252 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



[No. 124. 



TOUNGS "NAKCISSA. 



(Vol. iii., p. 422.) 



The inquiry by J. M. relative to the authority 

 possessed by the letter quoted from the Evan- 

 gelical Magazine for Nov. 1797, may be fairly 

 answered by a reference to the letter in the 

 magazine alluded to. 



It is appended as a note to a " Memoir of the 

 late Mr. Mouncher of Southampton, written by 

 the Rev. Mr. Kingsbury." The letter itself was 

 written from Montpellier in 1789, by Mr. Walter 

 Taylor to his sister Mrs. Mouncher ; and, from 

 the position of all those parties, would appear to 

 be deserving of credit as far as it goes. 



It shows that Mr. W. Taylor, and others, con- 

 versed with the gardener of tlie " King's Garden ;" 

 and from him (son of the former gardener) heard 

 that about forty-five years before Dr. Younjr had 

 bribed the then under-gardener to allow him to 

 bury " Narcissa," and would thus prove that the 

 tradition existed at that time at Montpellier. 



There is also in a retired part of the Botanic 

 Garden (established by Henry IV.) a stone bear- 

 ing an inscription to " Narcissa," as mentioned in 

 Murray's Hand-Book, placed there probably in 

 consequence of that tradition. Moreover, it is 

 believed, in the family of a gentleman of Mont- 

 pellier, that his maternal grandfather saw Dr. 

 Young and his step-daughter at Montpellier about 

 the year 1741 ; that the lady died there, and was 

 buried, as is stated, in the garden ; that however 

 it was not Mrs. Temple, but a younger sister of 

 hers. 



It appears from records in this country, that 

 Lady Elizabeth Lee, by her first marriage, had 

 one son and two daughters. The son was buried 

 at St. Mary's-le-Strand in 1743 ; the elder daugh- 

 ter married Henry Temple, son of Viscount Pal- 

 merston, and it appears died in France (perhaps 

 at Lyons) in 1736 ; the younger, Caroline, mar- 

 ried Captain, afterwards General Haviland, and 

 died without issue. The General died at Penn in 

 Buckinghamshire in 1784; but no record relating 

 to his first wife, Miss Caroline Lee, is to be found 

 there. 



Such record, if found in any parish in England, 

 would greatly tend to decide the question. Pos- 

 sibly some correspondent may be in a position to 

 ascertain whether such record exists. 



Lady Elizabeth had by her marriage with Dr. 

 Young, a son only ; it could not, therefore, be a 

 dau"'hter of Young's who died at Montpellier. 



D. S. 



DCLCARNON. 



(Vol. i., p. 254. ; Vol. v., p. 180.) 

 Why this word should have " set all editors of 

 Chaucer at defiance" is not very apparent, for he 



himself sufiiciently explains its meaning by the 

 context. The passage in which it occurs is in 

 Troyhis and Creseyde, b. iii. 931. seq. thus : 



" Creseyde answerde, As wisely God at reste 

 My soule bringe, as me is for him wo. 

 And eme, iwys, fayne wolde I done the best. 

 If that I a grace had for to do so. 

 But whether that ye dwell, or for him go, 

 I am, tyl God me bettre mynde sende, 

 At Dulcarnon, right at my wyttes end. 



"(Quod Pandarus). Ye nece ! Wol ye here? 

 Dulcarnon is called flemyng of wretches. 

 It semeth harde, for wretches wol nought lere "^1 

 For very slouthe, or other wylful tetches : 

 This is said by hem, that be not worthe two fetches. 

 But ye ben wyse," &c. 



Now Speght, in his Glossary to the edition of 

 1602, says : 



" Dulcarnon is a proposition in Euclide, lib. i. 

 theorem 33. propos. 47., which was found out by Py- 

 thagoras after an whole yeeres study, and much beating 

 of his brayne. In thankfulnes whereof he sacrificed 

 an oxe to the gods ; which sacrifice he called Dul- 

 carnon. Alexander Neckham, an ancient writer, in hia 

 booke De Naturis rerum, compoundeth this word of 

 Dulia and Caro, and will have Dulcarnon to be quasi 

 sacrijicium carnis. Chaucer aptly applieth it to Cre- 

 seide in this place : showing that she was as much 

 amazed how to answer Troilus, as Pythagoras was 

 wearied to bring his desire to effect." 



Master Speght is somewhat in error in his solu- 

 tion : let us hear another expositor. I have men- 

 tioned in your pages the existence of a translation 

 into rhymed Latin verse of the whole of Chaucer's 

 Troilus, with a copious commentary by Sir Francis 

 Kynaston ; and I may now add, for Mr. Lang's 

 satisfaction, that it is penes me. The following 

 note there occurs on this word : 



« Dulcarnon, &c. By this exposition, which Pan- 

 darus makes of the word Dulcarnon, it is plaine that 

 Chaucer sets it downe here as a worde in use in his 

 time, and such a one as the logicians do call (being a 

 word of no significant sense) vox significans ad placitum, 

 as in English twittle twattle, fiddle faddle, qulbling and 

 conundrums, and the like. So Dulcarnon in those 

 times was a word of the same signification as we at this 

 day do use nonplus; as we say by a scholler that is 

 apposed and cannot answer any further, that he is put 

 to a nonplus, a phrase derived from Hercules' motto 

 written upon the two great Gaditane pillars set on 

 either side the Straights of Gibraltar : which Hercules 

 constituted as the end of the world with these words, 

 NON PLUS ULTRA : meaning that no man ever did or 

 could go further than those pillars. For Neckham's 

 far-fetch'd criticisme in deriving the etymologie of the 

 word Dulcarnon from the Greeke word Doulia, and 

 the Latine word Carnium, that is, the service of flesh, 

 which Euclide sacrificed for joy of the invention of a 

 probleme which he demonstrated, [and] on which he 

 had long studied, [it] is in my minde quite from the 

 purpose." 



