Part 3

Domus Lescinia At the second Ades Incolumis At the third Omnis es lucida At the fourth Mane Sidus Loci At the fifth Sis Columna Dei At the last I, scande Solium."

I fear I have already asked for too much of your space, yet must I beg the least bit more for an anagram which, unless the sacredness of the subject be accounted a drawback, may well claim a foremost place among the "six." It is found in Pilate's question to our Lord, _Quid est veritas?_ which contains its own best answer: _Est Vir qui adest._

PHILIP HEDGELAND.

DISCOVERING THE BODIES OF THE DROWNED.

(Vol. iv., p. 251.)

The mode of doing this, as shown by S. W. to be practised by the North American Indians, is very common amongst ourselves. About five-and-twenty years ago, an Eton boy, named Dean, who had lately come to the school, imprudently bathed in the river Thames where it flows with great rapidity under the "playing fields," and he was soon carried out of his depth, and disappeared. Efforts were made to save him or recover the body, but to no purpose; until Mr. Evans, who was then, as now, the accomplished drawing-master, threw a cricket bat into the stream, which floated to a spot where it turned round in an eddy, and from a deep hole underneath the body was quickly drawn. This statement is entirely from memory, but I believe it to be substantially correct.

I heard the following anecdote from the son of an eminent Irish judge. In a remote district of Ireland a poor man, whose occupation at certain seasons of the year was to pluck feathers from live geese for beds, arrived one night at a lonely farmhouse, where he expected to glean a good stock of these "live feathers," and he arose early next morning to look after the flock. The geese had crossed the river which flowed in front of the house, and were sitting comfortably in the sunshine on the opposite bank. Their pursuer immediately stripped off the few clothes he had, deposited them on the shore, and swam across the river. He then drove the birds into the water, and, boldly following them, he maintained a long contest to keep then together on their homeward voyage, until in the deep bed of the river his strength failed him, and he sank. The farmer and his family became aware of the accident, the cries of the drowning man, and the cackling of the geese, informed them, in the swimmer's extremity, of his fate, and his clothes lay on the shore in witness of his having last been in their company. They dragged the river for the body, but in vain; and in apprehension of serious consequences to themselves should they be unable to produce the corpse, they applied to the parish priests, who undertook to relieve them, and to "improve the occasion" by the _performance of a miracle_. He called together the few neighbours, and having tied a strip of parchment, inscribed with cabalistic characters, round a wisp of straw; he dropped this packet where the man's head was described to have sunk, and it glided into still water where the corpse was easily discovered.

ALFRED GATTY.

The discovery of drowned bodies by loading a loaf with mercury, and putting it afloat on a stream, or by casting into the river, as the Indians do, "a chip of cedar wood, which will stop and turn round over the exact spot," is referrible to natural and simple causes. As there are in all running streams deep pools formed by eddies, in which drowned bodies would be likely to be caught and retained, any light substance thrown into the current would consequently be drawn to that part of the surface over the centre of the eddy hole.

J. S. C.

MARRIAGE OF ECCLESIASTICS.

(Vol. iv., pp. 57. 125. 193. 196.)

In the early ages, your correspondent H. WALTER assumes that the primitive Christians knew "that their Scriptures said of marriage that it was honourable in all" (Vol. iv., p. 193.). H. WALTER is under more than one mistake with regard to the text of St. Paul (Heb. xiii. 4.) on which he grounds his assertion. This whole chapter being full of admonitions, the apostle, all through it, speaks mostly in the imperative mood. He begins with, "Let brotherly love continue;" "Be not forgetful," &c.; "Remember them that are in bonds," &c. Then he says: [Greek: Timios ho gamos en pasi, kai he koite amiantos], that is: "Let (the laws of) marriage be revered in all _things_, and the marriage bed be undefiled;" and as a warning to those who might not heed such an admonition, he adds, "whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." H. WALTER mistakes the adjective feminine [Greek: en pasi] as meaning "all men," whereas it signifies here, "in all things;" according to which sense St. Paul uses the same form of speech in 2 Corinthians xi. 6. True it is, the authorised version translates thus: "Marriage _is_ honourable in all;" but the _is_ is an insertion of the translators, and therefore printed in Italics. Parkhurst, however, in his _Lexicon_, at the word [Greek: Gamos], says: "Wolfius has justly remarked, the imperatives preceding and following show that we should rather understand [Greek: esto] than [Greek: esti]. See also Hammond and Macknight; and observe that the Alexandrian and two other MSS., for [Greek: de] in the following sentence read [Greek: gar], and the Vulgate translates by _enim_, "for."

