Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 - Various

Various

Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc

NOTES

LORD BACON'S "ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING."

Considering the large number of quotations from previous writers which occur in Lord Bacon's works, and especially in his most popular and generally read workshis Essays and his Advancement of Learningit is remarkable how little his editors have done for the illustration of his text in this respect. The French editors of Montaigne's Essays, who is likewise a writer abounding in quotations, have bestowed much care on this portion of their author's text. The defect in question has, however, been to a great extent supplied in a recent edition of the Advancement of Learning, published by Mr. Parker in West Strand; and it is to be hoped that the beginning, so usefully made, may be followed up by similar editions of other of Bacon's works.

The edition in question, though it traces the great majority of Bacon's quotations, has left some gleanings to its successors; and I propose now to call attention to a few passages of the Advancement of Learning which, after the labours of the late editor, seem still to require further elucidation. My references are to the pages of the new edition:

P. 25. "Then grew the flowing and watery vein of Osorius the Portugal bishop to be in price."

The editor prints Orosius for Osorius, and adds this note:

"All the editions have Osorius, which, however, must be a mere misprint. He was not a Portuguese, but a Spaniard, born at Tarragona, nor indeed ever a bishop. He was sent by St. Augustine on a mission to Jerusalem, and is supposed to have died in Africa in the earlier part of the fifth century."

The text of Bacon is quite right. The allusion is not to Paulus Orosius, a Spaniard, who flourished at the beginning of the fifth century; but to Jerome Osorio, who was born at Lisbon in 1506, afterwards became Bishop of Silves, and died in 1580. His works were published at Rome in 1592, in 4 vols. folio. His principal work, De rebus Emanuelis Virtute et Auspicio gestis, which first appeared in 1571, was several times reprinted, and was translated into French and English.

P. 31. "Time, which is the author of authors."

In Nov. Org., i. 84., Time is called "Auctor auctorum, atque adeo omnis auctoritatis."

P. 34. "But of these conceits Aristotle speaketh seriously and wisely, when he saith, 'Qui respiciunt ad pauca de facili pronunciant."

The editor does not attempt to trace this passage. Query, If it is not in Aristotle, where is it to be found?

P. 60. "Ulysses, 'Qui vetulam prætulit immortalitati' is a figure of those which prefer custom and habit before all excellency."

The editor refers to Cic. de Orat., i. 44., where it is said that such is the love of country,

"Ut Ithacam illam, in asperrimis saxulis, tanquam nidulum, affixam, sapientissimus vir immortalitati anteponeret."

Another application of the saying is made by Bacon in his Essay VIII., "On Marriage and Single Life:"

"Grave natures, led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands, as was said of Ulysses, 'vetulam suam prætulit immortalitati.'"

The passage in Cicero does not agree with the dictum quoted by Bacon, which seems to be a reference to the Odyssey, v. 136. 208-10.

P. 62. "Claudus in vià antevertit cursorem extra viam."

The same proverb is quoted in Nov. Org., i. 61.

P. 85. "Omnia mutantur, nil interit"

from Ovid, Met., xv. 165.

Several passages are cited by Bacon from Seneca, which the editor does not trace. Thus, in p. 146., it is said,

"Nocet illis eloquentia, quibus non rerum cupiditatem facit, sed sui."

Page 147.,

"Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis, securitatem Dei."

The same passage is also quoted by Bacon in Essay V., "On Adversity," and in the treatise De Sap. Vet., vol. x. p. 343., edit. Montagu.

Again, p. 159.:

"De partibus vitæ quisque deliberat, de summâ nemo."

Page 152.,

"Cogita quamdiu eadem feceris," &c.,

repeated in part in the "Essay on Death."

This last passage is taken, with considerable verbal variations, from Epist. 77. § 6.

"Therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax Democritus, doth in truth commend him, where he saith, If we shall indeed dispute, and not follow after similitudes," &c.

The passage referred to is in Eth. Nic., vi. 3.; but it contains no allusion to Democritus, who is not even named in the Ethics; and the word which Bacon renders dispute (κριβολογεσθαι) means to speak with precision.

P. 163. "For as the ancient politiques in popular states were wont to compare the people to the sea, and the orators to the winds."

The allusion is to a couplet of Solon:

And to a passage of Livy (xxviii. 27.):

"Multitudo omnis, sicut natura maris, per se immobilis est, venti et auræ cient."

