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WILLIS'S CURRENT NOTES.

No. XLIV.]

"Takes note of what is done-
By note, to give and to receive."-SHAKESPEARE.

HE THAT FIGHTS AND RUNS AWAY.

THE disgraceful conduct of Lord George Sackville at the battle of Minden, August 1st, 1760, occasioned a deservedly general execration against him. Instead of the hawker's cry of "Great Victory, extraordinary Gazette!" they sold in the streets a half sheet, surmounted by the Royal Arms, in Gazette fashion, entitled,

"An Express from Capt. Bobadill,

Who Beat the French by standing still." Bitterly sarcastic on his deficiency of courage, it com

mences,

"The man that fights and runs away,

May stand to fight another day,

is the opinion of the witty Sam. Butler, and many of our Great Folks, who have made the experiment, think it extremely right." Lord Chesterfield, in the House of Lords, descanting on his conduct in language not very favourable to Lord George, observed-"If I were to sport a Hudibrastic, I would say,

"He that fights, and runs away,
May live to fight another day;
But he that's in the battle slain,
Will never rise to fight again."

It was accepted at the time, the lines were really to

be found in Hudibras, and that Lord Chesterfield but reiterated Ralph's advice to the knight, his master, onedamn'd to baser drubs,

Than wretches feel in powd'ring tubs.

Ralph and his Quixotic superior having been unhorsed and beaten, counsels him not to think of falling on again, but

"To make an honourable retreat,
And wave a total sure defeat;
For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain;"

adding in the same strain :

"For those that save themselves and fly, Go halves, at least, i' the victory." Part III., Canto III., lines 241-269. Several persons, however, who had read Butler's Hudibras with as much admiration as others read Æsop's Fables, and knew almost every line by heart, were sufficiently pugnacious to assert that no such lines as those quoted by Lord Chesterfield, then become household words, were in Hudibras; others pertinaciously contended they were, and at Boodle's, in St. James's

[AUGUST, 1854.

Street, in August 1784, occasioned a bet of twenty to one, of their being in Hudibras, the belligerents agreeing that Dodsley the bookseller should be referred to as the arbiter. Dodsley, on being sent for, ridiculed the difficulty, "Every fool," said he, "knows that they are in Hudibras." George Selwyn, who was in this instance a nonconformist, somewhat petulantly replied," Will you be good enough then to inform an old fool, who is at the same time your wise worship's most humble servant, in what canto they are to be found?" Dodsley, conscious he was right, took up the volume, but could not discover the place, and begged a day's grace. The next day came with no better success, and the sage arbitrator was reduced to confess, "that a man might be ignorant of a fact without being a fool."

These rebuffs have provoked many enquiries, and it is said, the lines quoted by Lord Chesterfield, are thus, in a volume entitled, "The Pleasing Companion, or Guide to Fame.""He who fights and runs away, May live to fight another day; But he who is in battle slain, Can never rise and fight again."

It is also said they are to be found in Pearch's Collection of Poems, anonymously edited by Isaac Reed; second edition, vol. III. p. 84.

Jortin observes, the humourous expression in one of our poets.

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"The man that fights and runs away, May live to fight another day, is deduced from the Greek saying,*

̓Ανηῥ ὁ Φένγων καὶ πάλιν μαχήσεται. But it should rather have been,

May live to run another day.

Ανηρ ὅ Φεύγων καὶ πάλιν γε Φεύξεται.† Aulus Gellius, in his Noctes Atticæ, records it as a saying of Demosthenes, who fled from Philip of Macedon, when he obtained a decisive victory over the Athenians, at Charonea, a village of Boeotia, and being reproached for it, made that answer.‡

* Rather a remote derivation for a saying, still in use,— three hundred and thirty-eight years before the birth of Christ. + Tracts, 1790, vol. i. p. 441.

Lib. xvii. ch. 21. Beloe's Translation, 1795, 8vo. vol. iii. p. 320; he quotes as the translation the well known

verse:

"He who fights and runs away, May live to fight another day."

VOL. IV.

Dr. Nash, who quotes these authorities, in a note on the lines,-"For those that fly," in Hudibras, adds, "He who has an inclination to read more concerning this Senarius proverbialis quo monemur non protinus abjicere animum, si quid parum feliciter successerit, nam Victos posse vincere: proinde Homerus, etc., may consult Erasmi Adagia."

