180 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 121. 



HorcB Belgicae. — In T*hat language is the second 

 part of Hoffman von Fallersleben's Horce Belgicee 

 written? This, from its title being written in 

 Latin, may seem a foolish question, but it is also 

 <;alled (N. & Q., Vol. v., p. 7.) HoUandiscJie Volks- 

 lieder : and where can it be procured or seen ? 



W. S. S. 



[Hoffman's work consists of six parts, of which the 

 first— a bibliographical essay on old Flemish literature 

 ■ — is written in Latin. The second, to which our cor- 

 respondent refers, is in German. Part III. contains 

 the Flemish Floris ende B^ancefloer, with a German In- 

 troduction; Part I v., the old Flemish Caerlende Elegnst, 

 has a Latin preface ; while Part V., containing Lantsloof 

 ende die scone Sandrijn and Renout van Montalhaen, 

 and Part VI., Altniedertlindische Scfiaubuhne, a col- 

 lection of early Flemish dramatic pieces, have German 

 i ntroductions. We believe the work may be procured 

 of Williams and Norgate. If not, or our correspon- 

 dent only wishes to refer to it, we shall be very happy 

 to place our copy at his service for a few weeks.] 



Dulcarnon. — "lam at Dulcarnon." What is 

 the origin of the above saying ? I heard it used 

 the other day by a person who, declaring he was 

 at his wit's end, exclaimed, " Yes, indeed I am at 

 Dulcarnon." Since that I have seen it in Boyer's 

 French Dictionary, but in no English book. 



H. CoRviLLE Warde. 



Kidderminster. 



[In addition to the note in our first Vol. p. 254. we may 

 remark that Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary, says this 

 word has set all editors of Chaucer at defiance. A clue 

 to its meaning may be found in Stanihurst's Description 

 of Ireland, p. S8. : " These sealie soules were (as all 

 didcarnanes for the most part are) more to be terrified 

 from infidelitie through the paines of hell, than allured 

 to Christianitie by the joies of heaven."] 



NUMBER OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL 

 (Vol. v., p. 11.) 



Your correspondent JEgrotus sees a difficulty 

 in the rapid increase of the Israelites in Egypt, 

 and proposes to lessen it by doubling the time of 

 their stay there, and including women in their 

 census. His criticisms, however, seem to be as 

 inadmissible as his difficulty is unreal. 



For, first, in the place he quotes (Ex. xii. 37-), 

 the number is said to be "nearly ^00,000 that were 

 men," where the Italics are intended to throw em- 

 phasis on men; because the Heb. 2^'?3il means 

 men as opposed to women, strong men, even soldiers. 

 Also, from Numb. i. 2. 46. we see that the num- 

 ber 603,550 included only " every male . . . from 

 20 years old and upward, all that were able to go 

 forth to war," thus excluding the tribe of Levi 

 (v. 47.). Josephus, indeed, says {Antiq. iii. viii. 

 2. and xii. 4.) that it included only the men between 

 20 and 50 years of age. 



Then, as to the time that they were in Egypt : 

 it is evident from Gal. iii. 17. that, going back 430 

 years from the Exode, we must come into the thhe 

 of Abraham : so that the 430 years in Ex. xii. 40. 

 must begin when Abraham first went into Egypt. 

 And this is confirmed by the reading of the LXX 

 there : KaT^K-ocav 4v ^p AlyinrToi koI iv 7^ Xavaay, irtf 

 rerpaKoa-M -rpiaKovra. That they remained only 215 

 years in Egypt, is not merely the opinion of Pro- 

 fessor Lee, as ^grotus seems to think : it is given 

 by Josephus (Antiq. 11. xv. 2.), was received by 

 the Jews and early Christians generally, and is 

 now (at least almost) universally adopted. 



Now, to come to the supposed difficulty itself: 

 none such really exists, even if we take the higher 

 number and the shorter time, as I think indeed we 

 ought. The men being taken at about 600,000, 

 we must reckon the whole people, at least, at 

 2,000,000. A calculation of no difficulty shows 

 that if 70 persons increase in 215 years to 2,000,000^ 

 the number of the people must double itself every 

 14^ years : or, if they increase to 3,000,000, tlie 

 number must double every 14 years. Now, com- 

 pare this with what we know about some other 

 nations. Humboldt, in his Essai Politique sur le 

 Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne (tom.i. p. 339.) 

 says : 



" The information which I have collected proves 

 that, if the order of nature were not Interrupted from 

 time to time by some extraordinary and disturbing 

 cause " [e. g. famine, pestilence], " the population of 

 New Spain ought to double itself every nineteen years. 

 . ... In the United States, since 1774, we have seen 

 the population double itself in 22 years. The curious 

 tables which M. Samuel Blodget has published in his 

 Statistical Manual of the United States of America (1 806^, 

 p. 73.), show that, for certain States, this cycle is only 

 thirteen or fourteen years." 



A^ain, Malthus, in his Essay on the Principles 

 of Population, p. 6., says : 



" According to a table of Euler, calculated on a 

 mortality of 1 in 3fi, if the births be to the deaths in 

 the proportion of 3 to 1, the period of doubling will 

 be over 12 years and 4-5ihs. And this supposition is 

 not only a possible supposition, but has actually oc- 

 curred for short periods in more countries than one. 

 Sir William Petty (Polit. Arith., p. 14.) supposes a 

 doubling possible in so short a time as ten years." 



What difficulty, then, can there be (knowing 

 the promise in Gen. xvii. 6.) in believing that the 

 number of the Israelites in Egypt doubled itself 

 Q\Qvy fourteen years ? F. A. 



P.S. Assuming what Malthus considers an 

 ordinary rate of increase, when population is un- 

 checked, viz. a doubling in 25 years, 70 persons in 

 430 years would increase to 10,539,000 : which is 

 what ^GROTUS wishes to know. 



At Vol. v., p. 11., ^GROTUS suggests that the 

 " 600,000 men " of Ex. xii. 37. mean " men and 



