Notes and Queries, Number 25, April 20, 1850

ROGER BACON: HINTS AND QUERIES FOR A NEW EDITION OF HIS WORKS

Victor Cousin, who has been for many years engaged in researches on the scholastic philosophy, with the view of collecting and publishing such of its monuments as have escaped the diligence of scholars, or the ravages of time, has lately made the discovery in the library at Douay of a copy of an inedited MS. of Roger Bacon, entitled Opus Tertium, of which but two or three other copies are known to exist; and has taken occasion, in some elaborate critiques, to enter, at considerable length, into the history and character of Roger Bacon and his writings.1 The following is a summary of part of M. Cousin's observations.

The Opus Tertium contains the author's last revision, in the form of an abridgment and improvement, of the Opus Majus; and was drawn up at the command of Pope Clement IV., and so called from being the third of three copies forwarded to his holiness; the third copy being not a fac-simile of the others, but containing many most important additions, particularly with regard to the reformation of the calendar. It also throws much light on Bacon's own literary history and studies, and the difficulties and persecutions he had to surmount from the jealousies and suspicions of his less-enlightened contemporaries and rivals. The Opus Tertium, according to the sketch given of its contents by Bacon himself, is not complete either in the Douay MS. or in that in the British Museum, several subjects being left out; and, among others, that of Moral Philosophy. This deficiency may arise, either from Bacon not having completed his original design, or from no complete MS. of this portion of his writings having yet been discovered. M. Cousin says, that the Opus Tertium, as well as the Opus Minus, is still inedited; and is only known by what Jebb has said of it in his preface to the Opus Majus. Jebb quotes it from a copy in the Cottonian Library, now in the British Museum; and it was not known that there was a copy in France, till M. Cousin was led to the discovery of one, by observing in the Catalogue of the public library of Douay, a small MS. in 4to. with the following title, Rog. Baconis Grammatica Græca. Accustomed to suspect the accuracy of such titles to MSS., M. Cousin caused a strict examination of the MS. to be made, when the discovery was communicated to him that only the first part of the MS. consisted of a Greek grammar, and that the remaining portion, which the compiler of the Catalogue had not taken the trouble to examine, consisted of many fragments of other works of Bacon, and a copy of the Opus Tertium. This copy of the Opus Tertium is imperfect, but fortunately the deficiencies are made up by the British Museum copy, which M. Cousin examined, and which also contains a valuable addition to Chapter I., and a number of good readings.

The Opus Majus, as published by Jebb, contains but six parts; but the work in its complete state had originally a seventh part, containing Moral Philosophy, which was reproduced, in an abridged and improved state, by the renowned author, in the Opus Tertium. This is now ascertained, says M. Cousin, with unquestionable certainty, and for the first time, from the examination of the Douay MS.; which alludes, in the most precise terms, to the treatise on that subject. Hence the importance of endeavouring to discover what has become of the MS. Treatise of Moral Philosophy mentioned by Jebb, on the authority of Bale and Pits, as it is very likely to have been the seventh part of the Opus Majus. Jebb published the Opus Majus from a Dublin MS., collated with other MSS.; but he gives no description of that MS., only saying that it contained many other works attributed to Bacon, and in such an order that they seemed to form but one and the same work. It becomes necessary, therefore, to ascertain what were the different works of Bacon included in the Dublin MS.; which is, in all probability, the same mentioned as being in Trinity College, in the Catalogi Codicum Manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ in unum Collecti: Folio. Oxon, 1697.

According to this Catalogue, a Treatise on Moral Philosophy forms part of Roger Bacon's MSS. there enumerated; and if so, why did Jebb suppress it in his edition of the Opus Majus? Perhaps some of your correspondents in Dublin may think it worth the trouble to endeavour to clear up this difficulty, on which M. Cousin lays great stress; and recommends, at the same time, a new and complete edition of the Opus Majus to the patriotism of some Oxford or Cambridge Savant. He might well have included Dublin in his appeal for help in this undertaking; which, he says, would throw a better light on that vast, and not very intelligible monument of one of the most independent and greatest minds of the Middle Ages.

Oxford, April 9th.

CRAIK'S ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE

If I knew where to address Mr. G.L. Craik, I should send him the following "Note:" if you think it deserves a place in your columns, it may probably meet his eye.

In the article on the Lady Arabella Stuart (Romance of the Peerage, vol. ii. p. 370.), a letter of Sir Ralph Winwood, dated 1610, is quoted, in which he states, that she is "not altogether free from suspicion of being collapsed." On this Mr. Craik observes, "It is difficult to conjecture what can be here meant by collapsed, unless it be fallen off to Romanism." Now it is not a little curious, and it proves Mr. Craik's capability for the task of illustrating family history from the obscure allusions in letters and documents, that there exists cotemporary authority for fixing the meaning Mr. Craik has conjectured to be the true one, to the word collapsed. A pamphlet, with the title A Letter to Mr. T.H., late Minister, now Fugitive, was published in 1609, with a dedication to all Romish collapsed "ladies of Great Britain;" which bears internal evidence of being addressed to those who were converts from the Church of England to Romanism.

