Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/109

12 S. V. APRIL, 1919.] subject to the real date of the siege of Falaise, which MB. G. H. WHITE (I note) does not regard as any longer sub judice, but places it A.D. 1105, with M. Le Prevost (ante, p. 73, col. 2). This may make it easier to account for the presence (pre- sumably in France) of the Abbot of Winch- combe and Hugh Little (parvus). The latter two, I may mention, were likewise witnesses, with Roger de Gloucester, to a gift by Walter, the Sheriff, of the church of St. Helen (at Alveston, Glos.) with a virgate of land to St. Peter's, Gloucester. Hugh's hon Roger presently married no less a per- sonage than Margery, daughter of John de Sudeley and Grace de Traci.

ST. CLAIB BADDELEY.

[We have in hand MR. BADDELEY'S article on the De Miners family, but cannot insert anything more about the charter.]

SAMUEL JOHNSON AND BEN JONSON (12 S. v. 38). 1. The Doctor's saying is recorded in Boswell's ' Life,' vol. iv., Birkbeck Hill's edition, p. 320, under the year 1784 :

" He seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in his own style ; for when he had carelessly missed it, he would repeat the thought translated into it. Talking of the Comedy of ' The Rehearsal,' he said, ' It has not wit enough to keep it sweet.' This was easy ; he therefore caught himself, and pronounced a more round sentence : ' It has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction.' "

2. As for Carlyle's reference to Ben Jonson in ' Past and Present,' there are two places, if not more, where he compares the soul to salt that keeps the body from putrefaction :

" Talk of him to have a soul ! 'heart, if he have any more than a thing given him instead of salt, only to keep him from stinking, I'll be hang'd afore my time, presently." ' Bartholomew Fair,' IV. i.

That you are the wife

To so much blasted flesh, as scarce hath soul,

Instead of salt, to keep it sweet ; I think,

Will ask no witnesses to prove.

' The Devil is an Ass,' I. iii.

I supplied these two references at 11 S. x. 255, in answer to a similar query.

The same thought is presented in a sermon of Bishop Sanderson :

" Which course if it were taken, what would become of many thousands in the world, quibus anima pro sale ? who like swine live in such sensual and unprofitable sort, as we might well doubt whether they had any living souls in their bodies at all or no, were it not barely for this one argu- ment, that their bodies are a degree sweeter than carrion."' Ad Populum,' Sermon IV., 15.

The proverbial phrase can be traced to a classical source. Bishop Jacobson in his j

learned edition of Sanderson's Works,, vol. iii. p. 103, quotes a passage from the ' Adagia ' of Hadrianus Junius (Adriaan de Jonghe), who refers to Varro's * De Re Rustica,' ii. 4, 10, where we are told of a saying about pigs, that they have a soul given them just like salt, to keep their flesh sweet ; to Pliny's ' Natural History,' viii. 51 (77), 207, where a similar saying is men- tioned ; to Cicero, ' De Finibus,' v. 13, 38,. where a pig is said to have had a soul given it " pro sale, ne putisceret " ; and to Clement of Alexandria, ' Stromata,' vii. p. 516 A in the Ley den ed. of 1616. Clement attributes the saying to Cleanthes. Cicero in ' De Natura Deorum,' ii. 64, 160, fathers it on Chrysippus. Finally Plutarch in his ' Qusestiones Convivales,' v. 685c, ascribes the comparison to " some of the Stoics," which may well include Chrysippus and his master, Cleanthes. Perhaps philo- sophers have been unfair to the pig.

It may be added that in " salillum animae " ( = the soul's salt-cellar), Plautus, "Tiinum- mus,' 492 (where, however, the true reading, is uncertain), some have seen a reference to- this same notion. EDWARD BENSLY.

University College, Aberystwyth.

[ DIEGO and MB. C. R. MOORE also thanked for replies.]

LA COTJB ON WINDMILL POWER IN DEN- MARK (12 S. iv. 331). Prof. Poul La Cour's paper (in Danish) advocating the use of windmills for generating electricity appeared- originally in the Tekniske Forenings Tids- skrift in' 1905. and reprints of it in pamphlet form. The society's reading-room is or was then at 18 Vestre Boulevard, Copen- hagen. L. L. K.

A German translation of La Cour's work can be consulted in the Patent Office Library r - 25 Southampton Buildings, London.

E. COLLINS.

P.O. Library.

TOAD- JUICE (12 S. v. 70). The toad was included in the Edinburgh pharmacopoeia of 1735. but it was the whole animal that was used. It was dried and powdered and given internally, chiefly for dropsy, but also as an antidote for poison on the homoeo- pathic principle, perhaps, since the toad itself was poisonous. Paracelsus recom- mends toads, boiled alive in oil, or rather the oil in which they have been boiled, as an application for morphew and obstinate ulcers. The stone supposed to be found in the toad's head was used chiefly as aiu