Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/493

9th S. VII. 22, 1901.] .—

These lines are inscribed in letters of gold on a tablet put up by the great Sir William Hamilton above the chair in his class-room. They were generally supposed to be a quotation from Aristotle, but on examination of the works of the Stagyrite this appears to be erroneous. Inquiries have been made in the pages of 'N. & Q.' as to their source, without eliciting an answer. Through the kindness of a friend, the Rev. John Hart, of Aberlady, who was a fellow-student with me under Sir William in 1846, I have been enabled to trace their origin. They are from Phavorinus, quoted by Joannes Picus of Mirandula in his 'Disputationes adversus Astrologiam,' lib. iii. 351.

. (See ante, p. 420.)—This custom of heaping grain over a beast unlawfully killed, as a measure of compensation, is enforced by the Laws of Howel the Good, but I have no means at hand of referring.

. Kiev is one of the most beautiful and also one of the most interesting of cities. But it is in Russia, and is, for that reason perhaps, comparatively unknown outside the boundaries of the Russian empire. Larousse's great work is the most entertaining, and, taken all round, perhaps the most satisfactory, of encyclopædias. But Larousse has one great fault—he is inaccurate. In his short article on Kiev there are enough mistakes to attract the attention of any one who has ever visited that town:—

This fair is held in the month of February, if we follow the Russian calendar—in the months of February and March, if we adopt the new style of reckoning.

Most of these statements may be contested. The low-lying portion of the city is called the Podol, not Podal. There is no bridge of boats across the river—nowadays, at any rate. In summer the communication between the two banks is maintained by a ferry; in winter the peasants walk across the ice. Lastly, it is news that the Podol is the best-built part of Kiev. It is perhaps not badly built, but it is regarded as the slum quarter of the town by all respectable residents. It is certainly very inferior in extent and architecturally to the aristocratic suburb of Lipki.

"On y compte 190,000 Catholiques." This is absurd. If true it would probably mean that every one in Kiev is Catholic. The number of Catholics is estimated by those who know the town to be about 35,000.

In Baedeker's German guide to Russia, published in 1897 at Leipzig, there is an excellent map of Kiev, marred, however, by one mistake. At the extreme south of the map, west of the part of Kiev that is known as Petchersk, there is marked in large capitals the word "Lipk." Lipk, however, lies in a north-easterly direction between the centre of the town and Petchersk. Those who, with Baedeker for a guide, start out for a pleasant walk past the mansions of Russian bankers and merchants, will probably be astonished to discover nothing but a wide expanse of waste and unattractive country.

But a correspondent of the Intermédiaire (22 Dec., 1899) outstrips Larousse and Baedeker. Larousse is only inaccurate; the writer to the Intermédiaire is absolutely wrong and amusing into the bargain. He informs us that at Kiev there is an extraordinary subterranean monastery, inhabited by 1,500 monks. The entry to this monastery is in the cathedral at Kiev, "one of the first in Russia." The monks, he goes on to tell us, are allowed to come up once a day for a quarter of an hour, like whales, to breathe the fresh air; then they descend into their lonely catacombs, which are several yards below the surface of the earth, and lighted only by a lamp. Observe the details. One would almost think that the writer had been an eye-witness of all that he describes. These strange monks, we are also told, have made the most wonderful discoveries in chemistry and physics and mechanics.

Let us note. There is no subterranean monastery at Kiev. As for the entry being near the cathedral of Kiev, there are three, if not four, cathedrals there, and it would surely be well to specify which of them is meant. The real truth is that there is a monastery built on the top of a hill, inhabited by a great number of monks, and that this monastery contains some catacombs, where about the tenth century some fanatics are said to have immured themselves.

.—May I correct a slip in your notice of the Duchess of Cleveland (ante, p. 420)? You say "she wrote and