Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/480

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NOTES 'AND QUERIES. [9* s. vm. DEC. 7, 1001.

that accompanied Key from Jamaica to the States : but I can find no account of him beyond the above. JOHN RADCLIFFE.

THE PORTLAND VASE (9 th S. viii. 225, 330). Erasmus Darwin has an apostrophe to Wedgwood in the ' Botanic Garden,' where the following lines occur (canto ii. 319-20) : Or bid Mortality rejoice or mourn O'er the fine forms of Portland's mystic urn.

In my edition (1791) there are four fine plates of the " mystic urn," and an interesting note, filling seven large quarto pages, giving the history of the vase, and minutely explaining how the figures upon it repre- sented part of the Eleusinian mysteries

1 am not aware whether the conclusions of Erasmus Darwin on this subject have been contested ; but, in any case, his exposition of them is very elaborate and apparently reliable. JAMES HOOPER.

Norwich.

" PROVIDING "= PROVIDED (9 th S. viii. 162, 309). The following is from the Times.

2 October, p. 3, col. 6 :

"......expressed their willingness to proceed to arbi-

tration upon all points in dispute between them- selves and their crews, providing that all sections," &c.

It is remarkable that this " providing " should have escaped the editor and readers. It is an illiterate blunder, though, as MR. OWEN suggests, getting quite common.

RALPH THOMAS.

THE TERMINATION " -ITIS " (9 th S. vii. 468). As this termination conveys the idea of heat or inflammation, might I suggest a possible derivation from, or connexion with the Persian word for fire- viz., dtish ? Also ct. the Aryan root tith, to burn, No. 140 in fekeats ' Dictionary/ third edition.

C. S. HARRIS.

T PEACHI OR PECHEY (9 th S. viii. 185).-

John Peche or Pechey, A.M., son of William Pechey, of Chichester, Sussex, Gent., on 22 March, 1671/2, at the age of sixteen years, was matriculated at Oxford as a member of New Inn Hall ; graduated B.A. November, 1675 ; M.A. 10 June, 1678 admitted a Licentiate of the College of Physicians 22 December, 1684.

JOHN RADCLIFFE.

OLD SONGS (9 th S. viii. 104, 212, 351) -I nave known the couplet, Pity the sorrows of a poor old man

etremblin him to your

ever since my infancy. I was then the

possessor of a moral pocket-handkerchief, on which certain stanzas from 'The Beggar's Petition ' were printed. I still recollect the two lines indicated and the picture of the poor beggar man which accompanied them, but the rest is a blank. I felt sure I could find the words amongst Dr. Watts's ' Divine and Moral Songs for Children'; but on re- ferring thereto I was unable to do so. My copy of this little book was published by the Religious Tract Society, and bears no date.

JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire.

The poem * Pity the Sorrows of a Poor Old Man ' was printed in the edition of Mavor's spelling-book which nourished my childish brain about 1851. How one recollects some- times the trivial things learnt in childhood and forgets the matters of yesterday or last week ! W. J. FixzSiMMONS.

Cromwell Avenue, Highgate, N.

SHAKESPEARE THE "KNAVISH "AND RABE- LAIS (9 th S. vii. 162, 255, 330, 474; viii. 206, 314). The astonishing statement that 'Romeo and Juliet' was not the production of Shak> speare shows that some people pay far more attention to what was written, or supposed to be written, about Shakspeare than to what was written by Shakspeare himself. In a great work of genius we see the mark of one hand, and one hand only. It is impossible to suppose that one man wrote the first book of * Paradise Lost,' and that another man wrote the second book. And it is equally certain that one man only wrote ' Macbeth,' 1 The Tempest,' ' Twelfth Night,' ' Romeo and Juliet,' 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' 'Hamlet,' ' King Lear.' One hand substantially wrote all of them, though there might be slight interpolations in some of them. That Daniel could have been the author of ' Romeo and Juliet ' is impossible. The style of the two authors is quite different, and Daniel never rose to the height of Shakspeare. There is a passage in Act V. scene iii. of ' Romeo and Juliet' which seems to be borrowed from Daniel ; but Shakspeare's expression is far more beautiful than its original, and it is inconceivable to me that anybody could sup- pose Daniel to be the author of this passage or of the rest of the play. It is interesting to observe how Shakspeare repeats with variations not only his thoughts and expres- sions, but also the characters which he draws ; and I referred lately in ' N. & Q.' to the way in which he does this in 'Romeo and Juliet.' It is impossible to resist the con- clusion that one and the same man wrote the best plays attributed to Shakspeare and