Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850. Various
boast of having produced the first edition, A.D. 1475/7; and it may be reasonably asserted, and an examination of the book will abundantly strengthen the idea, that the earliest impression is that which contains this colophon, in which I would dwell upon the word "editionem" (well known to the initiated): "Explicit quintus ac totus formicarii liber uxta editionem fratris Iohannis Nider," &c., "Impressum Auguste per Anthonium Sorg."
10. In what place and year was Wilhelmi Summa Viciorum first printed? Fabricius and Cave are certainly mistaken when they say Colon. 1479. In the volume, which I maintain to be of greater antiquity, the letters c and t, s and t, are curiously united, and the commencement of it is: "Incipit summa viciorum seu tractatus moral' edita [sic] a fratre vilhelmo episcopo lugdunĕs. ordinsq. fratrû predicator." The description given by Quetif and Echard (i. 132.) of the primary impression of Perault's book only makes a bibliomaniac more anxious for information about it: "in Inc. typ. absque loco anno et nomine typographi, sine numeris reclamat. et majusculis."
11. Was Panormitan's Lectura super primo Decretalium indubitably issued at Venice, prior to the 1st of April, 1473? and if so, does it contain in the colophon these lines by Zovenzonius, which I transcribe from a noble copy bearing this date?
"Abbatis pars prima notis que fulget aliemis
Est vindelini pressa labore mei:
Cuius ego ingenium de vertice palladis ortum
Crediderim. veniam tu mihi spira dabis."
12. Is it not unquestionable that Heroldt's Promptuarium Exemplorum was published at least as early as his Sermones? The type in both works is clearly identical, and the imprint in the latter, at the end of Serm. cxxxvi., vol. ii., is Colon. 1474, an edition unknown to very nearly all bibliographers. For instance, Panzer and Denis commence with that of Rostock, in 1476; Laire with that of Cologne, 1478; and Maittaire with that of Nuremberg, in 1480. Different statements have been made as to the precise period when this humble-minded writer lived. Altamura (Bibl. Domin., pp. 147. 500.) places him in the year 1400. Quetif and Echard (i. 762.), Fabricius and Mansi (Bibl. Med. et inf. Latin.), prefer 1418, on the unstable ground of a testimony supposed to have proceeded from the author himself; for whatever confusion or depravation may have been introduced into subsequent impressions, the editio princeps, of which I have spoken, does not present to our view the alleged passage, viz., "à Christo autem transacti sunt millequadringenti decem et octo anni," but most plainly, "M.cccc. & liij. anni." (Serm. lxxxv., tom. ii.) To this same "Discipulus" Oudin (iii. 2654.), and Gerius in the Appendix to Cave (p. 187.), attribute the Speculorum Exemplorum, respecting which I have before proposed a Query; but I am convinced that they have confounded the Speculum with the Promptuarium. The former was first printed at Deventer, A.D. 1481, and the compiler of it enters upon his prologue in the following striking style: "Impressoria arte jamdudum longe lateque per orbem diffusa, multiplicatisque libris quarumcunque fere materiarum," &c. He then expresses his surprise at the want of a good collection of Exempla; and why should we determine without evidence that he must have been Heroldus?
FAIRFAX'S TASSO
In a copy of Fairfax's Godfrey of Bulloigne, ed. 1600 (the first), which I possess, there occurs a very curious variorum reading of the first stanza of the first book. The stanza, as it is given by Mr. Knight in his excellent modern editions, reads thus:
"The sacred armies and the godly knight,
That the great sepulchre of Christ did free,
I sing; much wrought his valour and foresight,
And in that glorious war much suffer'd he;
In vain 'gainst him did hell oppose her might,
In vain the Turks and Morians armed be;
His soldiers wild, to brawls and mutines prest,
Reduced he to peace, so heaven him blest."
By holding up the leaf of my copy to the light, it is easy to see that the stanza stood originally as given above, but a cancel slip printed in precisely the same type as the rest of the book gives the following elegant variation:
"I sing the warre made in the Holy Land,
And the Great Chiefe that Christ's great tombe did free:
Much wrought he with his wit, much with his hand,
Much in that braue atchieument suffred hee:
In vaine doth hell that Man of God withstand,
In vaine the worlds great princes armed bee;
For heau'n him fauour'd; and he brought againe
Vnder one standard all his scatt'red traine."
Queries.—1. Does the above variation occur in any or many other copies of the edition of 1600?
2. Which reading is followed in the second old edition?
Demerary, September 11. 1850.
MINOR QUERIES
Jeremy Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium.—Book I. chap. 2. Rule 8. § 14.—
"If he (the judge) see a stone thrown at his brother judge, as happened at Ludlow, not many years since."
(The first ed. was published in 1660). Does any other contemporary writer mention this circumstance? or is there any published register of the assizes of that time?
Ibid. Chap. 2. Rule 3. § 32.—
"The filthy gingran."
Apparently a drug or herb. Can it be identified, or its etymology pointed out?
Ibid. §. 50.—
"That a virgin should conceive is so possible to God's power, that it is possible in nature, say the Arabians."
Can authority for this be cited from the ancient Arabic writers?
First Earl of Roscommon.—Can you or any of your correspondents put me on any plan by which I may obtain some information on the following subject? James Dillon, first Earl of Roscommon, married Helen, daughter of Sir Christopher Barnwell, by whom he had seven sons and six daughters; their names were Robert, Lucas, Thomas, Christopher, George, John, Patrick. Robert succeeded his father in 1641, and of his descendants and those of Lucas and Patrick I have some accounts; but what I want to know is, who are the descendants of Thomas (particularly), or of any of the other three sons?
Lodge, in his Peerage, very kindly kills all the sons, Patrick included; but it appears that he did not depart this life until he had left issue, from whom the late Earl had his origin. If Lodge is thus wrong in one case, he may be in others, and I have reason to believe that Thomas left a son settled in a place in Ireland called Portlick.
St. Cuthbert.—The body of St. Cuthbert, as is well known, had many wanderings before it found a magnificent resting-place at Durham. Now, in an anonymous History of the Cathedral Church of Durham, without date, we have a very particular account of the defacement of the shrine of St. Cuthbert, in the reign of Henry VIII. The body was found "lying whole, uncorrupt, with his face bare, and his beard as of a fortnight's growth, with all the vestments about him as he accustomed to say mass withal." The vestments are described as being "fresh, safe, and not consumed." The visitors "commanded him to be carried into the Revestry, till the king's pleasure concerning him was further known; and upon the receipt thereof the prior and monks buried him in the ground under the place where his shrine was exalted." Now, there is a tradition of the Benedictines (of whose monastery the cathedral was part) that on the accession of Elizabeth the monks, who were apprehensive of further violence, removed the body in the night-time from the place where it had been buried to some other part of the building. This spot is known only to three persons, brothers of the order; and it is said that there are three persons who have this knowledge now, as communicated from previous generations.
But