238 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Sept. 29. 1855. 



that it is a scholar who speaks, suppose he says 

 that he has been looking into Niebuhr's citations, 

 and making a few notes : 



". . . . pointing to some sheets of paper crammed with 

 Latin extracts — in dreadfully learned words — Propria 

 qtuB maribus, botherum, tempus fugit, hie, hcec, hoc, nomi- 

 nativo." 



There are too many persons In the country who 

 have some idea of Laplace's symbols to make such 

 a travestie bearable. Perhaps Mr. Warren will 

 allow me to suggest for future editions (of 

 •which I doubt not there will be many) the fol- 

 lowing : 



X~*=l . 5/"V&s^" • cos. e+hs^^ • cos. 2 e+ &c. 



And then every one who can read these symbols 

 will see that they are Laplace's, and that the phi- 

 losopher understood them. For there is style in 

 mathematics, as in other things : and the works of 

 the great writers are as distinguishable by the 

 general appearance of the symbols as those of the 

 great painters by their mode of colouring. 



Sir W. Scott, in the Antiquary, has made Dous- 

 terswlvel give Sir Arthur Wardour a description 

 of a planetary sigil, as it was called : 



" Then upon this side I make de table of de moon, 

 which is a square of nine, multiplied into itself, with 

 eighty- one numbers on every side, and de diameter nine, 

 — dere it is, done very proper." 



I doubt if Sir Walter understood the magic 

 square. It should be " eighty-one numbers, nine 

 on every side, and nine in each diameter." But 

 these numbers should be so disposed that rows, 

 columns, and diameters, should each give the sum 

 369. 



The planetary sigils, derived from the Arabs, 

 were in use till the end of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury ; from a belief in what Mr. Dousterswivel 

 calls " the planetary influence, and the sympathy 

 and force of numbers." They — the numerical 

 sigils, at least — consisted of magic squares, one to 

 each planet : and their power depended partly on 

 the material on which they were written, partly 

 on the astrological character of the planet's posi- 

 tion when they were made, and partly on the 

 position at the time of using them. Mr. Douster- 

 swivel was a blunderer for making his square 

 when there was " a thwarting power in the house 

 of ascendancy :" but he was quite correct in using 

 silver for the moon ; for the sun it ought to have 

 been gold. The square 1x1, or 1, giving one 

 number only, was dedicated to the Deity. The 

 square of 2, containing the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 

 cannot by any disposition be made magic : it was 

 therefore the symbol of matter, a thing of imper- 

 fection, " in potentialis habitudinis abysso sub- 

 mersa," whatever that may mean. The number 

 3, and its square, give the sigil of Saturn ; 4, of 

 Jupiter ; 5, of Mars ; 6, of the Sun ; 7, of Venus ; 

 8, of Mercury ; 9, of the Moon. 

 Xo. 309.] 



I cannot find that any of the sigils were ex- 

 pressly laid down as the means of discovering 

 hidden treasures : it may be so in the authority 

 which W. Scott consulted, but whether that can 

 be traced may be matter of doubt. The " suffu- 

 migations" are particularly insisted on : but I 

 very much doubt that the success of any experi- 

 ment with a sigil was made proportional to the 

 amount laid out in sufFumigation for the occasion. 

 This was Dousterswivel's own secret : and the 

 story required It. 



In Guy Mannering,'' Walter Scott makes the 

 astrologer walk out on the balcony, note the posi- 

 tions of the principal heavenly bodies without any 

 instrument of measurement, and then (as the 

 reader must suppose) draw a scheme which he 

 finds closely to agree with one he had drawn 

 before. Struck by this, he repeats the process, 

 and finds out that the very hours of the predicted 

 events agree in both cases, though twenty-one 

 years are first to elapse. This would require an 

 eye which would tell the place of a heavenly body 

 within at least the minute of a degree, or the 

 thirtieth part of the sun's diameter. Again, having 

 carefully noted the hour and minute of the birth, 

 he indulges in a soliloquy before he " notes the 

 position" of the heavenly bodies. Next day he 

 uses the Ephemeris ; but if he had the Ephemeris, 

 the ocular inspection would have been unneces- 

 sary, even if his eye were as good as might be 

 thought. And farther, in order to work with an 

 accuracy which should predict to an hour in a 

 period of twenty-one years, he ought to have 

 known the latitude of Ellangowan — a good deal 

 nearer than Sir Walter knew it himself. 



Writers of fiction, who intend to become cele- 

 brated, should take pains to be accurate in their 

 representations of art and science, black 'or white ; 

 for the "chield" who takes notes can now print 

 them. A. De Morgan. 



THE MADNESS OF THE HISTORICAL HAMLET. 



In Dr. Farmer's Essay on the Learning of 

 Shakspeare (Malone's ed., vol. i. p. 336.), a quo- 

 tation " with a small variation from the original," 

 taken at second-hand from Saxo Graramaticus 

 (through Guthrie), is made to show the peculiar 

 character of Hamlet's madness, which Guthrie 

 and others receive as evidence that Shakspeare 

 must have read Saxo in the original Latin. This 

 quotation begins, " Falsitatis enim " (lib. iii., 

 p. 26. B.), but is only descriptive of the peculiar 

 character of Hamlet's mendacity, not of his 

 madness. The description of his simulated in- 

 sanity Is to be found on the same page as the 

 quotation referred to : 



" Quod videns Amlethus, ne prudentius agendo patruo 

 suspectus redderetur, stoliditatis simulationem amplexus, 

 extremum mentis vitium finxit, eoque calliditatis jjjeuere 



