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As for your new rebus, or riddle, or crux, I will either explain or repay it in trucks, and Sheridan 'To Swift' (cited by Todd),—

Dear dean, since in cruxes and puns you and I deal, Pray, Why is a woman a sieve and a riddle? Here the word has rather a trivial character; but it evidently gained seriousness with age, for in 1831 the Edinburgh Review, vol. lii. p. 183 (as quoted by the Stanford Dictionary'), has "idea has been the crux philosophorum since Aristotle......to the present day." But in spite of this affected forcing of the word into a Latin phrase, I am told by philosophers that it is unknown to Latin writers on philosophy or logic. In more modern use there has been a tendency to bring it into quasi-relations with crucial, and to use it for "crucial difficulty' or the like; also to make the plural cruces, instead of Sheridan's "cruxes"; but the origin of the

sense remains as obscure as ever.

Oxford.

J. A. H. MURRAY.

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"ITs.”—I have often seen it confidently asserted (1) that the word its was used by Shakespeare; (2) that this form was coming into use in his time. I think I can almost disprove the first of these assertions. May I here repeat an analysis I have made elsewhere? In the folio of 1623 (seven years after Shakespeare's death) the word is found once in 'Measure for Measure' and 'Henry VIII.'; twice in the Tempest'; five times in Winter's Tale.' For all these plays the first folio is the earliest extant authority; and the same form is found once more in the Tempest' and 'Winter's Tale' in the folio of 1663. In the single place of '2 Henry VI.' in which this form occurs in the first (1623) and succeeding folios, the quartos (1594 and 1600) read his. In 'Henry V.' and 'Romeo and Juliet' the same word is found for the first time once, in 'Antony and Cleopatra twice, in the folio of 1663; in Lear' for the first time once in the quarto of 1655; in 2 Henry IV.'

for the first time once in the folio of 1685. I have exhausted all the instances of its to be found in Schmidt's 'Lexicon' except two places in 'Hamlet.'

In one of these the word is found first in the quarto of 1637, and in the other first with absolute certainty of date in the same quarto. But in this second place it occurs also in a quarto which Mr. Collier would assign to 1607, but which the Cambridge editors believe to be printed from the quarto of 1611. The evidence of this tell-tale word convinces me that Collier is wrong. The statement, then, that the word is to be found in Shakespeare will only be true so long as Shakespeare is reprinted with the alterations which later hands have foisted upon him. We are not even sure that the word was coming into use in Shakespeare's time, if by Shakespeare's time is meant a period which ended April 23, 1616. In every

copy of any play of his published before that date we find never this possessive, but always his or it instead, and if these editions were in great part surreptitious the probability that a word not in the author's vocabulary would in this way have crept into a text professing to be his is much increased. Yet this word never appears in it until 1623. Will any reader of N. & Q.' help me to the first appearance of this word? I am, at present, inclined to fix its date between very narrow limits. I believe it to be later than the death of Shake

speare, and to lie between 1616 and 1623. The clue which I am here indicating may lead us to the hand which in this respect modernized Shakespeare, and may have wider consequences than I at present venture to suggest. D. C. T.

"LABORARE EST ORARE."-I should be very much obliged if any reader of N. & Q.' would kindly let me know where in St. Augustine's writings occur the oft-quoted words, "Laborare est orare." ALICE.

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[See 6th S. xi. 267, 477; xii. 16, 135, 235.] PLATO ON REVOLUTIONS.-I am accustomed, as I suppose most of us are, to quote Plato as authority for the statement that revolutions occur in states about every 500 years. Bidden just now stand and deliver chapter and verse, I find I can only deliver this: That Sir Thomas Browne, in his Hydriotaphia,' ch. iii., speaks of " great conjunctions and the fatal periods of kingdoms," and that he adds, in a foot-note: "About 500 years— Plato." Now, indexes to Plato-even to Jowett's -are about as bad as they make them"; still, it is odd that no index I have seen points to such a passage as this. Was Sir Thomas-have we all been-quoting from some scholiast? Let the erudition of N. & Q.' determine.

