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UNIVERSALITY OF THE MAXIM, "LAVORA COME SE TU," ETC

(Vol. iii., p. 188.)

I have not been able to trace this sentence to its source, but it would most probably be found in that admirable book, Monosinii Floris Italicæ Linguæ, 4to, Venet., 1604; or in Torriano's Dictionary of Italian Proverbs and Phrases, folio, Lond., 1666, a book of which Duplessis doubts the existence! Most of Jeremy Taylor's citations from the Italian are proverbial phrases. Your correspondent has probably copied the phrase as it stands in Bohn's edition of the Holy Living and Dying, but there is a trifling variation as it stands in the first edition of Holy Living, 1650:—

"Lavora come se tu havesti a campar ogni hora:
Adora come se tu havesti a morir alhora."

The universality of this maxim, in ages and countries remote from each other, is remarkable. Thus we find it in the Hitopadésa:

"A wise man should think upon knowledge and wealth as if he were undecaying and immortal. He should practise duty as if he were seized by the hair of his head by Death."—Johnson's Translation, Intr. S.

So Democratis of Abdera, more sententiously:

"Οὕτος πειρῶ ζῆν, ὡς καὶ ὀλίγον καὶ πολὺν χρόνον βιωσόμενος."

Then descending to the fifteenth century, we have it thus in the racy old Saxon Laine Doctrinal:

"Men schal leven, unde darumme sorgen,
Alse men Stärven sholde morgen,
Unde leren êrnst liken,
Alse men leven sholde ewigliken."

Where the author of the Voyage autour de ma Chambre, Jean Xavier Maitre, stumbled upon it, or whether it was a spontaneous thought, does not appear; but in his pleasing little book, Lettres sur la Vieillesse, we have it thus verbatim:

"Il faut vivre comme si l'on avoit à mourir demain, mais s'arranger en même temps sa vie, autant que cet arrangement peut dépendre de notre prévoyance, comme si l'on avoit devant soi quelques siècles, et même une éternité d'existence."

Some of your correspondents may possibly be able to indicate other repetitions of this truly "golden sentence," which cannot be too often repeated, for we all know that

"A verse may reach him who a sermon flies."

S. W. Singer.

Replies to Minor Queries

Tennyson's In Memoriam (Vol. iii., p. 142.).—

"Before the crimson-circled star
Had fallen into her father's grave."

means "before the planet Venus had sunk into the sea."

In Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, under the word Aphrodite or Venus, we find that—

"Some traditions stated that she had sprung from the foam (ἀφρός) of the sea which had gathered around the mutilated parts of Uranus, that had been thrown into the sea by Kronos, after he had unmanned his father."—Hesiod. Theog. 190.

The allusion in the first stanza of In Memoriam is, I think, to Shelley. The doctrine referred to is common to him and many other poets; but he perhaps inculcates it more frequently than any other. (See Queen Mab sub finem. Revolt of Islam, canto xii. st. 17. Adonais, stanzas 39. 41. et passim.) Besides this, the phrase "clear harp" seems peculiarly applicable to Shelley, who is remarkable for the simplicity of his language.

X. Z.

Tennyson's In Memoriam.—The word star applies in poetry to all the heavenly bodies; and therefore, to the crescent moon, which is often near enough to the sun to be within or to be encircled by, the crimson colour of the sky about sunset; and the sun may, figuratively, be called father of the moon, because he dispenses to her all the light with which she shines; and, moreover, because new, or waxing moons, must set nearly in the same point of the horizon as the sun; and because that point of the horizon in which a heavenly body sets, may, figuratively, be called its grave; therefore, I believe the last two lines of the stanza of the poem numbered lxxxvii., or 87, in Tennyson's In Memoriam, quoted by W. B. H., to mean simply—

We returned home between the hour of sunset and the setting of the moon, then not so much as a week old.

Robert Snow.

Bishop Hooper's Godly Confession, &c. (Vol. iii., p. 169.).—The Rev. Charles Nevinson may be informed that there are two copies of the edition of the above work for which he inquires, in the library of Trinity College, Dublin.

Tyro.

Dublin.

Machell's MS. Collections for Westmoreland and Cumberland (Vol. iii., p. 118.).—In reply to the inquiry of Edward F. Rimbault, that gentleman may learn the extent to which the Machell MS. collections of the Rev. Thomas Machell, who was chaplain to King Charles II., have been examined, and published, by referring, to Burn and Nicholson's History of Westmoreland and Cumberland, edit. 1778. A great part of the MS. is taken up with an account of the antiquary's own family, the "Mali Catuli," or Machell's Lords of Crakenthorpe in Westmoreland. the papers in the library of Carlisle contain only copies and references to the original papers, which are carefully preserved by the present representatives of the family. There are above one thousand deeds, charters, and other documents which I have carefully translated and collated with a view to their being printed privately for the use of the family, and I shall feel pleasure in replying to any inquiry on the subject. Address:

G.P. at the Post Office, Barrow upon Humber, Lincolnshire.

