Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/238

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. v. SEPT., 191%

THE PURITAN AND HIS CAT. (See 12 S. iii. 360, 393, 455). Richard Brathwaite's ' Barnabae Itinerarium ' (first published 1038) contains the famous lines :

To Ban bury came I, profane one ! Where I saw a Puritane one Hanging of his cat on Monday, For killing of a mouse on Sunday.

The play 'Pathomachia or The Battell of Affections ' (described when printed in 1630 as " Written some yeares since, and now first published by a Friend of the deceassed Author ") appears to have been written about 1616 by Thomas Tomkis of Trinity College, Cambridge, author of the plays ' Lingua ' and ' Albumazar.' (It occurs also in Harl. MS. 6869 and Bodleian MS. Eng. misc. e.o.) Here in Act II. sc. v. we have mention of " some factions [perhaps his Cat because it kil'd a Mouse on Sunday." Again, in the lines ' On my Lute-stringes Catt bitten,' by the accomplished Thomas Master of New College, the friend and literary assistant of Lord Herbert of Cher- bury lines found often in MS. collections (e.g., Rawl. Poet 206, p. 59, and 147, p. 104, and printed in Dr. Smith's and Sir John Mennes' ' Musarum Delicise ') we have:
 * factious '] men whereof one of late killed

Puss, I will curse thee, maist thou dwell

With some dry Hermite in a Cell

Where Ratt nere peept e, wher mouse nere fedd,

And flyes go supperless to Bedd,

Or with some close-parde Brother, where

Thou'st fast each Sabboth in ye yeare ;

Or els (prophane) bee hangde on Monday

For butchering a Mouse on Sunday.

Master died in 1643, at the age of 40, and these lines may have been written before Brathwaite's, though not before Tomkis' s, allusion. There are perhaps other references to the jest which I have not come across.

G. C. MOORE SMITH. Sheffield.

"MAN PROPOSES, GOD DISPOSES." It may, perhaps, be of interest to note with regard to this proverb that in seven lan- guages the jingle is preserved. This, no cloubt, is not very remarkable in the case of the Romance nations, as they all bor- rowed from a common source, and though Ariosto wrote " Ordina I'liomo e Dio dis- pone," the rendering " L'uomo propone e Dio dispone " may be found in a modern Italian - English dictionary. Latin has " Homo proponit et Deus disponit," French " L'homme propose et Dieu dispose," and Spanish " El hombre pone y Dios dispone." England has taken the saying, not from an Anglo-Saxon source, but from the Latin :

it is found for the first time, I believe, iit ' Piers Plowman ' in a Latin form, and it*- occurs again in ' The Imitation.' What,, however, is more striking than any of the- above versions is that German has " Der Mensch denkt, Gott lenkt," and Russian,. " Cheloviek predpolagaetaBograspodagaet." Russian scholars who read ' N. & Q.' and there are several of them, I know will not be too hard on me, I hope, if I haver not rendered the Russian lettering into English with the nearest possible approach to accuracy. Possibly, of course, the version. I have given is merely a translation of the! English, and is not a proverb in current usej among the Russian people.

T. PERCY ARMSTRONG.

SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS. In discussing:; (11 S. x. 463) this author-publisher's un-1 familiar work ' A Personal Tour through, the United Kingdom,' issued by his son. Horatio Phillips in parts, commencing 1828 r I was uncertain as to its extent and what the- author intended to accomplish. Thes&l points are definitely settled in a letter! addressed by him to William Hone (then at Newington Green) from 8 Marlboro' Square,. Chelsea, Dec. 19, 1829:

" I mean to prosecute my tour as a downright-] fagging job, to the extent of 40 or 50 parts or 7 or 8 volumes. I have copy for 7 parts, but wait for the public to buy and read. My reception everywhere, good as it was, will be improved, and the excursion become memorable ! 1 wanted a. companion like you, but as it was, L found materials in superabundance. I could write 3 parts for 1, but I dare not dwell far fear o' becoming dull and prosing.

" There are Book Societies at Newington Green and they ought to be of my readers. What an old-fashioned place ! I often meditate on what London will be, if it last, 'till all the New buildings get of that age.

" What a No. of odd and curious people I found everywhere ! I converted most of them by some means or other, though in a preliminary route L was less understood than I could have wished to> be. I often wanted Cruikshank."

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

MRS. SUSAN CROMWELL. (See " Rabsejr Cromwell, alias Williams," 12 S. ii. 136.) The following is taken from ' The Book of Days,' edited by R. Chambers, 1863, vol. i. pp. 305-6, under February 28 :

"On the 28th of February, 1834, died, at the age of ninety, Mrs. Susan Cromwell, youngest daughter of Thomas Cromwell, Esq., the great-grandson oi the Protector. She was the last of the Protector s descendants who bore his name. The father of this lady, whose grandfather, Henry Cromwell, had been Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, spent his life 11 the modest business of a grocer on Snow-hill ; ne