Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/281

 9s. ix. APRIL 5, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

273

female branch is represented amongst the nobility of our own times. Richard's great-granddaughter, Joan, was, by right of her mother, the Baroness Cobham. This lady had five husbands viz., Sir Robert Hemengdale, Sir Reginald Braybrooke, Sir Nicholas Hawberke, Sir John Oldcastle (the martyr to Lollardism), and Sir John Harpden ...... Joan

had a daughter by her second husband, who married Sir Thomas Broke, and the representative of this pair in the female line was the late extrava- gant Duke of Buckingham and Chandos."

RONALD DIXON.

46, Marlborough Avenue, Hull.

GREEK EPIGRAM (9 th S. ix. 147). The epi- gram beginning^ Teo-o-a/oes at Xa/otres, Ila^iai 8vo, Kal 8fKa Mow-cu, is No. 95 of the 'Erotica' in the 'Greek Anthology' (3 vols., Leipsic, 1829). H. A. STRONG.

University College, Liverpool.

The following by Callimachus ('Anth. Pal.,' v. 146) is very similar to the epigram required : Tro-a/)S at Xa/nres* TTOTI yap pia rats

T/HO-I KetVats

aprt iroTTr\d(r6i] Krjri fj-vpouri voret evaiwv v Trcuriv dp[aXo<s Be/oeviKa

as are/3 ovS' avral Kal Xa/nres Xapires. JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

The description here of the Graces as four and of the Muses as ten seems to show that the poem was a humorous parody perhaps of this by Meleager of Gadara ('Anthologia Grseca,' ix. 16, ed. Tauchn., Lips., 1872, t. ii. p. 62), which may, however, possibly be itself the epigram sought for :

i per Xa/oires, T/oeis Sc yX,vKvirdpOcvoL T

LTotfoi.

T / / / t / c

] yap TOL rpta Toa Kareipvo-ev, cos apa

T/Dakrctv, rpets 8' tv /xoi

JOHN MAC-CARTHY. Sunnyfield, Clapham Park.

This anonymous epigram is in the ' Greek Anthology ' :

Teo-o-apes at Xapires, Hatftiat 8vo } Kal 8cKa

MoGaaf &epKv\l<$ tv Trcurais Mowra, Xa/ns, Ha^irj.

There is a version by Jonathan Swift, which is probably that desired by MR. FURRAN : Two goddesses now must Cyprus adore ; The Muses are ten, and the Graces are four : Stella's wit is so charming, so sweet her fair face, She shines a new Venus, a Muse, and a Grace. This may be compared with the epigram of

Calhmachus in praise of Berenice, and with

thatir

Muse.

"" *~^ "* f-* WAUV vra. JL^VI fiJl^CJ. cvIUi "^11/11

that in which Plato styles Sappho the tenth WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

[Other replies acknowledged.]

The idea implied in the epigram has been well reproduced in the following lines : Now the Graces are four, and the Venuses two,

And ten is the tale of the Muses, For a Muse, and a Grace, and a Venus are you,

My dear little Molly Trefusis.

PATRICK MAXWELL. Bath.

"PROSPICIMUS MODO" (9 th S. viii. 445 ; ix. 34). In the fourteenth letter of his ninth book Sidonius, who has been asked by a friend to explain with an example what are meant by "versus recurrentes, after quoting the well-known pentameter

Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor as a specimen of a line which can be read backwards "metro stante neque litteris loco ruotis," produces as an example of another class of " versus recurrentes," where the original words are retained, but their order reversed, the following distich of his own composition, with the prefatory remark
 * ' qualia reor equidem legi multa multorum " :

Praecipiti modo quod decurrit tramite flumen, Tempore consumptum iam cito deticiet.

It will be seen that the structure of this couplet bears a close resemblance to that cited at the first reference.

For other elaborate inanities of this sort see Burman's * Anthologia ' (1759), vol. i. p. 542; H. Meyer's 'Anthologia Veterura Latinorum Epigrammatum et Poematum ' (1835), vol. i. Nos. 236-9; Riese's 'Antho- logia Latina,' pars i., fasciculus i. (1869), No. 81. See also Sirmond's note to Sidonius's 'Epistles,' viii. xi. ; Burman's note in his 'Anthology,' where some modern imitators of this style are mentioned ; and Luciari Miiller, ' De Re Metrica,' pp. 466-70.

Those who delight in this kind of literature would probably be pleased by a highly ingenious method of making Latin verses by machinery of which an [account was given at least twenty years ago in an English maga- zine (IChambers's Journal). Perhaps some reader of ' N. & Q.' could supply the exact reference. EDWARD BENSLY.

The University, Adelaide, South Australia.

CHILDREN'S AFFIRMATIONS (9 th S. ix. 185). No doubt a considerable number of affir- mations of truth used by children past and present may be given. In Derbyshire fifty years ago the wet -finger oath was mostly used. "Is my finger wet?" "Yes." -"la