Notes and Queries, Number 42, August 17, 1850

4. Eine schöne lustige Comödia von Jemand und Niemand.

7. Tragödia von Julio und Hippolyto.

8. Eine sehr klägliche Tragödia von Tito Andromico und hoffertigen Kayserinn, darinnen denkwürdigen Actiones zu befinden.

9. Ein lustig Pickelherings-Spiel von der schönen Mario und alten Hanrey.

The second volume was published in 1630, under the title Lieberkampff, oder ander Theil der Englischen Comödien: it contains 8 plays. The 1st is the 21st of the collection of 1670, with this addition:

Die Personen der Lustspiels sind: 1. Venus, die stumme Person; 2. Cupido; 3. Jucunda, Jungfraw; 4. Floretus, Liebhaber; 5. Balendus, Betrieger; 6. Corcillana, Kuplerin; 7. Hans Worst.

The 2d is the 20th of the same collection, "mit 9 Personen, worunter die lustige Person Schräm heisst."

3. Comoedia von Prob getrewer Lieb, mit 11 Personen, worunter auch eine allegorische, der Traum ist.

The 4th is the 18th, "mit 9 Personen, worunter die lustige Schampilasche Lean Potage heisst."

The four remaining are operas, without particular titles.

Ebert (Bibliogr. Lexicon, N. 5064.), speaking of these collections, says, "the plays they are composed of are not translations from the English," but, "as it appears," German original works.

I am at a loss to understand how that bibliographer, generally so exact, did not recognise at least five comedies of Molière. MR. BOLTON CORNEY will, I wish and hope, point out the originals—English, Italian, and, I suppose, Spanish—of some others.

If you think proper to make use of the above, I entreat you, for the sake of your readers, to correct my bad English, and to consider my communication only as a token of the gratification I have found in your amusing and useful "NOTES AND QUERIES."

    D.L.

Ancien Membre de la Société des Bibliophiles.

Béthune, July 31. 1850.

P.S.—The Query (Vol. i., p. 185.) concerning the name of the Alost, Louvain, and Antwerp printer, Martens or Mertens, is settled in the note, p. 68., of Recherches sur la Vie et les Editions de Thierry Martens (Martinus, Martens), par J. De Gand, 8vo. Alost, 1845. I am ready to send a copy of the note if it is required.

[We have also received a reply to MR. CORNEY'S Query from MR. ASHER of Berlin, who refers for particulars of this interesting collection to Tieck's Preface to his Alt-Deutsche Theater. We propose shortly returning to the curious fact of English comedians performing in Germany at the close of the sixteenth and commencement of the seventeenth centuries: a subject which has several times been discussed and illustrated in the columns of our valuable contemporary The Athenæum.]

ACHILLES AND THE TORTOISE

(Vol. ii., p. 154.)

This paradox, whilst one of the oldest on record (being attributed by Aristotle to Zeus Eleates, B.C. 500), is one of the most perplexing, upon first presentation to the mind, that can be selected from the most ample list. Its professed object was to disprove the phenomenon of motion; but its real one, to embarrass an opponent. It has always attracted the attention of logicians; and even to them it has often proved embarrassing enough. The difficulty does not lie in proving that the conclusion is absurd, but in showing where the fallacy lies. From not knowing the precise kind of information required by [Greek: Idiotaes], I am unwilling to trespass on your valuable space by any irrelevant discussion, and confine myself to copying a very judicious note from Dr. Whateley's Logic, 9th edit. p. 373.

"This is one of the sophistical puzzles noticed by Aldrich, but he is not happy in his attempt at a solution. He proposes to remove the difficulty by demonstrating that in a certain given time, Achilles would overtake the tortoise; as if any one had ever doubted that. The very problem proposed, is to surmount the difficulty of a seeming demonstration of a thing palpably impossible; to show that it is palpably impossible, is no solution of the problem.

