A.W.
Vox Populi Vox Dei.—The words "Populi vox, vox Dei," stand as No. 97. among the "Aphorismi Politici ex Ph. Cominoeo," in a small volume in my possession, entitled,—
"Aphorismi Politici et Militares, etc. par Lambertum Danæum collecti. Lugduni Batavorum. CID IDC XXX IX."
There is no reference given to book or chapter; and, judging from the manner in which the aphorisms of Thucydides and Tacitus (which I have been able to examine) are quoted, I fear it may be found that the words in question are rather a condensation of some paragraph by Des Comines that the ipsissima verba that he employed.
C. FORBES.
Temple.
The Cuckoo.—In respect to the Query of "G." (No. 15. p. 230.), on the cuckoo, as the Welsh Ambassador, I would suggest that it was in allusion to the annual arrival of Welshmen in search of summer and other employment. As those wanderers may have entered England about the time of the cuckoo's appearance, the idea that the bird was the precursor of the Welsh might thus become prevalent. Also, on the quotation given by "PETIT ANDRÉ" (No. 18. p. 283.) of Welsh parsley, or hempen halters, it may have derived its origin from the severity practised on the Welsh, in the time of their independence, when captured on the English side of the border,—the death of the prisoner being inevitable.
GOMER.
Ancient Titles (No. 11. p. 173.).—It may be interesting to your querist "B." to know that the seal of the borough of Chard, in the county of Somerset, has two birds in the position which he describes, with the date 1570.
S.S.S.
Daysman (No. 12. p. 188., No. 17. p. 267.).—For quoted instances of this, and other obsolete words, see Jameson's Bible Glossary, just published by Wertheim in Paternoster Row.
S.S.S.
Safeguard (No. 17. p. 267.).—The article of dress for the purpose described is still used by farmers' wives and daughters in the west of England, and is known by the same name.
S.S.S.
Finkle (No. 24. p. 384.).—means fennel. Mr. Halliwell (Dict. p. 357.) quotes from a MS. of the Nominale, "fynkylsede, feniculum."
L.
Gourders of Rain (No. 21. p. 335., No. 22. p. 357.).—Has the word "Gourders" any connection with Gourtes, a stream, or pool? See Cotgrave's Dict., and Kelham's Dict. of the Norman Language.
Geotere is the A.-S. word for "melter;" but may not the term be applied to the pourer out of anything? Gourd is used by Chaucer in the sense of a vessel. (See Prol. to the Manciple's Tale.)
C.I.R.
Urbanus Regius (No. 23. p. 367.).—The "delightful old lady" is informed that "Urbanus Regius" (or Urban le Roi) was one of the reformers, a native of Langenargen, in Germany. His works were published under the title of Vitet et Opera Urbani Regii, &c., Norib. 1562. His theological works have been translated into English, as the lady is aware.
W. FRANKS MATHEWS.
Kidderminster, April 7. 1850.
Horns (No. 24. p. 383.).—Rosenmüller ad Exodum xxxiv. 29.
"Ignorabat quods plenderet entis faciei ejus. Vulgatus interpres reddidit. Ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua, quia verbum Karan denominativum nominis Keren, cornu; opinatus est denotare, cornua habere; hine nata opinio, Mosis faciem fuisse cornutam. Sed nomen [Hebrew: keren] ob similitudinem et ad radios transferri, docet Haliæ, m. 4. ubi de fulminibus dicitur.... Hic denotat emisit radias, i.e. splenduit." LXX. [Greek: dedoxastai]. Our version, shone.
R. ad Psal. xxii. seems to say, that in Arabic there is the like metaphor, of the sun's rays to a deer's horns. R. adds, that the Jews also attributed horns to Moses in another sense, figuratively for power, as elsewhere.
Tauriformis.—The old scholiasts on Horace say that rivers are always represented with horns, "propter impetum et mugitum æquarum."
"Corniger Hesperidum fluvius."
An old modern commentator observes, that in Virgil "Rhenus bicornis," rather applies to its two æstuaries.
When Milton says (xi. 831.) "push'd by the horned flood," he seems rather to mean, as Newton explains him, that "rivers, when they meet with anything to obstruct their passage, divide themselves and become horned as it were, and hence the ancients have compared them to bulls."
C.B.
["M." (Oxford) refers our correspondent to Facciolati, Lexicon, ed. Bailey, voc. Corun.]
Horns (No. 24. p. 383.).—1. Moses' face, Ex. ch. xxxiv. (karan, Heb.), shot out beams or horns of light (from keren, Heb.); so the first beams of the rising sun are by the Arabian poets compared to horns. Absurdly rendered by Aqu. and Vulg. (facies) cornuta erat. Whence painters represent Moses as having horns.—Gesenius, Heb. Lex.
