Various - Notes and Queries, Number 04, November 24, 1849

When we consulted our literary friends as to the form and manner in which it would be most expedient to put forth our "NOTES AND QUERIES," more than one suggested to us that our paper should appear only once a month, or at all events not more frequently than once a fortnight, on the ground that a difficulty would be experienced in procuring materials for more frequent publication. We felt, however, that if such a medium of Inter-communication, as we proposed to establish was, as we believed, really wanted, frequency of publication was indispensable. Nothing but a weekly publication would meet what we believed to be the requirements of literary men. We determined, therefore, to publish a Number every Saturday; and the result has so far justified our decision, that the object of our now addressing our readers is to apologise to the many friends whose communications we are again unavoidably compelled to postpone; and to explain that we are preparing to carry out such further improvements in our arrangements as will enable us to find earlier admission for all the communications with which we are favoured.

One other word. It has been suggested to us that in inviting Notes, Comments, and Emendations upon the works of Macaulay, Hallam, and other living authors, we may possibly run a risk of offending those eminent men. We hope not. We are sure that this outght not to be the case. Had we not recognised the merits of such works, and the influence they were destined to exercise over men's minds, we should not have opened our pages for the purpose of receiving, much less have invited, corrections of the mistakes into which the most honest and the most able of literary inquirers must sometimes fall. Only those who have meddled in historical research can be aware of the extreme difficulty, the all but impossibility, of ascertaining the exact or the whole truth, amidst the numerous minute and often apparently contradictory facts which present themselves to the notice of all inquirers. In this very number a correspondent comments upon an inference drawn by Mr. Hallam from a passage in Mabillon. In inserting such a communication we show the respect we feel for Mr. Hallam, and our sense of the services which he has rendered to historical knowledge. Had we believed that if he has fallen into a mistake in this instance, it had been not merely a mistake, but a deliberate perversion of the truth, we should have regarded both book and writer with indifference, not to say with contempt. It is in the endeavour to furnish corrections of little unavoidable slips in such good honest books—albeit imperfect as all books must be—that we hope at once to render good service to our national literature, and to show our sense of genius, learning, and research which have combined to enrich it by the production of works of such high character and last influence.

Mr. Editor,—Your correspondent "Roterodamus" (pp. 27, 28) asks, I hope, for the author of the epigram which he quotes, with a view to a life of his great townsman, Erasmus. Such a book, written by some competent hand, and in an enlarged and liberal spirit, would be a noble addition to the literature of Europe. There is no civilised country that does not feel an interest in the labours and in the fame of Erasmus. I am able to answer your correspondents question, but it is entirely by chance. I read the epigram which he quotes several years ago, in a book of a kind which one would like to see better known in this country—a typographical or bibliographical history of Douay. It is entitled, " Bibliographie Douaisienne, ou Catalogue Historique et Raisonné des Livres imprimés à Douai depuis l'année 1563 jusqu'a nos jours, avec des notes bibliographiques et littéraires; Par H.R. Duthilloeul. 8vo. Douai, 1842 ." The 111th book noticed in the volume is entitled, " Epigrammata in Hæreticos. Authore Andrea Frusio, Societatis Jesu. Tres-petit in 8vo. 1596 ." The book is stated to contain 251 epigrams, "aimed," says M. Duthilloeul, "at the heretics and their doctrines. The author has but one design, which is to render odious and ridiculous, the lives, persons, and errors of the apostles of the Reformation." He quotes three of the epigrams, the third being the one your correspondent has given you. It has this title, " De Lutheri et Erasmi differentia ," and is the 209th epigram in the book.

I have never met with a copy of the work of Frusius, nor do I know any thing of him as an author. The learned writer who pours out a store of curious learning in the pages of Gentleman's Magazine is more likely than any body that I know to tell you something about him.

Mons. Duthilloeul quotes another epigram from the same book upon the Encomium Moriæ , but it is too long and too pointless for your pages. He adds another thing which is more in your way, namely, that a former possessor of the copy of the work then before him had expressed his sense of the value of these "epigrammes dévotes" in the following NOTE:—

"Nollem carere hoe libello auro nequidem contra pensitato."

Perhaps some one who possesses or has access to the book would give us a complete list of the persons who are the subjects of these defamatory epigrams. And I may add, as you invite us to put our queries, Is not Erasmus entitled to the distinction of being regarded as the author of the work which the largest single edition has ever been printed and sold? Mr. Hallam mentions that, "in the single year 1527, Colinæus printed 24,000 copies of the Colloquies , all of which were sold." This is the statement of Moreri. Bayle gives some additional information. Quoting a letter of Erasmus as his authority, he says, that Colinæus, who—like the Brussels and American reprinters of our day—was printing the book at Paris from a Basle edition, entirely without the concurrence of Erasmus, and without any view of his participation in the profit, circulated a report that the book was about to be prohibited by the Holy See. The curiosity of the public was excited. Every one longed to secure a copy. The enormous edition—for the whole 24,000 was but one impression—was published contemporaneously with the report. It was a cheap and elegant book, and sold as fast as it could be handed over the booksellers counter. As poor Erasmus had no pecuniary benefit from the edition, he ought to have the credit which arises from this proof of his extraordinary popularity. The public, no doubt, enjoyed greatly his calm but pungent exposure of the absurd practices which were rife around them. That his humorous satire was felt by its objects, is obvious from this epigram, as well as from a thousand other evidences.

Sir,—When reading Hallam's History of the Middle Ages a short time ago I was startled by the following passage which occurs amongst other evidences of the ignorance of the clergy during the period subsequent to the dissolution of the Roman Empire.

"Not one priest in a thousand in Spain about the age of Charlemagne, could address a common letter of salutation to another."— Hallam's Middle Ages , vol. iii. p. 332.

And for this statement he refers to Mabillon, De Re Diplomatica , p. 52.

On referring to Mabillon, I find that the passage runs as follows:—

"Christiani posthabitis scripturis sanctis, earumque interpretibus, Arabum Chaldæorumque libris evolvendis incumbentes, legem suam nesciebant, et linguam propriam non advertebant latinam, ita ut ex omni Christi collegio vix inveniretur unus in milleno hominum genere, qui salutatorias fratri posset rationabiliter dirigere litteras."