Nov. 16. 1850.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



413 



" Quid per Lutherum, Calvinum, perque Socinum, 



Funditus eversam jam Babyloua putas? 

 Perstat adhuc Babylon, et toto regnat in orbe 



Sub vario primuin nomine robur habens. 

 Ostentat muros, jactat subliniia tecta 



De fundamento quis metus esse potest? 

 Ni Deus banc igitur molem disjecerit ipse 



Humano nuuquam Marte vel arte ruet." 



Przipcovius was a Polish knight, and cotempo- 

 rary with tlie author of Htuiibras. In a tract en- 

 titled Religio Vindicatn a Calumniis Atheismi, he 

 thus alludes to the spiritual Quixotism which in- 

 duced Butler to "crack the satiric thong:" 



" Saepe audivi quod in Anglid (quEe regio sicut in 

 multis aids rebus, sic pracipue in religionibus totius 

 mundi compendium est) de ejusmodi fanaticis perhi- 

 betur, quod ita sui suarumque irrationabilium opini- 

 onum sint amantes, ut audeant propter eas divinam 

 Providentiam angustis Ecclesiarum suarum (qua ex 

 angustis cujuslibet Penatibus constant) terminis cir- 

 cumscribere. . . . Et quemadmodum omnes isti miseri 

 aperte delirant, pr^ecipue ii quos zeli a2stus eousque 

 deducit, ut tanquam bacchantes aut cerritl ])er plateas, 

 domos, templa, absque ullo ordine et respectu cur- 

 sitantes concionentur, et interduni aiiseres, eijuos, vel 

 oves (cujus rei ibi satis frequentia exempla occurrunt) 

 dum eis homines aures prabere nolunt, ad suas opiniones 

 couvertere tentent." 



R. Price. 



Cheam. 



MSS. of Locke (Vol. i., pp. 401. 462.). —Tn 

 reply to a question in " Notes and Queries," I 

 may state, that the address of the son of the late 

 Dr. Hancock, is George H., Park Grove, Birken- 

 head J and he will furnish information relative to 

 the MSS. of Locke. 



An Intended Reader. 



Sir William Grant (Vol. ii., p. 397.). —Your 

 correspondent R. says that " Sir William Grant 

 was one of the few Scotchmen who had freed him- 

 self from tiie peculiarities of the speech of his 

 country. Frank Horner is another." If R. means 

 to include the Scottish accent, he is mistaken as 

 to Sir William Grant, who retained a strong Scot- 

 tish burr If he means only correctness of dicticm, 

 then I sho\ild say the nuudjcr was not feiv. Mack- 

 intosh's and Jeffery's English was, I think, (juite 

 as pure as Horner's ; and Lord ISrougliam, with 

 much idiosyncrasy, had no Scotch peculiuritie.i, at 

 laaat—mejudicc — infinitely less than Sir William 

 Grant. I could name twenty members of the 

 present houses of parliament in whom I Inive 

 never detected any " Scotch peculiarity." C. 



Tristan cTAcunha (V(»l. ii., p. 358.).— The island 

 is noticed, hut biielly, in p. 54. of the first volume 

 of Perouse's Voi/tige round the World, Lond. 17i)9. 

 It \» there Stated that a tolerably minute account 

 of it is contained in Le Ncjituue Oriental, by 

 D'ApreH (or Apres de Manvdelte). This work 



was published in Paris, 1775, in two volumes, 

 large folio. C. I. R. 



Arabic Numerals fVol. ii., pp.27. 61.339.).— 

 In a work in Arabic, by Ahmad ben Abubekr bin 

 Wahshih, on Ancient Alphabets, published in 

 the original, and accompanied with an English 

 translation, by Von Hammer, your correspondent 

 on the subject of Arabic numerals will find that 

 these numerals were not invented as arbitrary 

 signs, and borrowed for various alphabets ; but 

 that they are actually taken from an Indian alpha- 

 bet of nine characters, the remaining letters being 

 made up at each decimal by repeating the nine 

 characters, with one or two dots. The English 

 Preface states that this alphabet is still in use in 

 India, not merely as a representative of numbers, 

 but of letters of a native language. The book is a 

 neat quarto, printed in London in 1806; and the 

 alphabet occurs in page 7. of the Arabic original. 



E. C. H. 



Athenseum. 



Luther's Hymns (Vol. ii., p. 327.). — If F. Q. 

 will turn to JMr. Palmer's Origines Liturgicce, 

 vol. ii. p. 238. 4th edit., he will tind that the sen- 

 tence in the Burial Service, "In the midst of life 

 we are in death," &c., is taken from the Salisbury 

 Breviary Psalter. The Salisbury Use was drawn 

 up by Bishop Osmund in the eleventh century. 



N. E. R. (a Subscriber.) 



Bolton s Ace. — What is the meaning of " Bol- 

 tons Ace," in the following passage in the address 

 to thfl reader prefixed to Henry Hutton's Follies 

 Anatomic, 8vo. Lond. 1618 ? It is passed over by 

 Dr. Rimbault in his reprint of the work for the 

 Percy Society in 1842 : 



" Could ye attacke this felon in's disgrace, 

 I would not bate an inch (not Bolton's ace) 

 To baite, deride, nay, ride this silly asse." 



J. Cr. 



[" Bate me an ace quoth Bolton " is an old proverb 

 of unknown origin. Ray tells us that a Collection of 

 Proverbs having been presented to Queen Elizabeth, 

 with an assurance that it contained all the proverbs in 

 the Englisli language, " Bate me an ace, quolb Bolton," 

 said the queen, implying that the assertion was too 

 strong ; and, in fact, that every proverb was n^t in the 

 collection. See Nares' Glossary, who quotes the fol- 

 owing epigram by H. P., to show the collection re- 

 ferred to 



" Secundce Cogitationcs meliores. 

 " A pamphlet was of proverbs penned by Polton, 



Wherein he thought all sorts included were: 

 Until! one told him Bate wi' an ace quoth Bulton, 



' Indeed,' said he, ' that proverb is not there.'"] 



Hopkins the Witchjinder (Vol. ii., p. 392.). — If 

 th(! iiKjuiry of Clkricus relates to Mathew Hop- 

 skins tlie witchfiiider general, my friend W. S. 

 Fitch of Ipswich has some manus(!ri])t account of 

 his residence in that town, as a lawyer of but little 



