466 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 84. 



" Georgics" (iii. 284.), tlie most exact composition 

 in existence, prove that they were first delivered 

 byword of mouth, from notes only: — 



" Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus, 

 Singula duni capti circumvectamur amoie." 

 I might add the passage in Pindar, 4th Pythian, 

 439.: 



" MoKpa /ioi vilaSai icar'' a/xa^LThv &pa y^p avvamn- 

 Kal Tica oTjuoc Xaafii ^poxw." 



Such passages are common in all authors. C. B. 



Hand-bells at Funerals (Vol. iii., p. 478.). — • 

 With rei'erence to B.'s remark on the Host being 

 often preceded by a hand-bell, it may more cor- 

 rectly be stated, that the Host, when carried in 

 procession to the sick, is in all Catholic countries 

 wiifonnhj preceiled by a bell, in order to warn 

 all persons of its approach, that they may be 

 ready to pay all due reverence as the procession 

 passes. The ringing of the bell on this occasion 

 was first instituted by the Cardinal Guido, who 

 was sent Legate to Germany, to confirm the elec- 

 tion of the Emperor Otto. P. P. M. 



[Query, May not this have been the original passing 

 bell?] 



'■'■ Laus tua non tua Frans,^' S)-c. (Vol. i., p. 416. ; 

 Vol. ii., p. 77.; Vol. iii., p. 290.). — There is the 

 following allusion to these lines by Question and 

 Answer in the New Help to Discourse, published 

 about 1670, p. 102.: 



Q. " How came tlie famous Buchanan olT, when 

 travelling into Italy, he was, for the freeness of his 

 writing, suspected of his religion, and taken hold of by 

 some of tlie Pope's Inquisitors?" 



A. " By writing to his Holiness this distich : 

 ' Laus tua, non tua fraus, virtus, non cojiia rorum, 

 Scaudere te fecit hoc decus eximium.' " 



For which encomium he was set at liberty ; and 

 being gone out of the Pope's jurisdiction, he sent 

 to his Holiness, and desired, according to his own 

 true meaning, to read the self-same verses back- 

 ward. 



If George Buchanan, born 1506, was indeed the 

 atithor of them, it is certain that no Pope Alex- 

 ander could have been the subject of them, when 

 written,! presume, in 1551, that being the year in 

 which he obtained his liberty. And now to J. F. M.'s 

 Query p. 290. — If he has transcribed Puttenham 

 aright, he might justly condemn them as very bad 

 "verse Lyon," if that be Leonine; but I take it 

 that he has condemned what is worthy of some 

 praise, and of being " called verse Lyon," for Lyric. 



It would lose nothing of the lyrical by trans- 

 lation, but your readers being all classical I for- 

 bear. Blowen. 



Francis Moore (Vol. iii., pp. 263. 381.). — 

 Francis Moore, physician, was one of the many 

 quack doctoi's who duped the credulous at the lat- 

 ter period of the seventeenth century ; he practised 



in Westminster : in all probability then, as in our 

 own time, the publication of the almanac was to 

 act as an advertisement of his healing powers, 

 &c. Cookson, Salmon, Gadbury, Andrewes, Tan- 

 ner, Coley, Partridge, &c. &c., were all his prede- 

 cessors, and were students in physic and astrology. 

 Moore's Almanac appears to be a perfect copy of 

 Tanner's, which was first published in 1656, forty- 

 two years prior to the appearance of Moore's. 

 The portrait in Knight's London is certainly ima- 

 ginary. There is a genuine and very characteristic 

 portrait, noio of considerable rarity, representing 

 him as a fat-faced man in a wig and large neck- 

 cloth, inscribed " Francis Moore, born in Bridg- 

 north, in the county of Salop, the 29th of January, 

 165§. — John Drapentier, delin. et sculp." 



I may mention it as a curious fact, that the 

 portraits of these quack doctors, when in a good 

 state, are frequently of great rarity. I possess 

 one which was in the Stow collection, being a fine 

 impression of the following print by Drapentier, 

 for which the sum of five guineas had been paid : 



" The effigies of George Jones, whom God hath 

 blessed with greate success in healing." — " Student in 

 the art of physick and chirurgery for about thirty years 

 in the Upper More Fields, two golden balls on the 

 tops of the two posts of the poitel before my door." 



w. w. c. 



National Debts (Vol. iii., p. 374.).— A descrip- 

 tion of the f(jundation of a "national debt" in 

 Florence in the years 1344-45 is to be found in 

 the Florentine Historif, by Henry Edward Napier, 

 II. N. (published by Edward Moxon, Dover 

 Street), chap. xxi. p. 125. Fieenete. 



Law Courts at St. Albans (Vol. i., p. 366.). — I 

 beg to send a copy of a Latin inscription discovered 

 some years since over the west door inside the 

 great nave of St. Alban's Abbey. It may possibly 

 prove to be a record of some historical value, and 

 at all events furnishes a partial rcjily to the Query 

 of 2. in your First Volume : — 



" Propter vicinli situm, et amplum hujus Templl 

 spatium ad magnam confluentium multltudinem exci- 

 piendam opportunum, temporibus R. H. VIII. et 

 denuo R. Elizabeth.'E, peste Londini sjeviente, Con- 

 ventus Juridicus hie agebatur." 



Underne.ath this is written, — 



" Princeps Dei Imago Lex Principis opus 

 Finis Legis Justitia." 



Can any of your learned correspondents clear 

 up the nature and extent of these fear-strickea 

 flights to the old abbey ? Vsas it the Commons, 

 or Westminster Hall, or the Convocation, or all 

 together, avoiding the plague ? I may observe 

 that our ancestors seem to have put to some jyrac- 

 tical use the vast space of an abbey-church on 

 extraordinary occasions ; and I would humbly sug- 

 gest that we too of the nineteenth century might 



