234
NOTES AND QUERIES. 112 s. v. SEPT, 1919.
OFFICIAL PEACE REJOICINGS. Touching
the neglect of the Port of London in the
matter of official peace rejoicings, a corre-
spondent writes that he well remembers
being taken to Victoria Park on May 29.
1856, when there was a grand official
firework display to mark the termination oi
the Crimean campaign and its many blunders
and glories, and the end of the Franco -
British War with " the Autocrat of all the
Russias." Me.
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.
EMERSON'S ' ENGLISH TRAITS.' I should
be grateful for any suggestions, elucidations,
or reference to sources or authorities for any
of the following passages in the above work.
References to pages and lines follow the
World's Classics Edition. Phrases in
brackets are my own.
1. P. 11, 1. 33. [Wordsworth advised Americans! never to call into action the physical strength of the people, as had just now [1832] been done in England in the Keform Bill, a thing prophesied by Delolme. [What is the " thing prophesied by D." the Bill, or its effect in calling into action, &c. And where does such a prophecy occur in D.'s writings ?]
2. P. 13, 1. 22. KrrjfM es Aei. [From Thucy- dides, I believe ; but I have no reference.]
3. P. 19, 1. 4. [Concerning the English claim to the sovereignty of the seas against the Dutch.] " As if," they said, " we contended for the drops of the sea, and not for its situation, or the bed of those waters. The sea is bounded by His Majesty's empire." [Is this a literal quotation from any source ? If a general abstract, to what date may it be referred ?]
4. P. 19, 1. 20. Alfieri thought Italy and England the only countries worth living in. [Perhaps from Alfieri's autobiography.]
5. P. 22, 1. 16. Charles the Second said, " it [the English climate] invited men abroad more days in the year and more hours in the day than any other country."
6. P. 23, 1. 2. The epigram on the climate by an English wit, "In a fine day, looking up a chimney ; in a foul day, looking down one."
7. P. 23, 1. 13. Sir John Herschel said, " London was the centre of the terrene globe."
8. P. 23, 1. 28. Chestnut Street. [Apparently a street in Philadelphia ; but is it the Park Lane of Philadeplhia, or the Throgmorton Street, or what ?]
9. P. 24, 1. 29. Fontenelle thought that nature had sometimes a little affectation.
10. P. 25, 1. 32. Humboldt reckons three races of men. [I cannot find any such reckoning. In his ' Cosmos ' H. deprecates such divisional classification.]
11. P. 28, 1. 5. Our Hoosiers, Suckers, ancl
Badgers of the American woods. [Where are-
these tribes located ?]
12. P. 30, 1. 8. Defoe said in his wrath, " the-i Englishman was the mud of all races." [I cannot- trace any such phrase literally. Is it merely given as the gist of D.'s ' True-born Englishman' ?p
13. P. 32, 1. 8. The Celts or Sidonides are an old family. [Liddell and Scott give " Phoeni- cians " as a meaning for " Sidonides." Is it so used in classical literature ? Has Emerson any authority for identifying the Celts with the Phoenicians, or is he following some theory now- abandoned ?]
14. P. 35, 1. 25. The [Norman] conquest has- obtained in the chronicles the name of the "memory of sorrow." [I have not found any such " name," though passages on the people'^ misery are common enough.]
15. P. 36, 1. 37. Alfieri said, " The crimes of Italy were the proof of the superiority of the stock." [Probably in A.'s autobiography.]
16. P. 37, 1. 23. The right of the husband to- . sell the wife [in England] has been retained down to our times. [Is this still true ? If not, when was the right abolished ? ' English Traits *" ; was published in 1856.]
17. P. 38, 1. 5. As early as the conquest it is- remarked in explanation of the wealth of England that its merchants trade to all countries.
18. P. 39, 1. 32. I apply to Britannia the words in which her latest novelist portrays his- heroine : " She is as mild as she is game, and as- game as she is mild." [Who is thfe heroine ? I I should guess the novelist to be Thackeray.]
19. P. 40, 1. 2. Admiral Rodney's figure ap-j proached to delicacy and effeminacy, and he declared himself very sensible to fear, which he- \ surmounted only by considerations of honour and public duty.
20. P. 40, 1. 9. Sir Edward Parry said the- other day of Sir John Franklin, that, " if he found Wellington Sound open, he explored it ? ^ for he was a man who never turned his back on
a danger, yet of that tenderness, that he wouldJ not brush away a, mosquito." [Who was Sir- Edward Parry ? Can his observation on Franklin be traced ?]
(Rev.) R. FLETCHER. Buckland, Faringdon, Berks.
WORDSWORTH : * THE EXCURSION T : GRAS- MERE CHURCH. 1. In book vi. (Knight vol. v. p. 261, 11. 515-26 ; Macmillarx, 1888 p. 489) the following inscription is given as being " around the margin of the plate " o! a dial in Grasmere churchyard :
We gathered, as we read, The appropriate sense, in Latin numbers couched r ' Time flies : it is his melancholy task To bring and bear away delusive hopes And reproduce the troubles he destroys. But while his blindness thus is occupied, Discerning mortal, do thou serve the will 3f Time's eternal Master, and that peace Which the world wants, shall be by thee confirmed.""
followed immediately by the Solitary's-
comment :
Smooth verse, inspired by no unletter'd Muse~