Theophilus Higgons, whom the above initials represent, was himself a convert to the Church of Rome.

It may be worth while making a further note, that the copy of the pamphlet before me belonged to Camden, and is described in his autograph, Guil. Camdenj. Ex. dono Authoris. It forms one of a large collection of tracts and pamphlets, originally the property of Camden, which are now in the library of the dean and chapter here.

It is curious that another document quoted by Mr. Craik in the same volume (p. 286 note), seems to fix the meaning of a word or expression, of obscure signification, in the authorised translation of the Bible. In Judges, ix. 53., we read, "A certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all tobrake his skull." I have heard some one, in despair at the grammatical construction of the latter clause, suggest that it might be an error for "also brake his skull;" and I have been told, that some printer or editor solved the difficulty by turning it into "and all to break his skull." But in the Lieutenant of the Tower's marginal notes on an inventory of the Countess of Hertford's (Lady Katherine Grey) furniture, quoted by Mr. Craik from Lands. MS. 5. art. 41., he described the sparrer for the bed as "all to-broken, not worth ten pence." There seems, therefore, to have been a compound, "to-breck, to-brake, to-broken" (perfrango), of which the word in the "Book of Judges" is the preterite. I may be exposing my ignorance, when I say, that the quotation in the Romance of the Peerage is the only other instance of its use I ever met with.

Cloisters, Westminster

[The word "to-break," is not to be found in Nares.—Mr. Halliwell, in his Archaic Dictionary, has TO-BROKE, broken in pieces:

The word occurs also in Chaucer (p. 549. ed. Urry):—

and also in the Vision of Piers Ploughman (p. 156. ed. Wright):

And Mr. Wright very properly remarks, that "to– prefixed in composition to verbs of Anglo-Saxon origin, has the same force as the German zu, giving to the word the idea of destruction or deterioration."]

NOTES UPON CUNNINGHAM'S HANDBOOK FOR LONDON

Lambeth Wells.—A place of public entertainment, first opened in 1697. It was celebrated for its mineral water, which was sold at one penny per quart. At the beginning of the eighteenth century it was provided with a band of music, which played at intervals during the day, and the price of admission was threepence. A monthly concert, under the direction of Starling Goodwin, organist of St. Saviour's church, Southwark, was held here in 1727.

Hickford's Rooms, Panton Street, Haymarket.—These rooms, under the name of "Hickford's Dancing Rooms," were in existence as early as 1710. In 1738, they were opened as the "Musick-room." A contemporary account says:—

"The band was selected from the Opera House; but the singularity most attractive consisted of an organ combined with a harpsichord, played by clock-work, which exhibited the movements of an orrery and air-pump, besides solving astronomical and geographical problems on two globes, and showing the moon's age, with the Copernican system in motion."

In 1740, Mr. Galliard's benefit is announced to take place "at Mr. Hickford's Great Room in Brewer Street, Golden Square."—See the Daily Post of March 31. The "Great Room" is now known as "Willis's Dancing Academy."

The Music Room in Dean Street, Soho.—The Oratorio of Judas Maccabeus was performed here in great splendour in 1760. It was afterwards the auction room of the elder Christie; and is now "Caldwell's Dancing Academy." George III. frequently honoured this "musick-room" with his presence.

The Music Room in Charles Street, Covent Garden:—

"The Consort of Musick, lately in Bow Street, is removed next Bedford Gate, in Charles Street, Covent Garden, where a room is newly built for that purpose."—Lond. Gaz. Feb. 19. 1690.

"A Consort of Music, with several new voices, to be performed on the 10th instant, at the Vendu in Charles Street, Covent Garden."—Ibid. March 6. 1691.

In 1693 was published Thesaurus Musicus, being a Collection of the "Newest Songs performed at their Majesties' Theatres, and at the Consorts in Villier Street, in York Buildings, and in Charles Street, Covent Garden."

In the proposals for the establishment of a Royal Academy in 1720, the subscription books are advertised as being open, amongst other places, "at the Musick Room in Charles Street, Covent Garden."

Coleman's Music House.—A house of entertainment, with a large and well planted garden, known as "Coleman's Musick House," was offered for sale in 1682. It was situated near Lamb's Conduit, and was demolished upon the building of Ormond Street.

White Conduit House.—The old tavern of this name was erected in the reign of Charles I. The workmen are said to have been regaling themselves upon the completion of the building, at the instant the king was beheaded at Whitehall.