Compare Babrius, fab. 71.

P. 165. "Did not one of the Fathers, in great indignation, call poesy vinum dæmonum?"

The same citation recurs in Essay I., "On Truth:"

"One of the Fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum dæmonum."

Query, Who is the Father alluded to?

Page 177., the sayings, "Faber quisque fortunæ propriæ" is cited; and again, p. 178., "Faber quisque fortunæ suæ." In Essay XL., "On Fortune," it is quoted, with the addition, "saith the poet." The words are to be found in Sallust, Ad Cæsar. de Rep. Ord., ii. 1.:

"Sed res docuit, id verum esse, quad in carminibus Appius ait, fabrum suæ esse quemque fortunæ."

The Appius alluded to is Appius Claudius the Censor.

Bacon proceeds to say:

"This conceit or position [viz. 'Faber quisque,' &c.], if it be too much declared and professed, hath been thought a thing impolitic and unlucky, as was observed in Timotheus the Athenian, who, having done many great services to the estate in his government, and giving an account thereof to the people, as the manner was, did conclude every particular with this clause, 'And in this Fortune had no part.' And it came so to pass, that he never prospered in anything he took in hand afterwards."

The anecdote is as follows:Timotheus had been ridiculed by the comic poets, on account of the small share which his own management had had in his successes. A satirical painting had likewise been made, in which he was represented sleeping, while Fortune stood over him, and drew the cities into his net. (See Plutarch, Reg. et Imp. Apophth., vol. ii. p. 42., ed. Tauchnitz; Ælian, V. H. xiii. 42.) On one occasion, however, having returned from a successful expedition, he remarked to the Athenians, in allusion to the previous sarcasms, that in this campaign at least Fortune had no share. Plutarch, who relates the latter anecdote in his Life of Sylla, c. 6., proceeds to say, that this boast gave so much offence to the deity, that he never afterwards prospered in any of his enterprises. His reverse of luck, in consequence of his vainglorious language against Fortune, is also alluded to by Dio Chrysost. Orat., lxiv. § 19., edit. Emper. It will be observed that Plutarch refers the saying of Timotheus to a single expedition; whereas Bacon multiplies it, by extending it over a series of acts.

P. 172. "Cicero reporteth that it was then in use for senators that had name and opinion for general wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, Lælius, and many others, to walk at certain hours in the Place," &c.

The passage alluded to is De Orat., iii. 83. The persons there named are Sex. Ælius, Manius Manilius, P. Crassus, Tib. Coruncanius, and Scipio.

P. 179. "We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to the ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief, and distrust."

The precept adverted to is the verse of Epicharmus:

"νφε κα μμνασ' πιστεν· ρθρα τατα τν φρενν."

P. 180. "Fraus sibi in parvis fidem præstruit, ut majore emolumento fallat."

Query, Where does this passage occur, as well as the expression "alimenta socordiæ," which Demosthenes, according to Bacon, applies to small favours.

ERECTION OF FORTRESS AT MICHNEE AND PYLOS

Mr. Dartnell, Surgeon of H. M. 53rd regiment, gives the following account of the building of a fort which has lately been erected at Michnee to check the incursions of the Momunds into the Peshawur Valley:

"There was little to be done, except to build a fort, and here the officers had to superintend and direct the working parties which were daily sent out.... Laborers from far and near, Cashmerees, Caboolees, men from the Hindoo Koosh, Afreedees, Khyberees, &c., all working together with hearty goodwill, and a sort of good-humoured rivalry.... It is only when working by contract, however, that the Cashmeree displays his full physical powers, and it is then perfectly refreshing, in such a physically relaxing and take-the-world-as-it-goes sort of a country as this, to observe him.... And then to see him carry a burden! On his head? No. On his back? Yes, but after a fashion of his own, perfectly natural and entirely independent of basket, or receptacle of any kind in which to place it. I have now in my garden some half-dozen of these labourers at work, removing immense masses of clay, which are nearly as hard as flint, and how do they manage? My friend Jumah Khan reverts his arms, and clasping his hands together behind his back, receives the pyramidal load, which generally overtops his head, and thus he conveys it to its destination," &c.Colburn's United Service Magazine, December, 1852, pp. 514, 515.

