Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they are listed at the end of the text.

{493} NOTES AND QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

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"When found, make a note of."—CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

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No. 186.] Saturday, May 21, 1853. [Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition 5d.

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CONTENTS.

NOTES:— Page Lord Bacon's "Advancement of Learning" 493 Erection of Forts at Michnee and Pylos, by C. Forbes 495 Hoveden's Annals: Bohn's "Antiquarian Library," by James Graves 495 FOLK LORE:—Raven Superstition—African Folk Lore —Funeral Custom 496 Shakspeare Readings, No. VII. 496 MINOR NOTES:—Portrait of Luther—Randle Wilbraham —Unpublished Epigram by Sir W. Scott—Crassus' Saying 498

QUERIES:— Bees and the Sphynx atropos, by Sydney Smirke 499 "The Craftsman's Apology," by James Crossley 499 Palissy and Cardinal Wiseman 499 MINOR QUERIES:—Polidus—St. Paul's Epistles to Seneca—Meaning of "folowed"—Roman Catholic Registers—St. Alban's Day—Meigham, the London Printer—Adamsoniana—Canker or Brier Rose— "Short red, god red"—Overseers of Wills—Lepel's Regiment—Vincent Family—Passage in the First Part of Faust—Lady Anne Gray—Continental Brasses —Peter Beaver—Cremonas—Cranmer and Calvin 499 MINOR QUERIES WITH ANSWERS:—"A Letter to a Convocation Man"—Prester John—Homer's Iliad in a Nut—Monogram of Parker Society—The Five Alls— Corvizer 502

REPLIES:— English Comedians in Germany 503 A Gentleman executed for whipping a Slave to Death, by Henry H. Breen 503 Longevity 504 Derivation of Canada, by Robert Wright 504 Setantiorum Portus 505 PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE:—Stereoscopic Queries —Photographic Portraits of Criminals, &c.—Photography applied to Catalogues of Books—Application of Photography to the Microscope 505 REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES:—Discovery At Nuneham Regis—Eulenspiegel, or Howleglas—Parochial Libraries —Painter—Pepys's "Morena"—Pylades and Corinna—Judge Smith—Grindle—Simile of the Soul and the Magnetic Needle—English Bishops deprived by Queen Elizabeth—Borrowed Thoughts—Dr. South v. Goldsmith, Talleyrand, &c.—Foucault's Experiment —Passage in "Locksley Hall"—Lake of Geneva—"Inter cuncta micans"—"Its"—Gloves at Fairs—Astronomical Query—Tortoiseshell Tom Cat—Sizain on the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender —Wandering Jew—Hallett and Dr. Saxby— "My mind to me a kingdom is"—Claret—Suicide at Marseilles—Etymology of Slang—Scanderbeg's Sword —Arago on the Weather—Rathe—Carr Pedigree— Banbury Cakes—Detached Belfry Towers, &c. 507

MISCELLANEOUS:— Notes on Books, &c. 513 Books and Odd Volumes wanted 514 Notices to Correspondents 514 Advertisements 514

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NOTES.

LORD BACON'S "ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING."

Considering the large number of quotations from previous writers which occur in Lord Bacon's works, and especially in his most popular and generally read works—his Essays and his Advancement of Learning—it is remarkable how little his editors have done for the illustration of his text in this respect. The French editors of Montaigne's Essays, who is likewise a writer abounding in quotations, have bestowed much care on this portion of their author's text. The defect in question has, however, been to a great extent supplied in a recent edition of the Advancement of Learning, published by Mr. Parker in West Strand; and it is to be hoped that the beginning, so usefully made, may be followed up by similar editions of other of Bacon's works.

The edition in question, though it traces the great majority of Bacon's quotations, has left some gleanings to its successors; and I propose now to call attention to a few passages of the Advancement of Learning which, after the labours of the late editor, seem still to require further elucidation. My references are to the pages of the new edition:—

P. 25. "Then grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius the Portugal bishop to be in price."

The editor prints Orosius for Osorius, and adds this note:

"All the editions have Osorius, which, however, must be a mere misprint. He was not a Portuguese, but a Spaniard, born at Tarragona, nor indeed ever a bishop. He was sent by St. Augustine on a mission to Jerusalem, and is supposed to have died in Africa in the earlier part of the fifth century."

The text of Bacon is quite right. The allusion is not to Paulus Orosius, a Spaniard, who flourished at the beginning of the fifth century; but to Jerome Osorio, who was born at Lisbon in 1506, afterwards became Bishop of Silves, and died in 1580. His works were published at Rome in 1592, in 4 vols. folio. His principal work, De rebus Emanuelis Virtute et Auspicio gestis, which first appeared in 1571, was several times reprinted, and was translated into French and English. {494}

P. 31. "Time, which is the author of authors."

In Nov. Org., i. 84., Time is called "Auctor auctorum, atque adeo omnis auctoritatis."

P. 34. "But of these conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely, when he saith, 'Qui respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant."

The editor does not attempt to trace this passage. Query, If it is not in Aristotle, where is it to be found?

P. 60. "Ulysses, 'Qui vetulam praetulit immortalitati' is a figure of those which prefer custom and habit before all excellency."

The editor refers to Cic. de Orat., i. 44., where it is said that such is the love of country,

"Ut Ithacam illam, in asperrimis saxulis, tanquam nidulum, affixam, sapientissimus vir immortalitati anteponeret."

Another application of the saying is made by Bacon in his Essay VIII., "On Marriage and Single Life:"

"Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands, as was said of Ulysses, 'vetulam suam praetulit immortalitati.'"

The passage in Cicero does not agree with the dictum quoted by Bacon, which seems to be a reference to the Odyssey, v. 136. 208-10.

P. 62. "Claudus in via antevertit cursorem extra viam."

The same proverb is quoted in Nov. Org., i. 61.

P. 85. "Omnia mutantur, nil interit"—

from Ovid, Met., xv. 165.

Several passages are cited by Bacon from Seneca, which the editor does not trace. Thus, in p. 146., it is said,—

"Nocet illis eloquentia, quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit, sed sui."

Page 147.,—

"Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei."

The same passage is also quoted by Bacon in Essay V., "On Adversity," and in the treatise De Sap. Vet., vol. x. p. 343., edit. Montagu.

Again, p. 159.:

"De partibus vitae quisque deliberat, de summa nemo."

Page 152.,—

"Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris," &c.,

repeated in part in the "Essay on Death."

This last passage is taken, with considerable verbal variations, from Epist. 77. Sec. 6.

"Therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax Democritus, doth in truth commend him, where he saith, If we shall indeed dispute, and not follow after similitudes," &c.

The passage referred to is in Eth. Nic., vi. 3.; but it contains no allusion to Democritus, who is not even named in the Ethics; and the word which Bacon renders dispute ([Greek: akribologeisthai]) means to speak with precision.

P. 163. "For as the ancient politiques in popular states were wont to compare the people to the sea, and the orators to the winds."

The allusion is to a couplet of Solon:

"[Greek: ex anemon de thalassa tarassetai? en de tis auten] [Greek: me kinei, panton esti dikaiotate.]" Fragm. i. 8., ed. Gaisford.

And to a passage of Livy (xxviii. 27.):

"Multitudo omnis, sicut natura maris, per se immobilis est, venti et aurae cient."

Compare Babrius, fab. 71.

P. 165. "Did not one of the Fathers, in great indignation, call poesy vinum daemonum?"

The same citation recurs in Essay I., "On Truth:"

"One of the Fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum."

Query, Who is the Father alluded to?

Page 177., the sayings, "Faber quisque fortunae propriae" is cited; and again, p. 178., "Faber quisque fortunae suae." In Essay XL., "On Fortune," it is quoted, with the addition, "saith the poet." The words are to be found in Sallust, Ad Caesar. de Rep. Ord., ii. 1.:

"Sed res docuit, id verum esse, quad in carminibus Appius ait, fabrum suae esse quemque fortunae."

The Appius alluded to is Appius Claudius the Censor.

Bacon proceeds to say:

"This conceit or position [viz. 'Faber quisque,' &c.], if it be too much declared and professed, hath been thought a thing impolitic and unlucky, as was observed in Timotheus the Athenian, who, having done many great services to the estate in his government, and giving an account thereof to the people, as the manner was, did conclude every particular with this clause, 'And in this Fortune had no part.' And it came so to pass, that he never prospered in anything he took in hand afterwards."

The anecdote is as follows:—Timotheus had been ridiculed by the comic poets, on account of the small share which his own management had had in his successes. A satirical painting had likewise been made, in which he was represented sleeping, while Fortune stood over him, and drew the cities into his net. (See Plutarch, Reg. et Imp. Apophth., vol. ii. p. 42., ed. Tauchnitz; AElian, V. H. xiii. 42.) On one occasion, however, having returned from a successful expedition, he remarked to the Athenians, in allusion to the previous sarcasms, that in this campaign at least Fortune had no share. Plutarch, who relates the latter {495} anecdote in his Life of Sylla, c. 6., proceeds to say, that this boast gave so much offence to the deity, that he never afterwards prospered in any of his enterprises. His reverse of luck, in consequence of his vainglorious language against Fortune, is also alluded to by Dio Chrysost. Orat., lxiv. Sec. 19., edit. Emper. It will be observed that Plutarch refers the saying of Timotheus to a single expedition; whereas Bacon multiplies it, by extending it over a series of acts.

P. 172. "Cicero reporteth that it was then in use for senators that had name and opinion for general wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, Laelius, and many others, to walk at certain hours in the Place," &c.

The passage alluded to is De Orat., iii. 83. The persons there named are Sex. AElius, Manius Manilius, P. Crassus, Tib. Coruncanius, and Scipio.

P. 179. "We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to the ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief, and distrust."

