Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/467

 9* s. in. JUNE IT, m] NOTES AND QUEEIES.

461

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1899.

CONTENTS. -No. 77.

NOTES : Danteiana, 461 Ancient Zodiacs, 463 Five Welsh Worthies, 465 Liddell and Scott Record Bell-ringing Good Lines,' 466 Dean Sherlock, 467.

QUERIES : Marriage of Cardinal Beaton" To ride gim- lague" Poets and Love Engraving, 467 Public Schools Kipling's ' White Man's Burden ' " Per pro " ' Waver- ley 'Engraving of Chatham's Monument Death-rate in Dublin Maximilian Coult, 468 J. J. Lanyon Petworth and the Percies J. J. Warton Arms of Berner Pess " If God did not exist," &c. ' The Latest Devil 'Funny-bone Superstition Prickly Pear MS. Sought Authors Wanted, 469.

REPLIES : Swansea " To green," 470 Quotation Gold smith's Travels' Moro,' an Opera James II. at Rochester "Mead and Obarni "Charles Stuart " Table de Com munion," 471 Sarah Curran : Robert Emmet "To save one's bacon" Key and Kay, 472 Charade Caen Wood- Jew's Harp Archery, 473 Bedell St. Helen Sir Hugh Evans Hebrews ix. 27 Silver Ladle "Corn-crake" " Stook," 474 Nonjurors Book Terms Portraits at Oxford Blue Cassocks " Sooner or later" Lauder "Chal," 475 Consumption Lending Money by Measure Endowing Purse Prime Minister" Illustration," 476 Cardboard Models Arlington Burden Family Cresset- stones, 477 Wind Indicator King Charles I., 478 Print- ing in Ireland, 479.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Jusserand's ' Shakespeare in France under the Ancien Regime' Britten's 'Old Clocks and Watches and their Makers ' ' Journal of the Ex-Libris Society.'

Notices to Correspondents.

DANTEIANA.

1. 'Inferno,'x. 14-15:

Con Epicure tutti i auoi seguaci, Che 1' anima col corpo morta fanno.

The incorrectness of Scartazzini's foot-note to the second line challenges a passing re- monstrance :

"La negazione del soprannaturale, quindi dell' immortalita dell' anima, e il centro e perno di tutte le eresie ? "

The good Professor's argument runs to seed in a clear latius hos. Negation of the super- natural, and, by implication, of the soul's immortality, was the fons et origo of the Epicurean and Sadducean heresies, but not necessarily of all others. It is quite possible for a man to be soundly orthodox on those two counts whilst being thoroughly heretical on a hundred others. At all events, Dante's theology cannot be strained to the Professor's view.

2. Ibid., x. 43 :

lo, ch' era d' ubbidir desideroso.

Scartazzini asks, with reference to this line :

" Ubbidir: a Virgilio, v. 38? o a Farinata, v. 42?"

Surely there can be no question as to whom

the poet was anxious to obey. The preceding

query of the famous Ghibelline, " Chi fur gli maggior tui?" places it beyond conjecture. Also if Virgil's injunction, "Le parole tue sien conte," exacts not merely courtesy, but brevity, the poet was somewhat disobedient to his guide, for he adds :

Non gliel celai, ma tutto gliel' apersi, which implies prolixity a not uncommon weakness of his commentators.

3. Ibid., x. 52-3 :

Allor surse alia vista scoperchiata i Un' ombra lungo questa infino al mento.

Dante's utter disinterestedness shows to ad- vantage here. Cavalcante Cavalcanti finds his place in the Sixth Circle not because he was a Guelph, but by reason of his Epicurean proclivities. Keligion, not politics, guided the poet in his selection of candidates in his eschatology. So (infra, 120) Cardinal Ubal- dini, despite his red hat, is amongst the "piu di mille" captives.

4. Ibid., x. 62-3 :

Colui che attende la per qui mi mena, Forse cui Guido vostro ebbe a disdegno. Scartazzini observes rightly that

" il motive del disdegno di Guido per Virgilio e un enimma."

To attempt to solve enigmas is oftener than not opus et oleum perdere, but an exception attaches to this one. And many and varied are the explanations of it proffered by com- mentatorssome of them passable, others richly meriting the points of interrogation and exclamation affixed to them by Scar- tazzini. Some hold that Virgil was " held in scorned neglect" by Guido simply because he detested Latin as much as Giovanni del Virgilio loved it. The late Prof. Tomlinson is of this opinion, over which hovers an air of plausibility from the fact that he (Guido) persuaded Dante to write his 'Vita Nuova' in the vernacular in preference to Latin ('V. N.,' 31). Others explain the alleged anti- pathy by the alleged supposition that Guido esteemed philosophy as superior to poetry. " Egli stesso poeta ! " as Scartazzini sapiently comments. Others such as Lombardi and Landino hint at a species of jealousy in the inability of philosophy to produce the ' vEneid ' ; others that Guido despised Virgil neither as poet nor philosopher, but " come cantore entusiastico dell' impero (fu Virgilio Ghibellino ?) " ; and others that Virgil was too religious for the Epicurean Guido. No one will cavil at Scartazzini's note of inquiry lere. If I may hazard an opinion, I should say that the implied scorn if scorn there were lay simply in diversity of tempera- ment, which neither community nor difference