Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/92

 NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. JAN. 29, '98.

The cock sung out an hour ere light :

From the dark fen the oxen's low Came to her. Stanza iii.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. New bourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

"OTHER SUNS, PERHAPS." In the eighth book of 'Paradise Lost' Milton represents Kaphael, in answer to Adam's question about the movements of the heavenly bodies, whilst cautioning him as to the limits of the know- ledge of created beings, as suggesting, without affirming, views in accordance with the Copernican theory of the earth's motion : What if the Sun

Be centre to the World, and other Stars ? And then, after a few lines about the moon, which he appears to think may be habitable, he adds :

other Suns, perhaps

With their attendant Moons, then will descry

Communicating male and female light."

On this Dr. Masson remarks, in a note, that the passage is "a reference to Galileo's discovery that Jupiter and Saturn have satellites."

Galileo died thirteen years before Saturn was known to have a satellite, as the first (and largest) was discovered by Huygens in 1655. The rings we know now to consist of an immense number of tiny satellites ; but Galileo, though he saw indications of an appendage to the planet, took it for two attendant bodies, one on each side, and was completely puzzled at their subsequent dis- appearance owing to their changed relative position, the mystery of which was first unriddled by Huygens. I agree with Dr. Masson that "male and female" probably means direct and reflected "light." But I think, therefore, that by suns the poet really means other self-luminous bodies, and by moons bodies corresponding to the planets of our system.

Dr. Orchard, in his interesting work ' The Astronomy of Milton's "Paradise Lost,'" says (p. 110): "Milton in these lines refers to Jupiter and Saturn, and their satellites, which had been recently discovered those of the former by Galileo, and four of those of the latter by Cassini." Four satellites of Saturn (subsequently to Huygens's discovery of Titan) were, indeed, discovered by Cassini, but two of these were after the death of Milton and the other two after the publica- tion of ' Paradise Lost.' I have looked into the first edition of that work (published in 1667) and found the passage in question there, so that it was not introduced into the second edition. W. T. LYNN.

PRINCE BISMARCK. The Pall Mall Gazette of 17 October, 1897, is responsible for the following paragraph, which may be worth a corner in ' N. & Q.' :

"Dr. Lange, an eminent German philologist, has been tracing the etymology of the name Bismarck. It is derived, of course, from a little town in the Margravate of Brandenburg, which formed part of the fief of the ex-Chancellor's ancestors. This, again, was originally called Bischofsmark (Bishops- town), but the abbreviation took place before 1283. Bissdorf presents an example of a similar change, appearing as Biscopesdorf in charters of the tenth century."

B. H. L.

THE 'HISTORICAL DICTIONARY' IGNORED. (See 8 th S. xii. 321, 376.) The first article of * N". & Q.' for 23 October contained a com- plaint that by a majority of its readers the very existence of the ' Historical Dictionary ' the most elaborate work of its class ever projected, on which a thousand experts had laboured for forty years was ignored, and that by querists applying for information which they could best find in that very work. An article in the very next issue showed that contributors, as well as readers, are guilty of this ignoring.

The paper on ' Dog-whipper,' in that number, would have been improved by the following extract from the ' Dictionary ' :

" 1592, Nashe, ' P. Penilesse.' It were verie good [that] the dog-whipper in Paules would haue a care of this. 1721, 'Audit Book, Christ's Coll., Cam- bridge,' iii. 520. Paid Salmon, the dog-whipper, a year ending at Mich, last, \l. Os. Qd."

My joining in the complaint of ' N. & Q.' is the more natural for me as I have been a sub- scriber to the ' H. E. D.' from its first instal- ment, and by no means the only one in this little town, where, and for a thousand square miles around it, no single tree in the forest primaeval had been cut down sixty-one years ago. JAMES D. BUTLER.

Madison, Wis., U.S.

WORKS OF GREAT AUTHORS ATTRIBUTED TO OTHER WRITERS. I am sorry when there are attempts to deprive great authors of the credit of writing works which I believe to be their own. Doubts have been thrown on the author- ship of Homer's poems. The ' Odyssey ' is said to have been written by a hand different from that which wrote the ' Iliad.' And it has been said that this hand was the hand of a lady. But Horace had no doubt. He speaks of the writer of the Trojan war and the describe! 1 of the travels of Ulysses as the same man. Why should we doubt? It has been said that no fable now attributed to ^Esop is his. Yet there is the direct evidence of Aristotle, Phsedrus, Aulus Gellius, for some