138
NOTES AND QUERIES. [HS.XII.AUO. 21, 1915.
MEREDITH AND SHAKESPEARE. There is
an obvious resemblance between Antony's
outburst against Cleopatra after his final
defeat (' Antony and Cleopatra,' IV. xii. 16),
-beginning :
All is lost,
This foul Egyptian has betrayed me, and Alvan's ravings against Clotilde in chap. x. of ' The Tragic Comedians,' when she informs him that henceforth they should be strangers. Indeed, this paragraph of Meredith might serve as a comment upon either scene :
" Big natures in their fits of explosiveness must ~be taken by flying shots, as dwarfs peep on a monster, or the Scythian attacked a phalanx. Were we to hear all the roarings of the shirted Hercules a world of comfortable little ones would doubt the unselfishness of his love of Dejaneira. Yes, really, they would think it w r as not a chival- rous love, they would consider that he thought of himself too much. They would doubt, too, of his being a gentleman ! "
When Cleopatra has left him Antony proceeds :
'Tis well thou'rt gone,
If it be well to live, but better 'twere
Thou fell'st into my fury, for one death
Might have prevented many. Eros, hoa !
The shirt of Nessus is upon me
Surely the reference to the shirted Her- cules in the passage from Meredith shows that, whether consciously or unconsciously, lie had gone to Shakespeare for the idea of the scene. L. COLLISON-MORLEY.
' LES MATINEES DU Roi DE PRTJSSE.' One of the London evening papers having once more called attention to this book, it 'will be interesting to point out that a con- temporary of Frederick the Great, the suspected author (who denied, however, the authorship), has the following remark on the subject :
^ " Apres avoir lu un pamphlet qui a pour titre Les Matinees du Roi de Prusse': ' C'est, dit-il fFrederick], 1'ouvrage de gens qui n'ont rien A, i'aire.' " ' Observations sur la Prusse.' by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre.
L. L. K.
HISTORICAL CHARACTERS USED AS BUG- BEARS. Some years ago ' N. & Q.' discussed the custom of using celebrated commanders, &c., as bugbears to cow wayward children. It may be Veil to note the following threat. A letter written on 21 July, 1915, relates :
" There was a soldier's baby in the carriage yesterday, very much afflicted with its teeth, poor little soul. Its mother tried to stop the cries of distress by saying, ' I'll give you to the Germans.' It was wonderful what a soothing effect it had, and the babe was only twenty months."
P. W. G. M.
WE must request correspondents desiring in-
formation on family matters of only private interest
to affix their names and addresses to their queries,
in order that answers may be sent to them direct.
BOOKWORMS. Could any of your readers
kindly give me any information about
bookworms ? I have recently had an
epidemic of them through my books. They
spread with appalling rapidity, and a book
that I have bought one week will be filled
with them in the next. Unless I can dis-
cover some efficient remedy against these
pests, I shall be forced either to sell (if I can)
or destroy about 150 books, through which,
in the course of two or three months, they
have swept like a pestilence. The species
I am afflicted with is either, I think'
(1) Xylophaga or (2) Dermestes Lordarius.
These, to the best of my knowledge, attack
only the leather or vellum bindings, and leave
the actual pages untouched. They make
small, neat, circular holes in the sides and
backs, and I have never once discovered one
of them. With terrible discrimination, they
leave modern bool^s severely alone. The
remedies I have attempted are : ( 1 ) sulphur
candle ; (2) beeswax and turpentine over
the backs and sides ; (3) quarantining those
attacked with the insect ; (4) exposure to the
sun and to heat (even to the extent of
cockling the sides of some of the books) ;
(5) sprinkling the shelves with naphthaline
powder ; and (6) injecting formalin into the
holes. These efforts may have checked the
worm's ravages, but they have not extir-
pated it. I may, of course, be wrong
as to the species ; the books I have
consulted in the British Museum are too
technically scientific for my very elementary
knowledge. I suspect that the contagion
spread from three folio Bacons which I
bought about six months ago. One of these
Bacons has now seventy-five holes drilled
into the cover. Others of the folios (which
the worm, or louse, or scorpion, whatever it
is, attacks) have only two or three holes. I
should be very greatly obliged to the scholars
and bibliophiles who read ' N. & Q.' if they
would come to my rescue and provide me
with further suggestions either to rid the
books of the insects, or to prevent them from
further encroachments. I think a clay soil
and the recent damp weather may have been
instrumental in encouraging what Blades
calls " the enemies of books."
H. J. MASSINGHAM.
10, Priory Gardens, Highgate, N
