likewise where the Landlords are absent, Lessees are disturb'd and left to seek Redress from their absent Landlords. The Commons Quarrel to Judge Dally, for which they impeached him, was, upon some private Discourse he had with Sir Aliok Bourk, and some other Gentlemen, in which he disapprov'd of the Commons Proceedings, and said, they were a kind of Massanello's Assembly, and that it could not be expected that men from whom the Kin took Estates, would fight for him, or to this effect, FINIS."

POPIANA.

Pope and Allan Ramsay. To the edition of Allan Ramsay's Poems, printed by Thomas Rud- ditnan, Edinburgh, 1721, there is prefixed a long list of the names of the principal nobility and gentry of Scotland subscribers, among whom are " Mr. Alexander Pope, Sir Richard Steele, Savage," &c. It would now be curious, if it could be ascertained what was the opinion of the great English poet, Mr. Pope, in respect of his Scottish brother Allan. The latter does him due honour by his quotations, but we never hear of the former in any shape repaying or acknowledging the compliment. G. N.

Passage in Pope (1 st S. xi. 65. ; 2 nd S. i. 41.) I am obliged to G. R. S. for his kindness in at- tempting to answer my Query, but his explana- tion does not meet my object. In the first place, the text does not, I think, warrant his version ; and secondly, there is no difficulty as to the general meaning which G. R. S. understands as we all do ; but the puzzle is, how Ben Jonson and Dennis could concur on the same affidavit, and why " The Lord's Anointed" should be contrasted with a " Russian bear" and why a " Russian bear," and what " Russian bear?" Pope, as far as I have been able to trace his obscurities, never wrote at random. It is evident that an antithesis between Kings Charles and William and a Russian bear, probably the Czar Peter, is meant, ; and between royal dignity and royal taste, we all see that ; but where have Ben and Dennis said anything about it? and how could they, who wrote an hundred years apart, have concurred in the same exclama- tion given as a quotation, and as if ipsissimis verb is 9

Popes Ode for*' Music. I agree with MR. BOLTON CORNET, that the Ode ought to be inserted in all editions of Pope's Works ; but not because it is a distinct ode from that in honour of St. Cecilia ; or because recomposed twenty years later, and therefore exhibiting " the more mature taste of the poet." It appears to me that the omissions and alterations were made to suit the requirements of the musical composer, and the time which only could be allowed for performance : in the same way that Hughes, in 1711, was asked by Steele to alter " Alexander's Feast, " Alter this poem for musick, preserving as many of Dryden's words as you can" (Malone's Life of Dryden, p. 302.). Such alterations and curtailments are, under like circumstances, matters of course. Fortunately, in 1730, Pope was living, and therefore altered the poem himself; but that he considered it a mere alteration to suit a special purpose is proved, I think, by the fact that in 1736, when he pub- lished his collected works, he neither substituted it for the " Ode to St. Cecilia," nor published it at all. P. O.

CurWs " Corinna." Having just met with a passage in "N.&Q." (1 st S.xii. 277.431.), signed W. M. T., in which an article in Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 131., New Series, for July 4, 1846, is supposed to have had no other source for its materials than a little book en- titled Pylades and Corinna, and to have been written without reference to any biographical dictionary, I beg to state that the little book was never seen by the writer of the article ; and also that the twelfth volume, or Supplement to the General Biographical Dictionary, was consulted for some account of Mrs. Thomas ; some pages from which may be found in Dodsley's Annual Register for the year 1767. E.

LONGHOUGHTON REGISTERS. " The short and simple Annals of the Poor."

The following extracts cannot be said to be historically interesting, except as they give some insight into the morals of the rural population in the place and at the period to which they relate ; but they are curious and singular. It is but just to remark that purity and simplicity of manners are generally characteristic of the present genera- tion of the inhabitants of the same parish.

J. MN.

" Extracts from the Register of Marriages, Baptisms, and Burials, in the Parish of Longhoughton, Northumber- land.

" 1699, Oct. 27. Jane, the wife of George Doncan (the Dr. of Mr. Brown, Dean Elect of Glasco), vie. of Long- houghton, buried.