Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 | Page 6

premier besoin de l'homme de lettres qui entreprend un ouvrage, est de conno?tre les sources auxquelles il peut puiser, les livres qui ont traité directement ou indirectement le sujet qui l'occupe."--S. CHARDON de la Rochette, 1812.
"La bibliothèque [savoir, la bibliothèque royale établie à Bruxelles] aura deux catalogues: l'un alphabétique, l'autre systématique. Dans l'intérêt de la science, le catalogue sera imprimé, en tout ou en partie."--LéOPOLD, roi des Belges, 1837.
"Le catalogue est l'inventaire en le véritable palladium d'une bibliothèque. L'impression des catalogues est toujours une chose utile, sinon indispensable.... La publicité est, en outre, le frein des abus, des négligences, et des malversations, l'aiguillon du zèle, et la source de toute amélioration."--L. A. CONSTANTIN, 1839.
"La publication d'une nouvelle édition complète du catalogue de la bibliothèque du roi [de France], serait, sans doute, le plus grand service qu'on p?t jamais rendre à l'histoire littéraire; et nous ne regardons pas cette entreprise comme impraticable."--Jacques Charles BRUNET, 1842.
"M. Merlin pense avec moi, et c'est quelque chose, que les justes plaintes formées contre l'administration de la bibliothèque royale [de France] cesseront dès l'instant où l'on aura rédigé et publié le catalogue géneral des livres imprimés."--Paulin PARIS, 1847.
* * * * *
Minor Notes.
The "Winter's Tale."--As MR. PAYNE COLLIER is making inquiries as to the origin of Shakspeare's Winter's Tale, perhaps he will allow me to call his attention to an oversight he has committed in his edition of Greene's Pandosto, in the series called Shakspeare's Library. In a note to the introduction, p. ii., MR. COLLIER says,
"Some verbal resemblances and trifling obligations have been pointed out by the commentators in their notes to the WINTER'S TALE. One of the principal instances occurs in Act IV. Sc. 3., where Florizel says:
"'The gods themselves, Humbling their deities to love, have taken The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god, Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain, As I seem now. Their transformations Were never for a piece of beauty rarer, Nor in a way so chaste.'
"'This,' says Malone, 'is taken almost literally from the novel'--when, in fact, the resemblance merely consists in the adoption by Shakspeare of part of the mythological knowledge supplied by Greene. 'The gods above disdaine not to love women beneath. Phoebus liked Daphne; Jupiter Io; and why not I then Fawnia?' The resemblance is anything but literal."
It would appear, however, that the passage cited by MR. COLLIER is not the one referred to by Malone. MR. COLLIER's passage is at p. 34. of his edition of the novel; the one Malone evidently had in view is at p. 40., and is as follows:--
"And yet, Dorastus, shame not at thy shepheard's weede: the heavenly godes have sometime earthly thoughtes. Neptune became a ram, Jupiter a bul, Apollo a shepheard: they Gods, and yet in love; and thou a man, appointed to love."
E. L. N.
Inscribed Alms-dish.--There is an alms-dish (?) {102} in the possession of a clergyman near Rotherham, in this county, with the following inscription:--
"VREEST . GODT . ONDERHOVEDT . SYN . GEBOEDT . ANNO . 1634."
[Fear God (and?) keep his commandments.]
Having so lately been so justly reproved by your correspondent, MR. JANUS DOUSA, for judging of Vondel's Lucifer by an apparently unjust review rather than by perusal,--and his beautiful chorus having so fully "established his case,"--I am rather shy of making any remarks upon this inscription: otherwise I would venture (errors excepted) to observe that there may be a mistake in the position of the last three letters of the third word.
If MR. DOUSA would kindly inform a very imperfect Dutch scholar whether this sentence is intended as a quotation from Ecclesiastes xii., 13th verse,--
"Vreest Godt ende hout s?ne geboden;"
or whether the third word is from the verb "onder houden,"--as looks probable, I shall be greatly obliged to him. The Bible to which I refer is dated 1644.
Being neither a scholar nor a critic, but only a lover of books and languages, I hope MR. DOUSA will accept my apology for the affront offered to his countryman, Vondel. Your publication has been a great temptation to people with a few curious books around them to set sail their little boats of inquiry or observation for the mere pleasure of seeing them float down the stream in company with others of more importance and interest. I confess myself to have been one of the injudicious number; and having made shipwreck of my credit against M. Brellet's Dictionnaire de la Langue Celtique, and also on Vondel's Lucifer, I must here apologise and promise to offend no more. If MR. DOUSA will not be appeased, I have only to add that I "send him my card." As Mrs. Malaprop said to Sir Lucius O'Trigger--
"Spare my blushes--I am Delia."
HERMES.
P. S. Can MR. DOUSA fix