Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/53

 9*h s. V.JAN. 20, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Nor his, who quits the box at midnight hour, To slumber in his carriage more secure ; Nor sleep enjoyed by curate in his desk ; Nor yet the dozings of the clerk are sweet, Compared with the repose the sofa yields.

'The Sofa.'

Wordsworth has an idea similar to one of Cowper :

Then crouch no more on suppliant knee,

But scorn with scorn out-brave ; A Briton, even in love, should be A subject, not a slave !

Cowper has written thus :

Woman indeed, a gift he would bestow When he designed a Paradise below, The richest earthly boon his hands afford, Deserves to be beloved, but not adored.

' Retirement.'

At the head of one of his chapters in 4 The Pirate ' Sir Walter Scott quotes these lines :

Oaths fly like pistol-shots, and vengeful words Clash w'ith each other like conflicting swords.

They remind me of a couplet by Cowper :

The clash of arguments and jar of words, Worse than the mortal brunt of rival swords.

' Conversation.'

Cowper was a scholar, but his memory could not have served him very well when he wrote the following lines :

Would I had fallen upon those happier days That poets celebrate ; those golden times, And those Arcadian scenes that Maro sings.

Nymphs were Dianas then

then speech profane

And manners profligate were rarely found.

' The Winter Evening.'

Amongst the poems thus praised were

that horrid one Beginning with " Formosum pastor Corydon,"

and one or two others of the same sort. The nymphs were far from being Dianas.

E. YAKDLEY.

AUBREY'S ' BRIEF LIVES.' On pp. 223-4 ol vol. i. of this work (reviewed 9 th S. i. 239' two treatises attributed by Aubrey to "Sir' are by his namesake Mr. Everard Digby M.A. The books are (1) 'De Duplici Me thodo ' and (2) ' De Arte Natandi.'

RALPH THOMAS.

DICKENS. (See 9 th S. iv. 492.) In Dickens's writings there must be something peculiarly subtle and elusive which leacta his critic? into error. I have recently had an oppor tunity of reading 'Charles Dickens : a Critica Study,' by George Gisaing, 1898. The autho says, "He will be most positive in judgmen whose acquaintance with the novelists' [sic writings is least profound " (p. 215). But how


 * an we think that he has an intimate ac-

quaintance with Dickens's characters who is gnorant of the names of many of them ?

Pp. 77, 91, 92. The author makes a point of ^emembering the surname of the girl Alice n 'Dombey and Son,' and mentions it five Alice Marlow." The name is not of the slightest consequence, but it was "Marwood."
 * imes (more times than Dickens himself),

P. 96. " The man called Monk," in * Oliver Twist.' His name was " Monks."

P. 98. The firm was " Spenlow and Jorkins," lot "Jorkins and Spenlow."

P. 147. " Sophy Whackles, from whom Mr. Swiveller had so narrow and so fortunate an escape." Her name was "Wackles."

P. 164. The child bequeathed a kiss to "the booful lady." No ; it was "the boofer lady."

P. 166. " The Tuggs at Ramsgate." Dickens wrote " Tuggs's."

P. 172. For "Kenwig's" read "Kenwigs's."

P. 172. For " Small wood " read " Small- weed."

P. 172. It was Guppy, not Small weed, who gave Jobling a dinner.

P. 182. For "Gill's" read "Gills's."

Sir Walter Besant, in 'Chambers's Ency- clopaedia,' 1895, iii. 800, says that Dickens died "after fifty-eight years of continuous work," but he was only fifty-eight when he died. Mr. Leslie Stephen, in the 'Dictionary of National Biography,' xv. 25, 28, 29, gives contradictory dates about some of Dickens's children. W. C. B.

MISQUOTATION. In the Jubilee Number of 'N. & Q.,' p. 362, it is thus written : ' You the editor of Notes and Queries!' spoken with flattering wonder, say those who marvel ' how one small brain could carry all he ' was supposed to know." Where does this come from 1 What Goldsmith wrote in * The De- serted Village ' is as follows : While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew That one small head should carry all he knew.

" Head " is so much better than " brain " that such a misquotation ought not to go un- corrected. H. B. P.

Temple.

"GNU." Like quagga, which I have ex- plained (ante, p. 3), gnu is incorrectly called in our dictionaries a Hottentot word. The ' Encyclopaedic ' says it is from " Hottentot gnu or gnoo" while Ogilvie and the * Century ' derive it from " Hottentot gnu or nju" In- credible as it may seem, all this is pure moon- shine. The word is not Hottentot. The Hottentots call the animal gaob (see Kron-