—Editor ↩
With this open mind with regard to the future, compare Charles Kingsley’s “reverent curiosity” (Letters and Memoirs, etc., 1883, p. 349). —Editor ↩
“We usually try which way the wind bloweth, by casting up grass or chaff, or such light things into the air.”
—Bacon’s Natural History, No. 820, Works, 1740, III 168
—Editor ↩
“The World was all before them.”
Paradise Lost, bk. XII line 646
—Editor ↩
“But why then publish?—Granville, the polite,
Pope, “Prologue to Satires,” lines 135, 136
And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write.”
—Editor ↩
Virg., Aen., II 91 “(Haud ignota);” et Aen., line 6. —Editor ↩
Hor., Od. III 2. 26. —Editor ↩
And though by no means overpowered with riches,
—[MS. erased]
Would gladly place beneath it my last rag of breeches.
Craning.—“To crane” is, or was, an expression used to denote a gentleman’s stretching out his neck over a hedge, “to look before he leaped;”—a pause in his “vaulting ambition,” which in the field doth occasion some delay and execration in those who may be immediately behind the equestrian sceptic. “Sir, if you don’t choose to take the leap, let me!”—was a phrase which generally sent the aspirant on again; and to good purpose: for though “the horse and rider” might fall, they made a gap through which, and over him and his steed, the field might follow. ↩
The sulky Huntsman grimly said “The Frenchman
—[MS. erased]
Was almost worthy to become his henchman.”
And what not—though he had ridden like a Centaur
—[MS.]
When called next day declined the same adventure.
Mr. W. Ernst, in his Memoirs of the Life of Lord Chesterfield, 1893 (p. 425, note 2), quotes these lines in connection with a comparison between French and English sport, contained in a letter from Lord Chesterfield to his son, dated June 30, 1751:
“The French manner of hunting is gentlemanlike; ours is only for bumpkins and boobies.”
Elsewhere, however (The World, No. 92, October 3, 1754), commenting on a remark of Pascal’s, he admits “that the jolly sportsman … improves his health, at least, by his exercise.” —Editor ↩
“… as she skimm’d along,
Dryden’s Virgil (Aen., VII 1101, 1102)
Her flying feet unbath’d on billows hung.”
—Editor ↩
See Poetical Works, 1898, I 492, note 1. —Editor ↩
Guido’s fresco of the Aurora, “scattering flowers before the chariot of the sun” is on a ceiling of the Casino in the Palazzo Rospigliosi, in Rome. —Editor ↩
Byron described Count Alfred D’Orsay as having “all the airs of a Cupidon déchaîné.” See letters to Moore and the Earl of Blessington, April 2, 1823, Letters, 1901, VI 180, 185. —Editor ↩
In Swift’s or Horace Walpole’s letters I think it is mentioned that somebody, regretting the loss of a friend, was answered by an universal Pylades: “When I lose one, I go to the Saint James’s Coffeehouse, and take another.” I recollect having heard an anecdote of the same kind.—Sir W. D. was a great gamester. Coming in one day to the Club of which he was a member, he was observed to look melancholy.—“What is the matter, Sir William?” cried Hare, of facetious memory.—“Ah!” replied Sir W., “I have just lost poor Lady D.”—“Lost! What at? Quinze or Hazard?” was the consolatory rejoinder of the querist.
[The dramatis personae are probably Sir William Drummond (1770–1828), author of the Academical Questions, etc., and Francis Hare, the wit, known as the “ ‘Silent Hare,’ from his extreme loquacity.” —Gronow’s Reminiscences, 1889, II 98–101] ↩
They own that you are fairly dished at last.
—[MS. erased]
The famous Chancellor [Axel Oxenstiern (1583–1654)] said to his son, on the latter expressing his surprise upon the great effects arising from petty causes in the presumed mystery of politics:
“You see by this, my son, with how little wisdom the kingdoms of the world are governed.”
[The story is that his son John, who had been sent to represent him at the Congress of Westphalia, 1648, wrote home to complain that the task was beyond him, and that he could not cope with the difficulties which he was encountering, and that the Chancellor replied,
“Nescis, mi fili, quantillâ prudentiâ homines regantur.”
—Biographie Universelle, art. “Oxenstierna”]
Who are our sureties that our moral pure is.
—[MS. erased]
And not to encourage whispering in the house.
—[MS. erased]
Once upon a time, Tiresias, who was shepherding on Mount Cyllene, wantonly stamped with his heel on a pair of snakes, and was straightway turned into a woman. Seven years later he was led to treat another pair of snakes in like fashion, and, happily or otherwise, was turned back into a man. Hence, when Jupiter and Juno fell to wrangling on the comparative enjoyments of men and women, the question was referred to Tiresias, as a person of unusual experience and authority. He gave it in favour of the woman, and Juno, who was displeased at his answer, struck him with blindness. But Jupiter, to make amends, gave him the “liberty of prophesying” for seven, some say nine, generations. (See Ovid, Metam., III 320; and Thomas Muncker’s notes on the Fabulae of Hyginus, No. LXXV ed. 1681, pp. 126–128.) —Editor ↩
Midsummer Night’s Dream, act II sc. I, line 168. —Editor ↩
See La Nouvelle Héloïse. ↩
Hor., Epod., II line 1. ↩