The precept adverted to is the verse of Epicharmus:

"[Greek: naphe kai memnas' apistein? arthra tauta ton phrenon.]"

P. 180. "Fraus sibi in parvis fidem praestruit, ut majore emolumento fallat."

Query, Where does this passage occur, as well as the expression "alimenta socordiae," which Demosthenes, according to Bacon, applies to small favours.

L.

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ERECTION OF FORTRESS AT MICHNEE AND PYLOS.

Mr. Dartnell, Surgeon of H. M. 53rd regiment, gives the following account of the building of a fort which has lately been erected at Michnee to check the incursions of the Momunds into the Peshawur Valley:

"There was little to be done, except to build a fort, and here the officers had to superintend and direct the working parties which were daily sent out.... Laborers from far and near, Cashmerees, Caboolees, men from the Hindoo Koosh, Afreedees, Khyberees, &c., all working together with hearty goodwill, and a sort of good-humoured rivalry.... It is only when working by contract, however, that the Cashmeree displays his full physical powers, and it is then perfectly refreshing, in such a physically relaxing and take-the-world-as-it-goes sort of a country as this, to observe him.... And then to see him carry a burden! On his head? No. On his back? Yes, but after a fashion of his own, perfectly natural and entirely independent of basket, or receptacle of any kind in which to place it. I have now in my garden some half-dozen of these labourers at work, removing immense masses of clay, which are nearly as hard as flint, and how do they manage? My friend Jumah Khan reverts his arms, and clasping his hands together behind his back, receives the pyramidal load, which generally overtops his head, and thus he conveys it to its destination," &c.—Colburn's United Service Magazine, December, 1852, pp. 514, 515.

Thucydides tells us that as soon as the crews of the Athenian ships, weatherbound at Pylos in the spring of the year B.C. 425, had made up their minds to kill time by fortifying their harbour of refuge,—

"They took the work in hand, and plied it briskly.... The mud that was anywhere requisite, for want of vessels, they carried on their shoulders, bending forwards as much as possible, that it might have room to stick on, and holding it up with both hands clasped fast behind that it might not slide down."—Book iv. chap. 4. (Smith's Translation.)

C. FORBES.

Temple.

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HOVEDEN'S ANNALS—BOHN'S "ANTIQUARIAN LIBRARY."

Considering the cheap issue of all standard works of reference a great boon to the general student, I was predisposed to welcome heartily Mr. Bohn's Antiquarian Library. If, however, cheapness be accompanied by incorrectness, the promised boon I conceive to be worthless; even one or two glaring errors rendering the student distrustful of the entire series. I was led to form the first of these conclusions on receiving vol. i. of a translation of the Annals of Roger de Hoveden, by Henry T. Riley, Esq., barrister-at-law; who introduces the work by a flourish of trumpets in the Preface, on the multifarious errors of the London and Frankfort editions, and the labour taken to correct his own; to the second by observing, whilst cutting the leaves, the following glaring errors, put forward too as corrections:—Vol. i. p. 350., Henry II. is stated by the Annalist to have landed in Ireland, A.D. 1172, "at a place which is called Croch, distant eight miles from the city of Waterford." Here Mr. Riley, with perfect gravity, suggests Cork[1] as the true reading!! Can it be, that a barrister-at-law, with an ominously Irish-sounding name, is ignorant that the city of Cork is somewhat more distant than eight miles from the urbs intacta, as Waterford loves to call herself? The fact is, however, that Hoveden and his former editors were nearly correct: on {496} old maps of the harbour of Waterford, Crook Castle is laid down inside Creden Head, on the Waterford side of the harbour; and Crook is still the name of a place at the point indicated, somewhat more however than eight miles from Waterford.

Again, at p. 351. occurs Hoveden's well-known and valuable enumeration of the Irish episcopal sees at the same period, of which Mr. Riley observes: "Nearly all these are mis-spelt ... they are in a state of almost hopeless confusion." And then, to make confusion worse confounded, his note on the Bishop of Ossory (p. 352.) says "In the text, 'Erupolensis' is perhaps a mistake for 'Ossoriensis.'" Now, Erupolensis happens to be a correct alias of Ossoriensis: the former characterising the diocese from Kilkenny, the cathedral city, which being seated on the Nore, or Neor—Hibernice Eoir, Latine Erus, was sometimes called Erupolis—the latter from the territory with which the see was and is co-extensive, the ancient kingdom of Ossory.

How many more errors there may be in the first volume of the work, I cannot say: but, at all events, what the reader has to complain of is, not that the translator was unable to tell all about "Croch" and "Erupolis," but that, not knowing, he has made matters worse by his hardy elucidations. Truly, at this rate, it were better that no cheap edition of Hoveden were vouchsafed to the public.

JAMES GRAVES.

Kilkenny.

[Footnote 1: This geographical morceau was nearly equalled by a scribe in the Illustrated London News, who stated that her Gracious Majesty's steam-yacht, with its royal freight and attendant squadron, when coasting round from Cork to Dublin in the year 1849, had entered Tramore Bay, and thence steamed up to Passage in the Waterford Harbour! A truly royal road to safety; and one that, did it exist, would have saved many a gallant crew and ship, which have met their fate within the landlocked, but ironbound and shelterless, jaws of Tramore Bay.]

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FOLK LORE.

Raven Superstition.—On a recent occasion, at an ordinary meeting of the guardians of the poor, an application was made by the relieving officer on behalf of a single woman residing in the church village at Altarnun. The cause of seeking relief was stated to be "grief," and on asking for an explanation, the officer stated that the applicant's inability to work was owing to depressed spirits, produced by the flight of a croaking raven over her dwelling on the morning of his visit to the village. The pauper was by this circumstance, in connexion with its well-known ominous character, actually frightened into a state of wretched nervous depression, which induced physical want.

S. R. P.

African Folk Lore.—The following curious piece of folk lore is quoted from an extract in The Critic (of April 1, 1853, p. 172.), in the course of a review of Richardson's Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa, &c.:

"To avert the evil eye from the gardens, the people (of Mourzak) put up the head of an ass, or some portion of the bones of that animal. The same superstition prevails in all the oases that stud the north of Africa, from Egypt to the Atlantic, but the people are unwilling to explain what especial virtue there exists in an ass's skull."

W. SPARROW SIMPSON, B.A.

Funeral Custom.—In some parts (I believe) of Yorkshire, and perhaps elsewhere, it is customary to send, immediately after a death, a paper bag of biscuits, and a card with the name, &c. of the deceased, to his friends, be they many or few. Can any of your readers explain the matter? I have more than once seen the card, but not the biscuits.

ABHBA.

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SHAKSPEARE READINGS, NO. VII.

"What are 'Aristotle's checks?'"

This is the question that MR. COLLIER proposed in support of the alteration of checks into ethics, at p. 144. of his Notes and Emendations. He terms checks "an absurd blunder," and in the preface he again introduces it, passing upon it the same unqualified sentence of excommunication, as upon "bosom multiplied," viz. "it can never be repeated." In this opinion he is backed by most of the public scribes of the day, especially by the critic of the Gentleman's Magazine for April, who declares "we should be very sorry to have to discover what the editors have understood by the checks of Aristotle." Furthermore, this critic thinks that "it is extremely singular that the mistake should have remained so long uncorrected;" and he intimates that they who have found any meaning in checks, have done so only because, through ignorance, they could find no meaning in ethics.

Hence it becomes necessary for those who do find a meaning in checks, to defend that meaning; and hence I undertake to answer MR. COLLIER'S question.

Aristotle's checks are those moral adjustments that form the distinguishing feature of his philosophy.

They are the eyes of reason, whereby he would teach man to avoid divergence from the straight path of happiness.

They are his moderators, his mediocrities, his metriopathics.

They are his philosophical steering-marks, his moral guiding-lines, whereby the passions are to be kept in the via media; as much removed from total abnegation on the one hand, as from immoderate indulgence on the other.

Virtue, according to Aristotle, consists in checked or adjusted propensities. Our passions are not in themselves evil, except when unchecked by reason. And inasmuch as we may overeat, or underfeed ourselves (the check being temperance), so may we suffer our other propensities to deviate from the juste milieu, either in the direction of indulgence or of privation. {497}

The art of adjusting the passions requires an apprenticeship to virtue. The end to be attained is the establishment of good habits. These good habits, like any other skill, can only be attained by practice. Therefore the practice of virtue is the education of the passions.

Ethics is the doctrine of habits; but habits may be good or bad. When good, they constitute virtue; when bad, licentiousness.

The doctrine of checks is that branch of ethics which teaches moral adjustment and restraint.

Therefore checks and licentiousness are in better antithesis to each other, than ethics can be to either, because ethics includes both.

The Aristotelian idea of adjustment, rather than denial, of the passions, is well illustrated in the following passage from Plutarch's Morall Vertue, by Philemon Holland, a contemporary of Shakspeare:

"For neither do they shed and spill the wine upon the floure who are afraide to be drunke, but delay the same with water: nor those who feare the violence of a passion, do take it quite away, but rather temper and qualifie the same: like as folke use to breake horses and oxen from their flinging out with their heeles, their stiffenes and curstnes of the head, and stubburnes in receiving the bridle or the yoke, but do not restraine them of other motions of going about their worke and doing their deede. And even so, verily, reason maketh good use of these passions, when they be well tamed, and, as it were, brought to hand: without overweakening or rooting out cleane that parte of the soule which is made for to second reason and do it good service.... Whereas let passions be rid cleane away (if that were possible to be done), our reason will be found in many things more dull and idle: like as the pilot and master of a ship hath little to do if the winde be laid and no gale at all stirring ... as if to the discourse of reason the gods had adjoined passion as a pricke to incite, and a chariot to set it forward."

