Sept. 21. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



263 



Mikrokosmos. In the section treating of Muscovy, 

 be says : — 



" This excesse of cold in the ayre, gave occasion to 

 Castilian, in his Attlicus, wittily and not incongruously 

 to faine that if two men being somewhat distant, talke 

 together in the winter, their words will be so frozen 

 that they cannot be heard : hut if the parties in the 

 spring returne to the same place, their words will melt 

 in the same order thiit they were frozen and spoken, and 

 be plainly understood." 



J.S. 



Salisbury. 



Insa-iption from Roma Suhterj-anea. — If you 

 deem the translation of this inscription, quoted in 

 Lord Lindsay's fanciful but admirable Sketches of 

 the History of Christian A7-t, worth a place among 

 your Notes, it is very heartily at your service. 



" Slsto viator 



Tot ihi trophasa, quot ossa 



Quot niartyres, tot trlumphi. 



Antra quse subis, multa qua; cernis marmora, 



Vel dum silent, 



Palam Roma; gloriam loquuntur. 



Audi quid Echo resonet 



Subterranean lloinrE ! 



Obscura licet Urbis Coemetria 



Totius patens Orbis Theatriun ! 



Supplex Loci Sanctitatem veiierare. 



Jit post hac sub luto aurum 



Coelum sub coeno 



8ub Roma Romam quaarito !" 



Homa Sithterraiiea, 1651, torn. L p. 625. 

 (Inscription abridged.) 



Stay, wayfarer — behold 



In cv'ry mould'ring bone a trophy here. 



In all tlujse hosts of martyrs. 



So many triumphs. 



These vaults — these countless tombs. 



E'en in their very silence 



Proclaim aloud Rome's glory ;. 



The echo'd fame 



Of subterranean Rome 



Rings on tlie car. 



The city's sepulchres, albeit hidden,. 



Present a spectacle 



To the wide world patent. 



In lowly rev'rence hail this hallow'd spot,. 



And henceforth learn 



Gold beneith dross 



Heav'n below earth, 



Rome under Rome to find ! 



Brooktiiorpe. 

 Parallel Passagea.- 



F. T. J. B. 



" There in an acre siiwn with roi/nl sceit, the copy of 

 the greatest change from rich to naked, from cieled 

 roofs to arched coHins, from livinij li/ic ijnda In tlie like 

 vien." — Jeremy Taylor'.s JIoli/ JJying, chap. i. sect. 1. 

 |>. «72. cd. Edin. 



" Here's an acre sown indeed 

 Jl'ilh the richest royalest seeds, 

 That the earth did e'er suck in, 

 Since the first man dyed for sin: 

 Here the bones of birth have cried. 

 Though t^uds tluy u-ere, as men they died." 



V. Beaumont. 



M. \Y. 



Oxon. 



A Note on George Herherfs Poems. — In the 

 notes by Coleridge attached to Pickering's edition 

 of George Herbert's Poems, on the line — 

 " My flesh begun unto my soul in pain," 

 Coleridge says — 



" Either a misprint, or noticeable idiom of the word 

 becjan ; Yes ! and a very beautiful idiom it. is ; the first 

 colloquy or address of the Uesh." 



The idiom is still in use in Scothind. " You had 

 better not begin to me," is the first address or 

 colloquy of the school-boy half-angry hall-fright- 

 ened at the bullying of a companion. The idiom 

 was once English, though now obsolete. Several 

 instances of it are given in the last edition of 

 Foxe's Martyrs, vol. vi. p. 627. It has not been 

 noticed, however, that, the same idiom occurs in 

 one of the best known passages of Shakspeare ; in 

 Clarence's dream, Richard III., Act i. Sc. 4. : 

 " O, then l)egan the temijest to my soul." 



Herbert's Poems will afford another illustration 

 to Shakspeare, Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 7. : — 

 " And then this should is like a spendthrift sigh. 

 That hurts by easing." 



Coleridge, in the Literary Remains, vol.i. p. 233., 

 says — 



" In a stitch in the side, every one must have heaved 

 a sigh that hurts by easing." 



Dr. Johnson saw its true meaning : 



" It is," he says, "a notion very prevalent, that sigh^ 

 impair the strength, and wear out the animal powers." 



In allusion to this popular notion, by no means 

 yet extinct, Herbert says, p. 71. : 



" Or if some years with it (a sigh) escape 

 The sigh then only is 

 A Eale to bring me sooner to my bliss." 



D.S. 



"Ci'ede qiiod hahcs," ^c. — The celebrated answer 

 to a Protestant about the real jjreseuce, by the 

 borrower of his horse, is supposed to be made 

 since the lleforniation, by whom I forget : — 

 " Quod nuperdixistl 

 l)e corpore Christi 

 Crcde (piod edis et edis ; 

 Sic tibi rcscribo 

 Ue too paUVido 

 Crede quod ludK's ct babes." 



Kut in Wright and IlalliweU's Reliqma; Antiqnce, 



