LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1877. CONTENTS.-N. 196. NOTES:-Mont St. Michel, 241-Percy Bysshe Shelley, 242 and accompanying priests taking practical part in the manœuvre. At starting I packed six of the smallest and most wearied boys into my vehicle, and away we went across the sands and a strip of sea to the Mount of the Archangel. Witches and Witchcraft, 244-Voltaire and Vanbrugh, 245 -Epitaph at Newton Heath-Robert Monteith-The Early Directly we got on the sands, a very fine scene, Worship of Jesus in Wales-Parallel Passages, 246. with sensational effects, was acted in my presence. QUERIES:-Hen. Stephens's Apology for Herodotus, Eng- The moon was almost full, and there was not a lish Translation, 246-Basset Family-Sir W. Withers-J. cloud in the sky. The sands were sparkling in Taylor, the Water Poet-"The Dorias: a Drama"-Mary, the moonlight, and the Mount stood out in grand "Pullas"-P. Jones-Walwyn: Tevant-Piepowder Court relief. As I was gazing at it, just as my trap -E. Waller-Beauchief Abbey, 248-Laurence Sterne-entered the water, with the priests and their to Rome-Cleopatra's Needle-Authors orphan pupils drawn up in a line, they burst into Lady Chudleigh-Mrs. M. Gillet, 247-Radish Feasts-A Arms-London Wanted, &c., 249. REPLIES:-Sir Walter Scott and the Use of the Cope, 249The Isle of Man, 251-“O rare Ben Jonson" and H. Care, 252-A Geographical Horn-George Wither, 253-The Rev. W. Harness-Dr. Misaubin-Heraldic-The late Alexander Knox, 254-Sir T. Arundell-Witchcraft Trials-S. T. Coleridge - Claude François Menestrier-T. Cogan, 255 "Esquire"-Heraldic-Title of "Prince," 256-Basill Kennett-Mountain Sounds-C. Henley-Berengaria, Consort of Richard I.-Cowdray-The Yacht America, 257-"Lead, kindly Light"-Burial Custom-Mottoes on Book-platesShakspeare and the Bible-Wolfe's Grandfather-Books on Special Subjects, 258-Mrs. Jordan-The Oldest Provincial Circulating Libraries- "Semper Eadem". "Thou" and "You"-Authors Wanted, 259. Notes on Books, &c. six P.M. Notes. MONT ST. MICHEL. On landing at Granville, I hired a vehicle to take me to Mont St. Michel. It was a sort of waggonette, and a couple of young Normans undertook the driving. This seemed a superfluity of charioteers, but they drove well, chatted freely, and had no more fondness for cider or la goutte than belongs to Norman natures. We set off at In less than an hour we were enveloped in a thunderstorm, from which we took refuge and found refreshment in a quaint roadside inn. We resumed our journey with the return of fine weather, and reached Genest at half-past ten. Here my coachmen resolved that it was necessary to bait. We were so near the end of our ten or twelve leagues, that to tarry at Genest seemed an unnecessary proceeding; but needs must when Normans drive, and I entered the auberge till it might please them again to wend. I had no reason to be dissatisfied. I found in the public room the Abbé and also the Prior of St. Michel, with fifty orphan pupil boys who had been out with them on a long day's excursion. I was cordially received; and when it was known that I was bound for the "Mount," it was agreed that we should go together. At a gentle word of command from the Abbé, "Déchaussez-vous!" all the boys took off their shoes and stockings, and tucked their trousers above the knees; the Abbé melody with a canticle, and never ceased singing as long as they were wading. This was about half an hour, the water being, at most, two feet deep. I bent over the side of the vehicle, and held up the shortest boy. The little fellow went on singing all the while. The Abbé led the choir with great vigour, and he had the enthusiastic support of his pupils. One of the verses of sacred harmony ran thus :"Saint Michel, à votre puissance Nous venons demander l'appui des anciens jours. Qu'il monte jusqu'au Ciel ce vieux cri de la France, 'Saint Michel, à notre secours !'" On arriving at the hotel, there was no room in it for even one solitary stranger, and at a late hour at night I was glad to find quarters, the aspect of which was not of a gladsome character. I shared a double-bedded chamber with a devout unknown, who earnestly prayed that Heaven would send the "lumières de la croyance" on his chamber companion. In the morning a sous-diacre brought me an invitation from M. l'Abbé to visit him at the Mount. He was exceedingly kind to me, and showed me well over the place himself. Our conversation was literary, political, and religious. Among the last was included a singular incident. Two years ago an English lady, a "Protestante du secte ritualistique," expressed to him a desire to become a convert. The Abbé received her confession, but absolution was withheld, as she was not a member of his communion. Two days later the lady perished in an attempt to reach the Tombelaine rock. The Abbé saw her drowning, gave her absolution from a distance, and buried her with all the rites of his church. Among the treasures of the abbey my kind