Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/435

 9* s. xii. NOV. ss, 1903.) NOTES AND QUERIES.

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deposuit Vir Reverendus D. Duncan, M.D. Eccl: Angl: Presbyter," and ended, " Obiit, prope octogenarius, vm. Idus Jun: MDCCLXI." The French refugees, to whom the corpora- tion granted the use of St. Anne's Chapel in 1686, reached Barnstaple towards the end of the year 1685 after a voyage of great peril. They landed on the quay on a Sunday morning during divine service, and took refuge in the market-place, where they were found by the inhabitants when they came out of church. In a short time they were all distributed through the town, the people providing them with food and temporary shelter. Their leader and their first minister at Barnstaple was Jacques de la Fontaine, a member of a noble family, who afterwards suffered much in Ireland in his attempts to establish a fishing station.

THOS. WAINWRIGHT. Barnstaple.

SHAKESPEARE'S SCHOLARSHIP. MR. STRO- NACH makes the amazing statement that " Mr. Churton Collins has proved that Shakespeare was one of the best Latin scholars who ever lived." That he knew something of Ovid, Terence, Seneca, perhaps Plautus, Horace, Juvenal, Virgil, and perhaps also Caesar, is fairly certain, but his knowledge of Latin can- not be properly tested until we can determine what part, if any, of ' 1 Henry VI.,' and what part of ' 2 Henry VI.,' ' 3 Henry VI.,' ' Taming of the Shrew,' 'Timon of Athens,' and espe- cially of 'Titus Andrpnicus,' were his. The Latinisms and quotations in the last of these plays are sufficient of themselves to throw the gravest doubt on the authorship of the play. Two or three instances of false Latin occur in * Love's Labour 's Lost,' and a classical scholar could not have written Ariachne for Arachne. A comparison of Ben Jonson's works with Shakspeare's plays will make quite clear what is meant by " being one of the best Latin scholars who ever lived."

REGINALD HAINES.

Uppingham.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. (See ante, p. 226.) Many persons have been puzzled by Lincoln's clearness of style and by his wonderful power of convincing argument, when he himself is said to have admitted that he "never went to school more than six months in his life." The quotation following will help to an under- standing of the methods by which his mental training was acquired :

" In the course of my law-reading, I constantly came upon the word demonstrate. I thought at first that I understood its meaning, but soon became satisfied that I did not. I said to myself, ' What do I mean when I demonstrate more than when I reason or prove ? How does demonstration differ from any

other proof?' I consulted Webster's 'Dictionary.' That told of ' certain proof,' ' proof beyond the pos- sibility of doubt ' ; but I could form no idea what sort of proof that was. I thought a great many things were proved beyond a possibility of doubt, without recourse to any such extraordinary process of reasoning as I understood ' demonstration ' to be. I consulted all the dictionaries and books of refer- ence I could find, but with no better results. You might as well have defined blue to a blind man. At last I said, ' Lincoln, you can never make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means ' ; and I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father's house, and stayed there till I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out what * demonstrate ' means, and went back to my law-studies." 'Six Months at the White House,' by F. B. Carpenter (New York, 1867), p. 314.

There has been more or less written, from time to time, regarding Lincoln's religious belief. In Carpenter's book, p. 190, occurs the following :

" ' On an occasion I shall never forget, 3 says the Hon. H. C. Doming, of Connecticut, ' the conversa- tion turned upon religious subjects, and Mr. Lincoln made this impressive remark : " I have never united myself to any church, because I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without mental reser- vation, to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize their Articles of Belief and Confessions of Faith. When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole quali- fication for membership," he continued, "the Saviour's condensed statement of the substance of both Law and Gospel ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself ' that church will I join with all my heart and all my soul." '

There is more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds.

Tennyson.

EUGENE F. Me PIKE.

Chicago, U.S.

"LOCK-STEP." This old step in military drill was so named by General Eliott, who introduced it into the garrison of Gibraltar about the year 1780, when he was governor of that fortress. It was practised by in- fantry when marching in file or in close column, and its peculiarity was that the heel of a man's foot was brought alongside the joint of the great toe of the man in front of him. This close formation gave rise to the modern word of command, ' ; Lock up ! " I have a copy of ' The Complete Drill Serjeant,' 1798, which thus describes the step :

" The lock or deploy step is used when a battalion or division do march in tile, or close column ; the whole step off together, the heel of one foot coming up to the joint of the great toe of the other, always preserving exactly the same distance, each centre man looking those before him in the neck ; rear ranks to dress by their file leaders. By this step, the rear in the line gains ground at the same