Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/71

 B">S. xii. JULY 25, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

63

(ed. 4, p. 426, 1. 24, " Ovid in Ibin, Archilochus himselfe was not so bitter"). For the pre- valence at one time of the less correct title Ovid, vol. iv. pp. 8, 17, and p. xi of the preface of the edition of the ' Ibis ' by Prof. Robinson Ellis, who quotes, after Froude, from an anonymous attack on Queen Mary of Scotland,
 * In Ibin ' instead of ' Ibis,' see, e.g., Burmann's

Now all the woes that Ovid in Ibin Into his pretty little book did write.

While changing < Ibin' to 'Ibis' Shilleto has left " in " in italics, though this might have served as a reminder of the true reading, and has not altered the misspelling of Ardiilocus.

Vol. iii. p. 66 (Part. III. sect. ii. mem. ii. subs, i.; p. 448, 1. 16 in ed. 6), Shilleto's foot- note (No. 2) to "colt's evil" suggests that "colt-toothed" might be read in Chaucer, 'C. T.,' Prol. 470, instead of " gat-tothed." (How would he have dealt with "gat-tothed" in 1. 603 of ' The Wife of Bath's Prologue,' " a coltes tooth" having ended 1. 602?) But see Prof. Skeat's note on p. 44, vol. v., of his Chaucer.

Vol. iii. p. 178, n. 5 (Part. III. sect. ii. mem. iii. subs. i. ; p. 519, 1. 25, in ed. 6, where the member is wrongly numbered iv. owing to an error by which memb. ii. subs. iii. was headed memb. iii. subs, iii., the number of the members after this down to the middle of the last subsection of section ii. being always too high by one. Shilleto has tacitly avoided this ; but it is reproduced in an aggravated form by the editions of 1813 and 1837, and is extremely confusing. Ed. 4 has no such mistake, and the present division is there numbered Part. III. sect. ii. mem. iii. The additional " subs, i." is unnecessary, as there is no other subsection in this member), Shilleto on " gubber-tushed " remarks "Qu. gubber-tusked." This suggestion is ill advised. See the word in the 'H.E.D.'; tusk in Prof. Skeat's * Etymological Dictionary ' ; and tush in the Rev. T. L. O. Davies's ' Supplementary English Glossary.' EDWARD BENSLY.

The University, Adelaide, South Australia. (To be continued.)

THE UNITED STATES AND ST. MAR- GARET'S, WESTMINSTER. (See ante, p. 1.)

THERE is also another memorial on the walls of the church, close by the one last alluded to, not to a citizen of the United States, it is true, but to the memory of Cyril Lytton Farrar, third son of Dr. Farrar, at that time rector of St. Margaret's. This bright and engaging young man, with a

life full of promise, had been selected by open competition for a post in the Chinese Imperial Customs, and sailed for China in April, 1889. He was stationed at Chin Kiang for about a year, and in October, 1890, was transferred to Peking. He became seriously ill, and a telegram on 2 February, 1891, bore the sad news of his death, at the early age of twenty-one; and we were assured by Sir Robert Hart and others that his inter- ment was attended by a very large gathering. Nearly all the legations were represented, all the British being present. Before the close of the year a very fine alabaster memorial tablet, with an inlaid mosaic border, was put up by Dr. Farrar and the family, bearing the following inscription :

"To the dear memory of | Cyril Lytton Farrar | Born at Harrow, March 19 th, 1869. | Died at Peking, February 2 nd , 1891. | Afar he sleeps whose name is graven here,

Where loving hearts his early doom deplore ; Youth, promise, virtue, all that made him dear,

Heaven lent, Earth borrowed, sorrowing to restore. O. W. HOLMES.

Above the inscription in the centre is placed the family crest, and on either side in orna- mental squares are symbolical Greek charac- ters. On the left hand are the letters IX0YC (ichthus), a kind of acrostic made of the initials of the sentence "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour," which spell the Greek word for 44 fish," an ancient symbol of our Lord. Three fishes, in allusion to Christ and the Trinity, swim in *a circle, emblematical of eternity, among the characters. The other square con- tains the well-known symbols Alpha and Omega and XPI (Chri\ the latter surmounting a circle enclosing a cross. For this description of a very interesting tablet I am indebted to the St. Margaret's Parish Magazine for October, 1891, now long out of print and not procurable. Considerable interest attaches to it on account of the four admirable lines supplied for it by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, a personality as well known and as highly- respected in England as in his native land. With what force comes upon us the truth of the aphorism that "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin," as we find here the veteran American man of letters offering a tribute of affection to the son of his friend and admirer ! Of course, here and at this time it would be the merest affectation to say much, if anything, about the genius of the writer of these lines, but it was once said in a lecture given in the parish of St. Margaret, by Mr. H. Horton, that he is "a philosopher, poet, religionist, highly versatile, more sympathetically funny than Lowell, and does not make you sigh while you laugh, but rather