Again, in describing the "Meanes," he says—

"Now to begin with Fortitude, they say it is the meane between Cowardise and rash Audacitie; of which twaine the one is a defect, the other an excesse of the yrefull passion: Liberalitie, betweene Nigardise and Prodigalitie: Clemencie and Mildnesse, betweene senselesse Indolence and Crueltie: Justice, the meane of giving more or lesse than due: Temperance, a mediocritie betweene the blockish stupiditie of the minde, moved with no touch of pleasure, and all unbrideled loosenes, whereby it is abandoned to all sensualitie."— The Philosophie of Plutarch, fol. 1603.

It really does appear to me that there could not be a happier or more appropriate designation, for a philosophy made up in this way of "meanes" and adjustments, so as to steer between the plus and minus, than a system of checks—not fixed, or rigid rules, as they are sometimes interpreted to be, but nice allowances of excess or defect, to be discovered, weighed, and determined by individual reason, in the audit of each man's conscience, according to the strength or weakness of the passions he may have to regulate.

I therefore oppose the substitution of ethics—

1. Because we have the prima facie evidence of the text itself, that checks was Shakspeare's word.

2. Because we have internal evidence, in the significance and excellence of the phrase, that it was Shakspeare's word.

Ethics was the patent title by which Aristotle's moral philosophy was universally known; therefore any ignoramus, who never dipped beyond the title, might, and would, have used it. But no person, except one well read in the philosophy itself, would think of giving it such a designation as checks; which word, nevertheless, is most happily characteristic of it.

3. Because, as before stated, Aristotle's checks, being the restrictive and regulating portion of Aristotle's Ethics, is necessarily a more diametrical antithesis to Ovid (and his laxities).

4. Because I look upon the use of this phrase as one of those nice and scarcely perceptible touches by which Shakspeare was content rather to hint at, than to disclose his knowledge,—one of those effects whereby he makes a single word supply the place of a treatise.

With these opinions, I cannot but look upon this threatened change of checks into ethics, as wholly unwarrantable, and I now protest against it as earnestly as, upon a former occasion, I did against the alteration of sickles into shekels, or, still worse, into cycles or into circles. It is with great satisfaction I compare four different views taken of this word by MR. COLLIER, viz.—in the note to the text of his octavo edition of Shakspeare;—in an additional note in vol. i., page cclxxxiv. of that edition;—in the first announcement of his annotated folio in the Athenaeum newspaper, Jan. 31st, 1852,—and finally (after my remarks upon the word in "N. & Q."), his virtual reinstatement of the original sickle (till then supposed a palpable and undeniable misprint) at page 46. of Notes and Emendations, together with the production, suo motu, of an independent reference in support of my position.

To return to this present substitution of ethics for checks, a very singular circumstance connected with it is the ignoring, by both MR. COLLIER and by the critic in the Gentleman's Magazine, of Sir William Blackstone's original claim to the suggestion, by prior publication of upwards of half a century. At that time, notwithstanding the great learning and acuteness of the proposer, the alteration was rejected! And shall we now be less wise than our fathers? Shall we—misled by the prestige of a few drops of rusty ink fashioned into letters of formal cut—place implicit credence in emendations whose only claim to faith, like that of the Mormon scriptures, is that nobody knows whence they came? {498}

In the passage I have quoted from Philemon Holland, there may be observed two peculiarities which are generally supposed to be exclusively Shakspearian: one is the beautiful application of the word "touch"—the other the phrase "discourse of reason." Where this last expression occurs in Hamlet, it narrowly escaped emendation at the hands of Gifford! (See Mr. Knight's note, in his illustrated edition of Shakspeare.) It is the true Aristotelian [Greek: dianoia].

There is also a third peculiarity of expression in the same quotation, in the use of the word delay in the sense of diluere, to dilute, temper, allay. There are at least two passages in Shakspeare's plays where the word is used in this sense, but which appear to have been overlooked by his glossarists. The first is in All's Well that Ends Well, Act IV. Sc. 3., where the French locals are moralising upon Bertram's profligate pursuit of Diana:

"Now God delay our rebellion—as we are ourselves, what are we?"

The second is in Cymbeline, Act V. Sc. 4., where Jupiter tempers his love with crosses, in order to make his gifts—

"The more delayed, delighted."

A. E. B.

* * * * *

Minor Notes.

Portrait of Luther.—A portrait of Luther, perhaps original, certainly nearly cotemporary with the Reformer, possessing many excellent qualities, was some time since shown me. It is in the possession of Mr. Horne, of Morton in Marsh, Gloucestershire: it was received by him from an elderly gentleman still living in London, who purchased it many years since at a sale of pictures. The picture is very dark, on canvass, with a black frame having a narrow gilt moulding. As the existence of this portrait is perhaps not known, mention of the fact might interest some of your readers. The picture, including frame, is perhaps in size thirty inches by twenty-four; and the age of the sitter, whose features are delineated with remarkable effects is probably under fifty years.

B. H. C.

Randle Wilbraham.—Randle Wilbraham, Esq., the grandfather of Lord Skelmersdale, who died upon the 3rd of April last, was a lawyer of great eminence, and held the office of treasurer of Lincoln's Inn. The university of Oxford conferred, by diploma, the degree of D.C.L. upon him in these notable terms:

"Placuit nobis in Convocatione die 14 mensis Aprilis 1761, solenniter convocatis spectatissimum Ranulphum Wilbraham, Arm. Coll. AEnaei Nasi quondam commensalem, in agendis causis pro diversis Tribunalibus per multos retro annos hodieque versatissimum, Subsenescallum nostrum et Consiliarium fidissimum, Gradu Doctoris in Jure Civili insignire. Cujus quidem haec praecipua ac prope singularis et est, et semper fuit, quod propriis ingenii et industriae suae viribus innixus Aulici favoris nec appetens, nec particeps, sine ullo magnatum patrocinio, sine turpi Adulantium aucupio, ad summam tamen in Foro, in Academia, in Senatu, tum gloriam, tum etiam authoritatem facilem sibi et stabilem munivit viam, Fortunae suae si quis alius Deo Favente vere Faber", &c.

The above is copied from the original diploma, which Mr. Randle Wilbraham gave to his nephew, the late Dr. William Falconer of Bath. On the death of Mr. R. Wilbraham, Chief Justice Wilmot wrote "I have lost my old friend Mr. Wilbraham: he died in the seventy-seventh year of his age, and has not left a better lawyer, or an honester man behind him."

ANON.

Unpublished Epigram by Sir W. Scott.—

"Earth walks on Earth, Glittering in gold: Earth goes to Earth, Sooner than it wold: Earth builds on Earth, Palaces and towers: Earth says to Earth: Soon, all shall be ours."

The above, by Sir W. Scott, I believe, has never appeared in print to my knowledge. It was recited to me by a friend of Sir W. Scott.

R. VINCENT.

Crassus' Saying.—I find in the Diary of the poet Moore (in Lord John Russell's edition), vol. ii. p. 148., a conversation recorded with Dr. Parr, in which the Doctor quotes "the witticism that made Crassus laugh (the only time in his life): 'Similes habent labra lactucas.'"

It appears (see the quotations in Facciolati) that this sage and laughter-moving remark of Crassus was made on seeing an ass eating a thistle; whereon he exclaimed, "Similes habent labra lactucas."

In Bailey's edition of Facciolati it is said, "Proverbium habet locum ubi similia similibus contingunt,... quo sensu Angli dicimus, 'Like lips like lettuce: like priest like people.'"

Out of this explanation it is difficult to elicit any sense, much less any "witticism."

I suggest that Crassus' saying meant, "His (the ass's) lips hold thistles and lettuces to be both alike;" wanting the discrimination to distinguish between them. Or, if I may put it into a doggerel rhyme:

"About a donkeys taste why need we fret us? To lips like his a thistle is a lettuce."

WM. EWART.

University Club.

* * * * * {499}

Queries.

BEES AND THE SPHYNX ATROPOS.

Huber, in his Observations on the Natural History of Bees, avers that the moth called the Sphynx atropos invades and plunders with impunity a hive containing thousands of bees, notwithstanding the watchfulness, pugnacity, and formidable weapons of those insects. To account for this phenomenon, he states that the queen bee has the faculty of emitting a certain sound which instantly strikes the bees motionless; and he conjectures that this burglarious moth, being endowed with the same property, uses it to produce a similar effect, first on the sentinels at the entrance of the hive, and then on the bees within.

In another part of his book (2nd edit. 1808, p. 202.) he relates what he himself witnessed on introducing a strange queen into a hive. The bees, greatly irritated, pulled her, bit her, and chased her away; but on her emitting the sound and assuming an extraordinary attitude, "the bees all hung down their heads and remained motionless." On the following day he repeated the experiment, and the intrusive queen was similarly maltreated; but when she emitted her sound, and assumed the attitude, from that moment the bees again became motionless.

Have more modern observers verified this curious fact? Is it not a case of mesmerism?

SYDNEY SMIRKE.

* * * * *

"THE CRAFTSMAN'S APOLOGY."

When Bolingbroke published his Final Answer to the Remarks on the Craftsman's Vindication, and to all the Libels which have come, or may come from the same quarter against the Person last mentioned in the Craftsman of the 22nd May, 1731, he was answered in five Poetical Letters to the King, which in keenness of wit, polished satire, and flowing ease of versification, have not been since surpassed. The title of the tract in which they are contained is The Craftsman's Apology, being a Vindication of his Conduct and Writings in several Letters to the King, printed for T. Cooper, 1732, 8vo. pages 32. By whom were these very clever and amusing letters written? Lord Hervey or Sir Charles Hanbury Williams are the parties one would think most likely to have written them; but they do not appear in the list of Lord Hervey's works given by Walpole, or amongst those noticed by Mr. Croker, or in Sir C. H. Williams's Collected Works, in three volumes. Independently of which, I question whether the versification is not, in point of harmony, too equal for either of them. If they be included in the collected works of any other writer of the time, which I have no immediate recollection of, some of your correspondents will no doubt be able to point him out. Should it appear that they have not been reprinted, I shall be disposed to recur again to the subject, and to give an extract from them, as, of all the attacks ever made upon Bolingbroke, they seem to me the most pleasant, witty, and effective.

