Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/399

 9» s. vi. OCT. 27. i9oo.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 329 SOURCE OF QUOTATION. — Can any reader tell me from what source— MS. or old book— the following lines are taken, and if the author is known ? The spelling is no doubt modernized : — There is a double flow'ret. white and red, That our lasses call herb-Margaret In honour of Oortona's penitent ; Whose contrite soul with red remorse was rent, While on her penitence kind heaven did throw The white of purity surpassing snow. So white and red in this fair flower entwine, Which maids are wont to scatter at her shrine. MEGAN. FRENSHAM CAULDRON.— I should be glad of information thereon. JAS. CURTIS. Junior Athen.-uum Club. FRANCIS BACON AT GRAY'S INN, 1579-84. — The following is from the original auto- graph—an excellent specimen of the hand- writing of the period — in my possession : — ANAGRAMMATISMUS EX NOMINE ET COONOMINB OBNATISSIMI VIRTUTE Pariter ac eruditionis gloria; insignis Juvenis, M. Francisci Bacon, Juris Municipalis in Hosp. Graieno studiosi, Musarum fautons, benignissirai. FKANCJSCUS BACONUS. FAC BONUS, SIC CAKUS. Anofframmatin in Eptgrammate ' Serpere nescit humi virtus, sed ut altius effert Ad loca cultores nobiliora trahit. Sola etenim virtus, et quae virtu te paratur Gloria, non fictum creditur esse bonum. FAC BONUS ut maneas virtututn semper amator : Virtutem cures vita, colesque sacram. sic vir CAKUS eris, cordi quibus inclyta virtus : Quaeis animi pietas, quoeis tua nota fides. Observantue ergo Fecit THOMAS ZWANOER. Was the writer of this ingenious and, so far as can be ascertained, unpublished ana- gram, with its interesting explanatory epi- gram, a professor or teacher of law at Gray's Inn or elsewhere in London ? His name does not appear in the contemporary roll of members or Gray's Inn, and the paternal, or serious, tone of the composition precludes any notion that he was a fellow-student of Bacon in 1579-84. FREDK. HENDRIKS. Kensington. FICTION OR HISTORY?— I read in 'Les Mohicans de Paris,' vol. ii. p. 278, "II voudrait lui manger le cceur, comme Gabrielle de Vergy a manyt! celui de son arnant JtamU." The italics are mine to emphasize my query. Are these real or fictitious personages to whom Dumas alludes f I mean fictitious in the sense of being characters in romances other than Dumas's. The incident itself, repulsive though it be, is not without parallel in history ; but does this strictly belong to it ? J. B. McGovERN. St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester. [Gabrielle de Vergy, known as La Dame de Fayel, was beloved by Raoul de Coucy, who died at the siege of Saint-Jean d'Acre, 1191. By his squire he sent his heart to his mistress. The message was intercepted by the husband, who served up the heart at table. On learning of what she had par- taken Gabrielle refused other food, dying of starvation. This theme is treated in different fashions, and with some departure from the original motive, in ' Gabrielle de Vergy,' a five-act tragedy of De Belloy, acted in 1770, and ' Fayel,' a five-act tragedy of D'Arnaud, given the following year. See, under 'Coucy' and under 'Vergy,' the 'Nouvelle Biographic Universelle.' See also the ' Dictionnaire des Theatres' under the names of the plays.] INSCRIPTION IN MULL.—On the side of the hill road (not the high road from Tobermory) between Glengorin and Dervaig, in the island of Mull, at a point after the track from Glen- gorm to Dervaig branches from the track that leads into the said high road, I recently found a fragment of rock bearing the follow- ing incised inscription:— RML * T K V x FASTI HOUR The asterisked letters are somewhat doubtful, partly owing to the stone, which evidently is a fragment of a larger inscribed stone, being broken off. After getting the stone out of the ground to examine it, I replaced it in its former position (on the right-hand side of the road to Dervaig). Is "pasti hour'' Gaelic? Is the inscription a genuine antiquity, or a case of " Bill Stumps, his mark " ? If I had been in a machine instead of on one, I would have brought the stone back with me. R. J. WALKER. THE LATEST INSTANCE OF A DATE A.U.C. —I want a reference to the latest instance in literature of any writer dating an event by the interval between such event and the foundation of Rome. AUGUR. SHORT STORY.—I shall be glad if any of your readers can inform me where a snort story by Turner is to be found entitled 'How Falling in Love spoilt Tom Merri- man.' SIGMA. GENERAL SIR JOHN COPE, K.B.—Recently I asked for information about this soldier as to who he was. The ' Diet. Nat. Biog.' says very little, so probably the following details may help to more being found. I will also ask, Are any portraits of him in existence ? Ho