Sir! it cannot fail;
For 'tis incomprehensible,
And without head or tail."
This was, however, only a Gadshill robbery,—stealing stolen goods. The following epigram is said to be by Mr. Hole, in a MS. collection made by Spence (penes me), and it appeared first in print in Terræ Filius, from whence Dr. Salter copied it in his Confusion worse Confounded, p. 88:—
"Thy verses are eternal, O my friend!
For he who reads them, reads them to no end."
In The Crypt, a periodical published by the late Rev. P. Hall, vol. i. p. 30., I find the following attributed to Coleridge, but I know not on what authority, as it does not appear among his collected poems:—
"Sly Beelzebub took all occasions
To try Job's constancy and patience;
He took his honours, took his health,
He took his children, took his wealth,
His camels, horses, asses, cows,—
Still the sly devil did not take his spouse.
"But heav'n, that brings out good from evil,
And likes to disappoint the devil,
Had predetermined to restore
Two-fold of all Job had before,
His children, camels, asses, cows,—
Short-sighted devil, not to take his spouse."
This is merely an amplified version of the 199th epigram of the 3d Book of Owen:
"Divitias Jobo, sobolemque, ipsamque salutem
Abstulit (hoc Domino non prohibens) Satan.
Omnibus ablatis, miserò, tamen una superstes,
Quae magis afflictum redderet, uxor erat."
Of this there are several imitations in French, three of which are given in the Epigrammes Choisies d'Owen, par M. de Kerivalant, published by Labouisse at Lyons in 1819.
Mickleham, 1850.
STRANGERS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
As far as my observation extends, i.e. the last thirty-one years, no alteration has taken place in the practice of the House of Commons with respect to the admission of strangers. In 1844 the House adopted the usual sessional order regarding strangers, which I transcribe, inserting within brackets the only material words added by Mr. Christie in 1845:—
"That the Serjeant-at-Arms attending this house do, from time to time, take into his custody any stranger or strangers that he shall see or be informed of to be in the house or gallery [appropriated to the members of this house, and also any stranger who, having been admitted into any other part of the house or gallery, shall misconduct himself, or shall not withdraw when strangers are directed to withdraw] while the House or any committee of the whole House is sitting, and that no person so taken into custody be discharged out of custody without the special order of the House.
"That no member of the House do presume to bring any stranger or strangers into the house, or the gallery thereof, while the House is sitting."
This order appears to have been framed at a time when there was no separate gallery exclusively appropriated to strangers, and when they were introduced by members into the gallery of what is called the "body of the house." This state of things had passed away: and for a long series of years strangers had been admitted to a gallery in the House of Commons in the face of the sessional order, by which your correspondent CH. imagines their presence was "absolutely prohibited."
When I speak of strangers being admitted, it must not be supposed that this was done by order of the House. No, every thing relating to the admission of strangers to, and their accommodation in the House of Commons, is effected by some mysterious agency for which no one is directly responsible. Mr. Barry has built galleries for strangers in the new house; but if the matter were made a subject of inquiry, it probably would puzzle him to state under what authority he has acted.
Mr. Christie wished to make the sessional order applicable to existing circumstances; and, it may be, he desired to draw from the House a direct sanction for the admission of strangers. In the latter purpose, however, if he ever entertained it, he failed. The wording of his amendment is obscure, but necessarily so. The word "gallery," as employed by him, can only refer to the gallery appropriated to members of the House; but he intended it to apply to the strangers' gallery. The order should have run thus, "admitted into any other part of the house, or into the gallery appropriated to strangers;" but Mr. Christie well knew that the House would not adopt those words, because they contain an admission that strangers are present whilst the House is sitting, whereas it is a parliamentary fiction that they are not. If a member in debate should inadvertently allude to the possibility of his observations being heard by a stranger, the Speaker would immediately call him to order; yet at other times the right honourable gentleman will listen complacently to discussions arising out of the complaints of members that strangers will not publish to the world all that they hear pass in debate. This is one of the consistencies resulting from the determination of the House not expressly to recognise the presence of strangers; but, after all, I am not aware that any practical inconvenience flows from it. The non-reporting strangers occupy a gallery at the end of the house immediately opposite the Speaker's chair; but the right hon. gentleman, proving the truth of the saying, "None so blind as he who will not see," never perceives them until just as a division is about to take place, when he invariably orders them to withdraw. When a member wishes to exclude strangers he addresses the Speaker, saying, "I think, Sir, I see a stranger or strangers in the house," whereupon the Speaker instantly directs strangers to withdraw. The Speaker issues his order in these words:—"Strangers must withdraw."
Strangers in the House of Commons.—As a rider to the notice of CH. in "NOTES AND QUERIES," it may be well to quote for correction the following remarks in a clever article in the last Edinburgh Review, on Mr. Lewis' Authority in Matters of Opinion. The Reviewer says (p. 547.):—
"This practice (viz., of publishing the debates in the House of Commons) which, &c., is not merely unprotected by law—it is positively illegal. Even the presence of auditors is a violation of the standing orders of the House."
FOLK LORE
High Spirits considered a Presage of impending Calamity or Death:—
1. "How oft when men are at the point of death
Have they been merry! which their keepers call
A lightning before death."
Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. 3.
2. "C'était le jour de Noel [1759]. Je m'étais levé d'assez bonne heure, et avec une humeur plus gaie que de coutume. Dans les idées de vieille femme, cela présage toujours quelque chose do triste.... Pour cette fois pourtunt le hasard justifia la croyance."—Mémoires de J. Casanova, vol. iii p. 29.
3. "Upon Saturday last … the Duke did rise up, in a well-disposed humour, out of his bed, and cut a caper or two.... Lieutenant Felton made a thrust with a common tenpenny knife, over Fryer's arm at the Duke, which lighted so fatally, that he slit his heart in two, leaving the knife sticking in the body."—Death of Duke of Buckingham; Howell. Fam. Letters, Aug. 5, 1628.
4. "On this fatal evening [Feb. 20, 1435], the revels of the court were kept up to a late hour … the prince himself appears to have been in unusually gay and cheerful spirits. He even jested, if we may believe the cotemporary manuscript, about a prophecy which had declared that a king should that year be slain."—Death of King James I.; Tytler, Hist. Scotland, vol. iii. p. 306.
5. "'I