I cannot but think that the makers of the authorized version advisedly inserted _is_ instead of _let_, to forward their own new doctrines, as this their rendering would seem to countenance the marriage of priests. Curiously enough, when they had no interest in putting in the indicative instead of the imperative mood, those same translators have of themselves inserted, in the verse following, the latter, thus: "_Let_ your conversation _be_ without covetousness," &c. Moreover, in translating [Greek: en pasi], in another passage of St. Paul, 2 Cor. xi. 6., they render it, "in all things;" in which same sense it is to be understood in the above place, Heb. xi. 4.

CEPHAS.

In lately reading that very curious book, Whiston's _Autobiography_, I met with some remarks on this subject, which I made a note of, and which are at the service of A. B. C. Whiston quotes the well-known Dr. Wall as follows:--

"The Greek Church still observe the rule of allowing their clergy to marry but once, and before the Council of Nice made a further rule that none after his orders should marry; and I believe it is hard to find in church history an instance of any one who married after he was in priest's orders for a thousand (in reality for above a thousand four hundred) years before Martin Luther."

The interpolation marked by a parenthesis is Whiston's, who proceeds:--

"The Church of England allows their very bishops to be twice--nay thrice--nay even four times married without any impediment to their episcopal functions, whereas the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople would not admit the Emperor Leo, a layman, into the church, because he had married a fourth wife."

Whiston, though a "fanciful man," as Burnet calls him, was well read in Christian antiquity, and his opinion is therefore of some weight. Wall's authority no one would willingly undervalue.

I cannot call to mind any English bishop who was four times married; yet Whiston would hardly have asserted the fact if he had not had some example in view. I should be obliged to any one who would inform me on the subject.[1]

[Footnote 1: We have somewhere read of a Bishop Thomas giving his fourth wife a ring, with this posy:--

"If I survive, I'll make it five."

This may give a clue to our correspondent.]

When on the subject of Whiston, I should be glad to know if his edition of our Common Prayer Book published in 1713, and his Primitive New Testament published in 1745, still exist.[2]

[Footnote 2: The two works mentioned by K. S., though scarce, occasionally occur for sale. The "Common Prayer Book" was republished by the Rev. Peter Hall in his _Fragmenta Liturgica_, vol. iii.]

The former he entitled _The Liturgy of the Church of England reduced nearer to the Primitive Standard_. The latter contains, besides the Canonical Books of the New Testament, the Apostolic Constitutions, Epistles of Ignatius, the Epistle of Timothy to Diognetus, &c. &c., all of which he considered as of equal authority with the Canonical Books. The Apostolic Constitutions indeed he terms "the most sacred of the Canonical Books of the New Testament."

K. S.

Replies to Minor Queries.

_Robert Douglas_ (Vol. iv., p. 23.).--There is no truth in the report that this person was a grandson of Mary Queen of Scots. His diary during the march of the Scots troops to England, 1644, is printed in a work entitled _Historical Fragments relative to Scotish Affairs from 1635 to 1664_, Edin., 1833, 8vo., published by Stevenson of Edinburgh, and edited by James Maidment, Esq., of that city, who has enriched the volume with many notes and illustrations, and has given in addition a pretty copious account of Douglas. His letters and papers fell into the hands of Wodrow. (See _Analecta Scotica_, vol. i. p. 326.) Allow me to correct an error. The Bannatyne Club did _not_ print Wodrow's _Analecta_. This very amusing collection was a munificent present from the late Earl of Glasgow to the members of the Maitland Club, of which his lordship was president; it is in _four_ thick 4to. volumes, and full of all sorts of out-of-the-way information. It seems very little known at present south the Tweed. I question whether Mr. Macaulay has gone through it, although he is no doubt familiar with Wodrow's one-sided work on the Sufferings of the Scotish Presbyterian clergy.

