334
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vn. APRIL 27, iwi.
that treated in the picture. I thought it
was forgotten, not that it was fictitious.
MR. HOPE does not believe the tale (on what
ground is not very clear ; each to his taste) ;
put it would be interesting to know what
incident in which he does believe would
account for the undeniable salute of the
picture some hidden fragment of history,
which would make the courteous enemy
Louis XV., the Dauphin, Due de Richelieu,
&c., and our own people, presumably, the
Duke of Cumberland, the Prince of Waldeck,
Marshal Konigsegg, &c. ? An "incident"
there certainly was. We have to choose
between the pigtail of Voltaire and the
buckram of Lord Charles Hay for its ingre-
dients. If any one chooses to accept the
stirring picture of our hero stepping forth
from the disciplined and unbroken column,
drinking to the enemy, and informing them,
in the spirit of Mr. Snodgrass, that he was
"going to begin," he is welcome to the
glorious tradition, and to the further reflec-
tion that Lord Charles Hay very soon showed
that he was as good at retreating as any
Frenchman.
Saxe was in a litter the day before the battle. "II ne s'agit pas de vivre, mais de partir," he said to Voltaire before opening the campaign. Perhaps the great soldier, with his iron determination and endurance, managed to make a kind of resemblance to the already obese and unwieldy Cumberland. The Irish regiments were surely seven in number, one being a dragoon corps. Perhaps this makes the difference.
On the question hinted at by M. N. G. as to what drove the allies back,* there can be very little doubt. The advance was only possible because, there had been no combined movement against it. So soon as Saxe launched his concentrated attack on the unsupported column defeat was inevitable.
J. S. C. welcomes Dr. Conan Doyle as the longed-for historian of the Irish Brigade. I venture to think that the gap still remains unfilled, the Gibbon desired by MR. HOPE still unfound. A trained historian is required for the work, which would need much original research out of Britain.
Sefton Park, Liverpool.
GEORGE MARSHALL.
WALL CALENDARS WITH QUOTATIONS FROM
SHAKESPEARE (9 th S. vii. 209). An acquaint-
ance of mine once made a speech in which
he quoted the two following lines :
'Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we '11 do more, Sempronius, we '11 deserve it,
and attributed them to Shakespeare. Great
was the orator's confusion when he was told
that they were written by another. He pro-
duced his authority, which was one of these
calendars, but it was not accepted. Next
morning he accosted me, and, citing the
lines, asked me if they were not by the great
poet. I could not at the moment remember
where I had seen them, so I said, " Well,
they seem to be a little in his style, don't
they 1 " " Yes," was the reply ; " but Brown
declares they are by Addison." This at once
gave me the cue, and I cried, " And so they
are ; you will find them in his * Cato ' " (I. ii.).
All this happened some years ago, but I
should not be surprised to hear that the
couplet is still attributed to the wrong
author, though the reference was not so
precise as in the instances given above,
"Shakespeare" only being appended, with-
out the play, act, and scene.
Just as many sayings have been ignorantly ascribed to Shakespeare, so many fables have been fathered on Msop. I think the Rev. G. F. Townsend must have been nodding when he said that ' The Two Bags' (a curious title) was composed by the ancient Greek. It certainly has no place among the 144 fables printed in the edition that lies before me (Eton, 1863). The author was another Greek, who wrote in Latin in the times of Augustus and his successor. His name was Phaedrus. He has left us five books, in the fourth of which we find the fable asked for. It is the tenth, and, as it only consists of five lines, I quote it for the purpose of com- parison. It is entitled ' De Vitiis Hominum,' and runs thus :
Peras imposuit Jupiter nobis duas : Prppriis repletam vitiis post tergum dedit, Alienis ante pectus suspendit gravem.
Hac re videre nostra mala non possumus ; Alii simul delinquunt, censores sumus.
The version quoted by GNOMON is by Edward, Lord Lytton, but, as it contains some changes, it may be well to give what he wrote in ' Caxtoniana,' vol. i. p. 339, which I entered in my note-book many years ago :
" On this truth Phaedrus has an apologue which may be thus paraphrased :
From our necks, when life's journey begins,
Two sacks Jove, the Father, suspends ; The one holds our own proper sins,
The other the sins of our friends : The first, man immediately throws
Out of sight, out of mind, at his back ; The last is so under his nose,
He sees every grain in the sack."
I may add that La Fontaine gives a very good version of the lines of Phsedrus at the end of his fable ' La Besace ' (1. i. 7). In con- clusion, I take it that neither ^Esop nor
