3. Bonn; on the base of a crucifix outside the minster, on the north side. 1711: GLORIFICATE ET PORTATE DEVM IN CORPORE VESTRO. 4. Bonn; within the minster. 1770: CAPITVLVM PATRONIS PIE 5. Aix-la-Chapelle; on the baptistery. 1660 SACRVM PAROCHIALE DIVI JOHANNIS BAPTISTÆ. 6. Aix-la-Chapelle.-St. Michael; front of west gallery. 1821 : SVM PIA CIVITATIS LIBERALITATE RENOVATA DECORATA. 7. Aix-la-Chapelle, under the above. 1852: ECCE AEDES. 8. Konigswinter; on the base of a crucifix at the northern end of the village. 1726 INVNIVS VERI AC IN CARNATI DEI HONOREM POSVERE. JOANNES PETRUS MUMBER ET 2 DA SEPTEMBRIS. 9. Konigswinter; over the principal door of the church. 1828: ES IST SEINES MENCHER WOHNUNG SONDEM EIN 10. Konigswinter; under the last. 1778: VNI SANCTISSIMO DEO, PATRI ATQVE 11. Konigswinter; under the last. 1779: ERIGOR SVB MAX. FRIDERICO KONIGSEGG ANTISTITE COLONIENSI PIE GVBERNANTE. 12. Coblenz.-S. Castor; round the arch of the west door. 1765: DIRO MARIA IVNGFRAV REIN LAS COBLENZ AUBEFOHLEN SEIN. Of these, Nos. 9, 10, and 11 are incised on one stone, the letters indicating the chronogram being rubricated capitals; but in No. 10, the second I in "filio," and the first I in "spirituique," though capitals, are not in red. Hugo Grotius, his Sophompaneas. By FranCIs GoLDsMIth. has no date on the title-page, the real date of 1652 being supplied by the chronogram, which is a better one than most of those quoted in "N. & Q.," inasmuch as all the numerical letters are employed, and it is consequently not dependent on the typography. James Howell concludes his Parly of Beasts as follows:- A chronogrammaticall verse which includes not onely this year, 1660, but hath numericall letters enow [an illustration, by the way, of enow as expressive of number] to reach above a thousand years farther, untill the year 2867. Query, How is this made out? And are there any other letters employed as numerical than the M, D, C, L, V, and I? If not, Howell's chronogram is equivalent to 1927 only. The same author, in his German Diet, after narrating the death of Charles, son of Philip II. of Spain, says: If you desire to know the yeer, this chronogram will tell you : fILIVS ante DIEM patrIos InqVIrIt In annos, which would represent the date of 1568. The same work contains an anagram on "Frere Jacques Clement,” the murderer of Henry III. of France: "Cest l'enfer qui m'a créé." VOLTAIRE. Extract from the MS. journal of the late Major W. Broome, 5th Royal Irish Dragoons, for upwards of fifty years the most intimate friend of Sir Henry Grattan, Speaker of the House of Commons. He died in 1826, aged eighty-nine years. March 16th, 1765 (Geneva).-Dined with Mons. Voltaire, who behaved very politely. He is very old, was dressed in a robe-de chambre of blue sattan and gold spots in it, with a sort of sattan cap and blue tassle of gold. He spoke all the time English. His house is not very fine, but genteel, and stands upon a mount close to the mountains. He is tall and very thin, has a very piercing eye, and a look singularly vivacious. He told me of his acquaintance with Pope, Swift (with whom he lived for three months at Lord Peterborough's), and Gay, who first showed him the Beggars Oppora before it was acted. He says he admires Swift, and loved Gay vastly. He said that Swift had a great deal of the "ridiculum acre." . . . He told me of his being present at the ceremony of Lord Kinsale's first wearing his hat before the king. At the house of Mons. Voltaire there is a handsome new church, with this inscription on the upper part of the front to the west:— DEO EREXIT VOLTAIRE, MDCCLXI. MEDICAL SUPERSTITIONS. Il Medico Poeta (the Physician a Poet) is the title of a folio by Dr. Cammillo Brunori, published at Fabriano in 1726. The leading object of his work is to prove that there is nothing in the nature of things to forbid the banns of marriage between poetry and medicine; that an excellent physician may be an excellent poet, and vice versa; and the subject-matter they are to deal with the same in either capacity. And I know no reason why it should not be so-there are the examples of Lucretius, Redi, and Fracastoro in its favor-except the existence of worthy Dr. Brunori's attempt to demonstrate the affirmative of the proposition. The work consists of a poem in twelve cantos, or "Capitoli," as from the fifteenth century downwards it was the Italian fashion to call them, on the physical poet-a sort of medical ars poetica; and followed by a hundred and seventy-two sonnets on all diseases, drugs, parts of the body, functions of them, and curative means. Each sonnet is printed on one page, while that opposite is occupied by a compendious account in prose of the subject in hand. We have a sonnet on the stomach-ache, a sonnet on apoplexy, a sonnet on purges, another on blisters, and many others on far less mentionable subjects. The author's poetical view of the action of a black-dose compares it to that of a tidy and active housemaid, who, having swept together all the dirt in the house, throws it out of the window. Mystic virtues are attributed to a variety of substances, animal, vegetable, and mineral. But the page of this strange farrago which specially induced me to introduce Dr. Cammillo Brunori to the readers of "N. & Q.," is that which details the medical uses of the human skull. It is easy to conceive the nature of the associations of idea, and more or less poetical imaginings, which generated such superstitions in the minds of men accustomed to seek facts in fancies as philosophers, rather than fancies in facts as poets. And in this, as in other similar instances, we may safely conclude that the simple unsupported superstition was antecedent to the laborious attempts at finding some rationale for it. Of course, the would-be reasoner supposes and represents the process to have been the reverse. But the truth is, that such essays belong to a time when the nascent ideas of inductive philosophy had obtained sufficient strength and currency to convince students of nature that something of the sort was needful; but when they were not yet strong enough to sweep away the whole baseless fabric. All skulls, Dr. Brunori informs us, are not of equal value. Indeed, those of persons who have died a natural death, are good for little or nothing. The reason of this is, that the disease of which they died has consumed or dissipated the essential spirit! The skulls of murderers and bandits are particularly efficacious. And this is clearly because not only is the essential spirit of the cranium concentrated therein by the nature of their violent death, but also the force of it is increased by the long exposure to the atmosphere, occasioned by the heads of such persons being ordinarily placed on spikes over the gates of cities! Such skulls are used in various manners. Preparations of volatile salt, spirit, gelatine, essence, &c. are made from them, and are very useful in epilepsy and hæmorrhage. The notion soldiers have, that drinking out of a skull renders them invulnerable in battle, is a mere superstition; though respectable writers do maintain that such a practice is a proved preventive against scrofula! These, and many other no less absurdities, may no doubt be met with in writers more known to fame than poor Cammillo Brunori. But it is curious to find science at this point in Italy, at the time when Mead and Freind were writing in England, and Boerhaave in Holland. |