BOCCACCIO AND CHAUCER. JOHN HORNE TOOKE's reprint copy of the Giunta edition of Il Decameron, printed at Florence in 1527, 4to., has many interesting manuscript philological notes, among which the following may not be uninteresting to the readers of Current Notes. At the end of the Prohemio-piacevoli, sollazzevolivole, put at the end, answers to our ful, and has sometimes, probably been corrupted to ble. Giornata III. Don Felice. The Miller's Tale in Chaucer seems in part taken from this story. Tyrwhitt observes-" I have not been able to discover whence the story of the Miller's Tale is taken; so that for the present I must give Chaucer credit for it as his own invention, though, in general, he appears to have built his Tales both serious and comic upon stories which he found ready made. The great difference is, that in his serious picces, he often follows his author with the servility of a mere translator, and in consequence his narrative is jejune and constrained; whereas, in the comic, he is generally satisfied with borrowing a slight hint of his subject, which he varies, enlarges, and embellishes at pleasure, and gives the whole, the air and colour of an original." Giornata VII. Lidia moglie di Nicostrato ama Pirro. The latter part of this story has been adopted by Chaucer, as the latter portion of his Merchant's Tale. Giornata X. Madonna Dianora, a Casa Messere Ansaldo (chez Mons. Ansaldo) a common phrase in Italian, thus leaving out the sign of relation between Ansaldo and his house, I have not observed this particnlar omission in any other language. J. H. SPES ET FORTUNA VALETE ! As some interest appears to attach to the Latin couplet which forms the subject of several communications in the last number of Current Notes, I transcribe some lines from Wolters' edition of Petronius, Amst., 1700, containing a somewhat similar couplet, the sentiment of which is perhaps more truthful in its application, than that which Le Sage and Lord Brougham have given to the former. A Farewell to Hope and Fortune is vainly said even by those who were wont to sport In troubled waters, but now sleep in port. Ashton-under-Lyne, June 27. J. G. R. C. Petronii Hilari Pisaurensis Epigramma. Tu, pede qui stricto vadis persenta, Viator, THE HAVEN OF ETERNITY. THE Brechin correspondent, who, in Current Notes, p. 42, supplied the Greek epitaph, copied from a monument at Basle, to the memory of a clergyman, 1564, observes, "it reminds us as much of the Apostle Paul, as of the Greek epigrammatist; " it rather reminds me of the impostor Mahomet; for who, but one of his followers, would knowingly have written such a verse as this? Οὐρανίοισι θεοῖς μοῦνος ἔνεστιν ἔρως. The former line is not without fault. The blessed who rest in the Lord, cannot be correctly said to take a long farewell of faith, for with them faith is realized. The original verse should have remained unaltered; and the pentameter, instead of inspiring a sensual idea, should have conveyed a spiritual one. Ελπὶς καὶ σὺ Τύχη μέγα χαίρετε· τὸν λιμέν' εὗρον. By Hope beguiled, by wavering Fortune too, I've gained the Port. Securely now I rest D. B. H. is on OVER DOOR INSCRIPTIONS. THE inscription imperfectly quoted, Current Notes, p. 43, was not over the entrance of Stirling Castle, and consequently will be sought for there in vain, but it Mar's Wark,' a building at the head of the Broad Street in Stirling, begun by the Regent Earl of Mar, but now a ruin. The inscription is understood as a defiance to the generally expressed popular discontent, on his pulling down Cambuskenneth abbey, for the stone and building materials for his palace. The inscription in full is thus : ESSPY SPEIK FVRTH AND SPAIR NOCHT. THE MOIR I STAND ON OPEN HICHT I PRAY AL LUKARIS ON THIS LVGING Petergate, York, July 5. YOUR Correspondent, Current Notes, p. 43, could not possibly have seen the inscription said to be over one of the doors of Stirling Castle, but must have copied them from some old book, as there are no such mottoes on the Castle of Stirling, at least so far as I am aware. These inscriptions are in truth from an old ruinous building in the town of Stirling, called Mar's Work, a little to the right of the old kirk. The stones of which the house was built are said to have been brought from the neighbouring priory of Cambuskenneth; and the