Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/215

 9"-s. vn. MAECU is, loci.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

207

Jeffrey's famous article in the Edinburgh Re- view of November, 1814, the article beginning with the classic exclamation, " This will never do ! " In the penultimate paragraph of the critique the reviewer comments on the poet's persistent perversion of his talents, admit- ting the splendid, but occasional results of their exercise, and he regretfully observes, " While we collect the fragments, it is im- possible not to mourn over the ruins from which we are condemned to pick them." Hazlitt also, in his lecture on ' The Modern Poets,' alludes to "the noble materials thrown away" in 'The Excursion,' while in his 'Round Table ' (1815-17) he reflects that to 1 the poet "the great and the small are the same; the near and the remote; what appears and what only is." In the ' Noctes Ambrosiana?' for 1831 (vol. iii. p. 234) emphasis is laid on Wordsworth's " passages of surpassing excel- lence," passages independent of the fact that " Wordsworth cannot conceive a mighty plan," for while "his mind has many noble visions

they come and go, each in its own glory."

In the first volume of the essays that he pub- lished in 1870, under the title 'Among my Books,' James Russell Lowell, writing on Shakespeare, introduces incidentally at p. 171 this passage on Wordsworth :

" Wordsworth had, in some respects, a deeper in- sight, and a more adequate utterance of it, than any man of his generation. But it was a piecemeal insight and utterance : his imagination was feminine, not masculine ; receptive, and not creative. His longer poems are Egyptian sand- wastes, with here and there an oasis 01 exquisite greenery, a grand image, Sphinx-like, half buried in drifting common- places, or the solitary Pompey's Pillar of some towering thought. But what is the fate of a poet who owns the quarry, but cannot build the poem ? Ere the century is out he will be nine parts dead, and immortal only in that tenth part of him which is included in a thin volume of ' beauties.' Already Moxon has felt the need of extracting this essential oil of him."

Probably Lowell's reference is to Hine's volume of 1834, mentioned by MR. AULD. . THOMAS BAYNE.

SIR ROBERT PEEL. Concerning this emi- nent statesman the following is quoted from Greville's 'Journal' in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1874, p. 543 :

"Old Sir Robert, who must have been a man of exceeding shrewdness, predicted that his full energies would never be developed till he was in the highest place, and had the sole direction of affairs ; and his brother Lawrence, who told this to Henry de Ros, said that in early youth he evinced the same obstinate and unsocial disposition, which has since been so remarkable a feature of his character."

On which, in his copy of the Review now in ray possession, Lawrence Peel comments thus :

" I could never have said anything of the kind, as I never thought it ; had no opportunity of judging of my brother in ' his early youth,' as he was thirteen years older than myself'; and I certainly never heard my father express such an opinion."

W. H. DAVID.

Quoits*

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

" LATTERMINT." In 'Endymion,' book iv. 1. 576, Keats mentions together " savory, lattermint) and columbines." What is the meaning of " lattermint," and can any other example of the word be cited ?

HENRY BRADLEY.

Clarendon Press, Oxford.

GUN REPORTS. During the sad royal pro- cession from Cowes to Portsmouth the report of the guns was only slightly audible at Southsea, and not at all so at Chichester, fifteen miles distant, yet at Croydon seventy miles the " booming " was quite distinct. Can any of your readers explain this 1

A. L) Jtl.

The sound was distinctly audible at Harrow ht

eald. Currents of air might be responsible.]

W<

' BIJOU ALMANACK.' Can any of the readers of ' N. & Q.' inform me in which magazine and in what month during the last year there appeared a page with illustrations of 'The Bijou Almanack,' a tiny illustrated book, about three-quarters of an inch long, in a case and with a small magnifying-glass 1 Bijou almanacs came out in 1837 or there- abouts. THE UNMISTAKABLE.

CATALOGUE OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. There was a sale by auction of the collection of musical instruments, &c., of the late Sir William Curtis, which took place on 23 May, 1827, the auctioneer being a Mr. Musgrave. If any reader of ' N. & Q.' has the catalogue, I shall be very glad to see it. I particularly wish to learn the prices realized.

ARTHUR F. HILL.

140, New Bond Street, W.

ROOD WELL, EDINBURGH. In 'Rites of Durham,' chap, xv., we find the legend of the hunted hart and the holy rood from which Holy rood derived its name, and we are told that " in the place wherin this miracle was so wroughte doth now spring a fountaine called the Rude well." Can this well be identified ?

J. T. F.