J. MT.

_The Leman Baronetcy_ (Vol. iv., pp. 58. 111.).--The attempt in _Scotland_ to give a right to an _English_ title of honour is exposed fully in Mr. Turnbull's _Anglo-Scotia Baronets_, Edin. 1846, P. XXXII. iii. The "certified court proceedings" are worth nothing, and would not be sustained in a court of law. The party called _Sir_ Edward Godfrey Leman may or may not be the next heir of the Lord Mayor, but he must prove his right in England by such evidence as may be required there, and not by reference to what would not even be looked at in the Scotish law courts.

J. MT.

_Cachecope Bell_ (Vol. iii., p. 407.).--Is it possible that this word may be a corruption of the low Latin "Catascopus" (Gr. [Greek: kataskopos]), and that it was applied to a bell which a watchman tolled to give an alarm of fire, &c.? I have seen a bell set apart for this duty, in churches on the continent.

C. P. PH***.

May not this have been a bell specially rung at funerals, and deriving its name (as has been suggested to me) from _cache corps_, "cover the body" (in the ground)? And why not, since we have got "curfew" out of _couvre feu_, "cover the fire?"

A. G.

Ecclesfield.

[E. V. has suggested a similar explanation of this term.]

"_Dieu et mon Droit_" (Vol. iii., p. 407.).--In Bishop Nicolson's _English Historical Library_, part iii. chap. i., under the section treating of _Charters_ appears the following paragraph:

"The same king (Edward III.), as founder of the most noble order of Knights of the Garter, had his arms sometimes encircled with their motto of 'Honi soit,' &c., that of 'Dieu et mon Droit' having formerly been assumed by Richard the First, intimating that the Kings of England hold their empire from God alone. But _neither of those_ ever appeared on the Broad Seal, before the days of Henry the Eighth."

FRANCISCUS.

_Defoe's House at Stoke Newington_ (Vol. iv., p. 256.).--This house is the one which was occupied by the late William Frend, M.A., of the Rock Life Office, and which now belongs to his widow. It is on the south side of Church Street, a little to the east of Lordship Lane or Road, and has about four acres of ground attached, bounded on the west by a narrow footway, once (if not still) called Cutthroat Lane. Or it may be identified thus: take the map of Stoke Newington in Robinson's history of that place, London, 1820, 8vo., and look directly below the first "e" in "Church Street." Among the papers by which the house is held is the copy of the enrolment of a surrender to the lord of manor, dated February 26, 1740, in which the house is described as "heretofore in the tenure or occupation of Daniel Defoe." The history just mentioned stated that he was living at Newington in 1709. There appears no reason to suppose that he built the house. Dr. Price lived for some years in it, as the domestic chaplain of a subsequent owner.

M.

_Study of Geometry in Lancashire_ (Vol. ii., p. 57.).--Your correspondent Mr. T. T. WILKINSON, in his interesting article on this subject, attributes the first rise of the study of geometry in Lancashire to the Oldham Mathematical Society. But he is not perhaps aware, that half a century before a Mathematical Society existed at Manchester. I have a thin 8vo., entitled--

"Mathematical Lectures; being the first and second that were read to the Mathematical Society at Manchester. By the late ingenious Mathematician John Jackson. '_Who can number the Sands of the Sea, the Drops of Rain, and the Days of Eternity?_' Ecclus. i. 2. '_He that telleth the Number of the Stars, and calleth them all by their Names._' Psalm cxlvii. 4. Manchester, printed by Roger Adams, in the Parsonage, and sold by William Clayton, Bookseller, at the Conduit. 1719."

The book is dedicated to the "Virtuous and Religious Lady Bland." The Preface states that

"There having been lately set up in Manchester a Mathematical Society, which was encouraged by many (and some Honorable) subscribers, and the composing of the Lectures being undertaken by the late ingenious Mathematician Mr. John Jackson, and he having discharged himself well becoming his parts and character in the reading of several extraordinary ones in Geometry, we thought it would be great pity, as well as ingratitude, to let such worthy performances expire with him."

Then follow the two Lectures, which terminate at p. 41. The first was read Aug. 12, 1718; the second, Aug. 19, 1718. The Manchester Mathematical Society would be one of the earliest in the kingdom. Perhaps the Oldham Society might be a branch of the Manchester.

