Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/214

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. n. SEPT. 10, t

comparison of the late Prof. Bensly's critical version of the text, it is not safe to treat any part as certainly genuine.

ED. MARSHALL, F.S.A.

BOSWELL VERSUS LOCKHART. The follow- ing little essay, if I may call it so, though it forms part of a private letter from an exceed- ingly well-read literary friend, is so interest- ing that, as it is not long, I have obtained my friend's consent to my publishing it, with the Editor's permission, in ' N. & Q.'

With regard to Boswell's superiority to Lockhart as a biographer, I suppose my friend is right; at all events, I fancy most people would agree with him. Still, if the end and object of a biography is to set before us a lively " counterfeit presentment " of its subject, do we really know Samuel Johnson vid Boswell better than we know Sir Walter Scott vid Lockhart ? Macaulay said :

" Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakspeare is not more decidedly the first of aramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of bio- graphers. He has no second. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not worth while to place them."

But we must remember that when Macaulay vrote this (1831) Lockhart's book had not been written indeed Scott was still living or Macaulay, I hope, would have allowed (as does my correspondent) that Boswell has a " second/' and a very good second, in Sir Walter's son-in-law. I will now let my friend speak for himself :

"I should say that Boswell is, unquestionably, superior to Lockhart, though the latter is above every other biographer. For one thing, Boswell had a better subject, for though Scott was a great and interesting character, his colloquial powers must be admitted to have been very much inferior to those of Dr. Johnson ; and what makes Boswell's book so valuable is in large measure, though not solely, the treasure-house of wit and wisdom fur- nished by the Doctor's wonderful talk, of which Ijoswell gives us such copious specimens. Then, the Doctor was much more of an original as a man, I mean than Scott was, and his peculiarities were caught and portrayed by Boswell in a more lively and picturesque manner than would have been possible to Lockhart even with as fortunate a subject. Boswell was also much less sophisticated by literature than Lockhart was, and hence his style is more limpid and straightforward, and not being so introspective as Lockhart, his observation was much keener. Again, in the selection and arrange- ment of his materials Boswell was much superior to Lockhart, of whose lack of condensation Carlyle not unreasonably complained.

"Many of the scenes in Poswell's 'Life 'are as skilfully arranged as those in' v,vr .best. comedies, while Johnsons own repartees are as pithy and pungent as any our stage can furnish. As a proof of Boswell's unique gift, the late Prof. Jowett used to point to the wonderful account of the interview

between Johnson and Wilkes. There is, and could be, nothing like this in Lockhart's work."

JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

CURIOSITIES OF CATALOGUING. The en- closed cutting is from the Ironmonger of 20 Aug. :

"We have all heard of the farmer who ordered Ruskin's ' Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds,' in the belief that he would find it a valuable guide to the rearing of live stock. I thought of that farmer the other day when I saw among the ' new trade books' in a mechanical contemporary an announcement of the issue of the fresh volume of Prof. Max Miiller's ' Chips from a German Work- shop.' My mechanical-bookman friend seems to labour under the delusion that Miiller's delightful philosophical and economical work is a handbook on carpentering possibly with hints on German competition. Both these blunders are capped, however, by the compiler of the 'Reference Cata- logue ' a guide for booksellers. I chanced to open the ' Reference Catalogue ' at the heading ' Lead,' and was shocked to find the following :

Lead, Copper in

, Metallurgy of

, Kindly Light (Newman)

, Poisoning

and so forth. Oh ! for a little kindly light amid th' encircling gloom of that compiler's mind."

It surely deserves a corner in ' N. & Q.'

G. H. THOMPSON. Alnwick.

"CHERRY-COB." Watching some children in Devonshire one day playing at throwing some- thing into a small hole in the ground, I asked what game they were playing at. "Cherry- cobs," was the reply. "What are cherry- cobs ? " I inquired. " Things that grow in cherries cherry-stones." I had heard of cob-nuts, but never of cherry-stones being called cherry-cobs. Neither can I find the word, as so used, in NuttalPs, Chambers's, or Webster's dictionary, or even in Jenkins's ' Dictionary of All except Familiar Words.'

G. K. PIERSON. [Once more we say, See ' H.E.D.']

THE DEVIL AS A BLACK DOG. Your re- viewer (ante, p. 139) has a query concerning the devil in the shape of a black dog. I know of several supernatural dogs besides the Barghest, Cerberus, Orthrus, Gray's Dog of Darkness, &c. The Danish King Walde- mar is one of the hunting ghosts. When the noise of his hunting is heard, the person who hears it, if he has any regard for himself, straightway hides behind a tree. Coal-black hounds with their fiery tongues hanging out first appear, and then comes King Waldemar, mounted on a snow-white horse, and holding his head under his arm. The ghost of Ham- let, Shakspeare's hero, is also supposed to hunt like Waldemar ; but as Hamlet was a mur-