62
NOTES AND QUERIES. tio s. XL JAN. 23, 1909-.
and admired because of your limited know-
ledge of him, is such an objectionable and
extremely dangerous personage as that
whom I have just delineated ? " Who
would not weep, if Atticus were he ? " It is
true, as De Quincey points out, that we
knew from the beginning " that the character
belonged to a man of genius " ; but it ig
no less true that, all along, we were prone
to regard the delineation as arbitrary,
extravagant, and preposterous. Therefore
we were amused throughout, and finally,
letting ourselves go, indulged in appropriate
laughter. But the moment the personal
application was made, we remembered the
frailty of human nature, bethought us of
those impenetrable recesses which are behind
every mask, and straightway grieved because
true genius and fair fame could be thus sadly
and inexplicably sullied and tarnished.
It is in this case very much as it is with Byron, when he apostrophizes man as the " pendulum betwixt a smile and tear," and beseeches him earnestly to consider all that is implied in the ruins of Rome. " Admire," he exclaims,
exult, despise, laugh, weep, for here There is such matter for all feeling ! Every one of the predicates thus used by the later poet might be taken in the order in which he gives them, and used to test the quality of the great character-sketch ex- tended by his nimble and pungent pre- decessor. We shall not, in doing so, neces- sarily concede for a moment that the pre- sentment is true, or even that it is defensible in its least significant details ; but we shall not be animated by the right critical spirit unless we admit and heartily recognize its keenly subtle conception, and the artistic fitness and grace manifested in its skilful gradation and embellishment.
THOMAS BAYNE.
DODSLEY'S FAMOUS COLLECTION OF
POETRY.
(See 10 S. vi. 361, 402 ; vii. 3, 82, 284, 404, 442 ; viii. 124, 183, 384, 442 ; ix. 3, 184, 323, 463 ; x. 103, 243, 305, 403.) FOUR small pieces by Anthony Whistler are printed in vol. iv. 320-22 and v. 60-61. The song beginning with the words " While, Strephon, thus you teaze me " (in vol. iv. p. 322), is reprinted in Dr. John Aikin's ' Vocal Poetry,' p. 114.
The family of Whistler owned land in Berkshire and Oxfordshire from the thir- teenth century. The manor of Whitchurch in Oxfordshire, on the bank of the Thames
opposite Pangbourne, became their property
in 1605, and remained with them for over
170 years. John Whistler, gent., was buried
at Whitchurch on 23 Dec., 1626. He
possessed the manor and advowson, and
founded a bread-charity for fourteen poor
people of the parish. The Rev. Henry
Whistler was buried there on 28 Aug., 1672,.
having been the rector of the parish for
56 years.
Antony (sic) Whistler, the poet, was bap- tized at Whitchurch on 15 Nov., 1714. His father, the Rev. Antony Whistler, son of John Whistler (bur. in 1690) and Elizabeth his wife (who survived until 22 April, 1732), was baptized there on 17 Feb., 1669/70 ; matriculated from Wadham College, Oxford, on 17 March, 1686 ; was Goodridge Exhibi- tioner at the college in 1688 and 1689, and a Scholar from 26 Sept., 1690, to 1696. He graduated B.A. 19 Jan., 1690/91, and M.A. 21 June, 1693. In the year 1700 he was appointed by Gilbert Ironside, the Bishop of Hereford, who had been Warden of the College during most of Whistler's, undergraduate days, to the vicarage of Kington in Herefordshire, and to the pre- bendal stall of Pratum Majus in the cathedral church of Hereford. It is said that he- resigned these preferments a few months before his death. He was buried at Whit- church on 6 Feb., 1719/20. His wife was Anne, daughter of Gilbert Cale of Bristol,, who was admitted as Scholar of Wadham College on 5 Oct., 1677. Slabs to several, members of the family, including one in Latin to the memory of the Prebendary,, are on the floor of the nave in the parish church of Whitchurch.
Antony, the poet, was educated at Eton, but in spite of every assistance in school- training he had, says his friend Graves- of Claverton, in his interesting recollections, of Shenstone, " such a dislike to learning languages that he could not read the Classics, but no one formed a better judgment of them." He matriculated from Pembroke College, Oxford, on 21 Oct., 1732, when nearly eighteen years old, Shenstone having matriculated there on the previous 25 May. Graves gives a lively account of the chief sets among the undergraduates. There was one coterie which drank water and read Theophrastus, Epictetus, and, in spite of Bentley's criticisms, the epistles of Phalaris. Another group drank flagons of ale, smoked tobacco, and sang bacchanalian catches. A third set, mostly gentlemen commoners, took port and punch, and wound up their proceedings with bottles of claret. Another