JAS. CROSSLEY.

* * * * *

PALISSY AND CARDINAL WISEMAN.

On April 28, Cardinal Wiseman, at the Manchester Corn Exchange, delivered a lecture "On the Relation of the Arts of Design to the Arts of Production." It occupies thirteen columns of The Tablet of May 7, which professes to give it "from The Manchester Examiner, with corrections and additions." I have read it with pleasure, and shall preserve it as one of the best discourses on Art ever delivered; but there is a matter of fact, on which I am not so well satisfied. In noticing Bernard Palissy, the cardinal is reported to have said:

"For sixteen years he persevered in this way; and then was crowned with success, and produced the first specimens of coloured and beautiful pottery, such as are to this day sought by the curious; and he received a situation in the king's household, and ended his days in comfort and respectability."

In the review of "Morley's Life of Palissy the Potter," Spectator, Oct. 9, 1852, it is said:

"The period of the great potter's birth is uncertain. Mr. Morley fixes it, on probable data, at 1509; but with a latitude of six years on either side. Palissy died in 1589 in the Bastile, where he had been confined four years as a Hugenot; the king and his other friends could defer his trial, but dared not grant him liberty."

All the accounts which I have read agree with Mr. Morley and the Spectator. Are they or the cardinal right, supposing him to be correctly reported?

H. B. C.

U. U. Club.

* * * * *

Minor Queries.

Polidus.—Can you tell me where the scene of the following play is laid, and the names of the dramatis personae?—Polidus, a Tragedy, by Moses Browne, 8vo. 1723. The author of this play, who was born in 1703, and died in 1787, was for some time the curate of the Rev. James Harvey, author of Meditations, and other works. Mr. Browne was afterwards presented to the vicarage of Olney, in Bucks, where the Rev. John Newton was his curate for several years.

A. Z.

Glasgow.

[Moses Browne was subsequently Chaplain of Morden College. The piscatory brotherhood are indebted to him for having revived Walton's Complete Angler, after it had lain dormant for upwards of eighty years; and this task, he tells us, was undertaken at the request of Dr. Samuel Johnson.—ED.]

{500}

St. Paul's Epistles to Seneca.—It has frequently been affirmed that Seneca became, in the last year of his life, a convert to Christianity—his canonisation by St. Jerome is undoubted and there was stated to be a MS. of the above epistle in Merton College. May I ask any of your contributors whether this MS. has ever been printed?

J. M. S.

Hull.

Meaning of "folowed."—Inside the cover of an old Bible and Prayer-Book, bound in one quarto, Robert Barker, 1611, is the following inscription:

"July eight I was much folowed when I lay in bed alone att Mistris Whitmore's house, wee haveing agreed too bee married nextt daye.

"God, even our own God, shal bless us. This incouriged mee too hope for God's favour and blessing through Christ.

"Christopher Curwen and Hannah Whitmore was married att Lambe's Chapel, near Criplegate, July ninth, 1712."

An entry of his marriage with his first wife, Elizabeth Sutton, 1704, is on the cover at the beginning of the book.

Can any one of your correspondents enlighten me as to the meaning of the word folowed? The letters are legibly written, and there can be no mistake about any of them. Is it an expression derived from the Puritans?

H. C. K.

—— Rectory, Hereford.

Roman Catholic Registers.—Can any of your correspondents inform me where I can find the registers of births, marriages, and burials of Roman Catholic families living in Berks and Oxon in the reigns of Charles I. and II.?

A. PT.

St. Alban's Day.—At p. 340. of the Chronicles of London Bridge, it is stated that Cardinal Fisher was executed on St. Alban's day, June 22, 1535. How is it that in our present calendar St. Alban's day is not June 22, but June 17? On looking back I see SIR W. C. TREVELYAN, in our first volume, inquired the reason of this change, but I do not find any reply to his Query.

E. H. A.

Meigham, the London Printer.—J. A. S. is desirous of obtaining information regarding a printer in London, of the name of Meigham, about 1745-8, or to be directed where to search for such. Meigham conversed, or corresponded, about Catholicity with Dr. Hay, the then vicar-apostolic of the Eastern District of Scotland.

Adamsoniana.—Is anything known of the family of Michel Adamson, or Michael Adamson, the eminent naturalist and voyager to Senegal, who, though born in France, is said to have been of Scottish extraction?

Where is the following poem to be met with?

"Ode in Collegium Bengalense, praemio dignata quod alumnis collegiorum Aberdonensium proposuit vir reverendus C. Buchanan, Coll. Bengalensis Praefectus Vicarius. Auctore Alexandro Adamson, A.M., Coll. Marisch. Aberd. alumno."

Allow me to repeat a Query which was inserted in Vol. ii., p. 297., asking for any information respecting J. Adamson, the author of a rare tract on Edward II.'s reign, published in 1732, in defence of the Walpole administration from the attacks of the Craftsman.

Who was John Adamson, author of Fanny of Caernarvon, or the War of the Roses, an historical romance, of which a French translation was published in 1809 at Paris, in 2 vols. 12mo.?

E. H. A.

Canker or Brier Rose.—Can any of your correspondents tell me why the brier or dog-rose was anciently called the canker? The brier is particularly free from the disease so called, and the name does not appear to have been used in disparagement. In Shakspeare's beautiful Sonnet LIV. are the lines:

"The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye, As the perfumed tincture of the roses."

In King Henry IV., Act I. Sc. 3., Hotspur says:

"Shall it for shame be spoken in these days, Or fill up chronicles in times to come, That men of your nobility and power, Did 'gage them both in an unjust behalf, (As both of you, God pardon it! have done) To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose And plant this thorn, this canker Bolingbroke."

And again, Don John, in Much Ado about Nothing, Act I. Sc. 3.:

"I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in the grave."

ANON.

"Short red, god red."—In Roger of Wendover's Chronicle, Bohn's edition, vol. i. p. 345., is a story how Walchere, Bishop of Durham, was slain in his county court, A.D. 1075, by the suitors on the instigation of one who cried out in his native tongue "Schort red, god red, slea ye the bischop."

Sir Walter Scott, in his Tales of a Grandfather (vol. i. p. 85.), tells the same story of a Bishop of Caithness who was burned for enforcing tithes in the reign of Alexander II. of Scotland (about 1220).

What authority is there for the latter story? Did Sir Walter confound the two bishops, or did he add the circumstance for the amusement of Hugh Littlejohn? Was this the formula usually adopted on such occasions? How came the Caithness people to speak such good Saxon?

G.

Overseers of Wills.—I have copies of several wills of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in {501} which one set of persons are appointed executors and another overseers. What were the rights and duties of these latter?

J. K.

Lepel's Regiment.—Can your correspondent MR. ARTHUR HAMILTON inform me what is the regiment known in 1707 as Lepel's Regiment? It was a cavalry regiment, I believe.

J. K.

Vincent Family.—Can any of your correspondents give me any information respecting the descendants of Francis Vincent, grandson of Augustine Vincent, Rouge Croix Pursuivant at Arms. His sister Elizabeth has, or had very lately, a representative in the person of Francis Offley Edmunds of Worsborough, Yorkshire; but nowhere have I been able to obtain any information respecting himself. If you could give any information on this subject, you would much oblige

C. WILSON.

Passage in the First Part of Faust.—

"Faust. Es Klopft? Herein! Wer will mich wieder plagen? Mephistopheles. Ich bin's. Faust. Herein! Mephis. Du musst es dreimal sagen. Faust. Herein denn! Mephis. So gefaellst du mir."

Why must he say it three times? Is this a superstition that can be traced in other countries than Germany? In Horace we have Diana thus addressed:

"Ter vocata audis, adimisque letho, Diva triformis."—Lib. iii. Ode 22.

But she is there the benign Diana, not Hecate.

Are we to understand the passage to mean, that the number three has a magical influence in summoning spirits; or to teach that the power of evil is so overruled by a higher Power, that he cannot approach to begin his work of temptation and ruin unless he be, not once merely, or twice, but three times, called by the free will and act of the individual who is surrendering himself to his influence? The subject seems worthy of elucidation.

W. FRASER.

Tor-Mohun.

Lady Anne Gray.—Who was the "Lady Anne Gray," or "Lady Gray," who was one of the attendants on Queen Elizabeth when princess, and is mentioned first in Sir John Harrington's poem in praise of her ladies?

N. A.

Continental Brasses.—At a recent meeting of the Archaeological Institute, Mr. Nesbitt exhibited rubbings of some fine brasses at Bamberg, Naumberg, Meissen, and Erfurt. Mr. Nesbitt would confer a favour on the readers of "N. & Q." by stating the names and dates of those sepulchral memorials, and the churches from which he obtained the rubbings, and thus aid in carrying out MR. W. SPARROW SIMPSON'S excellent suggestion for obtaining a complete list of monumental brasses on the Continent.

WILLIAM W. KING.

Peter Beaver.—In the early part of the last century, a gentleman named Peter Beaver, whose daughter was married in 1739 to Latham Blacker, Esq., of Rathescar, lived in the old and fashionable town of Drogheda. Can any one inform me as to the year of his death, and whether he left a son? The name has disappeared in Drogheda. I would likewise be glad to know the origin of the name; and, if it be a corruption of Beauvoir, at what time, and for what reason, was it changed? The crest is the animal of the same name.

ABHBA.

Cremonas.—Can any of your numerous correspondents kindly supply me with a list of the earliest and the latest of the instruments of each of the famous cremona makers? Such a list would be a valuable contribution to "N. & Q."

