181 Ir] Mac Encroe^ Author of Conniihia Flormn* 
of to express mental perturbation. Thus 
Ho! •ace, 
“ {^uum tu, Lydia, Telephi 
Cervicem roseam, Jactea Telephi 
Laudas brachia, vae inenm 
Ferveris difficili bile tumctjccur. 
Tum nec mens mihi, 1. Carm^ xiii, 
. And again, 
Quum tibi flagrans amor et libido 
<2uae solet matres furiare equarura, 
SaevieC circa yVf«r ulcerosunif 
sine questu. Lih. 1. Carm. xxv. 
■ And Juvenal, 
^uid referam quanta siccum jecur ardeat 
• ‘A 
ira, 
^uum populum gregibus comitum premit hie 
spoliator, &c.’' Sat. i. 45. 
Again, 
**Rumpe mher tensum jecur.'’ 
S.'ityr- vii. 17, 
Persius says, 
-- ruftojecore exarsit caprificus ? 
En pallor, seniumque. O mores ” &c. 
Satyr, i. 
The following passage is still more to 
the purpose j 
-<'nec quicquam cxtrinsecus incrat 
J^uod nervos agitet j sed si intus et in jecore 
agro 
Nascautur,” See. Satyr., v. 1^9. 
Ovid, unable to account for a bodily 
infirmity under which he laboured, and, 
supposing he could not be bewitched, 
exclaims, 
•* Sagave punicea defixit nomina cera, 
Et medium tenues in jecur cgit sicus ” 
L'lb. amor.* 
See also some extraordinary assertions 
about the liver in Hist. Nat. lib, 
xi. rap. 37. 
Hackney f July 10, 1811. 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
AVING seen some time ago, in 
your valuable and entertaining 
miscellany, an article, in which a corre¬ 
spondent expressed a wish to get some 
accurate information concerning the au¬ 
thor of rhe celebrated poem “ De Con- 
nubiis Florum,’' or “ Connubia Florum f 
and, on looking over your last volumes, 
not having met with any ansvver to the 
query, I request you will allow a place 
in the Magazine, as soon as convenient 
* Numberless other passages of this sort 
might be quoted, see Horace, lib. iv. carm. i. 
12 . Sermon, lib. ii. Eel, 2, H.-^Atthyli Pn. 
metheus ‘vinctuS} 
to the following commujiication on tha 
subject. 
The first edition of this beautiful poem 
is in the preface to the “ Boianicon Pa- 
risiense/' of Sebastian Vaillanr, pub¬ 
lished at Leyden and Amsterdam, in 1727- 
It must have been composed either in 
the year 1722, or not long after, as Vail- 
lant’s death, which toi.!. place in that 
year, is thus bewailed towards the end: 
Sed quis mihi nuncius aures 
Perculit.^ efiertur Valiantius, heu! brevis 
aevi.” 
Its composition cannot, I think, be as¬ 
signed to a later period than the early 
part of the year 1726 ; for it appears that 
the materials for the edition of the Bota- 
nicon were ready for the press on the 
first of August of that year, that being 
the day on which Boerliaave dates hig 
preface to the work. 
The author signs himself Mac Encroe, 
HibernuSj Medlcinae Doctor. The poem 
is entitled, “ Fratris ad fratrem de Con- 
nubiis Florum Epistola priina." 
The second edition is much improved 
and enlarged. It appeared separately 
at Paris in the year 1728, under tha 
name of J. de la Croix, See Haller 
Bihl. Botan, v. ii. p. 222, to whom I 
refer, not having seen that Paris edition, 
Haller in his Index, names him Jean de 
la Croix. I think it exceedingly probable, 
that the author died before this edition 
was published; otherwise, why should 
the name De la Croix have been substi¬ 
tuted for Mac Encroe, by which the au¬ 
thor signed himself in the former edition? 
There is, indeed, a certain similarity be¬ 
tween the names; Crois, which might 
have been contracted into Croe, signi- 
fies a cross in Irish, as croix' does in 
French. But the aathor was not ashamed 
of his Irish name. Be^icieb, had ha 
lived to that period, 1 conceive there 
would have been time enougli for the 
appearance of the second epistle, which 
is promised in the concluding line of the 
former not only in tl>e second, but like«= 
wise in the first, edition; 
** Altera, quam meditor, fratrum optimej 
plura docebit.” 
The poem fell, I suspect, into the hands 
of some Frenchman, who thought he 
might Frenchify the authoi’s name, and 
thus give the honour of the compositioa 
to hi-, own country. 
Mac Encroe’s brother, whose Christian 
name was Denis, was a clergyman, and 
old at the time the poem was composed, 
as appears from the Manila prefixed t« 