JAMES CROSSLEY.

_Coke, how pronounced_ (Vol. iv., pp. 24. 74. 93. 138. 244.).--I think that the pronunciation of _Cook_ for _Coke_ is not a "modern affectation," as in a MS. journal of the proceedings in parliament of the session of 1621, now in my possession, there is, amongst other amusing things, an account of a quarrel between Mr. Clement Coke, son of Sir Edward, and Sir Charles Moryson, in which Mr. Coke's name is frequently spelt _Cooke_. I should judge that the pronunciation was by no means settled at that time; for, as the journal was evidently written whilst the debates were going on, it appears to me that the pronunciation of each speaker was followed, and the name is spelt differently in speeches that succeed each other. I send you an exact copy of one example of this:

"M'r Whittbye.--That M'r _Coke_ will submitt and satisfy in acknow'g his wrong don, if S'r Char's will say he ment it not a disgrace.

"S'r Ro. Phil'ps.--I would any way mitigate y'e censure: I should need no other induce't but to rememb'r he is y'e soun of such a father. But I must say, I thinke S'r Char's hath not given y'e least occas'n to M'r _Cooke_," &c. &c.

C. DE D.

_Quistourne_ (Vol. iv., p. 116.).--Here is a word so very like the Devonshire one which has puzzled a correspondent, that it may be the same one in sense as well in sound. In one of the Low-Norman insular dialects, it denotes a slap with the _back_ of the _hand_; in French-British[3], KIS DOURN, _revers de main_.

[Footnote 3: I was asked by a great and true scholar, now no more, What do you mean by _British_? My answer was, "The nation that you have nicknamed _Welsh_ or _Strangers_, which they are not. With me the English are still English, the Scotch Scots, the Britons in France the British there."]

G. M.

_Seneca's Medea_ (Vol. i., p. 107.; Vol. iii., p. 464.).--I cannot feel much doubt that the prophecy ascribed to Medea was a mere allusion to events actually past. It was a compliment to Claudius upon the recent reduction of Britannia under the Roman arms, with nothing future, unless it were an encouragement to bring Caledonia, Ireland, and the small islands, into similar subjection. The Oceanus was supposed to extend indefinitely westward, beyond the world, into the regions of Night and Chaos, and was not only dreaded for its stormy navigation, but from feelings of religious awe. The expedition to Britain was peculiar from being ultra-mundane, and an invasion of the ocean, so that

"Oceanus Vincula rerum laxet et ingens Pateat tellus."

For that reason only they called the Britons "penitus toto divisos orbe." "Britain (said the pseudo-Hegesippus) lying out of the world, was by the power of the Roman empire reduced into the world," cit. Camden. And the same is implied in another place of Seneca himself--

"Ille Britannos _Ultra noti_ _Littora ponti_, etc. Dare Romuleis Colla catenis Jussit."

But the "Poemata Pithaeana," reprinted in Camden, form the most lively commentary on the chorus of the Medea. They are likewise of the Claudian age, they relate to the conquest of Britain, and they are nothing but an expansion of that one idea, the trans-oceanic voyage and ultra-mundane conquest--

"Oceanus.... Qui finis mundo, non erit imperio. Oceanus medium venit imperium. At nunc Oceanus geminos interluit orbes, Pars est imperii, terminus ante fuit. Et jam Romano cingimur Oceano. Oceanus jam terga dedit, etc. Conjunctum est, quod _adhuc_ (i.e. _nunc_) orbis, et orbis erat," &c.

The Chorus of Seneca has no more of prophecy, or sagacious conjecture, or other anticipation of the future, than Gray's "Bard," or the prophecy of Medea in Pindar's "Pythians," both of them fulfilled before the poet's time. Whatever may seem of a larger import, in Seneca's language, than events had fully justified, belongs to the obscure and lofty strain of remote vaticinations, or to the exaggerations of flattery.

