Vol. IV.—No. 97. NOTES AND QUERIES: A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

VOL. IV.—No. 97.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. 1851.

Price Threepence. Stamped Edition, 4d.

CONTENTS.

NOTES:—

QUERIES:—

REPLIES:—

MISCELLANEOUS:—

Notes.

NOTES ON BOOKS, NO. II.—GABRIEL HARVEY.

This learned friend of Spenser and Sir Philip Sydney (though better known from his quarrel with Tom Nashe) was in the habit of writing copious memoranda in his books, several of which were in the library of Mr. Lloyd, of Wygfair. Among them some miscellaneous volumes, which I believe afterwards passed into the collection of Mr. Heber, contained remarkable specimens of his calligraphic skill. His name was written four or five times: "Gabriel Harveins, 1579," and with variation, "Gabrielis Harveij" and "di Gabriello Haveio." The volumes contained the Medea and Giocasta of Lodovico Dolce, in Italian; the Hecuba and Iphigenia of Euripides in Latin, by Erasmus, the Comedies of Terence, &c.; and the first Italian and English Grammar, by Henry Grantham, 1575. On the blank pages and spaces what follows was inscribed:—

"La Giocasta d' Euripide, Dolce, et Gascoigno. Senecæ et Statii Thebais. Item Senecæ Œdipus. Quasi Synopsis Tragœdiarum omnium.—NON GIOCO, MA GIOCASTA."

"Omne genus scripti, gravitate Tragœdia vincit."

"Hæ quatuor Tragœdiæ, instar omnium Tragœdiarum pro tempore: præsertim cum reliquarum non suppetit copia. Duæ Euripidis placent in primis, et propter auctoris prudentissimam veram, et propter interpretis singularem delectum. Eadem

in Sophoclis Antigonem affectio, ab Episcopo Vatsono tralatam: cum propter interpretis accuratum judicium. Qui tanti fecit optimo Tragicos, ut eosdem soleret cum Checo et Aschamo, omnibus aliis poetis anteferre; etiam Homero et Virgilio."

"Questa Medea di Dolce non è Medea di Seneca. Ma Thieste di Dolce è Thieste medesimo di Seneca. Solo coro nel fin è soperchievole."

"Gascoigni Jocasta, magnifice acta solemne ritu, et vere tragico apparatu. Ut etiam Vatsoni Antigone; cuive pompæ seriæ, et exquisita. Usque adeo quidem utraque ut nihil in hoc tragico genere vel illustrius vel accuratius."

"Jam floruerant prudentissimi Attici, Pericles, Thucydides, Sophocles; jam florent Plato, Xenophon, Demosthenes, cum Euripides pangit Tragœdias. Nec excellentissimorum Atticorum, ullus vel prudentior Euripides, vel argutior, vel etiam elegantior. Nihil in eo nugarum, nihil affectationis, et tamen singula ubique cultissima."

"Erasmus talis Euripidis interpres, qualis Pindari Melancthon. Fœlix utriusque ad interpretandum dexteritas et fluens elocutionis facilitas. Plus in Erasmo diligentiæ; in Melancthone perspicuitas. Quam persequebatur, Camerarius, nec tamen assequebatur."

"Erasmi ferè jadicium acre, et serium nec dubium est, quin delectum adhibucrit in sapientissimis Tragœdiis eligendis exquisitum."

"Ut ferè fœminas; sic Comœdias et Tragœdias; qui unam omnimodo novit, omnes novit quodam modo. Saltem ex ungue, Leonem; ex clave, Herculem."

---

"Quattro Comedie del divino Pietro Aretino. Cioè Il Marescalco ò Pedante.—La Cortigiana.—La Talanta.—Lo Hippocrito.

"Habeo et legi: sed nondum comprare potui Il Filosofo: quæ tamen ipsius, Comœdia dicitur etiam exstare.

"Memorantur etiam duæ illius Tragœdiæ, L'Hortensia.—Tragœdia di Christo.

"Comedie, Dialoghi capricciosi, Le Lettere, e Capitoli dell' Unico: Historie del suo tempo. La quinta essenza del suo unico ingegno; e lo specchio di tutte l'arti Cortegiane.

