10 s. x. NOV. 14, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
891
were greatly blessed under his ministry. Written
by himself." London, 1786, pp. 174.
The second edition was issued in 1790, and had a preface by John Wesley, dated 8 Nov., 1789, the third edition, " corrected," bears the date 1796 ; and there are reprints of 1806 and 1813.
Apart from Silas's own story just referred to, the historians of Methodism allude to Silas, but only in a very meagre way, the exception being found in Abel Stevens' s most valuable book on Wesley and Methodism. In this work the story of Silas is adequately given :
" Silas Told was a reclaimed sailor who became the Good Samaritan of London, the real though un- recognized chaplain of all its then wretehed prisons. He went to sea in his childhood, and passed through astonishing adventures, which he has recorded with frank and affecting simplicity in terse and flowing English which Defoe might have envied. He was almost drowned, and with difficulty restored to life ; he was shipwrecked, captured by pirates, and spent years amidst atrocities of the slave trade. He returned to London, went to hear Wesley at the Foundry, and became a regular visitor to the prisons. Turnkeys, sheriffs, hangmen, wept as they witnessed his exhortations, and opened passages through clamorous crowds so that he might visit men on the gallows." Abel Stevens's ' History of Methodism ' (first issued 1858-9), 1864 ed., pp. 485-91.
Silas Told died in December, 1778 (see
Arminian Magazine, 1788, p. 406).
Wesley's Journal under date 20 Dec.,
1778, has the following :
". I buried what was mortal of honest Silas Told. For many years he attended the malefactors in Newgate without fee or reward ; and I suppose no man, for this hundred years, has been so successful in that melancholy office. God had given him peculiar talents for it, and he had amazing success therein ; the greatest part of those whom he attended died in peace, and many of them in the triumph of faith."
One of the best accounts of Silas Told may be found in a little sixpenny book issued in 1887 by the Religious Tract Society, and still in print : ' Vignettes of the Great Revival of the Eighteenth Century,' by Edwin Paxton Hood, 1887. Chap, xi., pp. 147-71, is wholly devoted to 'The Romantic Story of Silas Told.' Mr. Austin Dobson contributed to Temple Bar, vol. xlvii.,
- Silas Told, Mariner and Methodist,' and
this will be found reprinted in Mr. Dob- son's ' Eighteenth Century Vignettes,' MB. SHORTER may also look at All the Year Round, vol. xviii., G. W. Thornbury's ' Old Stories,' London, 1870 ; W. H. Withrow's 4 Makers of Methodism,' New York, 1898 ; and Tyerman's ' Life of Wesley.'
A. L. HUMPHREYS.
187, Piccadilly, W.
OMAR KHAYYAM BIBLIOGRAPHY (10 S. x.
307). The following items from Welsh
iterature may be of service to MR. SCHROETER
and of interest to general readers.
1. In Prof. John Morris Jones's ' Caniadau ' Oxford } Fox Jones & Co., 1907) is included
a translation of 105 of Omar's quatrains. The translation is made not from FitzGerald, but direct from the Persian, and the choice of quatrains differs considerably from his. [ am told by a friend, a Persian scholar, that the rendering is very faithful, and that its general tone and spirit are much truer to the original than is the case with Fitz- ~ erald's. The translation is highly praised by Welsh critics.
2. An interesting article on this version, in which it is compared with FitzGerald' s, appeared in Y Geninen (Carnarvon) this year ; I have not the number by me at present, but am pretty certain it was the April number.
3. Translations into Welsh of 33 of the quatrains, from FitzGerald, by Sir Marchant Williams, appeared in The Nationalist (Cardiff) in the May, June, and August numbers.
4. Among the admirable ' Caneuon a Cherddi' of W. J. Gruffydd (Bangor, Jarvis & Foster, 1906) is a very successful imitation of Omar, entitled ' Ar yr Allt.' This contains 34 quatrains, and is an imita- tation rather in form and spirit than in content.
I have not thought it worth while to mention mere reviews of Prof. Morris Jones's volume, which has been reviewed in all the leading periodicals of Wales and in The Manchester Guardian, &c., all the reviews I have seen making special mention of the Omar translation.
5. Since writing the above I notice in an obituary notice of the Gaelic writer Donald Mackechnie which appeared in The Celtic Review for July of this year the following sentence (p. 93) : " In later years he was much attracted by the Persian poet Omar Khayyam and rendered many of that author's pieces into Gaelic verse." Being unacquainted with Gaelic, I know nothing further of these translations. H. I. B.
BAAL-FIRES: "BONFIRE" (10 S. x. 206, 251, 315, 353). I do not think that MR. HESLOP errs in what he says about bones. I have ere this quoted in ' N. & Q.' from Louandre's ' Histoire d' Abbeville ' (vol. i. p. 314, note) :
" On amassait anciennement une grande quantite d'os d'animaux pour les bruler en feux de joie a la
