Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/129

 s. xii. AUG. 15, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

121

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 190S.

CONTENTS. No. 294.

NOTES : Samuel Brett, 121 United States and St. Mar- garet's, 123 Leo XIII.: Chronogram Pasquil against hia Surgeons, 124 "Beginning of a new century" In- accuracy in Novel Lombard " First catch your hare" Halley, 125 Rosconamon and Pope Rabbits and Rheu- matism" Clameur de haro," 126 Imaginary Saints, 127.

QUERIES: Ospreys Beyle: Stendhal Peter the Great in England Modern Forms of Animal Baiting Holboru Casino Nature Study, 127 Miss Charlotte Walpole Shops in Cheapside in 150 Stafford " Devil and deep sea " " Cold shoulder " : " Turn the tables " John

Angier Welsh Dictionary Mother of Ninus, 128- John- son's 'Lives of the Poets' "Gardening, man's primeval work" Harley Family Aitken Surname ' Wreck of the Hesperus' Gibbon's 'Roman Empire ' Hambleton Tribe, 129.

REPLIES : Fleetwood Family Thackeray's Speeches Sunflower. 130 Donne Fami'ly King, Banker Hawker's ' Instructions to Young Sportsmen ' "Sleep the sleep of the just" Roman Pits Immurement Alive of Religious, 131 Railway Literature, 132 Apple-blossoms, 133 Flats Formation of Clouds Long Lease " Wake "=Village Feasr, Tale by Archibald Forbes 'Lois the Witch' Klopstock's ' Stabat Mater ' " Tory," 134 Zola's ' Rome ' King's Champion Holbein Portraits ''Ingeminate" Welsh Counties Richard Nash, 135 "To mug" "Keep your hair on," 136 "Accorder" Peculiars Coincidences Upright Burial Ballads and Methodism, 137 " Crying down credit " " Folks " " Flea in the ear" French Quotation Advent of the Typewriter "Cards and spades," 138.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'Slang and its Analogues ''Jocelin of Brakelond' 'The Doones of Exmoor' Dickens in French ' Edinburgh Review ' " Fireside Dickens " 'The Popish Plot and its Newest Historian.'

Notices to Correspondents.

Stoics,

SAMUEL BRETT.

SINCE sending you my query about Samuel Brestsenus (cf. 9 th S. xi. 408), it has been suggested to me that the Danish book referred to may be Ludvic Baron af Hoi berg's ( Jodiske Historic' (2 bulky vols., Copenhagen, 1742), which certainly has a chapter of five pages on the Council of Jews in 1650, but cannot be described as " a detailed work " on that subject. It has, however, enabled me to identify the Englishman in question as Samuel Brett, who published in London in 1655 a short pamphlet with a very long title, from which it will suffice to quote the fol- lowing :

" A Narrative of the Proceedings of a Great Coun- cel of Jews assembled in the Plain of Ageda [vie] in Hungaria about 30 Leagues distant from Buda to examine the Scriptures concerning Christ, on the 12th of October, 1650. By Samuel Brett, there present."

The pamphlet has been reprinted many times,* it has been translated into several

also in the Phenix, vol. i. 1707 ; B. R., ' Memorable Remarks upon the Jewish Nation,' 1786; ' Har- leian Miscellany,' vol. i. ; and also so recently as 1876 by an anonymous well-wisher.
 * In a collection mentioned in the next foot-note ;

languages,* and has evidently created a great stir, and led to a lively controversy in its time.t And yet the whole story about the Council seems to be a pure fabrication.

The author, whose life has not been in- cluded in the ' Dictionary of National Bio- graphy,' was, according to his own statement in the preface to his pamphlet,

"a chirurgeon of an English ship in the Streights, where for a cure that I did for Orlando de Spina of Gollipulo [sic], an eminent man in those parts, I was by him preferred to the captain of a ship at Malta which was set out by the said Orlando and committed to my command against the Turks in the Arches in assistance to the Venetian service."

He spent thus nine months, till tempests compelled him to return to harbour. He took part in five fights at sea and in two on land ; was chosen by lot to make a raid into the Turks' country with a certain company of soldiers collected out of the Christian fleet, to do some execution upon the borders of the enemy and collect provisions for his co-religionists' relief, in which undertaking he was successful.

He next tells his readers that he spent four years beyond the seas before and after this employment, not staying long in any place. He travelled in several countries, the most eminent cities and towns, and enumerates a long list of some thirty geo- graphical names, among which we find Dalmatia and Sclavonia, but, curiously enough, not Hungary, in which country the plain of ** Ageda " was supposed to be situated.

In his subsequent narrative our author tells us a good many things about the Eng- lish residents in Paris and their ritualistic practices, at which the good French Protes- tants were greatly shocked ; also about Home and Romish superstitions ; about the Grecians, who were neither pure Papists nor pure Protestants, and were poisoned with heresies ; and, finally, about the Spaniards, who were more Eomanists than the Romans themselves.

Welsh. The last - named translation appeared in a collection of which the first piece is ' Dwy Daith i Gaersalem,' and which was published soon after the English original appeared The title of the latter was ' Two Journeys to Jerusalem,' by H[enry] T[imberlake], 1692. There are several other pieces in the collection. Cf. also Richard Burton, 'Judseorum Memorabilia,' 1796; Charles Butler, ' Horse Biblical 1799-1807 ; Owen, ' History of Images,' quoted by Baron Holberg.
 * Into Danish, German, Latin, Hebrew, and

t The * Narrative ' has been severely handled by two Jewish writers, namely, by Manasseh ben Izrael in 1656, and more recently by Selig Cassel in 1845.