62 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"i S. VIII. July 23. '50. 



preferred a damagealle affront to their commands before 

 a profitable breach of them." — 5erm. XXXIII p. 469. 



If affront be the right word, the author's mean- 

 ing must be that kings prefer the open defiance 

 of their enemies, however injurious, to the disobe- 

 dience of their servants, however profitable. Or, 

 could affront be used in a good sense, viz. a meet- 

 ing their wishes, a compliance with their com- 

 mands ? 



In Serm. XXII. p. 340., a "pile of grass" is 

 used to mean a blade or spear of grass. 



Whence is the aphorism so frequently quoted 

 by Leighton — Summa Religionis imitari quern co- 

 lis ? It occurs twice in the Sermons, and once 

 in the Prselections : — 



•' It is the substance of Religion to be like Him Whom 

 we worship. Man's end and perfection is, likeness to God. 

 , . . He became like us that we might become like Him. 

 God first put on Man, that Man might put on God." — 

 Senn. XIX. p. 309. 



"This is the substance of Religion, to imitate Him 

 Whom we worship. Can there be a higher or nobler de- 

 sign in the world, than to be God-like, and like Jesus 

 Christ ? He became like us, that ^ve might be the more 

 like Him. He took our nature upon Him, that He might 

 transfuse His into us." — Serm. XXVIII. p. 416. 



" In subordination to these [the Scriptures] you may 

 also use the writings of pious men that are agreeable to 

 them, and particularly that little book of a Kempis, Of 

 the Imitation of Christ, since the sum and substance of 

 Religion consists in imitating the Being that is the Ob- 

 ject of your worship." — Valedictory Oration, sub fin., 

 Trans., p. 350. 



This Aphorism would make a good motto for 

 the De Imitatione, but is not taken from it as I 

 at first thought. 



Mr. Pearson tells us, " One of his favourite 

 Axioms was, that ' All things operate according to 

 the disposition of the subject.'" — Life, p. cxxxix. 

 I do not remember where this occurs in Leigh- 

 ton's Works, but it is obviously the same as that 

 quoted by Dr. H. More in his Introduction to the 

 Defence of the Threefold Cabbala : — 



"That saying in the Schools is not so trivial as true, 

 Quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modtim recipientis, Every- 

 thing is as it is taken, or at least appears to be so. The 

 tincture of our own natures stains the appearance of 

 all objects." — Conjectura Cahhalistica, London, 1653, p. 

 95. 



Coleridge was fond of quoting a similar aphorism. 

 Quantum sumus, scimtci, Such as we are, such is 

 our Knowledge, or rather. Such as we are, such is 

 our Capacity and Power of Knowing. 



Dr. Doddridge, in the Preface before referred 

 to, thus comments on the labours of the first Edi- 

 tor, Dr. Fall : — 



" The numberless errors which I had observed in the 

 First Edition of all his English works, by which the sense 

 of many passages is absolutely destroyed, and that of 

 scores and hundreds very mucli obscured, made me the 

 more ready to .ittempt the paying this little tribute of 

 respect to his memory, which no words or actions can 

 fully express . . . The quarto edition of the incompara- 



ble Commentary upon the First Epistle of Peter, I may 

 venture to pronounce the most faulty piece of printing "l 

 ever remember to have seen in any language." 



Dr. Doddridge tells us he supplied with his pen 

 what he thought deficient, and "here and there 

 exchanged a Scots word or phrase for an Eng- 

 lish one." He adds : — 



"I thought that to have distinguished all these correc- 

 tions by different characters, crotchets, or inverted 

 commas would have injured the beauty of the impres- 

 sions If any are curious enough to desire exactly 



to know it, thej' may get surer information by comparing 

 this edition with the former, by which they may judge 

 of the little, but, as I thought, very necessary freedoms 

 taken with the manuscript pieces." 



It is devoutly to be hoped that the next Editor 

 will prove "curious enough" to make this com- 

 parison, and give us as exactly as possible Leigh- 

 ton's own words, " Scots phrases " and all. 



The Pralectiones Theologicos, or Theological 

 Dissertations, were published by Dr. Fall, Lon- 

 don, 1693, 4to.* From the Editor's preface, one 

 is led to suspect that the Latin text is probably as 

 faulty as that of the English works.f He ob- 

 serves : — 



" The Lectures I now present thee with, I caused to be 

 copied out fair from a MS. in the Author's own handwrit- 

 ing; which was a work that required great care and at- 

 tention, on account of the blots and interlineations of that 

 original MS. ; for the Author had written them in haste, 

 and without the least thought of ever publishing them." 



These Incomparable Lectures ought to take 

 such a position in theological, as Bacon's Essays 

 take in general, literature. They are worthy of 

 an Aldine Edition, and an Editor to match. 



Mr. Pearson asserts that the Latin Prelections 

 have been translated by Dr. Fall, vol. i. p. clxxiii. 

 This I am inclined to doubt. In the translation 

 before me, dated 1763, years after Dr. Fall's death, 

 no allusion occurs to any former translation, and 

 It is evidently by another hand. The title is as 

 follows : — 



" Theological Lectures, Read in the Publick Hall 

 of the University of Edinburgh. Together with Ex- 

 hortations to the Candidates for the Degree of I\Iaster 

 of Arts. By Robert Leighton, 'D.D. Principal of that 

 Universit}', and afterwards Archbishop of Glasgow. 

 Translated from the Original Latin. To which are added 

 Rtdes and Instructions for a Holy Life, and other Re- 

 mains of the same excellent Author. London, Printed by 

 D. Wilson, at Plato's Head, in the Strand, m.d.cclxiii." 

 —Pp. 410. 8vo. 



The " Other Remains" are eight " Letters from 



* In the same vol. were published Meditations in Latin 

 on Psalms iv., xxxii., and cxxx., which were afterwards 

 translated under the superintendence of Dr. Doddridge, 

 and published in 1748. 



t Since writing the above I have seen Professor Schole- 

 field's valuable edition of Leighton's Latin Works ( Can- 

 tab. 1828, 8vo.), which confirms my distrust of all the 

 previous editions. It ought to be incorporated for the 

 future in all complete editions of Leighton's Works ; and 

 the Old English translation ought to be corrected by it. 