front wall is decorated with several pieces of well executed sculpture, particularly the royal arms of Scotland. There are also the arms of the founder, the Regent Mar, tutor or guardian of king James the Sixth; and of his Lady, who was of the Tullybardine family. The three couplets which form the inscription, are on three distinct parts of the building, and as far as I could decypher them in 1849, are as I now send, but the originals are so much obliterated by the weather, that every orthographical particular cannot be vouched for, nor have they, I believe, been in a much better state for the last half century or more. Pennant, in his Second Tour in Scotland, p. 225, has also printed the last couplet incorrectly. THE MOIR I STANDE ON OPPIN HITHT Over door inscriptions are frequent on the old castles in Scotland. The castle of Vayne, or the old manor house of Ferne, situated on the north bank of the Noran, a stream remarkable for its clearness and the excellence of its trout; was built by one of the Lindsays, and afterwards repaired by Robert Carnegy, third Earl of Southesk, who married the Lady Anne, eldest daughter of William, the second Duke of Hamilton. Many of Earl Robert's repairs, notwithstanding the castle is now a ruin, are visible about the place, and the doors and windows were formerly ornamented with Horatian and other maxims. Three have been moved from the castle, and placed in various parts of the walls of the adjoining farm-steading. One more elegant than the rest, bears an Earl's coronet, and other sculpture in high-relief, and the Earl's initials in monogram, as here represented Along the base line below the monogram, is the following inscription, supposed to have some reference to the 'merry' disposition of his Countess, whose history appears at some length in Grammont's Memoirs. DISCE MEO EXEMPLO FORMOSIS POSSE CARERE. On another is this quaint observation NON SI MALE NVNC ET SIC ERAT ANNO DOM. 1678. The Castle of Vayne is the property of the Hon. William M. Maule of Ferne and Maulesden, brother to the Lord Panmure, and heir presumptive to that title and great estate. Mr. Maule has done much of late to stay Time's devastating hand in despoiling this picturesque ruin, by removing such portions as were likely to fall and injure the rest, and by partial restorations, adding to its general effect and preservation. OVER a door in the court-yard of the Castle of Mains near Dundee, built by Sir William Graham, great-grandfather of the celebrated Viscount Dundee, who fell at Killicrankie; is this inscription. PATRIE ET POSTERIS. GRATIS ET AMICIS. 1582. Over the inside of the doorway of Queen Margaret's bower in Linlithgow Palace, these lines of Sir Walter Scott's have been recently insculped I. R. His own Queen Margaret, Who in Lithgow bower, All lonely sat, And wept the weary hour. The line in Horace-Non si malè nunc et olim sit erit, has been thus translated The wretch of to-day may be happy to-morrow. UPON a wall in the old town of Linlithgow, under an effigy of St. Michael, to whom the chapel was inscribed in old times. SAINT MICHAEL IS KINDE TO STRANGERS. ON demolishing in or about 1808, an old waulk or fulling-mill near the abbey of Cupar Angus, in Forfarshire, the following quaint inscription was discovered on a stone over the door; the last line being expressed by carved representations of the articles named. ANDREW CHAPMAN AND MARG'ET TOD, [The waulkmill shears, and the pressin 'brod.] Brechin, July 8. SCHOLA SALERNITANA. A. J. The poem, under the authority of the College of Salerno is inscribed to the King of England, as the first line expresses: Anglorum regi scribit Schola tota Salerni; but there are reasons for believing the real author to have been Johannes de Mediolano, a celebrated poet and physician; and this dedication to "the King of England," suggests some points of interesting notice. Prior to the Norman conquest of England, a body of Norman knights, having been to perform worship at the Holy Sepulchre, were on their return from Jerusalem, driven into Salerno at a time when Guimarus, Prince of Salerno, required aid against a Saracenic invasion. The Normans assisted the Prince, and the invaders were repelled into Sicily; Guimarus duly appreciating their valour, proffered them great induce J. A. P., of Downpatrick, who enquires who