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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. v. JUNE so, im.

assailant. Times, 13th, to the fitting of any January, 1834. one mansion of the

We had thought that understanding. Times, the blaze of truth which August 26, 1834. we have thrown upon so But so it is that what- many of the calumnies ever happens to be run- against the Lord Chan- ning in his head finds cellor, and by which its way out of his mouth, we have exposed their He reminds one of a baseness and blackness, boy in love, taking up would have overwhelmed one thing when he the authors of them with wants another, forgetful, shame and made them abrupt, and incapable of silent pursuing an idea or ob-

A more indefatigable serving any coherency or a more painstaking a congruity in speech or more punctual judge action. Times, Sept. 1, never presided in any 1834. Court in any period of Apropos of water, and our legal annals. His slip-slop, and mud, and Lordship by his per- all that, how came our severing attention, his friend of the Chronicle unremitting assiduity, to declare the impossi- and his unexampled bility of washing the regularity, has afforded blackamore white, when a striking proof that it was on Saturday the talents of the highest appropriate day for such order and eloquence of work scrubbing away matchless power can de- at Lord Brougham's scend with cheerfulness reputation? Was it a and ease to the mono- thought of present ex- tonous duties of the most perience? Did the busi- laborious and patient ness on hand compel the (qy. painful ?) drudgery, allusion? Was it an in-

The dullest fag who stance of the subtilty of ever plodded without a truth,which,like murder, thought beyond the pale will out ? One would of the technicalities of have thought that the his profession never attempt to wash the worked so hard and so blackamore white would constantly as the man be the last image that whom even his enemies the Chronicle would ad- allow to be endowed mit into its defences of with the most compre- the Chancellor ; but in hensive and brilliant its difficult task the intellect of his age and thought was uppermost, country. Times, March and so out it came. 18th, 1834. Times, Sept. 2, 1834.

After reading the above extracts, which certainly make even Cobbett's inconsistencies to blush for very modesty, it is natural to inquire the cause of so great a change. The public character of the Lord Chancellor, to my eye, remains about the same as ever not better, we fear, nor, Heaven be praised, much worse.

There must be some private motive, and the Times of September 6th, alluding to this no doubt, speaks of its case as similar to that of a loving husband or friend who had been treated with infidelity or deception by a treacherous wife or confidant. The injustice of attempting to sacrifice the personal fame of such a person as the Chan- cellor to the personal pique of an individual is palpable. But the public has far more interest in preserving the press from corruption than in upholding the character of Lord Brougham.

I regard the ^nfluence of public opinion, as exercised through the press, as the distinguishing feature in modern civilization, and which by its pureness or degradation must determine the period of existence of civilization itself. This engine of

good or evil can exist only by the breath of the public; and I hold it to be one of the gravest duties of the body politic to award wisely its suffrages amongst the contending candidates of the periodical press. Delinquencies like those which have occasioned these remarks can admit but of one palliation the haste with which newspapers are of necessity compiled ; but if, from day to day, a journal braves the just current of public opinion with self-evident and deliberate falsehoods, or affronts its readers by reiterating contradictory slanders, then the chastisement should be as infallible as it is simple and severe in the neglect and contempt of its readers. LIBRA.

It is difficult for a later age to under- stand either the commanding position which Brougham once occupied or the swift loss of his political influence. Whatever the defects or circumstances which led to the disappoint- ment of his high hopes, Brougham deserves the gratitude of the nation for his legal reforms and his advocacy of education.

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Manchester.

PUNCTUATION IN MSS. AND PRINTED

BOOKS. (See 10 th S. ii. 301, 462 ; iv. 144, 262.)

THE superior figures refer to the illustra- tions appended to this article.

Pal. Soc., i. pi. 182. Odyssey, dated 1479. By John Rhosos of Crete, a calligraphist. All iotas and upsilons are apparently double- dotted ; whereas a Pausanias by Peter Hyp- silas of ^Egina, 1497, has no dotted t or v. Ptolemy, 1518, by Damascenes of Crete, has both.

H. N. Humphreys, ' Hist, of the Art of Printing,' plate 34. A parallel Latin and Greek Liber Psalmorum, printed in 1481 at Venice, shows ].

Here the Latin has hyphens, dotted i, and full stops. This gives us also one of the earliest printed examples of the shapes of } = 1 and the ? itself. There is probably not a comma in the Greek ; and the Latin interrogation has no hint of a Q. It suggests rather the dash, or hyphen, or abbreviating- mark with a dot.

The Middle Temple Library has two editions of the same work, the * Liber Abraham Auenezrac de Criticis Diebus' (bound up with the * Amicus Medicorum ' of Jo. Ganivetus), one dated 1496, printed in Latin at Lyons by Jo. Trechsal Alemannus ; the other, 1550, printed in Latin at Lyons by Wil m Rouillimi. They exhibit the varieties of contraction and punctuation shown in the parallel columns at 2.

Ex meis libris. 'Stephani Ciceronianum Lexicon,' printed in Latin and Greek in 1557, at Paris, "ex officina H. Stephani,"