host showed me a superb crown, covered with jewels, which had lately been presented to St. Michael by many of his devotees. The presentation was called "the crowning of St. Michael"; and the Abbé informed me that not only did the coronation take place, but that the archangel assisted at the ceremony, which, according to details too long to narrate, was one of extraordinary pomp and gorgeousness, and which has made the June of 1877 the most celebrated month of the year. The Abbé also exhibited to me a portrait of the archangel, and assured me that St. Michael would very soon descend on a mission to drive "le vice et la misère" from off the face of the earth. ... There are six nuns at St. Michael's who are under the archangel's protection. There are about double that number of fisherwomen, who partly live by serving as models to the numerous artists who come here to make sketches, and to risk catching typhus. But none of these seem to be under any especial patronage of the saint. The town itself would be very much the better for rigorous sanitary laws, vigorously carried out. These, with the good pleasure of St. Michael, might render the locality less exposed to fever and ague. I drew up a prescription for one reverend gentleman, by whom it was thoroughly appre ciated. I have spoken of " a coronation," but in fact there were two; one within the abbey, the other a crowning of the figure of St. Michael on the summit of the exterior of the edifice. Both were marked by extreme magnificence, made up of military display, horse and foot; brigades of monks, brilliant groups of princes of the church, minor hosts of priests, citizens of all ranks, ladies, flowers, incense, and music. The processions filled the town, and surrounded it when they took to the water. At the moment of crowning the external figure, 15,000 pilgrims were in kneeling masses from the heights to the shore. Cardinal Bonnechose, Abp. of Rouen, gave the benediction, which "rolled like a cascade" from the high platform down to the level of the sea, as the heads of the worshippers, terrace after terrace, bent beneath it. I was told that all the "cries" raised by the spectators were arranged beforehand, and no shout arose but for St. Michael and the Church. Even Notre Dame de Mont Tombe (De Monte Tumbâ, ancient name of the gigantic rock) was only silently honoured on this occasion. St. Michael rather than St. Denis seemed to be the sovereign protector of France; he was separated from St. George, to whom chivalry had bound him; and he was hailed in these words of a hymn to his especial honour :"Te splendor et virtus Patris, Te vita, Jesu, cordium, Ab ore qui pendent tuo, Laudamus inter Angelos." The following is from a hymn to St. Michael, sung by the body of pilgrims as they ascended the Mount to the Basilica : "Dum committeres bellum cum dracone, audita est in Coelo vox dicentium: Salus, honor et virtus omnipotenti Deo. Sancte. "Concussum est mare, contremuit terra, ubi descendebas de Coelo; veni in adjutorium populo Dei. Sancte. Consurge, Michaël, sta pro filiis nostris, salventur omnes scripti in libro vitæ ; sta in auxilium animabus justis. Sancte. "Archangele Michaël, præposite Paradisi, quem honorificant Angelorum cives; nos omnes perducas in Paradisum exultationis. Sancte. "Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sancte." I could say much more of what I heard from the that this may reach you in time for the Michaelamiable Abbé H— ; but I pause, in the hope mas number of " N. & Q.," and that you may find it of sufficient interest to give it the honour of insertion. ALBAN H. G. DORAN, F.R.C.S. [A few words may here be added in respect to St. Michael and his connexion with St. George. M. Clermont Ganneau has recently brought to light in the Louvre a bas-relief, representing a horseman spearing a crocodile. But for the hawk's head of the cavalier, the group might represent St. George and the Dragon. This work, however, of a late period of Egyptian art, represents "the combat of Horus against Set or Typhon." M. Ganneau is of opinion that St. George and the Dragon, and Bel and Dagon, are identical with Horus and Typhon. The cult of St. George prevailed in Philistia, where Dagon, the fish god, was worshipped. An Arab tradition says that Messiah will slay the Antichrist at Lydda, one of the towns in Philistia, and at this day St. George, under the name of Khizr, is worshipped by the Arabs. The shrine of Khizr is in the neighbourhood of Dajjal or Dajján, the Arab version of the name of Dagon. According to Phoenician inscriptions, a hero named Arsouph, Reseph, or Reseph Mikel, of another town in Philistia. This Reseph is also called, slew the beast in mortal combat. Arsouph is the name in the bilingual inscriptions of Cyprus, Apollon-Amyklaios; while, on the other hand, the name, by a change exactly similar to that which transforms Anata into Athene, becomes Perseus, the hero of the combat with the sea monster, and the rescuer of