Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/90

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. XIL AUG. i, 1903.

editor will probably work out the Hammond connexions.

Dorothy's cousin, Tom Cheke, is mentioned occasionally in the ' Letters.' He was slightly younger than Dorothy, having been baptized at Romford 9 October, 1628 (Lysons, 'Envi- rons/ 1811, i. 696). He married a famous beauty, Letitia, daughter of the Hon. Ed ward Kussell, and sister of Edward, Earl of Orford, the celebrated naval commander. She sur- vived him, and married for second husband her cousin Lord Robert Russell. Tom Cheke, who was a colonel in the army, and Lieutenant of the Tower in the reigns of Charles II. and James II., died 13 April, 1688, and was buried in the chapel at Pyrgo Park (Steinmann's 'Althorp Memoirs,' 1869, p. 23).

Dorothy Osborne in one of her letters (Gollancz, p. 46; Parry, p. 63) mentions Almanzor, whom both editors take for the hero of some Spanish romance. This is likely enough, but I doubt if this was the character that Sir William Temple " placed among his ancient worthies," notwithstanding the autho- rity of Gibbon and Mr. Gollancz. The hero that Temple had in his mind was, I suspect, a different personage altogether, and his career was described in a book which Temple had doubtless read in his youth, the full title of which is as follows :

"Almansor i The Learned | and Victorious | King that conquered | Spaine. | His Life and Death | pub- lished | By | Robert Ashley, | Out of the Librarie of the Uniuersitie | of Oxford, j Seneca. Otium tuum non emineat : sed appareat. \ London, | Printed for John Parker. 1627. "

Any one reading this book, which will be found in the British Museum, will understand the ground of Temple's admiration for the somewhat mythical hero whose victorious career it describes. W. F. PEIDEAUX.

BURNS AND 'THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY.'

INEXPERT criticism on Burns is exceedingly common, and the character of it causes no surprise : but it is curious arid disappointing to find two such enlightened and strenuous Scotsmen as Christopher North and Lord Heaves slipping in a reference to the poet. In the charming monograph on * The Greek Anthology ' which he contributed to Black- wood's "Ancient Classics for English Readers," Lord Neaves quotes Merivale's version of ' The Lover's Wish,' which begins thus :

Oh that I were some gentle air, That when the heats of summer glow,

And lay thy panting bosom bare, I might upon that bosom blow !

" See," he then proceeds, " how modern feel- ings are apt to run, as Christopher North

says, ' into the same sort of amorous fancy.' " To illustrate this he adduces Romeo's aspira- tion ('Romeo and Juliet,' II. ii. 24) :

O ! that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek.

That alone would be quite correct and appro- priate, but Lord Neaves goes on to say : "Christopher also appropriately refers to Burns :

that my love were yon red rose That grows upon the castle wa', And 1 myself a drap o' dew, Into her bonny breast to fa !

0, there, beyond expression blest,

1 'd feast on beauty a' the nicht, Sunk on her silk-saf t faulds to rest, Till fley'd awa' by Phoebus' licht."

North made the mistake that misled Lord Neaves in the first of a series of character- istic articles on ' The Greek Anthology ' con- tributed to Blackivood's Magazine in 1833. Like his successor, he quoted from Shake- speare, using the sprightly song of Dumaine in 'Love's Labour's Lost,' III. iii. Then he added, "And hear the Scottish ploughman," and forthwith quoted the lyric given by Lord Neaves. He gave not a word of comment, being satisfied, no doubt, that his illustration would be sufficient to speak for itself. The felicitous parallelism, however, appeals to the later writer, who is at pains to point out that Burns could know little or nothing of the Greek anthologists, and then asks his readers to notice "how he fell into their style, and instinctively adopted their spirit." After a further, and correct and very appro- priate, reference to Burns, he concludes with the reflection that "all these poets, Greek and British, had the same schoolmistress, Nature, who teaches her pupils a universal language " (' The Greek Anthology,' pp. 93-4).

The only objection to all this is that the exquisite lyric thus confidently assigned to Burns is not his. It is one of those stray pearls that David Herd gathered in literary byways, and reverently placed in his choice treasury. As given in Herd's ' Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs,' ii. 4, it is without title and anonymous, and reads as follows :

O gin my love were yon red rose, That grows upon the castle wa' !

And I mysell a drap o' dew, Into her bonny breast to fa' !

Oh, there beyond expression blest 1 'd feast on beauty a' the night ;

Seal'd on her silk-saft falds to rest, Till flyed awa by Phoebus light.

Even this, it has to be pointed out, is not a genuine antique as it stands. Only the first stanza belongs to the original and somewhat ambiguous song, the second being modern by comparison. Taking it, however, as Herd