Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/110

 102

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. xn. A, s,

of general statute, and in some by special acts of the legislature ; but in the granting of them each legislature is a law to itself, so that there can be no uniformity in the con- ditions, requirements, and terms. The Federal courts have no jurisdiction in the matter of a State right, and the revocation of a charter by a State court or legislature it is often difficult to secure. Where prosecutions have taken place, it has usually been upon the charge of misusing the public mails, as pro- moters of lotteries are prosecuted. From some special features in the constitution or laws of the State of Illinois, that State gives unusual facilities for abusing what should be a purely scholastic power, and a Chicago diploma has come to have a doubtful repu- tation.

It may interest the readers of * N". & Q.' to look over a list of these institutions, as I have culled the names from the Reports of the Commissioner of Education, 1876-1900 ; the same thing, however, may appear under different names :

American University of Philadelphia.

College of Pharmacy (in Philadelphia University of Medicine and Surgery).

Eclectic Medical College of Pennsylvania.

Independent Medical College of Chicago.

Independent Medical College and the National Law (School.

International Health University.

Livingston University of America.

Metropolitan College of New York.

Metropolitan Medical College.

National Eclectic Medical Association.

National University of Chicago.

New England University of Arts and Sciences.

New England University of Medicine and Surgery,

New York Medical College.

Perm Medical University or College.

Philadelphia Electropathic Institution.

Philadelphia University of Medicine and Surgery.

Richmond University or College, Richmond, Jef- ferson co., Tenn.

Washington Medical Institution.

The Commissioner of Education lays it down as a safe and practical rule that a university which makes a charge, or looks for a recompense, or grants a degree in absentia, is spurious.

JAMES GAMMACK, LL.D,

West Hartford, Conn., U.S.

DRAYTON'S ' POLY-OLBION.' HAVING lately had occasion to study this work, I have discovered that, though its scope is accurately enough given in books of reference, there exists the most amazing ignorance as to its length. For this a learned critic of the last century must be held accountable. Henry Hallam, in his * Intro-

duction to the Literature of Europe,' pub- lished more than sixty years ago, informed his readers that

"the ' Poly-Olbion ' is a poem of about 30,000 lines in length, written in Alexandrine couplets, a mea- sure from its monotony, and perhaps from its fre- quency in doggerel ballads, not at all pleasing to the ear."

And then follows some very fair criticism, to which no objection need be made. But the statement, which has been so often copied, as to the length of the poem, is altogether wrong, as I shall now show. The 'Poly- Olbion ' consists of thirty ' Songs,' each con- taining not a thousand, as Hallam guessed, but only five hundred and fifty-four lines, as I have ascertained by counting the first. Now as the other twenty-nine are each of apparently the same length, it follows that " this strange Herculean toil," to use Dray- ton's own expression, numbers 16,620 verses, all told ; or about as many as are in Homer's 'Iliad,' if we allow an average of 700 lines to each of the twenty-four books. Even if we add the ' Arguments,' each of about ten short lines, prefixed to the thirty cantos, the total will not amount to 17,000, a goodly sum truly, but very different from Hallam's estimate, which must henceforth be decreased by 13,000, if my reckoning be correct. If any one is disposed to challenge it, let him count each particular line in the * Poly-Olbion.' Perhaps I may be blamed for not having done so myself, but my excuse is that I cannot spend my " time in toys, idle questions, and things of no worth," nor do I wish to be enrolled in the list of those over-curious per- sons of whom Robert Burton speaks :

"Your supercilious cri ticks, grammatical triflers, note-makers, curious antiquaries, find out all the ruines of wit, ineptiarum delicias, amongst the rubbish of old writers : pro stidtis habent, nisi aliquid sufficiant in venire, quod in aliorum scriptis vertant vitio : all fools with them that cannot find fault : they correct others, and are hot in a cold cause, puzzle themselves to find out how many streets in Rome, houses, gates, towers, Homers countrey, ^Eneas mother, Niobes daughters, an Sappho publica fmrit? ovum prim extiterit, ^ an yallina ? &c., et alia, quca dediscenda essent, si scires, as Seneca holds what clothes the senators did wear in Rome, what shews, how they sate, where they went to the close stool, how many dishes in a mess, what sauce ; which, for the present, for an historian to relate (according toLodoyic. Vives), is very ridicu- lous, is to them most precious elaborate stuff, they admired for it, and as proud, as triumphant in the mean time for this discovery, as if they had won a city, or conquered a province ; as rich as if they had found a mine of gold ore." 'Anatomy of Melan- choly,' sixteenth ed., p. 68.

To that height of learning I do not attempt to soar. With the Chevalier de Cailly, in an