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appear to unite, as he writes me he purchased it from all others "by that scientific accuracy of among a lot of other tracts for fourpence. As I description......which makes the mere reading [of presented my own copy to Her Majesty, his is the them]......a delight to the instructed bibliophile," only one now in private hands. may I ask what is the authority for the statement that the MS. marked No. 467 in Catalogue No. 129, and containing works by Elianus and Onosander is "from the Library of King Mathias Corvini [sic]"?

A. Luiken's Theatre des Martyres' has also been found in the library of a gentleman in Dorsetshire. But, in addition to these, my insertion of the Burgoyne rhymed grant has induced a lady in Somersetshire to send me a parallel one, which, when a child, she heard from her great-grandmother. It runs thus:

I, John of Gaunt,

By this deed do grant
Unto John Burgoyne
And the heir of his loin

The Barton and Fee
Of Umberleigh.

Can any of your readers supplement these instances of a self-acting and very permanent local land registry? Their number is necessarily limited by the exigencies of rhyme. All names cannot be fitted with a jingle, and those which can might not effect the passing of the legal estate sought to be conveyed. For instance, my own name would be useless for a grant in fee, as Whitefield shall be Thorpe's Until he's a corpse,

would only pass a life interest.

W. G. THORpe.

AUSTIN BERNHER. - The following passage occurs in the late Canon Gresley's Forest of Arden,' published by Burns, 1841 :—

"We find Austin Bernher, soon after the accession of Elizabeth, rector of Southam, a renowned preacher, and conforming to the ordinances of the Reformed Church, having been ordained probably by Latimer, at the time of the troubles. He employed his leisure hours in collecting the sermons of his old master, of which he has given to the world a volume, containing many valuable passages, illustrative of the times."-P. 259.

I should be much obliged for any information that would verify the above statements, as the name of Austin Bernher does not appear in any of the registers or records of the parish of Southam. A correspondent tells me that he is referred to under the name of Anstey, in the Privy Council Records,' by Mr. Dasent. Is it at all possible that he may have exercised his ministry at Southam, for some reason or other, under an assumed name? W. S. S.

Dorsington Rectory, Stratford-on-Avon.

"SANS PAVIOURS."-Sans Paviours, or Sands Paviours, is the old name of a street or place in Sheffield. It is said to means "without paviours." I have been told that this name occurs in other English towns, and I should be glad to know in

what towns.

3, Westbourne Road, Sheffield.

S. O. ADDY.

CORVINUS MSS.-As the catalogues issued by Mr. Quaritch are supposed to be distinguished

I have very carefully examined the MS. before the sale, the other day, of the Apponyi Library, to which it formerly belonged, and have failed to discover any internal evidence to prove that the MS. ever belonged to the Corvina Library. I noticed a pencil note in a modern hand on the inside of the cover, but, of course, catalogues aiming at scientific accuracy are not supposed to copy, or even to take notice of, random pencil notes in nineteenth century characters when they refer to the history of a MS. in the fifteenth century. Hence I should be glad to have chapter and verse for the assertion, which neither the pencil note nor Mr. Quaritch's L. L. K. catalogue supplies.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN FRANCE.-In the London Magazine of 1732, p. 157, there is an account of a reformed minister named Durand suffering death by hanging at Montpelier "for holding private assemblies of devotion." Can any of your readers tell us what is the date of the last formed opinions? capital execution in France for teaching the reN. M. & A.

SCHOLA VERLUCIANA.-Where was it?

