Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/30

 NOTES' AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix. JAN. n, 1002.

"What the left hand of the image held, vn- luckely appeares not, in that faire printed come, with which it pleased a great, and generous Earle to befriend me."

In the next extract we have an early use of the word " boss " (p. 100) :

"In Dio she [Boadicia] doth not appeare old, or decayd, but a strong and perfect woman. Her picture hangs vp there in such words as showe the person of some martial Bosse, or Amazonian Gian- tesse."

Himself a translator, Bolton appears to have the confident assurance of one who feels he does not live in a glass house. _ The following passage does not lack vigour (p. 109) :-

" The wrongs, and dishonors, which the most noble authors 'sustain oftentimes by many transla- tours, are infinite and intolerable. Scarce one booke among one hundred honestlie done, and not one of one hundred exactlie."

Following up this general accusation, he has a word of disparagement, evidently against Richard Grenewey although he does not mention him by name whose translation of the 'Annals ' of Tacitus was first published in 1598, and between that date and 1612 three editions appeared (p. 112) :

" The Ocean betweene Britain, and Gall, at the full tide did ouernowe, of a bloudie colour, and at a low water the prints of mens bodies were seene vpon the bare, and not the dead bodies themselues, which the englished ' Annals of Tacitvs ' inistak- ingly say."

As the edition of 1012 of Grenewey 's translation of 'The Annales of Cornelivs Tacitvs ' is now before me, I shall quote, for the sake of comparison, the passage (p. 210) referred to by Bolton :

" Further the Ocean bloudy in shew and dead mens bodies left after an ebbe as they brought hope to the Britans, so they droue the old souldiers into a feare."

Nor does the venerable Philemon Holland escape a mild censure from our persistent critic (p. 252) :

"The translatour of Plinies ' Naturall Histories ' hath rendred the originall in such words, as if the place were not to be meant of treasure conuei^hed away for trade, but onely laid out to furnish a voiage I<or what reason 1 know not. Cleare it is that ilmie speakes of money not expended, but exhausted.

And as if this were not enough, William Warner, m another way,, is put upon the

<7u ~7, to use one of Cash's words-forhis Albions England ' (p. 160) :

"But amongst her [Boadicia] strengths at this time, wee must not reckon the ilockes of British wmes and women, who were brought to sit specta- tors of the expected vtter mine of Pavllinvs (the

to hi, a " A l pe h T ^raey) though the versifier m his Albions England,' pleasantly encroaching

vpon the poet, doth furnish this Queene-Mother, and her martiall daughters, with sixe thousand armed Ladies, out of his Homericall hearsayes. A licence of wit not vnbeseetning the musicke of rimes, but incompetent for the grauity of storie, which admits no fables."

The reference in the following extract to the Isthmus of Panama is singularly inter- esting (p. 270) :


 * < Reasons which preserued those two huge peniles

of America (naturally combined at the creation of the world, by a farre broader necke of earth then that which annexed Peloponnesvs to Greece) from being sundred by the pickaxe, and spade ; though that necke alone is the cause of fetching a circuit from Nombre de Dios to Panama, many thousands of miles about."

Appended to the edition of 1627 of 'Nero Cixjsar' is a short essay, entitled 'An Histori- calParallel,' which Bolton previously privately communicated to his friend Endymion Porter, extending to only sixteen pages. The con- cluding part is so interesting that I cannot forbear reproducing it here :

" That renowned Savile, who gaue vnto vs ; ' The end of Nero, and beginning of Galba.' A maister- peece, and a great one. His praises, as the praises also of that short essay, are- at their high-water niarke in the Epigrams of my antient friend, Beniamin lonson, not without the equall praises of lonsons selfe, though in a diuers kinde. I for my part make no vse of the Savilian compositions, though they handle a finall part of the Neronian argument. His example in ciuill, and noble letters, I would gladly commend, vpon this occasion, to all the free students of our nation ; many of them growne delicate, and fine of wit, and not of life alone. Whereas his contrary courses in studie, and eloquence, nearest to the common nature of tilings, void of phantasticke notions, fluent, manly, graue, vnatfected, smooth, yet full of vigour, and sinewes, made it easily appeare, that hee had the best of the antients in his maine imitations. The generall Latin Historic of our countrey a subiect for a iSavile, and a cherishment for a King, nor of any rather then of our owne most peacefull Prince, King lames."

A. S.

\Condivwntcdly t quoted above from p. 66 of ' Nero Ca3sar,' does not appear in the 'H.E.D.,' which, however, cites Lyly's ' Euphues,' 1579, for boss in the sense of a big fat woman. The example of penile, from p. 270 of k Nero Csesar,' may be useful presently to Dr. Murray.]

THE AUTHOR AND AVENGER OF EVIL. ON reflecting upon religious or poetical conceptions, Christian or pagan, ancient, mediaeval, or modern, one is struck by the confused ideas with regard to the role acted by that awful being, the generally accepted irreconcilable foe of God and man. If man knows not how anthropomorphic he is, as little does he foresee where sincere emotion will lead him, and what extraordinary con-