52
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. i. JAN. 15, 1910.
If S. will refer to the beginning of Book II.
of ' Clitophon and Leucippe,' by Achilles
Tatius, Mitscherlich's edition, p. 46, he
will find the passage he wants ; but there is
no reference to Sappho. B. D.
In Wharton's ' Sappho,' p. 163, it is stated :
" Philostratos says : ' Sappho loves the rose, and always crowns it with some praise, likening beauti- ful maidens to it.' This remark seems to have led some of the earlier collectors of Sappho's fragments to include the ' pleasing song in commendation of the rose' quoted by Achilles Tatius [sometimes written Achilles Statius] in his love-story ' Kleito- phon and Leukippe,' but there is no reason to attribute it to Sappho."
J. S.
Oxford.
Clitophon says (Achilles Tatius, II. i.) that his mistress sang two songs, the second of which is in praise of the rose ; but there is no mention of Sappho whatever. How and when the words came to be attributed to her I cannot say, but Francis Fawkes (1721-77) included this fragment among his renderings from Sappho. For comparison with Mrs. Browning's version I quote the lines from Anderson's "Poets" (1795), xiii. 207 :
Would Jove appoint some flower to reign In matchless beauty on the plain, The rose (mankind will all agree), The rose the queen of flowers should be, The pride of plants, the grace of bowers, The blush of meads, the eye of flowers : Its beauties charm the gods above ; Its fragrance is the breath of love ; Its foliage wantons in the air Luxuriant, like the flowing hair : It shines in blooming splendour gay, While zephyrs on its bosom play.
Fawkes, by the way, was the author of the song about Toby Fillpot which was recently discussed in ' N. & Q.' His name is misprinted " Hawkes >? at 10 S. xii. 471. L. R. M. STRACHAN.
Heidelberg.
FIG TREES IN LONDON (10 S. xi. 107, 178 ; xii. 293, 336, 396, 476). A fig tree and a grape vine are growing in the Vicarage garden of St. Mark's, North Audley Street. A niece of the late Rev. J. W. Ayre, Vicar of the church from 1857 to 1898, writes :
" The fig was a fine tree, some 12 ft. in height, and well grown eleven years ago ; now it is higher, but very straggly. My uncle brought it from Hants, and used to prune it carefully, and give it plenty of chalk at the roots. It bore figs every year, but they were rarely larger than a good- sized gooseberry, and were never ripe enough to eat. I suppose the tree did not get quite enough length of sunshine, for, though it was on a south
wall, as soon as the sun got towards the west
it was shadowed by the houses in North Audley
Street.
" The vine, on the other hand, bore very nice ' muscadine '. grapes ; in hot summers the bunches were quite large ; in 1894 (a hot year) there were 120 bunches. It had been planted longer than the fig tree I think in 1881 and, being higher, got more sunshine. It was well pruned, and manured with bones. When I saw it the other day, it was half up the south wall of the church, but had not many grapes, possibly partly from the summer having been cold and sunless."
I. M. L.
" THERE ARE MORE ACRES IN YORKSHIRE
THAN LETTERS IN THE BlBLE " (10 S. xii. 509).
The question as to which preponderates has been frequently raised. In Bell's Life for 23 Dec., 1882, an inquirer was informed that there were 3,698,380 acres in Yorkshire, and 3,566,480 letters in the Bible.
The acreage of Yorkshire is, however, variously computed by different writers. In one work I find it given in detail as
follows :
Acres.
North Riding 1,350,121
West Riding 1,709,307
East Riding 768,419
City and Ainsty of the City of York 2,720
Total ... 3,830,567 ' Harmsworth's Encyclopaedia ' estimates
as under :
North Riding West Riding East Riding
Acres.
1,362,560
1,766,664
749,513
Total ... 3,878,737
Whichever of these estimates is taken, it is clear that the number of Yorkshire acres largely exceeds that of the letters in the Bible, if the figures mentioned in Bell's Life are approximately accurate, which I must beg to be excused from verifying.
WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.
I do not know whence the reference comes ; but, at all events, the statement made is a fact. According to a ' Cyclopaedia of Curious Statistics ' now lying before me, there are said to be 3,566,480 letters in the Bible. On the other hand, the area of Yorkshire, according to Jack's ' Reference Book, 1 amounts to 3,889,611 acres.
W. SCOTT.
' Everybody's Pocket Cyclopaedia '- states that there are 3,566,480 letters in the Bible (p. 45 of 4th ed.). The ' Ency. Brit.,' 10th ed., xxxiii. 916d., gives 3,882,848 acres in Yorkshire. CROSS PATTY.
