Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/71

 8* 8.X. JULY 26, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

63

To revert for a moment to the merle : it is curious to find in the fourth stanza of ' Will he no come back again?' (Hogg's 'Jacobite Kelics,' ii. 195) that this appears to be con- sidered as belonging to a species distinct from the blackbird. This is the reading : Whene'er I hear the blackbird sing,

Unto the e'ening sinking down, Or merl that makes the woods to ring, To me they ha'e nae ither soun', ~ Than, Will he no come back again, &c.

One fancies that Hogg cannot have detected this strange lapse, for otherwise he would almost certainly have laid editorial hands upon the stanza. THOMAS BAYNE.

THACKERAY A BELIEVER IN HOMOEOPATHY. In ' The Onlooker's Note-Book,' an anony- mous work with an identifying motto,* the only instance of the kind with which I am acquainted, occurs the following (chap. xxii. p. 170):-

" When Thackeray described the follies of Society as he knew it, he used to assign a prominent place to homoeopathy. Lady Blanche litzague, if I re- member aright, wore a picture of Hahnemann in her bracelet and a lock of Priessnitz's hair in a brooch."

Now I am a contemner of homoeopathy, but a lover of accuracy, and I believe from in- ternal evidence that Thackeray was a con- vinced homoeopath is t, and that the "Dr. John Elliotson" to whom Thackeray dedi- cated ' Pendennis ' in the following flattering words was a homoeopathic practitioner :

" My dear Doctor, Thirteen months ago, when it seemed likely that this story had come, to a close, a kind friend brought you to my bedside, whence in all probability I never should have risen but for your constant watchfulness and skill. I like to

recall your great goodness and kindness at that

time when kindness and friendship were most needed and welcome. And as you would take no other fee but thanks, let me record them here in behalf of me and mine, and subscribe myself, Yours most sincerely and gratefully, W. M. THACKERAY."

I believe from the same evidence that Thackeray, up to the time Dr. Elliotson was introduced by the "kind friend" (how well we know that friend !), was being attended by a regular practitioner, who was displaced in favour of the disciple of the homoeopathic heresy.

' Another peculiarity of the Russells is, that they never | alter their opinions: they are an excellent race but they | must be trepanned before they can be convinced.' | Sydney Smith : Second Letter to Archdeacon Singleton. | London | Smith Elder and Co. Waterloo Place | 1902." As is well known, the author is Mr. G. W. E. Russell
 * The full title is : " An Onlooker's Note-Book
 * By the Author of | Collections and Recollections |

I deduce this opinion from a passage in the preface to the "Biographical" Edition of ' Pendennis,' p. xxxix :

" In one of the Brookfield letters my father writes of my little sister: ' M. says, "Oh, papa, do make her [i.e., Helen Pendennis] well again ; she can have a regular doctor, and be almost dead, and then will cornea homoeopathic doctor who will make her well, you know.' "

I do not identify for the moment the Lady Blanche Fitzague, cited by " Onlooker " as wearing Hahnemann's picture and Priess- nitz's hair. She was possibly described before the illness of 1849. Some of your readers can doubtless localize her at once, and also supply her date.

W. SYKES, M.D., F.S.A. 47, Southernhay W., Exeter.

P.S. In a subsequent communication I want to identify, with the help of your corre- spondents, the Thackerayan topography of Exeter the hotel w.here Foker and Major Pendennis put up, the shop overlooking the dean's garden where the Fotheringay lodged, the site of the Exeter Theatre, and any other accurate identification which can be estab- lished.

"HOPING AGAINST HOPE." -- C. C. B. re marks (ante, p. 10) that " hope against hope " is "a curious phrased It is curious that C. C. M. very nearly a quarter of a century ago (5 th S. ix. 68) called it a "nonsensical expression." From that particular contribu- tion others flowed (ibid., 94, 258, 275, 319, 378) which proved its antiquity and value, and which are well worth referring to now.

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

SHAKESPEARE ALLUSIONS. At the close of 'Pygmalion and Galatea' (1598) Marston proceeds to praise his poem in lines which contain this couplet :

So Labeo did complain his love was stone, Obdurate, flinty, so relentless none ;

seemingly an allusion to ' Venus and Adonis '

(200-201) : ,

Art thou obdurate, flinty, hard as steel- Nay, more than flint, for stone at rain relenteth ?

Although numerous paraphrases of the same idea, are to be met with in Elizabethan poetry, in no other lines is there so pronounced a similarity of language. The chief interest of the passage, however, is in the fact that if he is girding at Shakespeare, Marston has sketched for us one of the dramatist's features. According to Smith's 'Latin-English Dic- tionary,' Labeo =" the one who has large lips."

Shakespeare must have taken offence at this allusion, or a quarrel may have arisen