"Due Comedie argutissime et facetissime di Macchiavelli Politico: La Mandragola.—La Clitia."

"IL LEGGERE NUTRISCA LO INGEGNO."

"Suppositi d'Ariosto: Comœdiam singulariter laudate à P. Jovio in Elogiis; cum Plautinis facilè contendens Inventionis, atque successus amenitate; si utriusque sæculi mores non inepte comparentur. Syncrisis ætatum necessaria, ad Comœdiarum, Historiarum, aliorumque Scriptorum excellentia in examinandam, atque judicandam solerti censura."

"Arciprologo quasi di tutte le Comedie, il primo dell' Aretino; et il terzo e quarto dello' stesso."

"Ut Comœdias, sic Tragœdias; qui tres aut quatuor intimè novit, novit ferè omnes. Tanti valet hic aureus libellus. Meo tandem judicio, Poetarum sapientissimus, Euripides: vel ipse Sophocle magis Attice nervosus et profundus, ut Seneca Latine."

---

"Ecce reliquiæ et fragmenta Menandri, Epicharmi, Alexidis, reliquiorumque Græcorum Comicorum. Cum toto Aristophane. Et fortasse senties nova veteribus non esse potiora. Nec usquam prudentiores Gnomas invenies, ne apud Theognidem quidem aut Isocratem.

"Placent etiam Comœdiæ quæ non sunt Comœdiæ; et Tragœdiæ quæ non sunt Tragœdiæ: Ut utriusque generis multæ egregiæ apud Homerum, et Virgilium in Heroicis; Frontinum et Polyænum in Strategematis; Stephanum in Apologia Herodoti: Rabelesium in Heroicis Gargantuæ: Sidneium in novissima Arcadiæ: Domenichum in Facetiis. Quomodo antiquorum unus Græcorum dixit:—Delicatissimos esse Pisces quæ non sunt Pisces, et carnes lautissimas quæ non sunt carnes. Da mihi Fabulas non Fabulas, Apologos non Apologos. Et sensi optima Apophthegmata quæ non sunt Apophthegmata: Optima Adagia quæ non Adagia.

"Inutiliter Tragœdias legit qui nescit philosophicas sententias a Tyrannicis distinguere. Alia scholarum doctrina, alia regnorum disciplina. Politico opus est judicio ad distinguendum prudentissimas sententias à reliquis. Nec semper Tyrannus barbarus: nec semper poeta, aut philosophus sapiens: solertis judiciis fuerit, non quis dicat, set quia dicatur respicere, et undique optima seligere."

"Euripidis Jocastæ apud Gascoignum summa ferè Tragœdiarum omnium."

---

"No finer or pithier Examples than in ye excellent Comedies and Tragedies following, full of sweet and wise discourse. A notable Dictionarie for the Grammer."

---

"Ut de hac Terentii tralatione sentirem honorificentius; fecit Aldus exquisita editio."

I thought these notes worth transcribing, not only as showing the attention paid by the learned students of this time to the drama, as well ancient as modern, but more especially for the mention made of the Jocasta of George Gascoigne, and the Antigone of Sophocles, translated, as he says, by Watson, Bishop of Worcester, and not by Thomas Watson, as Warton supposed. It may be doubted whether this translation was into English; but Harvey seems to imply that it was acted, as well as the Jocasta. Bishop Watson was celebrated for his dramatic skill, in his Latin tragedy of Absalon, by Roger Ascham, who says,—

"When M. Watson, in St. John's College at Cambridge, wrote his excellent Tragedie of Absalon, M. Cheke, he, and I, had many pleasant talkes togither, in comparing the preceptes of Aristotle and Horace with the examples of Euripides, Sophocles, and Seneca.... M. Watson had another maner of care of perfection, with a feare and reverence of the judgement of the best learned: who to this day would neuer suffer yet his Absalon to go abroad, and that onelie bicause (in locis paribus) Anapæstus is twise or thrise used instead of Iambus."

