Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/74

 54 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. iv. jclt is, m justifiable than the use of " the ear," " the eye," for both organs. We apply them quite naturally, not only to those who happen to have lost a leg, Arc, but to those who are in possession of both members. I admit that in speaking of the body this idiom seems limited to those members which run in pairs. We should hardly talk of an aching in " the tooth " (unless we were so un- fortunate as to have but one left), or of a cut in " the finger," or of a pain in " the toe." On the other hand, we might easily so speak of " the thumb " or " the knee." But in other ways this " singular" idiom is common enough. " Have you heard the cuckoo 1" " Was that the postman 1" " Look- ing out of the window." In these cases we do not imply that there is only one cuckoo, one postman, or one window. Or when the street arab whispers, " Here 's the bobby coming," it does not follow that he thinks the town has only one policeman. In each case the individual is taken as the representative of the class, and viewed for the moment as unique. It is quite true that a lover of historical detail would not be " satisfied " to be told that Nelson was wounded in " the eye " and in " the arm "; but such a statement, so far as it goes, is correct, though incomplete. The two New Testament allusions are some- what unfortunate. For, although Luke and John mention the "right ear" of Malchus, Matthew and Mark both have " his ear." Again, if in Luke we find " a man whose right hand was withered," yet we read in Matthew (A.V.) " a man which had his hand withered." W. C. B. says " there is no abstract leg- ness." But neither, I imagine, is there any abstract idea in the instances he considers justifiable. " Mine eye," put for " my eyes," is certainly concrete ; in " the hearing of the ear " there may be a generalization, but I am inclined to think that in both cases the singular is rhetorically used for the plural. The fact is, we have to allow for the infinite variety in " the way of putting things "—that laxity, that ambiguity even, that something opposed to rigid and literal accuracy, which gives raciness and charm to all narrative, and prevents it from becoming " a dull, dead thing." We do not either talk or write as if upon our oath. We are constantly using figures of speech, and in the higher style this is sometimes carried so far as to involve an actual contradiction in terms, as in Job xxix. 11, " When the ear heard me, it blessed me," and in Milton's " Fairest of her daugh- ters, Eve. It is curious that, as " the" seems some- times put figuratively for " a " or " an," so, by an opposite figure, " a " is sometimes found instead of " the " or of a possessive pronoun— as "a merciful God," " a boundless universe," "he has a mother to maintain," where the subject is unique, either absolutely or re- latively, and yet is viewed as one of a class. This is the converse of the idiom we have been considering. C. Lawrence Ford, B.A. Bath. [A hairdresser invariably speaks of "thebeard," and never by any chance says " your beard."] Reference Wanted (9th S. iii. 487).—See Ovid's 'TheHeroides,' Epistle iii. line 71. Did not Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, publish an English translation t Arthur Mayall. A celebrated stanza, of a meaning quite similar to what Gnomon quotes in your columns, occurs in the Chinese ' Book of Poems' (' Shi-King '), all the pieces in which were composed before 085 B.C. (' Encyc. Brit.,' vol. vi. p. 263). I do not at present possess any translations of the stanza into European languages, of which there are several, but can give its original reading with my translation : Fei i-chi wei raei INot gift's being beautiful], Mei jin-chi i [Beautiful person's present]. That is, " I esteem this present so highly, not because it by itself is beautiful, but because its giver is so beautiful." Kumagusu Minakata. Oblivion (9th S. iii. 426', 491).—I am sorry, for the sake of A. H, that I did not underline the flagrantly erroneous part of the state- ment made by Miss Tytler. I am afraid Hannah Lightfoot will again vex the columns of ' N. & Q.' St. Swithin. I have always understood the certificate of Hannah Lightfoot's marriage in 1759 was preserved at Curzon Street Uhapel, and that George's brother EdwarcL Duke of York, was witness to it. In Bradlaugh's 'House of Brunswick ' we read (p. 41):— "Hannah Lightfoot died in the winter of 1764, and in the early part of the year 1765, the king being then scarcely sane, a second ceremony of marriage with the Queen was privately performed by the Rev. Dr. Wilmot, at Kew Palace." E. L. G. The Three Most Famous Prefaces (9th S. iii. 488).—I suppose it may be said, without fear of contradiction, that Matthew Arnold's preface to his 'Essays in Criticism'(1865) is