328 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 104. 



Sedley's couplet more favourable to the witty 

 baronet's principles than facts will admit. It is 

 too probable that he conceived the sentiment 

 just as it stands ; for we must remember that lie 

 belonged to that scliool of loose wits of the 

 Restoration, who, " llegis ad exemplar," made a 

 mock of all which tended to place " virtue" above 

 " interest," or to make men " too fond of the ri^ht 

 to pursue the expedient.' 



Charles II. and his long train of licentious 

 courtiers now stand at the bar of history, and the 

 verdict on him must be, that if he had a ])rinciple 

 in latter life it was this, — that he would never 

 endanger himself for any abstract rule of right ; 

 or as Sir W. Scott, in Peveril, accurately says : 

 " he had sworn never to kiss the block on which 

 Lis father suffered," wlien yielding to the current 

 would save him from it ; hence, there is too good 

 reason to think that, in his estimation, and in the 

 judgment of the scliool he formed, " loyalty" was 

 " folly," and to take the strongest side " wisdom." 



The reference in Sedley's couplet to the line — 



" Victrix causa Diis plaeuit, sed victa Catoni" — 

 is too obvious to need notice ; and it is but too 

 certain that in the estimation of a courtier of 

 Charles II., Cato dying for his country would 

 be but " a fool for his pains." It is painful to 

 be obliged to remind Mr. Breen that, in order 

 to understand Sedley's meaning, we are not to 

 look for what would be " most consistent with 

 truth," but for what was most probably acconhmt 

 with the lax morality of the author. A. B. R. 



Belmont, Oct. 6. 1S51. 



Buxtorfs Translation of Elia.i Levifa's " T'lih 

 Taam " (Vol. iv., p. 272.). — This work was 

 printed at Venice in 1538, in 4to. jMiiiister re- 

 published it in the next following year, with an 

 epitome of its contents in Latin. (G. B. de' Rossi, 

 Dizionario Storico, Sj-c, art. " Levita."). T. T. 



Manchester. 



Stonehenge (Vol. iv., p. 57.). — P. P.'s objection 

 to Sir R. C. Iloare's derivation of Slonehengc 

 seems hardly justifiable. Surely the horizontal 

 stones there may be said to hang, /uereVjoi, or 

 fierdpcrwi, sublime: as in the case of "Rocq Pen- 

 dant" of Alderney, the term "hanging" is loosely 

 apj)lied. That leans forth from the cliff at a con- 

 siderable angle out of the perpendicular, and is 

 " hanging," in another sense of the word, like the 

 Leaning Tower of Pisa, and as, in another accep- 

 tation, the famous terrace gardens of Babylon are 

 called the Hanging Gardens. Theophylact. 



Glass ill Windoivs formerly not a Fixture 

 (Vol. iv., p. 99.). — Referring to this suliject, allow 

 me to add a Note I have from the will of Robert 

 Birkes, of Doncaster, alderman, proved at York, 

 July 30, 1590, in further illustration. The testa- 

 tor gives to his son Robei-t all " the seelinc; work 



and portalls'Mn and about the house where lie 

 dwelt, " with all doors, glass ivindoivs" &c., in full 

 of his child's portion of his goods; and then his 

 house he gave to his wife lor her life. If by 

 " seeling work and poi'talls " are meant what we 

 now understand by those terms, the above extract 

 shows that other essential parts of a house besides 

 glass windows were ibrmerly considered as move- 

 able chattels. C. J. 



Fortune, infor-tune, fort vne (Vol. iv., pp. 57. 



142.). — The explanation offered by a writer in the 



Magasiii Pittorescjue for 1850, seems perfectly clear 



without the proposed transposition of the adverb 



fort mto fait of your correspondent D. C. 



If the sentence be read according to the French 



explanation U. C. has quoted, viz. by reading 



infortune as a verb, _/(«■< the adverb to it, it must 



be plain that the reading of the sentence must be: 



" Fortune fort infortune une." 



(Fortune very much afflicts one.) 



If we turned fort miofait, it would entirely 

 spoil the sentence. 



Query, But is " infortuner " to be found as a 

 verb in any old dictionary? We have the adjec- 

 tive " infortune," which looks much like a par- 

 ticiple. J. C. W. 



Francis Terrace, Kentish Town. 



Matthew Paris' s " Historia Minor " (Vol. iv., 

 p. 209.).— Mr. Sansom will find the desired MS. 

 in the British Museum, 14 C. vii. (Macray's 

 Manual of Brit. Hist., p. 26. Lond. 1845.) R. G. 



In the Cottonian library, Claudius D. vi. 9., will 

 be found " Abbreviatio compendiosa Chronicoruni 

 Anglian, ab A° 1000, ad A. 1255. Scripsit quidam 

 ad c.aleem, ' Hie desinit Mat. Paris Historia Minor, 

 quas est epitome Majoris, quae ad a.d. 1258 con- 

 tinuatur.' " 



The Bihliothecce JRegia, 14 C. vii., contains 

 "Historias M.Paris. Continuatio ad a.d. 1273, 

 alia maiiu. De possessione hujiis Codicis mnlta 

 fuit altercatio." (See Warton's History of English 

 Poetry, vol. i. p. Ixxxviii. edit. 1840.) There are 

 also MSS. at Corpus Christi College (No. 56.) 

 and Bcn'et College, Cambridge (No. 31.). Macray 

 stales, that the Historia Minor was made out of the 

 Historia Major by Paris, both from Wendover to 

 1235, and his own large additions after that 

 period. J, Y. 



Hoxton. 



SanfonTs '■'■Descensus'''' (Vol. iv., p. 232.).. — 

 The work of Hugo Sanfordus, De Descensu 

 Domini nostri Jesu Christi ad infei-os, was published 

 as a separate work at Amsterdam in 1611, and its 

 title is inserted in the printed catalogue of the 

 Bodleian Library. Can iEGKOxus give a specific 

 reference to the book, page, and edition of Gale's 

 Court of the Gentiles in which it is spoken of, and 

 also his authority for the statement that it was 



