REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES:--Burke's Marriage--Stars and Flowers--Odour from the Rainbow--Judges styled Reverend--Jacob Bobart--"Putting your foot into it"--Simile of the Soul and the Magnetic Needle--The Tragedy of Polidus--Robert Fairlie--"Mater ait natæ," &c.--Sir John Vanbrugh--Fête des Chaudrons--Murder of Monaldeschi--Land of Green Ginger--Unneath--Snail Gardens--Parvise--Humbug--Table-moving--Scotch Newspapers--Door-head Inscriptions--Honorary Degrees--"Never ending, still beginning" 158 MISCELLANEOUS:-- Books and Odd Volumes wanted 162 Notices to Correspondents 162 Advertisements 163 * * * * * Notes. BACON'S ESSAYS, BY MARKBY. Mr. Markby has recently published his promised edition of Bacon's _Essays_; and he has in this, as in his edition of the _Advancement of Learning_, successfully traced most of the passages alluded to by Lord Bacon. The following notes relate to a few points which still deserve attention: Essay I. On Truth:--"The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest."] By "beautified" is here meant "set off to advantage," "embellished." Essay II. On Death.-- Many of the thoughts in the _Essays_ recur in the "Exempla Antithetorum," in the 6th book _De Augmentis Scientiarum_. With respect to this Essay, compare the article "Vita," No. 12., in vol. viii. p. 360. ed. Montagu. "You shall read in some of the friars' books of mortification, that a man should think with himself what the pain is, if he have but his finger's end pressed or tortured, and thereby imagine what the pains of death are when the whole body is corrupted and dissolved."] Query, What books are here alluded to? "Pompa mortis magis terret, quam mors ipsa."] Mr. Markby thinks these words are an allusion to Sen. _Ep._ xxiv. § 13. Something similar also occurs in _Ep._ xiv. § 3. Compare Ovid, _Heroid._ x. 82.: "Morsque minus pœnæ quam mora mortis habet." "Galba, with a sentence, 'Feri si ex re sit populi Romani.'"] In addition to the passage of Tacitus, quoted by Mr. Markby, see Sueton. _Galb._ c. 20. "Septimus Severus in despatch, 'Adeste si quid mihi restat agendum.'"] No such dying words are attributed to Severus, either in Dio Cassius, lxxvi. 15., the passage cited by Mr. Markby, or in Spartian. _Sever._ c. 23. In the passage of Juvenal, the words are, "qui spatium vitæ," and not "qui finem vitæ," as quoted by Lord Bacon. Length of life is meant. Essay III. Of Unity in Religion.-- "Certain Laodiceans and lukewarm persons."] The allusion is to Rev. iii. 14-16. {142}