130 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



t2»* S. IX. Mah. 10. '60. 



Portrait of Calverly. — In a volume en- 

 titled Hermippus Redivivns : the Sage's Triumph 

 over Old Age and the Grave (by John Campbell, 

 LL.D.), edit, of 1748, is the following MS. note, 

 dated May 28, 1784 : — 



" The person represented under the character of Her- 

 mippus Redivivus was Calverly, a celebrated dancing- 

 master, whose sister for many years had a well-known 

 school in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, where also Dr. 

 Campbell resided. There is now a painting of Calverly 

 in the Dancing School, then drawn at the great age of 

 ninety-one." 



Is anything known of this portrait at the pre- 

 sent time ? Edward F. Rimbault. 



Angels dancing on Needles. — 



" This sort of oratory was the oratory of the sophists 

 in the schools of the Byzantine empire, and later it was 

 that of the colleges of Jesuits, and of the doctors of the Sor- 

 bonne. Thomas Aquinas, ' the Eagle of Divines,' was a 

 master of the art, and has left a manual of it in eighteen 

 volumes for such as desire to study it. Admired and 

 idolized during his life, canonized after his death, the 

 world owes him the invaluable information ' how main' 

 angels can comfortably dance on the point of a needle.' 

 Johannes Duns Scotus, the doctor subtilis, was Thomas's 

 great rival, and demonstrated to three thousand scholars 

 the Immaculate Conception." — Morning Advertiser, Feb. 

 12, 18G0. 



This poor joke, from incessant repetition, has 

 become very tiresome, and ought to have rest. I 

 shall be glad to know when it first appeared, and 

 whether it is a pure invention, or founded on some 

 misunderstood passage in Aquinas.* W. D. 



Morton Family. — Information "would oblige 

 as to the parentage and pedigree of John Morton, 

 Esq. of Danesfield, co. Bucks, Chief Justice of 

 Chester, and M.P. for Abingdon, who died about 

 the year 1786, when his widow (Elizabeth Tod- 

 drell) sold the estate of Danesfield. The Mor- 

 tons are also stated at one period to have held 



[* In Quodlibet I. Art. v., S. Thomas discusses the 

 question, " LFtrum Angelus possit moveri de extremo ad 

 extremum non transeundo per medium ; " as an objection 

 to which he mentions the argument (afterwards to be 

 knocked down) that nothing can occupy less space than 

 an Angel, because an Angel is indivisible! And hence, in 

 passing from end to end, the Angel, if he passed through 

 the intervening space, would have to pass through an 

 infinite succession of points (puncta), which is impossible! 



May not the idea of the Angelic Doctor's countenancing 

 the notion of Angels dancing on the point of a needle have 

 originated in some misconception of this passage, which 

 not only represents the Angels as infinitesimals, but makes 

 express mention of points? 



" Infinita autem puncta sunt inter quoslibet duo ter- 

 minos motiis. Si ergo necesse esset quod Angelus in suo 

 motu pertransiret medium, oporteret quod pertransiret 

 infinita; quod est impossibile." 



For the "information" credited to S. Thomas respect- 

 ing Angels dancing on the point of a needle, we have 

 made good search in his works, but without, finding an)-- 

 thing that comes nearer than the above. Perhaps some 

 of our readers, however, may be able to give us farther 

 light.— Ed.] 



a property called Thackley in Oxfordshire. The 

 chief justice is presumed to have had a sister 

 Henrietta, relict of a Yorkshire gentleman of the 

 name of Jennings, and afterwards third wife of a 



Mr. Bartholomew Bruere ? 



C. S. 



Thomas Adv. — In 16J6 Thomas Ady, M. A., 

 published a curious work under the title of, 



" A Candle in the Dark, or a Treatise concerning the 

 Nature of Witches and AVitchcraft; being Advice to 

 Judges, Sheriffes, Justices of the Peace, and Grand Jury 

 Men, what to do before they passe sentence on such as 

 are arraigned for their Lives as Witches," 



and he dedicated it " To the Prince of the Kings 

 of the Earth," and intreats that the Holy Spirit 

 may possess the understanding of whoever shall 

 open the book. Are any other instances known 

 of a book being dedicated to Almighty God, and 

 is any thing known of the author, and was he in 

 Holy Orders ? Cato. 



Deacons' Orders and Clerical M.P.'s. — Has 

 a man in deacon's orders all the rights and privi- • 

 leges of a layman, except that of being elected 

 Member of Parliament? I know the case of a 

 man who, after being ordained deacon, was' pre- 

 vented from taking priest's orders from conscien- 

 tious scruples, and is now a flourishing country 

 solicitor. And I could mention a college Fellow, 

 who, though ordained, has taken his M.D. degree, 

 and is now I believe a practising physician. 



The bill to exclude those who had taken orders 

 from seats in the House of Commons was passed, 

 not, I think, because there was a feeling against 

 clergymen becoming M.P.'s, but because it was a 

 sure way of excluding Ilorne Tooke. It has, no 

 doubt, occurred to many that, a clergyman might 

 sit in Parliament with less dancer o£ neglecting 

 his clerical functions than is incurred by the 

 many reverend gentlemen who are country squires 

 or gentlemen farmers : nay more, it seems to be a 

 growing conviction in certain quarters, that a 

 sprinkling of clergy in the House would be pro- 

 ductive of positive good to the nation, if not to 

 themselves. There certainly is no objection to 

 dissenting ministers having seats in the House of 

 Commons. 



Seeing that a Rev. Mr. Fawkes was nominated 

 a few days ago for the county of Cork, may I ask 

 if the gentleman in question was a Catholic priest? 

 If so, whether his being such would be a disquali- 

 fication for a seat ? F. W. 



Declension of Nouns by Internal Inflexion. 

 — Can any of the philological contributors to 

 " N. & Q." (of whom there are some of distin- 

 guished ability) give me any instances in the 

 Teutonic and Norse dialects of what Zeuss calls 

 interna flcxio in nouns ? We all know that in 

 the Irish such inflexion is a law of grammar ; and 

 strangely enough the Anglo-Saxon, though its 



