Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/289

 s. ix. APRIL 12, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

281

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1W2.

CONTENTS. No. 224.

NOTES : Literary Finds at Melbourne, 281 Did Shake- speare and Ben Jonson Quarrel ? 282 " Macrron " : " Mucheron " - " Sesame " ' Trial of the Spirits ' Blanche Parrye, 284 "Yucca "Cromwell Fleet wood "Comically," 285 "Bishop of Brooks" St. James Street Parliament of Birds, 286 " Blockhead " of a Woman Wassailing the Apple-tree " By rote," 287.

QUERIES :" Only too thankful " Carducci's Library- Tablet iu West-Knd Square " Ratlings "Epigram on Women 'Jenny of Monteith ' Doset Hall Sale of Stamps forbidden by the Inland Revenue -Montesquieu in England, 288 Coronation of George IV. Manor Court Kolls of Bradford and Wilsden Andrew Wilson -Antwerp Cathedral H. St. Lawrence Kipling's 'City of Dreadful Night' Crapelet Bibliography Dutch Refugees in Lon- don, 1566-Sibylline Oracles Latin Sentence Misspelt Combermere Chair, 289' Romans des Douze Pairs ' Pon- tifical Privileges "England's darling "Browne Family Arms Laurence Family St. Paul and Seneca, 290.

REPLIES : Heraldry before the Conquest, 290 -The West Bourne First British Subject, born in N-w South Wales, Pictorial Grammar Earl of Cromartie, 292 Arms Chess Playing : a Legend Pins in Drinking Vessels, 293-Holts at Winchester, 294 Lond res Duchy of Berwick, 295 Montgomery MSS. Sibyl or Sybil -Birthplace of Bea- consfield Smallness of the Infant Jesus ' Les Lauriers de Nassau ' Weeks's Museum St. Anthony, 297 Moly- neux " G. R." Compulsory Dress for Jews and Chris- tians "All Cooper's ducks with me" Source of the Seven Ages Peter Pett " Bristol look," 298.
 * 91 Windsor Uniform "Oliver" Snow-feathers

NOTES ON BOOKS :-Tbe 'New English Dictionary' ' The Ancestor ' " Miniature Series of Painters."

Notices to Correspondents.

LITERARY FINDS AT MELBOURNE. AN interesting find occurred lately in con- nexion with the Melbourne Public Library. A second-hand volume, which had been offered to the trustees for purchase, was referred by them to Prof. Tucker, who occupies the Chair of Classics in this Univer- sity. The professor discovered on one of the fly-leaves the following Greek epigram, written with the contractions usual in the sixteenth century : BapjSaposo v TreAo/xat, aAA* ouSc re ev\o/j,ai

ov6 av dfjitiyaifjirjv irpos Kpoviwva TrdrprjV 8e K\ijj,aKo6pwv Qeitov yevos, Zpvos

The professor guessed that must be the grjecized form of the name Scaliger, and was not thrown off the scent by the double error in prosody, as he was aware of the Scaligerian weakness in that respect. In another part of the book a not very happy attempt has been made by the author of the epigram to rewrite the third

line, the error in which he had apparently discovered.^ In this later version the third line begin s^Hy yap o-KaAryi/wv.

The book was sent to the British Museum for report, and it has lately been returned to j the Melbourne Library, accompanied by a I letter from Mr. F. G. Kenyon, who confirms fully Prof. Tucker's clever conjecture. Mr. Kenyon pronounces the numerous MS. notes in the volume to have been written by the hand of Julius Caesar Scaliger, the elder of the two famous scholars. The book is a Latin translation of the * Problemata' of Aristotle, published at Paris in 1520. It was offered for sale by the bookseller for 2/. 12s. 6d. One would not have thought Melbourne to be a likely place for such literary treasure- trove.

ALEX. LEEPER.

Trinity College, Melbourne University.

[In a letter to the Melbourne Argus DR. LEEPER adds :

" Our own University professors, curiously enough, have enjoyed a large share of the romance of literary discovery. It may be remembered by some that Prof. Jenks during his brief sojourn among us lighted upon a rare treasure in the shape of a little MS. book, containing several of Keats's poems in the poet's own handwriting. They in- cluded ' The Pot of Basil,' ' The Lines on the Mer- maid Tavern,' and 4 The Eve of St. Mark's.' There is the strongest reason to believe that the volume was owned by the poet's brother, George Keats, and was brought to Melbourne from America. What made it specially interesting was the fact that it contained an unpublished stanza of ' The Pot of Basil,' which would seem to have been struck out by the poet himself before printing. Prof. Jenks at the time gave good reason for his opinion that both ' The Pot of Basil ' and ' The Eve of St. Mark's ' in the volume were the oldest auto- graphs existing of those pieces.

"Another of our professors, the late Dr. Morris, whose loss the University will long mourn, had an experience of a somewhat similar kind. Some three years ago a curiosity shop in Melbourne offered him for sale the first log-book kept by Capt. Cook when he was an A.B. on board H.M.S. Eagle. The dis- covery was of peculiar value to Dr. M orris, as he was at that time engaged upon his biography of Capt. Cook, which is at present on the eve of pub- lication by a London firm. The newly founa loe supplies details of a period in Cook's life which all his previous biographers had regarded as a blank.

"The most recent literary find in Melbourne occurred within the University precincts, though in this case the lucky digger was not a professor. Mr. Sugden, the Master of Queen's College, showed me a few days ago an interesting volume, in which he has made a discovery which does credit to his keen-sightedness, both physical and mental. The book, which is a beautiful copy of Robert Stephens's 'Editio Regia' of the Greek Testament (Paris, 1550), was presented in 1895 to the library of Queen's College. On the title-page, beneath the date, there was a scrollwork ornamentation in vermilion paint. Looking at this closely one day, Mr. Sugden detected traces of writing underneath, and. after carefully washing off the coloured scrollwork, he brought to