"I have heard the present example adduced as a proof that the pretensions of logic are futile, since (it was said) the most perfect logical demonstration may lead from true premises to an absurd conclusion. The reverse is the truth; the example before us furnishes a confirmation of the utility of an acquaintance with the syllogistic form, in which form the pretended demonstration in question cannot be exhibited. An attempt to do so will evince the utter want of connection between the premises and the conclusion."

What the Archbishop says is true, and it disposes of the question as one of "Formal Logic:" but yet the form of the sophism is so plausible, that it imposes with equal force on the "common sense" of all those who repose their conclusions upon the operations of that faculty. With them a different procedure is necessary; and I suspect that if any one of the most obstinate advocates of the sufficiency of common sense for the "balancing of evidence" were to attempt the explanation of a hundred fallacies that could be presented to him, he would be compelled to admit that a more powerful and a more accurate machine would be of advantage to him in accomplishing his task. This machine the syllogism supplies.

The discussion of Gregory St. Vincent will be found at pages 101-3. of his Opus Geometricum, Antw., 1647 fol. The principle is the same as that which Aldrich afterwards gave, as above referred to by Dr. Whateley. I can only speak from memory of the discussion of Leibnitz, not having his works at hand; but I am clear in this, that his principle again is the same. [Greek: Idiotaes] is in error, however, in calling St. Vincent's "a geometrical treatment" of it. He indeed uses lines to represent the spaces passed over; and their discussion occurs in a chapter on what is universally (but very absurdly) called "geometrical proportion." It is yet no more geometrical than our school-day problem of the basket and the hundred eggs in Francis Walkinghame. Mere names do not bestow character, however much philosophers as well as legislators may think so. All attempts of the kind have been, and must be, purely numerical.

    T.S.D.

Shooter's Hill, August 3.

Achilles and the Tortoise.—Your correspondent will find references in the article "Zeno (of Elea)" in the Penny Cyclopædia. For Gregory St. Vincent's treatment of the problem, see his Quadratara Circuli, Antwerp, 1647, folio, p. 101., or let it alone. I suspect that the second is the better reference. Zeno's paradox is best stated, without either Achilles or tortoise, as follows:—No one can go a mile; for he must go over the first half, then over half the remaining half, then over half the remaining quarter; and so on for ever. Many books of logic, and many of algebra, give the answer to those who cannot find it.

    M.

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES

"Barum" and "Sarum" (Vol. ii., p. 21.)—The formation of the first of these words has not yet been accounted for. I must premise my attempt to supply an explanation by admitting that I was not aware it was in common use as a contraction for Barnstaple. I think it will be found that the contracted form of that name is more usually "Berdest," "Barnst". In trying further to contract the word, the two last letters would be omitted, and it would then be "Barñ", with the circumflex showing the omission of several letters. Having reduced it to this state, an illiterate clerk would easily misread the circumflex for the plain stroke "-," expressing merely the omission of the letter "m", and, perhaps ignorant of the name intended, think it as well to write at full length "Barum."

    J. Br.

Countess of Desmond (Vol. ii., p. 153.)—It is stated in Turner's Sacred History, vol. iii. p. 283., that the Countess of Desmond died in 1612, aged 145. This is, I presume, the correct date of her decease, and not 1626 as mentioned by your querist K.; for in Lord Bacon's History of Life and Death, originally published in 1623, her death is thus alluded to:—

"The Irish, especially the Wild Irish, even at this day, live very long. Certainly they report that within these few years the Countess of Desmond lived to a hundred and forty years of age, and bred teeth three times."

The manner of her death is recorded by Mr. Crofton Croker, in his agreeable volume of Researches in the South of Ireland, 4to. London, 1824. Speaking of Drumana, on the Blackwater, a little above Youghall, as the "reputed birth-place of the long-lived Countess of Desmond," he says,—

"In this part of the country, her death is attributed to a fall whilst in the act of picking an apple from a tree in an orchard at Drumana."

