Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/23

 9* S. XII. JULY 4, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES,

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rather than by opium or absinthe. They are just what might be expected after the use of this drug, especially in Eastern countries, where its action appears to be more potent than here, probably on account of deteriora- tion. Under the name of " haschisch " it has been extensively used by the Arabs for many centuries, and it is possible that the 'Arabian Nights' themselves may be in some degree indebted to its influence. The vivid reality of A.'s dream -state after swallowing the pill is very characteristic.

If words mean anything at all, certainly a man who believes himself to be dead has an halluci nation, and is insane beyond the power of sophistry to explain away. Whatever we call the state, the mental balance is gone. Of course insanity may be temporary, or it may be due to certain extraneous causes, such as drugs or hypnotic suggestion. Still it is open to doubt whether any one who has yielded to the seductive influence of haschisch, opium, or absinthe continues to be " in statu quo ante" when the immediate effects have passed off. The difficulty experienced in relinquishing the habit seems to suggest the contrary. The inference is that the power of self-control is permanently weakened.

Still more doubtful is it whether the mind ever completely regains its normal power after the paralyzing effects of hypnotism. I have always maintained that it does not. J. FOSTER PALMER.

8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

REYNOLDS PORTRAIT (9 th S. xi. 347, 396, 471). In suggesting that Miss Potts, the mother of the Landseers, was "probably a daughter of the distinguished surgeon," I sinned against my own knowledge, for everybody knows his name was Pott. I blundered through read- ing, just before I wrote to 4 N. Q.,' two passages in the diary of George oelwyn (' George Selwyn : his Letters and his Life,' 1899, pp. 133, 134), as follows :

"[1781] March 14, Saturday. Mr. Potts has just left me. I have been freer from pain these last 29 [or 24?] hours";

and

" I was to have gone for a day with Lady Fitz- w[illiam] to Roehampton if these damned spasmodic complaints ne m'etoient pas survenus. However, Potts assures me I shall be well again, but I must take more care of myself."

No one supposed for a moment that Emily Pott, Reynolds's model, was connected with the surgeon's family. O.

RICHARD NASH (9 th S. xi. 445). The D.N.B.' is probably perfectly right, accord- ing to the modern calendar, infixing Nosh's

death in February, 1762. The Gregorian calendar was not made statutory in England till 1751 (24 Geo. II.). Previous to that, the year was reckoned as beginning on the Feast of the Annunciation, 25 March. It was some time before people became accustomed to the change ; the Bath Town Council seem to have taken ten years to do so, and the date they minuted as 14 February, 1761, Old Style, was equivalent to 25 February, 1762, New Style. Under the statute referred to, eleven days were struck out of the calendar after 2 September, 1752, much to the dissatis- faction of many people, who considered that they had been robbed of these days by the Government. Scotland anticipated England by a century and a half, having adopted the New Style in 1600. The change not having been simultaneous in the two countries has been the cause of no little confusion of his- torical dates. HERBERT MAXWELL.

Goldsmith writes :

" He died at his house in St. John's Court, Bath, on the 12th of February, 1761, aged eighty-seven years, three months, and some days. (This account of his age, which contradicts that given us by Dr. Oliver, was copied from Mr. Nash's own hand- writing by George Scott, Esq., from a book in the possession of Mr. Charles Morgan, at his coffee- house at Bath.) " Goldsmith, note, first edition ; not in second.

Dr. Oliver wrote a panegyric, dated Bath, 13 February, 1761, stating, "This morning died Richard Nash, Esq., aged eighty-eight." This is given in Cunningham's edition of ' Goldsmith,' vol. iv., as also Dr. Harrington's Latin inscription on Nash's monument in the Abbey Church, Bath, where he is stated to have died in 1761, aged eighty-seven.

ADRIAN WHEELER.

" THE POLICY OF PIN-PRICKS " (9 th S. iii. 46, 115, 238, 278 ; x. 372, 412, 518). I have lately met with the following quotation :

" Pour moi, dut-on blamer ce gout-la, je prfere ces militaires brutaux, qui degainent leur sabre et qui marchent droit sur vous, a ces rh^teurs doucereux qui vous assassinent a coups d'epingle." Chapter and verse are not given, but the author is stated to be Cormenin (L. M. de la Haye, Vicomte de). As he died in 1868 (born 1788) this is evidently an earlier example than that in Daudet's * Tartarin de Tarascon ' already referred to. It may have been written years before. Did Daudet take the phrase from Cormenin 1

EDWARD LATHAM.

61, Friends' Road, E. Croydon.

TRANSLATION (9 th S. xi. 481). GENERAL MAXWELL will find the art of translation dispussecl with scholarly amplitude in the