Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/209

 gs. vii. MARCH 16, i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

201

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1901.

CONTENTS. -No. 168.

NOTES : Danteiana, 201 Spenser, 'Locrine,' and ' Seli- mus,' 203 First Lady Barrister Vanishing London: Christ's Hospital Mannlngham and 'Twelfth Night' E. Haraley " Pinhoen," a Ghost -word "Anyone": " Everyone," 205 ' Distinct " Comb=Cockade Inter- esting Legal Action Changed Sites of Towns Words- worthiana, 206 Sir R. Peel, 207.

QUERIES : " Lattermint " Gun Reports' Bijou Alma- nack 'Catalogue of Musical Instruments Rood Well, Edinburgh, 207 " Carrick " " Noble " Confidential War Dispatches -Bishopric of Mons Maranus Old Mar- riage Custom in Yorkshire Son of Lord Byron Inscrip- tion in Kinuel Cuurch -Clifford : Mortimer : Waller, 208 "Devil's Pulpit' Statue in Soho Square "Morning Glory " Wall Calendars with Shakespeare Quotations Ned Shuter, 209" Peer "=Minnow, 210.

REPLIES : Executions at Tyburn and Elsewhere, 210 Battle of Fontenoy, 211 Inoculation, 212 "Curtana" Suwarroff and Massena Welsh MS. Pedigrees Lamb and 'The Champion' Acacia in Freemasonry, 213 Movable Stocks -Flogging at the Cart Tail "Kouea" and "Succedaneum," 214 Motto for Laundry Porch Malt and Hop Substitutes Dresden Amen "Peridot," 215 Columbaria Yeomanry Records Throgmorton "Skilly," 216 Ipplepen, 217 Huitson Family "Two- penny Tube" "Caba," 218.

NOTES ON BOOKS: Dr. Gardiner's History ' Mr. Heckethorii's ' London Memories ' ' The Mind of the Century ' " Chiswick Shakespeare " ' Winchester ' ' English Catalogue of Books.'

Notices to Correspondents.

$01**,

DANTEIANA. 1. ' INFERNO,' xii. 4 et seq. :

8ual e quella ruina che nel fiarico i qua da.Trento 1' Adice percosse.

A puzzling question of locality is broached here. Gary makes no attempt to solve it, therein justifying his wisdom, but Plumptre knows no such reticence :

"The scene referred to is probably that of the landslip known as the Slavini (=precipice) di Marco in the gorge of the Chiusa, running from the Adige across the slopes of Mount Pastello. The landslip is described in the ' History of Verona ' by Delia Corte as having happened in 1309, without either earthquake or tempest."

Scartazzini supplies alternative surmises, but passes no opinion on either :

dall' Adige a traverso le falde del Monte Pastello nel luogo detto la Chiusa, e che e chiamato li Slavini di Marco ; secondo altri alia rovina di Monte Barco presso Rovereto."
 * Secondo gli uni Dante allude al varco apertosi

Somewhat oracularly, but rightly, Lombardi adds, after giving the Monte Barco con- jecture :

"Intendono altri questa ruina in altra parte; ma ovunque sia poco importa."

Quite so. It matters little where the scene

of the allusion lay ; of more importance is it that it furnishes the probable dates (as Plumptre observes) both of the poet's visit to Verona and of the composition of the pas- sage, if not of the entire canto. This is my sole motive for touching upon it here.

2. Ibid., 17 :

Tu credi che qui sia il Duca d' Atene. Cary's rendering of this line is a sample of his general looseness of translation :

Thou deem'st the King of Athens here, which he emphasizes by his notes :

' Duca d' Atene. So Chaucer calls Theseus : Whilom, as olde stories tellen us, There was a duk, that highte Theseus.

' The Knighte's Tale.' And Shakespeare :

Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke.

' Midsummer Night's Dream.' "

^Egeus, not Theseus, was King of Athens. Dante dubs the latter " duke " in the sense of leader, as law-giver and administrator, and both Chaucer and Shakespeare follow in hi& wake, each making " copy " of him after his own bent. The chequered career of this legendary hero lent itself easily to diversity of poetic treatment.

3. Ibid., 40-43:

Da tutte parti 1' alta yalle feda Tremo si, ch' io pensai che 1' universe Sentisse amor, per lo quale e chi creda Piu volte il mondo in caos converso.

Is this a reference to the cosmic theory of Empedocles condemned by Aristotle in his 4 Physics ' and ' De Anima ' 1 The e chi creda ( = est qui credat) lends itself presumably to the inference, and most annotators maintain the allusion. But there is a danger, in read- ing into every chance phrase systems and theories, of over-crediting an author with knowledge of which he is utterly unconscious. Thus Mr. Bosanquet ('Psychology of the Moral Self,' p. 50) quotes Shakespeare in proof of the difficulty of initiating psycho- logical self-consciousness, though I question the poet's acquaintance with that branch of mental science. The lines are :

Gas. Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face ?

Brut. No, Cassius ; for the eye sees not itself, But by reflection, by some other things.

I do not suppose for a moment that any psychological arriere-pensee lurked in Shake- speare's mind when he penned these matter- of fact lines, which were a simple statement of a certain impossibility in the absence of an external agency. No man can get outside himself to discover what manner of man he is ; the vision depends upon a mirror of some sort. Shakespeare meant nothing more than