Chapter C: H. Cooper

Cambridge.

_Ferdinand Mendez Pinto_ (Vol. vii., p. 551.).--INQUIRENS will find the passage he quotes in Congreve's _Love for Love_, Act II. Sc. 5. Foresight, addressing Sir Sampson Legend, says:

"Thou modern Mandeville, Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type," &c.

In the _Tatler_, No. 254. (a paper ascribed to Addison and Steele conjointly), these veracious travellers are thus pleasantly noticed:

"There are no books which I more delight in than in travels, especially
those that describe remote countries, and give the writer an
opportunity of showing his parts without incurring any danger of being
examined and contradicted. Among all the authors of this kind, our
renowned countryman, Sir John Mandeville, has distinguished himself by
the copiousness of his invention, and the greatness of his genius. The
second to Sir John I take to have been Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, a person
of infinite adventure and unbounded imagination. One reads the voyages
of these two great wits with as much astonishment as the travels of
Ulysses in Homer, or of the Red Cross Knight in Spenser. All is
enchanted ground and fairy land."

Biographical sketches of Mandeville and Pinto are attached to this paper in the excellent edition of the _Tatler_ ("with Illustrations and Notes" by Calder, Percy, and Nichols), published in six volumes in 1786. Godwin selected this quotation from Congreve as a fitting motto for his _Tale of St. Leon_.

J. H. M.

The passage referred to occurs in Congreve's _Love for Love_, Act II. Sc. 5. Cervantes had before designated Pinto as the "prince of liars." It seems that poor Pinto did not deserve the ill language applied to him by the wits. Ample notices of his travels may be seen in the _Retrospective Review_, vol. viii. pp. 83-105., and Macfarlane's _Romance of Travel_, vol. ii. pp. 104-192.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge.

_"Other-some" and "Unneath"_ (Vol vii., p. 571.).--Mr. Halliwell, in his _Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words_, has _other-some_, some other, "a quaint but pretty phrase _of frequent occurrence_." He gives two instances of its use. He has also "_Unneath_, beneath. Somerset."