Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853

Q. 15. What meanest thou, &c.

"Ecquur hæc ipsa—et dicantur et sint Sacramenta?

Sacramenta sunt et dicuntur quia sacra atque efficacia sunt signa divinæ erga nos voluntatis."

Q. 16. How many parts, &c.

"Habetque unumquodque horum (quod sacramentis peculiare est verbum) Elementum, et Gratiam invisibilem. Quod verbum nos docet, et promittit nobis, hoc Elementum seu visibile signum similitudine quâdam demonstrat, hoc idem Gratia quoque (nisi tamen obicem objiciat homo) in anima invisibiliter operatur.

Da paucis singulorum Sacramentorum signa et invisibilem gratiam?"

Q. 17. What is the outward, &c.

"In Baptismo signum externum Aqua est."

Q. 18. What is the inward, &c.

"Quid efficit seu prodest Baptismus?

"Res seu gratia est renovatio et sanctificatio animæ, ablutio omnium peccatorum, adoptio baptizati in filium Dei.

'Baptizatus sum in Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.'

"Tinctione illa aquæ, operationeque Spiritus Sancti, eripitur baptizatus à regno et tyrannide diaboli, donatur remissione peccatorum ac innocentia, addicitur perpetuò uni veroque Deo Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, hujus denique filius atque hæres instituitur."

Q. 19. What is required, &c.

"Requiritur in eo (adulto), et verus fidei usus, et vita professione Christiana, Baptismique voto digna: hoc est ut corde credat, et ore fidem confiteatur, utque peccatis mortificatis in vitæ ambulet novitate.

Proba sacræ Scripturæ testimoniis, quod Fides in Baptizato requiratur."

Q. 20. Why then are infants, &c.

"Sed quomodo infantes possunt credere, ut qui nondum usum habeant rationis?

His fides Ecclesiæ et susceptorum suffragatur, donec idonei fiant suo illam assensu percipere, adhæc et fidei gratiam in Baptismo ii consequuntur."

Q. 21. Why was the Sacrament, &c.

"Quur vero sacram Eucharistiam Christus instituit?

… Ut suæ passionis ac mortis recordemur, eamque annuntiemus perpetuò."

Q. 22. What is the outward, &c.

Q. 23. What is the inward, &c.

"Da paucis … signa et invisibilem gratiam.

In Eucharistia, Elementum est panis ac vini species: res autem, verum corpus, et verus Christi sanguis est, fructusque dignam sumptionem sequentes."

Q. 24. What are the benefits, &c.

"Jam recense paucis quinam fructus dignam Eucharistæ sumptionem sequantur?

Principio quidem virtute escæ hujus confirmamur in fide, munimur adversus peccata, ad bonorum operum studium excitamur, et ad charitatem inflammamur. Hinc vero per eam incorporamur adjungimurque capiti nostro Christo, ut unum cum ipso constituamus corpus," &c.

Q. 25. What is required, &c.

"Quonam pacto dignè sumitur Eucharistia?

Digna sumptio, omnium primum requirit, ut homo peccata sua agnoscat ex animo ob ea verè doleat—ac firmum etiam animo concipiat amplius non peccandi propositum. Deinde exigit etiam digna sumptio, ut communicaturus simultatem omnem odiumque animo eximat: reconcilietur læso, et charitatis contra viscera induat. Postremo vero et fides cum primis in sumente requiritur … ut credat corpus Christi pro se esse traditum mortem, et sanguinem ejus in remissionem peccatorum suorum vere effusum," &c.

I fear the unavoidable length of the previous extracts will be against the insertion of the full title of the book, and one remark. The title is,—

"Catechismus brevis et Catholicus in gratiam Juventutis conscriptus, Autore Iacobo Schœppero, Ecclesiasta Tremoniano. Cui accessit Pium diurnarum precum Enchiridion, ex quo pueri toto die cum Deo colloqui discant. Antverpiæ, apud Ioan. Bellerum ad insigne Falconis, 1555."

My remark is, that some of the coincidences above enumerated are at least singular, though they do not perhaps prove that the compiler of the Church Catechism, in the places referred to, had them before him.

    B. H. C.

JACOB BOBART, ETC

(Vol. vii., p. 428.)

Of old Jacob Bobart, who originally came from Brunswick, Granger (Biog. Hist., vol. v. p. 287., edit. 1824) gives us the following account:

"Jacob Bobart, a German, whom Plot styles 'an excellent gardener and botanist,' was, by the Earl of Danby, founder of the physic-garden at Oxford, appointed the first keeper of it. He was author of Catalogus Plantarum Horti Medici Oxoniensis, scil. Latino-Anglicus et Anglico-Latinus: Oxon. 1648, 8vo. One singularity I have heard of him from a gentleman of unquestionable veracity, that on rejoicing days he used to have his beard tagged with silver. The same gentleman informed me, that there is a portrait of him in the possession of one of the corporation at Woodstock. He died the 4th of February, 1679, in the eighty-first year of his age. He had two sons, Tillemant and Jacob, who both belonged to the physic-garden. It appears that the latter succeeded him in his office."

There is a very fine print of the elder Bobart, now extremely scarce, "D. Loggan del., M. Burghers, sculp." It is a quarto of the largest size. Beneath the head, which is dated 1675, is this distich:

"Thou German prince of plants, each year to thee
Thousands of subjects grant a subsidy."

In John Evelyn's Diary, under the date Oct. 24, 1664, is the following entry:

"Next to Wadham, and the physic garden, where were two large locust-trees, and as many platani (plane-trees), and some rare plants under the culture of old Bobart."

The editor of the last edition, after repeating part of Granger's note, and mentioning the portrait, adds:

"There is a small whole-length in the frontispiece of Vertumnus, a poem on that garden. In this he is dressed in a long vest, with a beard. One of his family was bred up at college in Oxford; but quitted his studies for the profession of the whip, driving one of the Oxford coaches (his own property) for many years with great credit. In 1813 he broke his leg by an accident; and in 1814, from the respect he had acquired by his good conduct, he was appointed by the University to the place of one of the Esquire Beadles."

Vertumnus, the poem mentioned in the above note, was addressed to Mr. Jacob Bobart, in 1713, by Dr. Evans. It is a laudatory epistle on the botanical knowledge of the Bobarts; and we learn from it that Jacob, the younger, collected a Hortus Siccus (a collection of plants pasted upon paper, and kept dry in a book) in twenty volumes.

"Thy Hortus Siccus …
In tomes twice ten, that world immense!
By thee compiled at vast expense."

The broadsides about which H. T. Bobart inquires are of the greatest possible rarity. They were the production of Edmund Gayton, the author of Festivious Notes on Don Quixote, &c. Copies may be seen in the Ashmolean Library, under the press-marks Nos. 423. and 438., but I think not in any other repository of a like nature.