Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/10

 NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. II. JULY 2, '98.

and with evident enjoyment. I have counted twenty-six quotations from and references to the works of the father of English poetry spread throughout the book, the figures of which I will not give, as they would over-burden these pages. 'The Wife of Bath' is his favourite. Spenser, "our modern Maro " (p. 485), is quoted six times, and referred to more than once. 'The Faerie Queene ' is the only poem of Spenser's used by Burton. Shakespeare, "an elegant poet of ours " (p. 511), is quoted on the same page, and quoted incorrectly. Four lines are cited from the 'Venus and Adonis,' the fourth, according to Burton, being,

And all did covet her for to embrace, which is a poor substitute for the original, She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace. (See Globe Shakespeare, ' Venus and Adonis,' 1. 874, p. 1011.) On p. 531 there is a reference to 'Much Ado about Nothing,' "Like Benedict and Beatrice in the comedy." On p. 600 are to be found, incorporated in the text, two lines from Ophelia's song, " Young men," &c., ' Hamlet,' IV. v. Lastly (p. 6), we find this energetic sentence, "They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works," which reminds us of the Prince's words,

Falstaff sweats to death, And lards the lean earth as he walks along. ' 1 Henry IV.,' II. ii.

Ben Jonson, "our arch poet" (p. 553). appears four times. Five lines are quoted from 'The Fox,' III. iii., to show how "old Volpone courted Coelia in the comedy." A reference is made to 'Every Man out of his Humour,' to show how some men dote on their wives, "as Senior Deliro on his Fallace" (p. 633).

But I must be brief. I will, therefore, only mention the names of the remaining poets whose productions are quoted or referred to in the 'Anatomy': Daniel, "our English Tatiu.s " (p. 600), nine times; M. Drayton, "our English Ovid" (p. 171), six times; S. Rowlands, once; T. Randolph, four times; Sir John Harrington, the translator of Ariosto, nine times ; G. Wither, thrice, the last from 'The Manly Heart' (see 'Golden Treasury,' first edition, p. 83) :

If she be not so to me,

What care I how kind she be ?

I have quoted this couplet to illustrate a practice of Burton's, viz., incorporating the words of other authors in his text. I have no doubt that a careful search would lead to many such discoveries. So much for the poets. With other English authors he was no less

familiar. He quotes Sir Francis Bacon, " an honourable man, now Viscount St. Albans" (p. 73), " our noble and learned Lord Verulam " (p. 455), four times, thrice from the ' Essays,' and once from his book ' De Vita et Morte,' as he terms it(see Lowndes). With writers such as J. Lyly (' Euphues '), Sir H. Spelman, Camden, Leland, J. Fox ('Acts and Monuments ') Sam. Purchas, Sands (the traveller), Vaughan (the author of ' The Golden Fleece ') ; theological writers like " Bishop Fotherby in his ' Atheo- mastix,' Doctor Dove, Doctor Jackson, Abernethy, Corderoy, who have written well of this subject [immortality of the soul] in our mother tongue " (p. 713); Father Parsons, the Jesuit ; medical writers, geographers, &c., this indefatigable student is familiar. As this note has extended to an inordinate length, I am afraid I must reserve any further observations to some future date. If I take up the subject again," it will be for the purpose of giving a sketch of Burton's character, habits, and idiosyncrasies, for which the materials are scant elsewhere, but abundant in his own monumental work, for never was author more self -revealing.

JOHN T. CURRY.

THE GREEK CHURCH IN SOHO, AND ITS VICINITY.

PASSING the other day along Charing Cross Road, I stepped aside from that tavern- haunted thoroughfare to look again upon the old Greek Church in what was once Hog Lane, and in more recent times Crown Street. I was sorry to find the building doomed to destruction indeed, a shroud of hoarding already enveloped its devoted, but still robust frame. To those who might wish to take a last look at this historical edifice, I may mention that the name of Crown Street may now be sought for in vain, as that street was entirely absorbed by Charing Cross Road. The building may be found at the rear of the church of St. Mary the Virgin, within a few hundred feet of Oxford Street, on the western side of the new thoroughfare. Before it finally disappears from the face of the earth, a few words regarding its history may be interesting to the readers of ' N. & Q.'

In 1676 one Joseph Georgeirenes, Arch- bishop of Samos, came to London to obtain assistance in publishing a book of devotions for the use of the Orthodox community He found his compatriots at the west end of London without a church, and on his appli- cation Compton, Bishop of London, gave him a piece of ground in Soho Fields on which to build one. The bishop's name, by