Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/259

 9">S. IV. Oct. 21,'99.] 327 NOTES AND QUERIES. history includes all the great serials and the finest copy of Audubon's ' Birds of America,' being a presentation copy from the author, coloured by him ; also Gould's series of ornithological works. General literature is well represented by the leading authorities in every department, and the unique collec- tion of the county histories of Great Britain must not be overlooked. These are all, with- out exception, large-paper copies, each volume having all the coats of arms illuminated in gold and colours. This work alone took an artist six years to accomplish. The entire cost of these histories exceeded 2,000/. The Rev. T. F. Dibdin, while he was Lord Spencer's librarian, undertook a catalogue of the chief rarities of the library. The notice of him in the 'Dictionary of National Bio- graphy ' says of this that "here his lamentable ignorance and unfitness for such a work are sadly conspicuous. He could not even read the characters of the Greek books he describes ; and his descriptions are so full of errors that it may be doubted if a single one is really accurate. On the other hand, the descriptions were taken bond fide from the books themselves, and thus the errora are not such as those of many of his pre- decessors in bibliography, who copied the accounts of others, and wrote at second hand, without having seen the books." The collection includes the block-print of St. Christopher, which was supposed to be the oldest impression from a wood block bear- ing a date, this date being 1423; but the Atlieneeum of the 23rd of November, 1844, stated that an earlier print had been dis- covered, and on the 4th of October, 1845, gave a transcript of the Malines print which bears the date 1418. The building in which these treasures are placed is well worthy of them; it has been nine years in course of erection, Mr. Basil Champneys being the architect. The building up of this memorial to her husband has been to Mrs. Rylands one of love. Not a volume has escaped her per- sonal examination. I am informed that the library has three catalogues : one of the fifteenth - century books, another of the Bibles, and a third of the general literature. Mrs. Rylands's gift to Manchester must be far approaching a million of money. At the opening ceremony Dr. Green, who, with his sons, has beeti very helpful to Mrs. Rylands in bringing her great gift to a suc- cessful issue, received the guests. Dr. Fair- bairn delivered the address, in which he said, " While the library was to have its home in Manchester, it was not to be Manchester's alone—it was to be England's, it was to be the whole world's." John C. Francis. Qnmes. We must request correspondents desiring infor- mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct. Some Latin Q dotations.—I am familiar with all the usual English sources for verify- ing Latin quotations, of which the latest and most comprehensive is the 'Dictionary of Quotations (Classical),' by Mr. T. B. Har- bottle. The lines given below appear to have escaped notice in them. One quotation (" Rome was not built in a day ") is so well known that it seems rather a find. Perhaps some reader can trace it back earlier. All the lines are from Marcellus Palingenius ("Mar- zello Palingenio," an anagram of Pier Angelo Manzolli), whose 'Zodiacus Vitse,' described on the title-page as " a most beautiful and useful work/ appears to have been written about 1527. The earliest edition in the British Museum is noted as " 1531 (?)." The book was clearly famous in its day, and came into English through Barnabe Googe, who began translating it in 1560. Palingenius wrote excellent Latin for his day, though a good many of his maxims for the conduct of life read now like the discovery of the obvious, and may be, like some folk-lore stories, the common property of more than one people. Here are five fairly familiar sentiments :— Esto bonus saltern, si non potes esse peritus. Book ii. 365. Verbaque femineaa vires sunt, facta virorum. Book iv. 804. Stultitiae fons est et origo philautia vestrse. Book vi. 191. Maxima pars pecore amisso prsesepia claudit. Book ix. 827. Non stella una cavat marmor, neque protinus uno est Condita Roma die. Book xii. 460. Elsewhere I find "Spes fames solet ad vir- tutem impellere multos," which is perhaps too general a sentiment to be the germ of Milton's " Fame is the spur," ifcc. (' Lycidas,' 1. 70), and Vis tu nosse hominem qualis sit ? perspice amicos IUius: associant similes natura deusque. How old is the " Noscitur a sociis " which this paraphrases? V. Rendall. "Han."—In the 'Craven Glossary' (1828) under this word I find the following quota- tion from W. Prynne :— In France, at Courchiverni, neere to Blois, Within a bottle they keepe, shew the noyse Or ban, which Joseph (Christ's reputed father) Used when he cleft wood, or when he squar'd it rather.