Thucydides tells us that as soon as the crews of the Athenian ships, weatherbound at Pylos in the spring of the year B.C. 425, had made up their minds to kill time by fortifying their harbour of refuge,

"They took the work in hand, and plied it briskly.... The mud that was anywhere requisite, for want of vessels, they carried on their shoulders, bending forwards as much as possible, that it might have room to stick on, and holding it up with both hands clasped fast behind that it might not slide down."Book iv. chap. 4. (Smith's Translation.)

Temple.

HOVEDEN'S ANNALSBOHN'S "ANTIQUARIAN LIBRARY."

Considering the cheap issue of all standard works of reference a great boon to the general student, I was predisposed to welcome heartily Mr. Bohn's Antiquarian Library. If, however, cheapness be accompanied by incorrectness, the promised boon I conceive to be worthless; even one or two glaring errors rendering the student distrustful of the entire series. I was led to form the first of these conclusions on receiving vol. i. of a translation of the Annals of Roger de Hoveden, by Henry T. Riley, Esq., barrister-at-law; who introduces the work by a flourish of trumpets in the Preface, on the multifarious errors of the London and Frankfort editions, and the labour taken to correct his own; to the second by observing, whilst cutting the leaves, the following glaring errors, put forward too as corrections:Vol. i. p. 350., Henry II. is stated by the Annalist to have landed in Ireland, A.D. 1172, "at a place which is called Croch, distant eight miles from the city of Waterford." Here Mr. Riley, with perfect gravity, suggests Cork1 as the true reading!! Can it be, that a barrister-at-law, with an ominously Irish-sounding name, is ignorant that the city of Cork is somewhat more distant than eight miles from the urbs intacta, as Waterford loves to call herself? The fact is, however, that Hoveden and his former editors were nearly correct: on old maps of the harbour of Waterford, Crook Castle is laid down inside Creden Head, on the Waterford side of the harbour; and Crook is still the name of a place at the point indicated, somewhat more however than eight miles from Waterford.

Again, at p. 351. occurs Hoveden's well-known and valuable enumeration of the Irish episcopal sees at the same period, of which Mr. Riley observes: "Nearly all these are mis-spelt they are in a state of almost hopeless confusion." And then, to make confusion worse confounded, his note on the Bishop of Ossory (p. 352.) says "In the text, 'Erupolensis' is perhaps a mistake for 'Ossoriensis.'" Now, Erupolensis happens to be a correct alias of Ossoriensis: the former characterising the diocese from Kilkenny, the cathedral city, which being seated on the Nore, or NeorHibernicè Eoir, Latinè Erus, was sometimes called Erupolisthe latter from the territory with which the see was and is co-extensive, the ancient kingdom of Ossory.

How many more errors there may be in the first volume of the work, I cannot say: but, at all events, what the reader has to complain of is, not that the translator was unable to tell all about "Croch" and "Erupolis," but that, not knowing, he has made matters worse by his hardy elucidations. Truly, at this rate, it were better that no cheap edition of Hoveden were vouchsafed to the public.

Kilkenny.

FOLK LORE

Raven Superstition.On a recent occasion, at an ordinary meeting of the guardians of the poor, an application was made by the relieving officer on behalf of a single woman residing in the church village at Altarnun. The cause of seeking relief was stated to be "grief," and on asking for an explanation, the officer stated that the applicant's inability to work was owing to depressed spirits, produced by the flight of a croaking raven over her dwelling on the morning of his visit to the village. The pauper was by this circumstance, in connexion with its well-known ominous character, actually frightened into a state of wretched nervous depression, which induced physical want.

African Folk Lore.The following curious piece of folk lore is quoted from an extract in The Critic (of April 1, 1853, p. 172.), in the course of a review of Richardson's Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa, &c.:

"To avert the evil eye from the gardens, the people (of Mourzak) put up the head of an ass, or some portion of the bones of that animal. The same superstition prevails in all the oases that stud the north of Africa, from Egypt to the Atlantic, but the people are unwilling to explain what especial virtue there exists in an ass's skull."

Funeral Custom.In some parts (I believe) of Yorkshire, and perhaps elsewhere, it is customary to send, immediately after a death, a paper bag of biscuits, and a card with the name, &c. of the deceased, to his friends, be they many or few. Can any of your readers explain the matter? I have more than once seen the card, but not the biscuits.