which reads very like a blunder. It occurs in the "Spanish Friar," as follows:—

And again in this couplet:

There is a description of madness to which all men are more or less subject, and which Pascal alludes to in one of his "Pensées:"

"Les hommes sont si nécessairement fous, que ce serait être fou par un autre tour de folie, que de ne pas être fou:"

or, as Boileau has it in the couplet:

There is another sort of madness which is described by Terence as

And there is a third species of it, which Dryden himself speaks of in the well-known line adopted from Seneca:

Now, it is obvious that, in the passages above quoted from Dryden, he does not refer to any of these three kinds of madness. As a man, he could say in regard to the first:

As a man of the world his whole life was an exemplification of the second; for no one knew better than he how to be mad by rule. And as one of our greatest wits he was entitled to claim a near alliance to that madness which is characteristic of men of genius. It is clear, therefore, that, in the lines quoted above, he speaks of that total deprivation of reason, which is emphatically described as stark, staring madness; and hence the blunder. In point of fact, Dryden either knew the pleasure and happiness of which he speaks, as belonging to that sort of madness, or he did not know them. If he knew them, then by his own showing he was a madman. If he did not know them, how could he affirm that none but madmen knew them?

Should my view of this matter be incorrect, I shall be thankful to any of your readers who will take the trouble to set me right.

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia, April 15. 1851.

Minor Notes.

Lord Edward Fitzgerald's Mother.

—A highly respectable woman, recently living in my service, and who was born and bred in the household of the late Duke of Leinster, told me that, when she was a child, she was much about the person of "the old Duchess;" and that she had often seen the bloody handkerchief that was taken off Lord Edward Fitzgerald, after he had been shot at his capture. This relic of her unfortunate son the venerable and noble lady always wore stitched inside her dress. The peerage states that she was a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, was married in 1746-7, and bore seventeen children. As the arrest of Lord Edward Fitzgerald was not until 1798, she must have been full seventy years old when she thus mourned; reminding one in the sternness of her grief of the "Ladye of Branksome."

A. G.

Chaucer and Gray.

—Of all the oft-quoted lines from Gray's Elegy, there is not one which is more frequently introduced than the well-known

Now Gray was an antiquary, and there is no doubt too well read in Chaucer. Is it too much, therefore, to suggest that he owed this line to one in Chaucer's "Reves Prologue:"

In Chaucer the sentiment it embodies is satirical:—

In Gray, on the other hand, it is the moralist who solemnly declares:

But the coincidence cannot surely be accidental.

WILLIAM J. THOMS.

Shakspeare Family.

—In the Rotulorum Patentium et Clausorum Cancellariæ Hiberniæ Calendarium, vol. i. pars i. p. 99 b. is an entry, which shows that one Thomas Shakespere and Richard Portyngale were appointed Comptrollers of Customs in the port of Youghal, in Ireland, in the fifty-first year of Edward III.

J. F. F.

Epitaph on Dr. Humphrey Tindall (Vol. iii., p. 422.).

—The epitaph in Killyleagh churchyard is not unlike the following inscription on the tomb of Umphrey Tindall, D.D., Dean of Ely and President of Queen's College, Cambridge, who died Oct 12, 1650, in his sixty-fifth year, and is buried in the south aisle of the choir of Ely Cathedral:—

K. C.

Cambridge.

Specimens of Composition.

—In the current (June) number of the Eclectic Review there is a critique on Gilfillan's Bards of the Bible, the writer of which indulges in the use of several most inelegant, extraordinary, and unpardonable expressions. He speaks of "spiritual monoptotes," &c., as if all his readers were as learned as he himself professes to be: but the climax of his sorry literary attempt is as follows:

"Over the whole literature of modern times there is a feeling of reduced inspiration, milder possession, relaxed orgasmus, tabescent vitality, spiritual collapse."—P. 725.

What would the author of the Spectator have thought of a writer who could unblushingly parade before the literary public such words as "relaxed orgasmus," "tabescent vitality," "monoptotes," &c.?

J. H. KERSHAW.

Burke's "mighty Boar of the Forest."

—It has been much canvassed, what induced Burke to call Junius the "mighty boar of the forest." In the thirteenth book of the Iliad I found that Idomeneus, when awaiting the attack of Æneas, is compared to the "boar of the mountains." I think it therefore probable that Burke applied the comparison (quoting, from memory) to Junius. Perhaps you will not think this trifle unworthy of a place among the "Notes."

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

Queries.

QUERIES ON TENNYSON.

I should be much obliged to any of your correspondents who would explain the following passages of Tennyson:

1. Vision of Sin (Poems, p. 361.):

2. Vision of Sin (Poems, p. 367.):

3. In Memoriam, p. 127.:

(Coleridge, Introduction to Second Lay Sermon, p. xxvi.,