372 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd S. IX. May 12. '60. 



sterdam, 1732, says, " Taille-douce, s. f. (sealpro 

 mollius imago expressa), Estampe ou image gravee 

 sur une plancbc de cuivre ;" and gives examples. 

 It seems hardly worth while to say any more 

 about this. 



But the question what is the date, and who is 

 the inventor, of the dots and lines used in heral- 

 dic engraving, does deserve attention, and may, I 

 think, be at once answered. 



The true way of putting the question seems to 

 me to be this. When, and by whom, was the in- 

 tention to employ dots and lines first announced ? 

 Unless it can be shown that there was a formal 

 announcement of an intention to use dots and 

 lines for gold and colours, before the date which 

 has been already assigned as the date of the in- 

 vention, I think it only fair and true to consider 

 the occurrence of lines which, after the invention, 

 would have indicated tinctures, a3 simply for- 

 tuitous ; as, for example, in Weever. In the 

 English edition of The Theater of Honour and 

 Knighthood, " written in French by Andrew Fa- 

 vine, Parisian," printed in London, 1623, are 

 numerous shields in which lines are freely used, 

 but quite at random, and evidently with the sole 

 intention of giving some artistic effect to the 

 bearings ; ex. gr., in the shield of England, 1 and 

 4 are France, with the lines afterwards used for 

 azure, and so, right ; but 2 and 3 are England, 

 with the lines afterwards used for Purpure. Dots 

 for gold were never, as far as I know, used till the 

 date which I am going to assign. 



Father Silvester Petrasancta published his in- 

 vention four years before the publication of his 

 Tessera; Gentilitia. He published at the Planti- 

 nian Press at Antwerp, with a title-page designed 

 by Rubens, in 1634, a work with this title, De 

 Symbolis Heroicis Libri IX., "avctore Silvestro 

 Petrasancta Romano e Soc. Jesv." In the seventh 

 book, at p. 313., he says, — 



"Prieterea, quae in terefi lamina iucides, ea referent 

 colores proprios saltern, certo ductu linearum, si figura 

 arte iiat. Schema oculis subjicio." 



He gives it on p. 314. : — 



" Pars punctim incisa colorem aureum seu crocenin ; 

 pars sealpro intacta colorem argenteum seu album ; pais 

 quae finditur lineolis transversis cyaneum ; pars qua! li- 

 neolis obliquis seu pronis asperatur prasinum; et quae 

 xnutuis lineolis quasi clathris inumbratur atrum seu ni- 

 grum reprassentat." 



Then immediately follows this curious remark ; 



" Sive autem hoc exiget natura colorum, qui diversa 

 quadam lege vibrent jubar luminis sui, sive sculptoribus 

 ponere hoc discrimen lubuerit ; dicuntur Pictores periti 

 semper in a;rea lamina proprios colores rerum agnoscere, 

 dummodb sculptor ab artis sute legibus non desciverit. 

 Quae cum ita sint, tanto minus erit necesse, figuras, quan- 

 tumvis colorum indigas, ab Heroicis symbolis propterea 

 submovere." 



That is to say, an opinion having prevailed that 

 engravers could render the colours of painters by 



their lines made on copper, Fr. Silv. Petrasancta 

 steps in and claims certain dots and certain 

 straight lines as indicating for all future time cer- 

 tain tinctures ; an enterprise in which, to our 

 great convenience, he completely succeeded. 



My apology for troubling " N. & Q." so much 

 at length must be the interest attached to the 

 subject. D. P. 



Stuart's Lodge, Malvern Wells. 



Miele jugera (2 nd S. ix. 324.) — The line 

 " Arat Falerni mille fundi jugera," 



is in the 4th Epode In Menam. That Horace 

 used mille as a definite for an indefinite number 

 is clear from his Satire I. i. 50. : — 



" Jugera centum, an 

 Mille aret." 



" Whether he cultivate a hundred or a thousand 

 acres." The jugurn was 80X40 = 3200 square 

 yards ; 100 jugera would be 66 acres, and 1000 

 would be 661 acres. The territory of the city of 

 Rome (1' Agro Romano) contains, according to 

 Nicolai, 111,400 rubbi= 27,850 acres, of which 

 one-half is arable (Penny Cyc.vi. 199.). From the 

 words of Cicero, speaking of the Campagna, " Qui 

 ager, ut dena jugera sint, non ampliiis quinque 

 millia potest sustinere" (ad Att. ii. 16.), it ap- 

 pears that its area was (6-^x5000 = ) 33,050 

 acres. Other instances of the use of mille as an 

 indefinite number by Virgil, Cassar, Catullus, &c. 

 may be found in any good Latin Lexicon. Be- 

 fore the word million was invented, the word 

 thousand expressed, not merely 100x10, but any 

 large number, as is shown in many languages. 

 Ignorance of this is the origin of the uiillenarian 

 heresy. T. J. Buckton. 



Lichfield. 



" Quid referat intra 

 Naturae fines viventi, jugera centum, an 

 itttflearet?" 

 The above quotation (from Horace, 1 . Sat. 1 .) 

 will probably corroborate your correspondent's (as 

 it does my own) impression, that 1000 jugera was 

 the " Roman ideal of a large estate." 



It is well known that Licinius Stolo was pun- 

 ished (b.c. 356.) for transgressing his own law, 

 " ne quis plus quingenta jugera agri possideret." 

 Aurelius Victor says (cap. xxxiii. 6.) that Curius 

 Dentatus " quaterna dena agri jugera viritim po- 

 pulo divisit. Sibi deinde totidem constituit, dicens, 

 neminem esse debere cui non tantum sufficeret." 



G. M. G. 



Hale the Piper (2 na S. ix. 306.) — The lines 

 under the portrait of Hale, the Derbyshire piper, 

 will be found m Popular Music of the Olden Time, 

 vol. ii. p. 545., and a part of the hornpipe (enough 

 to prove that it is unsuited for words) at p. 741. 

 of the same. A copy of the original engraving, 