In a volume in the Bodleian Library marked Z. 3., Art. "Selden," is "The Life of Howleglas," printed by Copland: at the bottom of the last page is the following MS. note:

"This Howleglasse, with Scoggin, Skelton, and (L——zario——?) given me at London of M. Spenser, xx Decembris, 1578, on condition yt I shoold bestowe ye readinge on them, on or before ye first day of January immediately ensuinge: otherwise to forfeit unto him my Lucian in fower volumes. Whereupon I was ye rather induced to trifle away so many howers as were idely overpassed in running through ye aforesaid foolish bookes; wherein methought yt not all fower together seemed comparable for fine and crafty feates with Jon Miller, whose witty shiftes and practises are reported among Skelton's Tales."

Mr. Malone, from whose memoranda I copy this, says, "I suspect it is Gabriel Harvey's handwriting."

I have a copy of the Organon of Aristotle in Greek, which bears marks of Gabriel Harvey's diligent scholarship. It is copiously annotated and analysed by him when a student at Cambridge, and he has registered the periods at which he completed the study of each part.

S. W. SINGER.

Mickleham, Aug. 15. 1851.

THE ANTIQUITY OF KILTS.

This has been the subject of many discussions, and has recently found a place in the columns of "NOTES AND QUERIES." I do not

propose to take any part in the present discussion, but it may be of some service to historical students for me to introduce to public notice a much older authority than any that has yet been cited.

It is known to but few antiquaries out of the principality, that the ancient poetry of Wales throws more light on the immediate post-Roman history of Britain than any documents in existence. These poems vividly pourtray the social condition of the period, and contain almost the only records of the great contest between the natives and the Saxon invaders; they prove beyond a doubt that the Romans had left the province in an advanced stage of civilisation, and they supply us with the means of affirming decisively, that the vine was cultivated here to a very considerable extent.

The antiquity of these poems admits of no reasonable doubt; on that point the Vindication of Turner enables the antiquaries of Wales to make this assertion with confidence: and having recently translated most of our old poems, with a view to future publication, I feel myself warranted in assuming them to belong to the sixth and seventh centuries of our era. One of these bards, Aneurin by name, belonged to the British tribe, described by the Romans as Ottadini, and by themselves as the people of Gododin. This people were situated at the junction of England and Scotland, and the poems of this bard chiefly refer to that district; but as the bards were a rambling class, and as the bulk of the people from Chester to Dumbarton were the same race as the people of the principality, we are not surprised when we find this bard sometimes among "the banks and braes of bonny Doon," and sometimes in North and South Wales. In one of his verses he thus describes the kilt of a British chief:—

These lines may be found in the Myvyrian Archæology, vol. i. p. 13. col. 1.; and a most unwarrantable translation of dinogat may be found in Davies' Mythology of the Druids; but the literal rendering would be this:

Peis or pais is the word now used for the article of female attire known as a petti-coat, which in form bears a sufficiently close resemblance to the male kilt to justify me in using that word here. It also occurs in pais-arfau, a coat of arms, and pais-ddur, a coat of mail. The words vreith vreith have been translated word for word; in the Kymric language it is a very common form of emphatic expression to repeat the word on which the emphasis falls, as yn dda da for very good; but a more idiomatic translation would have been, very stripy. Vraith with us also stands for plaid, and in the Welsh Bible Joseph's "coat of many colours" is named siacced vraith.

Now I will not attempt to determine what relation this kilt stands in to the kilts of the Highlands, whether the Gael borrowed it from the Briton, or the Briton from the Gael, or whether the dress was common to both at the time in which Dinogad lived; but thus much appears to be clear, that we here have a kilt, and that that kilt was striped, if not a plaid; and it only remains for us to determine the period at which Dinogad lived. Most persons are acquainted with the name of Brochmael, Prince of Powys, the British commander at the battle of Bangor in 613, on the occasion of the dispute between Augustine and the primitive British church; Dinogad stood to him in the following relation:

BROCHMAEL | CYNAN GARWYN | ————————————————— | | SELYF OR SALOMON. DINOGAD.  

Of Dinogad himself there is but one fact on record, and that took place in 577. His brother Selyf fell at the battle of Bangor or Chester in 613. If we take these facts together, we may form a pretty accurate idea respecting the period at which he lived.

