Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/151

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S. I. FEB. 19, '98,]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

143

. ther side of the river, nearly opposite the Shelley louse. The inscription on the tablet is as follows :

Percy Bysshe Shelly

Trascorse in queste mura

Gli ultimi mesi del 1821

L'invernodell822

Qui

Tradusse in versi immortal!

Gli affetti e le imagini

Che Pisa gli inspire

E compose L' elegia in morte di John Keats

' Adonais.'

The misspelling of the poet's name is curious, and Dhe local patriotism which ascribes to Pisa the inspiration of the poet's verse is characteristic. There is also a tablet on Byron's house (the Palazzo Lanfranchi, now Toscanelli). The inscription here is simpler :

Giorgio Gordon Noel Byron

qui Dimoro daU'autumno 1821 all' estate del 1822

E scrisse sei canti del '.Don Giovanni.' One of the poems written by Shelley at Pisa was ' The Sensitive Plant.' In the Botanical Garden in the town the visitor will find one or two pots of the sensitive mimosa; in the air which Shelley also found so genial, the sensitive plant lives all the year in the open."

Byron occupied the piano nobile, or first floor, of the Palazzo Lanfranchi, and Leigh Hunt occupied the ground floor with his wife and family of "intractable children," as Byron called them, in 1822, and wrote there the 'Legend of Florence.' Leigh Hunt com-

Slained of being relegated to the ground oor, which in Italian palaces was usually occupied by servants, forgetting that he paid no rent and that Byron had defrayed the cost of the furniture of the rooms reserved for him, besides advancing him 4001. to defray the cost of transferring himself and family to Italy (' Corr. of Leigh Hunt,' i. 188).

The practice by the Pisan municipality of specifying the date when the house was occupied by the person commemorated is worthy of imitation by the South Kensington authorities, in preference to the blunt an- nouncement that So-and-so, born such a year, died such a year, lived there, which we see inscribed on some London house fronts.

JOHN HEBB.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. I shall be glad to know about what time the very ugly style of dividing title-page information was first used, and what technical book mentions it, and what is the object of showing on what lines the words of a title come. These questions occur to me from reading a note of MR. JOHN PICKFORD at 8 th S. xii. 226, where he gives this title :

" Oxford and Cambridge | Nuts to Crack: | or. Quips, Quirks, Anecdotes, and Facetiae | of | Oxford and Cam-"

I do not give the whole, as the above shows what I want to discuss. MR. PICKFORD says that the book is not one of any great rarity or value. Then, if so, what are those ugly lines for 1 ? If, however, it is necessary to show each line of a title, why cannot it be done without this disfigurement? Why will not this do ?

"Oxford and Cambridge, Nuta to Crack: or. Quips, Quirks, Anecdotes, and Facetiae, of, Oxford and Cam-"

I have copied all the capital letters, though I disagree with their use here to unimportant words. A title equally bad appears 8 S. xii. 368. Instead of | for marking the lines, I sug- gested a comma turned backwards ; but I am informed the printer has no such sign, which I consider most fortunate, as it shows that it is not in common use. It appears to me that a comma reversed would answer all purposes, and not be obtrusive. I must ask the reader to imagine the commas after Cambridge, crack, facetiae, and of have their tails turned the other way.

At present it seems quite impossible for bibliographers (here meant for people who make lists of books) to adopt a more simple style of printing. It is all left to the printer, who takes the bookseller's catalogue for his sample. In ' The Encyclopaedia of Sport/ now publishing, the paragraphs entitled " Bibliography " are, to my eye, printed in the most detestable manner, and so are all the so-called bibliographies I have lately seen, though I admit they look better than MR. PICKFORD'S copy of the title, which is hope- lessly ruined.

The only thing I can compare this style of printing to is broken glass bottles on the top of a brick wall. KALPH THOMAS.

THEATRICAL OBSERVANCE OF THE ANGELUS IN SPAIN. The following passage is quoted from an article entitled Observations made in a Journey through Spain, by a Private English Gentleman," to be found in the Hibernian Magazine for August, 1778. It seems to me worthy of preservation in the columns of ' N. & Q.,' as I have never remarked in any work on the theatre any allusion to the old stage custom dealt with. Apropos of the performance of the new tragedy ' The Death of Alexis ; or, the Pattern of Chastity,' the writer says : * x

" Everything in this country must have the air devotion, or rather superstition ; even durir the representation of the piece just mentioned

of devotion, or rather superstition ; even during the representation of the piece just mentioned I heard a bell ring, and immediately all the spectators

fell upon their knees. The comedians set the example, and the two actors who were upon the Stage jn the middle of the scene stopped, mov^d