Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/627

 12 a vii. DEC. 25,1920.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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reverence for wisdom, and refuses to regard the philosophers who lived before Christ as damned, though he remarks that Christians are not allowed to believe that Aristotle was an angel. He calls blundering commentators " asini," and notes that '' rex illiteratus est asinus coronatus " was a remark that Henry the son of King William called " the bastard " used to make to his father and brothers.

Bacon's notes are often of curious interest. Thus on the question of diet he advises, Do as the animals do, eating first and drinking after- wards. This is an up-to-date remedy for indi- gestion. Bacon adds that in our days we must drink a little at table for good fellowship. No man could go through all the rules of the ' Secre- tum ' for dieting, though many would be glad to get hold of Bacon's " inestimable glories " in the way of medicine. The ' Secretum ' commends poisoning of the enemy's wells in a campaign, and doubtless poison was much used in Bacon's day as a method of eliminating undesirable persons. " Qui mange du pape, en meurt " belongs, we believe, to the age of the Borgias, but the same fears were frequent with earlier kings and potentates. They did not know the sure antidote of walnuts, figs, and rice, which Mithridates took every day. Bacon knew, he says, a man of royal blood who had innumerable and most powerful enemies, and, taking this medicine by the advice of wise doctors, preserved himself, though he was occasionally poisoned ! The theory of man as composed of opposite elements and four humours flourished at this period. They are given as " fleuma, colera, sanguis et melancolia " that is phlegm, yellow bile, blood, and black bile. Several passages in Shakespeare exhibit this belief, such as the description of melancholy as " the black-oppressing humour " in ' Love's Labour's Lost ' (I. i. 233). Of rhubarb Bacon has the highest opinion ; with us it serves chiefly " infandum renovare dolorem " ; but we should not mind following the rules of the ' Secretum ' for an appetite, which include putting on rich dress, brushing the teeth with aromatic herbs and taking a pinch of snuf. In those days the man of medicine was " herbarius " as well as " apothecarius," and wonderful was the power in precious plants and stones, to say nothing of amulets and incantations. The turquoise is said to prevent its owner from being killed, but the widely-spread superstition that it changes colour with the health of its wearer is not mentioned. In the seventeenth century it was still thought to enable, a man to fall with safety from any height, attracting to itself the force of the blow. But the prime cure of all is viper's flesh. Bacon has seen it change entirely the greatest man in France after the king, who was " avaricious, cowardly, gloomy, melancholic, frail, and weighed down witn many other vices of the mind and body." After taking it, he became " very generous, very bold, and very happy," being completely cured of all his moral and bodily vices. An excellent thing, at any rate, which is still in vogue is here first mentioned, the Turkish bath. As for the sound sense of the ' Secretum,' we note the saying of Hippocrates, " I eat to live, I do not live to eat " ; the wise caution that habits cannot be changed suddenly ; and a maxim for governors which is still up-to-date, " Do not multiply useless officials ; they will oppress your subjects."

Mr. Steele's learned notes need a specialist to appreciate them, but they also put the reader in the way of much interesting lore of the past. We wonder if in the hexameters quoted in his Introduction " ut vos securus eodem/ordine vivatis " is right. It may be as " vos " is Alexander, a single person, but with a plural verb following it is odd. It would be easy to mend the text with " securi in eodem," but hazardous- without a sight of the actual MS. The mediaeval world is a special domain with its own authorities,, references, and standards. It requires expert knowledge which is little appreciated by the- ordinary student and lover of letters.

Spanish Ballads. Chosen by G. Le Strange^

(Cambridge University Press, 10s. Qd. net.) THE first edition of Spanish ballads to be pub- lished in this country appears in timely coinci- dence with a considerable revival of Spanish studies and is likely therefore to satisfy the freshly stimulated interest of a numerous public^

Mr. Le Strange's book may be most readily described as a much-pruned edition of the ' Primavera ' of Menendez y Pelayo, adapted for English readers by the re-introduction from the ' Romancero ' of Duran of the principal ballads already familiar in English translations. There are included also some half-dozen of Duran's ballads at whose re-instatement Menendez y Pelayo had already hinted, and one ballad (No. Ill) is drawn from the collection of Meneiidez Pidal.

At the comparatively small sacrifice, therefore, of the variants to the ballads selected and of all the grosser, and all the lengthier, ballads, we have now the ' Primavera ' in porta.ble form, a gift for which every ballad-lover will feel grateful to Mr. le Strange and the Cambridge University Press. As the lengthy ballads of the Charle- magne Cycle were already faithfully dealt with in Grimm's equally portable collection, the- present volume forms an admirable complement to the ' Silva de Romances.'

For Mr. Le Strange's clear presentation of the poetry, the teacher of Spanish and more par- ticularly the school teacher, will be specially grateful. The full punctuation, which has been, applied before to the Chansons de Gestes, and by Menendez Pidal in his edition of Spanish ballads, will facilitate that fluent reading without which the dramatic quality of the ballads, a powerful ally of the teacher, is apt to be obscured..

The private student would probably, however,, have appreciated a page devoted to an explanation of those older word-forms which it is essential to retain, vido for vio, for example, ,the simple form of the pluperfect, &c., while the apparent inconsistencies in the orthography of the ' Prima- vera,' here faithfully reproduced, may also puzzle him, as in No. 1 where we. find los hace and las face in consecutive lines.

With regard to the arrangement of the ballads, we feel that Mr. Le Strange has not been for- tunate in his method. The historical ballads appear in the centre of the book in a framework of historical facts so " thick " that it obtrudes on the poetry framed. On either side of this centre lie the general ballads, introduced without comment, and the impression is given that these are the bonnes bouches to the solid matter within. For this we had been, of course, prepared by the