2. There appear many reasons for likening rivers to bulls. Euripides calls Cephisus taumomorphos, and Horace gives Aufidus the same epithet, for the same reason probably, as makes him call it also "longe sonans," "violentus," and "acer;" viz., the bull-like roaring of its waters, and the blind fury of its course, especially in flood time. Other interpretations may be given: thus, Milton, Dryden, and others, speak of the "horned flood," i.e., a body of water which, when it meets with any obstruction, divides itself and becomes horned, as it were. See Milt. P.L. xi. 831., and notes on the passage by Newton and Todd. Dryden speaks of "the seven-fold horns of the Nile," using the word as equivalent to winding stream. It would be tedious to multiply examples.
3. Of this phrase I have never seen a satisfactory explanation. "Coruna nasci" is said by Petronius, in a general sense, of one in great distress. As applied to a cuckold, it is common to most of the modern European languages. The Italian phrase is "becco cornuto" (horned goat), which the Accademici della Crusca explain by averring that that animal, unlike others can without anger bear a rival in his female's love.
"Dr. Burn, in his History of Westmoreland, would trace this crest of cuckoldom to horns worn as crests by those who went to the Crusades, as their armorial distinctions; to the infidelity of consorts during their absence, and to the finger of scorn pointed at them on their return; crested indeed, but abused."—Todd's Johnson's Dictionary.
R.T.H.G.
Why Moses represented with Horns.—You may inform your querist "L.C." (No. 24 p. 383.), that the strange practice of making Moses appear horned, which is not confined to statues, arose from the mistranslation of Exod. xxxiv. 30. & 35. in the Vulgate, which is to the Romanist his authenticated scripture. For there he reads "faciem Moysi cornutum," instead of "the skin of Moses' face shone." The Hebrew verb put into our type is coran, very possibly the root of the Latin cornu: and its primary signification is to put forth horns; its secondary, to shoot forth rays, to shine. The participle is used in its primary sense in Psalms, xix. 31.; but the Greek Septuagint, and all translators from the Hebrew into modern European languages, have assigned to the verb its secondary meaning in Exod. xxxiv. In that chapter the nominative to coran is, in both verses, undeniably skin, not head nor face. Now it would obviously be absurd to write "his skin was horned," so that common sense, and the authority of the Septuagint, supported by the language of St. Paul in his paraphrase and comment on this passage in 2 Cor. iii. 7-13., ought to have been sufficient to guide any Christian translator as to the sense to be attached to coran in the mention of Moses.
H.W.
Oxford, April 16, 1850.
[We have since received replies to a similar effect, from "SIR EDMUND FILMER," "J.E.," &c. "R.G." refers our Querist to Leigh's Critica Særa, part I. p. 219. London, 1662; and "M." refers him to the note on this passage in Exodus in M. Polus' Synopsis Criticorum. To "T.E." we are indebted for Notes on other portions of "L.C.'s" Queries.]
The Temple or A Temple.—"Mr. Foss" says (No. 21. p. 335.) that in Tyrwhitt's edition of Chaucer and in all other copies he has seen, the reading is—
"A gentil manciple was there of a temple."
In an imperfect black-letter folio copy of Chaucer in my possession (with curious wood-cuts, but without title-page, or any indications of its date, printer, &c.), the reading is—
"A gentyl mancyple was there of the temple."
That the above is the true reading ("the real passage"), and that it is to be applied to the temple, appears to me from what follows, in the description of the manciple.
"Of maysters had he moo than thryes ten
That were of lawe expirte and curyous,
Of whyche there were a dosen in that hous
Worthy to be," &c.;
P.H.F.
March 23, 1850.
Ecclesiastical Year (No. 24. p. 381.).—The following note on the calendar is authority for the statement respecting the beginning of the ecclesiastical year:—
"Note that the Golden Number and the Dominicall letter doeth change euery yeere the first day of January. Note also, that the yeere of our Lord beginneth the xxv. day of March, the same supposed to be the first day upon which the world was created, and the day when Christ was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary."
As in the Book of Common Prayer, Lond. 1614, p. 2. Bishop Cosins remarks, "beginneth the 25th day of March."
"Romani annum suum auspicantur ad calendas Januarias. Idem faciunt hodierni Romani et qui in aliis regnis papæ authoritatem agnoseunt. Ecclesia autem Anglicana sequitur suppotationem antiquam a Dionysio Exiguo inchoatum, anno Christi 532."
Nicholl's Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer, additional notes, p. 10. Fol. Lond. 1712, vid. loe.
In the Book of Common Prayer, Oxford, 1716, the note is,—
"Note.—The supputation of the year of our Lord in the Church of England beginneth the five-and-twentieth day of March."
This note does not now appear in our Prayer Books, being omitted, I suppose, in consequence of the adoption of the new style in England in 1752. The daily course of lessons used to begin, as it does now, with the Book of Genesis and of St. Matthew, in January; the collects, epistles, and gospels with those for Advent.
M.
