Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/272

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. XL APRIL 4. iocs.

meats and wourts, knuckle deep, and call it cerebrum Jovis." Burton gives a marginal reference to " Lips.Ep." On "wourts " Shilleto has a note : " Qu. worts ] " He fails to identify the passage in Lipsius. The epistle in ques- tion is not included in Lipsius's collected works. It is one of the four letters giving a graphic account of that scholar's discomfort during a journey in Westphalia in the autumn of 1586, which were originally included in his 'Epistolarum Centuria Secunda' (the dedi- cation of which is dated 11 April, 1590), and afterwards withdrawn. I find them in 'Justi Lipsi Epistolarum Centurise Duse,' Lugd. Bat., 1591, 8vo, where they are xiii.-xvi. of the second century. The only other early edition which I have (' Justi Lipsi Epistolarum Selec- tarum III. Centurise,' Antv., 1601, 4to) omits these four epistles, numbers the remainder i.-xcvi., and then fills up the century by adding four others preceded by a brief advertisement to the reader (see also ' Op. Omn.,' 1675, ii. p. 207), in which it is said that the iocus and sal of the four letters now withdrawn had been directed not against the nation, but against the nation's inns, espe- cially its country inns. The four new letters (one from 'Printer to Reader,' 1 Sept., 1592, the other three from Lipsius to various friends in the first half of 1592) are of an exculpatory nature. It is hardly surprising that offence had been taken. One of the suppressed letters is dated "In Barbaria apud pulti- phagos"; another "from a pigsty which they call an inn." The letter to which Burton here alludes (No. xv.) is addressed to Johannes Heurnius (Van Heurne, a medical professor at Leyden), and describes Lipsius's sufferings in a Westphalian inn after a fashion that reminds one of Erasmus's com- plaints in the earlier years of the same cen- tury ('Colloquia,' ' Diversoria ' ; cf. Charles Reade's realistic use of this in ' The Cloister and the Hearth'). Sir John tells us that "good worts" is "good cabbage" ('Merry Wives,' 1. i. 124), and an examination of the letter to Van Heurne shows that the " brassica consecta " which, in combination with " adeps porcinus," the Westphalians, says Lipsius, do not eat, but devour, was the original of the "wourts "in the \ Anatomy.' Another instance of this spelling may be seen in Cooper's ' Thesaurus ' (I quote from the edi- tion of 1573), s v. ' Lachanum ' : " All kinde of hearbes that serve for the pot: wourts." Burton's recollection, however, is inexact. The Westphalians did not call the greens and pork or anything else cerebrum Jovis. Lipsius, after vividly describing the cheese which appeared at; the "end of dinner (he had not

the fear of Mr. Max Beerbohm before his eyes), remarks " hoc ipsum tamen illi habent, ut cerebrum Jouis." The last two words are a rendering of Aios eyKe<aAos, for which see Athenseus, xii. 529D and Suidas, and com- pare Sir Thomas Browne's ' Christian Morals,' part ii. 1, " whereby Epicurus himself found Jupiter's brain in a piece of Cytheridian cheese, and the tongues of nightingales in a dish of onions." In Diogenes Laertius, x. 6 (11), the philosopher asks a friend to send him some Cythnian cheese, so that when he wishes he may give himself an expensive treat.

Vol. i. p. 279, 1. 5 (Part. I. sect. ii. mem. ii. subs, vi.), "Homer, Iliad I. [488-492], brings in Achilles eating of his own heart in his idle- ness, because he might [would 1 A. R. S.] not fight." Might can, I think, be justified. Achilles's conduct was not purely a matter of choice. He is described in these very lines as longing for battle.

Vol. i. p. 354, 1. 9 from bottom (Part. I. sect. ii. mem. iii. subs, xv.), "An husband- man's gains are almost certain 'tis Cato's

hyperbole, a great husband [man, A. R. S.] himself." If this insertion is intended to be an emendation rather than an explanation, it would seem to impair the rhythm of the sentence without being required by the meaning. See 'H.E.D.,' s.v. ' Husband,' ii. 3, for husband in the sense of farmer. Johnson ('Diet.') cites a similar use of "a great hus- band " from Bacon.

Vol. i. p. 449, 1. 16 (Part. I. sect. iii. mem. i. subs, ii.), "grief, fear, agony, discontent, wearisomeness, laziness, suspicion, or some such passion, forcibly seizeth on them." A. R. S. inserts "if" before "grief," thus making the sentence, together with "espe- cially if they be alone," &c., just above, give the conditions under which persons suffering from melancholy "complain, weep, lament," &c. I cannot help feeling that a careful con- sideration of the context will show that no "if" is required, the sentence beginning with "grief" being a principal sentence, repeating in another form (and this is thoroughly in keeping with Burton's manner) what has been already said before the introduction of the clause "especially if provoked."

Vol. ii. p. 177,1. 16 (Part. II. sect. iii. mem. iii.), "the house of Ottoman's and Austria is all one to him." A. R. S in a marginal note has " Qu. Othman's ? " There is no reason for ousting the word in the text in favour of "Othman's." See 'Ottoman' in the 'Stan- ford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases' (Cambridge, 1892,*sp. 592, col. 1), and add Purchas's ' Pilgrimage,' part i. (1617), pp. 318, 319. ; ;i:i e 2jof]