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

 9 th 8. II. Ji-LY2,'98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

1

LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 3. 1898.

CONTENTS. -No. 27.

NOTES : Burton's Acquaintance with English Writers, 1 Greek Church in Soho, 2 Cary's Dante Kingston-upon- Thames " Heron " Oakapple Day, 4 Bacilli " Child- bed Pew " Church Bow, Hampstead " Bough " " Cord- wainer." 5 Manila Accent in Spanish George Old, 6.

QUERIES : " Horse Guards" " Sumer is y-curaen in " "Dewy-feathered "Rev. T. E. Owen-Nether Hall. Essex Source of Quotation Italian Law Jas. Cox's Museum Carew Poem " Anigosanthus " "The man in the street" Manor House, Clapton Sir N. Stukeley. 7 Cadoux Song ' The Causidlcade ' Saxe-Coburg-Gotha Army Lists Telescope Shepherd's Che** Educational Systems Rev. J. Flower Farwell Pedigree St. Werner Order of St. Germain Withred, King of Kent. 8 The Egyptian Kite Rev. G. Lewis Lady A. Robartes Scotter. 9.

REPLIES: Historic Perspective, 9 Essay by Carlyle City Names in Stow, 10 "Sny" The Ship Oxford " Bundling" Canaletto in London Hare Proverb "The calling of the sea" "Fool's plough " C Sherborn, 11 Width of Organ Keys Macau lay and Montgomery Por- trait of Lady Wentworth, 12 Turner General Wade- Moon through Coloured Glass, 13 Judge Family Latin Ambiguities Massage Sidesmen, 14 "-haltta," 15 Gladstone a* a Verse- Writer Rev. Lockhart Gordon Style of Archbishops Angels, 16 Sir R. Hotham Bishop B. Hopkins Rotten Row Passage in Dickens" Mess of pottage "British Museum Reading-Koom, 17 " Harry- carry " Popladies Heading in Milt ou Bays water General Benedict Arnold, 18.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Routledge's 'Church of St. Martin, Canterbury' Hutchinson's Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads ' ' Magnetic Magic ' ' Bygone Devon- shire ' ' Bygone Hertfordshire ' Webb's ' Shakespeare Reference Book ' ' Antiquary ''Public Library Journal.'

ROBERT BURTON'S ACQUAINTANCE WITH

ENGLISH WRITERS.

R. BURTON was born in 1576, and died in 1639. The first edition of his 'Anatomy of Melancholy' was published in 1621, and finished in the previous year, as I gather from a very old copy (unfortunately the title-page is lost) in the Liverpool Free Library. The words in the colophon, as it may be termed, are : " From my Studie in Christ Church Oxon. Decemb. 5. 1620." The edition which I make use of in this note is a reprint of the sixth (1052), published by W. Tegg, London, 1849.

A mighty maze ! but not without a plan.

Pope, ' Essay on Man,' i. 6.

It will probably astonish those who have not made themselves well acquainted with this fascinating work to learn that the writer, in addition to his amazing knowledge of the classics, the fathers, the schoolmen in short, all writers, sacred and profane, who have used Latin or Greek as the vehicle of their thoughts was well versed in the vernacular literature of his country, both earlier and later. It is a curious thing that Burton would have written his book in Latin if he had been able to get a publisher. In in- dignant terms he says :

^ "It was not mine intent to prostitute my muse in English, or to divulge secreta Minerva*, but to have exposed this more contract in Latin, if I could have got it printed. Any scurrile pamphlet is welcome to our mercenary stationers in English ; they print all,

cuduntque libellos In quorum foliis vix simia nuda cacaret ; but in Latin they will not deal ; which is one of the reasons Nicholas Carr, in his oration of the i>aucity of English writers, gives, that so many flourishing wits are smothered in oblivion, lie dead and buried in this our nation (pp. 10, 11)."*

It is therefore evident that our author did not think that his book would be a success, wherein he erred like many another. Petrarch prided himself on his Latin poetry, which has long since been engulfed in the waters of oblivion, while his Italian love-sonnets, which he regarded as idle conceits, are immortal (F. W. Schlegel's 'History of Literature,' p. 161, Bohn, London, 1859). Notwithstanding that Burton did not write in Latin, a fail- acquaintance with that language is abso- lutely necessary to the full comprehension of his book, for, though he quotes from almost every Greek author, he uses a Latin version, except once in the case of Anacreon (p. 453), and four times in the case of Hesiod (pp. 86, 145, 176, 429). Furthermore, he has given us (pp. 497-8 and 505-6) specimens of what his book would have been had he composed it in the classical tongue. Certainly his style therein is not more "contract" than in his homely, vigorous English, which has saved his work from being " smothered in oblivion," to use his own phrase (p. 11). But, as Austin saith, "Alia quiestio est, et ad rem, quse agitur, non pertinet" ('De Doctr. Christ.,' 1. ii. c. 2). " That 's another story " (' N. & Q., 9 th S. i. 417). "Revenons a nos bouteilles,' as Montaigne says ('Essais,' liv. ii. ch. 2), wherein he is nowise original, for he hath adapted it from the phrase " Revenons a nos moutons," to be found in the comedy ' L'Avocat Patelin ' (' Histoire de laLitte'rature Fran<^aise,' par J. Demogeot, Paris, 1864), and not first used by the fabulist La Fontaine, as many do ignorantly suppose.

After this little digression in the style of mine author, I will now endeavour to show his acquaintance with English writers, most of whom belonged to the Golden Age of our literature, of which Burton was a con- temporary.

From " Sir Geoffrey Chaucer " (p. 630), " our English Homer " (p. 565), he quotes frequently

PaucitateetStudionimlmpeuiinentisOratiOj'Lond., 1576. As to the lines quoted, for which Burton gives no author, I will obey his request (p. 138) : " Good Master .Schoolmaster, do not English this."
 * 'Carr Nicolaus, De Scriptorum Britannicorum