. The engraved
portrait I have has not the name of the painter.

O.W.

_Sonnet: Attempting to prove that Black is White._--

"It has been said of many, they were quite
Prepared to prove (I do not mean in fun)
That white was really black, and black was white;
But I believe it has not yet been done.
Black (Saxon, Blac) in any way to liken
With _candour_ may seem almost out of reach;
Yet _whiten_ is in kindred German _bleichen_,
Undoubtedly identical with _bleach_:
This last verb's cognate adjective is _bleak_--
Reverting to the Saxon, _bleak_ is blaek. [4]
A semivowel is, at the last squeak,
All that remains such difference wide to make--
The hostile terms of keen antithesis
Brought to an _E plus ultra_ all but kiss!"

MEZZOTINTO.

[Footnote 4: Pronounced (as _black_ was anciently written) _blake_.]

_Nicholas Breton's Fantasticks_, 1626.--MR. HEBER says, "Who has seen
another copy?" In Tanner's Collection in the Bodleian Library is one copy,
and in the British Museum is another, the latter from Mr. Bright's
Collection.

W.P.

[Another copy is in the valuable collection of the Rev. T. Corser. See
that gentleman's communication on Nicholas Breton, in our First Vol.,
p. 409.]

* * * * *

QUERIES.

THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM.

An ill-starred town in England seems to have enjoyed so unenviable a
reputation for some centuries for the folly and stupidity of its
inhabitants, that I am induced to send you the following Query (with the
reasons on which it is founded) in the hope that some of your readers may
be able to help one to a solution.

Query: Why have the men of _Gotham_ been long famous for their extreme
folly?

My authorities are,--

1. The Nursery Rhyme,--

"Three wise men of _Gotham_
Went to sea in a bowl;
If the bowl had been stronger,
My story would have been longer."

2. _Drunken Barnaby's Journal_ (edit. London, 1822, p. 25.), originally
printed 1774, London:

"Veni _Gotham_, ubi multos
Si non omnes, vidi stultos,
Nam scrutando reperi unam
Salientem contra lunam
Alteram nitidam puellam
Offerentem porco sellam."

"Thence to _Gotham_, where, sure am I,
If, _though_ not all fools, saw I many;
Here a she-bull found I prancing,
And in moonlight nimbly dancing;
There another wanton mad one,
Who her hog was set astride on."

{477} 3. In the "Life of Robin Hood" prefixed