Viewing this matter from a Cambrian standpoint, I feel myself warranted in hazarding the following remarks. In the lines of Aneurin, the thing selected for special notice is the excess of stripe; and therefore, whether it was the invention of Dinogad, or whether he borrowed the idea from the Scots or Picts when he was at Dumbarton in 577, it is quite clear, from the repetition of the word vreith, that his kilt had the attribute of stripyness to a greater extent than was usually the case; while it is also equally clear, that amongst the Britons of that period, kilts of a stripy character were so common as to excite no surprise. We may therefore affirm,

1. That in the beginning of the seventh century the British chiefs were in the habit of wearing skin kilts.

2. That striped kilts were common.

3. That a chief named Dinogad was distinguished by an excess of this kind of ornament. And

4. That as the Kymry of North Britain were on intimate terms with their neighbours, it is highly probable that the Scottish kilt is much older than 1597.

T. STEPHENS.

Merthyr Tydfil.

NOTES ON JULIN, NO. 1.
(Vol. ii., pp. 230. 282. 379. 443.)

In approaching a subject set at rest so long since, I feel some apology due to you; and that apology I will make by giving you the results of my recent investigation of the question of Vineta v. Julin alias Wollin, made in Pomerania, and noted from personal testimony and Pomeranian chronicles.

But, first, to correct an erreur de plume of DR. BELL'S. He says, in stating the position of Vineta (Vol. ii., p. 283.), "opposite the small town of Demmin, in Pomerania." DR. BELL has mis-written the name: there is no such place on the Baltic. The real name is Damerow, on the Isle of Usedom. A little lower he remarks, speaking of Wollin, "No rudera, no vestiges of ancient grandeur, now mark the spot; not even a tradition of former greatness." In this I think DR. BELL will find (and, I am sure, will readily allow, in the same spirit of good faith in which I make my observations) that he is in error, from the following narrative.

The gentleman who has kindly given me, by word of mouth, the following particulars, is a native of Wollin, and of one of the most ancient and noble families in that island, a relative of that Baron Kaiserling who was the Cicero of Frederick the Great, but of an elder branch of that family, the Counts of Kaiserling. M. de Kaiserling states that, when a young man, in his native town, he took a delight in reading the records of its bygone glory, and in tracing out the ruins in the neighbourhood of the town, extending to the distance of about one English mile from its outskirts. The foundations of houses and tracks of streets

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@38433@[email protected]#fn1" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[1] are still exposed in the operations of agriculture, and any informant has in his possession several Byzantine and Wendish coins which he at that time picked up. He has likewise seen a Persian coin, which was found in the same neighbourhood by a friend. Having been led by circumstances to examine the evidence pro and con. in this question, he has come to the conclusion that Wollin and Julin or Jumne are identical. He treats the story of Vineta as a nursery tale and a myth.

[1] Particularly the Salmarks (Wendish for Fishmarkets), as they were called.

From the recently-published work on Wollin (Die Insel Wollin und das Seebad Misdroy. Historische Skizze von Georg Wilhelm von Raumer: Berlin, 1851) I extract the following account of Wollin in 1070, as I think it important to have all the best evidence attainable:[2] —

"Adam of Bremen, a contemporaneous historian, has left us a curious description of Wollin as it appeared at the time of its merchant greatness; yet he was himself, most probably, never there, but compiled his account from the narratives of sailors, from whose mouth he, as he says, heard almost incredibilities about the splendour of the town. He describes the famous city as the chief staple place of the trade of the surrounding Slavonians and Russians: also as the largest of all towns at this end of Europe, and inhabited by Slavonians, Russians, and various pagan nations. Also many Germans from Lower Saxony had come to the town, yet it was not permitted them to appear openly as Christians; though the political interests of a trading place, then as now, caused all nations to be allowed the liberty of incolation (Niederlassungsrecht) and toleration. The peculiar inhabitants of the place, particularly those who held the government, were mostly pagans, but of great hospitality, of liberal and humane customs, and great justice. The town had become very rich, by means of the trade of Northern Europe, of which they had almost the monopoly: every comfort and rarity of distant regions was to be found there. The most remarkable thing in Wollin was a pot of Vulcan, which the inhabitants called Greek fire.[3] Probably we should understand by this, a great beacon fire, which the Wolliners sustained by night on account of navigation, and of which a report was among the sailors that it was Greek fire; but it is also possible that in the trade with the Orient, which the discovered Arabic coins prove, real Greek fire was brought to Wollin in pots. A tricaputed idol of a sea-god, or Neptune, stood in Wollin, to denote that the island Wollin was surrounded by three different seas: that is to say, a green one, the Ostsee; a white one, under which we should probably understand the Dievenow; and one which was retained in raging motion by continual storms, the Haff. The navigation from Wollin to Demmin, a trading place of the Peene, is short; also from Wollin to Samland, in Prussia, eight days only were necessary to go by land from Hamburgh to Wollin, or by sea, across Schleswig; and forty-three days was the time of sailing from Wollin to Ostragard in Russia. These notices point to the chief trade of Wollin by sea, that is, with Demmin, Hamburgh, Schleswig, and Holstein, Prussia, and Russia.

