Oct. 14. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



309 



sidered as isle, island, insula, an isolated or separate com- 

 partment of a building, and not as aile, ala, a wing or 

 lateral appendage."] 



INSCRIPTIONS IN BOOK.3. 

 (Vol. ix., p. 122.) 

 The following are taken from the Rule and 

 Order Books of the Court of Exchequer iu Ire- 

 land : 



" Woe unto thee myn arrow wounded heart, 

 Storehouse of cares, of sorrow, griefe, and smart. 

 Sith thou breakest not of grife and timely eake, 

 Noe matter now whether thou bow or breake." 



" A man in tim hig he may dim, 

 And fortan may him fed ; 

 Bout doun he shal, and have a fal, 

 If he tak not hed." 



" Si fore vis sapiens sex serva quae tlbi mando. 

 Quid loqueris, quantum, de quo, cui, quomodo, quaudo." 



" Adsis tu nostris conatibus optime christe." 



" Desinat incepto similis precor exitus, obsit 

 Auspiciis domini ne mala penna mei." 



' Quid magis durum est saxo, quid mollius unda, 

 Dura tamen molli saxa cavantur aqua." 



" Tempore lenta pati frasna docentur equi." 



Upon one of the membranes of the Common 

 Pleas Roll of Ireland, 10 Edward I., there is a 

 pen-and-ink sketch of the profile of a man's face, 

 and at one side of it are the following words : 



" Qui caput hoc pinxit, pictorem se fore finxit, 

 Tej sic pinxit benedictus a demone sic sit." 



Jambs F. Febgcson. 

 Dublin. 



In that very beautifully illustrated work, Hum- 

 phrey's Illuminated Boohs of the Middle Ages 

 (folio, London, 1844), we have a transcript of a 

 remarkable example of a book-anathema, which I 

 subjoin, with the translation there given : 



"Liber sancte Marie sanctique Nicolai in Arrinstein. 

 Quem si quis abstulerit, morte moriatur, in sartagine co- 

 quatur, caducus morbus instet eum et febres, et rotatur, et 

 suspenditur. Amen. 



" The book of S. Mary and S. Nicholas in Arrinstein ; 

 the which, if any one shall purloin it, mav he die the 

 death, may he be cooked upon a gridiron, may the falling 

 sickness and fevers attack him, and may he be broken 

 upon the wheel and hung. Amen." 



The MS. in which this tremendous anathema is 

 found, is a very sumptuous Bible of the twelftii 



century, amongst the Harleian MSS., marked 

 Harl. 2798-2799. W. Sparrow Simpson. 



One of the inscriptions given by J. R. G. 

 (Vol. ix., p. 123.) is quite unintelligible as copied 

 by him, but will be found in an intelligible form 

 in Cato de Moribus, from whom it has been taken. 

 The distich is as follows : 



" Si Deus est animus, nobis ut carmina dicunt, 

 Hie tibi prxcipue sit pura mente colendus." 



Lib. i. Dist. 1. 



E. S. T. T. 



Not having seen the following among the book 

 inscriptions in "N. & Q.," I have ventured to send 

 it, thinking that it might be worth the notice of 

 some of your readers. I give it as I received it 

 from a French friend : 



" Qui ce livre desrobera. 



Pro suis criminibus 



Sa tete au gibet portera 



Cum aliis latronibus ; 



Quelle honte ce sera 



Pro suis parentibus. 

 Si hunc librum redidisset 

 Pierrot pendu non fuisset." 



F. W. R. 



Longfellow's originality. 

 (Vol. viii., p. 583. ; Vol. ix., p. 77.) 



If your correspondents J. C. B. and Wm. Mat- 

 thews care to see some of Mr. Longfellow's imi- 

 tations, or, more properly speaking, plagiarisms, 

 detected and exposed, I recommend tliem to read 

 an article on this very subject by Edgar Poe, 

 which will be found at p. 292. of the third volume 

 of the New York edition of his Works, published 

 in 1852 by J. S. Redfield, Clinton Hall, Nassau 

 Street. In it poor Poe, who was the very 

 " Bucket " of literary detectives, makes out a very 

 strong case against the Professor. Poe does his 

 work honestly and straightforwardly. After 

 tracking him through a dozen coincidences, and 

 pointing out a host of parallelisms between par- 

 ticular poems, the circumstantial evidence is so 

 strong against Mr. Longfellow, that no bystander 

 attempts to interfere when the critic puts his hand 

 on the poet's shoulder and says, "You're wanted, 

 my man ! " 



But Poe never accuses Longfellow, or any other 

 author, of plagiarism on the strength of one iden- 

 tical word or image, as too many people, and I 

 am sorry to say a great many of your corre- 

 spondents, do. For example, take the " Parallel 

 Ideas from Poets," by Norkis Deck, at Vol. ix., 

 p. 121. What less resemblance can there possibly 

 be between any two ideas in the world ("always 

 excepting of course the time-honoured difference 

 of chalk and cheese), than between those expressed 

 in the passages collated from Longfellow and 



