emed it worth notice that "_the knell of parting
day_," in Gray's Elegy, "was adopted from Dante;" nor would Mr. Cary have
remarked upon "this plagiarism," if indeed _he_ used the term. (I refer to
"NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol. iii., p. 35.) The truth is, that in every good
edition of Gray's _Works_, there is a note to the line in question, _by the
poet himself_, expressly stating that the passage is "_an imitation of the
quotation from Dante_" thus brought forward.

I could furnish you with various _notes_ on Gray, pointing out remarkable
coincidences of sentiment and expression between himself and other writers;
but I cannot allow _Gray_ to be a plagiary, any more than I can allow
_Burns_ to be so designated, in the following instances:--

At the end of the poem called _The Vision_, we find--

"And like a passing thought she fled."

In _Hesiod_ we have--

"[Greek: ho d' eptato hoste noema.]"--_Scut. Herc._ 222.

Again, few persons are unacquainted with Burns's lines--

"Her 'prentice han' she tried on man,
An' then she made," &c.

In an old play, _Cupid's Whirligig_ (4to. 1607), we read--

"Man was made when Nature was but an apprentice, but woman when she was
a skilful mistress of her art."

Pliny, in his _Natural History_, has the pretty notion that

"Nature, in learning to form a lily, turned out a convolvulus."

VARRO.

_Richard III., Traditional Notice of._--I have an aunt, now eighty-nine
years of age, who in early life knew one who was in the habit of saying:

"I knew a man, who knew a man, who knew a man who danced at court in
the days of Richard III."

Thus there have been but three links between one who knew Richard III. and
one now alive.

My aunt's acquaintance could name his three predecessors, who were members
of his own family: {207} their names have been forgotten, but his name was
Harrison, and he was a member of an old Yorkshire family, and late in life
settled in Bedfordshire.

Richard died in 1484, and thus five persons have sufficed to chronicle an
incident which occurred nearly 370 years since.

Mr. Harrison further stated that there was nothing remarkable about
Richard, that he was not the hunchback "lump of foul deformity" so
generally believed until of late years.

The foregoing anecdote may be of interest as showing that traditions may
come down from remote periods by few links, and thus be but little
differing from the actual occurrences.

H. J.