The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-05-17

GA Seeker after knowledge" wants to
know who wrote 'Ingomar." The play was
done into English by Maria Lowell, and was
adapted from the German of Franz Joseph
Munch-Bellinghausen, poet, baron and
bearer of the pen-name Friedrich Hahn"
He had the honor to be born in the same
year the Holy Roman Empire died. 1t is
curious, by the way, that none of the books
of quotations give that very familiar quo
tation, ''Two souls with but single
thought &c.
Speaking of ''Ingomar' it seems to
Yorick that the actors misconceive the diff
ficulty the barbarian chief labors under, in
the second act, in pronouncing Parthenia's
name. As usually rendered on the stage
he stumbles over all its syllables, and she re-
peats the name like school-marm giving
out words for spelling to the little ones.
Obviously the only difficulty in the pronun-
citation is the sounding of the til, the Greek
theta. To the Allemanni that was sound
they had not been taught to lisp, and In
gomar found it as hard to say as the German
or the Frenchman, newly come to our
shores.
--Charl es Tennyson Turner, the brother
of the Poet Laureate, died in England, one
day this week. There are many reasons
why he should be long remembered. There
is one reason why he should never be
forgotten in literature, and that reason is
this exquisite sonnet:
LETTY's-GLoBE.
When Lefty had scarce passed her third glad year,
And her young artless words began to flow,
One day we gave the child color'd sphere
Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know
By tint and outline, all its sea and land.
She patted all the world; old empires peep'd
Between her baby fingers; how she leapd,
And laugh'd, and prattled, in her pride of blissl
But when we turn'd her sweet unlearned eyel
On our own Isle she rais'd a Joyous cry
80 yes! see it, Letty's home is therel'
And while she hid all England with a kiss,
Bright over Europe fell her golden hair.
A correspondent, who jocularly, lets us
hope, signs himself "a Dead Beat" wants
Yorick to find time in his NEUROLOGICAL re-
searches to give the origin of there is moth
ing like cold tea." This correspondent
seems given to reckless levity, but his query
shall have an answer-for the sake of his
family which may be made up of respecta-
BILE people. Yorick opines that the phrase
sprang from the myth of Webster and his
favorite punch. This is the receipt men
have tabled Daniel Webster gave: s'Four
pounds lump sugar; one pint of strong green
tea; one dozen lemons, the peel cut off in
small bits, and the juice squeezed out; one
ounce of mace; two bottles of cognac
brandy, six bottles champagne and eight bot
ties caret" Yorick does not believe this re-
ceipt was ever given by the Great Com
FOUNDER, but holds that it and the phrase
quoted above are jests on Webster's notori-
Gus fondness for tea.
A thousand octave pages of diary and
correspondence are not inviting in these
days of haste. Should however anyone exist
who cares to close with so many pages, that
one will find entertainment in the two vol
umes of the Memoirs of Thomas Moore, re-
published in this country as long ago as 1857,
and perhaps now out of print. Moore has
shrunk great deal in popular estimation of
late years, and people do not think much
about him, or hold him in slight esteem,
though some of his lines, like
the trail of the serpent is over them all
are common quotations. The Memoirs are
of interest because of the information thev
convey concerning the people of the time
and the gossipy manner in which they are
written. Moore was a good rdconteur, was
always going to dinners, and got into the
habit of setting down in his diary the bright
things he heard The length and frequency
of his entries speak well for his abstemious-
ness. He seems to have been one of those
fellows we have all met who sing Justify of
the pleasures of the bowl but who seldom
put their lips to it. His taste for the grape