Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/518

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[11 S. V. JI-NE 1, 1912.

Cuningham's ' Bacon's Secret Disclosed in Contemporary Books,' 1911, reveals that two or more founts of type were used in its composition. Upon closer examination it is evident that the author has here given, in modern types, an exem- plification of Bacon's biliteral cipher that will afford a convenient apparatus for those who seek initiation into the mysteries of the Baconian cipher. In the appendix to his very interesting book Mr. Cuningham gives a facsimile reproduction of the few pages of ' De Augmentis Scientiarum/ 1623, which contain Bacon's exposition of his biliteral alphabet.

The " epistola interior " of the preface, so far as sight and patience have enabled me to decipher it, would seem to run as follows :

" Bacon did not die in twety-six [1626] bvt retired into hiding, lived to very great age bringing ovt wor- [The cipher appears to falter for a word or so after "is not a long " at the end of the eleventh line, the obscured portion possibly being " ks. He " ; butat " ne oft " in the next line it continues :] died abovt sixty-eight [1668] at age of hvndred and seven, where I know not, bvt probably abroad. This was known to some in England."

The o in " Bacon " and the h in " This " are derived from the context, and displace the b and a respectively which the cipher seems to give erroneously. It is conceivable, of course, that other readers might extract different versions of the concealed sentences ; but, assuming the above to be a fairly accurate rendering (and of this Mr. Cuning- ham would be the best judge), this pains- taking experiment in Bacon's cipher shows that an appreciable percentage of error may be expected even when Bacon himself sent messages by it, through the printers of his day, to truth-seeking posterity.

A. T. W.

DANTEIANA. Mr. Paget Toynbee, in his 4 Life of Dante,' states that of Giovanni da Serravalle's Latin commentary on the 4 Divina Commedia '

are complete : one of these is in the British Museum, another in the Vatican Library, and the third in the Escorial." Fourth edition', p. 277.
 * ' but four MSS. are known, only three of which

The author does not state where the fourth MS. is kept, but no doubt means the one in the Archbishop's library in Eger (Agria) in Hungary, this copy being referred to in the 4 Notizie Preliminari ' of the edition printed at Prato in 1891, which Mr. Toynbee quotes.

A Hungarian writer, Mr. Kaposi, reviewing Mr. Toynbee's book in the new Torteneti Szemle (1912), maintains that the British

Museum copy is also incomplete, and that the Escorial MS. does not contain Serravalle's commentary. The English author has, according to him, been misled by A. Fari- nelli's ' Dante in Ispagna,' which I have not been able to discover in the British Museum Library.

According to Mr. Kaposi also, Dante's mask, which was formerly in the possession of the Marchese Torrigiani, is not in the Uffizi. as stated by Mr. Toynbee, but in the Bargello ; and the inscription on another plate, ' Dante's House in Florence,' is no longer true, as the house in question, with the adjoining buildings at the corner of the Via Dante Alighieri and Via Santa Mar- gherita, has been " remodelled " quite recently according to Engineer Tognetti's plans, whatever that may mean. The authority for this statement is G. L. Pas- serini's ' Minutaglie Dantesche ' (Citta di Castello, 1911). which I have not seen.

L. L. K.

COMMODORE LEVY : WILLIAM DURST. ' On 22 March, 1862, there died in New York one Uriah Phillips Levy, an officer of the American Navy, who rose from cabin-boy to commodore. Levy joined the mercantile marine, but when hostilities broke out with England he enlisted in the Government service on a vessel which did considerable damage to our shipping. Being ultimately captured, Levy became a prisoner of war, and spent sixteen months in this country. On his return to America anti-Jewish pre- judices were evoked against him, and com- pelled him to retire temporarily from the naval profession. Having lived down various charges brought against him by his calum- niators, he rose to the rank of Commodore, with command of the Mediterranean Squad- ron, in 1858. On the outbreak of the Civil War he placed the whole of his fortune at the disposal of President Lincoln, but that noble man declined to accept it. In another way Levy displayed a rare patriot- ism. He presented to his countrymen the statue of Jefferson in the Capitol. His memory in the navy will long remain green for his having secured the abolition of flogging. In 1834 the freedom of his native city was conferred on him, and on his death a full naval funeral was accorded him. He be- queathed the bulk of his fortune to the State for public uses.

The following is extracted from The Jewish Chronicle of 22 March, 1912 :

" On March 9th [writes a correspondent in The Jewish Exponent, Philadelphia] there was a parade, with a naval band, of a detachment of