Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/361

 9 th S. V. MAY 5, 1900.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

353

Nicho' Herford Pouchemaker & Garard .Hayle Probatu' est istud test'm coram nob' &c vii Kin' Octob} anno d'ni sup a dco' Et comissa est ad- minisfco &c executrici sup'ius no'iatse in forma iuris & admiss3 p' eandem una cu' dimissione."

GILBERT HUDSON. 49, Finsbury Park Road, N.

DRYDEN. I put together a few passages of Dryden which resemble passages of other poets. I do not know that these resem- blances have been noticed before ; but it is not likely that all of them should have escaped observation :

1. His little children, climbing for a kiss, Welcome their father's late return at night.

Dryden's translation of the second Georgic. No children run to lisp their sire's return, Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Gray's ' Elegy.' Virgil only says :

Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati. But Dryden and Gray may have remembered Homer :

ov8e ri JAW TratSes TTOTI -yovvaa-i TraTnrdov(Ttv eAflovr' K TroAe/JOlo /cat CUVTJS Srji'oTrJTOS.

' Iliad,' bk. v. 11. 408, 409.

2. Out of the solar walk and Heaven's highway.

Dryden, ' Threnodia Augustalis.' In climes beyond the solar road.

Gray, ' Progress of Poesy.'

3. Now, free from earth, thy disencumbered soul Mounts up, and leaves behind the clouds and

starry pole.

Dryden, 'Absalom and Achithophel.'

These remind me of the following lines, in which, I admit, the image is slightly varied :

Not here ! the white North has thy bones, and thou,

Heroic sailor soul, Art passing in thine happier voyage now

Toward no earthly pole. Tennyson.

4. When, in the valley of Jehoshaphat,

The judging God shall close the book of Fate ; And there the last assizes keep.

Dryden, ' Ode on Mrs. Killigrew.'

Much the same image is in one of Milton's poems :

When at the world's last session The dreadful judge in middle air shall spread his throne. ' Ode on the Nativity.'

5. The sweating Muse does almost leave the chase ; She puffs, and hardly keeps your Protean vices'

pace. An * Epilogue ' by Dryden.

Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign ; And panting Time toiled after him in vain.

Dr. Johnson, ' Prologue on the Opening of

Drury Lane.'

Bennet Langton suggested that Johnson, when he wrote this couplet, might have had in mind the passage in 'The Tempest':

She will outstrip all praise, And make it halt behind her.

6. Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for fear, And wonders how the devil he durst come there.

Dryden, Prologue to * The Husband his

own Cuckold.'

The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder how the devil they got there.

Pope, Prologue to the ' Satires.'

7. So fierce they flashed intolerable day.

Dryden, ' Palamon and Arcite.' And fiercely shed intolerable day.

Goldsmith, 'The Deserted Village.'

E. YARDLEY.

[The obvious source of both Virgil's and Gray'8 inspiration is

lam iam non domus accipiet te Iseta, neque uxor Optima nee dulces occurrent oscula nati Prseripere. Lucretius, iii. 894-6 (Munro).

Gray's two other lines in the stanza quoted para- phrase this, as has been pointed out often.]

'Box AND Cox.' It seems curious to me that Dr. Brewer should have known so little of theatrical matters as to attribute this amusing farce to the authors of 'Cox and Box.' In 'The Reader's Handbook,' 1898, p. 1467, I find '"Box and Cox,' Frank Burnand and A. Sullivan." "Strange all this difference should be 'twixt Tweedle- dum and Tweedledee," explained by Dr. Brewer at p. 1147, is aptly illustrated here. I had forgotten who the author of ' Box and Cox' was, so I referred to Mr. Robert W. Lowe's ' Bibliographical Account of English Theatrical Literature.' He would probably say, Why did you when it is about theatrical matters, not dramatic ? Well, I don't like to miss a chance. If I had wanted Grimaldi, I should have found him and the "'Memoirs,' edited by Boz." I was surprised, however, not to find any word of disparagement for the hackwork ' Memoirs ' to which Dickens lent his name, nor any reference to ' N. & Q.' (5 th S. ix. 377). I next referred to the Cata- logue of the British Museum, where, under ' Box and Cox,' I found this title, in conse- quence of an anonymous translation, but it gave the name of the author J. M. Morton. Under his name I found this entry : "'Box and Cox, a romance of real life in one act,' see Duncombe's 'British Theatre,' vol. Ix. [1825, &c.]." This date is a most aggravating piece of red-tapeism, and would mislead any reader unacquainted with the vagaries of the Catalogue. Moreover, you do not get the proper date if you go to the cross- reference ; the only way to do that is to see the book from the inner library. Even then you will only get the year, if the play is dated, a very unusual thing. Having the