Huis te Manpadt.
_Small Words_ (Vol. ii., p. 305.).--Some of your correspondents have justly
recommended correctness in the references to authorities cited. Allow me to
suggest the necessity of similar care in quotations. If K.J.P.B.T. had
taken the pains to refer to the passage in Pope which he criticises (Vol.
ii., p. 305.), he would have spared himself some trouble, and you
considerable space. The line is not, as he puts it, "And ten _small_
words," but--
"And ten _low_ words oft creep in one dull line."
a difference which deprives his remarks of much of their applicability.
[Greek: PH.]
_Bilderdijk the Poet_ (Vol. ii., p. 309.).--There are several letters from
Southey, in his _Life and Correspondence_, written while under the roof of
Bilderdijk, giving a very agreeable account of the poet, his wife, and his
family.
[Greek: PH.]
_Fool or a Physician_ (Vol. i., p. 137.; vol. ii., p. 315.).--The writer
who has used this expression is Dr. Cheyne, and he probably altered it from
the alliterative form, "a man is a fool or a physician at forty," which I
have frequently heard in various parts of England. Dr. Cheyne's words are:
"I think every man is a fool or a physician at thirty years of age, (that
is to say), by that time he ought to know his own constitution, and unless
he is determined to live an intemperate and irregular life, I think he may
by diet and regimen prevent or cure any _chronical_ disease; but as to
_acute_ disorders no one who is not well acquainted with medicine should
trust to his own skill."
Dr. Cheyne was a medical writer of the last century.