Notes and Queries, Number 23, April 6, 1850

    C.

Lines attributed to Tom Brown.—In a book entitled Liber Facetiarum, being a Collection of curious and interesting Anecdotes, published at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, by D. Akenhead & Sons, 1809, the passage attributed to Tom Brown by your correspondent "J.T." is given to Zacharias Boyd.

The only reference given as authority for the account is the initials H.B.

"Zacharias Boyd, whose bust is to be seen over the entrance to the Royal College in Glasgow, while Professor in that university, translated the Old and New Testament into Scotch Metre; and, from a laudable zeal to disseminate religious knowledge among the lower classes of the community, is said to have left a very considerable sum to defray the expense of the said work, which, however, his executors never printed."

After a few specimens, the account goes on

"But the highest flight of his Muse appears in the following beautiful Alexandrine:

"And was not Pharaoh a saucy rascal?
That would not let the children of Israel, their wives
And their little ones, their flocks and their herds, go
Out into the wilderness forty days
To eat the Pascal.

    "H.B."
Speaking of Zachariah Boyd, Granger says, (vol. ii. p. 379.):

"His translation of the Scripture in such uncouth verse as to amount to burlesque, has been often quoted, and the just fame of a benefactor to learning has been obscured by that cloud of miserable rhymes. Candour will smile at the foible, but applaud the man.

"Macure, in his account of Glasgow, p. 223., informs us he lived in the reign of Charles I."

    H.I.

Sheffield, March 9. 1850.

Passage in Frith's Works (No. 20. p. 319).—This passage should be read, as I suppose, "Ab inferiori ad suum superius confuse distribui."

It means that there would be confusion, if what is said distributively or universally of the lower, should be applied distributively or universally to the higher; or, in other words, if what is said universally of a species, should be applied universally to the genus that contains that and other species: e.g., properties that are universally found in the human species will not be found universally in the genus Mammalis, and universal properties of Mammalia wil not be universal over the animal kingdom.

    T.J.

Martins, the Louvain Printer.—Your correspondent "W." (No. 12. p. 185.) is informed, that in Falkenstein's Geschichte der Buchdrucherkunst (Leipzig, 1840, p. 257.), Theoderich Martens, printer in Louvain and Antwerp, is twice mentioned. I have no doubt but this is the correct German form of the name. Mertens, by which he was also known, may very possibly be the Flemish form. His Christian name was also written Dierik, a short form of Dietrich, which, in its turn, is the same as Theodorich.

    NORTHMAN.

Master of the Revels.—"DR. RIMBAULT" states (No. 14. p. 219.), that Solomon Dayrolle was appointed Master of the Revels in 1744, but does not know the date of his decease. It may be unknown to Dr. Rimbault, that Solomon Dayrolles was an intimate friend and correspondent of the great Lord Chesterfield: the correspondence continues from 1748 to 1755 in the selection of Chesterfield's letters to which I am referring.

Dayrolles, during all that period, held a diplomatic appointment from this country at the Hague. See Lord Chesterfield's letter to him of the 22d Feb. 1748, where Lord C. suggests that by being cautious he (Dayrolles) may be put en train d'être Monsieur l'Envoye.

In several of the letters Chesterfield warmly and familiarly commends his hopeful son, Mr. Stanhope, to the care and attention of Dayrolles.

I have not been able to ascertain when Dayrolles died, but the above may lead to the discovery.

    W.H. LAMMIN.

French Maxim.—The French saying quoted by "R.V." is the 223rd of Les Réflexions morales du Duc de la Rochefoucauld (Pougin, Paris, 1839). I feel great pleasure in being able to answer your correspondent's query, as I hope that my reply may be the means of introducing to his notice one of the most delightful authors that has ever yet written: one who deserves far more attention than he appears to receive from general readers in this degenerate age, and from whom many of his literary successors have borrowed some of their brightest thoughts. I need not go far for an illustration:

"Praise undeserved, is scandal in disguise,"

is merely a condensation of,

"Louer les princes des vertus qu'ils n'ont pas, c'est leur dire impunément des injures."—La Rochefoucauld, Max. 327.

