88 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 143. 



William, Abbot of St. Albans (Vol. v., p. Sll^.- 

 At pp.213, 214. of Massingberd's History of the 

 English Reformation a solution is offered of the 

 difficulty arising from the hiatus iu the list of the 

 Abbots of St. Albans, by supposing that the name 

 of the wicked abbot was erased or omitted from the 

 records of the abbey. It seems probable that the 

 practice of such omissions might be copied from 

 the example of the omission, in St. Matthew's 

 genealogy of our Lord, of those sinful kings, who 

 are passed over as if they had never been, accord- 

 ing to the sentence of Him who visits the sins of 

 the fathers unto the third or fourth generation. I 

 believe that there are other instances of similar 

 omissions in other monasteries : such a case was 

 stated at a late meeting of the Lincolnshire Archi- 

 tectural Society, in regard to Thornton Abbey in 

 that county. 



It would be grievous to think that the high 

 character of Ramridge (see Stephens' Supplement, 

 i. 264.), who wrote The Lives of the Abbots, Monks, 

 and Benefactors of St. Albans, and whose noble 

 tomb remains in the Abbey Church, was altogether 

 fictitious : besides that his name was Thomas ; and 

 the dates of his election, and of the death of Wil- 

 liam Waliingford, seem to be equally authentic. 



F. C. M. 



Lines on Crauford of Kilbiniie, Sec. (Vol. v., 

 p. 546.). — These lines are evidently merely an 

 adaptation of the well-known epigram on Austria : 



'\ Bella gerant alii — tu felix Austria nube ; 

 Nam quae Mars aliis dat tibi regna Venus." 



But this epigram is again only an adaptation of 

 Helen's exhortation to Paris, in Ovid's Epistles, 

 lines 253-4. : 

 " Apta magis Veneri, quam sint tua corpora Marti ; 

 Bella gerant fortes : tu, Pari, semper ama." 



J. R. 

 Cork. 



Can Bishops vacate their Sees? (Vol, v., p. 548.). 

 ■ — Many examples may be produced from the Church 

 of Rome. So recently as the early years of this 

 century, on establishing the Concordatum between 

 Pius VII. and Bonaparte, several bishops resigned 

 their sees; and a century before, the learned Huet, 

 bishop of Avranches, did so, in exchange for the 

 Abbey of Fontenay, near Caen, in Normandy. I 

 am acquainted with an ex-bishop, returned from 

 the East Indies, now in holy retirement at Dublin, 

 from ill health. J. R. 



Cork. 



■ Lines on Franklin, Vol, v., p. 549., and again at 

 p. 571., where, in explanation of its origin, we 

 read, that it was lately reproduced, having been 

 first cited in the " Correspondance de Grimm et de 

 Diderto" (Diderot), in the Quarterly Review for 

 June 1850, with the addition that it was from the 



pen of Turgot, on the authority, I presume, of the 

 Life in the Biographic Universelle, art. " Turgot." 

 On this I beg leave to observe, that I think I 

 have already addressed you, Mv. Editor, on the 

 subject, though I cannot refer to the time, nor 

 have I preserved a copy of what I wrote ; Ijut I 

 may now add, that in the Dublin Review for March 

 1847, p. 212., I distinctly traced the line from 

 Turgot to the Anti- Lucretius of Cardinal de Poli- 

 gnac, as mentioned by Grimm, who, however, does 

 not quote the book and line of that poem, which I 

 did, viz. lib. i. v. 37.; as I equally did those of 

 Manilius, lib. i. v. 104., where he says of his hero, 

 Epicurus — 



" Eripuitque lovi fulmen, viresque Tonanti." 



The Biographic merely notes that, of Turgot, 

 " On connait I'epigraphe qu'il fit pour le portrait 

 de Franklin — ' Eripuit,' " &c., without further ex- 

 planation. It will thus be seen that my article 

 preceded that of the Quarterly by three years ; and 

 I may add, that long before I furnished these par- 

 ticulars to the Gentlenians Magazine, though I 

 cannot now go in search of the article, thinking it 

 sufficient to refer to the Dublin Review in claim of 

 priority. I am not in the habit of keeping copies 

 of what I consign to the press, which, I own, is 

 wrong, and am sometimes made to feel it so. 



J. R. 

 Cork, 



St. Augustinus "De Musica" (Vol. v., p. 584.) is 

 enumerated as being in vol. i. of the Benedictine 

 edition of his Works : 4to. Bassano, 1807. J. M. 



Oxford. 



Giving the Sack (Vol. v., p. 585.). — 



" Donner ii quelqu'un son sac ; c'est le congeJier 

 brusquement, le inettre dehors, le casser aux g;iges." — 

 See Dictionnaire des Proverbes, par Quitard ; Svo. Faris, 

 1842. 



In the same work it is said that the origin of the 

 phrase was traced by Goropius (who was rather 

 fanciful in his etymologies) to the Confusion of 

 Tongues at Babel, the word suck being the same in 

 all languages : sakkos, Greek ; sacaw, Latin; sakk, 

 Gothic ; sac, Anglo-Saxon ; sack, in English, Ger- 

 man, Danish, and Dutch ; sacgo, in Italian ; saco, 

 in Spanish ; sak, in Hebrew, Chaldee, and Turkish ; 

 sac, in Celtic, &c. ; and the reason given by Goro- 

 pius for this uniformity is, that when the workmen 

 dispersed at Babel, none of them forgot, in going 

 away, to take his sack with him. J. M. 



Oxford. 



Royal Arms in Chu7-ches (Vol. v., p. 559.).— 

 As these can hardly be intended to excite devo- 

 tional feelings, we must imagine them to denote 

 the royal supremacy. The origin may of course 

 be traced to the Roman eagle placed on the Temple 

 at Jerusalem ! A. A. D. 



