Notes and Queries, Number 40, August 3, 1850

Notes and Queries, Number 40,
August 3, 1850

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August
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Title: Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 A Medium
Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries,
Author: Various
Release Date: September 7, 2004 [EBook #13389]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN,
ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.
* * * * *
"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

* * * * *
NO. 40.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1850. [Price Threepence Stamped
Edition 4d.
* * * * * {145}
CONTENTS.
NOTES:--Page Translations of Juvenal--Wordsworth Dedication to
Milton by Antonio Malatesti, by S.W. Singer Pulteney's Ballad of "The
Honest Jury," by C.H. Cooper Notes on Milton Folk Lore:--High
Spirits considered a Sign of impending Calamity or Death--Norfolk
Popular Rhymes--Throwing Salt over the Shoulder--Charming for
Warts Notes on College Salting; Turkish Spy; Dr. Dee: from "Letters
from the Bodleian, &c.," 2 vols. 1813 Minor Notes:--Alarm--Taking a
Wife on Trial--Russian Language--Pistol and Bardolph--Epigram from
Buchanan
QUERIES:-- Calvin and Servetus Etymological Queries Minor
Queries:--Countess of Desmond--Noli me tangere--Lines in Milton's
"Penseroso"--"Mooney's Goose"--Translation of the
Philobiblon--Achilles and the Tortoise--Dominicals--Yorkshire Dales
REPLIES:-- Tobacco in the East "Job's Luck," by Coleridge, by J.
Bruce Eccius Dedolatus Replies to Minor Queries:--Hiring of
Servants--George Herbert--Lord Delamere--Execution of Charles
I.--Charade--Discursus Modestus--"Rapido contrarius Orbi"--"Isabel"
and "Elizabeth"--Hanap--Cold Harbour
MISCELLANEOUS:-- Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. Books
and Odd Volumes Wanted Notices to Correspondents Advertisements
* * * * *
NOTES.
TRANSLATIONS OF JUVENAL--WORDSWORTH.
Mr. Markland's ascertainment (Vol. i., p. 481.) of the origin of
Johnson's "From China to Peru," where, however, I sincerely believe
our great moralist intended not so much to borrow the phrase as to
profit by its temporary notoriety and popularity, reminds me of a
conversation, many years since, with the late William Wordsworth, at
which I happened to be present, and which now derives an additional
interest from the circumstance of his recent decease.
Some mention had been made of the opening lines of the tenth satire of
Juvenal:

"Omnibus in terris, quae sunt a Gadibus usque Auroram, et Gangem
pauci dignoscere possunt Vera bona, atque illis multum diversa, remotâ
Erroris nebulâ."
"Johnson's translation of this," said Wordsworth, "is extremely bad:
"'Let Observation, with extensive view, Survey mankind from China to
Peru.'
"And I do not know that Gifford's is at all better:
"'In every clime, from Ganges' distant stream, To Gades, gilded by the
western beam, Few, from the clouds of mental error free, In its true
light, or good or evil see.'
"But", he added, musing, "what is Dryden's? Ha! I have it:
"'_Look round the habitable world_, how few Know their own good, or,
knowing it, pursue.'
"This is indeed the language of a poet; it is better than the original."
The great majority of your readers will without doubt, consider this
compliment to Dryden well and justly bestowed, and his version,
besides having the merit of classical expression, to be at once concise
and poetical. And pity it is that one who could form so true an estimate
of the excellences of other writers, and whose own powers, it will be
acknowledged, were of a very high order, should so often have given us
reason to regret his puerilities and absurdities. This language, perhaps,
will sound like treason to many; but permit me to give an instance in
which the late poet-laureate seems to have admitted (which he did not
often do) that he was wrong.
In the first edition of the poem of Peter Bell (the genuine, and not the
pseudo-Peter), London, 8vo. 1819, that personage sets to work to bang
the poor ass, the result of which is this, p. 36.:
"Among the rocks and winding crags-- Among the mountains far
away-- Once more the ass did lengthen out More ruefully an endless
shout, The long dry see-saw of his horrible bray."{146}
After remarks on Peter's strange state of mind when saluted by this
horrible music, and describing him as preparing to seize the ass by the
neck, we are told his purpose was interrupted by something he just then
saw in the water, which afterwards proves to be a corpse. The reader is,
however, first excited and disposed to expect something horrible by the
following startling conjectures:--
"Is