Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/516

 426 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io» s. iv. NOV. 25. I«HL Montaigne and Bacon. It may be added that while he draws largely on ancient authors for many of his illustrations, it is noteworthy that he was not indifferent to many of his learned contemporaries. For example, our Scotch countryman George Buchanan—in one place he calls him " an •excellent Poet of our time"—seevns to have been a great favourite with him, while he shows _ his appreciation of Du Bartas by •quotations from his well-known poem. In a word, this ' Living Librarie' is, in every •way, a most delightful, entertaining, and informing book. In 1577 Sir Philip Sidney was appointed -ambassador to the Court of the Emperor Eudolph of Germany. Camerarius records that when on that mission he had the pleasure of meeting our illustrious country- man. He goes on to say that ^'as one day he talked priuatly with me & some others, he entertained vs with very memorable dis- courses. And as we fell vpon the speech, Whither it were true (as the Ancients say, and the moderne •beleeue) that England cannot endure wolues," Sir Philip discoursed on this subject to the evident satisfaction of the company. Having looked over several monographs on Sir Philip Sidney, as well as the ' Life' by Dr. Thomas Zouch, published in 1809, I do not see any reference to this incident. Caraerarius re- cords the whole discourse, and winds up thus (p. 99):- "This discourse of Sydneis, accompanied with other memorable speeches touching Ireland, where his father gouerned ; and of Saint Patricks hole, much esteemed when time was (at this day little set by) was very pleasing to the companie that sate at table with him, and no man would make any ques- tion thereof, especially when he saw it approoued by Hubert Languet, a man of most exqusit iudg- ment, and exceeding well trauelled in the know- ledge of things, and in the affairs of the world. For my part I began a while after to consider of it more diligently, and viewed the Maps of England and of Scotland, and withall the Historiographers, espe- cially Camden and Buchanan, who are had in more «steeme than the rest: and then I found that euery thing answered and agreed with Sidneys discourse." There is a chapter devoted to ' The Indus- trie and Fidelitie of Dogs : their Elogie, or memorable Praise,' in which the following passage occurs. As Camerarius does not give his authority for this incident, as he usually <loes, the probability is he was himself a witness to the performances of this horse <P- 84) :- "And of late dayes a Scottish-mans horse gaue occasion of great sifting and wonderment to many persons that saw him at Paris and other places."* '"' [* For anecdotes about Morocco, Banks's bay horse, celebrated in Tudor times, see LADY RUSSELL'S article, 10th S. ii. 281.] We have a chapter entitled ' Of Deceiners and Masters of fond Superstition. Obserna- tions touching the latter day," in which there is a humorous story of "a certaine Curatof our time," who predicted, as the result of certain arithmetical calculations, which were evidently satisfactory to himself, that the world would shortly come to an end, " point- ing out the very day and hower when it should be." The predicted day came round, and truly it was such a day of fearful thunder and lightning that the good people of the place had no doubt but the end had really come. By and by, however, the storm passed away, the sun again shone out with its wonted splendour, and when the prophet found his prediction falsified he took refuge from popular fury by taking "him to his heeles." Hakewill, on the authority of " Philip Camerarius a learned man, and Councellour to the state of Noringberg," imports this story into his 'Apologie' (ed. 1635, p. 24). The illustrious Napier of Merchiston was one of those who, like the curate in the above story, also from arithmetical calculations, set a time for the world's ending ; but he placed the event so far in the future that it exposed him to some very caustic lines in Latin by John Owen, the epigrammatist, of which the following is an English translation (they are quoted by Hakewill, from whom I take them) :— Ninetie two yearee the World as yet shall stand. If it do stand or fall at your command. But say, why plac'd you not the Worlds end nigher? Lest ere you dyed you might be prov'd a Iyer. The authorship of the ' Imitation of Christ' is a controverted point. Dr. Dibdin, in his very interesting preface to the edition of that work published by Pickering in 1823, discusses the question at length. This is what Camerarius says, and the quotation may be taken for what it is worth (p. 61) :— " Therefore Thomas de Kempis, who liued about two hundred yeares agoe, saith well in his boolte o< the Imitation of Christ." I may mention that there is in the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, a copy of this work in Latin, published in small 4to at Frankfort in 1606, which bears on the title-page the autograph of Ben Jonson, thus: "Su Ben: Jonsonij." This title-page also bears the autograph of " 1. Bayllie," and looking to the place whence the volume originally came, I am almost certain that it ia that of the celebrated Robert Baillie j(1602-62X at one time Principal of the University ol Glasgow. A. S.