Various - Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853

Your correspondent T. K. seems to think that Scotchmen, and Scotch subjects, have an undue prominence in "N. & Q.:" let me therefore introduce to your readers a neglected Irishman , in the person of Peter Brett, the "parish clerk and schoolmaster of Castle-Knock." This worthy seems to have been a great author, and the literary oracle of the district over which he presided, and exercised the above-named important functions. His magnum opus appears to have been his Miscellany ; a farrago of prose and verse, which, to distinguish it from the herd of books bearing that title, is yclept, par excellence , Brett's Miscellany . When Mr. Brett commenced to enlighten the world, and when his candle was snuffed out, I know not. My volume of the above work purports to be the fifth:

"Containing above a hundred useful and entertaining Particulars, Divine, Moral, and Historical; chiefly designed for the Improvement of Youth, and those who have not the Opportunity of reading large Volumes. Interspersed with several Entertaining Things never before printed. Dublin, 1762."

The parish clerk's bill of fares is of the most seductive kind. Under all the above heads he has something spicy to say, either in prose or verse; but the marrow of the book lies in the Preface. To say that a man, holding the important offices of parish clerk and schoolmaster, could be charged with conceit, would be somewhat rash; if, therefore, in remarking upon the rare instance of a parish clerk becoming an author, he lets out that "whatever cavillers may say about his performance, they must admit his extensive reading, and the great labour and application the concoction of these books has cost him," he is but indulging in a feeling natural to a man of genius, and a pardonable ebullition of the amour propre . Mr. Brett seems to have been twitted with the charge of taking up authorship as a commercial spec; he sullenly admits that his book-making leaves him something, but nothing like a recompense, and draws an invidious comparison between one Counsellor Harris and himself; the former having received 200 l. per annum for collecting materials for the Life of King William III. , while he, the schoolmaster of Castle-Knock, scarcely gets salt to his porridge for his Collections and Observations for perpetuating the Honour and Glory of the King of Kings .

Peter farther boasts that these his volumes

"Contain the juice and marrow of many excellent and learned authors, but compacted after such an ingenious manner, that the learned would find it a great difficulty to show in what authors they are to be found!"

A plan for which, I think, the learned would award him the birch . Mrs. Brett is no less a genius than her husband; and she takes advantage of the publication of the Miscellany , to stick the following little bill upon the back of the title:

"Ann Brett, wife of the said Peter, at the sign of the Shroud in Christ Church Lane, opposite to the Church, makes and sells all Sorts of Shrouds, draws all Sorts of Patterns, does all manner of Pinking, and teaches Young Misses Reading and Writing, Arithmetic, and Plain Work. The Dublin Society," she adds, "was pleased to honour her with a handsome Present for her Curious Performance with the Pen."

As we are not supposed to be sensible of our own failings, I should much wish to know whether any English-French exists equal to some French-English I know of, and inclose a specimen. Mr. P. Chasles has played the critic so well with the English tongue, that perhaps he can find us a few specimens. Without doubt, it will be a wholesome correction to the Malaprop spirit if she is shown up a little; and I regret extremely that Mr. P. Chasles was not invited to correct the proofs of the Itinéraire de France . Here we are posting with M. Richard:

"The courier à franc-étrier cannot use bridle of their own, they must not outrun the postilion who leads them, and the post master if they might arrive at, without their postillion, must not give them horse before this last is come. The supply-horses, according to the number of persons, shall be put to carriages as much as the disposition of the vehicles will admit. For example, three horses shall be put to cabriolets, and till six to the berline, but as it should not be possible, to put a horse en arbalête (cross-bow) without notable accidents, either to caleches with two horses or to the limonieres; they shall be obliged to pay the charge for supply horse."

Here we are in a steamer, p. 52.:

"The sea is smooth, the sky pure, the air calm, everything promises a happy navigation, our boat is in a very favourable position in the middle of the Seine, on the right hand the hills of Honfleur, on the left the coast of Ingouville, let us pause a little more on these shores we are going to leave: behold on the east the fortifications of Havre, small seats! clusters of trees! this is the village of l'Eure threatened by the sea of an entire destruction. We must not pass over this green hill so delightful to view, standing on the opposite shore seamen would not forgive my silence, among these high trees stands a chapel dedicated to Notre-Dame-de-Grace. Ingouville is of 4,800 inhabitants, among which a great many Englishmen live there as in their own country, having their particular churchyard, physicians, and many occasions of hearing from England, which they can perceive from their pavilions. The traveller can go to Elbeuf by land or water. The lover of the scenes of nature will enjoy very romantical prospects, a new kind of view will strike his sight, a long train of rocks called D'Orival, the most part steep, covered with evergreen trees, which seem shoot out, with difficulty, of their craggings."

He tells us Soissons (p. 102.) "has a college, a pretty theatre, and a bishoprick-sec, from the Cradle of Christianity into the Gauls." At Coulommières (Seine et Marne), "the sciences are not cultivated, but the inhabitants know pretty well how to play at nine pins." At Fontaines les Cornues, "the inhabitants of Paris with a small expense can procure to himself a scenery scarecely to be found in the other quarter of the globe!" At Chatillion-sur-Seine, "the streets are neat and well aired." At Arles, p. 361., a head of a goddess carved in marble:

"The way in which the neck and left shoulder are ended, points out that the head is related to a figure in drapery cut in another block."

"The merchant of Bordeaux is distinguished by his noble easy and pompous manner, he makes himself easily forgiven a sort of boasting, which is the foible of the country."

How the ladies bathe at Mont d'Or, p. 218.:

"At five in the morning bathing begins. Two hardy Highlanders go and fetch in a kind of deal boxes the fashionable lady, who when in town never quits her bed-down before noon, the annuitant, the rich man, are all brought in the same manner in these boxes. It is one of the most pleasant bathing establishments; it offers a peristyle, a small resting-room, a warming-place for linen, with partitions to prevent its mixture."

The work consists of 446 mortal pages though I am bound to say a portion here and there is respectably written.

I had intended sending you a paper on Bishop Taylor's Similes , with Illustrative Notes on some Passages in his Works; but I soon found that your utmost indulgence could not afford me a tithe of the space I would require. Instead, therefore, send you an illustration of a single simile, as it is short, and not the least curious in the lot: