224 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»* S. IX. Mar. 24. '60. 



Throwing Snowballs. — I have lately met with 

 the following paragraph in the Dublin Chronicle, 

 27th December, 1787 : — 



" The practice of throwing snowballs in the public 

 streets is not less dangerous in its consequences than fatal 

 in its effects, an instance of which occurred last Monday 

 evening: — A gentleman passing through Marybone 

 Lane was hit by a fellow in the face with a large snow- 

 ball, upon which he immediately pulled out a pistol, pur- 

 sued the man, and shot him dead. Those deluded people 

 are therefore cautioned against such practices, as in simi- 

 lar circumstances they are liable, by act of Parliament, to 

 be shot, without any prosecution or damage accruing to 

 the person who should fire." 



I should be glad to know whether such an act of 

 Parliament as is here spoken of was ever enacted. 

 If so, it certainly was somewhat strange. Abhba. 



" Historia Plantarum." — I shall feel obliged 

 with some bibliographical account, collation, date, 

 where printed, by whom, value, &c, of a Historia 

 Plantarum, of which I send you the first and last 

 line in the volume ? — 



" Rogatu plurion lopu numon egetiu appotecas" 



" spergantur pulueres & esula- et prouocabut assella- 

 tionera : " 



S. Wmson. 



«&uer(erf tot'tj) Snrftocrd. 



" Promus and Condus." — In Bacon's Advance- 

 ment of Learning (p. 271., Pickering's edition), is 

 the following sentence : — 



•■ To resume private or particular good, it falleth into 

 the division of good, active and passive: for this differ- 

 ence of good, not unlike to that which amongst the Ro- 

 mans was expressed in the familiar or household terms 

 of Promus and Condus," §"c. 



Can any classical readers of " N. & Q." throw a 

 little light on this sentence ? Surely passages in 

 which either of these words appear are extremely 

 rare. Smith (Lat. Diet.) renders the word promus, 

 a " store or steward," and the word condus, as "one 

 who lays up provision," but with little farther 

 illustration of their meaning. I do not see that 

 Adams in his Tinman Antiquities refers to the 

 words at all. The passage in Bacon is to me 

 very little aided by the illustration, chiefly from 

 my inability to recall anything to the purpose in 

 classic writers. Yet Bacon would have scarcely 

 used it without some such in his mind. 



Francis Trench. 



Islip. 



["Promus" and "Condus" are terms occasionally 

 used together, to signify a household steward. "Condus 

 promus sum, procurator peni." Plaut. Pseud. 2. 2. 14. Yet 

 each word has its proper meaning. Condus, from condo, 

 is one who stores, or lays up in store. Promus, from 

 promo, is one who brings out, or dispenses. Promus, 

 then, in Bacon's illustration, is "Good active;" and Con- 

 dus is "Good passive." Of "the two several appetites in 

 creatures," as Bacon goe3 on to observe, "the one, to pre- 

 serve or continue themselves, and the other, to multiply 



and propagate themselves, the latter, which is active and 

 as it were the promus, seems to be the stronger and 

 more worthy; and the former, which is passive and as it 

 were the condus, seems to be inferior." We can easily 

 see what Bacon means ; but a modern metaphysician 

 would hardly admit either the closeness of the analogy, 

 or the aptness of the illustration. 



" Promos: is, qui victum familias ex cella penaria pro- 

 mit. Differt a condo. Nam condus est, qui penora in 

 cellam penariam recondit. Plant. Pan. 3. 4. 6. Pseud. 2. 

 2. 14. Colum. 1. 12. c. 3." Forcellini on promus. 



"Promus est qui debet habere penes se rationes ex- 

 pensi; condus qui accepti. Apud potentiores hsec duo 

 munera distinguebant: apud alios idem erat condus qui 

 et promus; unde uno verbo dicebatur, ' promuscondus.' " 

 Plaut. Valpy. Note on Pan. 3. 4. G-] 



Mart Channing. — About a quarter of a mile 

 from Dorchester is an amphitheatre, called Mam- 

 bury, or Maumbury. It has been generally 

 considered a Roman work, and Dr. Stukeley cal- 

 culated that it would accommodate as many as 

 12,960 spectators in its ample area. To this re- 

 mark the Guide Book adds : — 



" Its capabilities were tested in the year 1705, when 

 the body of Mary Channing was burnt here after her 

 execution. Ten thousand persons are said to have as- 

 sembled on that occasion." 



Allow me to request some information relative 

 to Mary Channing, and the crime for which she 

 suffered death and was afterwards burnt ; it must 

 have caused great excitement at the time. 



D. W. S. 



[Mary, daughter of Richard Brookes of Dorchester, 

 was married to Mr. Richard Channing, a grocer, by com- 

 pulsion of her parents; but keeping compam' with some 

 former gallants, she by her extravagance almost ruined 

 her husband, and then poisoned him by giving him white 

 mercury, first in rice-milk and twice afterwards in a 

 glass of wine. At the summer assizes, 1705, she was 

 tried before Judge Price, made a notable defence, was 

 found guilty and condemned, but pleaded ex necessitate 

 legis. She was remanded, and delivered of a child eleven 

 weeks before her death. At the Lent assizes following, 

 she was recalled to her former sentence, and was first 

 strangled, then burnt, in the middle of the area of the 

 celebrated monument of antiquity, Mambury, on March 

 21, 1705, a>t. 19.; but. persisted in her innocence to the 

 last. See Serious Admonitions to Youth, -in a Short Ac- 

 count of the Life, Trial, and Execution of Mrs. Mary 

 Channing, Lond. 170(5.] 



Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary — In look- 

 ing over the newest volume of Bonn's edition of 

 Lowndes, I stumbled ou a point which wants 

 clearing up, as it concerns the above-designated 

 standard work. Bohn mentions a second edition 

 of the date 1840, only in an abridged form, in 

 two volumes, and Quaritch, in his Museum, de- 

 cidedly denies the existence of a second edition of 

 the entire work. But Allibone as decidedly gives 

 the distinct description of a second and enlarged 

 edition in four volumes, 1840-4, by Johnstone, in- 

 cluding (1.) the two original volumes, and (2.) the 

 Supplement separately ; a statement whose cor- 

 rectness I should, on account of so awkward an 



