Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/265

 11 S. XL MAR. 27, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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chaotic bundles teem with interesting manu- scripts of all sorts, including an eighteenth- century ' Journal of a Journey from Aleppo to Bussorah ' and ' A Begister of Marriages, Baptisms, and Burials in Aleppo, from the Year of our Lord 1756.' A ' N. & Q.' con- tributor might be profitably employed in copying and offering to your readers this last document. It is in a very fair state of preservation, and not too long for your pages.

G. F. ABBOTT. Royal Societies Club.

THOMAS RAVIS, BISHOP OF LONDON (US. xi. 209). The G. E. C. ' Baronetage,' vol. ii. p. 169, in a foot-note to Borlase baronetcy, states that

"John Borlase (knighted at Greenwich 13 July, T 1606) m. 1 Oct., 1610, at iStoke Newington, Mid x, Alice, widow of Thomas Ravi?, Bishop of London."

This Sir John Borlase, Kt., was Master of Ordnance, and subsequently (1643) one of the Chief Governors of Ireland, under the title of Lord Chief Justice.

It would seem as if Mr. Hennessy had

made some confusion about the marriage of

the bishop. The question now becomes:

.What was the maiden name of Alice, the

wife of Thomas Ravis 1 LEO C.

T/ota KOLTTira /ca/ao-Ta (11 S. xi. 209). The form of the parody seems to show that by " the old Greek proverb " is'meant

Ka/oes, Ki'AiKes, rpia. Kamra

The line, however, is not found in this complete form as an old proverb. It is certainly included, on p. 582, in the

at the end

of Andrew Schott's 'Adagia,' Antwerp, 1612. But this ' Patchwork of Proverbs in Verse ' is acknowledged on the first page of Schott's Preface to be " Stromateus Jos. Scaligeri Grsecis versibus contextus." Sca- liger's collection, first published in 1594, was composed, for the most part, of Greek proverbial sayings that he had himself expressed in a metrical shape. The original on which the present hexameter is based is in Suidas, 1030 A, T/cn'a KOLTnra Ka.Ki(rra' explained by KaTTTraoWa, K/orjrr;, KCU KtAiKta. The proverb and explanation are part of a marginal gloss in the Paris Cod. A., according to Gaisford's edition.

In the ' De Grammatica liber,' in the Appendix to torn. i. of the Benedictine edition of St. Augustine's Works, Paris, 1679, as an example of the rule that names

of letters in Greek and Latin are neuter, we read, col. 4 F,

"inde est illud rpia Ka-mra /cd.Ki<rTa,id est tria cappa pessima : de Cornelio Sylla. de Cornelio Cinna, de Cornelio Lentulo : hi enim per tres litteras designati sunt in libris Sibyllinis."

Sallust tells us, * Catilina,' 47, 2, that Len- tulus used to boast that, according to the Sibylline books, three Cornelii were destined to hold supreme power in Rome. In the spurious ' Porcii Latronis Declamatio contra Lucium Sergium Catilinam,' printed in some editions of Sallust, Lentulusjis referred to as "Sibyllinum istum principem," cap. 28.

With regard to Scaliger's ' Stromateus,' it should be noted that Mark Pattison is in error when he speaks as though all the lines were Scaliger's own :

" Another favourite amusement of Scaliger's vacant hours was collecting the rich treasures of proverbial sayings scattered over the remains of the Greek classics, and moulding each into a

single line, hexameter, iambic, or trochaic By

an impudent act of plagiarism, the Jesuit Andreas Schottus reprinted the collection in his ' Adagia,' 1612, barely naming Scaliger in the preface, but in such a way as to disguise the fact that the versifica- tion is Scaliger's work."' Essays,' i: 217. In many cases the verses are taken direct from classical authors.

EDWARD BENSLY.

University College, Aberystwyth. ,

" FINGERS " or THE CLOCK (11 S. xi. 188). The word " fingers " in this sense is not peculiar to Norfolk. It is very common in Lancashire. In fact, very few persons speaking the Lancashire dialect would use the word " hands " ; to old people especially, " hands " in this sense would be meaningless.

R. GRIME. 62, Duckworth Street, Blackburn.

In this district, in the extreme West Riding of Yorks, the pointers of a clock or watch are invariably called the " fing-ers."

ABM. NEWELL.

Longfield Road, Todmorderi.

This is not confined to Norfolk. Cowper, writing in Buckinghamshire, says :

While fancy, like the finger of a clock, Runs the great circuit, and is still at home. ' The Task,' iv. 118-19.

C. C. B.

I have heard an old lady, who died in 1901, at the age of 98, near Winchcombe, and had never been many miles outside Gloucestershire, tell a great - niece who lived with her to " put the fingers on five minutes " when the clock was slow.

A. C. C.