Andromeda. The inference is that Horus and Typhon, Perseus and Andromeda, the Bel and Dagon of the Apocrypha, and St. Michael and the "old Dragon " of Christian legend, are identical with our own St. George. Those who would learn more on this complicated mythological problem are referred to the Examiner of the 15th inst., to which we are indebted for details condensed in this note; and the Examiner will refer those who are still curious to learn more to M. Ganneau and his ingenious arguments as to the real meaning of the symbolism of the worship of Dagon, the fish god, as well as the intermediate steps by which he reconciles the divergent names and qualities of the persons identified.] PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.. The third volume of this comprehensive and splendid edition of Shelley contains Adonais, a note to which discusses the question, whom did the poet mean in stanza xxxv., beginning— "What softer voice is hushed over the dead?" It could not be Mr. Severn, as Mr. Rossetti for that point is settled by the poet himsupposes, self. Lord Houghton writes to Mr. Forman: "I have never doubted that the person alluded to was He had the voice, and he had the Leigh Hunt. intimacy of the time." Mr. Severn writes to Mr. Forman : Leigh Hunt told me that he con *The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Harry Buxton Forman. Vols. III., IV. (Reeves & Turner.) sidered the stanzas referred to himself." Mr. Swinburne told Mr. Forman there was "not the slightest doubt it was Leigh Hunt." Mr. Forman adds: "we read," says Mr. Forman, "The Wednesday before last, Shelley, Hunt, and I wrote each a sonnet on the river Nile: some day you shall read them all.' Lord Houghton gives Ozymandias as Shelley's part in this strife; but beside not being a 'sonnet on the river Nile,' "Mr. Charles Cowden Clarke, the one person who that is classed by Mrs. Shelley among the poems written might contest Hunt's claim, had Hunt's name marked in in 1817. I know of no reason for doubting that classithe margin of his copy; but Mrs. Clarke thinks the re-fication, which is also preserved by Mr. Rossetti; and ference is to her husband, and with some solid reasons, there can, I think, be no possible doubt that Shelley's such as the line, 'That you first taught me all the sweets Nile sonnet is the one found by Mr. Townshend Mayer of song,' in Keats's Epistle to Charles Cowden Clarke, among the papers of Leigh Hunt, published in the St. and the well-known influence which that gentleman James's Magazine for March, 1876, and now first inexercised over the development of Keats's gifts. Mrs. cluded among Shelley's poetical works." Clarke also refers to the line in Hunt's sonnet to Keats, Leigh Hunt's preface to the Mask of Anarchy is 'And such a heart as Charles's, wise and warm,' with its explanatory note, Charles C. C., a mutual friend.' among the interesting matter of the appendix to in which Leigh Hunt says:vol. iii. No reader can have forgotten the passage I share Mr. Forman's regret that Mrs. Shelley, in her notes, is silent on the subject, but suspect that she thought the reference to Leigh Hunt too obvious to need one. Hazlitt, when asked why he could not temporize a little "It was finely said one day in my hearing by Mr. now and then, or make a compromise with an untruth, that it was not worth his while.' It was not worth Mr. Shelley's while to be an aristocrat. His spirit was large enough to take ten aristocracies into the hollow of his hand, and look at them, as I have seen him look at insects from a tree, certainly with no thought either of superiority or the reverse, but with a curious interest." And here I am reminded that certain critics, and among them Mr. Denis Florence MacCarthy, have attempted to discredit Leigh Hunt's influence over Shelley-an influence with evidences of which Mr. Forman's volumes abound; confirmed to an overflowing extent by the Leigh Hunt MSS., which show the confidence Shelley placed in Leigh Hunt, and how much he deferred to his judgment. To Adonais is followed by Hellas, that grand burst of lyrical and dramatic power, which, with its preface and notes, possesses peculiar interest at the present moment of Muscovite and Oriental struggle. Of Julian and Maddalo Mr. Forman says: "The MS. sent to Leigh Hunt is one of rare beauty. It was discovered by Mr. Townshend Mayer, and placed at my disposal for the present edition." A fac-simile of extraordinary minuteness and fidelity is given of page 10 of this MS., and forms one of the most interesting illustrations to this volume. The longer poems are the Mask of Anarchy; Peter Bell the Third; the Letter to Maria Gisborne (justly considered by The fourth and concluding volume consists of Mr. Forman as second in importance to Julian poems written in the years 1819 to 1822. and Maddalo alone, in the group of poems here these are added translations, Juvenilia," and arranged); the Witch of Atlas (with its "very poems from "St. Irvine, or the Rosicrucian"; striking" reference to Laon and Cythna in the Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson, conprefixed address To Mary); and The Triumph of tinuation of "Juvenilia," and Queen Mab (complete, Lifewith notes), on the title-page of which it is interest"The last great work," observes Mr. Forman, which Shelley was occupied........ With this grand fraging to read: "London, printed by P. B. Shelley, ment before us, it would be difficult to exaggerate the magnitude of the potential poem which was shaping itself in Shelley's mind at the time of his death." To the second part of the Damon of the World succeed the lovely Fragments of an Unfinished Drama and the scenes of Charles the First-the latter strongly marked, even in its fragmentary state, by the severe and high feelings" of which Shelley intended it to be "the birth"; interspersed are the many exquisite lyrical compositions 66 produced from 1814 to 1817. Besides the fac-simile already mentioned, there is one of the manuscript of the sonnet to the Nile. The latter stands first of Poems written in 1818. It had been already hinted in Mr. Forman's first volume that the Ozymandias sonnet could not well be Shelley's share of the friendly competition with Keats and Leigh Hunt, referred to in Keats's letter to his brothers, printed in vol. i. of the Life and Letters of John Keats (1848), pp. 98 and 99. In this letter, dated Feb. 16 (1818), 23, Chapel Street, Grosvenor Square, 1813." Of He Seeing that Hunt also made a translation of this idyll, published in Foliage in 1818, it would not be a great stretch of imagination to regard this fragment as another record of those days of friendly emulation represented by the Nile sonnets of Shelley, Keats, and Hunt.... ..I am not aware that the lines have ever appeared in print till now." The remarkable "Sonnet from the Italian of Cavalcanti-Guido Cavalcanti to Dante Alighieri” was also found among the Leigh Hunt papers, and not, so far as Mr. Forman is aware, hitherto published. A fac-simile of this sonnet forms one of the illustrations of the volume. Mr. Forman gives for the first time in any collected edition of Shelley's works The Devil's Walk, a satire after the manner of Coleridge and Southey, and issued by Shelley as a broadsheet in 1812. It was discovered by Mr. Rossetti and printed by him in the Fortnightly Review for January, 1871. Beyond showing the bent of Shelley's mind at that time it has little value. Some slight alterations of the Scenes from the Magico Prodigioso of Calderon are authorized by a MS. in Mrs. Shelley's writing, and a paraphrase of Horace's nineteenth ode, book the third, The Dinner Party Anticipated, not hitherto known as a work of Shelley, is shown pretty clearly to be such on the authority of the Leigh Hunt MSS., which have supplied Mr. Forman with such frequent and valuable information. They are efficient in this way with The Magic Horse, from the Italian of Christofano Bronzino, which was, like many of Shelley's compositions, sent for Hunt "to do what he liked with." Not the least valuable part of Mr. Forman's ably executed work is the section in each volume devoted to a philological criticism of the obsolete and rare words used by Shelley in his poemsShelley's systematically eccentric orthography in many instances being pointed out and often justified by examples from the older poets. An agreeable feature of Mr. Forman's notes is the liberal manner in which he recognizes the labours of former editors of Shelley-notably Mr. Rossetti and Mr. Richard Garnett-and acknowledges the co-operation of friends. Where so much labour has been expended, and so much loving and minute care taken in every other direction, it seems ungracious to complain of any omission; but while fully acknowledging the value of the "Index to First Lines," I feel that a general index by which any poem or song might be found by its title is wanting to the completeness of the work and the convenience of the reader. What had been already anticipated in "N. & Q." is realized "the publishers will earn as much congratulation on the part of Shelley's world of admirers as the editor will earn of praise for the way in which he has executed his office." JOHN WATSON DALBY. WITCHES AND WITCHCRAFT. "Sworn dittays given in by Janet Hutton in Cruik of Devon against the said Isabel Rutherford. Ye the said Isabel Rutherford are indyted and accusit of the sin and crime of witchcraft, that ten years since or thereby James Wilson, husband to the said Janet Hutton, being diseased, and Janet Hutton his spouse being from home in the Common of Fossaway, and the said James Wilson being lying on a know head above the ye the said Isabel Rutherford came to him and said, 'What now, James, I think that ye are not well and ye are ne weil,' and ye desired him to go into the house, and whilk he did, and loosit his coat and grapit his breast and back and said he was well grown, and spake some words he