Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/514

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

S. N 26., JUNE 28. '56.

PUNCTUATION.

There can, I think, be little doubt but that many beauties in writers are obscured or lost, and even apparent violations of sense and gram- mar caused, by improper punctuation. In my Life of Milton (p. 297.) I have hinted at (but which I firmly believe to be the truth) an idea that the punctuation of a passage in Lycidas is that of the printer, and different from that de- signed by the poet. In like manner at the end of the first stanza of Gray's Ode on Eton Col- lege there is a colon instead of the sign of a break, or aposiopesis, while there is a manifest interruption in the sense. But I have an idea that printers formerly did use the colon in this way. I may here observe that we make too little use of the dotted line (. . . .), which indi- cates a break in the sense as distinguished from the dash, which only denotes a pause. The editors of Shakspeare, for example, use the last alone for both break (aposiopesis) and pause.

" N. & Q." does not, I believe, meddle much with classic matters, yet perhaps I may be allowed to illustrate my assertion from Virgil. In the first Eclogue, then, I would punctuate vv. 46. seq. as follows :

" Fortunate senex, ergo tua rura uianebunt! Et tibi magna satis. Quamvis lapis omnia nudus, Limosoque palus obclucat pascua junco- Non intueta graves, etc."

Melibceus pauses with surprise at manebunt, and then adds Et etc. He then reflects that, small and unfertile as Tityrus' lands may be, his cattle are exempt from the evils to which his own are ex- posed. The structure Quamvis, etc. had occurred just before, v. 33.

" En ! unquam patrios longo post tempore fines, Pauperis et tuguri congestum caespite culmen

Post? aliquot, raea regna videns, mirabor

aristas !

Jmpius h2c tarn culta novalia miles habebit, Barbarus has segetes." Vv. 67. seq.

He is going to add multos annos, or something of the kind, when grief stops him, and he then tells what he would see, adding the reason ; num. being in the usual manner understood in v. 69. No critic has as yet given a good sense to Post aliquot itristas, in the ordinary punctuation.

THOS. KEIGHTLEY.

title of the book from which I take it, which I claim indulgence for transcribing entire :

" A description of Mr. Hogarth's original painting, from whence was copied his curious Plate of the ' March to Finchley':

" SIR,

" As you desire my sentiments on Mr. Hogarth's Picture, I shall begin with pointing out what appears most defective. Its first and greatest Fault then is its being too new, and having too great a resemblance to the Objects it represents; if this appears a Parado?, you ought to take particular care of confessing it. This Picture has yet too much of that Lustre, of that despi- cable Freshness which we discover in Nature, and which is never seen in the Cabinets of the Curious. Time has not yet obscured it with that venerable smoak, that I sacred cloud, which will one day conceal it from the pro- I phane Eyes of the Vulgar, that'its beauties may only be seen by those who are initiated into the Mysteries of Art. These are its most remarkable faults, and I am

now going to give you an idea of the subject, &c

" Mr. Hogarth, who lets no Opportunity escape him of I observing the Pictoresk Scenes which numerous Assern- I on the Spot where he has drawn the scene of his Picture. j This Painter is remarkable for a particular Sagacity in seizing a Thousand little Circumstances which escape the Observation of the greatest part of the Spectators ; and it is a Collection of a Number of these Circumstances which has composed, enriched, and diversified his Work. The scene is placed," &c. THE MIDWIFE, or the OLD WO- MAN'S MAGAZINE, containing all the WIT, and all the LEARNING, and all the JUDGMENT, that has ever been, or ever will lie inserted in all the other Magazines, or the MA- GAZINE of MAGAZINES, or the GRAND MAGAZINE OF MAGAZINES, or any other Hook whatsoever. So that those who buy this Book icill need no other. Published pursuant to several Acts of Parliament, and by the Permission of their Most Christian and Most Catholic Majesties, the Great Mogul, and the States General. London : printed for Mary Midwife, and sold by T. Caruan, in St. Paul's Churchyard. (Vol. i. p. 182.)
 * blies frequently furnish, has not failed to represent them

I need not, perhaps, remind the reader that a visit to the Foundling Hospital, (Monday is the day on which this institution is open to the public,) will enable him to compare the picture as it now is, with this criticism upon its merits when fresh from the master's easel. Time has dealt gently with this fine work, for Hogarth painted with a safer medium than that used by his immediate successors ; but still is quietly engaged in the pro- cess of " smoking," which the critic has antici- pated, and the painter himself, in one of his well- known subjects, symbolised. WILLIAM BATES.

Birmingham.

CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM ON IIOGARTfl's " MARCH TO FINCHLEY."

The following bit of healthy criticism, with its sly hits at the prevailing prejudice in favour of the "old masters," under the "cold shade" of which the British School struggled into being, may appear to merit preservation ; as also the

not

BRITISH LAND AND FRESH-WATER SHELLS.

I send a list of habitats of these Mollusca in the immediate vicinity of Norwich, in hopes that some naturalist may add those of other species found in this county :

Ncritina fluviatilis. River Wensum. Paludina vivipara and achatina. Ditto. Bithinia tentaculata and veiitricosa. Ditto.