The first Dawson statue of 1881, by Woolner, being regarded as unsatisfactory, its removal, with a broken nose, to an alcove in the lower lobby of the public Reference Library, where its defects are less exposed to public remark, followed, and its place at the north-east corner of Chamberlain Square was taken in 1884 by another statue from the chisel of F. J. Williamson, which better realizes the ideal to which Dawson's picturesque personality lent itself. The coat, &c., were modelled from Dawson's actual garments. The beauty of the figure is discounted by the imposition of a lofty canopy and spire, the former bearing medallions of Shakespeare, Cromwell, Bunyan, and Carlyle -the subjects of some of Dawson's lectures. The removal of the canopy was advocated as long ago as March, 1885, by the late Eliezer Edwards ("S. D. R."). It is curious that Shakespeare, a Midlander, never mentions Birmingham under any one of its varieties of name, though in Henry IV. he makes Falstaff say to Bardolph, just prior to Shrewsbury's fight of 1403

"Get thee before to Coventry, fill me a bottle of sack, our soldiers shall march through; we'll to Sutton Coldfield to-night."

Sutton Coldfield is now close to the northern border of Greater Birmingham, extended

in 1912.

At the north-west corner of the Square is F. J. Williamson's (seated) Sir Josiah Mason' (1795-1881), unveiled in 1885. A manufacturer of steel pens, split-rings, and electroplated ware in the early days of those inventions, Mason rose, by perseverance and industry, from poverty to affluence. A native of Kidderminster, he is buried in the grounds of the Orphanage founded by him at Erdington, a Birmingham suburb, and on a window of a mausoleum chapel is the following quatrain on the upbringing of children :

Make them wise and make them good,
Make them strong in time of trial,
Teach them patience, self-denial,
Patience, kindness, fortitude.

An earlier design for a statue by F. G. Papworth was at first approved of. It made way, however, for that of the present statue, and a solatium of 150 guineas was granted to the disappointed artist.

'John Skirrow Wright' (1822-80), also by F. J. Williamson, was unveiled by John Bright on the refuge (east end) in front of the Council House on 15 June, 1883. A popular Liberal leader and a lay preacher of considerable power, he would in the ordinary course of things have been returned as a Birmingham member to Parliament, but unselfishly stood on one side when the opportunity offered itself to make way for Mr. Chamberlain's first election to Westminster. At the General Election of 1880 Wright was successful at Nottingham, but died suddenly on 13 April when attending a committee meeting in the Birmingham Council House before taking his seat in the House of Commons-the first member of the 1880 Parliament to pass away.

The statue now stands in Chamberlain Square in the vicinity of Priestley's. It was removed to its present position on the rearrangement of the Victoria Square statues consequent on the arrival of King Edward's. It may, perhaps, not be out of place to mention now, after all these years, the coincidence that, on the day of Wright's lamentable death, the local political cartoon of the week (by J. H. Bernasconi) was to have represented the newly elected of Nottingham as a Peri" flying upwards to a political Paradise in the sky (of which an outline of the clocktower at Westminster was the symbol), with the well-known lines beneath :

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Joy, joy for ever! My task is done,

The gates are passed, and heaven is won.

The " cartoon " was, of course, hurriedly suppressed at the last moment. A few copies only were preserved, and in its place was substituted a portrait of Wright which met with a ready sale.

In the Sculpture Hall of the Art Gallery is Mr. A. Bruce Joy's John Bright' (1811-89), unveiled in 1888, a statue similar to the same artist's later work in the Lower Waiting Hall of the House of Commons, which

mellow, adj. =melting.

"In hot weather, the painting on their face has been so mellow."D.L.C.,' I. i. 156.

mitigate, intrans. verb to alloy.