"So magnificent was ancient Wollin, according to the narrative of the seamen; yet it must not be considered exactly a northern Venice, but a wide-circuited place, chiefly, however, of wooden houses, and surrounded by walls and palisades, in which (in comparison with the then rudeness and poverty of the countries on the Ostsee) riches and merchandise were heaped up.

"And now it is time to mention the fable of the drowned city Vineta. While an old chronicler, Helmold, follows Adam of Bremen in the description of the city Wollin, he puts, through an error of transcription,[4] in place of Julinum or Jumne, which name Adam of Bremen has, Vineta; such a place could not be found, and it was concluded, therefore, that the sea had engulfed it. The celebrated Buggenhagen[5] first discovered, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, a great rock formation in the sea, at the foot of the Streckelberg, on the island of Usedom,[6] and then the city Vineta was soon transplanted thither; and it was absurdly considered that a rock reef (which has lately been used for the harbour of Swinemünde, and has disappeared) was the ruins of a city destroyed by the waves a thousand years ago: indeed, people are not wanting at the present day, who hold fast to this fable, caused by the error of a transcriber. In the mean time it has become a folk tale, and as such retains its value. A Wolliner booth-keeper recounted me the interesting story, which may be read in Barthold's History of Pomerania (vol. i. p. 419.),—a rough sterling Pomeranian (ächt-pommerschis) fantastical picture of the overbearing of the trade-enriched inhabitants of Vineta, which God had so punished by sending the waves of the ocean over the city. The town of Wollin, to which alone this legend was applicable, is certainly not destroyed by the sea, nor wholly desert: but if they deserved punishment for their pride in their greatness, they had received it in that they had quite fallen from their former glory."—Pp. 22-25.

[2] Likewise, repetition must be excused, as it is here scarcely avoidable.

[3] "Olla Vulcani quæ incolæ Græcam vocant ignem de quo etiam meminit Solinus," adds Adam of Bremen. Solinus speaks of oil, or rather naphtha, from Mœsia; and it is not improbable that the Wolliners imported it for their beacons in pots.

[4] The oldest MSS. are said not to have this error.

[5] A native of Wollin, by the bye.

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@38433@[email protected]#Usedom6" class="label pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[6] Close by Damerow.

As I wish thoroughly to dispose of the question, I shall divide my communication on Julin into two parts, of which the above is the first. I reserve my own remarks till all the evidence has been heard.

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

Minor Notes.

Anecdote of Curran.

—During one of the circuits, Curran was dining with a brother advocate at a small inn kept by a respectable woman, who, to the well ordering of her establishment, added a reputation for that species of apt and keen reply, which sometimes supplies the place of wit. The dinner had been well served, the wine was pronounced excellent, and it was proposed that the hostess should be summoned to receive their compliments on her good fare. The Christian name of this purveyor was Honoria, a name of common occurrence in Ireland, but which is generally abbreviated to that of Honor. Her attendance was prompt, and Curran, after a brief eulogium on the dinner, but especially the wine, filled a bumper, and, handing it, proposed as a toast, "Honor and Honesty." His auditor took the glass, and with a peculiarly arch smile, said, "Our absent friends," and having drank off her amended toast, she curtseyed and withdrew.

M. W. B.

Difficulty of getting rid of a Name.

