Notes and Queries, Number 199, August 20, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Geneologists, etc. — John Shaqi
Notes and Queries, Number 199, August 20, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Geneologists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 199, August 20, 1853: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Geneologists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
Quarles has it in his _Emblems_, Book iv. Epigram 2.:--
"Pilgrim, trudge on; what makes thy soul complain?
Crowns thy complaint; the way to rest is pain:
The road to resolution lies by doubt;
The next way home's the farthest way about."
We find it in this couplet in Butler:
"For discords make the sweetest airs,
And curses are a kind of prayers."
Rochester has it in the line--
"An eminent fool must be a man of parts."
It occurs in Junius's remark--
"Your Majesty may learn hereafter how nearly the slave and the
tyrant are allied."
and in the following well-known passage in the same writer:
"He was forced to go through every division, resolution,
composition, and refinement of political chemistry, before
he happily arrived at the _caput mortuum_ of vitriol in your
grace. Flat and insipid in your retired state; but, brought
into action, you become vitriol again. Such are the extremes
of alternate indolence or fury which have governed your whole
administration."
The thought here (be it said in passing) seems to have been adopted from
these lines in Rochester:
"Wit, like tierce claret, when 't begins to pall,
Neglected lies, and 's of no use at all;
But in its full perfection of decay
Turns vinegar, and comes again in play."
But the most beautiful application of this sentiment that I have met
with, occurs in an essay on "The Uses of Adversity," by Mr. Herman
Hooker, an American writer:--
"A pious lady, who had lost her husband, was for a time
inconsolable. She could not think, scarcely could she speak,
of anything but him. Nothing seemed to take her attention but
the three promising children he had left her, singing to her
his presence, his look, his love. But soon these were all
taken ill, and died within a few days of each other; and now
the childless mother was calmed even by the greatness of the
stroke. As the lead that goes quickly down to the ocean's depth
ruffled its surface less than lighter things, so the blow which
was strongest did not so much disturb her calm of mind, but
drove her to its proper trust."
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia.
* * * * *
PASSAGE IN THE BURIAL SERVICE.
(Vol. iii., p. 78.)
"In the midst of life we are in death."
A writer in the _Parish Choir_ (vol. iii. p. 140.) gives the following
account of this passage. He says:
"The passage in question is found in the _Cantarium Sti.
Galli_, or choir-book of the monks of St. Gall in Switzerland,
published in 1845, with, however, a slight deviation from the
text, as we are accustomed to it.
'_Mediâ Vitâ of St. Notker._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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