Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/402

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. m. MAY 20,

'Tis but a Tent where takes his one day's rest A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest ; The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash Strikes, and prepares it for another Guest.

Lxvi. and Ixvii. magnificent in themselves similarly prepare the way for, perhaps, the most famous quatrains in the whole poem. I believe these two are entirely FitzGerald's own, but here my memory may be at fault :

LXVI.

I sent my Soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life to spell :

And by-and-by my Soul return'd to me, And answer'd " I myself am Heav'n and Hell."

LXVII.

Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire, And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,

Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves, So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.

For such verses as these we may almost be

content to exchange the splendid opening of

the first edition

Awake ! for Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight :

And lo ! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light

for the comparatively tame version of the later ones. And though (as already admitted) most of FitzGerald's recensions illustrate the truth of Lowell's dictum "Second thoughts are prose," some of them are certainly im- provements. It is so with the quatrain originally numbered xvii. (now xviii.) : And Bahrain, that great Hunter the Wild Ass Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his sleep.

The last line is certainly better than

Stamps o'er his Head, and he lies fast asleep.

A still greater improvement is seen in No. xxi.

(now xxii.) :

Lo ! some we loved, the loveliest and best

That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest,

Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, And one by one crept silently to Rest.

Even the meaning of this is not too apparent The recension runs thus : For some we loved, the loveliest and the best That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest, Have drunk their Cup a round or two before, And one by one crept silently to rest.

One almost wishes it were allowable for some one with impeccable taste to make a version of the poem that should include the beauties of all the editions and retain the arrange- ment of the last. Meanwhile, I presume one may do it for oneself. C. C. B.

A " TRUE BLUE " CLUB (9 fch S. iii. 122). Blue was the Whig colour in Lincolnshire in the days of the agitation preceding the firs! Reform Bill, and continued so long afterwards According to the general index of the pub licatioris of the Parker Society, the phrase

' True Blue " was used by Cranmer (vol. ii. D. 394). COM. LING.

" ONE HOUR WITH THEE " (9 th S. iii. 329). The lines thus beginning occur in none of Scott's poems, but in ' Woodstock,' chap, xxvi., where Charles II., in disguise, sings them to Alice Lee. PHILIP KENT.

[Many replies are acknowledged.]

BONIFACE THE BAVARIAN (9 th S. iii. 288). He was the first of the line of rulers who, as duke or marquis, governed Tuscany, one of the great fiefs established by the Lombards, after the Lombard overthrow by Charles the Great. Nothing seems to be known of his antecedents. His son, Boniface II., succeeded him in 823. The house of Este has been traced back to Boniface I., but the real founder seems to be Oberto II. (d. circa, 1015), whose son, Albert Azzo I. (d. 1029), was the first Marquis of Este. The hostility between this great house and the emperor dates from this first marquis.

GEORGE MARSHALL.

Boniface I., Count of Lucca A.D. 834 (?), is mentioned in an episcopal deed in 813 (cf. torn, v., 'Antiq. Ital.,' p. 919, L. Muratori). In that year the Saracens sacked Ischia and attacked Centumcelle (Civita-Vecchia). They likewise landed in Corsica and Sardinia. A little later the Emperor Lothaire charged Boniface and his brother Bereth(ng)arius and their Tuscan allies to set forth to the assistance of the islands. The expedition, however, finding the Saracens departed, sailed to U tica and Carthage, and probably learned serious things by the time it had to beat a hasty retreat from Africa. Boniface would appear to have been made Margrave of Tuscany, and was perhaps the father of Adalbert (Albert) L, 847.

ST. CLAIR BADDELEY.

MASSISNA (9 th S. iii. 188, 356). Why the author of 'Coningsby' and Mr. Hosmer should claim Massena as a Jew I know not. The following extract from the re- gister will show that he was baptized in Nice Cathedral:

"Nizza, parochia di Santa Reparata. Alii 8 maggio 17-58. Andrea Massena, figlio del nob. Oiulio e di Cattarina Fabre, Ginguli Massena, nato li sei corrente, battezato da me Ignazio Caciardi, can coad e . 11 padrino, il nob. Andrea Deporta, e la madrina la nob. Cattarina Massena."

It is perhaps needless to say that no French biographical dictionary that I am acquainted with makes the slightest allusion or reference to Massena being a Jew.

ROBT. B. DOUGLAS.

64, Rue des Martyrs, Paris.