Chapter C: R. O

[Footnote 1: [It is clear there have been two editions of Prynne's
_Breviate_, both printed in the year 1644. The copy in the King's
Library, at the British Museum, contains the misprinted word
_city_, but is corrected in the Errata, at the bottom of p. 35.;
whereas the copy in the Grenville Library has it correctly printed
_cup_, and the list of Errata is omitted.--ED.]]

EPITAPH ON VOLTAIRE.

I send you two versions of the epitaph on Voltaire given in Vol. iv., p. 73., not for their intrinsic merit, but as illustrations of a curious physiological trait, as to the nature and power, or powerlessness, of memory:

"Plus bel esprit que grand génie,
Sans loi, sans moeurs, et sans vertu,
Il est mort, comme il a vécu,
Couvert de gloire et d'infamie."

Version No. 1.:

"With far less intellect than wit,
Lawless, immoral, and debased;
His life and death each other fit,
At once applauded and disgraced."

Version No. 2.:

"Much more a wit, than man of mind;
Alike to law, truth, morals blind!
Consistent as he lived he died,
His age's scandal, and its pride."

These are not offered as competing in excellence, for they are both the productions of the same mind, but for the purpose of recording the following remarkable fact respecting their composition. No. 2. was written down immediately on reading your Number in July last (1851); having composed it, I took from my library shelf Lord Brougham's _Life of Voltaire_, in which I knew the lines were, for the purpose of pencilling in my rendering of them. You may conceive my surprise at finding already there the version No. 1. with the date 1848, which I had made in that year, but of which I had so totally lost all remembrance, that not a single turn of thought or expression in one resembles the other. I perfectly remember the mental process of hammering out No. 2., and can confidently affirm that, during the time, no recollection whatever of No. 1., or anything about it, ever crossed my thought. I fear such a total obliteration is a token of failure in a faculty once powerful and accurate, but, perhaps, unduly tasked; yet I offer it to be recorded as a singular fact connected with this wonderful function of mind.

A. B. R.

Belmont.

THE MILLER'S MELODY, FRAGMENT OF AN OLD BALLAD.

When I was a good little boy, I was a favourite visitor to an old maiden lady, whose memory retained such a store of old ballads and folk-lore as would be a treasure to many a reader of "N. & Q." were she still living and able to communicate. One ballad, parts of which, as well as the tune, still haunt my memory, I have tried to recover in its integrity but in vain; and of all the little wearers of frocks and pinafores, who had the privilege of occasionally assembling round the dear old lady's tea-table, and for whose amusement she was wont to sing it, I fear I am the sole survivor. The associations connected with this song may perhaps have invested it with an undue degree of interest to me, but I think it sufficiently curious to desire to insert as much as I can remember of it in "N. & Q." in the hope that some of your correspondents may be able to supply the deficiencies. I wish I could at the same time convey an idea of the air. It began in a slow quaint strain, with these words:--

"Oh! was it eke a pheasant cock,
Or eke a pheasant hen,
Or was it the bodye of a faire ladye
Come swimming down the stream?
Oh! it was not a pheasant cock,
Nor eke a pheasant hen,
But it was the bodye of a faire ladye,
Came swimming down the stream."

For the next two verses I am at fault, but their purport was that the body "stopped hard by a miller's mill," and that this "miller chanced to come by," and took it out of the water "to make a melodye."

My venerable friend's tune here became a more lively one, and the time quicker; but I can only recollect a few of the couplets, and those not correctly, nor in order of sequence, in which the transformation of the lady into a viol is described:

"And what did he do with her fair bodye?
Fal the lal the lal laral lody.
He made it a case for his melodye,
Fal, &c.
And what did he do with her legs so strong?
Fal, &c.
He made them a stand for his violon,
Fal, &c.
And what did he do with her hair so fine?
Fal, &c.
He made of it strings for his violine,
Fal, &c.
And what did he do with her arms so long?
Fal, &c.
He made them bows for his violon,
Fal, &c.
And what did he do with her nose so thin?
Fal, &c.
He made it a bridge for his violin,
Fal, &c.
And what did he do with her eyes so bright?
Fal, &c.
He made them spectacles to put to his sight,
Fal, &c.
And what did he do with her petty toes?
Fal, &c.
He made them a nosegay to put to his nose,
Fal, &c."

G. A. C.

Minor Notes.

_Doctor Johnson a Prophet._--Can any of your readers inform me where the following anecdote is recorded? It bears the mark of authenticity, and if so adds, to the extraordinary gifts of the great moralist, that of prophecy; be it observed, however, that the prognostication is founded on a deduction of science. As the Doctor was one evening leaning out of the window of his house in Bolt Court, Fleet Street, he observed the parish lamplighter nimbly ascend a ladder for the purpose of lighting one of the old glimmering oil lamps which only served to make "darkness visible." The man had scarcely descended the ladder half way, when he discovered that the flame had expired; quickly returning he lifted the cover partially, and thrusting the end of his torch beneath it, the flame was instantly communicated to the wick by the thick vapour which issued from it.

"Ah!" exclaimed the Doctor, after a pause, and giving utterance to his thoughts, "Ah! one of these days the streets of London will be lighted by smoke!" It is needless to add that in the succeeding century the prediction was verified.