Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 | Page 7

the preference.
"This is humbly recommended to your Excellency's consideration, and
hope you will prevent any farther insults.
"And we poor Maids as in duty bound will ever pray.
"P.S.--I, being the oldest Maid, and therefore most concerned, do think
it proper to be the messenger to your Excellency in behalf of my fellow
subscribers."
UNEDA.
Alison's "Europe."--In a note to Sir A. Alison's Europe, vol. ix. p. 397.,
12mo., enforcing the opinion that the prime movers in all revolutions
are not men of high moral or intellectual qualities, he quotes, as from
"Sallust de Bello Cat.,"
"In turbis atque seditionibus pessimo cuique plurima vis; pax et quies
bonis artibus aluntur."
No such words, however, are to be found in Sallust: but the correct
expression is in Tacitus (Hist., iv. 1.):

"Quippe in turbas et discordias pessimo cuique plurima vis; pax et
quies bonis artibus indigent."
Sir A. Alison quotes, in the same note, as from Thucydides (l. iii. c.
39.), the following:
"In the contests of the Greek commonwealth, those who were esteemed
the most depraved, and had the least foresight, invariably prevailed; for
being conscious of this weakness, and dreading to be overreached by
those of greater penetration, they went to work hastily with the sword
and poniard, and thereby got the better of their antagonists, who where
occupied with more refined schemes."
This paragraph is certainly not in the place mentioned; nor can I find it
after a diligent search through Thucydides. Will Sir A. Alison, or any
of his Oxford friends, be good enough to point out the author, and
indicate where such a passage is really to be found?
T. J. BUCKTON.
Birmingham.
"Bis dat, qui cito dat" (Vol. vi., p. 376.).--"Sat cito, si sat bene."--The
first of these proverbs reminded me of the second, which was a
favourite maxim of Lord Chancellor Eldon. (See The Life of Lord
Chancellor Eldon, vol. i. p. 48.) I notice it for the purpose of showing
that Lord Eldon followed (perhaps unconsciously) the example of
Augustus, and that the motto is as old as the time of the first Roman
emperor, if it is not of more remote origin. The following is an extract
from the Life of Augustus, Sueton., chap. XXV.:
"Nil autem minus in imperfecto duce, quam festinationem
temeritatemque, convenire arbitrabatur. Crebrò itaque illa jactabat,
[Greek: Speude bradeôs]. Et:
'[Greek: asphalês gar est' ameinôn ê thrasus stratêlatês].'
Et, 'Sat celeriter fieri, quicquid fiat satis bene.'"

Perhaps T. H. can give us the origin of these Greek and Latin maxims,
as he has of "Bis dat, qui cito dat" (Vol. i., p. 330).
F. W. J.
* * * * *
Queries.
HOUSE-MARKS.
Are there traces in England of what the people of Germany, on the
shores of the Baltic, call Hausmärke, and what in Denmark and
Norway is called bolmærke, bomærke? These are certain figures,
generally composed of straight lines, and imitating the shape of the
cross or the runes, especially the so-called compound runes. They are
meant to mark all sorts of property and chattels, dead and alive,
movable and immovable, and are drawn out, or burnt into, quite
inartistically, without any attempt of colouring or sculpturing. So, for
instance, every freeholder in Praust, a German village near Dantzic, has
his own mark on all his property, by which he recognises it. They are
met with on buildings, generally over the door, or on the gable-end,
more frequently on tombstones, or on epitaphs in churches, on pews
and old screens, and implements, cattle, and on all sorts of documents,
where the common people now use three crosses.
The custom is first mentioned in the old Swedish law of the thirteenth
century (Uplandslagh, Corp. Jur. Sveo-Goth., iii. p. 254.), and occurs
almost at the same period in the seals of the citizens of the Hanse-town
Lubeck. It has been in common use {595} in Norway, Iceland,
Denmark, Sleswick, Holstein, Hamburgh, Lubeck, Mecklenburgh, and
Pomerania, but is at present rapidly disappearing. Yet, in Holstein they
still mark the cattle grazing on the common with the signs of their
respective proprietors; they do the same with the haystacks in
Mecklenburgh, and the fishing-tackle on the small islands of the Baltic.
In the city of Dantzic these marks still occur in the prayer-books which
are left in the churches.

There are scarcely any traces of this custom in the south of Germany,
except that the various towers of the city-wall of Nurnberg are said to
bear their separate marks; and that an apothecary of Strasburg,
Merkwiller, signs a document, dated 1521, with his name, his coat of
arms, and a simple mark.
Professor Homeyer has lately read, before the Royal Academy of
Berlin, a very learned paper on the subject, and has explained this
ancient custom as significant of popular law, possibly