was the ments to remain in his dominions, but these were of no author of the hexameter Cur morietur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto? will find it in the Schola Salernitana, a book of medical aphorisms, in Leonine verses, compiled, if not by Constantine the founder, at least by one of the Doctors of the once famous medical school at Salerno, about the middle of the eleventh century, and dedicated to King Edward the Confessor. See Muratori Antiquitates, tom. iii., dissert. xl., pp. 686, et seqq. It is not confined to hexameters; for instance, Ut sis nocte levis, sit tibi cœna brevis. The Schola Salernitana was first printed in 1480, with a commentary written by Arnoldus Villenovanus, who was living early in the fourteenth century. Hawkshead, July 4. D. B. H. THE Leonine hexameter respecting which your correspondent J. A. P. enquires, is the first line of the Thirty-eighth chapter of the Schola Salernitana, "De Salvia;" the following passage being wholly in its praise. Cur moriatur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto? Salvia, castoreum, lavendula, primula veris, Salerno in the south of Italy, was in 794, made by Pope Boniface VII., the metropolis of the whole district, and its medical school in the eleventh and twelfth centuries obtained great celebrity, so much so, that it was afterwards constituted a university for granting degrees and licences in medicine. The Schola Salernitana, a Latin poem, consists of hygienic and medical regulations for preserving and restoring health, written in hexameter verses, many of which are leonine, as in the above extract, the middle and terminal words in the first two, and the last lines, rhyme with each other. avail to warriors then on their way homeward. The Prince then sent ambassadors to Normandy, to propose large bounties, high dignities, and every inducement that a rich and fertile country could offer to as many as would settle in his realm. About three hundred of the flower of the Norman nobility were thus induced to settle in his kingdom, when they colonised a part of Apulia and Calabria, and successfully defended the country against the invasions of the Moors. These events occurred about the time of the Norman invasion of England, and sufficiently explain the existence of an intercourse between the Salernians and the English at this period. William the Norman, by his will left the kingdom of England to his second son Rufus, and to his eldest son Robert, the Dukedom of Normandy. The latter accompanied Godfrey of Bulloine as a crusader to the Holy Land, and was present at the capture of Jerusalem. While there he received tidings of the death of his brother Rufus, slain by the arrow of Sir Walter Tyrrell, August 2, 1100; and leaving Palestine to succeed him, hastened to visit his countrymen at Salerno, and to obtain advice on the treatment of a wound received from a poisoned arrow, during the siege of Jerusalem, which no adopted means had sufficed to heal. Even at Salerno, the proposed cure was, that the lurking poison, should be sucked out of the wound, but as this course was supposed to expose another to a fatal risk, he generously refused to prolong his life by these means. However, during his stay in Italy, he became enamoured with Sibylla, the daughter of the Count of Conversana, and whom he married. She is said, to have opportunely while he slept, and unknown to him, sucked the poison from the wound, and happily, without injury to herself effected his recovery; so that with restored health, he was enabled to proceed to England. It was therefore, while in Italy, and the Duke apparently about to assume the English Crown, that the poem was written, and at his request, addressed to himself, as King of England. His younger brother Henry, had however in the mean time, been elected on August 4, and crowned at Westminster on the day following, Sunday August 5, 1100 The effigy in wood of Robert, Duke of Normandy, with crossed legs, as a leader in the first crusade, is yet extant in Gloucester Cathedral. The incident of the extracting of the poison from the wound is related with sufficient minuteness of detail, in the Latin preface to the Schola Salernitana, printed at Paris, in 1627, but is, I fear, of a somewhat apocryphal character. A modern physician might question the efficacy