Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/204

 164

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. i. FEB. 27, im.

P. 76, 1. 30 ; 40, 26, "which one calls maxi- mum ^dtitice specimen." ^rt*jjjg>ridj/ i 3. The reference i. 2, which ShiUeto adds to Florid. (77, n. 2 ; 40, n. *), should be i. 3 <p. 13, Oud.; p. 4, G. Kriiger).

P 78 1 22 ; 41, 24, "bray him in a mortar, he will be the same." See Proverbs xxvn. 22.

P 80 n 4' 42, n.*, "Plutarchus Solone": 4.

P! 80! 1.' 25 ; 44, 33, " by Plato's good leave. <Phil.,'36, 59E-60A.

P 80 1. 34 ; 42, 41, ' nemo malm qui non stultus,' 'tis Fabius' aphorism to the same end." QuintiL, 'Inst.,' xii. 1, 4.

P 82, 1. 5 ; 43, 23, "out of an old Poem. The 'Hypsipyle' of Euripides; Frag. 757 Bind.

P 82, n. 3 : 43, n. p, " inmna in sapientem non cadit." Sen., ' Dial.' ii. 7, 2, " iniuna in sapientem virum non cadit."

P. 83, n. 3; 44, n. b, "Ep. Damageto ' THippocr. Ep. xiv. 3] ; n. 4 ; n. c [Ep. xiv. 4J.

P. 83, n. 5; 44, n. d, "per multum risum poteris cognoscere stultum." Risum and multum should be transposed. This leonine hexameter, with debes for poteris, is quoted in Binder's 'Nov. Thes. Adag. Latin, from Gartner's ' Proverbialia Dicteria' (1574).

P. 84, 1. 19; 44, 48, "to keep Homer's works." Pliny, ' N.H.,' vii. 29, 108 ; Plutarch, Alexand.,' 44.

P. 84, 1. 20; 45, 1, "Scaliger upbraids Homer's Muse, nutricem insance sapientia." J. C. Scaliger's remark ; see his son's ' Conf ut. Fab. Burd.,' p. 201, 'Opusc.,' Pt. II. (1612). Burton's marginal note is " Hypocrit. Was he thinking of bk. vl, ' Hypercriticus,' of Scaliger's 'Poetice,' cap. vii., where, in criti- cizing Hor., 'Epist.,' i. 2, Scaliger says, "quis enim dicat Homeri nugas esse potiores prse- ceptis philosophorum"?

P. 84, n. 6 ; 45, n. 6, " ut mulier aulica nullius pudens." For this remark of J. C. Scaliger see ' Conf ut.,' loc. cit.

P. 84, 1. 24; 45, 4, "Scaliger rejects him

[Lucian] and calls him the Cerberus of

the Muses." J. C. Scaliger again ; see ' Con- fut.,' ad fin. (p. 202). "Galenum fimbriam Hippocrates" (see Burton, 85, 1. 4; 45, 15) occurs immediately after this in the ' Confut.'

P. 84, 1. 30; 45, 9, "Cardan, in his 16th Book of ' Subtleties,' reckons up twelve super- eminent, acute Philosophers." See pp. 802-4 of the 1582 (Basel) edition of De Subtil.' EDWARD BENSLY.

The University, Adelaide, South Australia. (To be continued.)

THE ENGLISH IN FRANCE. I may note a urious trace of the English rule in France, which I have just come across in the Vienna

Neue Freie Presse of 10 January. M. Combes, the present Prime Minister of France, in the course of an interview, mentions that he first met his wife on the " Boulingrin " (the prin- cipal promenade) of Pons, a small town in the Charente. The " Boulingrin " at Rouen, near Joan of Arc's prison, is well known. It would be interesting to note similar relics of the English rule to be found elsewhere in France. I can only recollect the bosses in the roof of the cathedral at Bayonne with the arms of Henry VI. H. 2.

SIR THOMAS WYATT'S RIDDLE. In Robert Bell's edition of this poet's works there is a piece infelicitously entitled 'Description of a Gun,' which runs as follows :

Vulcan begat me ; Minerva me taught ;

Nature my mother; craft nourished me year by

year ;

Three bodies are my food ; my strength is in nought ; Anger, wrath, waste, and noise are my children

dear.

Guess, friend, what I am, and how I am wrought, Monster of sea, or of land, or of elsewhere :

Know me, and use me, and I may thee defend ;

And, if I be thine enemy, I may thy life end.

We are informed in a note that " In the Harrington MS. these lines are entitled, ' A Riddle ex Pandulpho ' " ; but who Pandulphus was we are not told, nor have I been able to discover, but the original of Wyatt's first four lines is quoted in Camden's ' Remaines ' in his chapter on ' Artillarie,' where he writes :

"The best approved Authors agree that they [guns! were invented in Germanic by Berthold Swarte, a Monke skillful in Gebers Cookery or Alchimy, who, tempering Brimstone and Saltpeter in a morter, perceived the force by casting up the stone which covered it, when a sparke fell into it. But one saith he consulted with the divell for an offensive weapon, who gave him answer in this obscure Oracle : Vulcanus gignat, pariat Natura, Minerva

Edoceat, nutrix ars erit atque dies. Vis mea de nihilo, tria dent mihi corpora pastum :

Sunt soboles strages, vis, furor, atque fragor. By this instruction he made a trunck of yron with learned advice, crammed it with sulphure, bullet, and, putting thereto fire, found the effects to bee destruction, violence, fury, and roaring cracke."

The old writer, who penned these words three centuries ago this very year, furnishes the vaguest authority for his remarkable state- mentabout Schwarz's dealings with his Satanic majesty, whose tetrastich is certainly superior to Wyatt'e octave in point of finish. Polydore Virgil, in his book 'De Rerum Inventoribus,' lib. ii. cap. xi., relates pretty much the same story, but he gives no name, and merely declares the discoverer to have been "a Ger-