436 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd S. No 48., Nov. 29. '56. 



blood of mulberries. He will find the curious 

 passage in the account of the war waged by An- 

 tiochus Epiphanes and Eupator against the Jews, 

 given by the unknown author who wrote the First 

 Book of Maccabees : 



« To the end that they might provoke the elephants to 

 fight, they showed them the blood of grapes and of mul- 

 berries." — 1 Mac. vi. 34. 



Dr. More, by using the expression spread " be- 

 fore" the elephants, evidently takes the word 

 " showed " in the English translation in its literal 

 sense, and infers that the sight of red juice or 

 blood of grapes and mulberries may have served 

 to exasperate the animal. But the word in the 

 Septuagint (t56i|af), which is rendered " showed " 

 in the JEnglish version, is to be construed as phy- 

 sicians do, when they talk of " exhibiting medi- 

 cines " to their patients. It means that the ele- 

 phants were made furious by forcing them to 

 drink wine, of grapes or mulberries. In this in- 

 stance the Third Book of Maccabees is the best 

 scholium on the First. It is not printed in our 

 Apocrypha, but will be found in the Greek Sep- 

 tuagint ; and in describing the persecution of the 

 Jews at Alexandria by Ptolemy Philopator, B.C. 

 210, the author relates (ch.v. v. 2.) that the king, 

 preparatory to causing them to be trampled to 

 death by elephants in the hippodrome, ordered 

 Hermo, their keeper, to dose them (jroTltxai) the day 

 before with frankincense and undiluted wine, and 

 the order was obeyed by that officer : 



" 'O Se 'Ep/iwi' TOWS arrj^eeis IXeSavrag iroTiVas TreirXijpu^e- 

 vovi T^s Tov oivov TToAA^s xopiY''"'*' ' — lb. v. 2, 



And the potion was repeated (v. 45.) till the ele- 

 phants were excited to madness by the wine ; but 

 instead of trampling the Jews, they spent their 

 fury on the armed troops and guards, of whom 

 they destroyed numbers. 



A later authority is Phile, a Greek of Constan- 

 tinople, and a contemporary of Dante and Pe- 

 trarch, who dedicated to Andronicus II. a poem 

 on the elephant, in the course of which he says, — 



" Olvov fie TOf T0<T0VT0V ev<j>pa.Cvei, Kv\t,^ 

 'Of 6 TpvyriTrfp sKKevol rSiv ^orpvoiv 

 'OpeKTiSiv Se Koi (T(j>aSa^(av eU p-axr^v 

 Tbv otTrb K<otov KaX tov awo <j>oi.viKbiv 

 Kai T^s opiifrjs eKpo<j>el t-^s aypi'as, 

 'Os av 6 dvfioi aKp<xT(os VTTO^eiov 

 'AfTieTTaTixoij KapSiioTTCiv bipvvri." 



Phile most probably borrowed much of his de- 

 scription of the habits of the elephant from^lian, 

 but I have not his work De Natura Anwialium at 

 hand, to examine whether he mentions this parti- 

 cular of the administering of wine. 



J. Emeeson Tennent. 



PHOTOGRAPHIC NOTES. 



Delamotte's Oxymel Process. — When a practised pho- 

 tographer like Mr. Delamotte expresses his belief of 

 any novelty in the art, that it is undoubtedly the most 



valtiable discovery that has been made since Mr. Scott 

 Archer introduced collodion, photographers may well feel 

 assured that it deserves their attention : and that being 

 the case with regard to the use of oxymel, as suggested 

 by Mr. Llewellyn, our photographic friends will be glad to 

 know that Mr. Delamotte has published a little treatise 

 upon the subject. The Oxymel Process in Photography, 

 by P. Delamotte, will enable them to try for themselves 

 the advantages of a discovery by which, to use Mr. Dela- 

 motte's words, " all the beautiful delicac}' of the finest 

 collodion pictures may be obtained with the convenience 

 of the paper process, and with much more certainty and 

 much greater ease." 



Howlett 071 Printing Photographs. — What we have just 

 said with reference to Mr. Delamotte is applicable to Mr. 

 Howlett. This gentleman has been so successful as a 

 photographer, and as a printer of photographs — for some 

 copies of architectural drawings bj"^ Indian artists which 

 we have seen lately, copied and printed by him, we reckon 

 among the triumphs of photography — that his sugges- 

 tions as to the best mode of multiplj'ing photographs 

 must command attention; and there can be no doubt 

 that the brochure which he has just published On the 

 various Methods of Printing Photographic Picttires, with a 

 few Hints on their Preservation, well deserves the perusal 

 of all who have negatives of which they desire to multiply 

 impressions. 



3IauU and Polyblank's "Living Celebrities." — We have 

 received two more numbers of this very interesting series 

 of portraits. The first gives us a portrait of the great 

 sculptor, Edward Hodges Baily, whose " Eve at the 

 Fountain " is dear to all lovers of the beautiful. The next 

 furnishes us with a portrait of Samuel Warren, whoso 

 " Diary of a late Phj'sician," and " Ten Thousand a Year," 

 are familiar to all readers. Both portraits are of great 

 interest ; and when we consider what we would give for 

 such a truthful series of the notables of the reigns of 

 Elizabeth or Anne, we may anticipate the delight with 

 which future generations will regard these " Living Ce- 

 lebrities " of the age of Victoria. 



3RtpIicsf ta Minat eEucrte^. 



Scriptural Legends on English Coins (2"'^ S. I. 

 313. 358.) — It is not improbable that the legend 

 " Jesus autem transiens," &c. — " But Jesus, pass- 

 ing through the midst of tliem, went his way," — 

 may have been adopted by Edward III., in thank- 

 ful remembrance of his deliverance from the hands 

 of his mother and her " sweet Mortimer ; " and of 

 the peculiar circumstances under which they were 

 surprised by him and Lord Montacute, who made 

 his way into the interior of Nottingham Castle 

 through the subterraneous passage since known as 

 " Mortimer's Hole." I am aware that some thir- 

 teen years intervened. Henkt T. Rilet. 



Derivation of Folly" (2'"» S. ii. 349.) — C. W. 

 Bingham is certainly mistaken. I have myself 

 witnessed the birth and baptism of two or three of 

 those structures, popularly and justly enough, 

 called Follies, — foolish extravagance ! The word 

 foillies, cited by C. W. Bingham, is of an entirely 

 different derivation and meaning ; it is only old 

 French for feuilles, leaves, from the Greek (pvWoy, 



