10 s. xii. DEC. is, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
497
year. His most considerable poem, ' The Culprit
Fay,' was written to show that American rivers
had just claims to the glories of fancy and romance.
- The American Flag ' is even better known.
The volume containing ' The Culprit Fay, and other Poems,' was first published in 1835, and has been repeatedly reprinted."
Edgar A. Poe very severely criticized Drake's ' Culprit Fay * in an article entitled
- Fancy and Imagination,' which is re-
printed in the ' Works of Edgar A. Poe, 1 vol. v., ' The Literate : some Honest Opinions about Autorial Merits and De- merits,' New York, 1850. The article deals with Drake's ' Culprit Fay l and Thomas Moore's ' Alciphron J :
' ' We allude to the late Dr. Rodman Drake, whose puerile abortion ' The Culprit Fay ' we examined at some length in a critique elsewhere ; proving it, we think, beyond all question, to belong to that class of the pseudo-ideal, in dealing with which we find ourselves embarrassed between a kind of half-consciousness that we ought to admire, and the certainty that we do not," &c.
An edition of ' The Culprit Fay l was issued as recently as 1906 by Mr. Orville Brewer of Chicago, price 6 cents.
WM. H. PEET.
that while a man shewed his heart to all the world,
he might do something more for his friends, e'en
take it out, and trust it to their handling."
There was no need to propose to carry the project further. The " windows " in Lucian are shutters or casements not mere glazed apertures, as Pope seems to think.
EDWARD BENSLY. Aberystwyth.
HISTORICAL MSS. DISCOVERED (10 S. xii. 450). MR. McMuRRAY's query probably refers to a paragraph in The Times of 26 July, 1905, relative to " Historical Manuscripts at Clifton Hall, Notts," summarizing an account of these manuscripts published in The Nottingham Daily Guardian of the same date. They have since been brought under the notice of the Historical MSS. Commission, and a report will in due course appear.
SEC. HIST. MSS. COMM.
MR. MCMURRAY will find a sequel to the account he refers to in a notification on the front (advertisement) page of The Times at the close of November last. R. B.
Upton.
of
A Ca T r . an< ? W rks | Miss ANNE MANNING (10 S. xii. 408).
^ erian 1 P et f S lv T en , n MB. HOPE MALLESON in asking about the
and her family papers must have Lydia
' Cyclopaedia of American Biography. J There
is also a portrait which lends corroboration
to the statement that he was " the hand-
somest man in the New York of his time.' 1
For incidental references to Drake see two books on brother American poets ' The Life of FitzGreene Halleck l and ' William Cullen Bryant and his Friends.*
J. F. HOGAN.
Royal Colonial Institute, S.W.
SWIFT ON WINDOWS IN THE BREAST (10 S. xii. 409). In Lucian's ' Hermotimus,* cap. 20, the story is told how, when Hephaes- tus had fashioned Man, Momus (Fault- finding personified) blamed him for not having constructed casements (#vpi'8es) in his breast, so that when they were opened all man's intentions and thoughts might be known, and it might be seen whether he was speaking the truth or lying. The story is made use of in ' The Anatomy of Melancholy * and in
- Tristram Shandy, 1 while Rabelais (iii. 14)
refers to Momus's criticism, on the same occasion, of the bull made by Poseidon (Lucian, ' Nigrinus,' cap. 32).
Pope in a letter to Lady Mary (18 Aug., 1716) wrote :
" If Momus his project had taken, of having win- dows in our breasts, I should be for carrying it further, and making those windows casements :
confused her with Miss Lydia Manning,
who died only two or three years ago at
Tunbridge Wells. Miss Anne Manning died
in 1879. My aunt Mrs. Braithwaite Batty
informs me that the latter left directions
that all letters, and, as far as she knew, all
papers, were to be destroyed. When Miss
Anne's sisters were alive, my aunt asked for
the return of her letters, which she had
written during a very long friendship, and
was so informed. W. P. D. STEBBING.
ALL RIGHT " : ORIGIN OF THE PHRASE (10 S. xii. 228, 314, 433). George Borrow wrote ' Lavengro * about the middle of last century, but the record is ostensibly con- cerned with a period some thirty years earlier. The incidental dialogue may there- fore be assumed to represent the author's impression of the forms that were in use in 1820 or thereabouts. Chap. lix. gives the run of the four-in-hand towards Salisbury, the narrative closing thus :
There was a dim and indistinct light, like that which precedes dawn ; the coach was standing still in something like a street ; just below me stood the guard. 'Do you mean to get down,' said he, 'or will you keep us here till morning? Other fares want to get up.' Scarcely knowing what I did, I took my bundle and stick and descended, while the people mounted. 'All right, John,' said the