W. C. B.

'THE TRUE METHODIST; OR, CHRISTIAN IN EARNEST.'-For the last fifteen years or so I have had in my possession a small 4to. MS. of some importance bearing the above title, and consisting of 205 numbered leaves, written on one side only. It commences with the words, "A wise and approved Antient tells us," &c., and is apparently a fair copy for the press made by another hand, but with notes and the words at end, "Revised 6 July, 1755, after reading of Mr. [Rev. James] Hervey's Dialogues on Theron and Aspatio-ch savours strongly of Methodism," in the author's autograph. On a loose inserted sheet, and written probably c. 1829, by the Rev. W. Valentine, Chaplain to London Hospital, is a schedule of "Tracts in MS.," referring to this as "No. 12,' and stating:

"Of the true Methodist, we may form some opinion both of the style and matter, by some letters addressed to Mr. Broughton, a transcript of which I have already Committed to the inspection of the Public...... The Composition alluded to [No. 12] is not I believe in existence. Not any other of these papers [meaning not any of the thirteen others mentioned in the schedule] have fallen into my bands, neither has it been Communicated they now are, in all probability the greater part of them to me with any degree of Certainty in whose possession are either inadvertently lost or carelessly destroyed.".

This MS. appears to have been written by a Church of England minister, in opposition to the teachings of the Wesleys and Whitefield. Can any reader state whether it has been printed, and furnish the name of the author?

W. I. R. V.

"COLIAR - HOLDERS "1 : "WOODICH - SILVER HOLDERS."-These were a certain class of tenants holding under the Manor of Framlingham. What is the meaning of the terms; and what was the character of their service! H. A. W.

JAMES WALES.-Redgrave states that in 1788 and 1789 this artist exhibited portraits, at the Royal Academy. I am anxious to know whose portraits these were. Please reply direct. HAROLD MALET, Colonel.

12, Egerton Gardens. "DAMMER."-In the glossary of the "Waverley Novels " there is the following: "Dammer, stun and confusion by striking on the head." Where has Scott used the word? C. B. MOUNT.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED. —
Critics are like a kind of bird (?) that breed
In wild fig trees, and when they 're grown up feed
On the ripe fruit of the nobler kind.

L. BROUGHTON.

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The fact that Linacre's travels did not extend beyond Italy is no reason for discrediting Hakluyt's statement that Linacre introduced the damask rose into England at the beginning of the sixteenth century; for the rosa damaschina was at that time celebrated, as well as cultivated, in Italy, and Linacre may have brought it thence. In proof of what I say I quote a verse from Berni's Orlando Innamorato,' lib. iii. canto i. st. xxxviii., where, describing an enchantress's pavilion, the poet says:

Pieno è di fiori e rose damaschine.

Berni died in 1536, but the poem must have been composed earlier. Rose damascene, too, are described in Stefano's 'Trattato de gli horti,' published posthumously in a little book with the title 'Di Carlo Stefano le herbe, fiori,' &c., Venice, 1545; see fol. 15 recto.

In the following pretty verses from the fifth book (headed "I Giardini") of Alamanni's La Coltivazione,' printed in 1546, Damascus is coupled for its rosaria with Pæstum*:

Prima a tutte altre sia la lieta è fresca,
Amorosa gentil lodata rosa;

La vermiglia, la bianca, e quella insieme
Ch' in mezzo ai due color l' aurora agguaglia;
Sicchè 'l campo pestano e 'l damasceno

Di bellezza e d' odor non vada innanzi, Bacon's notice of damask roses ('Natural History,' § 659) as "translated" plants, "that have not been known in England above an hundred years, and now are so common," is interesting on account of its concluding words.

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The verse quoted by MR. MOUNT from Shakespeare's sonnet may be compared with another from Autolycus's song in the 'Winter's Tale,' IV. iv. :Gloves as sweet as damask roses. But I think that the two Italian quotations exclude the possibility of "another interpretation," and that we may accept without question what Thomas Fuller writes ('Pisgah Sight,' bk. iv. ch. i. p. 9, ed. 1650):—

"Modern Damascus is a beautifull city. The first Damask-rose had its root here, and name hence. So all Damask silk, linen, poulder, and plumbes called Damascens."

