Aug, 13. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



153 



INSCEIPTIONS IN BOOKS. 



(Vol. vii. passim.) 



Under this head the following translation of 

 part of the inscription at Behistun may be classed. 

 It is, I apprehend, the earliest of this sort of in- 

 scription : 



•' Darius rex dicit : si banc tabulam, hasque effigies 

 spectas, et lis injuriam facias, et quamdiu tibi proles 

 sit non eas conserves, Oromasdes bostis fiat tibi, et 

 tibL proles non sit, et quod facias id tibi Oromasdes 

 frustretur." 



See Kawlinson's " Translation of the Great Per- 

 sian Inscription at Behistun," par. 17. Asiatic So- 

 ciety s Transactions. 



The following is an extract from Maitland's 

 Dark Ages, p. 270., notes 3 and 4 : 



" Terrible imprecations were occasionally annexed 

 by the donors or possessors of books ; as in a sacra- 

 mentary which Mastene found at St. Benoit sur Loire, 

 and which he supposed to belong to the ninth century. 

 ♦ Ut si quis emu de Monasterio aliquo ingenio non 

 redditurus abstraxerit cum Juda proditore, Anna et 

 Caipha, portionem aeternae damnationis accipiat. Amen, 

 Amen, Fiat, Fiat.' " 



There is a curious instance of this in a manu- 

 script of some of the works of Augustine and Am- 

 brose in the Bodleian Library: 



" Liber S. Marlae de Ponte Roberti, qui eum abs- 

 tulerit, aut vcndiderit, vel quolibet modo ab bac dofno 

 absciderit, sit anathema maranatha. Amen." 



In another hand (aliena manu), — 



" Ego Johannes Exon Epus, nescio ubi est domus 

 predicta, nee hunc librum abstuli, sed modo legitimo 

 adquisivi." 



Also page 283. : 



" Liber B. Marias de Camberone : si quis eum abstu- 

 lerit, anathema esto." 



In the preface to a late publication (1853), 

 Fragments of the Iliad of Homer from a Syrian 

 Palimpsest, edited by William Cureton, the editor 

 tells us : 



" The Palimpsest Manuscript, in which I discovered 

 these fragments of a very ancient copy of the Iliad of 

 Homer, formed a part of the library of the Syrian 

 convent of St. Mary Deipara, in the Valley of the 

 Ascetics, or the Deserts of Nigritia. On the first page 

 of the last leaf the following notice occurs: ' This vo- 

 lume of my Lord Severus belongs to the reverend and 

 holy my Lord Daniel, Bishop of the province of 

 Orrhoa (Edessa), who acquired it from the armour of 

 God, when he was down in the province of the city of 

 Amida, for his own benefit, and that of every one that 

 readeth it. But under the curse of God is he who- 

 soever steals it, or hides or removes it .... or 

 tears, or erases, or cuts off this memorial from it, for 

 ever. And through our Lord Jesus Christ may he 



who readeth it pray for the same Daniel, that he may 

 find mercy in the day of judgment ! Yea, and Amen, 

 and Amen, And upon the sinner who wrote it, may 

 there be mercy in the day of judgment ! Amen. But 

 at the end of his life he bequeathed it to this sacred 

 convent of my Lord Silas, which is in Tarug (a city of 

 Mesopotamia), for the sake of the remembrance of 

 himself and of the dead belonging to him. May the 

 Lord have mercy upon him in the day of judgment ! 

 Amen. Whosoever removeth this volume from this 

 same convent, may the anger of the Lord overtake him 

 in both worlds to all eternity ! Amen.' " 



Anon. 



In some of Dugdale's MS. volumes in this College 

 is the following, written by himself: 



" Maledictus sit qui abstulerit." 



Thomas W. King, York Herald. 

 College of Arms. 



THE DRUMMER S LETTER. 



(Vol. vii,, p. 431,) 



Mr. Forbes rightly describes the Drummer's 

 Letter in the Sentimental Journey as "not only cor- 

 rectly but elegantly written." There is, more- 

 over, in two or tlujee places, a play upon words, 

 which indicates an intimate acquaintance with the 

 idiomatic turns of the language. But all these 

 circumstances are, to my mind, only so many 

 grounds for the belief that the French of the 

 letter is not Sterne's. 



If we are to judge of Sterne's French from the 

 samples to be met with in Tristram Shandy and 

 the Sentimental Journal., there is ample evidence 

 that his knowledge of that language was some- 

 what superficial. I shall give a few examples. 



Your readers are familiar with the incident in 

 Tristram Shandy, where the Abbess and Mar- 

 garita, having occasion to make use of two very 

 coarse and indecent expressions, resort to the 

 ludicrous expedient of splitting them in two, each 

 pronouncing a separate syllable. Those words 

 are scandalously common in the mouths of French- 

 men ; and yet Sterne seems so little aware of the 

 correct spelling of them, that he makes the poor 

 nuns give uttei*ance to two words, one of which, 

 "bouger," means "to move," and the other, 

 " fouter," is unknown to the French language. 



Farther on, in chapter xxxiv., the commissary 

 employs the expression " C'est tout egal ; " but 

 this is merely the translation of our English 

 phrase " 'Tis all one." The French say " C'est 

 egal," but never " C'est tout egal." 



In the Sentimental Journey, under the head of 

 " The Bidet," La Fleur is made to say " C'est un 

 cheval le plus opinlati-e du monde." Now, the 

 man who could write the Drummer's^ Letter 

 would not have applied the epithet "opiniatre" 



