Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/360

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

L2* S. NO 18., MAY 3. '56.

existed no original copy of the rare work, De Beneficio Christi, reprinted in 1 847 ; and some even went so far as to entirely doubt its au- thenticity. Lately a copy has been found in St. John's College, Cambridge. But it became also known, that twenty years after the first Italian edition, the Slavian printing office of Hans Ungnad, of Souneg, in Carinthia, the well-known promoter of Protestantism amongst the South Slavian tribes, had issued, at Stuttgardt, a trans- lation of the Benejicium Christi in the Chorwat (Croat) language, with Glagalitic letters. Re- searches being duly directed, a copy of this work (1563) was found in the great library at Stutt- gardt. Besides, another Italian copy, different from that of Cambridge, was also discovered. The title of this work (printed in the smallest 18mo. size) runs thus :

" Trattato utilissimo del Beneficio di Gieusu Christo Crocifisso, verso i Christiani. Venetijs apud Philippam Stagninura. Anno D JMDXLVI."

From the work of Schnurrer, Slavischer Btich- erdruck in Wirteriberg im I6 ten Jahrhundurt, we gather an additional proof that the great Dansla- vian Era was only temporarily suppressed then by our rulers. D. J. LOTSKT, Danslave.

Bacon ns a Reward of Connubial Felicity. I forward a paragraph quoted in The Athenceum's review of Ewbank's Life in Brazil, which seems worth transferring to the columns of " N. & Q. : "

"A word on 'heavenly bacon," toucinho do ceo a species of light pudding, composed of almond-paste, eggs, sugar, butter, and a spoonful or two of flour because its name reminds one of olden times. The glorification of bacon is of very ancient date, and arose parity from pre- vailing enmity to Jews, but oftener from the estima- tion in which it was held. The most popular and esteemed of carneous aliments, it was given as rewards for rural, and particularly for connubial virtues. El tocino del Paraiso el casudo no anepiso Bacon of Paradise for the married who repent not is a mediaeval proverb."

The antiquary who would investigate the origin of the Dunmow Flitch will find in this mediaeval proverb a hint worth working out. M. N. S.

LADY AUSTEK.

Will any of your readers tell me anything of this lady beyond what is to be found in Hayley's and Southey's Lives of the poet ?

Hayley tells us that the reason of her leaving Olney was her disappointment that Cowper did not marry her, and says that he derived this in- formation from Lady Austen herself. Southey (vol. ii. p. 62. edition 1835) endeavours entirely to do away with this idea, and, in its place, only tellsjus that "Lady Austen exacted attentions

which it became inconvenient or irksome (to Cow- per) to pay."

This is in speaking of the second and final rupture which severed the connection between them.

In a note to page 313 of volume i., Southey quotes the following sentence from Hayley :

" On this principle I have declined to print some letters, which entered more than I think the public ought to enter into the history of a trifling feminine discord, that disturbed the perfect harmony of the happy trio at Olney when Lady Austen and Mrs. Unwin. were the united in- spirers of the poet."

Southey adds that the rule which Hayley has here laid down was applicable only during the life of Lady Austen.

Are these letters in existence ? They would surely tell us the real state of the case; but, in their absence, we may be allowed to indulge the romance which Hayley's Life bequeathed to us a romance which has certainly sufficient foundation in the great personal beauty of Lady Austen in the evidently great attraction which existed almost at first sight between herself and the poet in the quarrel between the two ladies, the sudden rupture of the so great intimacy, and in Lady Austen's avowal of the cause of the rup- ture to Hayley. S. SINGLETON. Greenwich.

Nicholas Breakspeare. Looking casually through a back volume of " N. & Q.," I cast my eyes on a passage relative to Adrian IV., the solitary English pope, which reminded me that I had often intended to ask a small space in your valuable periodical for the following account of a namesake of the pope's. When I was a lad, some fifty years since, my mother had a servant who was a native of Bnll-on-the-Hill, in Buck- inghamshire, the reputed birthplace of Nicholas Breakspeare, afterwards known as Adrian IV. She was married to a man of the name of Nicholas Breakspeare, also a native of Brill. Now I con- sider it a rather singular circumstance that parties of the same name as the pope should be residents of the same place after such a lapse of time. Pro- bably some of the readers of " N. &. Q." may be acquainted with the locality, and if so, I should be glad to learn if any of the name are still living at Brill. K. H.

Mending cracked Bells. In an article on "Bells" in the Quarterly, for (I think) Dec. 1854, it was said a Frenchman had discovered a method of mending cracked bells without re-casting them. Who is the Frenchman, and has the art been at- tempted in England, and what is it ? I have a beautiful Burmese bell that was cracked at the