The writer of the article "Rosa in Rees's 'Cyclopædia' observes with respect to the Rosa damascena : Lại

"Perhaps it may be what is reported to have been brought from Syria by a Comte de Brie, at his return from the crusades, of which the abbé Rozier speaks in his Cours complet d'Agriculture; though that author's description accords with the common R. gallica, and not with our damascena, and he calls it moreover R. provincialis......We cite Rozier to shew that some particular sort of Rose was brought from Syria to France."

He adds, however, that the Rosa moschata," which is certainly an oriental Rose," has been termed damascena by many old authors. F. ADAMS. 105, Albany Road, S.E.

Canon Ellacombe (Plant-Lore of Shakspeare,' p. 252) gives Hakluyt's assertion as authority for the introduction of this rose from Damascus, but adds the following note :

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"The Damask Rose was imported into England at an earlier date, but probably only as a drug. It is mentioned in a Bill of Medicynes furnished for the use of Edward I., 1306-7: "Item pro aqua rosata de Damasc, lb. xl. iiiili."-Archæological Journal, vol. xiv. p. 271." It does not follow from the above that damask roses were themselves introduced into England at that time. The water only may have been im ported.

Dodoncus and Gerarde both have something upon this subject; but they do not appear to agree

* See Virgil, Georg,,' iv. 119.

as to the identity of the damask rose. Dodonaeus says (Lyte's translation, p. 655):—

"The first kind of garden Roses [previously described as "the White Rose......of colour white, with divers yellow heares or threddes in the middle"] is called in Italy Rosa Damascena, in this Countrie, Rosa alba." Gerarde describes the damask rose as differing from the white rose

"in the colour and smell of the flours: for these are of a pale red colour, of a more pleasant smel, and fitter for meat and medicine";

and says, moreover (p. 1262):—

"The Damaske Rose is called of the Italians Rosa Incarnata......in French of some, Melesia: the Rose of Melaxo, a city of Asia, from whence some have thought it was first brought into those parts of Europe."

C. C. B.

Dr. Johnson, in his 'Dictionary,' gives two meanings to damask :

"1. Linen or silk woven in a manner invented at Damascus, with a texture by which part has regular figures.

"2. Of the colour of the rose so called, a red rose."

Shakspeare, in addition to the quotation given, also uses it in the latter sense in 'Twelfth Night "But let concealment, like a worm i' th' bud, feed on her damask cheek."-Act II. sc. iv.

Cowper, in 'Paradise Lost,' book iv. :—

On the soft downy bank damask'd with flowers, There is a damask rose, bearing the names of York and Lancaster, supposed to have existed at the time of the reconciliation of the rival roses of the houses of York and Lancaster.

From town to town, from tower to tower,
The red rose is a gladsome flower;

Her thirty years of winter past,

The red rose is revived at last:

She lifts her head for endless Spring,

For everlasting blossoming;

Both roses flourish, red and white,

In love and sisterly delight.

The two that were at strife are blended,
And all old sorrows now are ended;
Joy! joy to both! but most to her
Who is the flower of Lancaster !-Wordsworth.
EVERARD HOME COLEMAN.

71, Brecknock Road,

of the word to express colour, nothing is more common in the earlier ages, since we have "her damask cheek," by Shakespeare; "her damask late, now changed to purest white," by Fairfax; the "damaske meadowes," by Corbet; " mingled metal damask'd o'er with gold," by Dryden; "damasking the ground with flowers," by Fenton; and "paintyng and damaskyng of their bodies," by Speed. JNO. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.

Barnes Common.

MEDIEVAL DIPTYCHS OF THE DECALOGUE (8th S. iii. 8, 116).—ASTARTE refers to Archæologia, vol. xlv. p. 119, as evidence "of the Ten Commandments being exhibited in an English church

in 1488."

