mettoyt la charrette devant les beufz.""If the sky falls, we shall catch larks."
Rabelais (i. 229, 230.):—
"Si les nues tomboyent, esperoyt prendre alouettes."
"Good nature and good sense must ever join;
To err is human, to forgive divine."
Pope's Essay on Criticism, pp. 524, 525.
"Nay, fly to altars, there they'll talk you dead;
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread."
The Emperor Alexander of Russia is said to have declared himself "un accident heureux." The expression occurs in Mad. de Staël's Allemagne, § xvi.:—
"Mais quand dans un état social le bonbeur lui-même n'est, pour ainsi dire, qu'un accident heureux … le patriotisme a peu de persévérance."
Gibbon, Decl. and Fall (Lond. 1838. 8vo.), i. 134.:—
"His (T. Antoninus Pius') reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materíals for history; which is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind."
Gibbon's first volume was published in 1776, and Voltaire's Ingenii in 1767. In the latter we find—
"En effet, l'historie n'est que le tableau des crimes et des malheurs."—Oeuvres de Voltaire (ed. Beuchot. Paris, 1884. 8vo.), tom. xxxiii. p. 427.
Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 94.:—
"In every deed of mischief, he (Andronicus Comnenus) had a heart to resolve, a head to contrive, and a hand to execute."
Cf. Voltaire, "Siècle de Louis XV." (Oeuvres, xxi. p. 67.):—
"Il (le Chevalier de Belle-Isle) était capable de tout imaginer, de tout arranger, et de tout faire."
"Guerre aux chateaux, paix à la chaumière,"
ascribed to Condorcet, in Edin. Rev. April, 1800. p. 240. (note*)
By Thiers (Hist. de la Rév. Franç. Par. 1846. 8vo. ii. 283.), these words are attributed to Cambon; while, in Lamartine's Hist. des Girondins (Par. 1847. 8vo.), Merlin is represented to have exclaimed in the Assembly, "Déclarez la guerre aux rois et la paix aux nations."
Macaulay's Hist. of England (1st ed.), ii. 476:—
"But the iron stoicism of William never gave way: and he stood among his weeping friends calm and austere, as if he had been about to leave them only for a short visit to his hunting-grounds at Loo."
"… non alitèr tamen
Dimovit obstantes propinquos,
Et populum reditus morantem,
Quàm si clientum longa negotia
Dijudicatâ lite relinqueret,
Tendens Venafranos in agros,
Aut Lacedæmonium Tarentum."
"De meretrice puta quòd sit sua filia puta,
Nam sequitur levitèr filia matris iter."
These lines are said by Ménage (Menagiana, Amstm. 1713. 18mo., iii. 12mo.) to exist in a Commentary "In composita verborum Joannis de Galandiâ."
WILLIAM BASSE AND HIS POEMS
Your correspondent, the Rev. T. Corser, in his note on William Basse, says, that he has been informed that there are, in Winchester College Library, in a 4to. volume, some poems of that writer. I have the pleasure of assuring him that his information is correct, and that they are the "Three Pastoral Elegies" mentioned by Ritson. The title-page runs thus:—
"Three Pastoral Elegies of Anander, Anetor, and Muridella, by William Bas. Printed by V.S. for J.B., and are to be sold at his shop in Fleet Street, at the sign of the Great Turk's Head, 1602."
Then follows a dedication, "To the Honourable and Virtuous Lady, the Lady Tasburgh;" from which dedication it appears that these Pastoral Elegies were among the early efforts of his Muse. The author, after making excuses for not having repaid her Ladyship's encouragement earlier, says,—
"Finding my abilitie too little to make the meanest satisfaction of so great a principall as is due to so many favourable curtesies, I am bold to tende your Ladyship this unworthy interest, wherewithal I will put in good securitie, that as soone as time shall relieve the necessitie of my young invention, I will disburse my Muse to the uttermost mite of my power, to make some more acceptable composition with your bounty. In the mean space, living without hope to be ever sufficient inough to yeeld your worthinesse the smallest halfe of your due, I doe only desire to leave your ladyship in assurance—
"That when increase of age and learning sets
My mind in wealthi'r state than now it is,
I'll pay a greater portion of my debts,
Or mortgage you a better Muse than this;
Till then, no kinde forbearance is amisse,
While, though I owe more than I can make good,
This is inough, to shew how faine I woo'd,
The first Pastoral consists of thirty-seven stanzas; the second of seventy-two; the third of forty-eight; each stanza of eight ten-syllable verses, of which the first six rhyme alternately; the last two are a couplet. There is a short argument, in verse, prefixed to each poem. That of the first runs thus:—
"Anander lets Anetor wot
His love, his lady, and his lot."
of the second,—
"Anetor seeing, seemes to tell
The beauty of faire Muridell,
And in the end, he lets hir know
Anander's plaint, his love, his woe."
of the third,—
Anander sick of love's disdaine
Doth change himself into a swaine;
While dos the youthful shepherd show him
His Muridellaes answer to him."
This notice of these elegies cannot fail to be highly interesting to your correspondent on Basse and his works, and others of your readers who feel an interest in recovering the lost works of our early poets.
Winchester, March 16. 1850.
FOLK LORE
Something else about "Salting."—On the first occasion, after birth, of any children being taken into a neighbour's house, the mistress of the house always presents the babe with an egg, a little flour, and some salt; and the nurse, to ensure good luck, gives the child a taste of the pudding, which is forthwith compounded out of these ingredients. This little "mystery" has occurred too often to be merely accidental; indeed, all my poorer neighbours are familiarly