of the treatment by mere exhaustion of a poisoned wound so long after the injury had been received; yet later, Queen Eleanor has long been acknowledged the rightful claimant of the honour due to a similar act of generosity, to her own husband, King Edward the First. Leeds, June 27. The line J. D. HEATON, M.D. Cur moriatur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto? or hortis, is quoted from the Schola Salernitana, in Elliot's Castle or Regimen of Health. The reason why a man may die notwithstanding all the virtues of Sage, is assigned in the line which follows, somewhat to this effect, for I do not remember the exact words. Non sunt in hortis tristis medicamina mortis. T. R. Cur moriatur homo cui salvia crescit in horto? is from the Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum, Oxford edition, 1830, line, 178. The next line answers the question. Contra vim mortis non est medicamen in hortis. GARRICK CLUB INAUGURATION DINNER. The following addressed to Robert Clarke, Esq., Theatre Royal Manchester, will doubtless afford some amusement to the readers of Current Notes, as being highly characteristic of that distinguished Comedian, Charles Mathews. The delightful day' at the Garrick Club was noticed at the time by an unaccountable omission of the stewards, all reference to the plays or memory of the immortal bard Shakspeare being in their libations wholly forgotten-the players and their patrons seem to have thought but little at the moment of the sinking drama." J. F. London, Feb. 16, 1832. MY DEAR CLARKE-You and I, thank God! have lived with each other in such a jocose way, that matter of fact people do not always comprehend, and if I were not aware that you are concerned for another, and, therefore a grave man of business when negociating for him, I really should have thought you only wanted an excuse for saying that you were alive and truly mine. In your hurry you did not think I should speak about my season. Had I received a letter from Mr. Watson for instance, my reply might have been copied from your letter verbatim :— "Adelphi-We commence our (At Home) season here at Easter, and shall continue open until the 18th of June, or later, if Arnold builds. An alibi, proved, I cannot come!" The Baronet received the bust safe, and is delighted Lay out, Bardolph! and I will thee repay!" I rejoice at Paganini's success on Mr. Lewis's account. I was not aware by "the Papers," that he had been at Brum. A paragraph has gone the round,' as it is termed, that I gave an entertainment to a large party, on Tuesday 7th, but that our festivities were damped by the arrival of the news of Munden's death. I have not, since June last, been at home more than ten days at a time, never had a party since-and dined tete-a-tete with my wife on the 7th, ha! ha! The joint-stock Cholera Company are trying to spread the Coleraphobia, but I do not think success will follow. Shares are at a discount. If you have not read them, and Dr. Unwin, in the Times of yesterday, and to-day do-it is doubtless filed where you read, yet there are flats who are panicized! It is worthy of the same nation that allowed Johanna Southcott's name to be pronounced with gravity, or Mr. Kean to act Romeo and Hamlet. I do not believe in the existence of real Asiatic cholera in England. We are going to fast, oh! oh oh! What shall we come to next? Lord Grey proposed it, because Percival asked for it, to clear his conscience of the sin of living on a pension-and the king said, "D- his eyes if he cared whether they fasted or not,”—and so actors lose a night's salary. 66 The actors alone are deprived of repastThe ministers all are paid while they fast. Mr. Freeman, I think is the gentleman's name who travels with Pag.; he promised me an autograph. Can't you and him between you furnish a letter? Try. Have the goodness to read the following bit to my friend Mr. Lewis, was there any other article besides a mourning ring, a hammer, and a gridiron in the box he was kind enough to present to me? To whom did they belong? I fear I have been robbed. I put the two latter articles, certainly (and as I thought, the former) into a Mulberrytree box. On my return I found only the hammer and gridiron, yet nothing else in the house is missed. I made a memorandum too of the name of the donor, knowing how treacherous my