Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/133

. XH. AUG. is, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

125

"THE BEGINNING OF A NEW CENTURY."-

Dr. Moore, the celebrated Dante scholar, makes a curious slip in his life of the poet in the 1889 edition of 'Chambers's Encyclo- paedia.' He says that Dante was one of the six priors of Florence "in the ever-memorable year 1300, the mezzo cammino of his own life, when he was thirty-five years old, the begin- ning of a new century, the year of the first Juoilee at Rome." In writing thus the learned doctor had momentarily forgotten that the hundredth year, although the figures change then, is but the completion of the old century, not the beginning of a new one Attention has often been called in ' N. & Q.' to this fact, but as the slip occurs in a standard work of reference it may be worth correction. J. R.

QUAINT INACCURACY IN A MODERN NOVEL. Recently, whilst an invalid, I read one of Miss Braddon's novels, 'The Conflict.' The hero of this daring story is represented to have been (apparently in the late eighties) an undergraduate at Balliol, and whilst there to have kept a dog in his rooms in college. The dog slept on his bed every night, and by licking his master's face in the early morning made it impossible for the said master to be late for chapel. It -is thirty years and more since I left Oxford, but I cannot believe that during that time any relaxation has taken place in the rule that sternly forbade the admission of a dog within college walls.

J. B.

LOMBARD. It is noteworthy that this name, as applied to Jews, occurs with great fre- quency in ante-expulsion deeds and docu- ments. It is strange, however, that no Jews of Italian or Lombardian nationality ever set foot on English soil. The solution of the difficulty consists in this. The common herd, impregnated with insular prejudice, never took pains to discriminate between foreigners and separate nationalities, and^to them any alien possessing an abundance of cash was naturally a Lombardian, seeing that Lombardy sent hither many representa- tives who flourished as money-lenders. The application of the term is best shown with regard to two wealthy members of the Jewish race residing at Winchester, one at the end of the twelfth century, the other some half cen- tury later. The former appears as the Lum- bard of Winton not his actual name for in the Roll of 1194, containing the list of Jews who contributed to the ransom of Richard I., we obtain a glimpse of him under the form of Aser (=Asher) Lumbard. In the same way Samarias is often cited as a Jewish

money-lender, and in the Pipe Roll of 1240 he blossoms forth as Sarnarias Lumbard. In Marlborough Solomon ben (son of) Solomon appears often, and as variants we meet him as Lumbard fil Solomon, Solomon fil Lum- bard, but more frequently as Lumbard fil Lumbard, that is to say Banker fil Banker.

M. D. DAVIS.

" FIRST CATCH YOUR HARE." The Mar- chioness of Londonderry records a conversa- tion she had at a dinner party with Prince Metternich at Vienna in 1840, when, as to good singers, the prince observed :

" Selon nioi, c'esb comme la recette pour faire la soupe au lievre ; premierement il faut attraper votre lievre ; done premierement, pour chanter, il faut une belle voix." ' Narrative of a Visit to the Courts of Vienna,' &c. (London, 1844).

It would be interesting to know whether the prince translated Mrs. Glasse, or whether he quoted from a French cookery book.

L. L. K.

DR, EDMOND HALLEY. (See 9 th S. x. d61 ; xi. 85, 205, 366, 463, 496.) In Nature for 8 March, 1894 (xlix. 442), ;' Prof. Glasenapp announces that the computing bureau estab- lished by the Russian Astronomical Society has undertaken the calculation of the true path of Halley's comet, with a view to pre- dicting the exact date of the next return."

Halley's charts. Nature, Hi. (1895), 79, 106, 197, 343 ; liv. (1896), 126, 196.

"The Picture of Dr. Edmund Halley (Savilian Professor of Geometry) done exactly like him by Mr. Tho. Murray, who gave it, is lately placed in the Gallery of the Bodleian Library." Cp. * Remarks and Collections of Thomas Hearne,' iv. 257, entry 13 November (Fri.), 1713, printed for the Oxford Historical Society, Oxford, 1898.

Incidentally, the writer takes occasion to observe that Hearne's additional remarks, doubtfully made in the same paragraph (q.v.\ have been refuted in ' N. & Q.,' 3 r < 1 S. v. 107-8 (1864).

Anticipating publication of Hearne's * Re- marks ' for 1727, attention is called to that portion of Sir R, S. Ball's popular memoir of Halley (' Great Astronomers,' London, 1895, 177) which clearly disposes of Hearne's state- ment (cp. ' Diet. Nat. Biog.,' xxiv. 107) to the effect that Newton's death was hastened by a dispute with Halley, shortly before.

MS. life of Halley, by Israel Lyons (?). Cp. ' Diet. Nat. Biog.,' xxiv. 109 ; xxxiv. 357, 358 ; Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society (S. P. Rigaud), ix. 206, note, London, 1836. Is there more than one such MS. 1 If so, are they preserved at Oxford or Cam- bridge ?