Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/11

 10 th S. I. JAN. 2, 1904.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

With respect to the church service he could give them nothing but Manuals and Psalters or Breviaries, and for their private use he could supply them with German works of devotion, as none of the nuns can be supposed to understand Latin. The small volume now before me becomes on that account a subject of the highest importance. It is printed in the identical new-discovered type of the ' Tractatus de Celebratione Missarum,' of which a copy was given, according to Fischer, p. 81, to the Chart reux of Menz by Joannes a monte bona, id est Guttenberg, in the year 1463. A small book in the same type called ' Dialogus inter Hugonem, Cathonem, et Oliverium super Libertate Eccle- siastica,' of which I sent a copy to my friend George Nicol, came to the library of Stuttgard on the suppression of the Chapter of Comburg, and has the date 14C2 in MS. upon it. As this small book has for object to inflame the mind of a nun, the sister of the author, with the spirit of divine love, I do not hesitate to suppose Guttenberg the author and printer of it, and what particularly comes in to my support is that the language of the abovesaid deed of settlement and that of this small treatise are entirely the same.

It is true that in the beginning he calls her sister in Christ, but we must not forget that a nun was dead to the world and had no brothers ; however, in the course of the whole following address he simply calls her by the name of " niin Suster," and the other expression in the beginning was probably only intended as a kind of courtesy. As to the copy, it appears to be one of tke first proof-sheets, it being here and there corrected ; and as it seems to have been only intended for that monastery, and not for sale, it is probable that only a few copies were taken off, on which account, as no other copy has yet been discovered, it will probably remain unique. ALEXR. HORX.

Frankfurt, the 11 th of March, 1815.

Although one cannot agree with Horn that Gutenberg was both author and printer of this little work, yet we are indebted to him for its discovery and for the identification of the types. S. J. ALDRIOH.

Xe\v Southgate.

FRENCH PROVERBIAL PHRASES.

HERE is the first instalment of the curiosi- ties promised 9 th S. xi. 462.

En avoir dans Vaile. This does not, as might be supposed, refer to being in a similar condition to a bird which, wounded in the wing, cannot fly, but to being fifty years of age. The letter L, as every one knows, stands for the number 50, and the expression is really a pun, according to M. de la Mesan gere, whose ' Dictionnaire des Proverbe Francais : I have previously mentioned.

Alonger (allonger) le parclumin. A phrase used to express the amplification of a story and the following lines (from 'Mote et Sentences Dorees de Maistre de Sagesso Cathon,' par Pierre Grosnet, 1553) illustrate its origin :

Xotez, en 1'ecclise de Dieu Femmes ensemble caquetoyent. Le diable y estoit en ung lieu, Escripvant ce qu'elles disoyent. Son rollet plein de poinct en poinct, Tire aux dents pour le faire croistre : Sa prinse eschappe et ne tient poinct ; Au pilier s'est heurte la teste.

This anecdote may be freely rendered thus.. One day some women were chattering and _ossiping in church, and the devil was there also. He busied himself in writing down their conversation, and soon filled his roll of parchment. He tried to stretch it, so as to nake more space to write on, by pulling at it with his teeth ; but it broke from his hold, and the force he used made him knock his bead against one of the pillars.

II est ban d'avoir des amis partout. Tha following epigram is based on this proverb: Une devote tin jour, dans line eglise, Offrit uu cierge au bienheureux Michel, Et 1'autre au diable. " Oh, oh, quelle meprise ! Mais c'est le diable. Y pensez-vous ? 6 ciel !" " Laissez," dit-elle, " il ne m'importe gueres, 11 faut toujours penser a 1'avenir. On ne sait pas ce qu'on peut devenir, Et les amis sont partout necessaires."

M. de la Mesangere does not give any refer- ence to the source, but in another place it is- attributed to Imbert. E. LATHAM.

(To be continued.)

FROZEN WORDS. When I was a lad, many years ago, I remember reading a nautical yarn was it in Capt. Marryat ? about a voyage to a region so cold that the words uttered in conversation all froze, but thawed on reaching a warmer region, for the benefit of the auditors. The joke often did duty in " random readings " and jest-books, but, like so many others, boasts a respectable antiquity, even if the pedigree be nebulous. Perhaps the following version, from the Italian,, published 1556, may not be without interest :

"And that friende of ours that suffereth vs not to want, within these fewe dayes rehearsed one to mee that was very excellent. Then sayde the L. Julian, Whateuer it were, more excellenter it cannot be, nor more subtiller, than one that a Tuskane of ours, whiche is a merchant man of Luca, affyrmed vnto me the last day for most certaine. Tell it vs, quoth the Dutchesse. The L. Julian sayde smyling : This Merchant man (as hee sayth) beeing vpon a time in Polonia, determined to buy a quantitie of Sables, minding to bring them into Italie, and to gaine greatly by them. And after much practising in the matter, where he could not himselfe go into Moscouia, bycause of the warre betwixt the King of Polonia & the Duke of Moscouia, he tooke order by the meane of some of the Country, that vpon a day appoyuted, certaine merchant mea of Moscouia shoulde come with their Sables into the borders of Polonia, and hee promised also to-