The passage to which reference is made occurs in a very important paper by Dr. Freshfield on the 'Parish Books of St. Margaret, Lothbury, St. Christopher-le-Stocks, and St. Bartholomew-bythe-Exchange,' three adjacent parishes in the City of London. The appendix to the paper contains a list of the "Ornaments of the Church of St. Christopher, 1488"; and amongst these

"Ther be xii Tables in the Churche the xxvi daie of the moneth of March, Ao. 88; of the whiche is oon of the x comanndements, a nother hanging undre Oure Lady of Pitie with dyvers good prayers of Oure Lady and the sauter of charite, and a nother of seynt Gregorie's Pitie of James Wellis giftie, a nother of Seynt Crasynns, a nother of Seynt Kateryn of dyvers_good prayers, a nother of Seynt Anne, a nother of Seynt Jamys, and iij of Seynt Christofre, and ij of Seynt Sebestian."

I am afraid that ASTARTE is not warranted in concluding that the table containing the Ten Commandments was a diptych. It may have been.

It is no more than might have been expected that the church dedicated to St. Christopher should have three tables or pictures of that saint. But who was St. Crasynns? The name reminded me at once of St. Grasinus, who forms the subject of a query at p. 107. Can they be one and the same person?

In the index to 'Les Petits Bollandistes' I find "S. Gérasine, Gerasina, tante de S. Ursule, honorée à Trèves et à Cologne, 12 fevrier." But do not find, as I had hoped, a St. Gerasinus. Is it possible that Crasynns may represent Crescens ? Dr. Freshfield remarks upon "the conservative manner in which our first reformers reformed the Church," and adds that "it is not unlikely that an investigation would show that in ordering the Ten Commandments to be hung up in Churcher, they were perpetuating an existing custom" (p. 61).

Sir Francis Bacon says, in his 'Essay on Gar-I dening,' "Damask-roses have not been known in England above one hundred years, and now are so common," which statement justifies Hakluyt as to their introduction into this country. Then, as regards Linacre, it seems almost certain that he it was who introduced them to us, only, in most references to him and them, he is said to have done so from southern Europe about 1495. On the other hand, Paxton gives the damascena rose as coming from Syria in 1573, which, if he means the damask, must be wrong, considering that Bacon was, when talking of one hundred years,' dating back from about 1600. As regards the use

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W. SPARROW SIMPSON.

REINTERMENT OF WILLIAM HARVEY (6th S. viii. 321).-Permit me-as present on this memorable occasion, although taking no part in the ceremony, as having doubtless expended more time and money than any other individual in

researches into the history of the family, and as the one to whom the discovery of almost every new fact in the life of Harvey brought to light during the last twenty-six years or so was originally due to make a few remarks. Dr. Baldwin Hamey was wrong in stating ('Bustorum Aliquot Reliquiæ,' MS. penes Coll. Phys. Lond.) that Harvey died "tertio Idus Junii" (=June 11), the true date, as given on the coffin and monument at Hempstead, being June 3. Whether the burial took place, or, in other words, the coffin was actually deposited in the vault on the 26th of that month is doubtful; more probably (considering the distance from London) it was on the 27th or 28th. The church register, dating from 1664, does not help to determine the question. Indeed, although apparently wanting none of the leaves, it fails to record no fewer than five of the Harvey burials at Hempstead during the period which it comprises. In the inner and outer of the family Vaults (communicating) there were, at the time of my visitation, fifty-one (not forty-six*) coffins, including that of Harvey, who was the third member buried there. Those desiring further information respecting this interesting family, from original sources, would do well to consult my two communications of some years since to Misc. Gen. et Her. on the subject; or, better still, my forthcoming 'Genealogical History of the Family of Harvey of Folkestone,' &c. W. I. R. V.

