392 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°'J S. N" 98., Nov. 14. '57. 



" Quantum ultimus orbis 

 Cesserit, et refluo ciicumsona gurgite Thule." 



Ih. V. 1. 90. 

 •' Quantusque nigrantem 

 riuctibus occiduis fessoque Hyperione Thulen 

 Intrarit mandata gerens." 



lb. V. 2. 54. 



The result is that Thule Is a name invented by 

 Pytheas for an imaginary island at the northern 

 extremity of Europe ; that it passed into poetry 

 as symbolical of geographical remoteness ; and 

 that navigators and geographers, as discovery was 

 enlarged, attempted to identify it with some island 

 in the north-western seas, but that it never ob- 

 tained any fixed geographical application. There 

 never was an island which was known to its own 

 inhabitants, or even to the Greeks and Romans, 

 by the name of Thule. All the researches, there- 

 fore, of modern geographers and scholars as to the 

 locality of Thule may be considered as a mere 

 waste of labour, and as an attempt to determine 

 what is essentially indeterminate. L. 



SIR ANTONIO GUIDOTTI. 



(2"'i S. iv. 328.) 



I am happy to comply with the request of 

 Delta by communicating the following notices of 

 Sir Antonio Guidotti ; whose great achievement 

 of bringing about the peace between J^ngland and 

 France, in the year 1549, is twice noticed, as fol- 

 lows, by King Edward VI. in his Journal : — 



1. " Guidotty made divers barauntes (errands) from 

 the constable of Fraunce (the due de Montmorency) to 

 make peace with us; upon which were appointed," \c. 



2. " April 10, 1550. Guidotti, the beginner of the talk 

 for peax, recompensed with knightdom, a thousand 

 crounes reward, a 1000 crounes pension, and his son with 

 250 crounes pencion." 



The earliest mention that I have found of the 

 name of this lucky merchant, for such he was, is 

 in Leland's description of the town of South- 

 ampton, where he says : " The house that master 

 Mylles the recorder dwellith yn is fair. And so 

 be the houses of Nicoline and Guidote, Ita- 

 lians." On May 30, 1549, Anthony Guidotti, 

 " merchant of Florence, and of the town of South- 

 ampton," received letters of protection for two 

 years, as printed in Rymer's Foedera, SfC. vol. xv, 

 p. 185. On April 1, 1550, the privy council issued 

 " a warrant to {blank) for xlviij li. to Mr. Perrot 

 for a flaggon chaine bought of him, to be bestowed 

 upon Anthony Guydott at the time of the order 

 of knighthood given unto him." (Council Regis- 

 ter.) This "flaggon chaine" was the substitute 

 for the livery collar of esses which it had been pre- 

 viously usual to give to foreigners when knighted 

 by our sovereigns. 



On the 17th of the same month were dated the 

 letters patent granting to Sir Anthony Guidotti 



a yearly pension of 2501., and other letters patent 

 granting to his son John Guidotti, Esq., a yearly 

 pension of 37Z. 10*. : printed in the volume of 

 Rymer above-mentioned, pp. 227, 228. In 1551-2 

 the merchant-knight received fresh letters of pro- 

 tection : — 



" A protection roj'all graunted per breve domini Regis 

 to Sir Anthoni Guidott, knight, merchant of Florence, 

 not to be arrested, imprisoned, ne impledid in any action 

 reall or personall at ony man's sute. Proviso, that the 

 seid Guidott shall at all tymes make aunswer to the 

 Kinges ma"^ or to the counsail in his behalf, in ony pie 

 or action touching the crowne, without exception. To 

 dure for one hole yere. Teste vjo die Martii, a" vjo." — 

 MS. Cotton. Julius B. ix. p. 47 b. 



After Sir Anthony's death, in 1555 (as stated 

 in the epitaph printed in p. 328.), his widow, who 

 may have been an English lady, remained in this 

 country, and the following is the record of her 

 remarriage : — 



" John Harman esquyer, one of the gentilmen liiishers 

 of the chambre of our sovereign lady the Quene, and the 

 excellent lady dame Dorothye Gwydott, widow, late of 

 the town of Southampton, married Dec. 21, 1557." — 

 Register of Stratford-le-Bow, Middlese:^ in Lysons's En- 

 virons, edit. 1795, iii. 499. 



It is not improbable that our genealogical col- 

 lections contain some pedigree of this family, as I 

 imagine that it continued resident in this country. 

 Dr. Thomas Guidott, who wrote De Thermis 

 Britannicis, 1681, 4to., and several books specially 

 relating to the hot waters of Bath, the titles of 

 which are given by Watt in the Bibliotheca Bri- 

 tannica, was probably descended from the South- 

 ampton merchant. I should be glad to find this 

 supposition confirmed by the communications of 

 otlier contributors to " N. & Q." 



John Gough NicHots. 



P.S. In the copy of the epitaph, is there not 

 some mistake in the words "gentiles ejus absenti- 

 bus filius p." ? And what is their meaning ? 



FOKESHADOWING OP THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 



(2""> S. iv. 266.) 



Glanvill's Vanity of Dogmatizing, a work pub- 

 lished in 1661, and which Mr. Hallam says is "so 

 scarce as to be hardly known at all except by 

 name " (^Lit. Hist , iv. 3. 97.), contains a curious 

 passage of this kind. Glanvill was an ardent dis- 

 ciple of the new philosophy, and entertained the 

 most sanguine expectations as to the discoveries 

 that would be made in after-times : 



" That all Arts and Professions are capable of maturer 

 improvements cannot be doubted by those who know the 

 least of any. And that there is an America of secrets, and 

 unknown Peru of Nature, whose discovery would richly 

 advance them, is more than conjecture." — C. xix. p. 178. 

 edit. 1661. 



" Should those heroes [the new philosophers] go on as 



