Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/70

 50 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9-s.iv. amongst all adversaries of the Republic, consisted in pointing to one face of the coin and saying, ' Liberte, point; Egalite, point; FratermW, point ; and then adding, after turning the coin round, 'Sous la Republique en Decrease" (des Tresses), ' Ou diner ?' (Oudinet) ' A la belle Etoile' (referring to the star above the head). Any of your readers acquainted with the French language will know the meaning of dining « la belle Etoile, and appreciate the sarcasm which this (mistaken) reference to the poverty existing under Republican institutions is meant to express." Oudinet was the artist who designed the female figure of the Republic on the coins. Disraeli in ' Lothair' refers to the figure, to which Theodora is likened. J. H. RIVETT-CAKNAC. Schloso Wildeck, Switzerland. DANTEIANA. (9th S. iii. 461.) 1. DANTE makes it plain enougli that heretics of all kinds were to be found in these burning tombs ; the mention of Pope Anastasius shows that. But this " Epi- cureanism " was a form of unbelief which, as we learn elsewhere, he specially detested. and which was rife in his age, the imperial party being deeply tainted with it. It is, no doubt, partly for this reason that he dwells so much on the subject, as if to indicate that, while his political sympathies were now mainly with that party, ne did not endorse their religious views. Of course, at the supposed date of the " vision " he was still a Guelf, in the service of a Guelf state. What university has recognized Dr. Scar- tazzini's merits by a professorship 1 Last October he was still dating from Fahrwangen, in Aargau, where he has for some time, I believe, discharged the functions of pastor. 2. Ubbidir: of course Farinata. " I was already anxious to tell him." I do not think conte "exacts brevity." It is a little of cognitits and a little of comptus, but not curtus. 3. Does any one still suppose that Dante's assignment of positions in the next world was influenced in the very smallest degree by political considerations ? 4. The exclamation " Egli stesso poeta !" and the query " Fu Virgilio Ghibellino ?" are lovely specimens of Scartazzinian criticism. As if because a man wrote a few amatory verses at a time when and in a society where every cultivated person was doing the like— verses, too, largely dashed with philosophy— he must needs hold poets higher than philosophers. As for Virgil; of course he was a Ghibeline in the suohmated sense of the word, i.e., a champion of the universal supremacy of Caesar. 6. Surely there is nothing more to be said about Pope Anastasius. No doubt the story has got a little mixed ; but there cannot be much question as to the version which Dante followed. Platina, is very muddled about it, and goes off in irrelevant anecdotes about Arian bishops. By the way, where does MR. McGovERN find any dates in Platina 1 My copy (Nuremburg, 1481) has none; though an early owner has noted in the margin, "Ab anno iiijciiij"xix [i.e., I suppose 499], Sedit annis [stcl ij diebus xxiiij "—two months longer than Platina gives him. £ may add that "Plotino [sic] thessalonicensi dyacono communicasset means a good deal more than "granted audience to P." There can be no question, in my opinion, that " legista e ubbidiente " must go together. " Ubbidiente Abraam patriarca " would not, I think, be Italian; and there seems no authority for importing the article. Of course, so far as punctuation goes, the MSS. tell us nothing, and an editor may do what he likes. Dr. Moore, however, in his 'Textual Criticism,' ad loc., speaks of the alteration of the usually accepted reading with a toleration which, I confess, surprises me. To me it seems the suggestion of a dull person. The defiant emphasis on the obe- dience of Moses—of whom at least one instance of gross disobedience is recorded—is quite in Dante's manner. Compare the "bene- genitus Manfredus " of ' Vulg. El.' i. 12. And the antithesis between leaista and ubbidiente —"he gave the law, and kept the law he gave "—strikes me as quite good enough, even if, as Dr. Moore says, not very forcible." May I add that " Gary and Tomlinson " is a rather comical juxtaposition of authorities, unless, indeed, it is meant to embrace all the intervening degrees of merit 1 A. J. BUTLER. THE WELSH JUDGES (9th S. iii. 427).-The Stephen Hervey referred to was of London, and of East Betchworth (near Reigate), cp. Surrey, the only surviving sou and heir of Stephen Hervey, of the same places, barrister-at-law and bencher of the Middle Temple, by Dorothy his wife, daughter of William Conyers, of Walthamstow, co. Essex, Serjeant-at-law, and Dorothy, daughter of Sir William Beecher, of Hoobery, in Rainold, co. Bedford. He was born 20 Oct., 1655, and baptized at Walthamstow 2 Nov. fol- lowing ; admitted to Merchant Taylors'