184 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 71. 



of the Benedictine edition of S. Gregory Nazian- 

 zen's works, which had been actually issued in 

 1778. Very frequently, however, the comparison 

 of professedly different imjiressions requires, be- 

 fore they can be safely pronounced to be identical, 

 the protracted scrutiny of a practised eye. An 

 inattentive observer could not be conscious that the 

 works of Sir James AVare, translated and improved 

 by Harris, and apparently the progeny of the 

 year 1764, (the only edition, and that but a spu- 

 rious one, recorded in Watt's Bibliotheca Britan- 

 nica,) have been skilfully taui[)ered with, and 

 shouhl be jvistly restored — the first volume to 

 1739, the second to 1745. 



(•2.) We must admit that a bookseller gifted 

 with mature sapience will very rarely, or never, 

 be such an amateur in expensive methods of bam- 

 boozling, as to prefer having recourse to the 

 title-page expedient, if he could flatter himself 

 that his purpose would be likely to be effected 

 simply by doctoring the date ; and thus a question 

 springs up, akin to the former one. How great is 

 the antiquity of this timeserving device? At this 

 moment, trusting only to memory, I am not able 

 to adduce an instance of the depravation anterior 

 to the year 1606, when Dr. James's Bellum Papale 

 was put forth in London as a new book, though in 

 reality there was no novelty connected with it, 

 except that the last in 1600 (the authentic date) 

 had been compelled by penmanship to cease to be 

 a dead letter, and to germinate into a 6. 



(.3.) If neither the judicious naturalisation of a 

 title-page, nor the dexterous corruption of the 

 year in which a work was honestly produced, 

 should avail to eliminate "the stock in hand," res 

 ad Triarios rediit — there is but one contrivance 

 left. This is, to give to the ill-fated hoard another 

 name ; in the hope that a proverb properly belong- 

 ing to a rose may be superabundantly verified in 

 the case of an old book. What Anglo-Saxon 

 scholar has not studied " Divers Ancient Monu- 

 ments" revived in 1638? and yet perhaps scarcely 

 any one is aware that the appellation is entirely 

 deceptive, and that no such collection was printed 

 at that period. The inestimable remains of /Elfric, 

 edited by L'Isle in 16-23, and then entitled, "■A 

 Saxon Treatise concerning the Old and New Testa- 

 ment" together with a reprint of the " Testimonie 

 of Antiqnitie" (sanctioned by Archbishop Parker 

 in 1567,) had merely submitted to substitutes for 

 the first two leaves with which tliey had been 

 ushered into the world, and after fifteen years the 

 unsuspecting public were beguiled. When was 

 this system of misnomers introduced ? and can a 

 more signal specimen of this kind of shamelessness 

 be mentioned than that which is afforded by the 

 fate of Thoi'udike's De ratione ac jure finiendi Con- 

 troversias Ecclesice Disputatio ? So this small 

 folio in fours was designated when it was pub- 

 lished, Loftd. 1670; but in 1674 itbeoarae Origines 



Ecclesiastics; and it was metamorphosed into 

 Restawatio Ecclesice in 1677. 



(50.) Dr. Dibdin {Typ. Antiq. iii. 350.) has 

 thus spoken of a quarto treatise, De atitoritate, 

 officio, et potestate Pastornni ecclesiasticorum : — 



" This very scarce book is anonymous, and has 

 neither date, printer's name, nor place ; hut hiing hound 

 up with two other tracts of IBerthelet's printing are my 

 reasons for giving it a place here " 



The argument and the langiiage in this sentence 

 are pretty nearly on a par ; for as misery makes 

 men acquainted with dissimilar companions, why 

 may not parsimony conglutinate heterogeneous 

 compositions? I venture to deny altogether that 

 the engraved border on the title-page was exe- 

 cuted by an English artist. It seems rather to 

 be an original imitation of Holbein's design : and 

 as regards the date, can we not perceive what was 

 meant for a modest " 1530" on a standard borne 

 by one of the boys in procession ? In Sinder's 

 Gesnerian Bibliotheca Simon Hess (let me reite- 

 rate the question, Who was he?) is registered as 

 the author ; and of his work we read, " Liber 

 impressus in Germania." Tliis observation will 

 determine its locality to a certain extent; and 

 the tractate may be instantly distinguished from 

 all others on the same subject by the presence of 

 the following alliterative frontispiece ; — 

 " Primus Papa, potens Pastor, pietate paterna, 

 Petrus, perfectam plehem pascendo paravit. 

 Posthabito plures populo, privata peteiites, 

 Pinguia Pontifices, perduiit proh pascua plebis." 



R. G. 



ENIGMATICAL EPITAPH. 



In the church of Middleton Tyas, in the North 

 Riding of the county, there is tlie following extra- 

 ordinary inscription on the monument of a learned 

 incumbent of tliat parish : — 



" This Monument rescues from oblivion the Remains 

 of the Rev. J. lin Wawer, D. D., late Vicar of this 

 Parish, wlio died Nov. 18th, 1763, aged 60. The 

 doctor was descended from the royal family of Mawer, 

 and was inferior to none of his illustrious ancestors in 

 personal merit, being the greatest linguist this nation 

 ever produced. He was able to write and speak 

 twenty-t«o languages, and particularly excelled in the 

 Fastern tongues, in which he proposed to his Royal 

 Highness Frederick Prince of Wales, to whom he was 

 firmly attached, to propagate the Chr stian religion in 

 the Abyssinian empire, — a great and noble design, 

 which was frustrated by the death of that amiable 

 prince." 



Whitaker, after giving the epitaph verbatim 

 in his Histori/ of Richmondshire, vol. i. p. 234., 

 says : 



" This extraordinary personage, who may seem to 

 have been (|ualified for the ofhce of universal inter- 

 preter to all the nations upon earth, appears, notwith- 