For

"DE MORTUIS NIL NISI BONUM" (8th S. iii. 28). -I am not able to return a satisfactory answer to MR. BIRKBECK TERRY's kind appeal. The sentiment occurs very early, but the exact expression of it in Latin I cannot trace to its source. the sentiment there is in Homer, Od.,' x. 412:Ουχ ὁσίη κταμένοισιν ἐπ ̓ ἀνδράσιν ἐυχετάασθαι. Similar to which, and referred to by commentators on the line, is that of Archilochus, in Clem. Alex., 'Stromateis,' vi. :—

ου γὰρ ἐσθλὰ κατθανοῦσι κερτομεῖν ἐπ' ἀνδράσι. Again, there is, among the 'Excerpta' of Grotius:

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θνητὸς πεφευκὼς μὴ γέλα τεθνηκότα; Then there is the law of Solon, to which Demosthenes refers in his Oration against Leptines (488, 21), μὴ λέγειν κακῶς τὸν τεθνεῶτα (cf. Plutarch's Life of Solon'). So also the sentence of Chilon, c. 590 A. C., TOV TETEAλEUTÝKоTα μn κακολόγει, ἀλλὰ μακάριζε. But there is no need to enumerate such passages, for there is a collection from Greek writers in Stobæus, 'Serm.,' cclxxix., p. 900, Francof., 1581, "In defunctos non exercendam esse contumeliam." All that Büchmann, in the last issue, 1892, of his 'Geflügelte Wörte,'

This number appears to be thus miscalculated: Coffins in vault with inscriptions of prior date to commencement of church register, 5; burials of the family recorded in such register, 41; total, 46.

says of the Latin form is, that the phrase "De mortuis nil nisi bene" is "probably a translation" of the sentiment of Chilon.

I have a reference in my note-book, which I cannot at the moment verify, for want of a copy of Camerarius: "De mortuis nil nisi bonum." Suidas e Pausania de statua Niconis Thasii. Camerarius, 'Opera Subseciva,' cent. i. cap. iii. p. 45." The statue of Nicon, a famous victor in the games, fell and killed some one who struck it. It is possible that Camerarius, in speaking of this, may have made use of the phrase. ED. MARSHALL.

1672), "Mortuis non conviciandum," followed by I find in 'Parœmiologia Anglo-Latina' (London, a contraction of the author's name, which I take to mean Erasmus. ALFRED CHAS. JONAS, F.R.H.S.

TOM LEGGE (8th S. iii. 23). According to Watt's 'Bibliotheca Britannica,' the date of publication of 'Low Life; or, one half of the World knows not how the other lives' (Lond., Legg, 8vo. 18.), was 1752. There was a Thomas Legge, who published a book entitled 'Law of Outlawry,' &c., in 1779, but he is hardly likely to be the Tom Legge in question. J. F. MANSERGH. Liverpool.

ABBOTSFORD (8th S. iii. 68).—I remember, in or about the year 1851, my late friend John Richard Walbran, the distinguished Ripon antiquary, speaking of Abbotsford as a romance in stone and lime," and when he did so attributing the phrase to Washington Irving. A YORKSHIREMAN.

"CATTLE-CREEP" (8th S. ii. 448, 538).-This word is well enough known hereabouts in the sense given by L. L. K, a low arch, just high enough to enable cattle to pass under a railway, but, somewhat to my astonishment, I found it applied the other day to a sort of gangway designed to enable cattle to pass over a hutch railway which is to be worked by an endless rope. Can either man or beast creep over an obstacle? We would generally sider creep over wrong. say creep under or creep along, but are apt to conI see the first definition of creep, in Webster, is “To move along the ground or on any other surface as a worm or reptile does, to move as a child does on its hands and knees, to crawl." Now, if either worm, reptile, or child met with an obstacle that it could not creep under, would it not creep over it? So a cattle-creep over a railway may be right enough, after all. It is rather a nice question. J. B. FLEMING.

PORTRAITS OF ROBERT BURNS (8th S. ii. 428; iii. 29, 95).-EFFIGIES will doubtless admit that Robert Chambers was a conscientious and very careful compiler, and that he rigidly excluded from his life of the poet all statements that

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