Goodman's Field Wells.—A place of entertainment established after the suppression of the theatre in this locality in 1735.

Bride Lane, St. Bride's.—The first meetings of the Madrigal Society (established in 1741) were held at a public-house in this lane, called "The Twelve Bells."

POPE'S REVISION OF SPENCE'S ESSAY ON THE ODYSSEY

Spence's almost idolatrous admiration of, and devotion to, Pope, is evident from the pains he took to preserve every little anecdote of him that he could elicit from conversation with him, or with those who knew him. Unfortunately, he had not Boswell's address and talent for recording gossip, or the Anecdotes would have been a much more racy book. Spence was certainly an amiable, but I think a very weak man; and it appears to me that his learning has been overrated. He might indeed have been well designated as "a fiddle-faddle bit of sterling."

I have the original MS. of the two last Dialogues of the Essay on the Odyssey as written by Spence, and on the first page is the following note:—"The two last Evenings corrected by Mr. Pope." On a blank page at the end, Spence has again written:—"MS. of the two last Evenings corrected with Mr. Pope's own hand, w'ch serv'd y'e Press, and is so mark'd as usual by Litchfield."

This will elucidate Malone's note in his copy of the book, which Mr. Bolton Corney has transcribed. I think the first three dialogues were published in a little volume before Spence became acquainted with Pope, and perhaps led to that acquaintance. Their intercourse afterwards might supply some capital illustrations for a new edition of Mr. Corney's curious chapter on Camaraderie Littéraire. The MS. copy of Spence's Essay bears frequent marks of Pope's correcting hand by erasure and interlineary correction, silently made. I transcribe the few passages where the poet's revision of his critic are accompanied by remarks.

In Evening the Fourth, Spence had written:—"It may be inquired, too, how far this translation may make a wrong use of terms borrowed from the arts and sciences, &c. [The instances are thus pointed out.] As where we read of a ship's crew, Od. 3. 548. The longitude, Od. 19. 350. Doubling the Cape, Od. 9. 90. Of Architraves, Colonnades, and the like, Od. 3. 516." Pope has erased this and the references, and says:—"These are great faults; pray don't point 'em out, but spare your servant."

At p. 16. Spence had written:—"Yellow is a proper epithet of fruit; but not of fruit that we say at the same time is ripening into gold." Upon which Pope observes:—"I think yellow may be s'd to ripen into gold, as gold is a deeper, fuller colour than yellow." Again: "What is proper in one language, may not be so in another. Were Homer to call the sea a thousand times by the title of [Greek: porphureos], 'purple deeps' would not sound well in English. The reason's evident: the word 'purple' among us is confined to one colour, and that not very applicable to the deep. Was any one to translate the purpureis oloribus of Horace, 'purple swans' would not be so literal as to miss the sense of the author entirely." Upon which Pope has remarked:—"The sea is actually of a deep purple in many places, and in many views."

Upon a passage in Spence's Criticism, at p. 45., Pope says:—"I think this too nice." And the couplet objected to by Spence—

he pronounced "very bad." And of some tumid metaphors he says, "All too forced and over-charged."

At p. 51. Spence says:—"Does it not sound mean to talk of lopping a man? of lopping away all his posterity? or of trimming him with brazen sheers? Is there not something mean, where a goddess is represented as beck'ning and waving her deathless hands; or, when the gods are dragging those that have provok'd them to destruction by the Links of fate?" Of the two first instances, Pope says:—"Intended to be comic in a sarcastic speech." And of the last:—"I think not at all mean, see the Greek." The remarks are, however, expunged.

The longest remonstrance occurs at p. 6. of the Fifth Dialogue. Spence had written:—"The Odyssey, as a moral poem, exceeds all the writings of the ancients: it is perpetual in forming the manners, and in instructing the mind; it sets off the duties of life more fully as well as more agreeably than the Academy or Lyceum. Horace ventured to say thus much of the Iliad, and certainly it may be more justly said of this later production by the same hand." For the words in Italics Pope has substituted:—"Horace, who was so well acquainted with the tenets of both, has given Homer's poems the preference to either:" and says in a note:—"I think you are mistaken in limiting this commendation and judgment of Horace to the Iliad. He says it, at the beginning of his Epistle, of Homer in general, and afterwards proposes both poems equally as examples of morality; though the Iliad be mentioned first: but then follows—'Rursus quid virtus et quid sapientia possit, Utile proposuit nobis exemplar Ulyssem,' &c. of the Odyssey."

At p. 34. Spence says:—"There seems to be something mean and awkward in this image:—

Here Pope says:—"Sure these are good lines. They are not mine." Of other passages which please him, he occasionally says,—"This is good sense." And on one occasion, where Spence had objected, he says candidly:—"This is bad, indeed,"—"and this."