A. N.

_The Editor of Jewel's Works in Folio_ (Vol. iv., p. 225.).--Colet speaks of the editions of Jewel published in 1609 and 1611 as "edited by Fuller." On meeting with the statement elsewhere, I supposed it to be a mistake, as Fuller was born in 1608; but when I found it apparently countenanced by the notice of Jewel in Fuller's _Abel Redivivus_ (Camb. 1651, p. 313.), I was much puzzled, until, on turning to the Introduction, [section] 11., I discovered that the writer of that notice, and editor of the folios, was not _Fuller_, but _Featley_.

J. C. R.

_Poetaster_ (Vol. iv., p. 59.).--In reply to A BORDERER, I do not think _poetaster_ to be a genuine Latin word, though where first used I do not know. The French equivalent is _poetereau_; the Italian _poeterio_; both formed according to the analogies of the respective languages. _Poetaster_ seems to me to be formed upon the model of _oleaster_, _pinaster_, &c., as though to indicate that the person to whom the name is applied is as unlike a true poet as the wild olive to the true olive, or the wild pine to the true pine. What then is the derivation of _aster_ as a termination? Some punster will say, respecting _oleaster_, that it is _olea sterilis_. Is it not [Greek: agrios]? or is it rather a form cognate to the Greek termination [Greek: -azo], which generally means the performance of some energy, or the exhibiting of some state, implied in the substantive; as though the wild olive affected the characteristics and condition of the genuine olive? I am fully aware of many difficulties in the admission of these derivations. I would suggest another. Does _aster_ signify that which affects or approaches the characteristics of the substantive to which it is added, as the terminations _-estis_ or _-estris_, whereby adjectives are formed; as _agrestis_, _sylvestris_, _campestris_, at the same time that the forms are allied, _-aster_, _-estris_, _-estis_?

THEOPHYLACT.

_Post Pascha_ (Vol. iv., p. 151.).--A parallel to the "hypertautology" noticed by M. may be found in the determination of the University of Orleans on the question of Henry VIII.'s divorce, which is dated "die quinto mensis Aprilis, _ante pascha_," from which it has been argued, that that document must have been drawn up in 1530, not (as stated in the printed copies) in 1529, when Easter fell on March 28.

J. C. R.

_Linteamina and Surplices_ (Vol. iv., p. 192.).--It seems probable that the surplice became an ecclesiastical vestment at an early date, though the exact period of its introduction into the Christian church it is difficult to ascertain; it may not unlikely have been taken from the white linen ephod of the Jewish priests. Wheatly (c. ii. [section] 4.) quotes a passage from Jerome to the following effect: "What offence can it be to God for a bishop or priest to proceed to communion in a white garment;" and he considers it not improbable that it was in use in Cyprian's days. Bingham (_French Churches' Apology_, book iii. chap. vii.) cites a letter of Peter Martyr to Bishop Hooper on the vestment controversy, in which he states that a distinction of habits may be proved by many passages of Eusebius, Cyprian, Tertullian, and Chrysostom. By the twelfth canon of the Council of Narbonne, A.D. 589, the clergy were forbidden to take the _albe_ off until after mass was ended. In ancient times, as Mr. Palmer observes (_Orig. Lit._ ii. 409.), the _surplice_ probably differed not from the _albe_; it differs now only in having wider sleeves.

N. E. R. (a Subscriber.)

_Climate_ (Vol. iv., p. 231.).--A _climate_ was a zone contained between two parallels of latitude. The climates were made to contain various arcs of _latitude_, in different systems. See Hutton's _Mathematical Dictionary_ at _Climate_, or any work which efficiently explains old astronomical terms. Thus a _climate_ originally meant a certain range of latitude; and as we now speak of warm and cold latitudes, so it became customary to speak of climates, until the last word became wholly meteorological.

M.

"_Climate_ or _Clime_ in geography is a part of the surface of the earth, bounded by two circles parallel to the equator, and of such a breadth as that the longest day in the parallel nearer the pole exceeds the longest day in that next the equator by some certain spaces, viz. half an hour.

"The ancients, who confined the climates to what they imagined the habitable parts of the earth, only allowed of seven. The first they made to pass through Meroe; the second, through Sienna; the third, through Alexandria; the fourth, through Rhodes; the fifth, through Rome; the sixth, through Pontus; and the seventh, through the mouth the Borysthenes."--_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, art. "CLIMATE."

S. C. C.

Corfe Castle.