Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850

Replies

HOLME MSS.—THE CRADOCKS

(Vol. ii., p. 429.)

In answer to the Query of Mr. Ellacombe, "I should like to know whether the MSS. of Randle Holme, of Chester, 1670, which afterwards were penes Dr. Latham, are still accessible?"

1. The MSS. alluded to are those of four successive antiquaries of that name, of whom an account will be found in Ormerod's Hist. Chesh., vol. ii., under "Tranmere."

2. The person intended was not Dr. Latham, but Mr. William Latham, of Eltham, afterwards of Quenby Hall, Leicestershire, brother of Dr. Latham, of Romsey, the naturalist.

3. The Holme MSS. were never in the possession of Mr. Latham, but if Mr. Ellacombe will refer to Dr. Gower's prospectus, reissued by Mr. Latham in 1800, he will find a correct statement of their having been obtained by Bishop Gastrell for the Earl of Oxford, and "eventually for the mighty emolument of the public." (p. 40.)

4. These MSS. (being part of the Harleian Collection), are accessible to visitors of the reading room at the Museum, and extend, in the Harleian Catalogue, from No. 1920. to No. 2180. inclusive.

5. With respect to Cradocks, as connected with Cheshire, Mr. E. will find notice in Ormerod's Hist. Chesh., iii. 236., of the tomb of Sir John Cradock in Nantwich Church, as lately, and perhaps now, remaining, and an account of its former state in Chaloner's and Holme's Church Notes, Harl. MSS. 2151., and in Ordinary of Arms in King's Vale Royall, 1656, arms assigned to Cradock:—"Argent, on a chevron azure three garbs, or. Partridge (Hist. of Nantwich, 1773) names him Sir David, and states that the arms were not then discoverable." Platt's later History quotes Derrick's Letters for naming him Sir Roger.

The pedigree of Newton, previously Cradock, will be found at length in Lewys Dwnn's Visitation of Wales (vol. i. p. 145.), published by the late Sir Samuel Meyrick, under the auspices of the Welsh MSS. Society. It places Newton in Pembrokeshire, and differs in some other respects from Mr. Ellacombe's account. The entry was made in 39 Eliz., 1597, and the close of the pedigree, translated into English, is as follows:

Sir John Newton, Kt.==

__________________________________|__________________________

|                                              |                                              |

Henry Newton of                  2 John Newton                Frances, wife

Hanham, Somersetshire.           of Frusto.                        of William

                                                                                        Lord Cobham.

Lancastriensis.

ANTIQUITY OF SMOKING

In Vol. ii., p. 286., an allusion is made by a correspondent to the following verses of the comic poet Crobylus, in reference to the antiquity of smoking:

 
Α. "Ἐγὼ δὲ πρὸς τὰ θερμὰ ταῦθ' ὑπερβολῇ
Τοὺς δακτύλους δήπουθεν ἰδαίους ἔχω,
Καὶ τὸν λάρυγγ' ἥδιστα πυριῶ τεμαχίοις.
 
 
Β. "Κάμινος, οὺκ ἄνθρωπος."
 

Athen I. p. 5. F.

The two last verses are thus rendered in the passage referred to:

 
"And I will sweetly burn my throat with cuttings;
A chimney, not a man."
 

Athenæus is describing the fondness of the ancient gourmands for eating their food extremely hot. As they had no forks, but, like the modern Orientals, carried their food to their mouth with their fingers, one Pithyllus used gloves in order to avoid burning his fingers. (Ib. I. p. 6. D.)

In the second line there is a pun upon the word ἰδαῖος which is explained to mean "cold"—the allusion being to the Idæan Dactyli. (See Meineke, Fragm. Com. Gr., vol. iv. p. 568. Lobeck, Aglaoph. p. 1181.) The passage is to be translated thus:

A. My fingers are fire-proof against these exceedingly hot morsels, and I delight in burning my throat with slices of fish.

B. "A furnace, not a man."

In v. 3. πυριῶ is the word properly applied to steaming in a vapour-bath; and τέμαχος or τεμάχων is a slice or cutlet of fish. (See Aristoph. Nub. 339.) In v. 4. κάμινος must not be rendered "chimney". It is a furnace or oven, and not even a stove or hearth, as Scott and Liddell remark in v. The ancient Greeks, and probably the Romans likewise, were unacquainted with chimneys. (See Beckmann, Hist. of Inventions, art. "Chimneys," and Smith's Dict. of Greek and Rom. Ant., art. "House".) The meanings of the Latin word caminus are explained by Beckmann (Ib., vol. i. p. 301. ed. Bohn). The short poem of κάμινος ἢ κεραμίς, attributed to Homer (Epig. 14.), illustrates the meaning of the word κάμινος. In these verses it is a furnace used for baking pottery.

Crobylus was not earlier than Olymp. 114. B. C. 324. (See Meineke, Ib., vol. i. p. 490.)

L.

ANTIQUITAS SÆCULI JUVENTUS MUNDI

(Vol. ii., pp. 218. 350. 295.)

The aphorism, "Antiquitas sæculi juventus mundi," which occurs in the Treatise de Augm. Scient., vol. viii. p. 39., and in the Advancement of Learning, vol. ii. p. 46., ed. Montagne, may be safely attributed to Lord Bacon himself, though it is printed in both passages in the form of quotation, between inverted commas.

