^od S. V. 128., June 12. '68.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



479 



notice may meet his eye, or that of any other an- 

 tiquary. It would form a most valuable sup- 

 pleuient to Mr. Gough's volumes, or might be 

 incorporated in them. J. M. G. 



Minor ^uttiti int'tt Sn^toer^. 



Quotation wanted. — In English Past and Present 

 (2ri(l ed. p. 227., 1855) Dean Trench quotes from 

 Shakspeare : — 



" For goodness, growing to a plurisy, [^sic'] 

 Dies in his own too-much." 



Where does this passage occur ? I cannot find 

 either plurisy or pleurisy in Ayscough's Index 

 (1827). The Dean suggests that Shakspeare was 

 inlluenced by the spelling, and so connected 

 plurisy with plus, pluris. What say the com- 

 mentators ? I have none at band. Is not plurisy 

 a misprint for plethory ? Jaydee. 



[ The passage occurs in Hamlet, Act IV. Sc. 7. War- 

 burton would read plethory. But plurisy was constantly 

 used in the sense of fulness, abundance, by the poets. 

 Thus, in Massinger, we have " plurisy of goodness," and 

 " plurisy of blood."] 



Medical Ecclesiastics. — Is the following state- 

 ment correct ? 



" From the middle ages, the medical profession had 

 got into the hands of the ecclesiastical authorities, who 

 were unwilling to undertake the surgical part of it, and 

 hence the separation of the two branches." — Walpole's 

 Speech, reported in Times, June 3. 



X. P. 



[From the earliest times the practice of surgery, or the 

 cure of diseases by the application of the hand alone, 

 constituted a distinct (and, commonly considered, in- 

 ferior,) branch of medicine. The surgeon was a mere 

 assistant to the physician : the latter alone not only 

 having the sole privilege of prescribing internal medi- 

 cines, but even that of judging and directing when sur- 

 gical operations should be performed. It- was no uncom- 

 mon practice of the monks, in mediseval times, to dispense 

 physic in their respective localities, and in summoning 

 the surgeon to their aid as the occasion demanded, they 

 did no more than what had been customary from time 

 immemorial. Consult Rees's Cyclopadia, Art. Surgeky, 

 and Dr. Black's Historical Sketch of Medicine and Sur- 

 gery, Lond., 8vo. 1782.] 



Grays Arithmetic. — '■^ An Introduction to Arith- 

 metic, by James Gray, late of Peebles and Dun- 

 dee, Seventieth edition, 1857." What is the date 

 of the first edition ? Gray beats Cocker by at least 

 ten editions, and his popularity is by no means on 

 the wane. "The Great Computist" held his ground 

 firmly until the latter end of the last century, 

 when Dilworth, Walkingame, and Joyce began to 

 dispute the field with him, and ultimately shelved 

 him. They in their turn shared t^^same fate, 

 and in the first quarter of the prCTrot century. 

 Gray became the arithmetical oracle of every 

 schoolmaster in Scotland, as his predecessors had 

 been before him. Colenso, De Morgan, and Hind 



have not travelled so far north yet — they •' must 

 bide their time." Tweedsidk. 



[The earliest edition in the British Museum, which 

 seems to be the first, is that of 1797, " Edinburgh, 

 printed by J. Ritchie," small 12mo.] 



Mystery of the Acts of the Apostles. — Can you 

 favour me with a copy of the public proclamation 

 for the performance of the Mysteries of the Acts of 

 the Apostles in Paris, published about the middle 

 of the sixteenth century. None of the libraries 

 to which I have access contain a copy of it, and I 

 am aware that it is of great scarcity. Captain. 



[A translation of the proclamation is printed in Hone's 

 Ancient Mysteries, p. 177.] 



PB.a:-ROMAN CIVILISATION OF BRITAIN. 

 (2'>« S. V. 415.) 



In reply to Inquirer there can be, I imagine, 

 little doubt of the existence of a Prse-Roman 

 civilisation in Britain, in some respects of a much 

 higher order than obtained in the East. In sup- 

 port of such view the following, among numerous 

 evidences, may be adduced : — 



1. No tin mines, except those of Cornwall, 

 were worked to any extent in the ancient world. 

 As early as the era of Moses a vigorous trade in 

 tin and copper, and their composite, bronze, was 

 conducted between Britain and Phoenicia. Ezekiel, 

 B.C. 640, specifies tin as one of the staple imports 

 of Tyre, and this could have been supplied by 

 Britain only. In the oldest British laws, metal- 

 lurgy is classed in the first rank of fine arts with 

 poetry and music. Probably there never was a 

 time when the men of Cornwall were not, as now, 

 the first miners in the world. 



2. Csesar, who was the first great foreigner that 

 invaded Britain, found both a civil and military 

 system long established, difi'erent from, but, judg- 

 ing from the patent facts on the face of his own 

 account of his two campaigns, quite able to cope 

 with those of Rome. His description conveys the 

 impression of a country settled for centuries under 

 an organised constitution and government — corn 

 abundant and easily procured — the population so 

 thick as to strike him with amazement, (" infinita 

 hominum est multitudo") — villages and hamlets 

 studding the country in clusters (creberriraa), 

 and stock of all kinds unlimited. The civilisation 

 which produced and assured such a state of se- 

 curity for life and property could not have been 

 of recent origin. 



3. The heroic system of warfare, such as Homer 

 describes it, expired in Asia at the battle of Ar- 

 bela, B.C. 325 ; but Csesar found it in full opera- 

 tion in Britain, carried to a perfection it never 

 attained in the East, and an overmatch, by his 



