Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/66

 58

NOTES AND QUERIES.

[2 S. NO 3., JAN. 10. '36.

prsella, verbera, lumina, fcedera, aginina, crimina, sidera.

Sixth Words of Verses. Dura, szepe, qusedam, acerba, prava, multa, dira, nigra, sseva.

PENTAMETER.

First Words of Verses. Tetrica, ardua, per- fida, improba, sordida, impia, tristia, turpia, noxia.

Second Words of Verses. Prasstabunt, prte- scribunt, concludunt, praidicuur, perficiunt, con- sumtnant, conglomerant, significant, procurant.

Third Words of Verses. Dura, acta, vina, vcrba, dictn, facta, labra, arma, astra.

Fourth Words of Verses. Dolosa, pudenda, proterva, nefanda, cruenta, superba, molesta, si- nistra maligna.

Fifth Words of Verses. Nova, aliis, libi, viris, scio, mea, malis, vide?, mihi.

Now, it will be easily perceived, that any six of these words in the hexameter, and any five in the pentameter series, -if taken in their respective numerical order, as regards their position in the verse, will form a verse correct in prosody, and containing a certain modicum of meaning. Who devised "this ingenious trick," I am unable to say ; but may presume that it, like other learn- edly-laborious trifles of a similar description, emanated from the cloisters of the olden time. I believe the compiler of a much more important work, the Gradus ad Parnassum, is still un- known.

My. calculation, with respect to the number of different verses that can be formed from these words, differs considerably from that Of I. H. A. According to Cocker, six series of nine words. 9x9x9x9x9x9, will afford 531,441 different hexameter verses ; and, by the same oft-quoted authority, 9 X9x9 x9 X9, will give 59,049 pen- tameter verses. Making in all, 590,490 verses ; rather more than forty-live times as many as are contained in the whole writings of Virgil! The classical reader will readily observe some pecu- liarities in this system of verse-making, suffici- ently obvious to save the time and space required for their indication here.

The Latin verse-making machine, that was ex- hibited at the Egyptian Hall in 184-5 (the "What Is It?" year of exhibition notoriety), was un- doubtedly constructed by the aid of the words given above. I fancy that any one, possessing but a slight amount of mechanical ingenuity, by taking his text from this Note, could readily make a similar machine.

With respect to the tables, which I have already shown are constructed from the words, Solomon Lowe, " Schoolmaster at Hammersmith," in his Arithmetic (London, 1749), informs us, that one John Peters, in 1677, to give the feat an air of mystery, distributed the letters into tables : " Am! to strengthen the paradox, he entitled the piece

' Artificial Versifying ; ' whereby any one of ordinary capacity, though he understands not one word of Latin, may be taught immediately to make 590,490 hexameter and pentameter verses, true Latin, true verse, and good sense."

I do not recollect having met with John Peters in print ; probably, if it were worth the trouble, PROFESSOR DE MORGAN could tell us something about him.

Before I part from Lowe, the subjoined speci- men of arithmetical trifling may amuse the reader. He tells us that the -two following verses :

" Lex, rex, grex, res, spes, jus, thus, sal, sol (bona), lux, laus."

" Mars, mors, sors, fraus, ftex, styx, nox, crux, pus (mala), vis, lis."

without changing the positions of "mala" and " bona," may be varied 79,833,600 ways :

" Which would compose above 249 volumes ; each vo- lume containing 2000 pages, every page divided into two columns, and each column to contain eighty verses; which, at a penny the sheet, would amount to 518/. 15s. And, supposing them bound for 5s. a volume, the binding would cost 621. os. ; and the worth of the whole, would be 58U"

W. PlSKERTON. Hammersmith.

WISE FOR EASTER COMMUNION.

(1 st S. xii. 363. 477.)

Considerable light would be thrown upon the question asked by the REV. W. DENTON, by a careful examination of the constitutions and de- crees of diocesan and provincial synods during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The refusal of the cup to the laity in the Latin Com- munion was a gradual and not a sudden change ; originally introduced to meet the sentiment of veneration which the Oriental Church yielded to by the practice of intinction. It. gained ground but slowly in England. In the constitutions of Archbishop Peckham, in 1281 (see Wilkins's Con- cilia Magnce Britannia, vol. 5i. p. 52.), it is ordered that, in the province of Canterbury, " the laity were to be instructed that what was drunk by them in the cup was not the sacrament, but mere wine given them that they might more easily swallow the body of the Lord. In the smaller parish churches (ininorilms ecclesiis), they only who celebrated were allowed to receive the con- secrated wine." In 1281, then the custom had be- gun of giving unconsecratcd wine in the smaller churches, while we may infer that in the cathe- drals and abbey minsters the sacramental cup was still administered to the laity. But (his cus- tom did not gain ground very speedily ; and in the diocese of Exeter, in 1287, the laity still gene- rally received " the outward and visible sign" of the Redeemer's blood. In the decrees of the