Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/131

 10 s. XIL AUG. 7, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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advancement of learning. And this is th thought uppermost in the mind of our essayist, for the essay closes with the following paragraph :

" To conclude, men that have good aymes anc ends in aspiring are not so expressly Votaries tc the Publique, as that they be secluded (bj honest and just wayes, free from scandall, impor tunitie, vexation, and tax), even by the meanes of the present favour, and place they enjoy, to raise or encrease their Fortunes, to honor anc advance their Posteritie, so it bee done wit! moderation, and modes tie."

In the essay ' Of Detraction ' we find more than one passage of such nobility as the following :

" They [detractors] are the very moths, that corrupt and canker in every Commonwealth ; how they worke, and weare, and eate into every man's good name, experience witnesseth. They bee of a poysonous quality, and devourers of men's reputations, and, therefore, aptly described by the Psalmist, Their throate is an open Sepul- cher, with their tongues have they deceived, the poyson of Asps is under their lips. A sepulchre, indeede : for men's fames and good reports are in a manner buried in those graves, their deceit- full tongues are the instruments, and the poyson under their lips are materialls, by which so much mischief e is wrought."

There are many Baconian echoes in the essay ' Of Masters and Servants.' Witness, for example, such a sentence as the follow- ing :

" In dispatch numbers ever breed confusion, where affaires bee alike, and equally distributed." And again :

"In this domination that Masters have over their Servants, two extremes are to be avoided, Severitie and Facilitie. One makes them to feare, the other to presume too much. The first brings them too neere the nature of Bondmen ; the second, of Fellowes. This breeds hate, that contempt. But observe the golden mediocritie, both to command, and not to be feared, to be familiar and not scorned."

When we come to the essay ' Of Expences,' it is again easy to institute a parallel with Bacon's essay on the same topic. The very opening of the essay not only imitates Bacon's style, but also repeats a division of expenses which he has made. " Ex- pences," says our author, " doe naturally divide themselves into actions

E Honour, Charity, and Necessitie : the first requires a Great man : the second a Good man : the third is common to both. Honourable ex- pences bee commendable : Charitable, religious : and JNecessarie, forced. The first addes respects : the second, love : and the last, shewes our human frailty. Inaptitude to the former, shewes a man to be of a poore and ignoble spirit : backward - nesse in the next, expresseth an Atheisticall and heathenish nature : and not promptnesse to the third, argues a most perverse and covetous disposition."

Bacon's essay opens with this declara- tion :

" Riches are for spending ; and spending for honour and good actions."

Here we have two of the three divisions above Honour and Charity and the third divi- sion, Necessity, is treated soon after under the name of Ordinary Expenses. Listen, now, to the opening of Bacon's essav ' Of Studies ' :

" Studies serve for delight, for ornament and for ability. Their chiefe use, for delight, is in privatenesse and retiring ; for ornament, is in discourse ; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of businesse."

And soon after :

" To spend too much time in studies is sloth ; to use them too much for ornament is affectation ; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humour of a scholler."

And so on. Both writers, then, if there are two, are fond of this same threefold con- struction, which adds such force and com- pactness to an aphorism. The subject of Bacon's essay is well summed up in the following sentence from the ' Horae Sub- secivse ' :

" Expences should ever be limited according; to the occasion, and our own ability."

EDWARD J. H. O'BRIEN. 116, Charles Street, Boston, Mass.

(To be concluded.)

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL TECHNICAL TERMS.

(See 10 S. x. 81, 484; xi. 82, 184.) Palindrome. A name, verse, or sentence that reads the same when the letters com- posing it are taken in the reverse order : that reads the same backwards or forwards, see the ' O.E.D.,' the first instance in which is dated 1629. It seems clear that no one could make an ananym out of a palindrome, as, for example, out of the name Hannah. A pseudonym might be made of it, as Nahnah or Hanhan. Ogilvie's dictionary represents Adam politely introducing himself to Eve in a palindrome, thus : " Madam, I 'm Adam.'' Wanted, Eve's reply in a palin- drome.

Pharmaconym. The name of a substance >r material taken as a proper name, as Silverpen [Miss Meteyard], H. p. 120.

Trognon de chou [Barre, dessinateur de ^ille]. "Trognon de chou" (stump or (talk of a cabbage) is called a pseudonym )y Querard, but Pierquin gives it as an ns ance of a pharmaconym.