Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850

    A Curiosity Hunter.

MINOR QUERIES

Quotations wanted.—I shall be greatly obliged to any of the correspondents of your most interesting and useful publication who will kindly inform me in what authors the following passages are to be found, and will, if it can be done without too much trouble, give me the references necessary for tracing them:—

"Par un peu de sang bien répandu,
L'on en épargne beaucoup."

And

"Quadrijugis invectus equis Sol aureus extat,
Cui septem veriis circumdant vestibus Horæ:
Lucifer antesolat: rapidi fuge lampada Solis,
Aurora, umbrarum victrix, neo victa recedas."

The latter I have only seen subjoined to a print of Guido's celebrated Aurora, at Rome; and I should have supposed it might have been written for the occasion, had I not been told, upon authority in which I put confidence, that it is to be found in some classic author. If so, the lines may possibly have given rise to the painting, and not the painting to the lines.

    Dawson Turner.

Yarmouth, October 28. 1850.

Avidius Varus.—Can you, or any of your readers, tell me who Avidius Varus was, referred to in the following passage:

"Sed Avidii Vari illud hic valeat:
'Aut hoc quod produxi testium satis est, aut nihil satis.'"

I find reference made to him as above, in one of the Smith manuscripts; but I cannot discover his name in any catalogue or biographical dictionary. Is he known by any other name?

    J. Sansom.

Death of Richard II.—By what authority has the belief that Richard II. died in Pontefract Castle, in Yorkshire, arisen? Every history that I have consulted (with the exception, indeed, of Lord Lyttleton's) coolly assumes it as a fact, in the teeth of the contemporary Froissart, who says plainly enough—

"Thus they left the Tower of London where he had died, and paraded the streets at a foot's pace till they came to Cheapside."—Froissart's Chronicles, translated by Johnes, vol. vii. p. 708.

It is barely possible that our modern historians may have been misled by Shakspeare, who makes Pontefract the scene of his death.

Another circumstance which militates against the received story, is the fact that all historians, I believe, agree that his dead body was conveyed to burial from the Tower of London. Now, it seems odd, to say the least, that if he really died at Pontefract, and his corpse was removed to London, that no one mentions this removal—that Froissart had not heard of it, although, from the nature of the country, the want of good roads, &c., the funeral convoy must have been several days upon the road. Can any one give me any information upon this question? I may just say that, of course, no reliance can be placed on the fact of the "very identical tower" in which the deposed king died being shown at Pontefract.

    H. A. B.

Sir W. Herschel's Observations and Writings.—Will you permit me to propose the following Queries in your excellent paper.

1. I have a note to the following effect, but it is without date or reference. The late Sir W. Herschel, during an examination of the heavens in which he was observing stars that have a proper motion, saw one of the 7.8 magnitude near the 17th star 12 hour of Piazzi's Catalogue, and noted the approximate distance between them; on the third night after, he saw it again, when it had advanced a good deal, having gone farther to the eastward, and towards the equator. Bad weather, and the advancing twilight, prevented Sir William's getting another observation. Meantime the estimated movement in three days was 10″ in right ascension, and about a minute, or rather less, towards the north. "So slow a motion," he says, "would make me suspect the situation to be beyond Uranus." What I wish to inquire is this: has it been established by calculation whether the new planet discovered by Adams and Le Verrier was or was not the star observed at the time and in the place specified by Sir William Herschel?

2. Have Sir W. Herschel's contributions to the Philosophical Transactions ever been published in a separate form? and if so, where they can be obtained?

    H. C. K.

Swearing by Swans.—

"At the banquet held on this occasion, he vowed before God and the swans, which according to usage were placed on the table, to punish the Scottish rebels."—Keightley's History of England, vol. i. p. 249. ed. 1839.

What authority is there for this statement respecting the swans? What was the origin and significance of the usage to which allusion is here made?

    R. V.

Winchester.

Automachia.—I am the possessor of a little book, some 2½ inches long by 1½ wide, bound in green velvet, entitled Automachia, or the Self-conflict of a Christian, and dedicated

"To the most noble, vertuous, and learned lady, the Lady Mary Nevil, one of the daughters of the Right Honourable the Earl of Dorcet, Lord High Treasurer of England."

The book commences with an anagram on the lady's name:

"Add but an A to Romanize your name
Another Pallas is your anagram,
Videlicet
Maria Nevila
Alia Minerva."

And then follow some "Stanzes Dedicatory," subscribed—

Most deuoted to your honourable vertues.—J. S."

On the last page is—

"London, printed by Milch Bradwood, for Edward Blount, 1607."

The Automachia is a poem of 188 lines, in heroic metre, and is followed by a shorter poem, entitled "A Comfortable Exhortation to the Christian in his Self-conflict."

Do any of your correspondents know of the existence or authorship of this little work? It is not in the British Museum, nor could the curators of the library there, to whom it was shown, make out anything about it.

The discovery of its authorship might tend to throw some light on that of "The Pedlar's Song," attributed to Shakspeare, and appearing in Vol. i., p. 23. of "Notes and Queries." The song contains the line—

"Such is the sacred hunger for gold."

And in the Automachia I find the "auri sacra fames" described as—

"Midas' desire, the miser's only trust,
The sacred hunger of Pactolian dust."

    A. M.
Poa cynosuwides.—Poa cynosuwides, the sacred grass of India, is mentioned in Persoon's Synopsis, as also an Egyptian plant: does it appear on the Egyptian monuments? Theophrastus, quoted in the Præparatio Evangelica of Eusebius, mentions the use of a certain ποα in the ancient sacrifices of Egypt.

    F. Q.

Vineyards.—Besides those at Bury St. Edmonds and Halfield, are there any other pieces of land bearing this name? and if so, when were they disused for their original purpose?