Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 131, May 1, 1852: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.Various
History
Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 131, May 1, 1852: A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
"_History is Philosophy teaching by Examples_" (Vol. v., p. 153.).--If
your correspondent T., who cannot find this passage in any of Lord
Bolingbroke's writings, will turn to the second letter of that nobleman,
"On the Study and Use of History," he will perceive that the sentence is
there quoted from Dionysius of Halicarnassus. The writer in the
_Encyclopædia Metropolitana_ evidently takes it at second-hand from this
work; and there can be no doubt that the currency of the quotation is
entirely attributable to Lord Bolingbroke's use of it. This sentence is
the text which he illustrates at much length in his historical essay.
JOSHUA G. FITCH.
_On a Passage in Pope_ (Vol. i., p. 201.).--P. C. S. S. has an inquiry
respecting the interpretation of these lines in Pope's Imitation of
Horace's "Epistle to Augustus:"
"The hero William and the martyr Charles,
One knighted Blackmore, and one pension'd Quarles;
_Which made old Ben, and surly Dennis swear,
'No Lord's Anointed, but a Russian bear!'_"
And C. having repeated this Query (Vol. iv., p. 59.), I am induced to
impart to them a "guess" which I made not long since. I must premise by
asking your correspondents whether the unctuous substance known as
"bear's grease" was in use at the period referred to; and if the reply
be in the affirmative, I would suggest the following interpretation of
the couplet.
King William and King Charles had shown so little wisdom and
discrimination in their knighting and pensioning of worthless poets,
that they must be supposed to have been anointed, at their coronation,
with bear's grease, instead of the holy ointment commonly used for such
purposes, and which is considered to possess the power of conferring on
the kingly office those very virtues in which William and Charles had
shown themselves so deficient. In this sense, Old Ben and Dennis, each
in reference to the sovereign of his time, might have exclaimed,--
"No Lord's Anointed, but a Russian bear."
--the word "Russian" being obviously intended to describe bears in
general.
It is not for me to say how far this guess about "bear's grease" may
suit the fancy of C. and P. C. S. S. They will probably look upon it as
"tiré par les cheveux." If so, let them produce a better solution.
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia.
_Plague Stones_ (Vol. v., pp. 226. 333.).--Near Ravensworth Castle is a
stone column, concerning which there is a tradition that it was one of
the crosses erected to hold markets at during the great plague at
Newcastle in 1645, when the produce of the county was not allowed to be
exposed for sale at a less distance than three miles from that town.
C. T.
There is another stone of this description on the boundary between Dent
and Widdal, in the West Riding of the county of York; it is near an old
road from Dent to Hawes, and is now called the "Cross upon Cross-hills."
W. B. M.
Dee Side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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