In the Olla Podrida, a volume of miscellanies, printed for private distribution, by Mr. Sainthill of Cork, there is a portrait of the "old countess," from an etching made by Mr. Crofton Croker (if I mistake not) in his early days.

    J.M.B.

Michael Servetus, alias Reves.—The manuscript, the character and fate of which S.H. (Vol. ii., p. 153.) is anxious to investigate, contained books iii.-vii., inclusive, of the work of Servetus De Trinitate; and as these fragments differed somewhat from the printed text, they were probably the first, or an early, draft (not necessarily in the author's handwriting) of part of the Christianismi Restitutio. The purchaser of this MS., at the sale of Du Fay's library in Paris in the year 1725, was the Count de Hoym, ambassador to France from Poland. I beg to refer your correspondent to pp. 214-18. of the Historia Michaelis Serveti, by Henr. ab Allwoerden, published with Mosheim's approbation, Helmstad 1728.

Both a "Note" and a "Query" might be founded on a memorable passage in the fifth book De Trinitate, in which Servetus, long before Harvey, explains the circulation of the blood.

    R.G.

Caxton's Printing-office (Vol. ii., pp. 99. 122. 142.).—It is a pity MR. NICHOLS did not take the trouble to see, and, having seen, to notice in his first communication, that Abbot Islip was mentioned in the passage from Stow's Survey cited by MR. RIMBAULT. As that gentleman quotes from, I believe, the second edition of the Survey, I may be allowed to doubt, until it is clearly shown, that "Islip's name has been introduced by the error of some subsequent writer." But supposing this to be so, it would in no way affect the only question which is material, Who was Caxton's patron? nor touch the accuracy of the Life of Caxton, which MR. NICHOLS seems desirous of impeaching. I am anxious to point this out, because I feel it right to vindicate to the utmost, where they deserve it, useful works, which, like the little volume I am writing of, are published at a price that ensures for them a circulation of almost unlimited extent.

    ARUN.

Somagia (Vol. ii., p. 120.).—This is the plural of "somagium," "summagium," and means "horse-loads." It is a word frequently found in documents relating to agrarian matters, and may signify the load packed upon the horse's back (whence the name "sumpter-horse"), or in a cart drawn by a horse. MR. SANSOM will find a full explanation of the derivatives of its root, "sagma," at p. 50., vol. vii., of Ducange.

    J.BT.

Various Modes of Interment among the Ancients (Vol ii., pp. 8, 9. 22. 41. 78.).—In modes of interment some nations have been distinguished by an idiosyncrasy almost incredible from their inhumanity.

"Barcæi, populi inter Colchos et Iberos morbo absumptos igni comburebant, sed qui in bello fortiter occubuissent, honoris gratia vulturibus devorandos objiciebant."—.AElian. Hist. Anim. lib. x. "In Hyrcania (refert Cicero in Tusc. Quæst. lib. i. 45.) ali canes solitos fuisse, a quibus delaniarentur mortui, eamque optimam Hyrcanos censuisse sepulturam."—Kirchmannus de Funer. Romanorum.

The appendix to this work may be consulted for this, and yet greater violations of the law of nature and nations.

"Apud saniores barbaros ab animalibus discerpi cadavera foedum semper ac miserabile creditum fuit. Foetus abortivi feris alitibutsque exponebantur in montibus aut locis aliis inaccessis, quin et ipsi infantes, &c. Fuit hæc Asinina sepultura poena Tyrannorum ac perduellium. (Spondan. de Coemet. S. pp. 367. 387. et seqq.) Quam et victorum insolentia odiumque vulgi implacabile in hostes non raro exercuit."—Ursinus Arbor. Biblicum.

Hyde accounts for the Persians who embraced the religion of the Magi not having adopted the two contrivances of corporal dissolution prevalent among civilised nations—cremation or burning, and simple inhumation—by the superstitious reverence with which they regarded the four elements. Sir T. Browne remarks that similar superstitions may have had the same effect among other nations.