Feb. 3. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



83 



by the periphrasis " Caino e le spine." One of the 

 commentators on that poet says that this alludes 

 to the popular opinion of Cain loaded with the 

 bundle of faggots ; but how he procured them we 

 are not informed. The Jews have some Talmud- 

 ical story that Jacob is in the moon, and they be- 

 lieve that his face is visible. The natives of Ceylon, 

 instead of a man, have placed a hare in the moon. 



Clemens Alexandrinus quotes Serapion for his 

 ©pinion that the face in the moon was the soul of 

 a sibyl. See Plutarch's Morals also (p. 559., 

 Holland's transl., fol. 1603), where Sibylla is 

 placed in the moon : 



" And the dtemon said it was the voice of Sibylle, for 

 she, being carried about in the globe and the face of the 

 moon, did foretell and see what was to come." 



These last two instances may throw some light on 

 the obscure passage in Dante. H. S. 



Old French Monthly Rules. — In the Calendrier 

 Historial attached to La Bible, de Vlmprimerie 

 de Francois Estienne, 1567, there are the follow- 

 ing monthly rules, each accompanied with a neat 

 illustrative woodcut : 



" Januier. Ce mois est figure de la mort corporelle. 

 Feurier. En ce mois on reclost les hayes. 

 Mars. En ce mois on seme I'orge et autres legumes. 

 Auril. En ce mois on meine les troupeaux aux champs. 

 May. En ce mois on s'addonne aux esbats. 

 Juin. En ce mois on tond les moutons. 

 Juillet. En ce mois on fauche les prez. 

 Aoust. En ce mois on fait moissons. 

 Septembre. En ce mois on vendange. 

 Octobre. En ce mois laboure les terres. 

 Nouemhre. En ce mois les champs prennent Icur faces 



triste. 

 Decembre. En ce mois I'hyuer fait ranger les gens a la 

 maison." 



The benevolent intention of Francis Stephen, 

 the eminent compiler of this beautiful specimen of 

 a very early almanac, is thus expressed in his 

 Preface " Av Lectevr :" 



" Comme ceux qui considerent peu I'eternele proui- 

 dence et gouuernemente de Dieu en ces choses inferieures, 

 et moins dependans d'icelle, attribuans quasi le tous aux 

 causes secondes et aux estoilles. Dont le plus souuent 

 viennent a dire choses non seulement cotre toute piete 

 ehrestienne, mais aussi eslongees de toute verity, ainsi 

 que le demostre assez ce qui succede de leurs vaines et 

 fausses pronostications." 



G.N. 



Mutilation of Chaucer. — At p. 22. of a lecture 

 On Desultory and Systematic Reading, by the 

 Right Hon. Sir James Stephen, K.C.B., one of 

 the publications of the Young Men's Christian 

 Association, is the following : 



" I saw his sleeves perfumed at the hand 

 With grease, and that the finest in the land." 



In Bell's edition of Chaucer (1782) it is — 



" I saw his sieves purfiled at the hond 

 With gris, and that the finest of the lond." 



Before quoting, the lecturer says : " I will, how- 

 ever, read it (Chaucer's language) as it stands, 

 with the change only of an obsolete word or two." 

 His change in this instance simply makes the pas- 

 sage absurd. Bell's note on " purfiled" is " from 

 the Ft. pourfiler, which properly signifies, to work 

 on the edge." " Gris" is a species of fur. 



J. H. AVELING. 



Thucydides and Mackintosh. — I was struck the 

 other day with a coincidence of thought, ap- 

 parently undesigned, between Sir J. Mackintosh 

 and Thucydides. In speaking of the Crusades, 

 the former observes : 



" The warlike spirit of the age was set in motion by 

 religion; by glory; by revenge; by impatient valour; 

 by a thousand principles, which being melted into one mass 

 were not the less potent because they wert originally unlike 

 and discordant." — Hist, of England, vol. i. p. 121. 



Compare this with Thucyd. (vi. 18.) : 



" No^ti<raTe . . . to re <f>avKov Kai ro fxeVov Kai to rrdw 

 axpi^fS av ^vyKpaOiv fjLd\L<rT av i<rxvei,v." 



T. H. T. 



Fastener for loose Papers. — Every literary 

 man knows that loose papers have a power of 

 travelling about a table or a room. At the Ame- 

 rican store in New Oxford Street are sold, for a 

 penny a-piece, little wooden nippers, acting by a 

 spring of brass wire, in a most efficacious manner. 

 One of them will hold from one sheet to several 

 quires of paper so tightly, that it will be Impos- 

 sible to shake the nippers off the paper, and very 

 difficult to shake the paper out of the nippers. 



M. 



London Directory, 1855. — In 1954 some con- 

 tributor to " N. & Q." may be thankful that your 

 pages have embalmed the following means of com- 

 paring the then London Post- Office Directory with 

 that of 1855 : 



"A new edition of the London Post- Office Directory haa 

 just made its appearance. It contains 175 sheets of super- 

 royal, or 2620 octavo pages. The whole of this vast bulk 

 of information is constantly kept ' in type,' so that cor- 

 rections and additions may readily be made. The present 

 edition has been worked from a new fount, — the largest, 

 we are told, that Messrs. Besley and Co. ever cast. There 

 is a peculiarity in the binding which deserves attention : 

 to facilitate reference, the different parts of the volume are 

 coloured blue, red, or yellow, on the fore-edge, and the 

 contents printed upon it. Each volume took a quick hand 

 an hour and a half to sew ; but the whole number, 7000, 

 weighing when ready for delivery upwards of 30 tons, 

 were bound in ten daj's ! " 



E.W. 



The Congress at Rhinocorura The Greek 



Church father Epiphanius, the same who inter- 

 dicted the reading of the writings of his celebrated 

 colleague On>ewe«, indicates (in his Panario Hcere- 



