Vincent of Beauvais, St. Basil, Origen, Epiphanius, and the Christian Fathers.
As the work I have sketched out for myself will require time to mature, I shall publish very shortly a small volume, containing a breviary of the former, which will give some idea of the manner in which I shall treat the proposed subject.
Many correspondents of "N. & Q." have evinced great interest in the line I intend to enter upon. (See Vol. i., pp. 173. 457.; Vol. iv., p. 175.; Vol. vi., pp. 101. 272. 462. 518.) Their Queries have produced no satisfactory result. I myself made a Query in my "Chapter on Flowers," some months ago, respecting Catholic floral directories, and two works in particular, about which I was most anxious, and which were quoted in The Catholic Florist, London, 1851, and I have received no answer. Mr. Oakley, indeed, wrote to me to say that he "only edited it, and wrote a preface," and that he forwarded my Query "to the compiler:" the latter personage, however, has not favoured me with a reply.
In spite of all these discouragements, I have taken the step of bringing my contemplated work before the readers of "N. & Q.," and I shall gratefully acknowledge any communications relative to legends, folk-lore, superstitions, symbolism, &c. bearing on the subjects proposed. As I intend inserting a bibliographical list of the chief works which come under the scope of each volume, I might receive much valuable assistance on this point, especially as regards Oriental and other foreign books, which might escape my researches. As regards the brute creation, I have gotten, with the kind assistance of the editor of "N. & Q.," Hildrop's famous reply to Father Bougeant; and I have sent to Germany for Dr. Kraus's recent work on the subject.
DR. SOUTH'S LATIN TRACT AGAINST SHERLOCK
None of South's compositions are more striking or characteristic than his two English tracts against Sherlock, his Animadversions on Sherlock's Vindication of the Trinity, 1693-94, 4to., and his Tritheism charged on Sherlock's new Notion of the Trinity, 1694, 4to. For caustic wit and tremendous power of vituperation, I scarcely know any controversial works which surpass, or even equal them. South looked upon Sherlock with profound scorn as a Sciolist, and hated him most cordially as a heretic and a political renegade. He accordingly gives him no quarter, and seems determined to draw blood at every stroke. Mrs. Sherlock is of course not forgotten, and one of the happiest passages in the Tritheism charged is the well-known humorous illustration of Socrates and Xantippe, p. 129. It is somewhat curious that, notwithstanding these two works of South have attracted so much notice, it seems to be quite unknown that he also published a Latin tract against Sherlock, in further continuation of the controversy, in which the attack is carried on with equal severity. The title of the tract in question is, Decreti Oxoniensis Vindicatio in Tribus ad Modestum ejusdem examinatorem modestioribus Epistolis a Theologo Transmarino. Excusa Anno Domini 1696, 4to., pp. 92. The tract, of which I have a copy, is anonymous, but it is ascribed to South in the following passages in The Agreement of the Unitarians with the Catholic Church, part i. 1697, 4to., which is included in vol. v. of the 4to. Unitarian Tracts, and evidently written by one who had full information on the subject. His expressions (p. 62.) are—"Dr. South, in his Latin Letters, under the name of a Transmarine Divine;" and a little further on, "Dr. South, in two (English) books by him written, and in three Latin letters, excepts against this (Sherlock's) explication of the Trinity." In confirmation of this ascription, I may observe that the Latin tract is contained in an extensive collection of the tracts in the Trinitarian Controversy formed by Dr. John Wallis, which I possess, and in which he has written the names of the authors of the various anonymous pieces. He took, as is well known, a leading part in the controversy, and published himself an anonymous pamphlet (not noticed by his biographers), also in defence of Oxford decrees. On the title-page of the Latin tract he has written "By Dr. South." I have likewise another copy in a volume which belonged to Stephen Nye, one of the ablest writers in the controversy, and who ascribes it in the list of contents in the fly-leaf, in his handwriting, to Dr. South. These grounds would appear to be sufficient to authorise our including this tract in the list of South's works, though, from the internal evidence of the tract itself alone, I should scarcely have felt justified in ascribing it to him.
SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE
Parallel Passages.—
"You leaden messengers,
That ride upon the violent wings of fire,
Fly with false aim; move the still-piecing air,
That sings with piercing,—do not touch my lord!"
"the elements,
Of whom your swords are tempered, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd at stabs
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish
One dowle that's in my plume."
There can be little doubt that the clever corrector of Mr. Collier's folio had the last of these passages in view when he altered the word move of the first, into wound of the second: but in this instance he overshot the mark, in not perceiving the nice and subtle distinction which exists between them. The first implies possibility: the second impossibility.
In the second, the mention of, to "wound the loud wind, or kill the still-closing water," is to set forth the absurdness of the attempt; but in the first passage there is a direct injunction to a possible act: "Fly with false aim, move the still-piecing air." To say "wound the still-piecing air" would be to direct to be done, in one passage, that which the other passage declares to be absurd to expect!
If it were necessary to disturb move at all, the word cleave would be, all to nothing, a better substitution than wound.
Whether the annotating of Mr. Collier's folio be a real or a pseudo-antique, it is impossible to deny that its executor must have been a clever, as he was certainly a slashing hitter. It cannot, therefore, be wondered that he should sometimes reach the mark: but that these corrections should be received with that blind and superstitious faith, so strangely exacted for them, can scarcely be expected. Indeed, it is to be regretted that they have been introduced to the public with such an uncompromising claim to authority; as the natural repugnance against enforced opinion may endanger the success of the few suggestive emendations, to be found amongst them, which are really new and valuable.
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