Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/73

 12 S. I. JAN. 22, 1916.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

67

The first two omens are quite ordinary {we all remember how the launching mis- chance made many of us fear that ill-luck would befall the Titanic) ; but can any reader give another instance of rabbits in folk-lore ? In Western Ireland a fisherman who meets a hare turns back, and no man dare name one at sea any more than he may stick his knife in wood, heedlessly hand any- thing through a ladder, or mention a clergy- man. But, unless rabbit is substituted for hare in a confused memory of ancient "" freits," this piece of folk-lore is new to me. Can ST. SWITHIN enlighten us ?

Y. T.

TUBNING THE CHEEK FOB A KlSS. This

was considered to be an affront. I have noted three examples :

Bef. 1613. Is't for a grace, or is't for some disleeke, Where others kisse with lip, you give

the cheeke ?

Sir J. Harrington's ' Epigrams,' iii. 3 (1618). r 1630. Would haue me

Turne my cheeke to 'em, as proud ladies vse To their inferiors ?

Massinger, ' The Pictvre,' M 4. 1637. "And as I would not be thought clawing, so not uncivill, especially in religious Ceremonies, in this holy one of the Kisse : which I shall desire you to entertaine fairely and cheerefully, with an ven Brow ; and not like the coy Dames of our Age, turne the Cheeke for the Lippe, and so lowre [sic] a Kisse into a Scorne." Humphrey Sydenham, Dedication of his ' Osculum Charitatis ' sermon, preached on Christmas Day, 1635.

RICHARD H. THORNTON.

AN EPIGRAM BY JULIUS C^SAR SCALIGEB. In a short notice of E. C. Hills and J. D. M. Ford's ' Practical Spanish Grammar ' in The Athenaeum for Aug. 12, 1905, the re- viewer remarked :

" Is it, by the way, a fact that ' even in the days of ancient Rome a Latin wit said that for the Spaniards vivere was the same as bibere ' ? If so, we have a case of unconscious reminiscence in Scaliger's epigram :

Haud temere antiquas mutat Vasconia voces Cui nihil est aliud vivere quam bibere." In the ' Literary Gossip ' columns of the next week's number a correspondent is quoted who writes : " Surely this epigram, and he is the Latin wit meant."
 * Haud temere antiquas,' &c., is by Martial,

Martial, of course, as the correspondent might easily have ascertained, is not the author, but the confident assertion that he was does not appear to have provoked any statement of the evidence for Scaliger's claim. The lines may be seen in more than one collection, e.g. in Carolus a S. Antonio Patavino, Anconitanus, ' De Arte Epigram-

matica,' Cologne, 1650, where they are assigned to J. C. Scaliger, and in Nicolaus Mercerius, .' De Conscribendo Epigrammate,' Paris, 1653, where the author is given as " Scaliger." They will, however, I think, be looked for in vain in J. C. Scaliger's own volumes of Latin verse. At least they are not included in his ' Novorum Epigram- matum Liber Unicus,' Paris, 1533, nor in the same reprinted in his ' Poematia,' Lyon, 1546, nor in the collected editions of his ' Poemata,' 1574 and 1600. But they are referred to in his ' De CausisLinguseLatinse,' Lyon, 1540, p. 17, lib. i. cap. x. :

" Vasconibus quoque hoc est uitium peculiare, ut eo modo pronuncient B, quo et Grsecos dicimus. Itaque lusimus in eos epigrammate, ut eorum Vivere, Bibere, sit."

Finally, Scaliger gives the epigram in his posthumously published ' Poetice,' 1561, lib. iii. cap. cxxvi. :

" yerum ut res aliae ex a His suboriuntur, hilariora fiunt omnia ubi literse syllabaBve mutantur, quemadmodum nos :

Non temere antiquas mutat Vasconia voces :

Cui nihil est aliud viuere quam bibere."

EDWABD BENSLY.

University College, Aberystwyth.

ROBERT SHOBTON, DEAN OF STOKE. The parentage of Robert Shorten, the first Master of St. John's College, Cambridge, and afterwards Dean of the College of Stoke- by-Clare, co. Suffolk, has never been ascer- tained. Baker, in his ' History of St. John's College,' assumes him to be of Yorkshire origin, but the ' D.N.B.' is silent on the point. An abstract of an official copy of Shorten' s will from the original in P.C.C., though it throws but little light on his own family, may, however, be of some interest, and is here subjoined :

Will dated Oct. 8, 1535 ; proved Nov. 8, 1535. Robert Shorton, clerk. Dedication clause, &c. To be buried in the choir of the College of Stoke. 100 1. to be distributed amongst twenty towns so that the following sums and towns be of this amount and number 47. to poor parishioners of Segefeld (Sedgefield); 3L to Newport; 21. to Stoke ; 21. to poor tenants at Welles ; to Lowthe (Louth) a like sum. " To Maister Secretory to the Kinge's Highness now being an Arras of Imagery in number containing five pieces." " To Maister Doctour Legh a gilt salt with a cover antykc." " To Maister Thomas Burbage and his wife a basyn and an ewer of silver bought by mine executors of Sir John Mundy of London, Knyght and Alderman." " To said Thomas Burbage and his wife two of my best feather beddes at W T yndesore (Windsor) with their appurten- ances and one hanging of a Chamber.' " To said Thomas Burbage and his wife an obligation of 10Z. wherein Robert Collyns of London, Skynner, standeth bound to Sir John Mundy, Knyght."