Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/531

 12 s.viii. MAY 28, i92i.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 437 RICE (12 S. viii. 391). Some 50 years ago, when I used to attend the out- j patient room at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, it ! was not uncommon to be consulted by j young women complaining of indigestion, ; whose faces exhibited a remarkable (and ! (quite unmistakable) waxy pallor, which I it was well known could be produced by Beating dry starch. It was not always easy to prevail upon them to give up the practice, but how long the waxy condition of the complexion lasted I cannot say. F. H. H. GUILLEMARD. Cambridge. Lamery's ' Foods and Drinkables ' (3rd <ed., 1745), at p. 89, says : Rice is softening, thickens the Humours, moderates a Looseness, increases Seed, repairs And supplies the Parts of the Body with good Nourishment, stops spitting of Blood, and is good for phthisical and consumptive persons. William Buchan, M.D., in his ' Domestic Medicine' (15th ed., 1797), at p. 657, remarks : The people of this country believe that rice j proves injurious to the eyes, but this seems to be without foundation, as it has no such effect on those who make it the principal part of their food. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT. LlDDELL AND SCOTT'S GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON (12 S. viii. 119, 158, 338). MB. J. CLARE HUDSON asks for the source of the Latin quotation which defines the lexicographer's task as the heaviest penalty that a convict can undergo : Condendaque Lexica mandat Damnatis poenam pro poenis omnibus unam. Precisely the same thought is expressed in six lines of Joseph Scaliger's : Si quern dira manet sententia iudicis olim Damnatum aerumnis suppliciisque caput, Hunc neque fabrili lassent ergastula massa Nee rigidas vexent fossa metalla manus : Lexica contexat, nam cetera quid moror ? Omnes Poenarum facies hie labor unus habet. ' Silva variorum carminum,' xxxix. The title in Scaliger's ' Poemata ' makes this epigram refer to his Arabic lexicon, though I have somewhere seen it stated that his laborious Indices to Gruter's Collection of Latin Inscriptions were the inspiring cause. Scaliger's verses are appositely quoted by Professor Weekley on p. xi. of his ' Etymological Dictionary of Modern English' (1921). It would be interesting to ascertain their connexion with the passage cited by Mr. Hudson. Is it a case of imitation or have^both descriptions a common source ? Casaubon, too, it may be remembered, compared his drudgery over Athenaeus to " catenati in ergastulo labores." EDWARD BENSLY. University College, Aberystwyth. " REX ILLITERATES EST ASINUS CORO- NATUS" (12 S. viii. 68). These words have, as MR. G. H. WHITE suggests, been attributed to more than one personage, who may be repeating a proverbial saying. The follow- ing is found in John of Salisbury's ' Poli- craticus,' lib. iv., cap. vi., about three-fifths through : Unde et in litteris, quas regem Romanorum ad Francorum regem transmisisse recolo, quibus hortabatur ut liberos suos liberalibus disciplinis institui procuraret, hoc inter cetera eleganter adiecit, quia rex illiteratus est quasi asinus coronatus. Mr. C. C. J. Webb, in his edition of the ' Policraticus,' refers to Perth's ' Monu- menta Germaniae Historica,' vol. xxvii., p. 45, where R. Pauli has this note : Literae a Conrado III. ad Ludoyicum VII. directae, hodie deperditae. EDWARD BENSLY. University College, Aberystwyth. VAN DER DOES (12 S. viii. 392). ' Huyster Does on the stream named Does ter means atte=at the at Leyderdorp, a village near Ley den, in the Countyjof Holland, was for more than three centuries the seat of the family of van der Does, who derived from it its name. The last of them to own it was Jonkheer Pieter van der Does, Admiral of Holland, who died in 1599. See S. van Leeuwen, ' Batavia Illus- trata,' The Hague, 1685, p. 1259. The house of ter Does seems to have been a manor house of some importance. The family held a prominent position in the Netherlands and produced more than one man of eminence. Foremost amongst them was the great scholar and prolific writer Janus Dousa (1545-1604), who, after the vogue prevalent amongst the learned in his time, latinized his name. Numerous books of reference in the British Museum Library will give the querist pedigrees and detailed information concerning the most prominent members of the family. Also concerning the cradle of the family more details could be gleaned. W. DEL COURT. 47, Blenheim Crescent, W.ll.