Damascenus, the physician, with Johannes Damascenus Chrysorrhoas, "the last of the Greek Fathers," (Gibbon, iv. 472.) a voluminous writer on ecclesiastical subjects, but no physician, and therefore not at all likely to be found among the books of Chaucer's Doctour,
"Whose studie was but litel on the Bible."
Chaucer's Damascene is the author of Aphorismorum Liber, and of Medicinæ Therapeuticæ, libri vii. Some suppose him to have lived in the ninth, others in the eleventh century, A.D.; and this is about all that is known about him. (See Biographie Universelle, s.v.)
Long Friday, meaning of.—C. Knight, in his Pictorial Shakspeare, explains Mrs. Quickly's phrase in Henry the Fourth—"'Tis a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear,"—by the synonym great: asserting that long is still used in the sense of great, in the north of England; and quoting the Scotch proverb, "Between you and the long day be it," where we talk of the great day of judgment. May not this be the meaning of the name Long Friday, which was almost invariably used by our Saxon forefathers for what we now call Good Friday? The commentators on the Prayer Book, who all confess themselves ignorant of the real meaning of the term, absurdly suggest that it was so called from the great length of the services on that day; or else, from the length of the fast which preceded. Surely, The Great Friday, the Friday on which the great work of our redemption was completed, makes better sense?
Hip, hip, Hurrah!—Originally a war cry, adopted by the stormers of a German town, wherein a great many Jews had taken their refuge. The place being sacked, they were all put to the sword, under the shouts of, Hierosolyma est perdita! From the first letter of those words (H.e.p.) an exclamation was contrived. We little think, when the red wine sparkles in the cup, and soul-stirring toasts are applauded by our Hip, hip, hurrah! that we record the fall of Jerusalem, and the cruelty of Christians against the chosen people of God.
Under the Rose (Vol. i., p. 214.).—Near Zandpoort, a village in the vicinity of Haarlem, Prince William of Orange, the third of his name, had a favourite hunting-seat, called after him the Princenbosch, now more generally known under the designation of the Kruidberg. In the neighbourhood of these grounds there was a little summer-house, making part, if I recollect rightly, of an Amsterdam burgomaster's country place, who resided there at the times I speak of. In this pavilion, it is said, and beneath a stucco rose, being one of the ornaments of the ceiling, William III. communicated the scheme of his intended invasion in England to the two burgomasters of Amsterdam there present. You know the result.
Can the expression of "being under the rose" date from this occasion, or was it merely owing to coincidence that such an ornament protected, as it were, the mysterious conversation to which England owes her liberty, and Protestant Christendom the maintenance of its rights?
Huis te Manpadt.
Albanian Literature.—Bogdano, Pietro, Archivescovo di Scopia, L'Infallibile Verita della Cattolica Fede, in Venetia, per G. Albrizzi, MDXCI, is I think much older than any Albanian book mentioned by Hobhouse. The same additional characters are used which occur in the later publications of the Propaganda, in two parts, pp. 182. 162.
Queries
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL QUERIES
1. Has anything recently transpired which could lead bibliographers to form an absolute decision with regard to the "unknown" printer who used the singular letter R which is said to have originated with Finiguerra in 1452? That Mentelin was the individual seems scarcely credible; and there is a manifest difference between his type and that of the anonymous printer of the editio princeps of Rabanus Maurus, De Universo, the copy of which work (illuminated, ruled, and rubricated) now before me was once in Heber's possession; and it exhibits the peculiar letter R, which resembles an ill-formed A, destitute of the cross stroke, and supporting a round O on its reclined back. (Panzer, i. 78.; Santander, i. 240.)
2. Is it not quite certain that the acts and decrees of the synod of Würtzburg, held in the year 1452, were printed in that city previously to the publication of the Breviarium Herbiplense in 1479? The letter Q which is used in the volume of these acts is remarkable for being of a double semilunar shape; and the type, which is very Gothic, is evidently the same as that employed in an edition of other synodal decrees in Germany about the year 1470.
3. When and where was the Liber de Laudibus gloriosissime Dei genitricis Marie semper Virginis, by Albertus Magnus, first printed? I do not mean the supposititious work, which is often confounded with the other one; but that which is also styled Super Evangelium Missus est Quæstiones. And why are these Questions invariably said to be 230 in number, when there are 275 chapters in the book? Beughem asserts that the earliest edition is that of Milan in 1489 (Vid. Quetif et Echard, i. 176.), but what I believe to be a volume of older date is "sine ullâ notâ;" and a bookseller's observation respecting it is, that it is "very rare, and unknown to De Bure, Panzer, Brunet, and Dibdin."
4. Has any discovery made as to the author of the extraordinary 4to. tract, Oracio querulosa contra Inuasores Sacerdotum? According to the Crevenna Catalogue (i. 85.), the work is "inconnu à tous les bibliographes." Compare Seemiller, ii. 162.; but the copy before me is not of the impression described by him. It is worthy of notice, that at signature A iiiij the writer declares, "nostris jam temporibus calchographiam, hoc est impressioram artem, in nobilissima Vrbanie germe Maguncia fuisse repertam."
5. Are we to suppose that either carelessness or a love of conjectures was the source of Chevillier's mistake, not corrected by Greswell (Annals of Paris. Typog., p. 6.), that signatures were first introduced, anno 1476, by Zarotus, the printer, at Milan? They may doubtless be seen in the Opus Alexandride Ales super tertium Sententiarum, Venet. 1475, a book which supplies also the most ancient instance I have met with of a "Registrum Chartarum." Signatures, however, had a prior existence; for they appear in the Mammetractus printed at Beron Minster in 1470 (Meermau, ii. 28.; Kloss, p. 192.), but they were omitted in the impression of 1476. Dr. Cotton (Typ. Gaz., p. 66.), Mr. Horne (Introd. to Bibliog., i. 187. 317), and many others, wrongly delay the invention or adoption of them till the year 1472.
6. Is the edition of the Fasciculus Temporum, set forth at Cologne by Nicolaus de Schlettstadt in 1474, altogether distinct from that which is confessedly "omnium prima," and which was issued by Arnoldus Ther Huernen in the same year? If it be, the copy in the Lambeth library, bearing date 1476, and entered in pp. 1, 2. of Dr. Maitland's very valuable and accurate List, must appertain to the third, not the second, impression. To the latter this Louvain reprint of 1476 is assigned in the catalogue of the books of Dr. Kloss (p. 127.), but there is an error in the remark that the "Tabula" prefixed to the editio princeps is comprised in eight leaves, for it certainly consists of nine.
7. Where was what is probably a copy of the second edition of the Catena Aurea of Aquinas printed? The folio in question, which consists of 417 unnumbered leaves, is an extremely fine one, and I should say that it is certainly of German origin. Seemiller (i. 117.) refers it to Esslingen, and perhaps an acquaintance with its water-marks would afford some assistance in tracing it. Of these a rose is the most common, and a strigilis may be seen on folio 61. It would be difficult to persuade the proprietor of this volume that it is of so modern a date as 1474, the year in which what is generally called the second impression of this work appeared.
8. How can we best account for the mistake relative to the imaginary Bologna edition of Ptolemy's Cosmography in 1462, a copy of which was in the Colbert library? (Leuglet du Fresnoy, Méth. pour étud. l'Hist., iii. 8., à Paris, 1735.) That it was published
