Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/471

 10 s. vii. MAY is, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

387

Poems,' ' The Unnamed Lake, and other Poems ' (1897), and ' Poems : Old and New ' (1900). Most, if not all, of these were published by William Briggs, of Toronto. The last-named book contains some of the poems which had appeared in the three earlier books of verse, and others. In my copy of ' The Unnamed Lake,' which I bought second-hand in 1899, was a poem on detached leaves entitled ' The Burden of Time,' " for private circulation only," dated 1898. Very possibly Dr. Scott has published other books.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

" ON THE MENDING-HAND." The quota- tion under ' Mending ' in ' N.E.D.' from a surgical work of 1658 " Go on. . . .till you see and perceave that the member is at a mending hand " may be supplemented, as showing that the phrase was once in colloquial use, by this extract from The Post Boy of 9-11 Jan., 1701 :

"The Countess of Baltimore, who was dangerously ill, is on the mending-hand."

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

FOLK-LORE CONCERNING TWINS. Our ancestors were somewhat fond of advancing propositions without collating facts. Here are two instances of a belief current in the seventeenth century :

"When the administration of these Offices [of Prince and Priest] is committed to distinct persons, their interest is so mixt and twisted, that like Twins they thrive and fade, live and die, together." Dr. L. Womack's sermon on 'Aaron's Rod in Vigour,' preached at Ipswich, 1676.

" Power to command and obligation to obey are Twins. Both are born, live, and die, together."
 * The Mischief of Impositions,' 1680, p. 61.

This belief probably survived in the popular mind to a late date.

RICHARD H. THORNTON.

" LA HUESTE ANTIGUA." This curious phrase, used by the Spanish physician and scholar Francisco Lopez de Villalobos (born 1473) in a dialogue on natural heat, is thus annotated by Mr. George Gaskoin in his translation of the ' Medical Works ' (8vo, Lond., 1870, p. 289) :

" ' A bogie,' in the original la, hueste antigua, the ancient host. So singular an expression must surely have originated in some historical facts. The result -of my inquiries from persons of great biblio- graphical and antiquarian research amounts to this : Formerly, in parts of Spain, and especially in the Asturias, by the ' ancient host ' was intended .a species of fantastic and aerial legion with wild .and extravagant figures, which served to frighten children and subdue them into good manners and quiet; it seems not much unlike the spectre hunt in Germany. It is now all but forgotten, being

superseded by the coco and bii of the modern Spanish nursery."

With this expression may be compared the " Ahi viene Drake ! " reported by a correspondent as being used in Mexico (10 S. i. 325), which certainly has an historical basis. Villalobos was a stylist and an authority on language, and Mr. Gaskoin quotes Hernandez More j on (' Hist, de la Med. Espanola ') as saying :

"Villalobos uses the Spanish language with so

great propriety and good taste that he is regarded

as an authority in text, being accepted as such in

the first edition of the dictionary of the language."

W. R. B. PRIDEAUX.

COLERIDGE'S ' EPITAPHIUM TESTAMENT - ARIUM.' In Dykes Campbell's edition of Coleridge's ' Poetical Works ' (1893, p. 210) there is given the

EPITAPHIUM TESTAMENTARIUM.

To TOV *ESTH2E TOV liriOavove Epitaphium testamentarium avroypaQov. Quse linquam, aut nihil, aut nihili, aut vix sunt mea.

Sordes Do Morti : reddo csetera, Christe ! tibi. 1826.

This epitaph appears as a foot-note to the ' Lines suggested by the Last Words of Berengarius ' in ' The Literary Souvenir ' for 1827, edited by Alaric A. Watts (p. 17), except that *' linquam " is printed " lin- guam," and cTriSuvous is the form of the Greek word a form adopted by Camp- bell in his notes, but not in the text. Of this word none of the classical scholars con- sulted by Campbell could make anything. He suggests " worthless " or " lacking " as the interpretation. Roughly, the epitaph might perhaps be rendered :

What things I leave are naught, or little worth,

Or else can scarce belong to me ; To Death I give the sordid dust of earth,

The rest give back, Christ, to Thee.

The appearance of the ' Epitaphium Testamentarium ' in ' The Literary Souvenir ' is duly noticed in Haney's ' Coleridge Biblio- graphy,' but the reference to the page is inaccurate ; and in Shepherd-Prideaux's assigned to 1829. Possessors of these useful books, which I have frequently used with gratitude, may like to make a note.
 * Coleridge Bibliography ' it is wrongly

WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Manchester.

COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER'S WILL IN 1682. The will of John Steuart, proved 1682, P.C.C. 49 Cottle, is interesting as illustrat- ing the old customs of the road.

GERALD FOTHERGILL.

11, Brussels Road, New Wandsworth, S.W.