Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/212

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

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mainly with theology, but touching suf- ficiently on other subjects to make it a sort of popular encyclopaedia. Predestination is elaborately discussed on p. 32 of vol. ii. :

"Because certaine hie climing heades make no difference betweene predestination and destenie: I wil deliuer from what worthie note, what destenie is, and how and in howe many points it differeth from predestination and gods prouidence." To pave the way, he will " speake a word or two" he means two pages "of the proui- dence of God " ; he then devotes two pages to destiny, and sums up :

"To be short, that ther is no such fatum, as the Stoiks do imagin, I wil make it plain by exhibiting vnto you certaine verses, which are recited in a certaine interlude or plaie intituled Aegio. In the which playe ii persons interlocutor ie do dis- pute, the one alledging for the defence of destenie and fatall necessitie, and the other confuting the same."

The extract occupies three and a half pages. The opening speech will sufficiently show its quality :

The name of the interlocutors be, Larymos, and

Phronimos.

None of you all can destinie denie. For all thinges do chaunce by mere necessitie. And that wul I prpue by sufficient authoritie, Both of Astronomic, and also diuinitie. And first to begin with Gods owne booke : God doth al thinges foresee and forelooke. And that thing which he doth once foresee Must needes be so, and can none otherwise be. Man is also ruled by the constellation Of the bodies aboue after Ptolemies relation. Of Lucanus also this is the sentence : That man is ruled by destenies violence. Precepts agit omnia fatum.

And beside the doctrine of all the Astronomers, It is also the minde of Poetes and Philosophers, Quod regitur fatis mortale genus, Et venit ab alto quicquid facimus. To be short and to auoide prolixitie. Now shall you heare a doctor of diuinitie. Austen in his booke of the heauenly citie Writeth these wordes of fatall destenie : Destenie (saith he) is a certaine disposition Of causes, and is also an order and a production Of thinges, them either to prosper or els to spil, Beside Gods purpose, and beside mans will.

Phronimos proves this heretical in a speech of over a hundred lines, citing St. Paul, Ambrose, Gregory, "Bagusarus vpon the centiloquie," "Abraham Avenar an astro- nomer of Chaldie," Plato, and Augustine. Another attack and reply close the frag- ment.

There is no statement about the author- ship ; but another passage of verse, on the subject of patriotism, is given on p. 132. Like the interlude, it is pitilessly didactic, packed with quotations, and is a debate in verse between Philopatrios and Misopatrios. It is evidently from the same hand, and the

tone of both extracts suggests irresistibly that the bishop was quoting from himself. PERCY SIMPSON.

" STOOK." In the little glossary affixed to his monograph on Burns, written in 1888 for Mr. Walter Scott's "Great Writers" series, Prof. Blackie defines a stook as "a rick or stack of corn." This is entirely misleading. A stook is what is called in England "a shock," and is the name given to the cluster of sheaves set up against each other to dry in the harvest field. When reaping was artistic, and done with the sickle, trie bandster (i.e., he who tied the corn-band round the sheaves) had to put twelve sheaves into each stook, while each pair of stocks counted a " thrave," and the amount of work done was computed by the number of thraves on the "rig," or area between two furrows. For some illus- tration of these things see the opening stanzas of Principal Shairp's adequate and tender ' Hairst Rig ' (' Glen Desseray, and other Poems,' p. 193) :

how my heart lap to her Upon the blithe hairst rig !

Ilk morning comin' owre the fur Sae gracefu', tall, and trig.

Chorus.

the blithe hairst rig ! The blithe hairst rig ; Fair fa' the lads and lasses met On the blithe hairst rig !

At twal hours aft we sat aloof,

Aneath the bielding stook, And tently frae her bonny loof

The thistle thorns I took.

The late Prof. Palgrave, who edited the posthumous * Glen Desseray ' volume, secured expert assistance in preparing his annota- tions, and thus his foot-notes and supple- mentary elucidations are accurate, and always more or less to the purpose. His explana- tions of "hairst rig" (harvest field), "bielding stook" (sheltering sheaves set up against each other), and so on, will help the un- initiated reader. Blackie was town -born, and his knowledge of country life was acquired, whereas Shairp, as the son of a West Lothian laird, knew the peasantry and was directly acquainted with their ways. It is never safe to pose as a Scottish writer, or an expositor of the Scottish tongue, without an intimate practical experience as well as a thorough book-knowledge of the subject.

THOMAS BAYNE. Helensburgh, N.B.

'CoLLECTio REGIA CONCILIORUM,' 38 vols., Parisiis, A.D. 1644 Perhaps on the ground of bibliophilism you may allow me to men- tion that I have come into possession of an