Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/185

This page needs to be proofread.

9* 8. IV. Sept. 30,'99.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 265 of trade catalogues that it may be well to chronicle the fact that the author of these amusing essays is Mr. C. W. R. Cooke (now M.P. for Hereford), and not Lady Dufferin. C. S. Ward. Wootton St. Lawrence, Basingstoke. " Le mot de Cambronne."—In a letter to the Times, published on 13 Sept., a French- man, in his zeal for the honour or the army, politely gave the editor " le mot de Cam- bronne." For explanation I would refer your readers to ' Les Miserables' of Victor Hugo, part ii. book i. chap, xiv., who, in his descrip- tion of the battle of Waterloo, ends thus :— " Un general anglais, Colville 6elon les una, Mait- land scion les autres, leur crie: Braves Frangais, rendez-vous ! Cambronne r^pondit: Merde!" A. L. Mayhew. Oxford. Campbell's 'Hohenlinden.'—Mr. Mowbray Morris, annotating ' Hohenlinden' in his 'Poet's Walk' (Macmillan's "Golden Treasury Series"), says that the poet " witnessed the battle from the top of a neighbouring monastery." This popular error has been refuted again and again. The true state of matters may be found by reference to Beattie's ' Life of Campbell' or to the article on the poet in the Dictionary of National Bio- graphy.' Campbell was at Altona when Hohenlinden was fought. He had previously witnessed a skirmish from the safe standpoint of a monastery, and he had been on the ground where the famous battle took place. Thomas Bayne. The Last of the pre-Reform M.P.s.—The recent death of the fourth Earl of Mexborough should not be allowed to pass unnoticed by 'N. & Q.' Little more than two years ago (see ' N. <fc Q.,' 8th S. xi. 465) three ex-M.P.s were living who had sat in the House of Commons before the passing of the first Re- form Bill. These were the Earl of Mansfield, who, as Viscount Stormont. represented the (now defunct) borough of Alaborough in 1830: the Duke of Northumberland, who, as Lord Lovaine, sat for the (now also defunct) borough of Beeralston in 1831 ; and the Earl of Mex- borough, who, as Viscount Pollington, was M.P. for the (now also disfranchised) borough of Gatton in 1831. The Earl of Mansfield died in 1898 at the advanced age of ninety-two ; the Duke of Northumberland and the Earl of Mexborough have both passed away during the present year, the one in his eighty-ninth and the other in his ninetieth year. Some two or, at most, three ex-M.P.s still survive who were chosen in the later Parliaments of William IV., but the number of pre-Victorian and also early Victorian members of the House of Commons is now exceedingly limited. W. D. Pink. Leigh, Lancashire. Pluto in Shakespeare as God of Wealth. —In ' Julius Caesar,' IV. iii. 101, the First Folio reads :— Within, a Heart Deerer then Pluto's Mine, Richer then Gold ; and in ' Troilus and Cressida,' III. iii. 196 :— The prouidence that's in a watchfull State, Knowes almost euery graine of Plutoes gold. Editors with one consent read "Plutus"'—a needless tampering with the poet's text. Even if Greek writers had not definitely connected Pluto with the idea of riches under the earth, Shakespeare, who had small Latin and less Greek, is not a nice authority on points of classical usage ; and for his " Pluto here he had the authority of Marlowe. Of Greek references it is sufficient to quote Lucian, ' Timon,' 21 (where Plutus is the speaker): 6 TIXovtiov dirocTTeKkti fxt Trap' auroiis art 7rAovTo6oT7)S Kal /xeyaAoSwpos Kai avros oil &r)oi yovv Kal T<j> ovofiari. But a decisive vindication of the Folio text occurs in ' Hero and Leander,' at the close of the second sestiad :— Whence his admiring eyes more pleasure tooke, Than Dis, on heapes of gold fixing his looke. The metrical and textual impossibility of substituting "Pluto" here has curbed the ready pen of the emendator. Mr. Mark Hunter calls my attention to a parallel passage in Webster's ' Duchess of Malfi,' III. ii., sig. G. 3, in the edition of 1623: Bos. Sure he was too honest: Pluto the god of riches, When he's sent (by lupiter) to any man He goes limping, to signifie that wealth That comes on god's name, comes slowly ; but when he's sent One the diuells arrand, he rides poast, and comes in by scuttles. Dyce, in a note on this, quotes Bacon's ' Essay on Riches ':— " The poets feign, that when Plutus (which is riches) is sent from Jupiter, he limps and goes slowly; but when he is sent from Pluto, he runs and is swift of foot." As corroborative evidence these extracts are valuable; the quotation from Marlowe is con- clusive. I suppose it is not necessary to dwell on Shakespeare's debt to Marlowe, or the tribute which he paid in ' As You Like It' to ' Hero and Leander.' Percy Simpson. "The morn."—Charles Kingsley, in 'Water Babie"' rhan ii#l represents the venerable ~-school in Vendale as ad-