—The institution founded in Gower Street under the name of the University of London, lived for ten years under that name, and, since, for fifteen years, under the name of University College, a new institution receiving the name of the University of London. A few years after the change of name, a donor left reversionary property to the London University in Gower Street, which made it necessary to obtain the assistance of the Court of Chancery in securing the reversion to its intended owners. A professor of the College in Gower Street received a letter, dated from Somerset House (where the University is), written by the Vice-Chancellor of the University himself, and addressed, not to the University College, but to the University of London. And in a public decision, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, as Visitor of Dulwich College, which appears in The Times of July 21, it is directed that certain scholars are to proceed for instruction to some such place as "King's College or the London University." This is all worthy of note, because we often appeal to old changes of name in the settlement of dates. When this decision becomes very old, it may happen that its date will be brought into doubt by appeal to the fact that the place of instruction (what is now the University giving no instruction but only granting degrees, and to students of King's College among others) ceased to have the title of University in 1837. What so natural as to argue that the Archbishop, himself a visitor of King's College, cannot have failed to remember this. A reflected doubt may be thrown upon some arguments relating to dates in former times.

M.

House of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

—The Note on his mother, in Vol. iii., p. 492., reminds me of making the following one on himself, which may be worth a place in your columns. When lately passing through the village of Harold's Cross, near Dublin, a friend pointed out to me a high antiquated-looking house in the village, which he said had been occupied by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and in which he had planned many of his designs. The house appears to be in good preservation, and is still occupied.

R. H.

Fairy Dances.

—It might perhaps throw some light on this fanciful subject, were we to view it in connexion with the operation of the phenomenon termed the "odylic light," emitted from magnetic substances. The Baron von Riechenbach, in his Researches on Magnetism, &c., explains the cause of somewhat similar extraordinary appearances in the following manner:—

"High on the Brocken there are rocky summits which are strongly magnetic, and cause the needle to deviate: these rocks contain disseminated magnetic iron ore; ... the necessary consequence is that they send up odylic flames.... Who could blame persons imbued with the superstitious feelings of their age, if they saw, under these circumstances, the devil dancing with his whole train of ghosts, demons, and witches? The revels of the Walpurgisnacht must now, alas! vanish, and give place to the sobrieties of science—science, which with her touch dissipates one by one all the beautiful but dim forms evoked by phantasy."

Should such a thing as the odylic light satisfactorily explain the phenomenon of ghosts, fairies, &c., we should happily be relieved from the awkward necessity of continuing to treat their existence as "old wives' fables," or the production of a disordered imagination.

J. H. KERSHAW.

Æsop.

—It may be said, at first sight, "Why, every body knows all about him." I answer, Perhaps about as much as modern painters and artists know about Bacchus, whom they always represent as a gross, vulgar, fat person: all the ancient poets, however (and surely they ought to know best), depict him an exquisitely beautiful youth. A similar vulgar error exists with regard to Æsop, who in the Encyclopædia Britannica is pronounced a strikingly deformed personage. The exact opposite seems to have been the truth. Philostratus has left a description of a picture of Æsop, who was represented with a chorus of animals about him: he was painted smiling, and looking thoughtfully on the ground, but not a word is said of any deformity. Again, the Athenians erected a statue to his honour, "and," says Bentley, "a statue of him, if he were deformed, would only have been a monument of his ugliness: it would have been an indignity, rather than an honour to his memory, to have perpetuated his deformity."

And, lastly, he was sold into Samos by a slave-dealer, and it is a well-known fact that these people bought up the handsomest youths they could procure.

A. C. W.

Brompton.

Nelson's Coat at Trafalgar (Vol. iv. p. 114.).

—Besides the loss of bullion from one of the epaulettes of Lord Nelson's coat occasioned by the circumstance related by ÆGROTUS, there was a similar defacement caused by the fatal bullet itself, which might render the identification suggested by ÆGROTUS a little difficult. Sir W. Beatty says, in his Authentic Narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson, p. 70.:

"The ball struck the fore part of his lordship's epaulette, and entered the left shoulder.... On removing the ball, a portion of the gold lace and pad of the epaulette, together with a small piece of his lordship's coat, was found firmly attached to it."

The ball, with the adhering gold lace, &c., was set in a crystal locket, and worn by Sir W. Beatty. It is now, I believe, in the possession of Prince Albert.

