Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/439

 9< s. x. NOV. 29, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

431

& later period. But see the note in the ' Promptorium ' (p. 245). F. ADAMS.

"UTILITARIAN" (9 th S. vii. 425; ix. 197, x. 152, 255). Scott's address to the harp oi the North, which is the beginning of ' The Lady of the Lake,' corresponds to the invoca- tion of the muse in epic poetry. The 'Oberon' of Wieland who, though much older than Scott, was his contemporary is quite epic, and in form is an imitation of the Orlando poems of Boiardo and Ariosto. Both Wieland and Scott were amongst the most successful poets of their age. Scott was called by Byron the Ariosto of the North. The epic has given way to the novel, which is a degraded epic. The ' Odyssey ' in a prose translation is much the same as a novel.

In poetical criticism the critic should point out the good and the beautiful, and not raise the cry, " What is the use of this ? " The utilitarian spirit was shown by Dr. Johnson when, in criticizing 'Macbeth,' he said that anybody who wrote similarly in a later age would bo banished from the theatre to the nursery ; also by Pepys when he called ' Midsummer Night's Dream ' a foolish play. For no doubt the idea in their minds was, " What is the use of writing about beings in whom no reasonable person believes ? "

E. YARDLEY.

QUEEN ANNE (9 th S. x. 325). I think it very unlikely that Cesar de Saussure was ever told by his friends, as he alleges, that on the river Queen Anne was often called " Boutique d'Eau de Vie," even allowing that this is a French translation of the vernacular " brandy shop." But while " brandy shop " is an unusual phrase in English, I believe " boutique d'eau de vie " to be almost impossible in French. I have never heard the term "boutique" applied to a place where wine or brandy is sold. A wine store is a "debit de vin," and a place where wine or brandy is drunk is a "cabaret" or u estaminet." When the editor of ' A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I. and George II.' produces the original manuscript, tiie world may perhaps believe in its genuineness, but until that period arrives the solecisms and anachron- isms with which the book abounds compel one seriously to doubt whether such a person as Cesar de Saussure ever existed. This twisting of Garth's epigram into a popular phrase is one of the little touches by which the compiler has endeavoured to grve vraisem- blance to his work. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

CHINESE JUNK (9 th S. x. 348). In addition to the information given at 6 th S. ix. 148, 198,

I would refer your correspondent to the Illustrated London News for 1 April and 20 May, 1848. The vessel was named Keying, registered at Hong Kong 750 tons. She was commanded by Charles Alfred Kellett, born at Plymouth in 1818. The vessel sailed from Hong Kong in December, 1846, for America, and thence to London. She arrived in the Thames on 28 March, 1848, under the agree- ment that Douglas Lapraik,

" William Lane, Thomas Haswell Rowlands, and Abraham Joseph Bailey, their several respective Executors, Administrators and assigns in manner

following, that is to say the said Charles

Alfred Kellett, Edwacd Rivett, Frederick Saunders, Thomas Ash Lane, Frederick James Porter, shall forthwith proceed in the said Junk or vessel for England and other places, and upon the arrival at such place or places shall use their utmost exertions for exhibiting her, and for the furtherance of the said speculation, and also that the said Charles Alfred Kellett, Edward Rivett, Frederick Saunders, Thomas Ash Lane and Frederick James Porter shall keep proper accounts of all matters connected with the said speculation and shall transmit to the said Douglas Lapraik, William Lane, Thomas Has- well Rowlands and Abraham Joseph Bailey, their Executors, Administrators and assigns, at all reason- able times, just and correct accounts of all and every their profits and proceedings therein and such other remarks as may be deemed necessary.

" In witness whereof the said parties to these ^resents hereunto set their hands and seals this day December 5, 1846."

In January, 1851, Capt. Kellett presented me with an illustrated ticket of admission to Essex Street, Strand, which I still possess. During the year 1857 I saw the vessel in the neighbourhood of Liverpool, shortly before she was broken up.
 * he vessel, then lying at the Temple Pier,

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

LESBIAN RULE (9 th S. x. 329). Some light may be thrown on this by a passage in (the Eudemian) Aristotle's ' Ethics,' book v. ch. x. 7, which is thus translated by Sir A. Grant :

" For the rule for what is indefinite must be itself ndefinite, like the leaden rule in the Lesbian architecture the rule is not fixed, but shifts itself according to the shape of the stone," &c.

jrant, in a note on this passage, says :

" ' Lesbian architecture' appears to have been a kind of Cyclopian masonry, which may have re- mained in Lesbos from the early Pelasgian occupiers f the island. Polygon stones were used in it, which
 * ould not be measured by a straight rule."

It seems probable (but I do not know if ^uch is the case) that the shifting of the rule, lere mentioned by Eudemus, is the origin of what I believe is the sense of the expression

Lesbian rule" viz., the method of making