Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853. Various
Bacon multiplies it, by extending it over a series of acts.
P. 172. "Cicero reporteth that it was then in use for senators that had name and opinion for general wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, Lælius, and many others, to walk at certain hours in the Place," &c.
The passage alluded to is De Orat., iii. 83. The persons there named are Sex. Ælius, Manius Manilius, P. Crassus, Tib. Coruncanius, and Scipio.
P. 179. "We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to the ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief, and distrust."
The precept adverted to is the verse of Epicharmus:
"νᾶφε καὶ μέμνασ' ἀπιστεῖν· ἄρθρα ταῦτα τῶν φρενῶν."
P. 180. "Fraus sibi in parvis fidem præstruit, ut majore emolumento fallat."
Query, Where does this passage occur, as well as the expression "alimenta socordiæ," which Demosthenes, according to Bacon, applies to small favours.
ERECTION OF FORTRESS AT MICHNEE AND PYLOS
Mr. Dartnell, Surgeon of H. M. 53rd regiment, gives the following account of the building of a fort which has lately been erected at Michnee to check the incursions of the Momunds into the Peshawur Valley:
"There was little to be done, except to build a fort, and here the officers had to superintend and direct the working parties which were daily sent out.... Laborers from far and near, Cashmerees, Caboolees, men from the Hindoo Koosh, Afreedees, Khyberees, &c., all working together with hearty goodwill, and a sort of good-humoured rivalry.... It is only when working by contract, however, that the Cashmeree displays his full physical powers, and it is then perfectly refreshing, in such a physically relaxing and take-the-world-as-it-goes sort of a country as this, to observe him.... And then to see him carry a burden! On his head? No. On his back? Yes, but after a fashion of his own, perfectly natural and entirely independent of basket, or receptacle of any kind in which to place it. I have now in my garden some half-dozen of these labourers at work, removing immense masses of clay, which are nearly as hard as flint, and how do they manage? My friend Jumah Khan reverts his arms, and clasping his hands together behind his back, receives the pyramidal load, which generally overtops his head, and thus he conveys it to its destination," &c.—Colburn's United Service Magazine, December, 1852, pp. 514, 515.
Thucydides tells us that as soon as the crews of the Athenian ships, weatherbound at Pylos in the spring of the year B.C. 425, had made up their minds to kill time by fortifying their harbour of refuge,—
"They took the work in hand, and plied it briskly.... The mud that was anywhere requisite, for want of vessels, they carried on their shoulders, bending forwards as much as possible, that it might have room to stick on, and holding it up with both hands clasped fast behind that it might not slide down."—Book iv. chap. 4. (Smith's Translation.)
Temple.
HOVEDEN'S ANNALS—BOHN'S "ANTIQUARIAN LIBRARY."
Considering the cheap issue of all standard works of reference a great boon to the general student, I was predisposed to welcome heartily Mr. Bohn's Antiquarian Library. If, however, cheapness be accompanied by incorrectness, the promised boon I conceive to be worthless; even one or two glaring errors rendering the student distrustful of the entire series. I was led to form the first of these conclusions on receiving vol. i. of a translation of the Annals of Roger de Hoveden, by Henry T. Riley, Esq., barrister-at-law; who introduces the work by a flourish of trumpets in the Preface, on the multifarious errors of the London and Frankfort editions, and the labour taken to correct his own; to the second by observing, whilst cutting the leaves, the following glaring errors, put forward too as corrections:—Vol. i. p. 350., Henry II. is stated by the Annalist to have landed in Ireland, A.D. 1172, "at a place which is called Croch, distant eight miles from the city of Waterford." Here Mr. Riley, with perfect gravity, suggests Cork1 as the true reading!! Can it be, that a barrister-at-law, with an ominously Irish-sounding name, is ignorant that the city of Cork is somewhat more distant than eight miles from the urbs intacta, as Waterford loves to call herself? The fact is, however, that Hoveden and his former editors were nearly correct: on old maps of the harbour of Waterford, Crook Castle is laid down inside Creden Head, on the Waterford side of the harbour; and Crook is still the name of a place at the point indicated, somewhat more however than eight miles from Waterford.
Again, at p. 351. occurs Hoveden's well-known and valuable enumeration of the Irish episcopal sees at the same period, of which Mr. Riley observes: "Nearly all these are mis-spelt … they are in a state of almost hopeless confusion." And then, to make confusion worse confounded, his note on the Bishop of Ossory (p. 352.) says "In the text, 'Erupolensis' is perhaps a mistake for 'Ossoriensis.'" Now, Erupolensis happens to be a correct alias of Ossoriensis: the former characterising the diocese from Kilkenny, the cathedral city, which being seated on the Nore, or Neor—Hibernicè Eoir, Latinè Erus, was sometimes called Erupolis—the latter from the territory with which the see was and is co-extensive, the ancient kingdom of Ossory.
How many more errors there may be in the first volume of the work, I cannot say: but, at all events, what the reader has to complain of is, not that the translator was unable to tell all about "Croch" and "Erupolis," but that, not knowing, he has made matters worse by his hardy elucidations. Truly, at this rate, it were better that no cheap edition of Hoveden were vouchsafed to the public.
Kilkenny.
FOLK LORE
Raven Superstition.—On a recent occasion, at an ordinary meeting of the guardians of the poor, an application was made by the relieving officer on behalf of a single woman residing in the church village at Altarnun. The cause of seeking relief was stated to be "grief," and on asking for an explanation, the officer stated that the applicant's inability to work was owing to depressed spirits, produced by the flight of a croaking raven over her dwelling on the morning of his visit to the village. The pauper was by this circumstance, in connexion with its well-known ominous character, actually frightened into a state of wretched nervous depression, which induced physical want.
African Folk Lore.—The following curious piece of folk lore is quoted from an extract in The Critic (of April 1, 1853, p. 172.), in the course of a review of Richardson's Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa, &c.:
"To avert the evil eye from the gardens, the people (of Mourzak) put up the head of an ass, or some portion of the bones of that animal. The same superstition prevails in all the oases that stud the north of Africa, from Egypt to the Atlantic, but the people are unwilling to explain what especial virtue there exists in an ass's skull."
Funeral Custom.—In some parts (I believe) of Yorkshire, and perhaps elsewhere, it is customary to send, immediately after a death, a paper bag of biscuits, and a card with the name, &c. of the deceased, to his friends, be they many or few. Can any of your readers explain the matter? I have more than once seen the card, but not the biscuits.
SHAKSPEARE READINGS, NO. VII
"What are 'Aristotle's checks?'"
This is the question that Mr. Collier proposed in support of the alteration of checks into ethics, at p. 144. of his Notes and Emendations. He terms checks "an absurd blunder," and in the preface he again introduces it, passing upon it the same unqualified sentence of excommunication, as upon "bosom multiplied," viz. "it can never be repeated." In this opinion he is backed by most of the public scribes of the day, especially by the critic of the Gentleman's Magazine for April, who declares "we should be very sorry to have to discover what the editors have understood by the checks of Aristotle." Furthermore, this critic
This geographical