Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/382

 376

NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. in. MAY i3,.m

interfered to render it innocuous ; whereon the foiled demon in his rage gnawed a root, which could no longer further his schemes.

ST. SWITHIN.

TENNYSON'S ' THE ANCIENT SAGE ' (9 th S. iii. 248). When this poem appeared in ' Tiresias and other Poems,' p. 53 (1885), the reading of the passage quoted by DR. SPENCE was iden- tical with what he gives :

But with the Nameless is nor Day nor Hour ;

Tho' we, thin minds, who creep from thought to

thought, Break into "Thens" and "Whens" the Eternal

Now: This double seeming of the single world !

The poem is a setting of the contrast bet ween the attitude of Faith and that of World- Sorrow. The narrowness of the scope within which mere human reasoning can act is re- cognized, and an appeal is made for tolerance of the wider outlook. The earnest inquirer should beware of mere rationalism should avoid the risk of making a deity of his dial and try to believe that we see only in part, and that by -and- by all will become clear :

And we, the poor earth's dying race, and yet No phantoms, watching from a phantom shore Await the last and largest sense to make The phantom walls of this illusion fade, And show us that the world is wholly fair.

" The world " occurs over and over again in the poem. It is with the world as part of the great scheme of things that the poet is im- mediately concerned, and he deprecates the idea that it is other than a unity: What disparities or irregularities there may be in its presentation to human reason may all belong to a harmonious whole, could we but grasp it. The "double seeming," no doubt, is entirely due to the imperfect/ faculties of the observers, who would have nothing to say of " Thens " and "Whens" if they were only empowered to recognize that the world is in the "Eternal Now." Points of time are in the human intellect only, and our recognition of them is a proof of our imperfect grasp 01 the meaning of the world itself.

THOMAS BAYNE. Helensburgh, N.B.

Tennyson's ' The Ancient Sage,' in ' Tiresias and other Poems':

But with the Nameless is nor Day nor Hour ; Tho' we, thin minds, who creep from thought t(

thought, Break into "Thens" and "Whens" the Eterna

Now: This double seeming of the single world !

Does not Tennyson mean that to us, with ou finite capacities, the whole system of things in its time-relation, seems to have a double

ispect that of the past and that of the future whereas to God, with whom (as we .say) here is one eternal present, its aspect must >e single only 1

Watts in one of his finest hymns has a omewhat similar thought :

Still restless Nature dies and grows, From change to change the creatures run ;

Thy Being no succession knows, And all thy vast designs are one.

f I am right, there would seem to be no eason for supposing " world " to be a mis- Drint for " word."

C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A. Bath.

DR. SPENCE'S plea of obtuseness must be mine, [ r or I confess inability to discover " how men 3reak the single word ' Now ' into ' Thens and Whens.' " Is it not easier to suppose the poet
 * o be saying that, in their speech concerning

their limited apprehension of a great complex whole, men refer only to fragments of that which is represented by " Now," namely, the ever - present universe, greater and more marvellous than all the manifold impressions it makes on finite minds'? The suggested alteration would create difficulty, for me at least, which the line as printed does not raise.

F. JARRATT.

TERMINATION '-INGTON " (9 th S. iii. 208, 313). The syllable ing is normally a patronyraic, but is sometimes the equivalentof the genitive case ; or it may have a residential signification, or be intrusive or evanescent. These excep- tional cases I have discussed in ' Names and their Histories,' pp. 353, 354.

ISAAC TAYLOR.

BRASS AT ST. ALBANS (9 th S. ii. 468, 535 ; iii. 171). The effigy of Sir Bertiri Entwyssoll at St. Peter's, St. Albans, 1455, is, I believe, now lost. It is engraved in Nichols's ' Leic., vol. ii. pi. cxxix. 13. 802.

HARTAVELL D. GRISSELL, F.SA.

Oxford.

BLACK IMAGES OF THE MADONNA (9 th S. ii. 367, 397, 449, 475, 537 ; iii. 190). In various churches at Malta there are ancient paintings of the Blessed Virgin and Child, Byzantine in character, having the faces of Greek type, but with black skins. One of these is in my old parish church of San Lorenzo, Burgo. is only exposed to public view on the feast of St." Lawrence. Another is in the ancient church of St. Pauls Shipwreck, at Citta Vecchia. In this one the Holy Child's fan 1 is of a real negro type. We have a similar painting in Cardiff Museum. It is on a worm- eaten panel, which, some time in the fifteenth