memory is, excepting in my profession. I have almost betted it was Powell. I am fidgetted to death about it, and am sick with searching. A suspicion of servants-one of ten years growth, etc., is horrible. If the words of the ring were in Mr. Tummas's memory, the pawnbrokers may elucidate. Great regards to Mrs. Clarke, in which we all join to thee also, Ever sincerely yours, CHARLES MATHEWS. P.S. The Duke of Sussex presided yesterday at the Inauguration of the Garrick Club: there are 300 members, who are devoted to an attempt to revive the sinking drama-a delightful day! To present a knife between lovers is said to be an omen of parting, to counteract which some trifle must be given in exchange; Shakespeare, in reference to this belief, makes Gratiano repeat the motto-Love me and leave me not. Daggers, knives, and swords in Shakespeare's time presented frequent instances of inscriptions and mottoes, in single lines and couplets. A knife of the early part of the sixteenth century, purchased at Bernal's sale, for the Museum at Marlborough House, has, on the back edge, in DIALECTS.-Professor Adelung asserts there are 3664 known dialects and languages in the world; in America, 1624; in Asia, 937; in Europe, 587; and in Africa, 276; the aggregate of these numbers, however, make but 3424. INVOCATION OF THE VIRGIN. EXAMPLES of the Invocation of the Virgin in inscriptions on monumental brasses, are now I believe rarely found, caused doubtless by their being defaced and destroyed as idolatrous by the authorities at the commencement of the Civil War, between Charles the First and the Parliament. The only instance that has fallen under my observation in this county, is at Loughborough, where on the south side of the chancel is a large slab commemorative of a former vicar, whose effigy has long since been erept, but on the margin, on a brass label, so much of the inscription remains Hic iacet. . . . Rector istius Ecclesie qui o... WILLIAM Kelly. UNICORN.-What was the original use of the Unicorn in Heraldry? Was it derived from the East? BILL NOR BAN! In Dumfries-shire, it is a usual expression with the creditor, when no security has been raised letters-DE LA FIDELITÉ DERIVE MA FORTVNE. taken of the debtor, to say "he has neither bill nor ban Knives were formerly presented in pairs, in richly em- of him." Formerly, or till within the last sixty or bossed or enriched sheaths, either of leather, or metal richly seventy years, it was the practice when a loan was studded, chased or engraved. A pair of such knives, pre-made, for the borrower, to take the lender into his bire, sented by a lady to her lover occurs in the Bernal sale, no. 3394. The blades steel, but with twisted red horn and silver ornamented handles. On the blade of one is engraved. With wealth and beauty all doe well, And on the blade of the other, My love is fix't, I will not range; SPECTATOR.-Joseph Addison of St. James's, and Richard Steele of St. Giles's, gentlemen, assigned on Nov. 10, 1712, to Samuel Buckley, printer and bookseller, a half-share of the copyright of The Spectator, then printing in 6 vol., and engaging to continue the work during that month, so as to form a seventh volume, for the sum of 5751. The assignment took place at the Fountain Tavern in the Strand, which then stood on the site of the houses now numbered 105 and 106. Buckley transferred this assignment to Jacob Tonson, junior, on Oct. 13, 1714, for 500l. The autograph original was purchased on the 20th inst. by Messrs. Boone, of Bond Street, for 77. 15s. loose a cow's binding (ban), and present it to the latter Has this been a custom in any other district? or can as a pledge or surety the money would be returned. any other instances be adduced of the modes or practices of similar securities in the unlettered conditions of society? Thornhill, July 18. T. B. G. HONOUR AND FAME.-Where are the following lines G.'s notice of the incident of the Swallow being taken by an artificial fly, Current Notes, p. 48; is not a solitary instance; Hofland, in his Angler's Manual, first edition, pp. 355-6, records another from his own experience. T. R. ERRATA.-P. 42, col. 2, line 4 from foot, read, Portam is a meagre substitute for Portum, a haven of rest after the storms of life. P. 43, col. 1, line 14 from foot, for transition, read transposition. |
