478 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 160. 



cidecUy, a large one. Whether the gallant knight 

 received severe injuries, and recovered in due 

 course, or whether he was miraculously preserved 

 from harm, I cannot tell : suffice it to say, that he 

 repented of his evil ways, and became the founder 

 of the picturesque little church which, standing on 

 a graceful slope, with a background of rich foliage, 

 forms the chief attraction of the village of 

 Barfreston. 



The name of the knight would, of course, be 

 interesting. His church has been recently and 

 well restored : a small brass plate on the eastern 

 face of the south pier of the chancel arch thus 

 records the restoration ; 



•' H^C ^DES VETUSnSSIMA JETATE I.ABANS 



^RE COLLATO AMICORUM OPERA 



IN HONOKEM DEI 



REFECTA ET'ORNATA FUIT 



JACOBO GILLMAN RECTORE 



ANNO SALUTIS MDIIIXLI." 



In the ambry, which is furnished with a modern 

 door, is a small paten bearing date 1577, and a 

 chalice of the same period : and on the interesting 

 Norman stringcourse which runs round the inte- 

 rior of the building below the windows, is a curious 

 little group of a grotesque man, and a monkey and 

 hare carrying a rabbit. A small portion of a 

 fresco painting, which represented our Lord and 

 His apostles, remains at the east end. 



A very remarkable instance of longevity in con- 

 nexion with this parish is recorded by Ireland in 

 his History of Kent, vol. iii. p. 283. At the funeral 

 (in 1700) of a rector of the church, who died at 

 the advanced age of ninety-six, the divine who 

 preached the funeral sermon was eighty-two, the 

 "reader eighty-seven, the sexton eighty-six, and his 

 wife eighty ; whilst " several " from the adjacent 

 parish of Coldred were above a hundred years of 

 age. W. Sparrow Simpson, B.A. 



NEW CRYSTAL PALACE. 

 (^Jurors' Report, Printing.) 



In the Athenceum of October 9, 1852, p. 1093., 

 and article " Jurors' Keport of the Examples of 

 Printing," I read : 



" There were examples from Sydney and Washington, 

 towns founded only a generation ago, but nothing from 

 Rome or Venice ! The Roman press, once so active 

 and still so famous, is now idle. The great office of 

 the Vatican, founded by Sixtus V., and perfected by 

 Leo X. and Clement XIV., for printing the Scriptures 

 and Fathers, has long been all but idle. The only 

 issues of late having been in the Oriental tongues," &c. 



The glaring errors contained in the preceding 

 few lines greatly surprize me, as allowed to appear 

 in so generally a perfectly well-edited publica- 

 tion as the AthencBiim : for here we find the Pope 

 Sixtus V. represented as anterior to Leo X., who 



in fact died before the former's birth, which 

 took place the 13th December, 1521 ; while Leo's 

 decease occurred on the 1st of that same month, 

 twelve days before. Again, Clement XIV. is pro- 

 duced as perfecting the Roman press in conjunc- 

 tion with Leo X. ; of which that Clement (Gan- 

 ganelli), whose pontificate was posterior to Leo X.'s 

 by 248 years (1521—1769), has left no proof. The 

 whole in truth presents a series of anachronisms 

 and confused names : for Sixtus V. should be 

 Nicholas v., and Clement XIV. should be replaced 

 by Clement VIII. It certainly was in the pon- 

 tificate of Nicholas that printing, if not invented, 

 produced any recognisable or corresponding fruit ; 

 for no example or record exists of a volume prior 

 to the Bible known as the Mazarine Bible ; which, 

 from undoubted, though not dated evidence, was 

 published at Mentz In the interval of 1450 to 1455, 

 which interval was filled by that pontiff's reign. 

 There had Indeed been printed, in 1454 and 1455, 

 some papal indulgences bearing these dates, but on 

 single sheets ; while no volume exhibited the date 

 of impression until 1457, when the Psalter (Psal- 

 moncm Codex) proceeded from the Mentz press of 

 Fust and Schoefher. Our countryman Count 

 M'Carthy's copy, though deficient In some acces- 

 sory requisites, was purchased at his sale In 1817 

 for the Royal Library by Louis XVIIL, at the 

 price of 12,000 francs. In 1793, my old friend 

 the Count had left it, with other bibliographical 

 treasures. In my care at Bordeaux for some years, 

 In the apprehension of their seizure by the Con- 

 vention, as the property of a liable. The earliest 

 book printed with a date in Italy was Lactantlus, 

 In Monasterio Suhlacensi, 1465, folio. 



Nicholas, after bringing to a happy conclusion 

 the temporary dissentions of the Papal See, proved 

 himself the munificent patron of literature by 

 liberally providing for Its restorers, Poggio, Pe- 

 rotto, Platina, Theodore Gaza, Cardinal Bessarlon, 

 with numerous other native Italians and refugees 

 from the then enslaved Byzantine empire. 



As for the united or successive perfection of 

 the Vatican press by Leo X. and Clement XIV., 

 the praise should have been given to Sixtus V. 

 and Clement VIII. The former got printed in 

 1590 the Latin Vulgate, Romce, ex Typographia 

 Apostolica Vaticana, opera Aldi Manutii, in folio, — 

 a beautiful volume ; but though executed by (the 

 younger) Aldus, teeming with faults, which, on 

 discovery, were immediately corrected in a new 

 edition, under Clement VIII., of equally beautiful 

 typography, in 1592. The title represents the 

 volume as a republication : Biblia Sacra. Vulga- 

 tics editionis Sixti Quinti, cum bulla dementis VIII., 

 cujus authoritate sunt recusa. This discord of the 

 two papal editions was exultingly seized on by 

 Thomas James, the Oxonian (Bodleian) librarian 

 at the time, as contradictory to the pontifical claim 

 of iufallibility, in his work Bellum Papale, sive 