Two impressions of the seal of the Abbey of Shapp (anciently Hepp), said not to be attainable by the editors of the late splendid edition of the Monasticon, are preserved in the Machell MSS.

Oration against Demosthenes (Vol. iii., p. 141.).—For the information of your correspondent Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie, I transcribe the title of the oration against Demosthenes, for which he makes inquiry, which was not "privately printed" as he supposes, but published last year by Mr. J. W. Parker.

"The Oration of Hyperides against Demosthenes, respecting the Treasure of Harpalus. The Fragments of the Greek Text, now first edited from the Fac-simile of the MS. discovered at Egyptian Thebes in 1847; together with other Fragments of the same Oration cited in Ancient Writers. With a Preliminary Dissertation and Notes, and a Fac-simile of a Portion of the MS. By Churchill Babington, M.A. London: J. W. Parker, 1850."

The discovery of the MS. was made by Mr. A. C. Harris of Alexandria, who placed a fac-simile in the hand of Mr. Churchill Babington, who edited it as above described.

My information is derived from an article on the work in the Christian Remembrancer for October, 1850, to which I refer Mr. Mackenzie for further particulars.

Tyro.

Dublin

[Mr. Edward Sheare Jackson, B.A., to whom we are indebted for a similar reply, adds, "Mr. Harris contributed a paper on the MS. to the Royal Society of Literature"]

Mr. Sharpe has also published "Fragments of Orations in Accusation and Defence of Demosthenes, respecting the money of Harpalus, arranged and translated," in the Journal of the Philological Society, vol. iv.; and the German scholars Boeckh (in the Hallische Litteratur-Zeitung for 1848) and Sauppe have also written critical notices on the fragments; but whether their notices include the old and new fragments, I am unable to say, having only met with a scanty reference to their learned labours.

J. M.

Oxford.

Borrow's Danish Ballads (Vol. iii., p. 168).—The following is the title of Mr. Borrow's book, referred to by Bruno:—

"Targum; or, Metrical Translations from Thirty Languages and Dialects. By George Borrow. 'The Raven ascended to the Nest of the Nightingale.'—Persian Poem. St. Petersburgh. Printed by Schulz and Beneze. 1835."
R. W. F.

Borrow's Danish Ballads.—The title of the work is—

"Romantic Ballads, translated from the Danish, and Miscellaneous Pieces; by George Borrow. 8vo. Printed by S. Wilkin, Norwich; and published at London by John Taylor, 1826."

In the preface it is stated that the ballads are translated from Oehlenslöger, and from the Kiæmpé Viser, the old Norse book referred to in Lavengro.

μ.

Head of the Saviour (Vol. iii., p. 168.).—The correspondent who inquires about the "true likeness" of the Saviour exposed in some of the London print-shops, is not perhaps aware that there is preserved in the church of St. Peter's at Rome a much more precious and genuine portrait than the one to which he alludes—a likeness described by its possessors as "far more sublime and venerable than any other, since it was neither painted by the hands of men nor angels, but by the divinity himself who makes both men and angels." It is not delineated upon wood or canvass, ivory, glass, or stucco, but upon "a pocket handkerchief lent him by a holy woman named Veronica, to wipe his face upon at the crucifixion" (Aringhi, Roma Subterran., vol. ii. p. 543.). When the handkerchief was returned it had this genuine portrait imprinted on its surface. It is now one of the holiest of relics preserved in the Vatican basilica, where there is likewise a magnificent altar constructed by Urban VIII., with an inscription commemorating the fact, a mosaic above, illustrative of the event, and a statue of the holy female who received the gift, and who is very properly inscribed in the Roman catalogue of saints under the title of St. Veronica. All this is supported by "pious tradition," and attested by authorities of equal value to those which establish the identity of St. Peter's chair. The only difficulty in the matter lies in this, that the woman Veronica never had any corporeal existence, being no other than the name by which the picture itself was once designated, viz., the Vera Icon, or "True Image" (Mabillon, Iter. Ital., p. 88.). This narrative will probably relieve your correspondent from the trouble of further inquiries by enabling him to judge for himself whether "there is any truth" about the other true image.

A. R., Jun.

In your 70th Number I perceived that some correspondent asked, "What is the truth respecting a legend attached to the head of our Saviour for some time past in the print-shops?" I ask the same question. True or false, I found in a work entitled The Antiquarian Repertory, by Grose, Astle, and others, vol. iii., an effigy of our Saviour, much inferior in all respects to the above, with the following attached:—

"This present figure is the similitude of our Lord IHV, oure Saviour imprinted in amirvld by the predecessors of the greate turke, and sent to the Pope Innosent the 8. at the cost of the greate turke for a token for this cawse, to redeme his brother that was taken presonor."

