Notes and Queries, No. 179. Saturday, April 2, 1853. | Page 4

enormities of his childhood?... Can any one read this confession without thinking of Tartuffe, who subjected himself to penance for killing a flea with too much anger?..."
It probably did not occur to the biographer, that no less illustrious a saint than Augustin, to whom Puritanism can hardly be imputed, had made a parallel confession of like early depravity many centuries before. Enlarging on his own puerile delinquencies, and indeed on the wickedness of children in general, he confesses that, in company with other "naughty boys" ("nequissimi adolescentuli"), he not only stole apples, but stole them for the mere pleasure of the thing, and when he "had enough at home":
"Id furatus sum quod mihi abundabat, et multo melius. Nec ea re volebam frui quam furto appetebam; sed ipso furto et peccato. Arbor erat pirus in vicinia vine? nostr? pomis onusta, nec forma nec sapore illecebrosis. Ad hanc excutiendam atque asportandam, nequissimi adolescentuli perreximus nocte intempesta; et abstulimus inde onera ingentia, non ad nostras epulas, sed vel projicienda porcis, etiamsi aliquid inde comedimus.... Ecce cor meum, Deus meus, ecce cor meum, quod miseratus es in imo abyssi!"--Confessionum, lib. ii. cap. iv.
In comparing the two cases, the balance of juvenile depravity is very much against the great Doctor of Grace. He does not seem to have had even a fondness for fruit to plead in extenuation of his larceny. He robbed orchards by wholesale of apples, which, by his own admission, had no attractions either of form or flavour to tempt him. Yet the two anecdotes are so much alike, that one would be inclined to suspect one story of being a mere recoction of the other if it were possible to doubt the veracity of Richard Baxter.
{328} The incident, however, is one too familiar in schoolboy life to make the repetition of the story a matter of surprise. The property in an apple growing within the reach of a boy's hand has from time immemorial been in peril, and the law itself has not always regarded it as an object of scrupulous protection. The old laws of the Rheingau, and (if I mistake not) of some other states, warranted a wayfaring man in picking apples from any tree, provided he did not exceed the number of three.
E. SMIRKE.
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FOLK LORE.
Subterranean Bells (Vol. vii., pp. 128. 200.).--In answer to J. J. S.'s inquiry, I beg to state, that at Crosmere, near Ellesmere, Shropshire, where there is one of a number of pretty lakes scattered throughout that district, there is a tradition of a chapel having formerly stood on the banks of the lake. And it is said that the belief once was, that whenever the waters were ruffled by wind, the chapel bells might be heard as singing beneath the surface. This, though bearing on the subject of "submarine" or "subaqueous," rather than "subterranean" bells, illustrates, I think, the tradition to which J. J. S. refers.
J. W. M.
Hordley, Ellesmere.
Welsh Legend of the Redbreast.--According to my old nurse (a Carmarthenshire woman), the redbreast, like Prometheus, is the victim ~philanthr?pou tropou~. Not only the babes in the wood, but mankind at large, are indebted to these deserving favourites. How could any child help regarding with grateful veneration the little bird with bosom red, when assured--
"That far, far, far away is a land of woe, darkness, spirits of evil, and fire. Day by day does the little bird bear in his bill a drop of water to quench the flame. So near to the burning stream does he fly, that his dear little feathers are scorched: and hence he is named Bron-rhuddyn.[5] To serve little children, the robin dares approach the Infernal Pit. No good child will hurt the devoted benefactor of man. The robin returns from the land of fire, and therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than his brother birds. He shivers in the brumal blast; hungry, he chirps before your door. Oh! my child, then, in gratitude throw a few crumbs to poor red-breast."
Why, a Pythagorean would have eaten a peacock sooner than one of us would have injured a robin.
R. P.
[Footnote 5: Bron-rhuddyn = "breast-burnt," or "breast-scorched."]
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JOHNSONIANA.
I inclose you a transcript of a letter of Boswell's which I think worthy of being permanently recorded, and am not aware of its having been before in print.
Edinburgh, 11th April, 1774.
Dear Sir,
When Mr. Johnson and I arrived at Inveraray after our expedition to the Hebrides, and there for the first time after many days renewed our enjoyment of the luxuries of civilised life, one of the most elegant that I could wish to find was lying for me, a letter from Mr. Garrick. It was a pineapple of the finest flavour, which had a high zest indeed amongst the heath-covered mountains of Scotia. That I