Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/541

 io s. i. JUXE 4, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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"M. Samuelis Calandri," who died in 1580, by his widow and children, and its local position being given as ' Stralsundii in Mariano ; ).

My main object, however, now is to call attention to a far earlier, and indeed classical, version, which I have come across during a recent visit to Rome. It forms the inscrip- tion on a sarcophagus brought from Casal Rotondo, on the Appian Way, and now placed in the Museo Profano of the Lateran, Room XIV., Xo. 895. The inscription itself, copied exactly as it stands, runs as follows :

D T M T S T L T ANNIVS T OCTAVI VS T VALERIANVS T EVASI T EFFV GI T SPES T ET T FORTVNA T VALETE T NIL T MIHI T VO VISCVM T EST T LVDIFICATE T ALIOS T

That is :

Dis Manibus sacrum. Lucius Annius Octavius

Valerianus.

Evasi : effugi : Spes et Fortuna valete : Nil mihi vobiscum est. Ludificate alios.

RICHARD MORTON SMITH. Athenaeum Club.

A RUSSIAN PREDICTION. Under the above heading the following remarkable statement appeared in Le Temps of 18 May, having been sent to that well-known Paris journal by a Russian publicist as a curiosity and a symptom of the peculiar atmosphere in which the middle classes of the Russian empire live at the present time :

"People still talk much about the departure of the Emperor for the seat of war. VVith reference to it there is brought forward a prediction made by St. Serafim, of Sarof, whose body was solemnly interred last year in a church specially constructed to receive it. This personage, who had lived in the desert of Sarof, and was venerated during his lifetime as a prophet and a worker of miracles, died about seventy years since. After his death it was noticed that the water of a well near which he was accustomed to pray cured illnesses, and the place became a resort of numerous popular pil- grimages. In this way Father Se'rafim acquired great renown, and the Church, having ascertained the reality of the miracles which had been wrought near his tomb, canonized him. When the transla- tion of his ashes took place last year, the Emperor and the Imperial family were present ; and it was the Tsar himself and three Grand Dukes who carried the precious burden to the church destined to receive it. The Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, who has become very pious for a long time past, herself designed the patterns for the curtains and decorations which cover the place where the remains of the saint rest.

"Amongst the predictions of St. Se'rafim is the following : The year which shall follow the transla- tion of my ashes into a church, a terrible war will break out against Russia, which will cause much evil. And the Tsar will go to the war, and I will go with him, and we will tear the Englishwoman's apron (fe tablier de V Anglaise).

"This prediction was told me last July. I

remember it, and the Emperor must also remember it, and that will compel him to go to the seat of war. I have also heard this prediction commented upon in certain Court circles, where great import- ance is attached to the promise of the saint to accompany the Tsar to the war. As for the apron of the Englishwoman which will be torn, that does not necessarily imply a war with England. The Englishwoman's apron may very well mean Japan, with which England has covered herself in order to make war upon Russia. In the country, even among the upper classes, it is asserted that Father Se'rafim was no other than the Emperor Alex- ander I., who, to exculpate himself even from the involuntary part which he had in the assassination of his father the Emperor Paul L, entered a religious order and passed his old age in the desert of Sarof. " It is for that reason, they say, that the Emperor and the Imperial family took part in the translation- of the saint s remains."

In this connexion attention may be called' to chap, xxviii. of Gleig's ' Life of Arthur, Duke of Wellington,' wherein are circumstan- tially related the two attempts on the duke's life while he commanded the allied troops in France after the Waterloo campaign. The first was the setting on fire of the duke's hotel in Paris on the night of 25 June, 1810 ;. the second was Cantillon's ineffectual pistol- shot at the duke as he was leaving Sir Charles- Stuart's dinner, 11 February, 1818.

"Of the source in which this second attempt originated [says Mr. Gleig] there could be no doubt. The Republicans or Bonapartists (for they were now united) gradually wrought themselves up to a state of rabid excitement. They received great encouragement from the Emperor Alexander of Russia, who, raised to the throne under appalling; circumstances, and married to an amiable princess, with whose tastes his own could never agree, fell, as years grew upon him, into a morbid state."

The murder of the Emperor Paul will be found related in ' N. & Q.,' 9 th S. v. 23.

J. LORAINE HEELIS. Penzance.

THE LIBRARY OF MADAME DE POMPADOUR. The Publishers' Circular of the 28th of May, under the above heading, has the following :

" There was found the other day in Paris under a heap of dust-covered books the auction catalogue of Madame de Pompadour's library. The mar- chioness died at Versailles on April 4, 1764, and her effects were dispersed under the hammer of the commissaire-priseur the following year, of which the catalogue in question bears the date. On almost every page are marginal notes of the prices paid for the various books. For instance, the original edition of ' Le Theatre de Moliere,' which, if offered for sale at the present day, would be worth 10,000fr., was sold for only 6 livres 10 sols, equiva- lent to little more than 5 fr. ' L'Eperon de Disciple,' by Du Saix, published in 1532, the binding of which bore the arms of the marchioness, was disposed of for only 5 livres, whereas a copy of the same book fetched as much as 890 fr. in a recent auction at