Aug. 19. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



139 



of the queen mother, Marie de Medicis : she was 

 married on July 1, 1624, to James de Broc, Che- 

 valier, Baron de St. Mars, Sizardiere, Chemire, 

 &c., brother of Peter de Broc de Stellars, Bishop 

 of Auxerre ; 7th, Louise, baptized January 6, 

 1615, who died unmarried; and, 8th, Marie, who 

 also died unmarried in 1687. 



Matta, who must have been born in 1614, is 

 thus described in Moreri's Dictionary : 



" Charles de Bourdeille, Marquis of the same and of 

 Archiac, Baron de la Tour Blanche and de la Feuillade, 

 Count de Mastas, Seigneur de Brantome, St. Pardoux, la 

 Eiviere, of the noble houses of Perigueux," &c. 



He succeeded his brothers in the command of 

 the same company of Guards. He had probably, 

 from his age, about twenty-six, served some years 

 in the army, as a volunteer or otherwise, when 

 Grammont joined the forces at the siege of Trino. 

 They were distantly connected by intermarriages 

 with the family of Lauzun. , 



Matta married, in April, 1641, Catherine de 

 Nouveau, daughter of Arnoul de Nouveau, Seig- 

 neur de Fremont, treasurer of the " Parties Ca- 

 suelles " and master of the couriers, superintend- 

 ant and controller-general of the ports of France, 

 by Charlotte Barthelemi, his first wife. Matta had 

 an only child, a daughter, Louise de Bourdeille, 

 who was baptized October 2, 1642, and died un- 

 married. 



In 1647 or 1648 Matta went to the Court, then 

 at Amiens, to thank Cardinal Mazarin for releas- 

 ing his relative, the Count de Montresor, from the 

 Castle of Vincennes, in which and the Bastille 

 Montresor had been imprisoned for fourteen 

 months for mixing himself up with the intrigues 

 of the Duchess de Chevereuse. Matta also in- 

 quired whether Montresor would be received by 

 the cardinal, who informed him that Montresor 

 would be well received; whereupon the latter 

 presented himself at Court. 



As the remainder of our materials cannot be 

 condensed into a space shorter than the foregoing 

 observations, we must leave them for the subject 

 of a future article. W. H. Lammik. 



Fulham. 



VENERABLE BEDE. 



" Accipe tuum calamum, tempera et scribe velociter." 

 Most of your readers will recognise these as the 

 remarkable words addressed by Venerable Bede, 

 an hour or so before his death, to his attendant 

 Cuthberfc. It is amusing to see how they have 

 puzzled the translators. I quote specimens from 

 such as I have at hand : 



" Take your pen and write presently." — Cressi/. 

 "Take your pen, and write fast."— ^tt. Butler. 

 "Take your pen, and write hastily." — Wright, JBiog. 

 Litt. 

 *• Take your pen and write, only lose no time."— Churton. 



" Take your pen, and make ready, and write fast."— 

 GUes. 



" Take your pen, and mend it, and write quickly." — 

 Lingard, Angl.-Sax. 



Not one of these authors gives a literal trans- 

 lation of the words. Four of them shirk the 

 word " tempera" altogether. Giles and Lingard 

 insert and; and the latter alone has ventured to 

 give to the word " tempera" a distinct meaning. 

 It is clear that they found some diflSculty about 

 this word, arising, I suspect, from an idea that, 

 inappropriate as it seems to be, it must necessarily 

 have reference to the pen. Is it not more pro- 

 bable that it refers to either, even of the two 

 other requisites for quill-writing, fluid ink and 

 well-prepared fparchment ? One is timid about a 

 leap that so many veterans have deliberately 

 looked at, and declined ; but the field will be dis- 

 graced, if no one has courage to " go at it." What 

 think you of the following contribution to the 

 list I have furnished you with ? 



" Take your pen, dilute (the ink), and write quill," or 

 "Take your pen, moisten (the parchment), and write 

 quill." 



On the latter supposition, moisten or soften would 

 be equally admissible. 



There is an interesting passage, bearing upon 

 this question, in one of Cicero's letters (15 ad 

 Quint. Frat. lib. ii.), from which it appears that 

 his brother had complained that his last letter 

 was almost illegible ; and, somewhat in the style 

 of our modern graphiognomists, had speculated 

 on the circumstances which he supposed might 

 have occasioned it ; all of which, however, Cicero 

 honestly declines to avail himself of, and frankly 

 confesses that he is habitually careless about his 

 writing : 



" Scribis te meas literas superiores vix legere potuisse t 

 in quo nihil eorum, mi frater, fuit, quai putes. Nequa 

 enim occupatus eram, neque perturbatus, nee iratus alicui : 

 sed hoc facio semper, ut, quicumque calamus in manus 

 meas venerit, eo sic utar, tanquam bono." 



Of course he makes a magnificent promise to be 

 more careful for the future. 



" Calamo, et atramento temperate, charta etiam dentata 

 res agetur." 



But this passage is not without its difficulty 

 either. I give the punctuation of my edition. 

 Allen (art. Calamus, Smith's Antiq.) quotes it 

 without the comma ; and having informed us that, 

 when the reed (pen) became blunt, the ancients 

 sharpened it with a knife, adds : 



" To a reed thus sharpened, the epithet ' temperatus,* 

 used by Cicero, probably refers." 



There is something not satisfactory in this. For, 

 though it maybe said that to isolate "calamo" 

 from the epithet, is to rob it of the emphasis 

 which it is intended to bear ; to extend the epithet 

 to it, robs the epithet itself of all definite import. 