This was painted on board. The Rev. Thomas Thurlow, of Baynard's Park, Guildford, has another painted on board with a like inscription, to the best of my recollection: his has a date on it, I think.

Pope Innocent VIII. was created Pope in 1484, and died in 1492.

The variation in the three effigies is an argument against the truth of the story, or the two on board must have been ill-executed. That in the shops is very beautiful.

The same gentleman possesses a Bible, printed by Robert Barker, and by the assignees of John Bill, 1633; and on a slip of paper is, "Holy Bible curiously bound in tapestry by the nuns of Little Gidding, 12mo., Barker."

In a former Number a person replies that a Bible, bound by the nuns of Gidding for Charles I., now belongs to the Marquis of Salisbury. Query the size of that?

E. H.

Norwich, March 9.

Lady Bingham (Vol. iii., p. 61.).—If C. W. B. will refer to the supplementary volume of Burke's Landed Gentry, p. 159, he will see that Sarah, daughter of John Heigham, of Giffords Hall, co. Suffolk (son of William Heigham, of Giffords, second son of Clement Heigham, of Giffords, second son of Thomas Heigham, of Heigham, co. Suffolk) married, first, Sir Richard Bingham, Knt., of Melcombe Bingham, co. Dorset, governor of Connaught in 1585, &c.; and secondly, Edward Waldegrave, of Lawford, co. Essex. This, I presume, is the lady whose maiden name he enquires for.

C. R. M.

Shakepeare's Use of Captious (Vol. ii., p. 354.).—In All's Well that Ends Well, Act I. Sc. 3.:

"I know I love in vain; strive against hope;
Yet in this captious and intenible sieve,
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still:"

has not Mr. Singer, and all the other commentators upon this passage, overlooked a most apparent and satisfactory solution? Is it not evident that the printer simply omitted the vowel "a," and that the word, as written by Shakespeare, was "capatious," the "t," according to the orthography of the time, being put for the "c" used by modern writers?

With great deference to former critics, I think this emendation is the most probable, as it accords with the sentiment of Helena, who means to depict her vast but unretentive sieve, into which she poured the waters of her love.

W. F. S.

P.S.—I hope Mr. Singer and J. S. W. will tell us what they think of this proposed alteration.

Bognor, Feb, 22. 1851.

Tanthony (Vol. iii., p. 105.).—I would suggest that the "tanthony" at Kimbolton is a corruption or mis-pronunciation of "tintany," tintinnabulum. I have failed to discover any legend of St. Anthony, confirmatory of Arun's suggestion.

A.

Newark, Notts., Feb. 12.

By the bye (Vol. iii., p 73.).—Is your correspondent S. S. not aware that the phrase "Good bye" is a contraction of our ancestors' more devotional one of "God be wi' ye!"

D. P. W.

Rotherhithe, Jan. 21. 1851.

Lama Beads (Vol. iii., p. 115.).—It is a pretty bold assertion that Lama beads are derived from the Lamas of Asia. Lamma, according to Jamieson, is simply the Scotch for amber. He says Lamertyn steen means the same in Teutonic. I do not find it in Wachter's Lexicon.

Your correspondent's note is a curious instance of the inconvenience of half quotation. He says the Lamas are an order of priests among the Western Tartars. I was surprised at this, since their chief strength, as everybody knows, is in Thibet. On referring to Rees's Cyclopædia, I found that the words are taken from thence; but they are not wrong there, since, by the context they have reference to China.

C. B.

Language given to Men, &c. (Vol. i., p. 83.).—The saying that language was given to men to conceal their thoughts is generally fathered upon Talleyrand at present. I did not know it was in Goldsmith; but the real author of it was Fontenelle.

C. B.

Daresbury, the White Chapel of England (Vol. iii., p. 60.).—This jeu-d'esprit was an after-dinner joke of a learned civilian, not less celebrated for his wit than his book-lore. Some stupid blockhead inserted it in the newspapers, and it is now unfortunately chronicled in your valuable work. It is not at all to be wondered at that "the people in the neighbourhood know nothing on the subject."

Echo.

Holland Land (Vol. ii., pp. 267. 345.; Vol. iii., pp. 30. 70.).—Were not the Lincolnshire estates of Count Bentinck, a Dutch nobleman who came over with William III., and the ancestor of the late Lord George Bentinck, M.P. for Lynn Regis, denominated Little Holland, which he increased by reclaiming large portions in the Dutch manner from the Wash?