In the Novum Organum, lib. i. aph. 83, the thought appears in this form:

"De antiquitate autem, opinio quam homines di ipsâ fovent. negligens omnino est, et vix verbo ipsi congrua. Mundi enim senium et grandævitas pro antiquitate vere habenda sunt; quæ temporibus nostris tribui debent, non juniori ætati mundi, qualis apud antiquos fuit. Illa enim ætas, respectu nostri, antiqua et major; respectu mundi ipsius, nova et minor fuit."

The pointed and aphoristic form of the thought is due to Bacon; the thought itself has, however, been traced by Dr. Whewell to Giordano Bruno.

"It is worthy of remark, that a thought which is often quoted from Francis Bacon, occurs in Bruno's Cena di Cenere, published in 1584; I mean the notion, that the later times are more aged than the earlier. In the course of the dialogue, the Pedant, who is one of the interlocutors, says, 'In antiquity is wisdom;' to which the philosophical character replies, 'If you knew what you were talking about, you would see that your principle leads to the opposite result of that which you wish to infer; I mean, that we are older and have lived longer than our predecessors.' He then proceeds to apply this, by tracing the course of astronomy through the earlier astronomers up to Copernicus."—Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. ii. p. 361.

The Advancement of Learning was published in 1605, twenty-one years after the Treatise of Bruno. Mr. Hallam (History of Europe, vol. iv. p. 92.) treats the thought as the original property of Bacon; and although the first trace of it is to be found in Bruno, there is no improbability in supposing that it occurred independently to Bacon about the same time.

L.

Bacon's Advancement in Learning (Vol. ii., p. 396.).—The writer in "Notes and Queries" speaks of the English text as being original, and the Latin a version of Lord Bacon's Instauratio Magna; is he not mistaken? In reality there were two originals of that work, as we learn from Mallet's account prefixed to the folio edition of Bacon's works in 4 vols. London, 1740, p. xvii. et seq. (vol. first). The first edition was in English, London, 1605, and is to be found in the Bodleian. The Latin, published in 1623, is said by Mallet to be the work of Bacon himself, with the assistance of some friends, after he had enlarged and corrected the original; it is from this that Wats' version is made, which is very exact and faithful to its original. The title-page is engraved on copper by Marshall, with this inscription:

"INSTAVR. MAG. P. I. OF THE ADVANCEMENT AND PROFICIENCE OF LEARNING or the PARTITIONS OF SCIENCES, IX Bookes, Written in Latin by the Most Eminent, Illustrious, and Famous LORD FRANCIS BACON, Baron of Verulam, Vicont St. Alban, Counsilour of Estate, and Lord Chancellor of England, Interpreted by Gilbert Wats, OXFORD: Printed by Leon. Lichfield, Printer to the Vniversity, for Rob. Young and Ed. Forrell, ."

The passage referred to is at p. 36.:

"Indeed, to speak truly, Antiquitas seculi juventus mundi, certainly our times are the ancient times, when the world is now ancient, and not those which we count ancient, ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from our own times."

Now this agrees exactly with Bacon's original Latin in Mallet's edition, vol. i. p. 43., except that ordine retrogrado is not in Italics; but in Bacon's English text (Mallet's edition, vol ii. p. 431.), the coincidence in all respects is complete:

"And to speak truly, Antiquitas sacculi, (sic) juventus mundi. These times are the ancient times when the world is ancient, and not those which we account ancient ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from ourselves."

Wats' version is the more exact of the two.

T.

ALBEMARLE, TITLE OF

(Vol. ii., p. 442.)

In reply to the question of J., I send you some particulars about Aumerle or Albemarle.

The first Earl of this place, which is the name of a small town or territory in Normandy, was Otho, descended from the Earls of Champagne, and nearly related to William the Conqueror, to whom he fled for protection, having killed a great person in that country, and obtained this earldom and the Isle of Holderness, in Yorkshire, for his maintenance. The title remained in the heirs of Otho till the death of William, eighth Earl of Albemarle, 44th Henry III., when it reverted to the Crown, with the lordship of Holderness, and in the 9th of Richard II. he granted them to Thomas of Woodstock, summoned to parliament as "Thomas, Duke of Albemarle, the king's loving uncle."

Without enumerating the different persons upon whom our kings subsequently conferred this title as often as it became extinct or vacant, it will be sufficient for our purpose to show, that at the Restoration the dukedom of Albemarle was given to General Monk, who, according to Banks (D. and E. Peerage, vol. iii. p. 37.), had a certain degree of hereditary pretension to the name by which he was ennobled, inasmuch as he was descended from Margaret, eldest daughter and co-heir of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick and Albemarle; but this is not satisfactorily made out in Banks' table. At all events, the dukedom became again extinct on the death of Christopher Monk, the second Duke of Albemarle, in 1688, S.P.; but the name was once more revived in 1695-6, by William III., in favour of Arnold Joort Van Keppel, Lord of Voorst, who had attended the king in several campaigns, and was his Master of the Robes, and on the 10th of February in that year created "Earl of Albemarle in Normandy;" the title having been doubtless selected as one so frequently enjoyed by persons of the highest consideration, and not in any way resting upon an hereditary claim.

Braybrooke.

Audley End.