Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/482

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io<" s. 11. NOV. 12,

pilfer, plunder ; and I suggest that the term ' Cape Bar Men " may be derived from the Dutch u te kaap varen," to go a-privateering. I find the above information in the * H.E.D.'

R. CHEYNE.

'OMAR KHAYYAM (10 th S. ii. 322). Messrs. Otto Schulze & Co., of Edinburgh, call my attention to the fact that the page of the ' Fundgruben ' to which I referred is repro- duced in photographic facsimile at^p. ^45 of part i. of vol. v. of their publication
 * Books and Book-plates.'

EDWARD HERON- ALLEN.

4 TRACTS FOR THE TIMES ' (10 th S. ii. 347). A full list of the authors was published in the Oxford University Herald and the Guardian. I cannot give the exact date, but it must have been in 1883 or 1884.

H. N. ELLACOMBE.

A complete list of the authors of the 4 Tracts for the Times ' will be found in Dr. Liddon's ' Life of Dr. Pusey,' vol. iii. pp. 473- 480. F. H. R.

TOM MOODY (10 th S. ii. 228, 295). It will usefully supplement (and amend) the infor- mation already given about this song to reprint the title of what appears to be the first edition (4 pp. folio), and, in so doing, to place on record what is apparently conclu- sive evidence against the commonly received opinion that * Tom Moody ' was written and composed by Charles Dibdin an opinion so stubbornly held that when, some twelve years ago, I addressed a letter to the Field supporting a contradiction by my friend the late Julian Marshall, I was promptly snubbed by the editor in an omniscient foot-note. My opinion was then based on the ascriptions in trustworthy song-collections and on internal evidence. That I was right is now proved by the copy of the song which I possess. I quote the title exactly as it appears :

"THE DEATH of TOM MOODY, The noted Whipper- in Well known to the SPORTSMEN of SHROPSHIRE, Written by the Author of HARFORD BRIDGE Com- posed by W m Shield, Musician in Ordinary to his Majesty, & SUNG by M r INCLEDON In his new Enter- tainment called the WANDERING MELODIST, Also at the T. R. C. Garden. Ent d at 8tat Hall. Price 1. Sh. N.B. The small Notes which are meant to express the View & Death Haloos, the Challenge, & the chearing up of the Pack, were Written lay a Foxhunter, who heard Poor Tom's sonorous & characteristic Tones reechoed amid the Woods & Vallies while he was enjoying Health ; & such was his attachment to the Chase, that he faintly breathed them in his expiring moments. London, Printed by Goulding D'Almaine, Potter & C, 20, Soho Sq c & N 7, Westmorland St. Dublin."

E. RIMBAULT DIBDIN.

fjjiwttllnmam.

NOTES ON BOOKS, &c.

The Epistles of Erasmus, from his Earliest Letters- to his Fifty-first Year. Arranged in the Order of Time. An English Translation. By Francis Morgan Nichols. 2 vols. Vol. II. (Longmans &Co.)

ON the appearance, three years ago, of the first volume of Mr. Nichols's translation and arrange- ment of ' The Epistles of Erasmus' we drew atten- tion to the scope and accomplishment of the work (see 9 th S. viii. 514). No absolute promise was then made of a second volume, though a hint that such was contemplated was afforded ; nor did the work then noticed bear on the title-page Vol. I. That the second volume was intended is proven by the fact that when now it appears it carries the execution no further than the year 1517, with which the work was originally designed to close. It is useless and wasteful to repeat what was at first said concerning the purpose of the volume and its utility. Such as desire to know more than can now be repeated are referred to our previous notice. We may only add that the attempt to do what Erasmus had carefully abstained from doing viz., arrange the correspond- ence in the supposed order of date is accomplished, and that the result thus obtained is of highest value to the student of Erasmus, and indispensable to all would-be biographers of the scholar.

The first volume ends with the arrival of Erasmus in Holland on the way to England, to which he i bidden by " his Maecenas," the Earl of Mountjoyv who promises him the patronage of the king, and sends him ten pounds, half from himself and half from the Archbishop of Canterbury, from whom he is bidden to expect a benefice. The date of his arrival in London remains uncertain, but is pre- sumably about 1509. At the outset of the second volume Erasmus is in England, where he has arrived, bringing with him his * Mtoptas eyKw/xtov,. or Praise of Folly,' the most read of his prose works, and his verses on * Old Age.' What is said about the earlier book, generally called the * Moriae En- comium,' has extreme interest. To Thomas More, to whom the first letter is addressed, Erasmus says that the first thing that suggested it " was your surname of More, which is just as near the name of Moria, or Folly, as you are far from the thing, from which, by general acclamation, you are far indeed.' 7 Once more he surmised that this playful "pro- duction of our genius would find special favour with you, disposed as you are to take pleasure in jests of the kind." From the charge of mordacity he defends himself, inasmuch as " genius has always enjoyed the liberty of ridiculing in witty terms the common life of mankind, provided only the licence does not pass into fury." Much praise is bestowed by English scholars upon the work, but the writer, though he finds a warm reception in Cambridge, whither he proceeds, fails greatly to benefit by the promises that have been made him. This is the more to be regretted, since in Rome there was; competition among the cardinals as to which should take charge of his fortunes. The scholars of the early sixteenth century were, almost without ex- ception, dependent on the patronage and the alms of the great. It is none the less humiliating to read of the shifts to which Erasmus was constantly driven. No extreme reluctance was shown in beg- ging, though his appeals are sometimes indirect.