I believe that Pope marks it as a translation—a borrowed thought—not as a quotation. He has just before used the words "your Majesty;" and I think the word "scandal" is employed "consulto," and alludes to the offence known in English law as "scandalum magnatum." Your correspondent will, of course, read the work in the original; in fact, he must do so per force. A good translation of Les Maximes is still a desideratum in English literature. I have not yet seen one that could lay claim even to the meagre title of mediocrity; although I have spared neither time nor pains in the search. Should any of your readers have been more fortunate, I shall feel obliged by their referring me to it.

    MELANION.

Endeavour.—I have just found the following instance of "endeavour" used as an active verb, in Dryden's translation of Maimbourg's History of the League, 1684.

"On the one side the majestique House of Bourbon,… and on the other side, that of two eminent families which endeavour'd their own advancement by its destruction; the one is already debas'd to the lowest degree, and the other almost reduc'd to nothing." —p. 3.

    C. FORBES.

Temple.

MISCELLANIES

Epigram by La Monnoye.—It has been ingeniously said, that "Life is an epigram, of which death is the point." Alas for human nature! good points are rare; and no wonder, according to this wicked, but witty,

EPIGRAM BY LA MONNOYE

The world of fools has such a store,
That he who would not see an ass,
Must bide at home, and bolt his door,
And break his looking glass.

    S.W.S.
Mickleham, Dec. 10. 1849.

Spur Money.—Two or three years since, a party of sappers and miners was stationed at Peterborough, engaged in the trigonometrical survey, when the officer entered the cathedral with his spurs on, and was immediately beset by the choristers, who demanded money of him for treading the sacred floor with armed heels. Does any one know the origin of this singular custom? I inquired of some of the dignitaries of the Cathedral, but they were not aware even of its existence. The boys, however, have more tenacious memories, at least where their interest is concerned; but we must not look to them for the origin of a custom which appears to have long existed. In the Memorials of John Ray, published by the Ray Society, p. 131., there is the following entry in his second Itinerary:—

"July the 26th, 1661, we began our journey northwards from Cambridge, and that day, passing through Huntingdon and Stilton, we rode as far as Peterborough twenty-five miles. There I first heard the Cathedral service. The choristers made us pay money for coming into the choir with our spurs on."

    East Winch.

[The following note from The Book of the Court will serve to illustrate the curious custom referred to by our correspondent:

"In The Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII. edited by Sir Harris Nicolas, there occur several entries of payments made to the choristers of Windsor 'in rewarde for the king's spurs'; which the editor supposes to mean 'money paid to redeem the king's spurs, which had become the fee of the choristers at Windsor, perhaps at installations, or at the annual celebration of St. George's feast.' No notice of the subject occurs in Ashmole's or Anstis's History of the Order of the Garter. Mr. Markland, quoting a note to Gifford's edition of Ben Jonson, vol. ii. p. 49., says, 'In the time of Ben Jonson, in consequence of the interruptions to Divine Service occasioned by the ringing of the spurs worn by persons walking and transacting business in cathedrals, and especially in St. Paul's, a small fine was imposed on them, called "spur-money," the exaction of which was committed to the beadles and singing-boys.' This practice, and to which, probably, the items in Henry's household-book bear reference, still obtains, or, at least, did till very lately, in the Chapel Royal and other choirs. Our informant himself claimed the penalty, in Westminster Abbey, from Dr. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and received from him an eighteenpenny bank token as the fine. He likewise claimed the penalty from the King of Hanover (then Duke of Cumberland), for entering the choir of the Abbey in his spurs. But His Royal Highness, who had been installed there, excused himself with great readiness, pleading 'his right to wear his spurs in that church, inasmuch as it was the place where they were first put on him!'—See further, European Mag., vol. iii. p. 16."]

MINIMUM DE MALIS

(From the Latin of Buchanan.)

Calenus owed a single pound, which yet
With all my dunning I could never get.