Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/253

 9*s,iiLAP R iLi,m] NOTES AND QUERIES.

247

ome time before the battle, one of which was hat at Cumse " solis orbis minui visus," states hat another was that the Apollinarian
 * ames were interrupted by an unusual swell-

ing of the waters of the Tiber. Now these Dairies, which were first instituted in B.C. 212 > /ere held in the month of Quintilis, after- \ -ards called July. But the Roman calendar t that time was so much in error that dates reckoned by it were nearly three months too late. Thus another eclipse, stated by Livy to have taken place also during the celebration of the Apollinarian games in the year corre- sponding to B.C. 190, took place, as we know by calculation, on 14 March. It follows then that the so-called prodigies in B.C. 202 also took place in the month of March, and that the report of a diminution in the apparent size of the sun was a mere fancy and not a real eclipse. Mommsen says (vol. ii. p. 359, in Dickson's translation, note) that the battle was fought in the spring or summer, and " the fixing of the day as the 19th of October, on account of the alleged solar eclipse, is of no account." The statement about the Apolli- narian games seems to make this clear ; and it follows that the most probable time of the final contest of the Hannibalic or Second Punic War was the month of April or May, not November, for which I argued in my previous letter. Mr. Bosworth Smith, in his 'Carthage and the Carthaginians,' gives it as October, doubtless misled by the alleged eclipse. W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest ,o affix their names and addresses to their queries, n order that the answers may be addressed to
 * hem direct.

" ILLUSTRATION." I want instances of this kvord in its now common concrete sense of picture or cut illustrating the text of a book, j)ur earliest certain example is of 1864, but Ihere must be plenty of books " with illustra- tions by" so-and-so of earlier date. Please (end direct to Dr. Murray, Oxford.
 * >r (sometimes) merely embellishing the book.

J. A. H. MURRAY.

" THE GLORIOUS UNCERTAINTY OF THE LAW." -A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1830, says that this phrase originated It a dinner of the judges and counsel at erjeants' Hall not long after Mansfield's levation to the position of Lord Chief ustice in 1756. The toast of " the glorious lemory of King William" having been

honoured according to the then prevailing custom, a Mr. Wilbraham proposed, amid great laughter, " The glorious uncertainty of the law," in sarcastic allusion to Lord Mans- field's frequent reversals of former decisions. The story (which has already been quoted in 'N. <fe Q.') seems plausible enough, but I should be glad to know whether there is any authority for it older than 1830.

HENRY BRADLEY. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

THOMAS ELLIS failed to obtain his election from Westminster School to either univer- sity in 1598. I should be glad to have par- ticulars of his parentage. G. F. R. B.

MOODY FAMILY. Can any reader oblige with information respecting one Edmond Mowdye (or Moody), wno is reported by Hall to have saved the life of Henry VIII. at Hitchin ? His grant of arms is at the College of Arms, and he is described as of Bury St. Edmunds. I can find no trace of him there nor of his will. WM. REED LEWIS.

NELSON AND FREEMASONRY. I remember reading some years ago that Lord Nelson was probably a Freemason. Can any reader of * N. & Q.' give me information upon the subject? ARTHUR SHEPHARD.

Cromer, Norfolk.

POMPEY'S PILLAR. This column was erected by the Alexandrians in honour of Diocletian. How did it get the name " Pompey's " ?

LOUISA FAWN.

Bedminster, Bristol.

BOCCACCIO. I wish to make a list of the bales of Boccaccio which have been repro- duced by English poets. So far I have ' The Clerk's Tale 'by Chaucer, Keats's 'Isabella,' Barry Cornwall's 'Sicilian Story,' Longfellow's The Falcon of Ser Federigo,' and two by Reynolds, the friend of Keats, in his book called 'A Garden of Florence.' I should be very much obliged to any of your readers who would kindly supplement this list.

JOHN WILLCOCK.

Lerwick.

'FOREIGN COURTS AND FOREIGN HOMES.' Phis is the title of a book recently published. At p. 167 a description is given of the Cathe- dral of St. Lo, Normandy, where our author was told Archbishop Laud once preached, for hree hours entrancing his hearers with his eloquence. Years after the French bishop liscovered the man was a heretic. As to how l<aud found himself in Normandy, it appears hat he was going to Paris to meet Prince Charles on his return from his romantic visit