2>"> S. VIII. Sept. 3. '59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



191 



read of the Sovereign's natui'al subjects and iiative 

 subjects, meaning born subjects, without any refer- 

 ence to tlie derived sense of the word nature. 

 Accordingly, it seems that all the children of a 

 woman are natural, i. e. born of her, as opposed to 

 step-children and adopted children : while those 

 born in wedlock are also laivful. The coarse term 

 bastard was supplanted by the word natural, in 

 the sense of no more than natural. To find out 

 who first thus used it would indeed be looking 

 for a needle in a bundle of hay ; and to such a 

 discoverer, should he appear, I would submit the 

 farther questions, who first used the word Deist in 

 the sense of no more than Deist? and who first 

 described a lady who was worse than she should 

 be as no better than she should be. The same 

 law of formation runs through all these changes. 



The style is the man himself (2^^ S. vi. 308. ; 

 vii. 502.) — The germ of this idea seems to lurk 

 in the Greek adage, 'Xvlphs x°-P'^i^'''VP ^« x6yov yvw 

 pi^erai, which passes, I believe, for a fragment of 

 one of the comedians. 



Squaring the Circle (2"'> S. viii. 8. 58.) — The 

 conclusion to be drawn about exercises of this 

 kind is that four letters are nothing at all ; that 

 five letters are so easy that nothing is worth no- 

 tice unless the combination have meaning; that 

 six letters, done in any way, are respectable ; and 

 that seven letters would be a triumph. I have 

 seen only one combination of five letters with 

 meaning, as follows, given me by the friend who 

 made it : — • 



LEAVE 

 ELLEN 

 ALONE 

 V E N O M 



EN E M Y 



George Sinclar'(2"^ S. viii. 67.) — Though of 

 Tio less designation than Professor in the Univer- 

 sity of Glasgow, this worthy was ridiculous in his 

 day. James Gregory, a better known mathema- 

 tician, calls him a " pitiful ignorant fellow." One 

 Sanders, whom he had attacked in print, assisted 

 by James Gregory, published in 1672, under the 

 name of Patrick Mathers, archbeadle of St. An- 

 drews, a satire against Sinclar, entitled The great 

 and new Art of weighing Vanity. Baron Maseres 

 reprinted this tract, in compliment to James Gre- 

 gory's memory, in his Scriptores Optici, London, 

 1823, 4to. See also the Macclesfield Correspon- 

 dence, ii. 241. 248. 255. Sinclar was professor of 

 philosophy, which in his day did not include phy- 

 sics, and he had been writing on hydrostatics in 

 the way in which people write who do not know 

 their subjects. The satire is sometimes entered 

 in catalogues as the genuine work of Patrick Mat- 

 thews. 



Cambridge Costume (2"'^ S. viii. 74.) ; Squaring the 

 Circle and the converse; Harry-Sophister (viii. 86.) ; 

 and Mock Disptdations. — The square cap is rounded 



at the edges by wear, so that a Harry-Soph often 

 has a circular tile. There was never any doubt 

 about this word when I was at Cambridge, though 

 it was then almost out of use. The undergradu- 

 ates of the three years were and are freshmen. 

 Junior Sophisters or Sophs, and Senior Sophs. 

 During the fraction of the fourth year in which 

 the undergraduate passed his examinations and 

 took his degree, being then of something more 

 advanced than even senior wisdom, he was kpi<To(po^^ 

 awfully wise, and hence the word Harry-Soph. 

 I have seen this derivation several times in print 

 and heard it from old stagers; but I believe it was 

 only an undergraduate's word. 



To return to the circular tile. The Harry- 

 Sophs used to be subjected to a certain num- 

 ber of mock disputations in the schools, over 

 and above the real ones, to make up the sta- 

 tutable number. I remember that the father 

 of my college took us all into the schools, as- 

 sumed the moderator's pulpit, and made a pair of 

 us occupy the respondent's and opponent's boxes. 

 The mock respondent then said Recte statuit New- 

 to7ius, to which the mock opponent answered Recte 

 non statuit Newtonus. This was a disputation, and 

 it was repeated as many times as the statutes re- 

 quired. The parties then changed their sides of 

 tlie house, and each maintained the contrary of 

 his first assertion. I remember thinking that it 

 was capital practice for the House of Commons, 

 if any of us should happen to get there. It had 

 been customary to introduce all manner of fun 

 into this mock proceeding, and the following story 

 was told in my day. A young gentleman who 

 was not conspicuous for mathematics was asked by 

 the mock moderator, in the mock Latin for which 

 the schools were so famous, Domine respondens, 

 quid fecisti in Academia triennium commorans; 

 Anne circidum quadrasti\f To which the respon- 

 dent made answer, showing his tile, Minime ! Do- 

 mine eruditissime ! sed quadratum omnino circulavi. 



A. De Morgan. 



OBIGINAL OF THE FAUST LEGENDS. 



(2°'» S. viii. 87.) 



Respecting Theophilus, whose fall and conver- 

 sion are said to form the original of all the Faust 

 legends, the following account is derived from Die 

 Geschichte vom Faust in Reimen; Die Deutsche 

 Volksbiicher von Faust und Werner, being the 4tU 

 vol. of " Doctor Johann Fav^t" von J. Scheible, 

 (Stuttgart, 1849). This volume is a reprint of 

 Professor Reichlin-Meldegg's valuable work on 

 Faust and Wagner ; and concludes with the lives 

 of the sorcerers Bacon, Zyto, Rausch, &c. from 

 Thorns' Early Prose Romances, and from other 

 works. 



Theophilus was Vicedominus (i- ^- the next in 

 clerical rank to the bishop) in the sixth century, 



