Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/397

 s. ii. OCT. 22, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

325

condition of the premises, which by an Act of Parliament of the year 1664 are vested in the Wardens and Society of the Leathersellers of London. It will be remembered that in 1799 the Leathersellers' Company, who have a hall in St. Helen's Place, Bishopsgate, pulled down their ancient hall and the remains of the Priory of St. Helen, Bishops- gate, and erected on the site a new hall and the houses known as St. Helen's Place. Mal- colm, who had apparently seen these remains, remarks in his ' Londinium Redivivum,' pub- lished in 1812:

" We will suppose the monastery of St. Helen demolished, the materials disposed of, and the purchase of the site compleated by the Company. The architect finds a foundation far superior to any their funds will supply, and therefore cases the basement walla with brick, and makes the pave- ment (ready for his purpose) serve as the floor for the New HalL And thus far he acted wisely ; for his work of 1567 became too ruinous and expensive for repair in 1797, was taken down and will be for- gotten. What remains to be said of the ancient crypt ? That it would not have required repair for 500 years to come. Had the enormous masses of fungous webs, which depended from the arches of this beautiful work, been carefully swept away, and the walls rubbed with a dry broom, the antient windows re-opened, the earth that clogged the pavements removed, and its other defilements cleared off, these crypts, now scattered in piles of rubbish, would have formed a church how infinitely superior to forty I could name !

"The regret with which I saw those slender pillars torn from their bases, and the strong though delicate arches sundered in masses, is still warm to my remembrance. The angles were filled with white sand, a layer of earth, a layer of oak chips, one now lays [sic] before me. Six hundred years have passed since this wood was cut, and the mark of the axe is fresh upon it, and so on till the spaces were filled/'

The last paragraph of this description seems to refer to the filling-iii of the spandrels of the vaulting of the crypt. JNO. HEBB.

J. C. SCALIGER'S BOOKS. It might be use- ful to add to DR. LEEPER'S account (9 th S. ix. 281, under ' Literary Finds at Melbourne') of the discovery of a book with MS. notes by the elder Scaliger, that the Greek epigram there quoted may be seen in print on p. 7 (in the preliminary matter) of the 1574 edition of Julius Caesar Scaliger's 'Poemata,' with a heading to the effect that Scaliger was in the habit of writing it at the beginning of his books (" Hos versus librorum suorum fronti lul. Ciesar Scaliger* prseponebat ").

The lines are to be found under the same heading in the 'Scaligerana Prima' (p. 45 of the complete ' Scaligerana ' in the inaccurate edition of 1685), with a French version by

"Semper prteponebat," ed. 1600.

Sammarthanus and two Latin renderings,. the latter of which is attributed to Joseph Scaliger. Two Greek iambic trimeter lines are also given, with the statement that Julius- Scaliger usually put these as well at the be- ginning of his books. They are certainly less- appropriate.

The phrase iraly^a. TV^S in the first epi- gram is quoted near the end of J. J. Scaliger's. 'Confutatio Fabulse Burdpnum,' where a> saying of his father containing an allusion to- it is mentioned.

The form of the epigram in the 'Scali- gerana ' differs in one word from that given in Scaliger's poems, and both vary in a few small details from that quoted by DR. LEEPER from Scaliger's autograph. The third line begins

'Hi/ Se

It would be of interest to learn what other books can be similarly identified as having formed part of the library of Julius Caesar Scaliger. EDWARD BENSLY.

The University, Adelaide, S. Australia.

TOAD AS MEDICINE. With reference to Sir Kenelm Digby's statement (ante, p. 272, s.v. 'Pin Witchery') that "in the time of common contagion men used to carry about with them the powder of a toad, which draws the con- tagious air, which otherwise would infect the party," Vogel (who, like John Ray, believed in assigning to substances those virtues and powers which had been proclaimed from accumulated experience) speaks of roasted toad as a specific for the pains of gout. Blind credulity taught the baking of the toad alive. The following is the receipt in Colborne's ' Dispensatory ' :

" Bufo Prceparatus. Put the toads alive into an earthen pot, and dry them in an oven moderately heated, till they become fit to be powdered." Paris's * Pharmacologia,' 1833, p. 6.

J. H. MAcMlCHAEL.

BIDEFORD FREEMAN ROLL. The following, from the Western Morning Neivs of 21 Sept., may be worthy of preservation in the columns of ' N. & Q.' :

INTERESTING; FIND AT BIDEFORD.

An interesting find of some importance to the town of Bideford was made a day or two ago, when the town clerk (Mr. W. B. Seldpn), in turning over some old papers in his office, quite accidentally discovered the ancient Roll of Freemen of the Borough of Bideford, the existence of which has often of late years been doubted. The document, which is a yard or so in length, and has attached to it a number of seals, is in a state of very fair pre- servation, and the writing upon it easily decipher- able. The record extends over a period of 44 years, and the first entry bears a date of exactly 116 yeara ago yesterday. The last entry was made in 1832,