282 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 258. 



This ancient fact we cv'ry year revive, 

 And custom's law forbids the fox to live. 

 This feast demands we should that law fulfil. 

 And as one perish'd, so they perish still."* 



The festival. of April 18 was denominated Vul- 

 pium Combustio (the Firing of the Foxes) in the 

 old Roman calendar, from this custom. 



As I alluded, in my Note on Party Similes, to 

 the Porridge Controversy, I now give the titles of 

 a number of pamphlets on the subject : 



" Messe of Pottage, very well seasoned and crumbed 

 ■with Bread of Life, and easie to be digested, against the 

 contumelious Slanderers of the Divine Service. A Pottage, 

 set forth by Gyles Calfinc. London, 1642, 4to." 



" Answer to lame Giles Calfine's 3fesse of Pottage, prov- 

 ing that the Service Booke is no better than Pottage, in 

 comparison of divers Weeds which are chopt into it to 

 poyson the taste of the Children of Grace, by the Advice 

 of the Whore of Babylon's Instruments and Cooks. Lon- 

 don, 1642, 4to." 



" Answer, in Defence of a Messe of Pottage, well seasoned 

 and crumVd, against the last, which falsely says the 

 Common Prayers are unlawfull, and no better than the 

 Pope's Porrage. London, 1642, 4to." 



" Fresh Bit of Mutton for those fleshly-minded Canni- 

 bals that cannot endure Pottage ; or, aDefence of Giles 

 Calfine's 3Iesse of Pottage, against the idle j'et insolent 

 exceptions of his monstrous Adversary. London, 1G42, 

 4to.» 



SOUTHET AND VOLTAIRE, 



In the life of D'AIembert which I contributed 

 to the Biographical Dictionary of the Useful 

 Knowledge Society, I correcjLed, and so far as I 

 knew for the first time, the statement that D'AIem- 

 bert and Voltaire, in their celebrated phrase 

 *' ecrasez I'infame," intended the epithet to apply 

 to Jesus Christ. I find, however, that this]singular 

 and unworthy distortion of an opponent's meaning 

 had already been noticed by Southey as follows : 



" Is it not probable, or rather can any person doubt, 

 that the ecrasez Vinfdme, upon which so horrible a charge 

 against him [Voltaire] has been raised, refers to the 

 Church of Rome, under this well-known designation? 

 N'o man can hold the principles of Voltaire in stronger 

 abhorrence than I do, but it is an act of justice to excul- 

 pate him from this monstrous accusation." — Poet's Pil- 

 grimage, note 22. 



Southey, who no doubt had formerly read the 

 correspondence between Voltaire and D'AIem- 

 bert, expresses the opinion which the perusal had 

 left on his mind, and forgets the evidence on 

 which it was founded ; whence it happens that his 

 words seem to imply little more than that the 

 monstrous character of the imputed meaning is to 

 him reason enough for" rejecting it. It is a pity 



* From an old translation quoted in Foster's Perennial 

 Calendar. 



" Cur igitur missaj vinctis ardentia tcedis 

 Terga ferant Vulpes, causa docenda mihi," &c. 



Fast, lib. iv. 681. 



that he did not quote the passage in which the 

 words occur for the first time : 



" Je voudrais que vous ecrasassiez I'infame ; c'est la le 

 grand point. II faut la reduire a I'e'tat oil elle est ea 

 Angleterre. . . . Vous pensez bien que je ne parle 

 que de la superstition, car pour la religion, je I'aime et la 

 respecte comme vous." 



Consequently, infame is a feminine noun, the 

 name of something existing in one state in France 

 and in another state in England; but so that it 

 would be ecrasee in France by reduction to the 

 same state as in England. D'AIembert, in his 

 replies, also uses the feminine article. Perhaps 

 some of your readers may be able to discover who 

 first attributed the offensive meaning. Whoever 

 he was, a long string of writers, down to this very 

 time, have copied him. Perhaps also others, be- 

 sides Southey, may have been more just. 



A most amusing book might be written upon 

 the meanings which controversialists have imputed 

 to their opponents. In the life alluded to I spoke 

 of the present generation of Englishmen (Church- 

 men and Dissenters both) as " those who know 

 the stake and the wheel only as matters of history, 

 and whose worst ecclesiastical grievance of the 

 legal kind is a three-and-sixpenny church rate." 

 For thinking that to have to pay 3*. Qd. for the 

 repair of the church, is to any one, whether in the 

 pale or out, not nearly so bad as being burned 

 alive, or having one's bones broken, a theological 

 review represented me as defending the imposition 

 of the tax upon Dissenters ; and after rating me 

 for expressing such an opinion, proceeded very 

 gravely to give reasons why no such thing ought 

 to be ; and good reasons too, which made the joke 

 still better. A. De Morgan. 



CORNWALL FAMILY, THEIR MONUMENTS, ETC. 



Seeing an account of the arms of Richard, King 

 of the Romans, Vol. viii., p. 265., and also an in- 

 scription. Vol. viii., p. 268., to the memory of 

 Elizabeth, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of 

 Lancaster, and wife of Sir John Cornwall, in 

 Burford Church, near Tenbury, some farther in- 

 scriptions therein, and additional particulars of 

 this ancient and once celebrated family, may not 

 be uninteresting to many of your readers, more 

 particularly to your correspondents Mr. IIakdi 

 and A Salopian. The parish church of Burford, 

 which is in the county of Salop, appears to have 

 been the mausoleum of the Cornwalls for many 

 generations, indeed long before the date of any 

 existing memorial. Under a pointed arch in the 

 chancel is a small elegant figure of Elizabeth of 

 Lancaster in long hair, adorned with a coronet of 

 oak leaves and pearls intermixed, a purple mantle 

 guarded with ermine, close sleeves buttoned and 

 bordered, neck band, studded belt of roses and 



