Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/52

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9s.ni. JAN. 21,

to take his seat at the Club " as representa- tive of the author of 'Waverley' till the author is discovered." He attended only one of the dinners that held on 15 May, 1828, when Earl Spencer was in the chair, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Althorp, Lord Olive, Mr. Phelps, Mr. Markland, and Mr. Towneley being among those present.

The publication of the MS. attracted much attention, and it was shown that while the members of the Club had spent two thousand pounds on their own stomachs, they had only found the paltry sum of two guineas for a bust of Caxton.

An account of these ' Roxburghe Revels ' is given in the first volume of 'John Francis and the Athenaeum*' The collection sold at Sotheby's is mounted, and illustrated with numerous portraits and autograph letters.

' Game and Playe of the Chesse ' there is an anecdote of Julius Caesar quoted from the tr. v.). The English printer translated, as is well known, from a French version, but on reference to the Latin text of Jacobus de Cessoles the title of the work appears as ' Nugis Philosophorum.' In another passage we read :
 * TRUPHES OF PHYLOSOPHERS.' In Caxton 's
 * Booke of Truphes of Phylosophers ' (bk. ii.

"And hereof hit is sayd in the fables of the poetes in the first book of the Truphes of the Philosophers by figure. That they that entryd in to the fontayne of the sirenes or mermaydens were corrumpid and they toke them away with hem." Bk. iii. tr. v.

The Latin of Cessoles is :

" Noverat enim vir industrius, quam voluptas animos effeminat et enervat corpus voluptati sub- iectum, unde et in fabulis poetarum diciter quod fqntem Sirenarum ingredierites eos enervabant et viris effeminatis sexum adimebant. Et hoc dictum fuit in figura voluptatis, sicut dicitur in libro v. de 'Nugis Philosophorum.'"

The book has not hitherto been identified, but I have now traced both passages to the ' Polycraticus ' of John of Salisbury. This work, which is of a very comprehensive and very miscellaneous character, has for an alternative title 'De Nugis Curialium et Vestigiis Philosophorum.' The story of Ccesar occurs in Joannes Sareberierisis (bk. iii. cap. xiv.). In the second passage " some one has blundered," but there can be no doubt that the foundation of the statement of Cessoles and Caxton is to be found in the following words :

" Unde eleganter fons Salmacis, infamia mol- liciei insignis, eidem comparatur. Ut enim in fabulis est, unda illius aspectu decora est, gustu dulcis, suavis tactu, et omnium sensuum usu

gratissima, sed tanta. mollicie ingredientes enervat, ut viris effeminatis nobiliorem adimat sexum ; nee ante quisquam egreditur quam stupeat et doleat se nmtatum esse in feminam." Lib. v. cap. x.

In 1883, when I edited the reprint of Cax- ton's 'Game and Playe of the Chesse,' published by Mr. Elliot Stock, I had not identified these passages. WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Moss Side, Manchester.

A CHRONOGRAM, 1532. Hake will, in his ' Apologie,' ed. 1635, p. 24, relates the follow- ing story on the authority of Philip Came- rarius. A parish priest near "Norinberg," being skilled in figures,

"presumed so farre upon his Calculations and the numerall letters of that prediction in the Gospell, 'Videbunt in quern pupugerunt,' that hee con- fidently assured his parishioners, not only cf the yeare, but the very day and houre of the worlds ende."

Portland, Oregon.

RICHARD H. THORNTON.

ROBERT BURTON. A play by Robert Burton, which was acted at Christ Church in 1617, mentioned in a short note to the ' Anatomy ' (part i. sect. 2, m. 2, subsect. 15), was printed for the first time by the Rev. W. E. Buckley, for the Roxburghe Club, of which he was a member, in 1862 (with some short poems), from a copy belonging formerly to the author, of which he was the possessor. The short title is ' Philosophaster Comcedia. Poemata nunc in unum Collecta,' Hertf., 1862. There were only sixty-five copies, one of which he gave me. Mr. Buckley mentions (pref., p. xii) a remarkable anticipation of a modern pro- posal in the soliloquy of Polupistos, one of the characters. He speaks of the wonders which he will do on becoming rich (Act IV. sc. i. p. 68), one of which is that he will build two bridges to the amazement of Europe; of these :

Primus erit a Caleto ad Doroberniam. Nor is it without anticipation of modern enterprise that there is also :

Mons Atlas frugifer, et arena Lybica

Producet sumptu meo decuplum, centuplum.

EDWARD MARSHALL, F.S.A.

" THE POLICY or PIN-PRICKS." As it is not improbable that inquiries will be made for the source of this appellation, may it be recorded in ' N. & Q.' that this very expres- sive remark is of French origin, its first appearance having been in the Matin, 8 No- vember, 1898? A writer in the newspaper named said that ever since the refusal of France to co-operate with England in Egypt, the French had inaugurated the policy of playing tricks on Great Britain, and that the