Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 | Page 8

the least, are
tautology, and are like talking, of the "highest height", or the the
"deepest depth!" Surely, the original form of words, "Dispatch you with
your safest haste;" that is, with as much haste as is consistent with your
personal safety--is much more dignified and polished address from the
duke to a lady, and at the same time more poetical!
In p. 129.,
"The constant service of the antique world,"
is converted into
"The constant favour of the antique world:"
in which line I cannot discover any sense. If I might hazard a guess, I
should suggest that the error is in the second word, "service," and that it

ought to be "servants:"
"When servants sweat for duty, not for meed."
In the Taming of the Shrew, p. 143., the substitution of "Warwickshire
ale" for "sheer ale" strikes me as very far-fetched, and wholly
unnecessary. There is no defect of sense in the term "sheer ale." Sly
means to say, he was "fourteen pence on the score for ale alone:" just as
one speaks of "sheer nonsense," i. e. nothing but nonsense, "sheer
buffoonery," "sheer malice," &c. Why should Sly talk of being in debt
for Warwickshire ale at Wincot? If he kind been drinking ale from
Staffordshire, or Derbyshire, or Kent, he might possibly have named
the county it came from; but to talk of Warwickshire ale within a few
miles of Stratford-on-Avon seems absurd. It is as if a man came from
Barclay and Perkins's, and talked of having been drinking "London
porter."
In p. 144., I submit, with great deference, that turning "Aristotle's
checks" into "Aristotle's ethics" is the very reverse of an improvement.
What can be more intelligible than the line--
"And so devote to Aristotle's checks;"
that is, to the checks which Aristotle's rules impose upon profligacy?
The idea is more poetical, {452} and the line runs more smoothly;
while the altered line is prosaic in comparison, and the metre is not
correct.
My dwindling space warns me that I must very soon pause; but these
examples can be extended ad infinitum, should another opportunity be
afforded me.
The instances of alterations simply unnecessary are too numerous to be
recorded here. I have already a list of forty odd, selected from only
eight plays.
CECIL HARBOTTLE.

* * * * *
Minor Notes.
Local Rhymes, Norfolk.--
"Halvergate hares, Reedham rats, Southwood swine, and Cantley cats;
Acle asses, Moulton mules, Beighton bears, and Freethorpe fools."
Z. E. R.
"Hobson's Choice."--I, the other day, in a paper of 1737, came upon the
inclosed, if of interest sufficient for insertion in "N. & Q.:"
"Upon the mention of Mr. Freeman being appointed one of the four
horse carriers to the university of Cambridge, we had the following
paragraph:--'This was the office that old Hobson enjoyed, in which he
acquired so large a fortune as enabled him to leave the town that
ever-memorable legacy the conduit, that stands on the Market Hill,
with an estate to keep it perpetually in repair. The same person gave
rise to the well-known adage, 'Hobson's choice--this or none;' founded
upon his management in business. He used to keep, it seems, hackney
horses, that he let out to young gentlemen of the university, with whose
characters being well acquainted, he suited his beast to its rider, who
upon a dislike was sure to receive that answer from him, 'This or
none.'"
J. W. G. G.
Khond Fable.--The following is a free version of a fable current among
the Khonds of Oriosa, of whom a very interesting account is given by
Captain Macpherson in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society for
1852:
"A mosquito was seated on the horn of a bull, and fearing that his
weight might be oppressive to the quadruped, he politely accosted him,
begging that, if he felt any inconvenience, he would mention it, and
professing himself ready, in that case, to remove to some other position.

The bull replied, 'O mosquito, so far are you from oppressing me with
your weight, that I was not even aware of your existence.'"
The moral of this is common enough, but is the fable found elsewhere
in a similar form?
J. C. R.
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart.--As those who have read the deeply
interesting memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton are aware, he was
placed at a school in Donnybrook in the year 1802, and shortly after
"entered" the University of Dublin. His success in that seat of learning,
where able competitors were many in number, was brilliant; for "on the
14th of April in the same year [1807], he received his thirteenth
premium, and also the highest honour of the university,--the gold medal.
With these distinctions, and the four silver medals from the Historical
Society, he prepared to return to England." In