Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/485

 9*s. vi. NOV. 24, im] NOTES AND QUERIES. 401 LONDON, SATVBDAf, NOVEMBER 24, 1900. CONTENTS.-No. 152. NOTES i-Dc Qulncey and Grotius, 401—Whitgift's Hos- §Ital, 402—Hoyle's ' Whist,' 403—Egg-dance—Exploits In wimming — John Fleetwood, 401 — Movable Stocks — Col. BarrJ—"Gone to Jericho "-Perch, 405—The Dark Ages—William Morris as a Business Man—Routes between London and Paris In 1843, 406—' Shakespeare's Green- wood '—' H.E.D.'—Dr. John Wilson—Passage in • Bothen ' —Julius Cjesar—Errors in 'Lothalr,' 407. QUERIES :—" Irenesse-bag " — Lincoln House, Holborn— Fanfulla—"Gallimaufry " —"Mading tub "—Custom at Hillingrton —"To keech " — Double Consonants, 403 — Watch-chain Ornament—Thompson, Secretary of State — Atwood Family— Ipplepen—" Butty "—" Smous "—Owen Tudor—Dutlon Family—" Pawky1'—Dutch Language— Passage in Goethe—Blackham Family—Castles at Anstey and Bennington—Feildingof Barnacle, 409—" Mithered — Moorhouae — Agricultural Descriptive Rimes —Folk- lore—Latin Lines, 410. REPLIES :—"Quarter" of Corn, 410—Pagination—Sir J. Murden—'* Lanted ale," 411—Reference Sought—Arbuth-, not—Ballywhalne-Talbot—Date of the Crucifixion, 412— "Half Moon" Tavern— " Hattock " —Eleanor Cross, Waltham, 413 —Trental=" Month's Mind "—" Peridot," "Periled," or "Pilidod "—Armour in Portraits—Houses without Staircases, 414—Grace Church—Coat of Arms— Early Irish in Iceland—Major Burrington, 415—Order of Katnakrlshna — " Seek " or " Seeke "—Prime Minister- Moated Mounds—Picts and Scots, 416—Ladybird—" Shot free"—The Bellman, 417—"Doing the dancers "—Lug- gage Train—Callaway—Authors Wanted, 418. NOTES ON BOOKS :-Butler's 'The Odyssey'—Weston's ' Arthurian Legends ' — Mackenzie's • By-ways among Books'—" Chlswick Shakespeare "—' Quarterly Review." Miss Florence Peacock. Notices to Correspondents. (fttff* DE QUINCEY AND HUGO GROTIUS. DE QUINCEY records a conversation with some of the other boys when he was a student at the Manchester Grammar School about the value of Grotius as a defender of the Christian religion. Paley was then in full vogue, and some of them regarded him as having eclipsed the older apologist. It was said that Ppcocke, when an Oriental translation of Grotius was suggested, had pointed out as objectionable the reference to the legend of the dove which was supposed to be the messenger from heaven to the prophet. A boy who is in- dicated only by the initial G., but in whom we may recognize the future Bishop of Chichester,* suggested that Grotius had de- liberately restricted his choice of arguments because "tlio neutral man will hearken to authorities notoriously neutral; Mussulmans will show defer- Principal of Brasenose College, and in 1842 was appointed Bishop of Chichester. He had a blind daughter, whose efforts on behalf of the blind have been productive of much and lasting good. Dr. Gilbert died 21 February, 1870. His only publica- tion was a Visitation charge. He is noticed in the ' Dictionary of National Biography." enee to the statements of Mussulmans; the sceptic will bow to the reasonings of scepticism." On this De Quincey asks:— " Was G— right ? In that case he picked a lock which others had failed to pick. Was he wrong? In that case he sketched the idea and outline of a setter work (better, as more original and more special in its service) than any which Grotius has tiimself accomplished." The Opium-Eater half apologizes for not having examined the book to see if the ex- planation was correct. Grotius is no longer regarded as the staru dard-bearer of Christianity, but his book will always retain a certain interest and has a curious history. It happens that Grotius has himself given an account of the origin and intention of his book. When he was a prisoner in the castle of Lupstein, he whiled away the hour? by the composition of a little book which he afterwards described as "the child of my grief in time past; now a monument of my thanksgiving to God." He wrote it in Dutch, his native language, and he wrote it in verse. Probably his choice of metre was determined by the greater difficulty of the task, and the greater likelihood that it would divert his mind from the considerations of his misfortunes. Yet he knew the value of verse as a medium of instruction. " For precepts of wisdom." says Bishop Symon Patrick, speaking or this matter, "so taught are exceeding charming to the minds of youth; being not only more easily imprinted on the memory, nut touching the affections more powerfully, and to the very quick, than when other- wise spoken at large." He may have remembered that Apollinarius is said to have translated the books of Moses and other parts of the Old Testament into heroic verse in imitation of Homer. . The Dutch were, and are, a maritime people, and Grotius, thinking of their skill in seaman- ship, considered that the sailors' love of song might be turned to account in the propagation of the faith. As they passed from port to port, the rimes in which he had expounded the grounds of the Christian religion would fur- nish them with sober entertainment, give them an intelligent faith, and supply them with arguments for the confutation or con- viction of men of other religion or of no reli- gion. " For," observes Grotius, "they would neither want matter for such en- deavours, when in their long voyages they commonly met either pagans, as in China and Guinea; or with Mahometans, as under the Turkish Empire, the Persian, and the Africans ; or with Jews, who, as they are now professed enemies of Christians, so are dispersed through the greatest part of the world; and there would always be store of impious
 * This was Ashurst Turner Gilbert, who became