Oxford.
Paying through the Nose (No. 21. p. 335.).—I have always understood this to be merely a degenerated pronunciation of the last word. Paying through the noose gives the idea so exactly, that, as far as the etymology goes, it is explanatory enough. But whether that reading has an historical origin may be another question. It scarcely seems to need one.
C.W.H.
Quem Deus vult perdere, &c. (No. 22. p. 351.).—The correct reading is, "Quem Jupiter vult perdere, dementat prius." See Duport's Gnomologia Homerica, p. 282. (Cantab. 1660.) Athenagoras quotes Greek lines, and renders them in Latin (p. 121. Oxon. 1682):
"At dæmon homini quum struit aliquid malum,
Pervertit illi primitus mentem suam."
The word "dementat" is not to be met with, I believe, in the works of any real classical author. Butler has employed the idea in part 3. canto 2. line 565. of Hudibras:
"Like men condemned to thunderbolts,
Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts."
C.I.R.
Shrew (No. 24. p. 381.).—The word, I apprehend, means sharp. The mouse, which is not the field-mouse, as Halliwell states, but an animal of a different order of quadrupeds, has a very sharp snout. Shrewd means sharp generally. Its bad sense is only incidental. They seem connected with scratch; screw; shrags, the end of sticks or furze (Halliwell); to shred (A.-S., screadan, but which must be a secondary form of the verb). That the shrew-mouse is called in Latin sorex, seems to be an accidental coincidence. That is said to be derived from [Greek: urax]. The French have confounded the two, and give the name souris to the common mouse, but not to the shrew-mouse.
I protest, for one, against admitting that Broc is derived from broc, persecution, which of course is participle from break. We say "to badger" for to annoy, to teaze. I suppose two centuries hence will think the name of the animal is derived from that verb, and not the verb from it. It means also, in A.-S., equus vilis, a horse that is worn out or "broken down."
C.B.
Zenobia (No. 24. p. 383.).—Zenobia is said to be "gente Judaea," in Hoffman's Lexicon Universale, and Facciolati, ed. Bailey, Appendix, voc. Zenobia.
M.
Oxford.
Cromwell's Estates (No. 24. p. 389.).—There is Woolaston, in Gloucestershire, four miles from Chepstow, chiefly belonging now to the Duke of Beaufort.
C.B.
Vox et præterea Nihil (No. 16. p. 247., and No. 24. p. 387.).—This saying is to be found in Plutarch's Laconic Apophthegms ([Greek: Apophthegmata Lakonika]), Plutarchi Opera Moralia, ed. Dan. Wyttenbach, vol. i. p. 649.
Philemon Holland has "turned it into English" thus:—
"Another [Laconian] having plucked all the feathers off from a nightingale, and seeing what a little body it had: 'Surely,' quoth he, 'thou art all voice, and nothing else.'"—Plutarch's Morals, fol. 1603. p. 470.
W.B.R.
Law of Horses.—The following is from Oliphant's Law of Horses, &c., p. 75. Will any of your readers kindly tell me whether the view is correct?
"It is said in Southerene v. Howe (2 Rol. Rep. 5.), Si home vend chivall que est lame, null action gist peur ceo, mes caveat emptor: lou jeo vend chivall que ad null oculus la null action gist; autrement lou il ad un conterfeit faux et bright eye." "If a man sell a horse which is lame, no action lyes for that, but caveat emptor; and when I sell a horse that has no eye, there no action lies; otherwise where he has a counterfeit, false, and bright eye."
Thus it appears that a distinction is here made between a horse having no eye at all, and having a counterfeit, false or bright one. And probably by bright eye is meant glass eye, or gutta serena; and the words "counterfeit" and "false" may be an attempt of the reporter to explain an expression which he did not understand. Because putting a false eye into a horse is far in advance of the sharpest practices of the present day, or of any former period.
Note.—Gutta Serena, commonly called glass-eye, is a species of blindness; the pupil is unusually dilated; it is immovable, bright, and glassy.
G.H. HEWIT OLIPHANT.
April 16. 1850.
Christ's Hospital.—In reply to "NEMO" (No. 20. p. 318.), a contemporary of the eminent Blues there enumerated, informs him, that although he has not a perfect recollection of the ballads then popular at Christ's Hospital, yet "NEMO" may be pleased to learn, that on making search at the Society of Antiquaries for Robin Hood Ballads, he found in a folio volume of Broadsides, &c., one of the much interest and considerable length in relation to that school. The Ballad must also be rare, as it is not among those in the two large volumes which have been for many years in the British Museum, nor is it in the three volumes of Roxburgh Ballads recently purchased for that noble library.
The undersigned believes that the only survivor of the scholars at Christ's Hospital mentioned by "NEMO," is the Rev. Charles Valentine Le Grice, now residing at Trerieffe, near Penzance.
J.M.G.
Worcester, March 22. 1850.