At p. 50. Spence writes:—"There's a passage which I remember I was mightily pleased with formerly in reading Cervantes, without seeing any reason for it at that time; tho' I now imagine that which took me in it comes under this view. Speaking of Don Quixote, the first time that adventurer came in sight of the ocean, he expresses his sentiments on this occasion in the following manner:—'He saw the sea, which he had never seen before, and thought it much bigger than the river at Salamanca.'" On this occasion Pope suggests,—"Dr. Swift's fable to Ph–s, of the two asses and Socrates."

April 8. 1850.

FOLK LORE

Charm for the Toothache.—The charm which one of your correspondents has proved to be in use in the south-eastern counties of England, and another has shown to be practised at Kilkenny, was also known more than thirty years ago in the north of Scotland. At that time I was a school-boy at Aberdeen, and a sufferer—probably it was in March or April, with an easterly wind—from toothache. A worthy Scotchwoman told me, that the way to be cured of my toothache was to find a charm for it in the Bible. I averred, as your correspondent the curate did, that I could not find any such charm. My adviser then repeated to me the charm, which I wrote down from her dictation. Kind soul! she could not write herself. It was pretty nearly in the words which your correspondent has sent you. According to my recollection, it ran thus:—"Peter sat upon a stone, weeping. And the Lord said unto him, 'Peter, why weepest thou?' And he answered, and said, 'Lord, my tooth acheth.' And the Lord said unto him, 'Arise, Peter, thy teeth shall ache no more.'" "Now," continued my instructress, "if you gang home and put yon bit screen into your Bible, you'll never be able to say again that you canna find a charm agin the toothache i' the Bible." This was her version of the matter, and I have no doubt it was the orthodox one; for, although one of the most benevolent old souls I ever knew, she was also one of the most ignorant and superstitious. I kept the written paper, not in my Bible, but in an old pocket-book for many years, but it has disappeared.

Easter Eggs (No. 16. p. 244.).—Breakfasting on Easter Monday, some years ago, at the George Inn at Ilminster, in the county of Somerset, in the palmy days of the Quicksilver Mail, when the table continued to be spread for coach travellers at that time from four in the morning till ten at night, we were presented with eggs stained in the boiling with a variety of colours: a practice which Brande records as being in use in his time in the North of England, and among the modern Greeks.

Cure for the Hooping-cough.—"I know," said one of my parishioners, "what would cure him, but m'appen you woudent believe me." "What is it, Mary?" I asked. "Why, I did every thing that every body teld me. One teld me to get him breathed on by a pie-bald horse. I took him ever such a way, to a horse at –, and put him under the horse's mouth; but he was no better. Then I was teld to drag him backward through a bramble bush. I did so; but this didn't cure him. Last of all, I was teld to give him nine fried mice, fasting, in a morning, in this way:—three the first morning; then wait three mornings, and then give him three more; wait three mornings, and then give him three more. When he had eaten these nine fried mice he became quite well. This would be sure to cure your child, Sir."

Drayton Beauchamp.

Gootet.—In Eccleshall parish, Staffordshire, Shrove Tuesday is called Gootet. I am not aware if this be the true spelling, for I have never seen it in print. Can any of your readers supply the etymology, or state whether it is so called in any other part of England? I have searched numerous provincial glossaries, but have hitherto been unsuccessful.

THE DUKE OF MONMOUTH'S POCKET-BOOK

It is reasonable to conclude, that the article copied from Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, in No. 13., furnishes the strongest evidence that can be adduced in support of the opinion, that the book in the possession of Dr. Anster is the one found on the Duke of Monmouth when captured, after his defeat at Sedgemoor; and, if so, it is impossible to admit the hypothesis, because a portion of the contents of the real book has been given to the world and contains matter far too important to have been passed over by Dr. Anster, had it existed in his volume. In the 6th edition of Dr. Welwood's Memoirs of the most material Transactions in England for the last Hundred Years preceding the Revolution in 1688, printed for "Tim. Goodwin, at the Queen's Head, against St. Dunstan's Church, in Fleet Street, 1718," the following passage is to be found at p. 147.:—

"But of the most things above mentioned there is an infallible proof extant under Monmouth's own hand, in a little pocket-book which was taken with him and delivered to King James; which by an accident, as needless to mention here, I have leave to copy and did it in part. A great many dark passages there are in it, and some clear enough that shall be eternally buried for me: and perhaps it had been for King James's honour to have committed them to the flames, as Julius Cæsar is said to have done on a like occasion. All the use that shall be made of it is, to give in the Appendix some few passages out of it that refer to this subject, and confirm what has been above related."