Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/403

 io s. vm. OCT. 26, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

333

" Caesar's lines upon Feltria " which were asked for are these :

Feltria perpetuo niuium damnata, rigori Forte mini posthac non adeunda uale.

They are given with other doubtful and spurious inscriptions at the beginning of vol. v. pars i. (' Inscriptiones Regionis Italise Decimse,' edited by Mommsen), of the ' Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum ' (see ix. 92*, p. 11* of that volume), where an account is given of their earliest occur- rence in literature. It may be enough here to say that Bembo in the ninth book of his ' Venetian History ' quotes the couplet as having existed, with Julius Caesar's name above it, on a piece of marble said to have been destroyed at the sack and burning of Feltre in 1509.

See also ^Emilius Baehrens's ' Poetae Latini Minores,' vol. v. p. 405, Ixxxvi. (Burmann, iii. 10 ; Meyer, 70).

EDWABD BENSLY.

The lines popularly attributed to Caesar run thus :

Feltria, perpetuo nimium damnata rigore, Terra mini posthac non habitanda, vale.

They may be found on p. 526 of the 1635 Elzevir edition of Caesar's works.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

MABY, QUEEN or SCOTS, IN EDINBUKGH CASTLE (10 S. viii. 249). These groundless storiea about Mary, Queen of Scots, are continually being published in one form or another. There is one version at 6 S. vii. 88. Some time before 1883 a body had been discovered in a recess over a doorway, and, according to one story, Cecil was sent to Scotland and there contrived the murder of Mary's son, and the substitution of a child of the same age. A small coffin was discovered with the letters " J. R." on it in the wall near Queen Mary's room ! A few years ago about 1900 or so this coffin seems to have been again unearthed from the recess over a doorway not in, or near, the room occupied by the Queen. The popular memory being extremely short, the previous discovery had been forgotten, so that once more the most absurd and amazing stories were set afloat. There is nothing to connect the child with the unfortunate Queen, and there is very little to be said for the " Monkbarns " version recently quoted. It would be simply absurd for any medical man to pretend that he could tell whether the child had been still- born or not. The remains were supposed

to be about four centuries old, and, according to my information, crumbled to ashes on exposure. A very ancient belief existed that if a dead body were placed in the walls, or over the doorway, no evil spirits or malign influence could enter. Perhaps this was why the child had been buried in the wall, and why dead bodies are found in old castles.

D. M. R.

MB. ELIOT HODQKIN asks for certain information concerning a communication made by me to T.P.'s Weekly, entitled ' The House of Stewart,' and particularly for " the periodical or periodicals which gave currency to the amazing rumour." I do not quite see to which " rumour " he refers, for as to the fact of the discovery of the "remains," every visitor to Edinburgh Castle must have heard it from the guide who showed him round and had the very stone pointed out. I read of it myself first, some thirty odd years ago, in the London daily papers, with fuller details than those I have given.

By " contemporary rumour " I mean the rumour at the time of the birth of the still- born son of Mary Stewart, and the letting down of its " substitute " in a basket from the Castle. MONKBARNS.

[The word of a " guide " is surely not evidence of fact ; it has presented us before now with some queer history.]

SIB WILLIAM TBELOAB AND B. L. FAR- JEON (10 S. viii. 287). The establishment projected by Far j eon was, as mentioned by MR. BRESLAB, a " home " for the regenera- tion of the " waifs and strays " of London life. Such homes were founded by the Church of England in 1881, with the express sanction of the then Archbishop of Canter- bury, Dr. Tait. Since the establishment of the Church of England Homes for Waifs and Strays over 12,500 destitute and outcast children have been provided for. Sir William Treloar's scheme is quite different, being exclusively for cripple children, and I think that to him belongs the idea exclusively.

,-y * A. N. Q.

r ' THE MELTON BREAKFAST ' (10 S. viii. 269, 315). The scene of the picture is laid in the old club at Melton Mowbray. The portraits in it, commencing from the left, are as follows : Mr. Massey Stanley ; the Earl of Wilton ; Count Matusewitz ; Lord Gardner ; Mr. Little Gilmour (in chair) ; Mr. Lynes Stephens ; club waiter ; Sir Frederic John- stone (at round table) ; Lord Rokeby (in chair, reading The Times) ; Lord Forester