Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/312

 304

NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. x. OCT. is, 1902.

as a matter of fact a fluctuating fashion as regards the method of saying the name.

The following extract from the 'Remarques Philologiques ' in the " (Euvres Completes de Villon avec Notes et Glossaire par Pierre Jannet" (Paris, n.d.), gives all the information needed on this subject :

"Comment faut-il prononcer le nom de Villon? La 'Ballade' de la page 99, ' L'Epistre de la page 111, le 'Probleme' ou 'Ballade' de la page 120, etc., ne laissent aucun doute a cet egard. On doit le prononcer comme les deux dernieres syllabes du mot pavilion, c'est-a-dire comme on pourra. En France, ce n'est guere qne dans le Midi qu'on sait prononcer les II mouilttes. Les Parisiens diront

Viyon; les Picards, Vilion Villon etait tres-

severe pour la rime."

B. D. MOSELEY.

Burslem.

A BACONIAN CIPHER. Has any one drawn attention to the following from the 'Tempest ' (Shakespeare's last work, probably), I. ii. (edition of Charles Knight, published by Routledge, 1875)1

No, not so much perdition as an hair,

Betid to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard'st cry, which thou saw'st sink.

Sit down.

FOR thou must now know farther. Mira. You have often

Begun to tell me what I am ; but stopp'd,

And left me to a bootless inquisition ;

CONcluding, " Stay, not yet."

Read down initials N.B., W.S. for Bacon (or for you, Bacon ; or N.B. W.S., F. BACON). In the First Folio the words "sit down" follow "sink" in the same line, so that if sentences commencing with capitals are taken in place of lines, the quasi-acrostic still reads N.B., W.S. for you, Bacon. G. S.

THE INTRODUCTION OP THE HOP. (See ' Malt and Hop Substitutes,' 9 th S. vii. ; viii. ; x. 174.) The use of hops in brewing dates back, in Cornwall at any rate, to 18 October, 1470. On that day

"Thomas Flete, Thomas Knyght, William Frost, and other, to the nombre of xim persones, riot- tously arraied in maner of werre, servauntes to Thomas Clemens th' elder, and by his commaunde-

ment, cam to Morvall, to the dwellyng place of

John Glyn th' elder, and there brake uppe his dores

and toke away mi Hoggeshedes of Bere ; Item,

cccc Galons of Ale Item, ccc li. of Hoppes ;

Item, CO. busshell of Malt ; Item, XL. busshell of Berly," &c. ' Rolls of Parliament,' vi. 37, 38.

Will not MR. CURRY look further into the question, with the help of the articles ' Ale,' 'Beer,' and 'Hops' in the 'N.E.D."? He would there find much to interest him.

Q. V.

"ORACULOUS." This word, in the sense of oracular or equivocal, was not uncommon

from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth. It occurs in Bacon's essay 'Of Simulation and Dissimulation,' where the writer says, "As for equivocations, or oraculous speeches, they cannot hold out long." Archbishop Whately, in his edition of the ' Essays,' anno- tates this with "oracular," and gives as an illustration this couplet from King :

He spoke oraculous and sly ;

He 'd neither grant the question, nor deny.

In Massinger's 'A Very Woman," II. in., Cuculo, introducing to the Viceroy his report of the escape of Don John Antonio, uses these imposing terms :

Though you allow me wise (in modesty,

1 will not say oraculous), I cannot help it.

I am a statesman, and some say a wise one ;

But I could never conjure, nor divine

Of things to come.

A similar use occurs in Pope's 'Odssey,'

x. 642 :

Let him, oraculous, the end, the way. The turns of all thy future fate dismay.

Lexicographers hitherto would seem to have lost sight of the word after the age of Pope. Some of them, at any rate, leave the illustra- tion of it at that point, marking it as archaic. But it is one of Mr. Swinburne's words, and occurs in st. xix. of his stately lyric on 'The Statue of Victor Hugo,' included in 'Tris- tram of Lyonesse, and other Poems,' 1882. Referring to the French lyrist's "hirondelle etrange," Mr. Swinburne writes with cha- racteristic vigour and fervour : Never came such token for divine solution

From the oraculous live darkness whence of yore Ancient faith sought word of help and retribution.

Truth to lighten doubt, a sign to go before.

THOMAS BAYNE.

CLEOPATRA'S NEEDLE. It would appear from a paragraph in Aris's Birmingham Gazette for 6 September, 1802, that there was a proposal a century ago to bring Cleopatra's Needle to England. The paragraph is as follows :

" Lord Cavan's project of sending Cleopatra's Needles to England, for the expense of which large subscriptions had been raised, is at an end. General Fox, who commands in the Mediterranean, having heard that his Lordship was every day sending home pieces of granite, porphyry, &c., gave orders that no more stones should be put on board any vessel sailing from Egypt. The con- sequence is that the Needles remain where they were ; and the money has been returned to the subscribers."

R. B. P.

SWEDENBORG'S EARLIEST PUBLICATION. None of the biographers of Emanuel Sweden- borg hitherto has recorded the fact that the first of his literary productions which was