May 22. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



483 



Data Hcencia, 

 Crescit amentia, 



Tara, &c. 

 Papa sic prscipit 

 Frater iioii decipit 



Tara, &c. 

 Chare fratercule, 

 Vale et tempore, 



Tara, &c. 

 Quando revititur, 

 Congratulabimur, 



Tara, &c. 

 Nosmet respicimus, 

 Et vale dicimiis, 



Tara, &c, 

 Corporum noxibus 

 Cordium amplexibiis, 



Tara tantara teino." 



Andrew Boorde's printed works are as follows : 



1. A Book of the Jntroduction to Knowledge, 4to., 

 London, 1542. 



2. A Compendious Regiment or Dietary of Health, 

 made at Mountpyller, 8vo., 1542. 



3. The Breviary of Health, 4to., London, 1547. 



4. The Princyples of Astronomy e, 12mo., R, 

 Copland, London, n. d. 



Wood tells us he wrote "a book on prognos- 

 ticks," and another " of urines." The Merry Tales 

 of the Wise Men of Gotham are also ascribed to 

 him, as well as A Right Pleasant and Merry His- 

 tory of the Mylner of Abington, &c. 



The origin of the Merry Tales is pointed out by 

 Horsfield, in his History of Lewes, vol. i. p. 239. : — 



" At a last, holden at Pevensey, Oct. 3, 24 Hen. VI I L, 

 for the purpose of preventing unauthorized persons 

 * from setting nettes, pottes, or innyances,' or anywise 

 taking fish within the privileges of the Marsh of 

 Pevensey, the king's commission was directed to John, 

 Prior of Lewes ; Richard, Abbot of Bcgham ; John, 

 Prior of Mychillym ; Thomas, Lord Dacre, and others 

 . . . Dr. Boorde (the original Merry Andrew) founds 

 his tale of the ' Wise Men of Gotham' upon the pro- 

 ceedings of this meeting, Gotham being the property of 

 Lord Dacre, and near his residence." 



The inhabitants of Gotham in Nottinghamshire 

 have hitherto been considered the " biggest fools 

 in Christendom ;" but if the above extract is to be 

 depended upon, the Gothamites of Sussex have a 

 fair claim to a share of this honourable distinction. 



The (quotation from the History of Lewes was 

 first pointed out by your learned correspondent, 

 Mr. M. a. Lower, in a communication to Mr. 

 Halliwell's Archceologist, 1842, p. 129. The in- 

 vestigation of the origin of this popular collection 

 of old Joe Millerisms is of some importance, 

 because upon them rests Dr. Boorde's title to be 

 the " progenitor of Merry Andrew." 



Edward F. Kimbault. 



SHAKSPEARE NOTES. 



Who was the editor of The Poems and Plays of 

 William Shakspeare, eight vols. 8vo., published by 

 Scott and Webster in 1833 ? 



In that edition the following passage from The 

 Merchant of Venice, Act III. Sc. 2., is pointed in 

 this way : — 



" Thus ornament is but the guiled shore 

 To a most dangerous sea ; the beauteous scarf * 

 Veiling an Indian ; beauty's, in a word, 

 The seeming truth which cunning times put on 

 To entrap the wisest." 

 To which the anonymous editor appends the 

 following note : — 



" I have deviated slightly from the folio — the ordi- 

 nary reading represents ornament as 'the beauteous scarf 

 veiling an Indian beauty,' a sentence which by no means 

 serves to illustrate the reflexion which Bassanio wishes 

 to enforce. Sir Thomas Hanmer proposed to read 

 dowdy for beauty ! " 



My object in this quotation is not that of com- 

 mending the emendation, but of affording an oppor- 

 tunity of recording the following reasons which 

 induce me to reject it ; not only as no improve- 

 ment to the sense, but as a positive injury to it. 



1st. The argument of Bassanio is directed 

 against the deceptiveness of ornament in general, 

 of which seeming beauty is only one of the subor- 

 dinate illustrations. These illustrations are drawn 

 from law, religion, valour, and beauty ; all of which 

 are finally summed up in the passage In question, 

 beginning " Thus ornament," &c. ; and still further 

 concentrated in the phrase " in a word." There- 

 fore this summing up cannot refer singly to beauty, 

 no more than to any other of the subordinate 

 illustrations, but it must have general reference to 

 adventitious ornament, against which the collected 

 argument is directed. 



2ndly. The word beauty is necessarily attached 

 to Indian as designative of sex : " an Indian," un- 

 qualified by any other distinction, would imply 

 a male ; but an " Indian beauty" is at once under- 

 stood to be a female. 



3rdly. The repetition, or rather the oppositiony 

 of "beauteous" and "beaidy," cannot seriously be 

 objected to by any one conversant with the phrase- 

 ology of Shakspeare. Were It at all necessary, many 

 similar examples might be cited. How the anony- 

 mous annotator, already quoted, could say that 

 the sentence, as It stands in the folio, " by no means 

 serves to illustrate Bassanid's reflexion," I cannot 

 conceive. " The beauteous scarf" is the decep- 

 tive ornament which leads to the expectation of 

 something beneath it better than an Indian beauty ! 

 Indian is used adjectively, in the sense of wild, 

 savage, hideous — just as we, at the present day, 

 might say a Hottentot beauty ; or as Shakspeare 

 himself in other places uses the word " Ethiop ;" 

 " Thou for whom Jove would swear 

 Juno but an Ethiop were." 



