Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/519

 n s. ix. JUNE 27,1914.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the great discoverer set sail from the harbour of Pontevedra, but his ship, La Gallega, was built in her dockyards with the wood of Gallegan pines."

ST. SWITHIN.

It has been usually accepted that Chris- topher Columbus was born at Genoa, but Dr. Celso Garcia de la Biega, after thirty years of patient research, has proved to his own satisfaction that the discoverer of America was born at Pontevedra in Spain. His real name was Cristobal Colon y Fonterosa, and he appears to have been of Hebrew extrac- tion. As to his own statement that he was a Genoese, Dr. Celso Garcia de la Biega points out that the reputation of the mariners of Genoa was so firmly established in the fif- teenth century, that it would induce Chris- topher Columbus to assume nativity of Genoa with a view to obtaining a hearing at the Court of Castile. It is also worthy of note that in some parts of Spain, even to-day, Gallego (a native of Galicia) is synonymous with " stupid individual." Documentary evidence in support of this point of view is indicated in a pamphlet published at Havana by Dr. Constantino de Horta y Pardo in 1912. THOMAS WM. HUCK.

38, King's Road, Willesden Green, N.W.

Baedeker says that Columbus was born at 37, Vico Dritto di Ponticello, Genoa. Other accounts, however, say it was at Cogoleto, some fifteen miles to the east of Genoa. Others again say he was born at Calvi in Corsica. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

Mr. Henry Vignaud has disproved the new Spanish Jew theory of the origin of Christofor Colombo, and reaffirmed his Ligurian nationality, in the pages of the Revue Critique within the last two years. HENRY INGE ANDERTON.

NOTES ON SHILLETO'S EDITION OF BURTON (US. ix. 186). W. P. M. maintains that the marginal note " Contentus abi " in the ' Anatomy of Melancholy,' partition ii. sec. 3, member 7, is not, as Shilleto suggested (ii. 235), a reminiscence of Horace, ' Sat.,' I. i. 118-19,

Exacto contentus tempore vitae Cedat,

but of Baptista Mantuanus, ' Eel.,' v. 46 : Sorte tua contentus abi, sine cetera nobis. I should like to support this contention by pointing out that Burton originally gave the quotation in the fuller form :

Sorte tua contentus abi.

From the third edition (1628, p. 333) onwards it is shortened to " contentus abi."

On referring to my MS. notes on the ' Anatomy,' I find that I had duly commented

on Burton's error of " Lycoris herself''

for " Lycon himself " (p. 504 in ed. 6 ;

iii. 155 in Shilleto).

As W. P. M. observes, the marginal note appended to this sentence (four lines in anapaestic dimeter) is not from Sannazaro. It might be added that in Burton's first and second editions there is no reference mark in the text to indicate the connexion.

EDWARD BENSLY.

University College, Aberystwyth.

'JOHN GILPIN' IN LATIN ELEGIACS (11 S. ix. 430, 477). I have a pamphlet, published by J. Vincent of Oxford in 1841, containing ' Johannis Gilpin Iter Latine Redditum/ the first stanza of which runs :

Gilpinus erat municeps

Honoris quam famosi, Turmarum et centurio

Londini fabulosi ;

and also renderings in the same metre of ' Billy Taylor,' ' Barney Buntline,' and ' A Frolick ' and ' The Primrose,' both by Herrick. It was given to me in 1864 by the author, William George Henderson, D.C.L., then Head Master of Leeds Grammar School, afterwards Dean of Carlisle, who was in 1841 a Demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, and afterwards a Fellow of that College.

F. DE H. L.

WEATHER PROGNOSTICATIONS (11 S. ix. 327). Before sending you this query, I was inconsiderate enough not to have looked through J. Collin de Plancy's ' Dictionnaire Infernal,' Bruxelles, 1845, which contains the following passage :

" Dans plusieurs provinces du Nord, on fait, le jour de Noel, une ce're'mome qui ne doit pas manquer d'apprendre au juste combien on aura de peine a vivre dans le courant de 1'ann^e. Les paysans surtout pratiquent cette divination. On se rassemble aupres d'un grand feu, on fait rougir une plaque de fer ronde, et lorsqu'elle est brulante, on y place douze grains de ble" sur douze points marques a la craie, auxquels on a donne" les noms des douze mois de I'ann^e. Chaque grain qui brule annonce disette et cherte" dans le mois qu'il d^signe ; et si tous les grains disparaissent, c'est le signe assure" d'une anne"e de misdres. Triste divination ! " P. 228.

KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

FOLKARD, THE ANIMAL PAINTER (11 S.

ix. 450). In Mr. Arthur Folkard's elaborate biographical history of the Folkard family, privately printed, 1890-96, the artistic powers of this member of it are not specially named, and he does not appear in Sir