Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853

"Sed res docuit, id verum esse, quad in carminibus Appius ait, fabrum suæ esse quemque fortunæ."

The Appius alluded to is Appius Claudius the Censor.

Bacon proceeds to say:

"This conceit or position [viz. 'Faber quisque,' &c.], if it be too much declared and professed, hath been thought a thing impolitic and unlucky, as was observed in Timotheus the Athenian, who, having done many great services to the estate in his government, and giving an account thereof to the people, as the manner was, did conclude every particular with this clause, 'And in this Fortune had no part.' And it came so to pass, that he never prospered in anything he took in hand afterwards."

The anecdote is as follows:—Timotheus had been ridiculed by the comic poets, on account of the small share which his own management had had in his successes. A satirical painting had likewise been made, in which he was represented sleeping, while Fortune stood over him, and drew the cities into his net. (See Plutarch, Reg. et Imp. Apophth., vol. ii. p. 42., ed. Tauchnitz; Ælian, V. H. xiii. 42.) On one occasion, however, having returned from a successful expedition, he remarked to the Athenians, in allusion to the previous sarcasms, that in this campaign at least Fortune had no share. Plutarch, who relates the latter anecdote in his Life of Sylla, c. 6., proceeds to say, that this boast gave so much offence to the deity, that he never afterwards prospered in any of his enterprises. His reverse of luck, in consequence of his vainglorious language against Fortune, is also alluded to by Dio Chrysost. Orat., lxiv. § 19., edit. Emper. It will be observed that Plutarch refers the saying of Timotheus to a single expedition; whereas 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.

    L.

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.)

    C. Forbes.

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 Cork[1 - This geographical morceau was nearly equalled by a scribe in the Illustrated London News, who stated that her Gracious Majesty's steam-yacht, with its royal freight and attendant squadron, when coasting round from Cork to Dublin in the year 1849, had entered Tramore Bay, and thence steamed up to Passage in the Waterford Harbour! A truly royal road to safety; and one that, did it exist, would have saved many a gallant crew and ship, which have met their fate within the landlocked, but ironbound and shelterless, jaws of Tramore Bay.] 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.

    James Graves.

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.

    S. R. P.

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."

    W. Sparrow Simpson, B.A.

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.

    Abhba.

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 thinks that "it is extremely singular that the mistake should have remained so long uncorrected;" and he intimates that they who have found any meaning in checks, have done so only because, through ignorance, they could find no meaning in ethics.

Hence it becomes necessary for those who do find a meaning in checks, to defend that meaning; and hence I undertake to answer Mr. Collier's question.

Aristotle's checks are those moral adjustments that form the distinguishing feature of his philosophy.

They are the eyes of reason, whereby he would teach man to avoid divergence from the straight path of happiness.

They are his moderators, his mediocrities, his metriopathics.

They are his philosophical steering-marks, his moral guiding-lines, whereby the passions are to be kept in the via media; as much removed from total abnegation on the one hand, as from immoderate indulgence on the other.

Virtue, according to Aristotle, consists in checked or adjusted propensities. Our passions are not in themselves evil, except when unchecked by reason. And inasmuch as we may overeat, or underfeed ourselves (the check being temperance), so may we suffer our other propensities to deviate from the juste milieu, either in the direction of indulgence or of privation.

The art of adjusting the passions requires an apprenticeship to virtue. The end to be attained is the establishment of good habits. These good habits, like any other skill, can only be attained by practice. Therefore the practice of virtue is the education of the passions.

Ethics is the doctrine of habits; but habits may be good or bad. When good, they constitute virtue; when bad, licentiousness.

The doctrine of checks is that branch of ethics which teaches moral adjustment and restraint.

Therefore checks and licentiousness are in better antithesis to each other, than ethics can be to either, because ethics includes both.

The Aristotelian idea of adjustment, rather than denial, of the passions, is well illustrated in the following passage from Plutarch's Morall Vertue, by Philemon Holland, a contemporary of Shakspeare:

"For neither do they shed and spill the wine upon the floure who are afraide to be drunke, but delay the same with water: nor those who feare the violence of a passion, do take it quite away, but rather temper and qualifie the same: like as folke use to breake horses and oxen from their flinging out with their heeles, their stiffenes and curstnes of the head, and stubburnes in receiving the bridle or the yoke, but do not restraine them of other motions of going about their worke and doing their deede. And even so, verily, reason maketh good use of these passions, when they be well tamed, and, as it were, brought to hand: without overweakening or rooting out cleane that parte of the soule which is made for to second reason and do it good service.... Whereas let passions be rid cleane away (if that were possible to be done), our reason will be found in many things more dull and idle: like as the pilot and master of a ship hath little to do if the winde be laid and no gale at all stirring … as if to the discourse of reason the gods had adjoined passion as a pricke to incite, and a chariot to set it forward."

Again, in describing the "Meanes," he says—