understood not, and he was a the worse thereafter and so far as ye touched was aye the worse thereafter and was all drawn togedder as it were with sea cords, and the more thereafter the aforetheir bed togedder, the said James said to Janet his said James Wilson and his said spouse being lying in spouse he wished he had been quartered quick when she went from home yesterday and she said,Why I did nothing, but went to the Common'; and he said there came a common thief to him, whilk was the said Isabel would take his meir and ride to the Cruik and seek his Rutherford, and then all things aforesaid, and said he health from the said Isabel Rutherford, altho' they should rope him at horses tails and seek it for God's sake, and the said Janet bade him seek it from God, and she said he should never see her if he did so, and in the month of October the said Janet said, I will go to her in fair ways to see gif she will do him any good and she would pay her for it, and she met her accordingly in the Kirkyard at Tullybole, and the said Isabel asked how the said James did, and the said Janet answered and said that he had ane sore summer, and the said Isabel promised to come to him the morrow thereafter, whilk she did, and grippit the said James his hail boddie and leggs, and said he was all over gane in that disease, and the said Isabel went home and said she would come again the morrow at even, whilk she did, and how soon she cam in his sight he bade her swith away God gif he had never seen her, and the said Janet gave her a loak meal, and she went away, and thereafter the said James never stirred in his bed unlifted, but became clean distracted, so that he would never thereafter look to the said Janet his spouse, nor suffer her to make his bed, nor come near him thereafter, whereas before there was never an evil word between them for the space of saxteen years. Isabel Rutherford came and charmed ane young man "And likeways twelve years since or thereby the said named Alex Kid in Muirhauch for melt growing, as also four years since or thereby James Kid of Muirhauch being diseased with the trembling fever the space of twenty-two weeks, ye the said Isabel came to him and said, ye will never be well till ye be charmed, for ye are melt grown as your Brother was, and he answered, will ye do it presently or not, and ye said, not until the morn when ye shall meet me at the head of the black Craig before the sun rising, and the said James went there, and it was more nor an hour before ye the said Isabel came desired him to loose his breast, whilk he did, and ve there, being in the month of May, and when ye cam ye stracked his side there several times with your luif, and immediately thereafter upon the, with some mumbling words that he wist not what, and the said James declared that he was not the better, nor was never well sinsyne. "The confession and dittays of the said Bessie Henderson. Ye the said Bessie Henderson are indited and accused of the crime of witchcraft, ye confessed ye had been fourty years in the Devil's service, since the time ye milked the old Baillie of Kinross his kie before the calvine. Likeways ye confessed that half an year since ye was at a meeting in an fauld with Isabel Gibson and many more, and that ye was taken out of your bed to that meeting in an fright, at which meeting the Devil appeared to you and promised to you that you should want nothing, and ye being asked by the minister gif ye would ye answered not. Likeways as ye confessed that the Devil kept up your heart from confessing, this ye confesst in the presence of the Laird of Tullybole; Mr. Alexander Ireland, Minister; Mr. Robert Alexander, Baillie; Robert Livingstone and Henry Mercer, elders. And lykewise ye the said Bessie Henderson, in presence of the Minister; Robert Livingstone of Cruik Miln, John Livingstone of Rantrie Knowe, elders; John Whyte, in Cruik of Devon; James Ruther ford, in Earnyside; and Andrew Kirk, in Carnboo, freely confessed that the Devil appeared to you in the likeness of ane bonnie lad at Turfhills aboon Kinross with ane blue bonnet, and asked you if you would be his servant, promising that ye should want nothing, which ye instantly and freely accepted and granted thereto. Likeways he desired you to renounce and forsake your baptism, whilk freely ye did; as also confessed the Devil gave you a new name and like a man's name immediately after the renunciation of your baptism, but ye had forgotten what it was. Likeways ye freely confessed that Agnes Murie and Isabel Rutherford were with you in foresaid place. Likeways after the minister prayed for you, you desiring the same, ye confessed that Janet Paton in Cruik of Devon, Janet Brugh there, Janet Hird and Isabel Condie in Wester town of Aldie, Christian Grieff and Margaret Young in Qutorlawhill, Bessie Neil in Gelvan, Janet Paton and Margaret Litster in Kilduff, Margaret McClish in Tillyochie, that all the foresaid persons were all guilty of witchcraft