2n<> S. No 91„ Sept. 26, '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



241 



LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1857. 



^tiiti. 



BOOK-DUST. 



In dusting or rearranging miscellaneous books, 

 what happened to Dominie Sampson must happen 

 to others : namely, that the books are opened one 

 by one, and that many or most of them offer 

 something which arrests the attention, and im- 

 pedes the operation. A note might be made, if it 

 were the time for making notes : a slip of paper 

 inserted enables the process to go on, and the 

 existence of " N. & Q." offers a definite induce- 

 ment to return to the point. The following mis- 

 cellaneous collection consists of matters each of 

 which might be a note by itself : and there is no 

 reason why a number of notes by one individual, 

 the order of which is dictated by the accidental 

 location of books on a shelf, should not be as fit 

 for insertion, in a series of short articles, as the 

 same materials piecemeal. The variety of subjects 

 is mostly owing to the caprice of those who have 

 bound volumes of tracts together, or the smallness 

 of choice for matters to be bound together. 



1. The Royal College of Physicians, by Chas. 

 Goodall, Lond. 1684, 4to. Appended is an ac- 

 count of the proceedings against empirics up to 

 the death of Charles I. In the preface good 

 short accounts of physicians up to Sydenham. 

 To Dr. Caius the public were indebted that it was 

 declared unlawful for surgeons to give medicines, 

 so that a wounded man was compelled to have 

 both a physician and a surgeon, or to dispense with 

 medicine altogether. Query, which ought he to 

 have done ? 



2. Some new Thoughts founded upon new Prin- 

 ciples, by B. H. J., Lond. 1714, 4to. On the 

 motion of the earth, tides, longitude, &c. Though 

 published nearly thirty years after the Principia, 

 and dedicated to the Royal Society, Newton is 

 neither named nor alluded to. This is nothing but 

 pure ignorance, as is obvious : and it illustrates 

 my belief that until long after his death, Newton 

 was very little known to the mass of the people, 

 or more known as Master of the Mint than as a 

 discoverer in science. The writer was, as to 

 knowledge, one of the mass. 



3. Compendium Euclidis Curiosi, translated 

 from Dutch by Jos. Moxon, London, 1677, 4to. 

 The author's name not given. It teaches how to 

 make all Euclid's constructions, so far as in the 

 first four books, with only one opening of the com- 

 passes. The author says he had heard that J. B. 

 Benedictus had done this, but could never find 

 the book, and that many doubted the existence of 

 any such book. But it does exist, being Resoluiio 

 omnium Euclidis . . . una tantummodo circini data 

 apertura, by Job. Bap. de Benedictis, Venice, 

 1553, 4to. It goes over the whole of the elements. 



Benedetti has been recently found among the old 

 Copernicans. The Dutch author gives accounts 

 of several partial attempts. Mascheroni pub- 

 lished at Pavia, in 1797, a work in which the 

 compasses only were used in Euclid's construc- 

 tions, without the ruler. Napoleon, then just 

 leaving Italy, became acquainted with it, and 

 made it known to the French savans. It was 

 translated by M. Carette, Geometrie du Compos, 

 Paris, 1st ed. 1798, 2nd ed. 1828, 8vo. 



4. In the advertisements to the above appears a 

 work entitled An Exact Survey of the Microcosme, 

 from the Latin of liemelinus, the human body 

 with turn-up plates, so that the interior might be 

 studied by lifting up the paper once, twice, or 

 more. I remember that Cobbett argued against 

 permitting dissection, aflSrming that these plates, 

 or some like them, had been published, and would 

 answer every purpose. None but a flat would 

 have trusted a surgeon educated on plane dia- 

 grams. 



5. A Catalogue of all the cheifest Parities in 

 the Public Anatomik Hall of the University of Ley- 

 den, by Francis Schuyl, Ley den, 1719, 4to. Pro- 

 bably printed for the English medical students. 

 Among other anatomical rarities are the following : 



" A great oyster shell weighing 150 pound. A pair of 

 Laplander's breeches. A Muscovian monk's cap. A 

 model of a murthering-knife found in England, whereon 

 was written, Kill the dogs, burn the bitches, and roast the 

 whelps. A pot in which is China beer. A black fly 

 called a beetle, brought from the Cape of Good Hope." 



The pot of China beer reminds me of the 

 " China ale " which appears in Newton's private 

 expenses at College. Was either anything but 

 tea? Was the name beetle uncommon in Eng- 

 land in 1719 ? 



6. The Religion of the Dutch, London, 1680, 

 4to. From the French, purporting to be letters 

 from a Protestant French officer to a D.D. at 

 Berne. But I believe that it was written by an 

 English High Church priest. William had lately 

 married the English princess, and the Church 

 party looked with aversion on the possibility of a 

 Dutch succession, and the certainty of a Dutch 

 alliance. The object of the tract is to prove that 

 the Dutch are not worthy of the name of Pro- 

 testant Christians,- and that in any case England 

 ought not to join with them against France. 

 One great charge against them is their toleration. 



" The States-General do, without any Scruple, suffer a 

 great number of Socinians, most of whom are born and 

 brought up amongst them, and never had the least 

 thought of doing them any harm, upon the score of their 

 Religion. Your Canton, and the City of Geneva, would 

 have thought themselves guilty of a great Crime against 

 God, if they had not by death taken off these two heretics 

 [Servetus and Gentilis], who held such strange Errours, 

 against the Divinity of Jesus Christ. But the States- 

 General would think they had committed a great Sin 

 against God, if they should put any of the Socinians to 

 death, whatever their Errours might be." 