Erasmus, like Ben Jonson, may be ever tracked in the snows of the ancients, and Taverner's Translation of his Proverbes or Adagies, with new Adicions gathered out of the Chiliades, was printed in 1539, 8vo. In his Apopthegmes, translated by Nicholas Udall, of which there are two editions, 1542 and 1564, 8vo. there is the following.

"Demosthenes had written upon his shilde, in letters of golde, ayaon rúxn, that is, Good Fortune. Yet, neverthelesse, when it was come to hardie strokes, Demosthenes euen at the first meting, cast his shilde and al awaie from him, and to go as fast as his legges might beare him. This poincte being cast in his nose, in the waie of mockage and reproche, that he had in battaill cast away his bucler, and taken him to his heeles, like a prettie man, he auoided it with a little verse, common in every bodies mouth :

Ανης ὁ Φεύγωμ και παλϊμ μαχησεται,

The same man, that rennith awaie,
Maie again fight an other daie.

"Judgeyng that it is more for the benefitt of ones countree to repne awaie in battaill, than to lese his life. For a ded man can fight no more, but who had saued himself aliue by renning awaie, may in many battailles mo, dooe good seruice to his countree."

Rabelais alludes to this saying;-We will lose no honour by flying; Demosthenes saith that the man who runs away, may fight another day.*

The Satyre Menippée, 1594, has the idea thus expressed.

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che qui mori: i. c. It is better it should be said, Here he run away, than here he was slain.* So too, in L'Estrange's Fables, of Demosthenes' opinion was the fugitive soldier, who, being tried by a council of war for cowardice, pleaded for himself, that he did not run away in fear of the enemy, but only to try how long a paultry carcase might last a man with good looking to.f

-

Bishop Jeremy Taylor, in his Great Exemplar, observes: In other cases it is true that Demosthenes said in apology for his own escaping from a lost field; A man that runs away may fight again. Edit. 1649, 4to. p. 102. Scarron appears to have been indebted to the Satyre Menippée, for the thought embodied in his lines;Qui fuit, revenir aussi;

Qui meurt, il n'en est pas ainsi.

The distich in Butler's Hudibras:

For those that fly may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain,

is evidently a translation from Scarron; but the couplet,For he that fights and runs away, May live to fight another day;

was written by Sir John Mennes in ridicule of Sir John Suckling's expedition to Scotland, in 1641. In the fourth volume of the Censura Literaria, reference is made to his Musarum Deliciæ, 1656, duod., p. 101. The writer has in vain referred to that book, and to the reprint as edited by Dubois. Still the reader may be assured it is to be discovered in one of the volumes of that period, in which the verses of Mennes are embodied. No copy of the Musarum Delicia is known in Sion College Library.

LORD ORFORD'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. Printed from the Autograph Memorandum. To Mr. George P. Harding,-Understanding that the extracts of letters from Lord Orford, to Sir Horace Mann, at Florence, (which extracts were in the possession of my father, the late Mr. Thomas Kirgate, at his death) were not intended by his Lordship to be either transcribed or printed, I hereby authorise and desire, you will destroy the same extracts in the presence of the Honorable Mrs. Damer, the Executrix of his Lordship. Dec. 11, 1810. ELEANOR THOMAS. December 12, 1810. The extracts above referred to, were destroyed in the presence of us

Witness, M. HOPER.

ANNE SEYMOUR DAMER. GEORGE PERFECT HARDING.

Select Proverbs, Italian, London, 1707, Svo. p. 12. + Second Part, Fable 59.

SIMPLE IDEAS IN A CAMBRIDGE LECTURE. ARCHDEACON Paley eminently distinguished himself as a lecturer at Cambridge, a place where lecturing is considered to be better understood than in any other seminary of learning. It was his custom, in the morning, to step out of his study into the lecture-room, roll from the door, drop into an arm-chair, turn his old scratch over his left ear, pass his left leg over his right, button up his waistcoat, pull up a stocking, then poise upon his left knee an old Locke, with a dirty sadly torn cover, and moistening his thumb on his lip, turn over with astonishing rapidity the ragged dogs-eared leaves, scrawled over with hieroglyphics. All these evolutions were performed in much less time than the reader can have glanced over the particulars. Having after this manner adjusted himself, he would fasten his eyes upon one of his pupils, and without further prelude, question him on some points of the preceding lecture. Woe to the unfortunate wight who made a wrong answer; he was more and more hampered by successive questions, till, while the lecturer was enjoying his triumph, the pupil became, as it was called, dumb-founded, and the lecture room involved in a laugh that could not be suppressed.

