Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/407

 12 s. ix. OCT. 22, i92L] NOTES AND QUERIES. 333 be attributed to a similar cause, " mundus autem homo magnus." The discrepancy between Pliny's account and that of Josephus is the subject of a chapter in Isaac Casaubon's ' Exercita- tiones ' (xv. 20). Baronius, mentioning the river Sabbaticus in his 'Annales,' a propos of the Pool of Siloam, had supposed Pliny to be mistaken. Casaubon, pointing out that Pliny's account of the river flowing during the week and resting on the Sabbath was in agreement with that of all the Rab- binical writers who mentioned the subject, proposed to emend the Greek text by assum- ing that a displacement and omission had occurred. We come across the Sabbatical river again in a curious passage of Purchas's ' Pilgrim- age,' Part I., Book V., chap. 14, 2, where we have a story " which Luys de Vrreta, in his ./Ethiopian Historic, telleth of a certaine lew." This Jew "in a credulous fancie perswades himself e " that an arm of the Persian Gulf is the Sabbatical river. On his return he " tells his Country-men, that now the Messias would not be long before he <jame, for now hee had found this signe thereof, the Sabbaticall Riuer" (His in- ference was based on II. Esdras xiii. 46, 47, " And now when they shall begin to come, the Highest shall stay the springs of the stream again, that they may go through.") Thirty thousand were induced to set out for this part of Persia and nearly all perished miserably. Among them was Amatus Lusitanus, " a Physician of great note, accounted one of the most learned of his Profession, and a Writer therein." " Don lohn Baltasar was present, when Amato aforesaid being dead with this affliction, his Physicke-bookes were in an Out-crie to be sold at Damasco, and because they were in Latine, no man would buy them, till at last another lew became chapman." The ' Curationes Medi- cinales ' of this Jewish physician from Portugal supplied Robert Burton with many of his illustrative cases ; for example, that of " a young maid, that was one Vincent a urriers daughter, some thirteen years of age, that would wash her hair in the heat of the day (in July) and so let it dry in the Sun, to make it yelloiv, but by that means tarrying too long in the heat, she inflamed her head, and made her self mad " (' Anat. of Mel.,' I. ii. 2, 5). ^The same physician's " strange remedy " for "an Hypochondriacall person" ('A. of M.,' II. v. 3, 2) was borrowed from Burton by Swift, to be introduced in ' A Voyage to Laputa.' EDWABD BENSLY. In Josephus, 'War,' VII. v. 1, an account will be found of a Sabbatic river, which was dry for six days and full of water on the seventh. A note by Whiston tells us that according to Pliny ('Nat. Hist.,' xxxi. 11) it ran for six days and was dry on the seventh. The introduction of the letter m before b in Sabbath may have happened anywhere. Possibly the German Samstag and French Samedi may have arisen in this way, A. D. T. ALLUSIONS BY KEATS (12 S. ix. 209). I would suggest that the explanation of " Lima mice " is that " mouse " has been playfully applied to a larger rodent, the Peruvian cavy. Were cavies so called by sailors bringing them from Lima ? The 'N.E.D.' quotes from Topsell's de- scription of the ichneumon in his ' Historie of Foure-footed Beastes,' "There be some that call it an Indian Mouse." Pliny's Pontic mouse ('N.H.,' viii. 37 (55), 132) is commonly identified with the ermine. In the ' Poenulus ' of Plautus, 1011, "mures Africanos " is a facetious synonym for panthers, lions, &c. The text of Keats before me, Buxton Forman's third edition of the Poetical r Works, 1889, has "doves," not "ducks," of Siam." EDWARD BENSLY. FORD'S MSS., SUFFOLK COLLECTIONS (12 S. ix. 230, 279). In tho ' Catalogue of Manuscript Deeds, &c.,' belonging to the Moyses' Hall Museum, Bury St. Edmunds, j are some items described as from the Ford Collection. For example, a ' Number of I Poor Law Certificates, 1687-1793, from I various Suffolk parishes,' and ' MS. lists liable to be called on to serve in the militia. Late eighteenth century.' EDWARD BEN SLY. THE GOVERNOR OF N. CAROLINA AND i THE GOVERNOR OF S. CAROLINA (12 S. ix. 292). MR. AYLIFFE will find the conver- sation reported in chap. viii. of ' The Wrong Box,' by R. L. Stevenson. " * Do you know,' asked Michael, ' what the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South Carolina ? ' * It's a long time be- tween drinks,' said that powerful thinker." E. P. LARKEN.
 * for various Suffolk parishes, of persons