2"« S. VII. Mar. 12. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



215 



With such a perfect joy- 

 As no dim doubts alloy, 

 An intuition, 

 A glor}', an amenity, 

 Passing the dark condition 

 Of blind humanity. 

 As if he surely knew 

 All the blest wonders should ensue. 

 Or he had lately left the upper sphere. 

 And had read all the sovran schemes and divine 

 riddles there. « C. L." 



The great works of Leonardo Da Vinci are 

 falling rapidly into decay. His cabinet pictures 

 are rarely met with ; time and casualties have 

 reduced their number, and therefore render more 

 valuable the few that remain to the Avorld of art. 

 One of his most esteemed was in the collection of 

 the late Earl of Suffolk, afterwards in that of Mr. 

 Charles Duncombe, and another equally fine, for- 

 merly in the Escurial, is, I believe, in the collec- 

 tion of Mr. Alexander Baring. A list of such of 

 his pictures as are authentic is a desideratum. 



James Elmes. 

 20. Burney Street, Greenwich. 



Minat ^attS. 



Didofs '''■ Biographie Generale." — I can add my 

 testimony to that of Lethbediensis (p. 58.) as to 

 the inaccuracy, in details relating to Englishmen, 

 of Didot's Biog. Gen. In fact, in the many Eng- 

 lish biographies I have consulted in that work, I 

 have scarcely found one free from error. The 

 errors are sometimes mere misprints, sometimes 

 arise from misapprehension of our institutions ; in 

 either case they are such as any Englishman of 

 ordinary intelligence could have corrected. 



As an instance of the former : Francis Horner 

 is described as being returned to Parliament " par 

 le bourg de Saint Joes." Does this mean St. 

 ives? 



As an instance of the latter, the late Lord 

 Hardinge is stated to have been sworn as a mem- 

 ber of the Privy Council : " et deux ans apres il 

 echangea cette position contre celle de chef du se- 

 cretariat de rirlande." The writer (L. Louvet) 

 being clearly ignorant of the true status of a 

 Privy Councillor, and too proud to translate his 

 English authority literally. 



The English word " Fellow " (of a college) is 

 evidently a puzzle to the French biographists, 

 and is rendered in half-a-dozen different ways in 

 different parts of the Biographie, some of which 

 (as " I'emploi d'aide ") give a false impression of 

 the nature of a Fellowship. A great redeeming 

 feature is, that the more elaborate lives, such as — 

 to quote those which rise at once to my memory — 

 D'Alembert, Bacon, Byron, Diderot, Charle- 

 magne, Galileo, Goethe, are well-written and 

 really interesting articles, such as I have not seen 

 in any English Cyclopaedia. S. C. 



Inscriptions at New College, Oxford. — Visitors 

 to Oxford, on walking round the fine old cloister 

 of New College, have often been perplexed by a 

 tablet there, explained in the following brief pas- 

 sage from Camden : — 



" In the Cloyster of New College, in Oxford, this fol- 

 lowing is written with a coal for one Woodgate, who be- 

 queathed 200 pound to one who would not bestow a 

 plate for his memorial : — 

 " ' Heus Peripatetice, 



Conde tibi tumulum, nee fide hecredis amori, 

 Epitaphiumque compara ; 

 Mortuus est, nee emit libris hoec verba ducentis. 

 Woodgatus hie sepultus est." 



From a " Farther Discoui'se on Epitaphs in 

 England," inserted in Collection of Curiotis Dis' 

 courses, originally published by Hearne, vol. ii. 

 p. 344., edit. 1773. 



Camden speaks of the above as written, in his 

 time, "with a coal." It is now contained in a 

 small mural tablet of stone, surrounded with a 

 black edge. 



Of another, and more solemn character, is a 

 short inscription on a brass in the chapel of the 

 same college : — 



" Bone Jesu, sis mihi Jesu ! " 



Fbancis Trench. 



Islip. 



Woollett the Engraver. — As the following notice 

 relating to the wonderful fecundity of the wife of 

 this distinguished engraver may not be generally 

 known, it is worth preserving in "N. & Q." : — 



" Nov. 24, 1781. Mrs. Woollett, wife of the celebrated 

 engraver, of twins. This is the fifth time Mrs. W. has 

 been brought to bed of twins, and once she had three 

 children at a birth." — Westminster Magazine. 



The same page records the marriage of Bishop 

 Warburton's widow (October 8, 1781) : — 



" The Eev. Mr. Smith, to Mrs. Warburton, relict of 

 the late Bishop of Gloucester." 



J. M. 



Renovation in old Age. — I lately met a gentle- 

 man, who mentioned to me the following par- 

 ticulars in respect to himself, one or two of which 

 may be worth noting as rather remarkable in the 

 history of our species. 



He was born in the year 1781, and is as hale and 

 active as at any previous time of his life ; sleeps 

 well, eats well, and is in full possession of all his 

 mental faculties ; the eyesight good, but obliged 

 for close reading to use spectacles. His hair, 

 white, is now returning to its former colour, black, 

 and he is in process of getting a 7iew under tooth, 

 about half way (as I saw it) shooting through the 

 gum. He never wore flannel next his skin, or 

 otherwise on his person ; takes the cold bath 

 regularly, with a cheerful good complexion, and 

 I believe occupies much of his time in intellectual 

 studies, and in official duties as a. respected Elder 

 of the church of Scotland. He has a fine folio 



