202 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 254. 



ther, James Shelley, a native of England, who had 

 abandoned his country to assist the Order, decreed 

 that each year he should have and receive, be- 

 sides his table money and pay, fifty scudi from the 

 common treasury. Vide Manuscript Records of 

 the Order. W. W. 



La Valetta, Malta. 



GBEAT EVENTS FROM SLENDER CAUSES. 



It is said, in vol. ii. p. 266., of the Amcenitates 

 Academics, " res summas initio deberi parvo ac 

 debili experientia omnium temporum testatur;" 

 and Dr. Paris observes, that " the history of great 

 eflfects from small causes would form an interest- 

 ing work." 



"How momentous," says Campbell, "are the results of 

 apparently trivial circumstances! When Mahomet was 

 flying from his enemies, he took refuge in a cave ; which 

 his pursuers would have entered, if they had not seen a 

 spider's web at the entrance. Not knowing that it was 

 freshly woven, they passed by the cave: and thus a 

 spider's web changed the history of the world." 



When Louis VIL, to obey the injunctions of 

 his bishops, cropped his hair and shaved his beard, 

 Eleanor, his consort, found him, with this unusual 

 appearance, very ridiculous, and soon very con- 

 temptible. She revenged herself as she thought 

 proper, and the poor shaved king obtained a 

 divorce. She then married the Count of Anjou, 

 afterwards our Henry II. She had for her mar- 

 riage dower the rich provinces of Poitou and 

 Guienne ; and this was the origin of those wars 

 which for three hundred years ravaged France, 

 and cost the French three millions of men. All 

 this probably had never occurred, had Louis not 

 been so rash as to crop his head and shave his 

 beard, by which he became so disgustful in the 

 eyes of our Queen Eleanor. (D'Israeli.) 



Warton mentions, in his Notes on Pope, that the 

 Treaty of Utrecht was occasioned by a quarrel 

 between the Duchess of Marlborough and Queen 

 Anne about a pair of gloves. 



The expedition to the island of Re was under- 

 taken to gratify a foolish and romantic passion of 

 the Duke of Buckingham. 



The coquetry of the daughter of Count Julian 

 introduced the Saracens into Spain. 



What can be imagined more trivial, remarks 

 Hume, in one of his essays, than the difference 

 between one colour of livery and another in horse 

 races? Yet this difference begat two most in- 

 veterate factions in the Greek empire, the Prasini 

 and Veneti ; who never suspended their animosi- 

 ties till they ruined that unhappy government. 



The murder of Csesar in the capitol was chiefly 

 owing to his not rising from his seat when the 

 senate tendered him some particular honours. 



The negotiations with the Pope for dissolving 

 Henry VlII.'s marriage (which brought on the 



Reformation) are said to have been interrupted 

 by the Earl of Wiltshire's dog biting his holiness's 

 toe, when he put it out to be kissed by that am- 

 bassador ; and the Duchess of Marlborough's 

 spilling a bason of water on Mrs. Masham's gown, 

 in Queen Anne's reign, brought in the Tory 

 Ministry, and gave a new turn to the affairs of 

 Europe. (Graves's Spiritual Quixote.') 



If the nose of Cleopatra had been shorter, said 

 Pascal, in his epigrammatic and brilliant manner^ 

 the condition of the world would have beea 

 different. 



Luther might have been a lawyer, had his 

 friend and companion escaped the thunderstorm ; 

 Scotland had wanted her stern reformer, if the 

 appeal of the preacher had not startled him in the 

 chapel of St. Andrew's Castle ; and if Mr. Gren- 

 ville had not carried, in 1764, his memorable 

 resolution as to the expediency of charging certain 

 stamp duties on the plantations in America, the 

 western world might still have bowed to the 

 British sceptre. 



Giotto, one of the early Florentine painters, 

 might have continued a rude shepherd boy, if a 

 sheep drawn by him upon a stone had not acci- 

 dentally attracted the notice of Cimabue. 



The story of Bruce and the spider, in the notes 

 to Scott's Lord of the Isles, will bear a similar 

 application ; and, doubtless, many correspondents 

 of " N. & Q." can make interesting additions to 

 the above list of examples. N. L. J, 



BISHOP TRELAWNET. 



In the dedication prefixed to his four volumes 

 of Sermons, Atterbury has pourtrayed in graceful 

 and eloquent style the chief features in the life and 

 character of this undaunted prelate. When Bishop 

 of Exeter he had appointed Atterbury Archdeacon 

 of Totnes, who begins his dedication therefore, by 

 acknowledging a debt of gratitude for the Bishop's 

 patronage of him at a time when he was little 

 known to his lordship, otherwise than by his honest 

 endeavours to retain those synodical rights of the 

 clergy, whereof it is interesting to note that Tre- 

 lawney was all along the avowed patron and de- 

 fender. He proceeds to speak of the services 

 rendered by the Bishop to the church and consti- 

 tution in the reign of James II., and after noticing 

 his seasonable encouragement of a worthy pres- 

 byter who had repressed the attempts of sectaries 

 by his learned and accurate writings (Bingham, I 

 suppose, is intended), he mentions with approba- 

 tion the proceedings of the Bishop as Visitor of 

 Exeter College, in the expulsion of Dr. Arthur 

 Bury, a disciple of Arius, from the rectorship of 

 that society. The issue of this struggle fixed the 

 power of the Visitor (not till then acknowledged to 

 be final) on the sure foundation of a judgment ia 