THE GOLDEN GRAVE.

BY L. E. L. (late Mrs. MACLEAN.)

HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.

THE third volume of Mr. C. Roach Smith's Collectanea Antiqua, on the eve of publication, contains, among much other interesting material, an elegant version of an early Irish ballad, written by Miss Landon, in 1835, but not hitherto printed.

The discovery by the Bishop of Derry of the pieces of gold in the grave at Ballyshannon, is conjectured by Dr. Drummond, Ancient Irish Minstrelsy, pp. xxvii. and 42, to have been induced by the following passage in the harper's song, in the well-known Irish ballad entitled Moira-borb

In earth, beside the loud cascade,
The son of Sora's king we laid;
And on each finger placed a ring
Of gold,-by mandate of our king;
Such honours to the brave we give
And bid their memory ever live.

The original may be found in Miss Brooke's Reliques of Irish Poetry, p. 132; where the passage is thus rendered

The every day lecture was thus not only a source of improvement, but amusement; something was sure to transpire on each day, which in many cases amply compensated the supposed trouble of going to lectures. One morning, in the lecture room, a fresh-man, remarkable for the saturnine gravity of his countenance, and an indomitable inflexibility of features, was thus questioned. Pray, Mr. B-,' said Paley, 'give me an instance of a simple idea. A pause of nearly half a minute ensued, when gravity in absolute consciousness of unerring rectitude, advanced a step and repliedThe Vice-Chancellor! Very well, very well, Mr. B-, rejoined Paley, who simultaneously twitched his scratch over his left ear, changed his position by placing his right leg over his left, readjusted his book, and fixing may be thus literally translated— his eyes upon the terror-stricken Mr. B-, who now displayed all the emotions of fear on his part that he was in a scrape. Very well, Mr. B-, and now pray tell me what you mean by the Vice-Chancellor ?' The fresh-man was utterly dumb-founded. No reply following the question, Paley gently, yet archly asked him, if he had ever seen the Vice-Chancellor? Dreading the consequences of his answer, after a lengthened pause he reluctantly said, 'Yes.' Poor fellow! it was now all over with him: the beadles, the silver maces, the large cap, large band, great wig, solemn port, and a few goodly allusions to the dignified person of the ViceChancellor, all came forth from the lecturer, and not one person who heard that lecture could for a moment mistake a complex for a simple idea.

The valiant Sora by the stream we laid,

And while his last and narrow house we made, We on each finger, placed a glittering ring; To grace the foe, in honour of our king. There are, however, reasons for supposing that another ballad, extant in manuscript, and not that in the poem of Moira-borb, was the one the Bishop of Derry had translated to him: in which the chorus, or what is termed in Irish Ceangail, the binding verse— Air barra Sléibe Monárd Ann ata feart churaídh, 'sdhá fhleasg óir fá chopp an laoch, As fáil órtha air a mheura.

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TYRANNICAL governments are prejudicial to Trade.

On the hill of Sleive Monard
There is a giant's grave,

And two gold plates enclose the hero's body,
And there are golden rings on his fingers.

Miss Landon having requested a copy of this translation, returned in a few days the following elegant version, that in its transmission from the Irish into the English, retains in their fullest vigour all the beauties, pathos, and merit of the original—

THE GOLDEN GRAVE.
He sleeps within his lonely grave
Upon the lonely hill,

There sweeps the wind-there swells the wave,

All other sounds are still.

And strange and mournfully sound they :
Each seems a funeral cry,

O'er life that long has past away,
O'er ages long gone by.

One winged minstrel's left to sing O'er him who lies beneath

The humming bee, that seeks in spring Its honey from the heath.

