It was no doubt by his dread of the sleepless watch of Hutton, that so unscrupulous a person as Colonel Watson is proved to be, was deterred from publishing Simpson's work as his own.
The desideratum here is, of course, to find what became of Colonel Watson's papers; and then to ascertain whether this and what other writings of Simpson's are amongst them. A _really good_ work on the mathematical theory of bridges, if such is ever to exist, has yet to be published. It is, at the same time, very likely that his great originality, and his wonderful sagacity in all his investigations, would not fail him in this; and possibly a better work on the subject was composed ninety years ago than has yet seen the light--involving, perhaps, the germs of a totally new and more effective method of investigation.
I have, I fear, already trespassed too far upon your space for a single letter; and will, therefore, defer my notice of a few other desiderata till a future day.
SONG IN THE STYLE OF SUCKLING--THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.
The song in your second number, furnished by a correspondent, and considered to be in the style { 134} of Suckling, is of a class common enough in the time of Charles I. George Wither, rather than Suckling, I consider as the head of a race of poets peculiar to that age, as "Shall I wasting in Despair" may be regarded as the type of this class of poems. The present instance I do not think of very high merit, and certainly not good enough for Suckling. Such as it is, however, with a few unimportant variations, it may be found at page 101. of the 1st vol. of _The Hive, a Collection of the most celebrated Songs_. My copy is the 2nd edit. London, 1724.
I will, with your permission, take this opportunity of setting Mr. Dyce right with regard to a passage in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_, in which he is only less wrong than all his predecessors. It is to be found in the second scene of the fourth act, and is as follows:--
"Here Love himself sits smiling: Just such another wanton Ganymede Set Jove afire with," &c.
One editor proposed to amend this by inserting the normative "he" after "Ganymede;" and another by omitting "with" after "afire." Mr. Dyce saw that both these must be wrong, as a comparison between two wanton Ganymedes, one of which sat in the coutenance of Arcite, could never have been intended;--another, something, if not Ganymede, was wanted, and he, therefore, has this note:--"The construction and meaning are, 'With just such another _smile_ (which is understood from the preceding 'smiling') wanton Ganymede set Jove afire." When there is a choice of nouns to make intelligible sense, how can that one be understood which is not expressed? It _might_ be "with just such another _Love_;" but, as I shall shortly show, no conjecture on the subject is needed. The older editors were so fond of mending passages, that they did not take ordinary pains to understand them; and in this instance they have been so successful in sticking the epithet "wanton" to Ganymede, that even Mr. Dyce, with his clear sight, did not see that the very word he wanted was the next word before him. It puts one in mind of a man looking for his spectacles who has them already across his nose. "Wanton" is a noun as well as an adjective; and, to prevent it from being mistaken for an epithet applied to Ganymede, it will in future be necessary to place after it a _comma_, when the passage will read thus:--