Mr. Dubourg's work on the Violin, excellent as it is in many respects, contains but a meagre account of the instrument itself, and is sadly deficient on the subject of my Query. May I ask him, and I have reason for so doing, on what authority he gives 1664 as the year of the birth of Antonius Stradivarius, in his last edition?

H. C. K.

Cranmer and Calvin.—In the Christian Observer for March 1827 (No. 303. p. 150.) it is stated that the late Rev. T. Brock, of Guernsey, had been assured by an eminent scholar of Geneva, afterwards a clergyman in our church, that he had met with, in a public library at Geneva, a printed correspondence in Latin between Archbishop Cranmer and Calvin, in which the latter forewarned the former, that though he perfectly understood the meaning of the baptismal service, yet "the time would come when" it "would be misconceived, and received as implying that baptism absolutely conveyed regeneration;" and that Cranmer replied, "that it is not possible such a construction can be put upon the passage, the church having sufficiently explained her meaning in the Articles and elsewhere." I have heard that search was made for these documents by M. D'Aubigne and others, but without success; one of the reports being, that "the documents had been apparently cut out." Mr. Brock's informant, I hear, was a Rev. Marc De Joux, who afterwards became an Irvingite, left Guernsey, and went to the Mauritius, where it is believed he still resides. With the theological question I wish not here to meddle, or to express an opinion. But I should be glad if you will kindly permit me to inquire whether any of your readers can give any information as to the existence of the supposed "printed" correspondence {502} referred to? whether or not it does exist? and, if so, where?

C. D.

* * * * *

Minor Queries with Answers.

"A Letter to a Convocation Man" (Vol. vii., pp. 358. 415.).—I beg to thank "N. & Q." for the answer to my inquiry respecting the authorship of this letter. I should be very glad to learn further particulars respecting Sir Bartholomew Shower. Was he a member of the House of Commons, as the author of the Letter intimates that he himself was? I shall also be very thankful if TYRO, or any other correspondent, will answer for me these Queries, suggested by the same Letter.

"It was the opinion, indeed, of a late great preacher, that Christians under a Mahometan or Pagan government, ought to value the peace of the country above the conversion of the people there."

Who is the preacher here referred to?

Who were the authors, and what were the titles of the many Defences of Sherlock's Vindication of the Holy and Ever Blessed Trinity, and The Divinity and Death of Christ? *

And what farther is to be learned of Mr. Papin, a Socinian, who jointed the Church of Rome about that period? +

Who was Chief Justice in 1697? Was it Chief Justice Treby? +

Trelawney, Bishop of Exeter, excommunicated Dr. Bury. When was the living the latter enjoyed "untouched and even unquestioned by another bishop?" Sec.

In case the answers to these should not appear of sufficient importance to be put into type, I enclose an envelope.

W. FRASER.

Tor-Mohun.

P.S.—The misprint you point out, Vol. vii., p. 409., of Oxoniensis for Exoniensis, occurred in the Appendix to Wake's State of the Church and Clergy of England, p. 4.

[* The titles of nearly twenty works relating to Sherlock's Trinitarian Controversy will be found s. v. in the Bodleian Catalogue, vol. iii. p. 462. See also Watt's Bibliotheca Britannica.

+ A long account of Mr. Papin is given in Rose's as well as in Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary.

+ Sir George Treby was Chief Justice of Common Pleas in 1697.

Sec. Bishop Trelawney, it appears, suspended Dr. Arthur Bury from the rectorship of Exeter College for some heterodox notions in his work, The Naked Gospel. The affair was carried by appeal from the King's Bench to the House of Lords, when Bishop Stillingfleet delivered a speech on the "Case of Visitation of Colleges," printed in his Ecclesiastical Cases, part ii. p. 411. Wood states that Dr. Bury was soon after restored. For an account of this controversy, and the works relating to it, see Gough's British Topography, vol. ii. p. 147., and Wood's Athenae (Bliss), vol. iv. p. 483.

Any farther communications on the above Queries shall be forwarded to the correspondent.]

Prester John.—I should be glad, through the medium of "N. & Q.," to be favoured with some information relative to this mysterious personage.

STRATH CLYDE.

[The history of Prester John, or of the individuals bearing that appellation, appears involved in considerable confusion and obscurity. Most of our Encyclopaedias contain notices of this mysterious personage, especially Rees's, and Collier's Great Historical Dictionary. "The fame of Prester or Presbyter John," says Gibbon, "a khan, whose power was vainly magnified by the Nestorian missionaries, and who is said to have received at their hands the rite of baptism, and even of ordination, has long amused the credulity of Europe. In its long progress to Mosul, Jerusalem, Rome, &c., the story of Prester John evaporated into a monstrous fable, of which some features have been borrowed from the Lama of Thibet (Hist. Geneaologique des Tartares, part ii. p. 42.; Hist. de Gengiscan, p. 31. &c.), and were ignorantly transferred by the Portuguese to the emperor of Abyssinia (Ludolph. Hist. AEthop. Comment. l. ii. c. 1.). Yet is is probable that, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Nestorian Christianity was professed in the horde of the Keraites."]

Homer's Iliad in a Nut.—On the tomb of those celebrated gardeners, Tradescant father and son, these lines occur in the course of the inscription:

"Whilst they (as Homer's Iliad in a nut), A World of Wonders in one closet shut."

Will you explain the comparison implied in the words "as Homer's Iliad in a nut?"

DAVID.

[It refers to the account given by Pliny, vii. 21., that the Iliad was copied in so small a hand, that the whole work could lie in a walnut-shell: "In nuce inclusam Iliada Homeri carmen, in membrana scriptum tradidit Cicero." Pliny's authority is Cicero apvd Gellium, ix. 421. See M. Huet's account of a similar experiment in Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xxxix. p. 347.]

Monogram of Parker Society.—What is the meaning of the monogram adopted by the Parker Society on all their publications?

TYRO.

[The monogram is "MATTHEW PARKER," Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.]

The Five Alls.—Can any of your readers give me an interpretation of a sign on an inn in Oxford, which bears this inscription?

"THE FIVE ALLS."

I can make nothing of it.

CURIOSUS.

Oxford.

[Captain Grose shall interpret this Query. He says, "The Five Alls is a country sign, representing five human figures, each having a motto. The first is a king in his regalia, 'I govern all.' The second, a {503} bishop in pontificals, 'I pray for all.' Third, a lawyer in his gown, 'I plead for all.' Fourth, a soldier in his regimentals, 'I fight for all.' Fifth, a poor countryman with his scythe and rake, 'I pay for all!'"]

Corvizer.—In a deed of the middle of the last century, I find this addition to the name of a person residing at Conway. The word is similarly employed in a list of interments of some "common people," contained in Browne Willis's account of Bangor Cathedral. What does it mean, and whence is it derived?

H. B.

Bangor.

[An obsolete word for a cordwainer or shoemaker. See Ash's Dictionary.]

* * * * *

Replies.

ENGLISH COMEDIANS IN GERMANY.

(Vol. ii., pp. 184. 459.; Vol. iii., p. 21.; Vol. vii., pp. 114. 360.)

In 1605 the English comedians first appeared in Prussia. In October they performed before the Duchess Maria Eleonora at Koningsberg, for which they were well paid; they then proceeded to Elbing, whence they were dismissed with twenty thalers, since they produced scandalous things ("weil sie schandbare Dinge fuergebracht"). In 1607, they were again sent away, after they had performed the preceding year at Rostock. Some time after, the Elector of Brandenburg, Joh. Sigismund, employed a certain noble, Hans von Stockfisch, to obtain a theatrical company from England and the Netherlands. A troop of nineteen comedians, under the direction of John Spencer, came with sixteen musicians to add lustre to the electoral feasts. In 1611, they received 720 marks, as well as many hundred ells of various stuffs for costumes and decorations; of which great quantities were used in 1612. Many a time was it necessary to ransom them at great cost from inns and lodging-houses; so that the prince, in 1613, resolved to rid himself of these dear guests, and gave them a recommendation to the Elector of Saxony. In 1616 we find them in Dantzic, where they gave eight representations; and two years later, the Electress of Brandenburg, through Hans von Stockfisch, procured eighteen comedians, who performed at Elbing, Koningsberg, and other places, and were paid for their trouble ("fuer ihre gehabte Muehe eins fuer alles") 200 Polish guilders.

In 1639, English comedians are again found in Koningsberg; and, for the last time, in 1650, at Vienna, where William Roe, John Waide, Gideon, Gellius, and Robert Casse, obtained a license from Ferdinand I.

In 1620 appeared a volume of Englische Comedien und Tragedien, &c. (2nd edit., 1624), which was followed by a second; and in 1670 by a third: in which last, however, the English element is not so prominent.

These statements of Dr. Hagen are confirmed by numerous quotations from original documents, published by him in the Neue Preuss. Provincial Blaetter, Koningsb., 1850, vol. x.; vid. et Gesch. der Deuts. Schauspielk., by E. Devrient, Leipzic, 1848. Professor Hagen maintains, that in the beginning of the seventeenth century, the English comedies were performed in Dutch; and that, in Germany, the same persons were called indifferently English or Dutch comedians. They were Englishmen who had found shelter under the English trading companies in the Netherlands ("Es waren Englaender die in den englischen Handelscompagnien in den Niederlanden ein Unterkommen gefunden.")—From the Navorscher.

J. M.

* * * * *

A GENTLEMAN EXECUTED FOR WHIPPING A SLAVE TO DEATH.

(Vol. vii., p. 107.)

The occurrence noticed by W. W. is, I believe, the only instance on record in the West Indies of the actual execution of a gentleman for the murder, by shipping or otherwise, of a slave. Nor is this strange. In the days of slavery every owner of slaves was regarded in the light of a gentleman, and his "right to do what he liked with his own" was seldom called in question by judges or juries, who were themselves among the principal shareholders. The case of Hodge was, however, of an aggravated character. For the trivial offence of stealing a mango, he had caused one of his slaves to be whipped to death; and this was, perhaps, the least shocking of the repeated acts of cruelty which he was known to have committed upon the slaves of his estate.