It is the sole familiar sound

That ever rises there;

For silent is the haunted ground,
And silent is the air,

There never comes the merry bird→→

There never bounds the deer;

But during night strange sounds are heard,
The day may never hear:

For there the shrouded Banshee stands,
Scarce seen amid the gloom,

And wrings her dim and shadowy hands,
And chants her song of doom.

Seven pillars, grey with time and moss,
On dark Sleive Monard meet;
They stand to tell a nation's loss-→→→
A king is at their feet.
A lofty moat denotes the place
Where sleeps in slumber cold,
The mighty of a mighty race-
The giant kings of old,

There Gollab sleeps-the golden band
About his head is bound;

His javelin in his red right hand,

His feet upon his hound.

And twice three golden rings are placed Upon that hand of fear;

The smallest would go round the waist
Of any maiden here.

And plates of gold are on his breast,
And gold doth bind him round;

A king, he taketh kingly rest

Beneath that royal mound.

But wealth no more the mountain fills,

As in the days of yore:
Gone are those days; the wave distils
Its liquid gold no more.

The days of yore-still let my harp
Their memories repeat-

The days when every sword was sharp,

And every song was sweet;

The warrior slumbers on the hill,

The stranger rules the plain;

Glory and gold are gone; but still
They live in song again,

PRONUNCIATION OF PHARMACEUTICAL,

The recent decision of Sir F. Kelly upon the pronunciation of the word pharmaceutic,' or 'pharmaceutical,' is perfectly correct. The claims of euphony and analogy are clearly on his side. It is absurd to suppose that one of the vowels in a diphthong can be arbitrarily dropped or silenced: were such the case

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The softening of words having the Greek x in their originals, is the common euphonic practice in our language. For instance, the term Kvavòs, when Anglicized, both in its simple and compounded forms, takes a soft c,' as cyanic, cyanous,' hydrocyanic.' So with Kepaλn, we form the compound acephalous. From hλn' we have hydrocele.' From 'kápa' cerebrum,' Engl. cerebel,' and' cerebral ;' and from σrépμа kýτOV, spermaceti. The medical world has also treated us with another example, dys-ecæa,' from dvs and akoǹ. Ascetic' might be added, but enough has been adduced to prove my assertion.

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Trifling discussions of this kind only remind us how greatly our language stands in need of some authorised standard of pronunciation and accentuation. However deficient in the knowledge of Moso-Gothic and Scandinavian sources, from which our tongue has been in a great measure derived, Johnson may assume an easy pre-eminence in the correct exposition of the meaning of terms, and it is gratifying to observe, that in all professions, his authority in that respect stands supreme. Indeed, I believe, that the time has at length arrived when the vulgar and ignorant abuse of faction has subsided in one general voice of eulogy and veneration, But on the two heads of accentuation and pronunciation, Johnson affords us neither standard nor criterion. And with respect to Sheridan, Walker, Knowles, or Richardson, we all know how little weight their names actually carry with them in the world of letters, as to either of these points.

The Vocabolario degli Academici della Crusca, and the Dictionnaire de l'Academie Françoise, can suggest to us a remedy for this national defect, no farther than by prompting an inquiry amongst ourselves whether an extensive association of persons, not merely scientific and literary, but of all professions, thoroughly well educated, and habituated to the refined intercourse of the best society, its conventional language, phraseology, and pronunciation, might not by frequent conestablishment of some national criterion of accurate ferences, lectures, and discussions, greatly advance the utterance and accent. Difficult as such co-operation might be to effect, I think there cannot be two opinions as to its practicability and public importance.

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ETYMON OF THE WORD JEST.

IN Stephen Weston's Latifat, or Joke cailed Precedence, he remarks on the sentence "teman mejlis Khosh wekt gesht," to the whole company an excellent timeamusement, that "the English word Jest is from gesht in Persian, and not from Gesticulor in Johnson, or from Gesta Romanorum.” In etymological researches, Johnson is not to be relied on. The only person I know, who has treated the word Jest with anything like caution is Webster, the American, who gives the Spanish and Portuguese chiste ; but adds a "perhaps" to the Latin gestis. The amusing Lemon gives us the Greek yep! the hand. The word gesht seems, indeed, to be nearly allied to the Latin gesticulor, inasmuch as they both relate to bodily actions. The significations of gesht are "walking, perambulation, recreation, amusement, or diversion," arising from bodily exercise. The same may be said of the Latin gestio; therefore, I think, Weston would have been nearer the truth if he had said gesht from gestio, or vice versa; while the evident signification of the English word Jest, refers us to a mental amusement. Moreover, gesht in the Persian tale becomes a relative to its antecedent sentence, "to be beaten and pounded in a mortar," that implies violent gesticulation upon poor Nerkis.