The intention of my note (Vol. iii., p. 517.) was to refute a common impression, probably derived from Harrison's work, that Lord Nelson had rashly adorned his admiral's uniform with extra insignia on the day of the battle, and thereby rendered himself a conspicuous object for the French riflemen.

A

lowercase">LFRED GATTY.

Queries.

JOHN KNOX.

In completing the proposed series of Knox's writings, I should feel greatly indebted to DR. MAITLAND or any of your readers for answering the following Queries:—

1. In the Catalogue of writers on the Old and New Testament, p. 107.: London, 1663, a sermon on Ezechiel ix. 4., attributed to Knox, is said to have been printed anno 1580. Where is there a copy of this sermon preserved?

2. Bale, and Melchior Adam, copying Verheiden, include in the list of Knox's writings, In Genesim Conciones. Is such a book known to exist?

3. Bishop Tanner also ascribes to him Exposition on Daniel: Malburg, 1529. This date is unquestionably erroneous, and probably the book also.

4. Knox's elaborate treatise Against the Adversaries of God's Predestination was first published at Geneva, 1560, by John Crespin. Toby Cooke, in 1580, had a license to print Knoxes Answere to the Cauillations of ane Anabaptist. (Herbert's Ames, p. 1263.) Is there any evidence that the work was reprinted earlier than 1591?

5. The work itself professes to be in answer to a book entitled The Confutation of the Errors of the Careles by Necessitie; "which book," it is added, "written in the English tongue, doeth contain as well the lies and blasphemies imagined by Sebastian Castalio, ... as also the vane reasons of Pighius, Sadoletus, and Georgius Siculus, pestilent Papistes, and expressed enemies of God's free mercies." When was this Confutation printed, and where is there a copy to be seen?

DAVID LAING.

Edinburgh.

Minor Queries.

116. "Fœda ministeria, atque minis absistite acerbis" (Vol. iii., p. 494.).

—Will any of your readers who may be metrical scholars, inform me whether there is any classical example of such an accent and cæsura as in this verse of Vida?

C. B.

117. Cornish Arms and Cornish Motto.

—The Cornish arms are a field sable with fifteen bezants, not balls as they are commonly called, 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. in pale or. These arms were borne by Condurus, the last Earl of Cornwall of British blood, in the time of William I., and were so borne until Richard, Earl of Cornwall, on being created Earl of Poictou, took the arms of such. According to the custom of the French, these were a rampant lion gules crowned or, in a field argent; but to show forth Cornwall, he threw the fifteen bezants into a bordour sable, round the bearing of the Earl of Poictou; but the Cornish arms, those of Condurus, are unaltered, though the coins are often mistaken for balls, and painted on a field coloured to the painter's fancy. Can you tell me when the Cornish motto "one and all" was adopted, and why?

S. H. (2)

118. Gloucester saved from the King's Mines.

—In Sir Kenelm Digby's Treatise of Bodies, ch. xxviii. sec. 4., is this passage:

"The trampling of men and horses in a quiet night, will be heard some miles off.... Most of all if one set a drum smooth upon the ground, and lay one's ear to the upper edge of it," &c.

On which the copy in my possession (ed. 1669) has the following marginal note in a cotemporary hand:

"Thus Gloucester was saved from the King's mines by ye drum of a drunken dru̅mer."

To what event does this refer, and where shall I find an account of it? It evidently happened during the civil wars, but Clarendon has no mention of it.

T. H. KERSLEY, A.B.

119. Milesian.

—What is the origin of the term Milesian as applied to certain races among the Irish?

W. FRASER.

120. Horology.

—Can any of your numerous correspondents kindly inform me what is the best scientific work on Horology? I do not want one containing mere mathematical work, but entering into all the details of the various movements, escapements, &c. &c. of astronomical clocks, chronometers, pocket watches, with the latest improvements down to the present time.

H. C. K.

121. Laurentius Müller.

—Can any of your readers mention a library which contains a copy of the Historia Septentrionalis, or History of Poland, of Laurentius Müller, published about 1580?

A. TR.

122. Lines on a Bed.

—Can you tell me where I can find the antecedents of the following couplets? They are a portion of some exquisite poetical "Lines on a Bed:"