During slavery each colony had its Hodge, and some had more than one. The most conspicuous character of this kind in St. Lucia was Jacques O'Neill de Tyrone, a gentleman who belonged to an Irish family, originally settled in Martinique, and who boasted of his descent from one of the ancient kings of Ireland. This man had long been notorious for his cruelty to his slaves. At last, on the surrender of the colony to the British in 1803, the attention of the authorities was awakened; a charge of murder was brought against him, and he was sentenced to death. From this sentence he appealed to a higher court; but such was the state of public feeling at the bare idea of putting a white man to death for any offence against a slave, that for a long time the members of the court could not be induced to meet; and when they did meet, it was only to reverse the sentence of the court below. I have now before me the proceedings of both courts. {504} The sentence of the inferior court, presided over by an European judge, is based upon the clearest evidence of O'Neill's having caused two of his slaves to be murdered in his presence, and their heads cut off and stuck upon poles as a warning to the others. The sentence of the Court of Appeal, presided over by a brother planter, and entirely composed of planters, reverses the sentence, without assigning any reason for its decision, beyond the mere allegations of the accused party. Such was criminal justice in the days of slavery!

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia.

* * * * *

LONGEVITY.

(Vol. vii., p. 358., &c.)

On looking over some volumes of the Annual Register, from its commencement in 1758, I find instances of longevity very common, if we can credit its reports. In vol. iv., for the year 1761, amongst the deaths, of which there are many between 100 and 110, the following occur:

January. "At Philadelphia, Mr. Charles Cottrell, aged 120 years; and three days after, his wife, aged 115. This couple lived together in the marriage state 98 years in great union and harmony."

April. "Mrs. Gillam, of Aldersgate Street, aged 113."

July. "John Newell, Esq., at Michael(s)town, Ireland, aged 127, grandson to old Parr, who died at the age of 152."

August. "James Carlewhite, of Seatown, in Scotland, aged 111.

"John Lyon, of Bandon, in the county of Cork, Ireland, aged 116."

In September there are three aged 106; one 107; one 111; one 112; and one 114 registered. I will take three from the year 1768, viz.:

January. "Died lately in the Isle of Sky, in Scotland, Mr. Donald M^cGregor, a farmer there, in the 117th year of his age.

"Last week, died at Burythorpe, near Malton in Yorkshire, Francis Confit, aged 150 years: he was maintained by the parish above sixty years, and retained his senses to the very last."

April. "Near Ennis, Joan M^cDonough, aged 138 years."

Should sufficient interest attach to this subject, and any of the correspondents of "N. & Q." wish it, I will be very happy to contribute my mite, and make out a list of all the deaths above 120 years, or even 110, from the commencement of the Annual Register, but am afraid it will be found rather long.

J. S. A.

Old Broad Street.

A few years ago there lived in New Ross, in the county of Wexford, two old men. The one, a slater named Furlong, a person of very intemperate habits, died an inmate of the poorhouse in his 101st year: he was able to take long walks up to a very short period before his death; and I have heard that he, his son, and grandson, have been all together on a roof slating at the same time. The other man was a nurseryman named Hayden, who died in his 108th year: his memory was very good as to events that happened in his youth, and his limbs, though shrunk up considerably, served him well. He was also in the frequent habit of taking long walks not long before his death.

J. W. D.

* * * * *

DERIVATION OF CANADA.

(Vol. vii., p. 380.)

The derivation given in the "cutting from an old newspaper," contributed by MR. BREEN, seems little better than that of Dr. Douglas, who derives the name from a M. Cane, to whom he attributes the honour of being the discoverer of the St. Lawrence.

In the first place, the "cutting" is not correct, in so far as Gaspar Cortereal never ascended the river, having merely entered the gulf, to which the name of St. Lawrence was afterwards given by Jacques Carter. Neither was the main object of the expedition the discovery of a passage into the Indian Sea, but the discovery of gold; and it was the disappointment of the adventurers in not finding the precious metal which is supposed to have caused them to exclaim "Aca nada!" (Nothing here).

The author of the Conquest of Canada, in the first chapter of that valuable work, says that "an ancient Castilian tradition existed, that the Spaniards visited these coasts before the French,"—to which tradition probably this supposititious derivation owes its origin.

Hennepin, who likewise assigns to the Spaniards priority of discovery, asserts that they called the land El Capo di Nada (Cape Nothing) for the same reason.

But the derivation given by Charlevoix, in his Nouvelle France, should set all doubt upon the point at rest; Cannada signifying, in the Iroquois language, a number of huts (un amas de cabanes), or a village. The name came to be applied to the whole country in this manner:—The natives being asked what they called the first settlement at which Cartier and his companions arrived, answered, "Cannada;" not meaning the particular appellation of the place, which was Stadacona (the modern Quebec), but simply a village. In like manner, they applied the same word to Hochelaga (Montreal) and to other places; whence the Europeans, hearing every locality designated by the same term, Cannada, very naturally applied it to the entire valley of the St. Lawrence. It may not here be out of place to notice, that with respect to the derivation of Quebec, the weight of evidence {505} would likewise seem to be favourable to an aboriginal source, as Champlain speaks of "la pointe de Quebec, ainsi appellee des sauvages;" not satisfied with which, some writers assert that the far-famed city was named after Candebec, a town on the Seine; while others say that the Norman navigators, on perceiving the lofty headland, exclaimed "Quel bec!" of which they believe the present name to be a corruption. Dissenting from all other authorities upon the subject, Mr. Hawkins, the editor of a local guide-book called The Picture of Quebec, traces the name to an European source, which he considers to be conclusive, owing to the existence of a seal bearing date 7 Henry V. (1420), and on which the Earl of Suffolk is styled "Domine de Hamburg et de Quebec."

ROBERT WRIGHT.

* * * * *

SETANTIORUM PORTUS.

(Vol. vii., pp. 180. 246.)

Although the positions assigned by Camden to the ancient names of the various estuaries on the coasts of Lancashire and Cumberland are very much at variance with those laid down by more modern geographers; still, with regard to the particular locality assigned by him to the Setantiorum Portus, he has made a suggestion which seems worthy the attention of your able correspondent C.

His position for Morecambe Bay is a small inlet to the south of the entrance of Solway Firth, into which the rivers Waver and Wampool empty themselves, and on which stands "the abbey of Ulme, or Holme Cultraine." He derives the name from the British, as signifying a "crooked sea," which doubtless is correct; we have Mor taweh, the main sea; Morudd, the Red Sea; and Mor camm may be supposed to indicate a bay much indented with inlets. It is needless to say that the present Morecambe Bay answers this description far more accurately than that in the Solway Firth. Belisama AEstuarium he assigns to the mouth of the Ribble, and is obliged to allot Setantiorum Portus to the remaining estuary, now called Morecambe Bay. However, he seems not quite satisfied with this last arrangement, and suggests that it would be more appropriate if we might read, as is found in some copies, Setantiorum [Greek: limne], instead of [Greek: limen], thus assigning the name of Setantii to the inhabitants of the lake district.

The old editions of Ptolemy, both Greek and Latin, are very incorrect, and, there is little doubt, have suffered from alterations and interpolations at the hands of ignorant persons. I have not access at present to any edition of his geography, either of Erasmus, Servetus, or Bertius, so I know not whether any weight should be allowed to the following circumstance; in the Britannia Romana, in Gibson's Camden, this is almost the only Portus to be found round the coast of England. The terms there used are (with one more exception) invariably aestuarium, or fluvii ostium. If this variation in the old reading be accepted, the appellation as given by Montanus, Bertius, and others, to Winandermere, becomes more intelligible.

H. C. K.

—— Rectory, Hereford.

* * * * *

PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE.

Stereoscopic Queries.—Can any of your readers inform me what are the proper angles under which stereoscopic pictures should be taken?

Mr. Beard, I am informed, takes his stereoscopic portraits at about 61/2 deg., or 1 in 9; that is to say, his cameras are placed 1 inch apart for every 9 inches the sitter is removed from them. The distance of the sitter with him is generally, I believe, 8 feet, which would give 10-2/3 inches for the extent of the separation between his cameras. More than this has the effect, he says, of making the pictures appear to stand out unnaturally; that is to say, if the cameras were to be placed 12 inches apart (which would be equal to 1 in 8), the pictures would seem to be in greater relief than the objects.

I find that the pictures on a French stereoscopic slide I have by me have been taken at an angle of 10 deg., or 1 in 6. This was evidently photographed at a considerable distance, the triumphal arch in the Place de Carousel (of which it is a representation) being reduced to about 11/4 inch in height. How comes it then that the angle is here increased to 10 deg. from 61/2 deg., or to 1 in 6 from 1 in 9.

Moreover, the only work I have been able to obtain on the mode of taking stereoscopic pictures, lays it down that all portraits, or near objects, should be taken under an angle of 15 deg., or, as it says, 1 in 5; that is, if the camera is 20 feet from the sitter, the distance between its first and second position (supposing only one to be used) should not exceed 4 feet: otherwise, adds the author, "the stereosity will appear unnaturally great."

When two cameras are employed, the instructions proceed to state that the distance between them would be about 1/10th of the distance from the part of the object focussed. The example given is a group of portraits, and the angle, 1 in 10, is afterwards spoken of as being equivalent to an arc of 10 deg.

Farther on, we are told that "the angle should be lessened as the distance between the nearest and farthest objects increase. Example: if the farthest object be twice as far from the camera as the near object, the angle should be 5 deg. to a central point between these two.