as yourself is, as ye desired the foresaid persons to be put to trial. Likeways in presence of the Laird of Tullybole, Mr. Geo. Clovin, Minister at Fossaquhy, James Dempster, Baillie of Kinross, Mr. Robert Alexander, Baillie of Tullybole, James Alexander of Downhill, ye the said Bessie confessed and declared, as of before, that ye renounced your baptism to Sathan and immediately thereafter got a new name, whilk ye had forgotten, and ye being posit what ground ye had to debate the foresaid persons, ye answered because they were also guilty as ye, and ye being interrogate gif ye saw any of the foresaid persons at any of your meetings, answered not save the above-mentioned five that are in Prison, and ye being interrogate gif the Minister spoke to you of any of the foresaid persons, ye answered not but ye did the same without any compulsion. Likeways ye confessed and declared that Janet Paton, in Cruik of Devon, was with you at ane meeting when they trampit down Thos. White's rie, in the beginning of Lammas, 1661, and that she had broad soals and trampit down more nor any of the rest. Likeways ye confessed that ye was at a meeting with Sathan at the Likeways thereafter ye confessed and declared in presence of the Minister and Mr. Robert Alexander, Baillie, Robert Livingstone and William Hutton, Schoolmaster, that all the forenamed persons were with you at the meeting when ye trampit down Thos. White's rie, and said ye heard all their voices, but did not see them, in regard of weakness of your sight so grit that ye saw not well in the night this mony year. Likeways ye confessed that the Devil had and declared that Sathan's name upon whom ye was ordained to call was Charles, and the name he gave to you was Bessie Irwall, and the time he gave it to you was in the night in your bed, being bodilie like to a man, and that his body was cald and but did not remember what night it was. This ye confessed in presence of Mr. Robert Alexander, Baillie; John Livingstone, of Rantrie Knowe; William Christie, Pitfar; James Hird and James Donaldson, in Lamhill. "An court of Justiciary holden at the Cruik of Devon, the 3d day of April, the year of God Ia ne and Sixty two years, be Mr. Alexander Colville, of Blair, his Majestie's Justice depute General over Scotland. Robert Brown in Meadowhead. James Alexander in Balriddrie. James Thomson portioner of Maw. "It is found and declared be the hail assize in ane voice that the forenamed Agnes Murie is guilty and convict in six several points of witchcraft and sorcerie and that according to her own free confession in manner above. In like manner the above Isabel Rutherford is guilty and convict in six several points of witchcraft and and all' the three convict as common sorcerers and sorcerie, according to her own confession and probation, notorious witches by the mouth of George Barclay, as chancellor of the said Assize. Sic subscribitur, GEORGE BARCLAY. "For the whilk causes the above-named Justice General Depute gives sentence, and ordains, that the said Agnes Murie, Bessie Henderson, and Isabel Rutherford sall be all three taken away to the place called the Lamlaires, bewest the Cruik Miln, the place of their execution, to-morrow, being the fourth day of this instant month of April, betwixt one and two in the afternoon, and there to be strangled to the death by the hands of the hangman, and thereafter their bodies to be burnt to ashes, for their trespass, and ordains all their moveable goods and gear to be encheat and inbrought to his Whereupon Majesty's use for the causes foresaid. William Donaldson, Dempiter, gave doom. scribitur, Blairhill, Dollar. Sic sub J. ALEXANDER, Chan." J. R. HAIG. VOLTAIRE AND VANBRUGH.-There seems to be good reason to suspect that Voltaire translated Vanbrugh's Relapse (ante, p. 164) not merely as an exercise in rendering English into French, but with the intention of passing it off as an original composition. It may be urged as an excuse for this plagiarism that the Comte de Boursouffle was originally intended for private representation only. It made its first appearance at Cirey, the residence of the famous Marquise de Châtelet, in the year 1734. In 1747 it was again acted at Anet, where Voltaire and Madame de Châtelet were on a visit to the Duchesse du Maine. In the account of this private performance to be found in Madame du Deffand's Correspondance Complète, Voltaire is called the author, and not the translator. When leaving Anet, Voltaire mislaid the manuscript and forgot to call in the separate parts from the actors Was it a guilty conwho had performed them. science which led him to despatch next day an urgent letter to Mademoiselle Delaunay, begging her, les mains jointes," to recover his precious property and to lock it up securely sous cent clefs"? On the 26th of January, 1761, the farce was performed in public at the Comédie Italienne, with the title Quand est-ce qu'on me marie? This was afterwards retained as the second title |