Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/63

 ii s. iv. JULY i5, i9iL] NOTES AND QUERIES.

in Purchas about six hundred pounds of mummy being brought home for the Turkey Oompany in pieces. The mummies were apparently not always of ancient date. At least in Purchas's ' Pilgrimages,' pt. i. (1617) p. 849, can be read how the Ethio- pians " make Mummia " from " a Captive Moore, of the best complexion .... after long dieting and medicining of him."

EDWARD BENSLY.

I hardly know what kind of evidence MR. G. McMuRRAY requires as to the truth of the statement that mummy was used as a pigment. Fairholt ( ' Dictionary of Terms in Art ') recognizes it as a material known to painters, and asserts :

" The genuine consists of the substance found in the tombs of Egypt, which is a compound of bitumen and organic matter both animal and vegetable. Some manufacturers grind the whole of this substance together, by which a dirty- coloured pigment is obtained. Others carefully select only the bitumen."

Adeline (' Lexique des Termes d'Art ') is accordant. He notes :

"S'il fallait en croire M. Valmantde Bo mare, la inummie tiree de momies gyptiennes authen- tiques depuis longtemps dejk etait fort rare, et celle que fournissaient alors les droguistes du Levant provenait des cadavres que les juifs et les Chretiens du Levant embaumaient avec des aromates resineux et du bitume de Judee." We may not forget that Desdemona's fateful handkerchief ('Othello,' III. iv. 74)

\fas dyed in mummy, which the skilful - Conserved of maidens' hearts.

It was probably of a dull neutral tint which made a good background for the straw- berries.

Mummy was among the materia medico, of the olden times. Franklin in ' Les Medica- ments,' p. 94, quotes an author who states that it was at first

' ' certame liqueur odorante et de la consistance <lc miel ' receuillie dans les anciens tombeaux de 1'Egypte. Au debut, on ne fouilla que les sepultures des rois et des grands personnages, et alors la mumie administree en boisson operait des garrisons merveilleuses. Mais ensuite, on s'avisa d'ouvrir lescercueils de pauvres diables,' qui estoient morts de ladrerie ou de peste, pour en tirer la pourriture cadavereuse qui en distilloit et la vendre pour vraye et tegitime mumie.' "

That being the case, Paris sometimes provided the main ingredient of its o\vn mummy. ST. SWITHIN.

"Mummy" is a pigment which should be made of the pure Egyptian asphaltum, ground up with drying oil or with amber varnish ; but J. S. Taylor in Field's ' Chro- matogr.' (1885) says: "Mummy varies

exceedingly in its composition and pro- perties ... .It is only used as an oil-colour."

A medicinal preparation was made from, the substance of mummies. Hakluy t (1599), Vol. II. i. 201, says: "And these dead bodies are the Mummie which the Phisitians and Apothecaries doe against our willes make us to swallow" ; and Swift (1727), ' Further Ace. Curll,' ' Wks.,' 1755, III. i. 161, satirically speaks of " the mummy of some deceased Moderator of the General Assembly in Scotland, to be taken inwardly as an effectual antidote against Anti- Christ." A. R. BAYLEY.

PRINCE CHARLES OF BOURBON-CAPUA (US. iii. 329, 393). Since writing at the latter reference I have received from an old friend and inhabitant of Lucca further details regarding the residence of the family of the above Prince of Bourbon - Capua (younger brother of King Bomba of Naples), who died in 1862.

My correspondent states that the Villa Marlia (not " Martia," as SCOTUS calls it), near Lucca, belonged formerly to an ancient and noble family of Lucca, who sold it to the Bourbons, from whom it passed into the possession of the house of Savoy, the reigning dynasty. The aged son of Prince Charles of Capua and his wife the Irish Penelope still inhabits this Villa Marlia. I am promised a description of the splendid villa, printed, and illustrated with its historical associa- tions. WILLIAM MERCER.

MILITARY EXECUTIONS (11 S. iv. 8). In fiction it is an occasional custom to describe blank ammunition as being served out to a firing squad. Such tales deceive only civil readers. If the object of supplying blank cartridges were to relieve soldiers from the partial onus of the condemned person's death, they would fail to achieve the pur- pose. Every one who has become familiar with the use of live cartridges knows at once, even in the dark, the difference between ball and blank ammunition. Ball cartridges are heavier, longer, and emit a different sound in the firing ; so that members of the firing party would well know which cartridges were deadly. WILLIAM JAGGARD.

" SCHICKSAL UND EIGENE SCHULD"

(US. iii. 407 ; iv. 13). The few lines pre- fixed to ' Werthers Leiden ' (1774) end with the words : " lass das Biichlein deinen Freund seyn, wenn du aus Geschick oder eigener Schuld keinen nahern finden kannst."

E. G. T.