22 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



p«* S. VI. 132., Jdly 10. '5?. 



of Mitylene ; and tbere were none but Athenians 

 on board. The second trireme, with the procla- 

 mation of mercy, had on board four or five Mity- 

 leneans, and these were intensely interested in 

 reaching their native city before the bearers of 

 the order of destruction. These Mityleneans plied 

 the rowers with wine, and fed them with barley- 

 cakes, and made magnificent promises to induce 

 them to come up with and pass the other boat. 

 Consequently, the oars flashed throu;;h the waters 

 like rapid and regular gleams of lightning. The 

 rowers, as they sat and pulled, opened their mouths 

 for the cakes dipped in wine and oil, and they 

 never ceased altogether from their labour. Even 

 when some slept, others stuck to the bench, pulled 

 like demons ; and when they too were overcome 

 with fatigue, the awakened and refreshed sleepers 

 took their place, and kept the trireme flying across 

 the waters, — and, after all, did not win the race. 

 The first boat, however, had only just landed its 

 messengers of death as the second shot into the 

 harbour. Before the latter had put its anxious 

 freight ashore, the active Athenian governor of 

 Mitylene had read the condemnatory decree, and 

 had, with commendable zeal and little fussiness, 

 ordered it to be put in force. The second boat- 

 load of messengers contrived to reach him just in 

 time to prevent mischief, and thus the wine and 

 barley cakes were not mis-spent on the rowers ; 

 and I hope the Mitylenean gentlemen remembered 

 their promises, as half an hour later would have 

 made all the difference. J. Doran. 



EPXSTOL^ OBSCUROEDM VIRORUM. 



This is another of those works which are dis- 

 cussed by literary historians, who forget that the 

 ordinary reader would learn more from a few 

 specimens than from opinions and descriptions. 

 Its interest has been revived in our own day by 

 the late Sir W. Hamilton, in a very learned ar- 

 ticle {Edinh. Rev. March, 1831, reprinted, with 

 additions, in the Discmsions, ^'c). Referring to 

 this article, it will be enough to state here that 

 Luther's great movement was preceded by a war 

 of the theologians against classical literature and 

 its cultivators, especially Reuchlin ; that this scho- 

 lar, in the course of the fight, published a volume 

 of the letters of others to himself, entitled EpistolcB 

 Illustriurn Vii-orum; that Ulric von Hutten, as- 

 sisted by others, thereupon drew up the Epistola 

 Obscurorum Viromm (1516), an ironical co'lec- 

 tion, purporting to be written by the theological 

 enemies of the classics, to aid and comfort Or- 

 tuinus Gratius against the poets, as they were 

 called. This Ortuinus was himself a scholar of 

 some note, the only one who had joined the theo- 

 logical parly ; he was, therefore, selected as the 

 chief object of ridicule. The eflfect was a com- 



plete victory over the monks. So faithfully did 

 their enemies represent them, that their party at 

 first imagined the work was written on their own 

 side, and raised a shout of approbation. Of this 

 there is abundant evidence. Sir Thomas More 

 and Erasmus, independently of each other, agree 

 that the satire would never have been detected by 

 its victims, if it had not been for the word Ohscu- 

 roritm in the title. Erasmus relates that a Do- 

 minican prior in his own town (Louvain) bought 

 twenty copies for distribution among his friends : 

 and he adds that they were never undeceived, 

 in England, until the appearance of the second 

 volume, in the last letter of which the writer 

 throws off the mask. 



Any one would suppose that the blocks must 

 have been cut with a very keen razor, seeing that 

 they did not feel the operation ; but the bluntness 

 of the tool will be the zest of the story in all time 

 to come. Doctors of divinity did not know but 

 what they had a looking-glass before them, when 

 they read letters in which other doctors vary the 

 most stupid ignorance with the most revolting 

 obscenity. The accounts which men under the 

 vows give of their own lives would disgust an 

 immense majority of those who had lived in the 

 utmost license of courts and camps. To take 

 something short of the worst, if any one who has 

 access to the work will find out the letter of Lu- 

 poldus Federfusius in the first volume, and bear 

 in mind that the satire was not at once detected, 

 he will be greatly amused. 



The book opens with a question of grammar, 

 propounded to Ortuinus by a B.D., arising out of 

 a convivial meeting of theologians. To make it 

 intelligible, observe that a Master of Arts was 

 noster mogister, but a Doctor of Divinity was 

 magister noster. 



" Tunc Magistri hilarificati inceperunt loqui artifici- 

 aliter de magnis qusestionibus. Et unua quajsivit utrum 

 dicendum Magister nostrandus, vel noster Magistrandus, 

 pro persona apta nata ad fiendura Doctor in Theologia 



Et statim respondit Magister Warmsemmel, . . . 



et tenuit quod dicendum est noster Magistrandus .... 

 Sed nostro -tras, -trare, non est in usu, .... Turn Ma- 

 gister Andr. Delitsch, qui est niultum subtilis et 



jam legit ordinarie Ovidium in Metamorphosiis . . . et 

 etiain legit in domo sua Quintilianura et Juvencum, et 

 ipse tenuit oppositionem M. VVarmsemmel, et dixit quod 

 debemus dicere Magister nostrandus . . . . et non obstat 

 quod nostro -tras, -trare, non est in usu, quia possumus 

 fingere nova vocabula, et ipse allegavit super hoc Hora- 

 tium. Tunc magistri multum admiraverunt subtilitatem, 

 et unus portavit ei unum cantharum cerevisise Neuber- 

 gensis. Et ipse dixit, ego volo expectare, sed paicatis 

 mihi, et tetegit birretum, et risit hilariter, et portavit M. 

 Warmsenimel, et dixit, Ecce, Domine Magister, ne pu- 

 tetis quod sum inimicus vester, et bibit in uno aiihelitu, 

 et M. VVarmsemmel respondit ei fortiter pro honore Sle- 

 sitarum. Et Magistri omnes fuerunt l.^eti ; et postea fuit 

 pulsatum ad vesperas." 



Advice is asked on the following point : — 



" Et scribatis mihi, an est necessarium ad aetcrnam 



