Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/599

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10 s. XL JUNE 19,


NOTES AND QUERIES.


Court, was the last in Fleet Street to underg< the sweeping ordeal of modernisation, which i escaped up to the year 1850." ' Life of Samue Johnson,' 1867, p. 140.

Boswell's account is under 1768.

From Cruden it appears that the expres sion on Johnson's watch only occurs once in the New Testament, viz., in John ix. ('Concordance,' 1810).

And Alford gives the words as : ep^c vvg simply, there being no yap in the passage (Greek Testament, 1859, vol. i p. 756).

One would imagine Boswell would be most correct, yet yap seems an interpola tion, and put in the wrong place, which one can hardly fancy Johnson doing. How- ever, neither version is according to the original of Griesbach or Alford ; and " for ' or its equivalent does not occur in the Vulgate, A.V., French 1829, French 1876, Tischendorf, R.V., Sharpe, Spanish of Miguel, or the twentieth century N.T., though the Italian of Genocchi has chioi (then).

Boswell's and Hawkins's dates do not seem to agree. Hawkins says this watch was the first Johnson possessed, and was made in 1768. But it seems singular that Johnson never had a watch till he was fifty- nine !

And Boswell's account is under the same year, 1768. So according to this, Johnson had his first watch in 1768, with this in- scription, had it noticed by Boswell, and altered it, in the same 1768.

It would seem most probable it was not his first watch, but was made in 1768, and altered in 1769, after Boswell had seen it.

F. H.

DR. JOHNSON'S UNCLE HANGED (10 S. xi. 429). May I be permitted to ask MR. HORACE BLEACKLEY where I can find it stated that one of Dr. Johnson's uncles was hanged ? There is, of course, the jest that some one having remonstrated with the doctor for continuing an acquaintance with a man who had had the misfortune to have had an uncle hanged, received the retort that, although he (Dr. Johnson) was not aware that any of his relations had been hanged, he knew of several of them who deserved hanging, a story probably founded on the conversation recorded by Boswell in his ' Life of Johnson,' under date April 13, 1778:

" It was mentioned that Dr. Dodd had once wished to be a member of the Literary Club. Johnson: I should be sorry if any of our club were hanged. I will not say but some of them deserve it. Beauclerk (supposing this to be aimed


at persons for whom he had at that time a wonderful fancy, which, however, did not last long) was irritated, and eagerly said, ' You, sir, have a friend (naming him) who deserves to be hanged, for he speaks behind their backs against those with whom he lives on the best terms, and attacks them in the newspapers.' "

F. A. RUSSELL. 4, Nelgarde Road, Catford, S.E.

SIR LEWIS POLLARD (10 S. xi. 365, 433). MR. A. J. DAVY has no doubt as to twenty- two children of Sir Lewis Pollard, and gives the ground for his opinion, but MR. PINK'S doubts are founded on the wills which I carefully examined at his request at Somerset House, and such evidence is of far greater value even than many visitation pedigrees.

A. RHODES.

AUTHOR OF QUOTATION WANTED (10 S. xi. 429) :

But when shall we lay the ghost of the brute ?

Tennyson, 'The Dawn,' stanza 5, 'Complete Works,' Macmillan, 1894, p. 852.

H. K. ST. J. S.

"UNE SEVIGNE" (10 S. xi. 410, 454). English, query " stomacher." D.

TEXTUAL CRITICISM IN RUFINUS (10 S. xi. 88). With one more emendation, sen- sum for " censum " in the last line, the pas- sage of Rufinus is capable of a plain con- struction, and may be thus translated :

" So then although the matter of any par- ticular body may be scattered in various ways and manners, yet the immortal soul which is in everybody, inasmuch as it is the body of an immortal soul, restores sensation to it as soon as the will of God their spring shall shine on the aodies sown in the earth."

As there is only one independent sentence, a comma only is required after caro, and et for ex is inadmissible. In striving for accuracy theologians, like lawyers, use some- ,imes involved sentences, but Rufinus is lere surely not to be accused of using Breathless and invertebrate language.

I hope W. E. B. will be satisfied with this sonstruction, as I have nothing to add to he text in the way of information.

J. W. M.

Since I sent my query I have received from ji friend a copy of the passage as it stands n the first printed edition. This has, after ' unicuique carni," et est immortalis. The t, which must be wrong here, may be that which has dropped out before " eo tempore," marginal re-insertion having been mis- understood. After " tempore," it proceeds : quo seminatis in terram corporibus primum