Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/278

 342 . iv. OCT. a, w. NOTES AND QUERIES. barely remembered, Samuel Pepys, with all his faults, will be still reverenced, not for his services to king and country, but for his immortal ' Diary'? It would be simply super- fluous to mention here the calling of the elder Pepys. In conclusion, I may be per- mitted to quote from Wycherley's 'The Country Wife,' I. i., the following words of wisdom : "I weigh the man, not his title: 'tis not the king's stamp can make the metal better." HENRY GERALD HOPE. Clapham, S.W. WORDSWORTHIANA. (Concluded from p. 323.) 16. ' The Old Cumberland Beggar,' M. 426 ; K. i. 278 : "And let the chartered wind that sweeps the heath," &c. Cf. Shaks., ' Hen. V.,' I. i. 48 : "The air.achartered libertine"; and ' As You Like It,' II. vii. 47 : "I must have as large a charter as the wind." 17. De Quincey, I believe, has somewhere remarked that plagiarism from Milton is as impossible as it is from the Bible, and, accord- ingly, we find Wordsworth freely appro- priating now and then Miltonic expressions, either with or without marks of quotation. For instance : ' Prelude' vi., the latter part, K. iii. 252 :— Of first and last, and midst, and without end. Cf.'P. L.,'v. 165:— Him first, Him last, Him midst, and without end. 'To May,' M. 382 ; K. vii. 145 :— Or " the rathe primrose as it dies Forsaken " in the shade. Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies. 1 Lycidas," 142. ' Poems founded on the Affections,' No. xix., M. 80 ; K. vii. 115 :— While all the future, for thy purer soul, With "sober certainties" of love is blest. The phrase is varied from ' Comus,' 263 :— Such sober certainty of waking bliss. 18. Third ' Sonnet to Sleep' (second in M.), M. 199 ; K. iv. 36 :— Saint that evil thoughts and aims Takest away, and into souls dost creep, Like to a breeze from heaven. Coleridge makes the Ancient Mariner say (Part v., init.) of the Virgin :— She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven That slid into my soul. Virgil uses the corresponding Latin verb in speaking of sleep :— Tempus erat, quo prima quies mortalibus segris Incipit, et douo divum gratissima aerpit. ' .(En.,'ii. 268-9. 19. 'Upon the Sight of a Beautiful Picture,' M. 199 ; K. iv. 264 :— Praised be the Art whose subtle power could stay Yon cloud, and fix it in that glorious shape, &c. So Cowper, in his poem ' On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture,' says parenthetically :— Blest be the Art that can immortalize. The Art that baffles Time's tyrannic claim To quench it! A much deeper resemblance, that of the general thought, both in its continuous details and in its closing expression, is found in Keats's ' Ode on a Grecian Urn,' published, if I am not mistaken, two years after the appearance of Wordsworth's sonnet. 20. 'She was a Phantom of Delight,' M. 143; K. iii. 4 :— And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine. Prof. Knight remarks: " The use of the work ' machine' in the third stanza has been much criticized," and adds that the meaning of the word is now more restricted than it was when Wordsworth used it both here and in 'The Waggoner," to which he refers. Perhaps we can hardly compare ' Hamlet,' II. ii. 123, "Thine evermore whilst this machine is to him." as there the body alone may be meant. But Archbishop Leighton, commenting on Psalm iv., observes, "The passions are the inmost wheels of this machine which we call man." Prior, in 'Alma,'iii. 258, works out the metaphor or simile in detail:— As in a watch's fine machine, &c. So, if unprejudiced you scan The goings of this clock-work, man, &.c. 21. Same poem, verse 2 :— A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food. Another brief poem, also on Mrs. Wordsworth (K.), has for its first verse :— Let other bards of angels sing. Bright suns without a spot, But thou art no such perfect thing : Rejoice that thou art not. M. 79; K. vii. 114. Perhaps we may compare, from a different point of view in both cases, Keble's lines in ' Morning':— Nor strive to wind ourselves too high For sinful man beneath the sky. And Tennyson in 'Lancelot and Elaine,' where the queen says in reference to " that passionate perfection " the king :— He is all fault who hath no fault at all: For who loves me must have a touch of earth. 22. 'Sonnet composed on the Beach near Calais,' M. 202 ; K. ii. 292 :— Listen ! the mighty Being in awake.