To trace the word Jest to its origin, is a very difficult matter. We must first premise that vowels are interchangeable, and these again may be changed into their corresponding semi-vowels; an instance of which is given in Current Notes, p. 41, viz. Jotens, or Yotens, (and Eotenas?) Finn Magnusen makes Jotunn, come from the Hebrew aithen or ethen, which he writes Eten; we may therefore make the following changes, Iotunn, Jotunn, Yotunn, Eten.

Again, English Earl, and Islandic Jarl; and in the Wallachian language we find j substituted for w; as jele, to wail or howl. Arabic J'J, wal-wal, howling, wailing; the reduplicate of

walah, afflicted, terror,

grief. Sanscrit, waila, to fear, grieve, etc. We may now come to the word in question.

Persian washyah, a jest; from

washi,

to cover a story with falsehoods; the simple meaning of which is to be found in the Sanscrit ve, not; and sat, the truth; it therefore makes vesat, not the truth, an untruth; and by pursuing the same course as in Iotunn, Jotunn, Yotunn, Etan; we shall, I think, obtain the true etymology of Jest, viz.:-vesat, jesat, and jest, a mental amusement or exercise, and not a bodily one. In the present instance it is necessary to adduce the Chinese chony or shwo, to jest; literally, in discourse, to relate doubly to a man; i. e. to say one thing and

mean another.

More oversights may probably be found in Weston's little Vocabulary of European Words, which are the same in Arabic and Persian; as in Ale, (Ahl), etc. Southwick Vicarage, August 5. T. R. BROWN.

FOUNDERS' LIVERY ENTERTAINMENT,

TEMP. KING HENRY VIIth.

Ar the dinner of the Worshipful Company of Founders, on the 31st ult., at the Brunswick Hotel, Blackwall, on the plate of each guest was placed a richly embellished bill of fare of the day, accompanied by a printed bill of the charges of an entertainment to about thirty of the Livery, in 1498, the earliest noticed in their records. Mr. Williams, the Master of the Company, induced by his antiquarian predilections, presented it to his Brother Founders, and as no more were printed than for the service of those present, it is here reprinted as an historical illustration of Civic hospitality in days long since passed by.

Th' Accompt of the recepts and payments by oon hoole yere, of ROBERT SETCOLE, EDMOND BIRD, and JOHN PARKER, otherwise called JOHN SENA, Wardeyns of the Crafte of Foundours, made and done from [Nov. 17,] the Fest of Saint Clement the [Pope] and Martyr, in [1497] the xiijth yere of the Reigne of Kyng Henry the vijth, unto the same Fest in [1498] the xiiijth yere of the same Kyng.

First, for brede

Payde for the Souper.

Item, for ij barells of meale with the bultyng
Item, for ij barells of ale
Item, for v dosen di of chekyns
Item, for the hire of the Halle
Item, for xxx shulders of moton
Item, for x dosen of pegions
Item, for xxxij conyes

Item, for vij leggs of moton, and iiij whits [whitebreads?]

Item, for v dishes of butter
Item, for di lb. of peper

Item, for cloues and mace ij onz.

Item, for suger, iij lb.

Item, for di onz. of Saffron
Item, for reisons of Coraunt
Item, for ij lb. of dates
Item, for v C. peres

Item, for salt, vynegre and mustard
Item, for C. di of eggs
Item, to the Mynstrells

Item, to the Coke for his labor, seruants,

and stuff

Item, to the boteller

Item, for v galons of wyne
Item, for iij gallons of creme
Item, for onyons and herbes
Item, for the waterberer
Item, for washyng of clothes
Item, for scouryng of the vessells
Item, for ij quarters of coles
Item, for candells, tappers, and trasshes
Item, for quartern of fagots
Item, for Porter

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Sum payd for the Souper, iijl. xijs. vd.

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