God, for fear of surfeit, thought it meet To mitigate, since we swell with what is sweet. 'Mon. Col.,' 149. (A very wrong use of the word, as something bitter is mixed with something sweet.) monologist, noun-one who repeats a single word. "The fatal monologist....cuckoo." Cuck.,' V. ii. 143. mouth, noun (?). "A vessel....carries a letter of mart in her mouth."- Cuck.,' II. iv. 137. BON A. F. BOURGEOIS.

(To be continued.)

RUDYARD KIPLING'S LETTERS OF TRAVEL.

-In the course of a journey to the Orient and back by way of the Canadian NorthWest in 1892, Mr. Kipling wrote a series of eight letters of travel, which appeared in several newspapers in that year, but which seem to have been overlooked by his bibliographers.

John Lane lists four of them as having appeared in The Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore, but their English and American publication has been entirely ignored. In England they were published in the London Times. In the United States they seem to have been syndicated, and probably appeared in most of the larger cities. In New York they were printed in the Sunday Sun. A fuller account of them will be found in The Bookman (N.Y.) for March, 1914. They contain much interesting material, including the first drafts of a number of poems. It is noteworthy that there is considerable variation between the English and American versions of the letters, the latter including several poems which do not appear in The Times.

The following are the titles, dates, and subjects of the letters. The facts in regard to their Indian publication I take from John Lane's Bibliography in Le Gallienne's 'Rudyard Kipling: a Criticism.'

1. In Sight of Monadnock': London Times, 13 April, 1892; New York Sun, 17 April, 1892.— Winter scenes in Vermont.

2. From Tideway to Tideway': London Times, 7 and 9 May, 1892; New York Sun, 8 and 15 May, 1892.-In the Sun the first part was entitled New York and St. Paul as Seen by Rudyard Kipling,' and the second Across the Continent from Tideway to Tideway.' The first part contains severe criticisms of New York, and more lenient ones of St. Paul. The second describes the prairie and the Canadian Rockies.

3. The Edge of the East': London Times, 2 July, 1892; New York Sun, 3 and 17 July, 1892; Lahore Civil and Military Gazette, 9 and 16 July, 1892.-Describes Japan, and closes with the first draft of Buddha at Kamakura.'

4. Our Overseas Men': London Times, 30 July, 1892; New York Sun, 31 July and 7 Aug., 1892; Lahore Civil and Military Gazette, 8 and 15 Aug., 1892.-Describes some of the types of men one meets in foreign parts, and especially in the clubs of Yokohama.

5. Some Earthquakes': London Times, 13 Aug., 1892; New York Sun, 14 Aug., 1892; Lahore Civil and Military Gazette, 22 and 27 Aug., 1892.-Japanese earthquakes, terrestrial and financial.

6. Half-a-Dozen Pictures': London Times, 20 Aug., 1892; New York Sun, 28 Aug., 1892; Lahore Civil and Military Gazette, 3 and 5 Sept., 1892. Also in Current Literature (N.Y.), October, 1892. Six striking scenes in different parts of the world. As published in America, the letter closes with the first draft of " When Earth's last picture is painted."

7. Captains Courageous': London Times, 23 Nov., 1892; New York Sun, 27 Nov., 1892.In The Sun the title reads What Rudyard Kipling saw on his way back from Japan. With something about out-land adventurers and the boom spirit of the great West," which sufficiently describes the contents.

The American version

contains the first draft of the opening stanza of The Rhyme of the Three Sealers,' and opens with The Foreloper.'

8. On One Side Only': London Times, 29 Nov., 1892; New York Sun, 4 Dec., 1892.Summer in Vermont, with some remarks about American nerves and character.

J. DE LANCEY FERGUSON. Columbia University.

[See also 11 S. viii. 441, 464, 485, 515; ix. 34, 93, 134, 309.]

