Jan. 28. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



11 



Descendants of Sir M. Hale. — Are there any of 

 the descendants of Sir Matthew Hale, the famous 

 •judge of the seventeenth century, living either in 

 England or Ireland ? W. A. 



A Query for the City Commission. — In the 

 London Gazette of January 23, 1684-5, we read 

 that King Charles II. sent to the Lord Mayor, in 

 a silver box sealed up with his majesty's seal, the 

 receipts of the several cements used by the pa- 

 tentees for making sea-water fresh ; as also the 

 •receipt of their metallic composition and ingre- 

 dients, certified under the hand of the Hon. Robert 

 Boyle, to be kept so sealed up by the present and 

 succeeding lord mayors, lest a secret of so great 

 importance to the public might come to be lost, if 

 lodged only in the knowledge of a few persons 

 therein concerned. 



It is to be hoped that the commissioners who 

 .are now engaged in investigating the affairs of 

 the Corporation of London, will not fail in making 

 inquiry of the present Lord Mayor after this silver 

 box, committed so carefully to City preservation. 



H.E. 



Ci-oss-legged Monumental Figures. — Are any 

 instances of the cross-legged figures, so common 

 in England, to be seen in the churches of France, 

 Italy, or Spain ? and if so, where may engravings 

 of them be found ? J. Y. 



Muffins and Crumpets. — Can any of your 

 readers tell me the origin of the names " muffins 

 and crumpets," and by whom and when intro- 

 duced at the English breakfast-table ? 



Old Fogie. 



Athenaeum. 



fflinav (Quzvitst u)tth ®n£iocr3. 



"Behemoth." — Does any one know a book called 

 Behemoth, an Epitome of the Civil Wars from 

 1640 to 1660? C.W.B. 



[This was the last work written by the celebrated 

 Thomas Hobbes of Malmsbury. " This history is in 

 dialogue," remarks Bishop Warburton, "and full of 

 paradoxes, like all Hobbes' other writings. More phi- 

 losophical, political — or anything rather than historical ; 

 yet full of shrewd observations." The editions are, 

 1679, 8vo.; 1680, 12mo. ; 1682, 8vo.] 



" Deus ex Machina" — From what author is 

 the phrase " Deus ex machina" taken? and what 

 was its original application ? T. R. 



Dublin. 



[" Deus ex machina " was originally a Greek pro- 

 verb, and used to denote any extraordinary, unex- 

 pected, or improbable event. It arose from the cus- 

 tom or stage-trickery of the ancient tragedians, who, 

 to produce uncommon effect on the audience, intro- 

 duced a deity on special occasions : — 'Etti twv napa- 



Z6l<ov koI irapaXoywv, "it is spoken of marvellous and 

 surprising occurrences," as the German commentator, 

 F. Smeider, thus explains the words of the passage in 

 which the adage is to be found, viz. Lucian's Hermo- 

 tbnus, sub finem. The words are, to rwv TpayaftSw 

 tovto, Qehs etc /j.r)xavrjs eirKpaviis. To this custom Ho- 

 race alludes in his Ars Poetica, 1. 191. : 



" Nee Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus 

 Incident." 



Conf. Gesneri Thesaurus, in Machina.] 



Wheelbarrows. — Who invented the wheel- 

 barrow ? It is ascribed to Pascal. Alpha. 



[Fosbroke seems to have investigated the origin of 

 this useful article. He says, " Notwithstanding Mont- 

 faucon, it is not certain that the ancients were ac- 

 quainted with the wheelbarrow. Hyginus, indeed, 

 mentions a single-wheeled carriage, but it may apply 

 to a vehicle of conveyance. Some modern writers 

 ascribe the invention to Pascal, the famous geometer. 

 The one-wheeled carriage alluded to was, perhaps, the 

 Pabo of Isidore. As to the invention by Pascal, we 

 find berewe, a barrow, rendered by Lye, a versatile ve- 

 hicle ; but if more than the hand-barrow had been 

 meant, the addition of wheel would perhaps have been 

 made to the world." — Encyclopedia of Antiquities, 

 vol. i. p. 349.] 



Persons alluded to by Hooher. — Who was the 

 ancient philosopher to whom Hooker alludes in 

 Eccles. Polity, b. in. ch. xi. (iii.) ? and the Puritan 

 champion of the Church Service, cited b. v. 

 ch. xxvii. (1.) ? Mackenzie Walcott, M.A. 



[The ancient philosopher is Philemon : see the 

 passage quoted by the Rev. John Keble, edit. Hooker, 

 1836, vol. i. p. 496., from Fragm. Incert., xliii., ed. Cler. 

 The Puritan champion is Edward Dering : see his 

 work against Harding, entitled A Sparing Restraint of 

 many lavish Untruths, Sfc, 4to. 1568.] 



3EUnTt>$, 



LONGFELLOW'S ORIGINALITY. * 



(Vol. viii., p. 583.) ' 



J. C. B. has noticed " the similarity of thought, 

 and even sometimes of expression," between " The 

 Reaper and the Flowers " of this popular writer, 

 and a song by Luise Reichardt. But a far more 

 extraordinary similarity than this exists between 

 Mr. Longfellow's translation of a certain Anglo- 

 Saxon metrical fragment, entitled " The Grave " 

 (Tegg's edit, in London Domestic Library, p. 283.) 

 and the literal translation of the same piece by 

 the Rev. J. J. Conybeare, transcribed by Sharon 

 Turner in Hist. Ang. Sax., 8vo. edit. 1823, vol. iii. 

 p. 326. With the exception of a few verbal 

 alterations, indeed, which render the fact of the 

 plagiarism the more glaring, the two translations 

 are identical. I place a few of the opening and 



