Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/129

 9< h S. II. AUG. 13, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

121

LONDON, SATVRDAy, AUGUST 13, 1898.

CONTENTS. -No. 33.

NOTES : Wilkie's Epigoniad.' 121 Dictionary of National Biography, 122 Australian Nomenclature Hobsonize" -" Who sups with the devil," 124 Englishwoman's View of French Flitting Wire in Bookbinding Brasses Lapsus Calami Fox's Aunts, 125-Scott Entrance into Church- yards Long-lived Families Caspar de Guzman, 126.

QUERIES: Battle of the Nile " Horny-handed sons of toil" "Kinging out" " Housty " W. Doddington Slabs in St. Margaret's Churchyard Musical Coverdale's Bible, 127 Picture by Murillo Dr. Thompson Gordon Family Count St. Germain Mrs. J. Hunter Penny- Farthing Street Si borne's Waterloo Models Wellington and Ney ' Telegraph 'Engraving, 124 Dean Modesley A " Writing Engine " King's Langley Priory Cardinal Rossi Master, 129.

REPLIES :-Col. Wall, 129 Walker Family-Colin Tampon, 130 The King's Stone Scaffolding Personate=Resound " Horse-sense" " The man in the street" K. Burton- Duchess of Kendal Naval and Military Directory, 131 Spade Guinea Angel and London Standing Egg Caxon " Come, lasses and lads" Johnson's Residence " Whitsul" Shepherd's Chess Faithorne's Map Folk- lore, 132 Oldest Parish Register "Another story" "Sable shroud" Lexicon to the Septuagint, 133 B. Fergusson ' Beaux' Stratagem ' " Horse Guards " Source of Quotation " Kitty-Witches," 134 Head of Duke of Suffolk Porter's Lodge Hugh Awdeley " So pleased " S. Wilderspin " Facing the music ""Restore the Heptarchy " " Crex." 135 Pentonville Bacon Family" Two is company "Dolor Mallet " God tem- pers the wind " " Ranter," 136 Todmorden Old Punish- mentsPrecedence 'La Seconda Cena,' 137 Anthors Wanted. 138.

NOTES ON BOOKS :-Hume's ' Calendar of State Papers' 'Pembrokeshire Antiquities' Aitken's 'Spectator,' Vol. VIII. Magazines and Reviews.

WILKIE'S 'EPIGONIAD.' PROBABLY few readers of the nineteenth century have read the 'Epigoniad' the fluent epical work of Wilkie, " the Scottish Homer" from the first line to the last. When one has conscientiously done so, it may be allowable to make some little report of the experience. The poem, published in 1757, was probably as much overrated on its first appearance as it has been depreciated since. The author (Prof. William Wilkie, of St. Andrews) was a notable personality in his day a scholar, a scientific agriculturist ahead of his generation, and a manifest "character" and in the 'Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle ' an English nobleman is reported to have declared that he had never met one who so thoroughly combined in his own person as did Wilkie the leading qualities of a god and a brute. Wilkie had an enthusiasm for the higher scholarship and for speculation, and a singular indif- ference to the conventionalities of dress and habit. But, in spite of his eccentricities, he had poetic sympathies and appreciation, and as his constructive skill and his com- mand of imagery attest he enjoyed a measure of the rare creative gift. His sense

of style is excellent, and his skill in rhyme adjustment is so nimble and precise that he seldom lapses into inequalities, and sparingly uses assonance as a convenience. Perhaps his feeblest couplet is the following (p. 256) : Let not, tho' oft renew'd, these tedious toils Your martial ardor quench, and damp your souls.

The poetic qualities, however, are probably not the features of Wilkie's work that a modern reader will find specially attractive. A mythological poem must be particularly strong to be engaging ; it must be fresh in conception, unhackneyed in method, and charged with distinctness of aim and manifest sincerity. Morris's ' Jason ' and Browning's ' Ixion ' answer these conditions. Wilkie's achievement is largely a tour de force ; it is a clever and, on the whole, a graceful and con- sistent exercise in poetics. Its value, how- ever, lies mainly in the illustrations it gives of eighteenth - century characteristics and methods. Wilkie felt the necessity of writing verse in accordance with certain fundamental rules and definitions. Thus his elaborate in- troduction sets forth in clearand decisive style what he takes to be the epical theme and its appropriate embodiment. Then it was natural that a man with fine feeling and poetic zeal, setting himself at the zenith of the eighteenth century to depict a heroic story in verse, should execute his task with the dignified and imposing machinery of the heroic couplet. Wilkie's management of the couplet is that of an expert, and even for that feature alone his work should command careful attention.

Certain details of the 'Epigoniad,' illus- trative of the fashion prevalent in Wilkie's day, deserve to be specially noted. Both in the preface and the poem Romance words with final our are consistently written with or. "Ardor," "favor," "honor," "labor" are given as regularly and confidently as if the author- had served an apprenticeship in a Government office or graduated in a modern American college. Other notable instances of spelling are "centinel"for sentinel, "scepters" for scentres, "drag'd," "impell," "excell," "smooths," "spiring" in reference to a cedar with a "spiring top" and so on. Some of the rhymes indicate peculiarities of pronunciation. For example, " plow " (book v. p. 122) has, apparently, the sound which it retains in provincial Scotland to-day :

The harness'd wains ten thousand oxen drew

Tam'd to the yoke, the servants of the plow.

Further on in the same book (p. 150) "brow"

is similarly rhymed : The desp'rate paths of folly you pursue, And scorn instruction with a lofty brow.

As was to be expected, "peal" rhymes to