AMERICAN PONY EXPRESS.—The following extract from the life of John Young Nelson, who was born at Charleston, Virginia, in 1826, is perhaps worth a place in 'N. & Q.,' inasmuch as the book containing it is not very well known. Nelson ran away from home at twelve years of age, and lived for many years with a tribe of Sioux Indians, a band of whom, known as the Brûlés, adopted him as one of their own. He later in life acted as guide to Brigham Young, who was met while leading the first band of Mormons in search of the Promised Land. Later still, he accompanied a troop of American soldiers sent out to punish the same Mormons, who had massacred in cold blood a band of defenceless emigrants-a notorious outrage, still known as the "Mountain Meadow affair." The author of the book gives numerous other thrilling incidents in Nelson's life, vouching for the absolute truth of everything therein narrated.

"One day I fell across A. B. Miller, the Superintendent of the Pony Express Agency then running to California. He told me the Pi-Ute Indians had broken out along the route, and had scared his two riders, who were the half-breed sons of a Capt. Egan, by telling them that if they came through the country again they would be

A Secretary of State for War was first appointed in 1794, the control of the land forces of the Crown having been previously exercised by a Secretary at War, who was responsible to Parliament through the Home Secretary.

In 1801 the Secretary of State for War was also given the business of the Colonies, of which he was relieved in 1854 by the appointment of a Secretary of State for that purpose.

At the date of the gift of the cannon to Margate, therefore, the title of "Secretary at War" would appear to have been already obsolete. J. LANDFEAR LUCAS.

Glendora, Hindhead, Surrey.

CHINESE PROVERB IN BURTON'S ANATOMY.' (See 10 S. xi. 168; xii. 277; 11 S. viii. 189.) From Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo's Narrative of Embassy to the Court of Timour, 1403-6,' trans Markham, 1859, p. 171, it appears that about the beginning of the fifteenth century there was current in Samarcand the proverb 66 The

Chinese have two eyes, the Franks one eye, but the Moors no eye."

Whether or not the originals of such a proverb, similar comparisons frequently occur in the Buddhist works of earlier dates, of which the following are but two examples

"This world has three kinds of men, viz., eyeless, one-eyed, and two-eyed. The eyeless man never attends to the Law; the one-eyed man does not fix his mind upon the Law, howbeit that he frequently attends thereto; but the two-eyed man carefully hearkens unto the Law and demeans himself according to it."--The Chinese translation of the Mahaparinirvâna-sûtra,' by Dharmarakcha, A.D. 416-23, tom. xxv.

Every seeker in philosophical meditation should have the two particular eyes: one, the ordinary eye, with which to read letters; another, the intellectual eye, with which to discriminate errors. ."-Chi-kioh-shen-sze, Tsung-king-luh,' c. A.D. 960, tom. xli.

KUMAGUSU MINAKATA.

Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

LETHE: A CLASSICAL AND ANCIENT BLUNDER.-If any one will turn to Smith's Classical Dictionary,' he will find Lethe described as "a river in the lower world, from which the shades drank, and thus obtained forgetfulness of the past." Even in Liddell and Scott's Greek Lexicon' we see it is called "the river of oblivion in the lower world," named by the old writers ὁ τῆς Λήθης ποταμός, while Casaubon and Strabo are invoked as authorities. And yet, as a matter of fact, Lethe was a plain, and not a river. This we can easily prove from the Tenth Book of Plato's Republic' (towards the end, Jowett's translation) :

no

"And when they had all passed, they marched on in a scorching heat to the plain of Forgetfulness (Lethe), which was a barren waste destitute of trees and verdure. And then towards evening they encamped by the river of Unmindfulness of this they were all obliged to drink a certain (Ameles), whose water Vessel can hold. quantity, and those who were not saved by wisdom drank more than was necessary, and each one as he drank forgot all things." But if we read on we shall discover the explanation of this consecrated and classical blunder, of which scholars are as guilty as the uncultured: "And we shall pass safely over the river of Forgetfulness (Lethe), and our soul will not be defiled." When Plato speaks of the river he says "by the river Ameles," but when he speaks of this again at the close of the book he really writes "the river of [the country of] Lethe." And the same holds equally true of his first mention of the name. country of] Lethe." It was the plain of [the But obvious as this appears in the original Greek, not one

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