Now, I find by calculation that the measurements and the angle here mentioned by no means {506} agree. For instance, an angle of 15 deg. is spoken of as being equivalent to the measurement 1 in 5. An angle of 10 deg. is said, or implied, to be the same as 1 in 10. This is far from being the fact. According to my calculations, the following are the real equivalents:—

An angle of 15 deg. is equal to 1 in 4. " 12 deg. " 1 in 5. " 10 deg. " 1 in 6. " 6-1/2 deg. " 1 in 9. " 6 deg. " 1 in 10. " 5 deg. " 1 in 12. " 4 deg. " 1 in 15.

Will any of your readers oblige me by solving the above anomalies, and by giving the proper angles or measurement under which objects should be taken when near, moderately distant, or far removed from the camera; stating, at the same time, at how many feet from the camera an object is to be considered as near, or distant, or between the two? It would be a great assistance to beginners in the stereoscopic art, if some experienced gentleman would state the best distances and angles for taking busts, portraits, groups, buildings, and landscapes.

It is said that stereoscopic pictures at great distances, such as views, should be taken "with a small aperture." But as the exact dimensions are not mentioned, it would be equally serviceable if, to the other details, were added some account of the dimensions of the apertures required for the several angles.

In the directions given in the work from which I have quoted, it is said that when pictures are taken with one camera placed in different positions, the angle should be 15 deg.; but when taken with two cameras, the angle should be 10 deg. Is this right? And, if so, why the difference?

In the account given by you of Mr. Wilkinson's ingenious mode of levelling the cameras for stereoscopic pictures, it is said the plumb-line should be three feet long, and that the diagonal lines drawn on the ground glass should be made to cut the principal object focussed on the glass; and "when you have moved it, the camera, 8 or 10 feet, make it cut the same object again." At what distance is the object presumed to be?

Any information upon the above matters will be a great service, and consequently no slight favour conferred upon your constant reader since the photographic correspondence has been commenced.

[phi].

Photographic Portraits of Criminals, &c.—Such experience as I have had both in drawing portraits and taking photographs, impels me to hint to the authorities of Scotland Yard that they will by no means find taking the portraits of gentlemen that are "wanted" infallible, and I anticipate some unpleasant mistakes will ere long arise. I have observed that inability to recognize a portrait is as frequent in the case of photographs as on canvass, or in any other way. I defy the whole world of artists to reduce the why and wherefore into a reasonable shape; one will declare that "either" looks as if the individual was going to cry; the next critic will say he sees nothing but a pleasant smile. "I should never have known who it is if you hadn't told me," says a third; the next says "it's his eyes, but not his nose;" and perhaps the next will say, "it's his nose, but not his eyes."

I was present not long since at the showing a portrait, which I think about the climax of doubt. "Not a bit like," was the first exclamation. The poor artist sank into his chair; after, however, a brief contemplation, "It's very like, in-deed; it's excellent:" this was said by a gentleman of the highest attainments, and one of the best poets of the day.

Some persons (I beg pardon of the ladies) take the habiliments as the standard of recognition. I do not accuse them of doing it wilfully; they do not know it themselves. For example, Miss Smith will know Miss Jones a mile or so off. By her general air, or her face? Oh no! It's by the bonnet she helped her to choose at Madame What-d'ye-call's, because the colour suited he complexion.

These are some of the mortifications attendant on artistic labour, and if they occur with the educated classes, they are more likely to happen even to "intelligent policemen," as the newspaper have it. If I dissent from the plan it is because I doubt its efficiency, but do not deny that it is worth a trial. If the French like to carry their portraits about with them on their passports to show to policemen, let them submit to the humiliation. I doubt very much whether the Chamber of Deputies would have made a law of it: it appears a new idea in jurisprudence that a man must sit for his picture. Any one, however, understanding the camera, would be alive before the removal of the cup of the lens, and be ready with a wry face; I do not suppose he could be imprisoned for that.

Both plans are miserable travesties on the lovely uses of portrait painting and photography. Side by side with Cowper's passionate address to his mother's picture, how does it look?

"Oh, that those lips had language! Life has pass'd With me but roughly since I saw thee last."

And,

"Blest be the art that can immortalise."

If photography has an advantage over canvas, it does indeed immortalise (the painting may imitate, and the portrait may be good; but there is something more profoundly affecting in having the actual, the real shade of a friend perhaps long {507} since in his grave); and we ought not only to be grateful to the illustrious inventors of the art, but prevent these base uses being made of it.

In short, apart from the uncertainty of recognition, which I have not in the least caricatured, if Giles Scroggins, housebreaker and coiner, and all the swell mob, are to be photographed, it will bring the art into disgrace, and people's friends will inquire delicately where it was done, when they show their lively effigies. It may also mislead by a sharp rogue's adroitness; and I question very much its legality.

WELD TAYLOR.

Photography applied to Catalogues of Books.—May not photography be usefully applied to the making of catalogues of large libraries? It would seem no difficult matter to obtain any number of photographs, of any required size, of the title-page of any book. Suppose the plan adopted, that five photographs of each were taken; they may be arranged in five catalogues, as follows:—Era, subject, country, author, title. These being arranged alphabetically, would form five catalogues of a library probably sufficient to meet the wants of all. Any number of additional divisions may be added. By adopting a fixed breadth—say three inches—for the photographs, to be pasted in double columns in folio, interchanges may take place of those unerring slips, and thus librarians aid each other. I throw out this crude idea, in the hope that photographers and librarians may combine to carry it out.

ALBERT BLOR, LL.D.

Dublin.

Application of Photography to the Microscope.—May I request the re-insertion of the photographic Query of R. J. F. in Vol. vi., p. 612., as I cannot find that it has received an answer, viz., What extra apparatus is required to a first-rate microscope in order to obtain photographic microscopic pictures?

J.

* * * * *

Replies to Minor Queries.

Discovery at Nuneham Regis (Vol. vi., p. 558.).—May the decapitated body, found in juxta-position with other members of the Chichester family, not be that of Sir John Chichester the Younger, mentioned in Burke's Peerage and Baronetage, under the head "Chichester, Sir Arthur, of Raleigh, co. Devon," as being that fourth son of Sir John Chichester, Knt., M.P. for the co. Devon, who was Governor of Carrickfergus, and lost his life "by decapitation," after falling into the hands of James Macsorley Macdonnel, Earl of Antrim?

The removal of the body from Ireland to the resting-place of other members of the family would not be a very improbable event, and quite consistent with the natural affection of relatives, under such mournful circumstances.

J. H. T.

Eulenspiegel, or Howleglas (Vol. vii., pp. 357. 416.).—Permit me to acquaint your correspondent that among the many singular and curious books which formed the library of that talented antiquary the late Charles Kirkpatrick Sharp, and which were sold here by auction some time ago, there was a small 12mo. volume containing French translations, with rude woodcuts, of—

1. "La Vie joyeuse et recreative de Tiel-Ullespiegle, de ses Faits merveilleux et Fortunes qu'il a eues; lequel par aucune Ruse ne se laissa pas tromper. A Troyes, chez Garner, 1838."

2. "Histoire de Richard Sans Peur, Duc de Normandie, Fils de Robert le Diable, &c. A Troyes, chez Oudot, 1745."

T. G. S.

Edinburgh.

Parochial Libraries (Vol. vi., p. 432.; Vol. vii., pp. 193. 369. 438.).—

"In the year 1635, upon the request of the Rev. Anthony Tuckney, Vicar of Boston, it was ordained by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Laud), then on his metropolitical visitation at Boston, 'that the roome over the porch of the saide churche shall be repaired and decently fitted up to make a librarye, to the end that, in case any well and charitably disposed person shall hereafter bestow any books to the use of the parish, they may be there safely preserved and kept.'"

This library at present contains several hundred volumes of ancient (patristic, scholastic, and post-Reformation) divinity.

I hope to be able ere long to make a correct catalogue of the books at present remaining, and at the same time make an attempt to restore them to that decent "keeping" in which the great and good archbishop desired they might remain.

Query: In making preparations for the catalogue, I have been informed by a gentleman that he remembers two or more cart loads of books from this library being sold by the churchwardens, and, as he believes, by the then archdeacon's orders, at waste paper price; that the bulk of them was purchased by a bookseller then resident in Boston, and re-sold by him to a clergyman in the neighbourhood of Silsby.

1. What was the date of the sale?

2. The name of the Venerable Archdeacon who perpetrated this robbery?

3. Whether there are any legal means for recovering the missing works?

My extracts are from Thompson's History of Boston, a correspondent of yours, a new edition of whose laborious work is about to appear.

THOMAS COLLIS.

Boston.

Painter—Derrick (Vol. vii., pp. 178. 391.).—I cannot agree with J. S. C. that painter is a corruption of punter, from the Saxon punt, a boat. {508} According to the construction and analogy of our language, a punter or boater would be the person who worked or managed the boat. I consider that painter—like halter and tether, derived from Gothic words signifying to hold and to tie—is a corruption of bynder, from the Saxon bynd, to bind. If the Anglo-Norman word panter, a snare for catching and holding birds, be a corruption of bynder, we are brought to the word at once. Or, indeed, we may go no farther back than panter.

J. C. G. says that derrick is an ancient British word: perhaps he will be kind enough to let us know its signification. I always understood that a derrick took its name from Derrick, the notorious executioner at Tyburn, in the early part of the seventeenth century, whose name was long a general term for hangman. In merchant ships, the derrick, for hoisting up goods, is always placed at the hatchway, close by the gallows. The derrick, however, is not a nautical appliance alone; it has been long used to raise stones at buildings; but the crane, and that excellent invention the handy-paddy, has now almost put it out of employment. What will philologists, two or three centuries hence, make out of the word handy-paddy, which is universally used by workmen to designate the powerful winch, traversing on temporary rails, employed to raise heavy weights at large buildings. For the benefit of posterity, I may say that it is very handy for the masons, and almost invariably worked by Irishmen.

