Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/90

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

. ni. FEB. 4,

Clockwork, 1842.

Cock Pits, 1742-1827.

Colosseum, 1829-53.

Cosmorama, 1822-54.

Crosby Hall, 1847.

Dioramas, Regent's Park, &c., 1825-55.

Du Loutherbourg, 1782.

Egyptian Hall, 1821-54.

Egyptian Mummy, 1832.

Exeter Hall, 1831-53.

Fieschi, 1836.

Gallery of Illustration, 1850-3.

Gallery of Practical Sciences, 1833-57.

Hatton House, 1776.

Hickford's Rooms, 1772.

Italian Fantoccini, 1771.

King's Concert Rooms, 1776.

Lefort's Mechanics, 1816.

Les Ombres Chinoises, 1776.

Leverian Museum, 1813-42.

Lever's Museum, 1784-5.

Liverpool Museum, 1809.

Lowther Rooms, 1834-54.

Marshall's Panorama, 1823-40.

Minerals and Fossils, 1818-53.

Minute Wonders of Art, 1742-85.

Model of Guillotine, 1793.

Models of Various Kinds, 1829-54.

Museums, 1828-53.

Nathan's Assembly Rooms, 1836.

New Rooms, Tottenham Street, 1778-85.

Palace of Westminster.

Panarmonian.

Panoramas, Various, 1811-53.

Pantheon, 1772-1834.

Pearson's Stained Glass, 1782-1821.

Perrott's Amphitheatre, 1742.

Polytechnic, 1838.

Prout's Diorama, 1852.

Puppet Show, 1773.

Rath, 1827. '

Regent Gallery, 1853-7.

Royal Rooms, Spring Gardens, 1817-23.

St. Martin's Hall, 1852.

Saunders's German Exhibition, 1833.

Savile House, 1828-53.

Sculpture, 1829-35.

Smith's Panoramas, 1849-53.

Somerset Gallery, 1834-41.

Temple of Concord, 1814.

Tennis Court, 1742-1848.

Thames Tunnel, 1843-55.

Waxworks, Various Collections, 1830-55.

Week's Mechanics, 1831-54.

Western Exchange, 1820-40.

Wewitzer's Pantomime, 1802.

Wilmhurst's Painted Window, 1830.

Winstanley's Water Theatre, 1711.

Wyld's Globe, 1851-5.

W. EGBERTS. Carlton Villa, Klea Avenue, Clapham, S.W.

THE POET'S IMMORTALITY PREDICTED BY HIMSELF. Every one knows of the difficulty experienced by contemporaries in deciding the place that one of their number will hold in the opinion of posterity. Much more difficult, then, should it be for a writer to pass judgment in this respect upon him- self. Most difficult of all should it be for a

poet, who is so frequently represented, not always without reason, as a person of ill- balanced judgment and an exaggerated sensibility. Nevertheless it is a familiar fact that of poets several, at any rate, have dared to predict their own immortality, and that after generations have ratified the verdict. The following quotations are from the works of some of the most celebrated of the world's bards ; but it would be interesting to know how many writers of inferior rank have made about themselves similar predictions which have not been verified in the centuries to come.

Thus Ovid on this subject speaks with no uncertain voice :

Ergo etiam, cum me supremus adederit ignis Vivam, parsque mei multa superstes erit.

' Amores,' i. xv. 41, 42.

And every schoolboy has read Horace's lines :

Exegi monumentum sere perennius,

Regalique situ pyramidum altius ;

Quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens

Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis

Annorum series, et fuga temporum.

Non omn'is mpriar ; multaque pars mei

Vitabit Libitinam. ' Odes,' iii. 30.

Less known, perhaps, are the lines of Pro- pertius :

Turn me non humilem mirabere ssepe poetam,

Tune ego Romanis praeferar ingeniis ;

Nee poterunt juvenes nostro reticere sepulchro,

Ardoris nostri magne poeta, jaces.

Liber i. vii. 21.

Dante was aware of his own worth, as he shows in more than 'one passage. In the fourth canto of the ' Inferno,' for instance, he meets Homer, Horace, Ovid, and Lucan in Limbo, and is welcomed by them in a way that suggests that he was destined hereafter to as great a fame as theirs :

Da ch' ebber ragionato insieme alquanto, Volsersi a me con salute vol cenno; E il mio maestro sorrise di tanto. E piu d' onore ancora assai mi fenno ; Ch' essi mi fecer della loro schiera, SI ch' io f ui sesto tra cotanto senno.

4 Inferno,' iv. 97.

Next comes Shakespeare : But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest ; Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade When in eternal lines to time thou growest. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet xviii.

Dr. Johnson, too, is said to have remarked to Goldsmith on one occasion, as they walked among the tombs in Westminster Abbey : Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis.

And lastly Heine, who meditated as a reply