As a collateral evidence to my opinion, that painter is derived from the Saxon bynder, through the Anglo-Norman panter, and that derrick is from Derrick the hangman, I may add that these words are unknown in the nautical technology of any other language.

W. PINKERTON.

Ham.

Pepys's "Morena" (Vol. vii., p. 118.).—MR. WARDEN may like to be informed that his conjecture about the meaning of this word is fully confirmed by the following passage in the Diary, 6th October, 1661, which has hitherto unaccountably escaped observation:

"There was also my pretty black girl, Mrs. Dekins and Mrs. Margaret Pen this day come to church."

BRAYBROOKE.

Pylades and Corinna (Vol. vii., p. 305.).—If your correspondent's question have reference to the two volumes in octavo published under this title in 1731, assuredly Defoe had nothing to do with them, as must be evident to any one on the most cursory glance. The volumes contain memoirs of Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, on whom Dryden conferred the poetical title of Corinna, and the letters which passed between her and Richard Gwinnett, her intended husband. A biography of this lady, neither whose life nor poetry were of the best, may be found in Chalmers's Biog. Dict., vol. xxix. p. 281., and a farther one in Cibber's Lives, vol. iv. The Dunciad, and her part in the publication of Pope's early correspondence, have given her an unhappy notoriety. I must say, however, that, notwithstanding his provocation, I cannot but think that he treated this poor woman ungenerously.

JAMES CROSSLEY.

Judge Smith (Vol. vii., p. 463.).—I must confess my ignorance of any Judge Smith flourishing in the reign of Elizabeth. I know of only three judges of that name.

1. John Smith, a Baron of the Exchequer during the last seven years of the reign of Henry VIII. From him descended the Lords Carrington of Wotton Waven, in Warwickshire, a title which became extinct in 1705.

2. John Smith, who was also a Baron of the Exchequer in the reign of Anne. He became Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Scotland in 1708, and died in 1726. He endowed a hospital for poor widows at Frolesworth in Leicestershire.

3. Sidney Stafford Smythe, likewise a Baron of the Exchequer under George II. and III., and Chief Baron in the latter reign. He was of the same family as that of the present Viscount Strangford.

If Z. E. R. would be good enough to send a copy of the inscription on the monument in Chesterfield Church, and give some particulars of the family seated at Winston Hall, the difficulty will probably be removed.

EDWARD FOSS.

Grindle (Vol. vii., pp. 107. 307. 384.).—As one at least of the readers of "N. & Q." living near Grindle (Greendale is modern), allow me to say that from the little I know of the places, they appear to me "to possess no traces of those natural features which would justify the demoniacal derivation proposed by I. E." However, as my judgment may be of little worth, if "I. E. of Oxford" should ever migrate into these parts, and will favour me with a call, with credentials of being the veritable I. E. of "N. & Q.," I shall have much pleasure in assisting him to examine for himself all the local knowledge which a short walk to the spots may enable him to acquire.

H. T. ELLACOMBE.

Rectory, Clyst St. George.

Simile of the Soul and the Magnetic Needle (Vol. vi., pp. 127. 207. 280. 368. 566.).—Dr. Arnold, with more religion than science, thus employs this simile:

"Men get embarrassed by the common cases of misguided conscience; but a compass may be out of order as well as a conscience, and the needle may point due south if you hold a powerful magnet in that direction. Still the compass, generally speaking, is a true and sure guide, and so is the conscience; and you {509} can trace the deranging influence on the latter quite as surely as on the former."—Life and Correspondence, 2nd ed. p. 390.

C. MANSFIELD INGLEBY.

Birmingham.

English Bishops deprived by Queen Elizabeth, 1559 (Vol. vii., p. 260.).—I have endeavoured to procure some information for A. S. A. on those points which MR. DREDGE left unnoticed, but find that, after his diligent search, very little indeed is to be gleaned. Bishop Payne died in January, 1559/60 (Strype's Annals, anno 1559). Dod, in vol. i. p. 507. of his Church History, mentions a letter of Bishop Goldwell's, or, as he calls him, Godwell's, to Dr. Allen, dated anno 1581:

"This letter," he says, "seems to be written not long before Bishop Godwell's death, for I meet with no farther mention of him. Here the reader may take notice of a mistake in Dr. Heylin, who tells us he died prisoner in Wisbich Castle, which is to be understood of Bishop Watson."

Of Bishop Pate he says:

"He was alive in 1562, but how long after I do not find."—Vol. i. p. 488.

Bishop Pole, according to the same authority, died a prisoner at large about the latter end of May, 1568. Bishop Frampton died May 25, 1708 (Calamy's Own Times, vol. ii. p. 119.). I cannot ascertain the day of Bishop White's death, but he was buried, according to Evelyn (vol. iii. p. 364.), June 5, 1698.

TYRO.

Dublin.

Borrowed Thoughts (Vol. vii., p. 203.).—The thought which ERICA shows has been used by Butler and Macaulay is a grain from an often-pillaged granary; a tag of yarn from a piece of cloth used ever since its make for darning and patching; a drop of honey from a hive round which robber-bees and predatory wasps have never ceased to wander,—the Anatomy of Melancholy:

"Though there were giants of old in physic and philosophy, yet I say with Didacus Stella[2], 'a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant himself.' I may likely add, alter, and see farther than my predecessors; and it is no greater prejudice for me to indite after others, than for AElianus Montaltus, that famous physician, to write De Morbis Capitis, after Jason Pratensis," &c.

The pagination (that of Tegg's edition, 1849) will not guide those who with Elia sicken at the profanity of "unearthing the bones of that fantastic old great man," and know not a "sight more heartless" than the reprint of his Opus.

SIGMA.

Sunderland.

[Footnote 2: In Luc. 10. tom. ii.: "Pigmi gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident."—Preface, p. 8.]

Dr. South v. Goldsmith, Talleyrand, &c. (Vol. vi., p. 575. Vol. vii., p. 311.).—One authority has been overlooked by MR. BREEN, which seems as likely as any to have given currency to the saying, viz. Dean Swift. In Gulliver's Travels (1727), Voyage to the Houyhnhnms, the hero gives the king some information respecting British ministers of state, which I apprehend in Swift's day was no exaggeration. The minister, Gulliver says, "applies his words to all uses except to the indication of his mind." It must be confessed, however, that this authority is some seven years after Dr. South.

C. MANSFIELD INGLEBY.

Birmingham.

Foucault's Experiment (Vol. vii., p. 330.).—The reality of the rotation, and the cause assigned to it by Foucault in his experiment, is now admitted without question by scientific men. But in measuring the amount of the motion of the pendulum, so many disturbing causes were found to be at work, that the numerical results have not been obtained as yet with exactness. The best account is, perhaps, the original one in the Comptes Rendus. Mr. Foucault has lately invented an instrument founded on a similar principle, to find the latitude of a place.

ELSNO.

Passage in "Locksley Hall" (Vol. vi., p. 272.; Vol. vii., pp. 25. 146.).—Of these three commentators neither appears to me to have hit Tennyson's meaning, though CORYLUS has made the nearest shot. I ought to set out by confessing that it was not originally clear to myself, but that I could not for a monument doubt, when the following explanation was suggested to me by a friend. The "curlews" themselves are the "dreary gleams:" the words are what the Latin Grammar calls "duo substantiva ejusdem rei." I take the meaning, in plain prose to be this: "The curlews are uttering their peculiar cry, as they fly over Locksley Hall, looking like (to me, the spectator) dreary gleams crossing the moorland."

I could supply A. A. D. with several examples in English, from my commonplace-book, of the "bold figure of speech not uncommon in the vivid language of Greece;" and among the rest, one from Tennyson himself, to wit:

"Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound, We stumbled on a stationary voice," &c.

But I doubt whether the poet had those passages in his thought, when he penned the opening of his noble poem "Locksley Hall." Of course I do not know, any more than A. A. D., and the rest; and I suppose we shall none of us get any enlightenment "by authority."

HARRY LEROY TEMPLE.

Lake of Geneva (Vol. vii. p. 406.).—The account given in the Chronicle of Marius of what is called "an earthquake or landslip in the valley of the {510} Upper Rhone," is evidently that of a sudden debacle destructive of life and property, but not such as to effect any permanent change in the configuration of the country. That an antiquary like Montfaucon should have fallen into the blunder of supposing that the Lacus Lemanus was then formed, may well excite surprise. The breadth of the new-formed lake, as given by Marius, is impossible, as the mountains in the valley are scarcely anywhere more than a mile apart. The valley of the Upper Rhone is liable to such debacles, and one which would fill it might be called a lake, although of short duration. Having witnessed the effects of the debacle of 1818 a few weeks after it happened, I can easily understand how such a one as that described by Marius should have produced the effects attributed to it, and yet have left no traces of its action after the lapse of centuries.

J. S.

Athenaeum.

"Inter cuncta micans," &c. (Vol. vi., p. 413.).—In a small work, Lives of Eminent Saxons, part i. p. 104., the above lines are ascribed to Aldhelm, and a translation by Mr. Boyd is subjoined.

To Aldhelm also are attributed the lines so often alluded to in "N. & Q.," "Roma tibi subito," &c.

B. H. C.

"Its" (Vol. vi., p. 509.; Vol. vii., p. 160.).—As the proposer of the question on this word, so kindly replied to by MR. KEIGHTLEY, may I give two instances of its use from the Old Version of the Psalms?

"Which in due season bringeth forth its fruit abundantly."—Ps. i. 3.

"Thou didst prepare first a place, and set its roots so fast."—Ps. lxxx. 10.

The American Bibliotheca Sacra for October 1851, p. 735., says (speaking of the time when the authorised version of the Scriptures was executed), "the genitive its was not then in use;" which is disproved by the quotations already given.