Notes and Queries, Number 28, May 11, 1850 | Page 4

upon their arms and hands, will at some future period enjoy great wealth; or as the common expression has it, "are born to be rich."
HENRY KERSLEY.
Corp. Chris. Hall, Maidstone.
A Rainbow in the Morning, &c.--"Mr. THOMS" (No. 26, p. 413.) says that he believes no one has remarked the philosophy of this proverbial rhyme. Sir Humphry Davy, however, points it out in his Salmonia.
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ERROR IN JOHNSON'S LIFE OF SELDEN.
In Johnson's (Geo. W.) Memoirs of John Selden, London, 1635, 8vo. pp. 128, 129, is a notice of Dr. Sibthorpe's celebrated Sermon preached at Northampton, and printed in 1627 with the title of _Apostolike Obedience_. After stating the difficult experienced in obtaining the necessary sanction for its publication, owing to Abp. Abbot refusing the requisite imprimatur, the author says that ultimately the licence was "signed by Land himself, and published under the title of _Apostolical Obedience_." A reference at the foot of the page to "Rushworth, p. 444," leads me to conclude that it is on his authority Mr. Johnson has made this statement; but not having access to the "Historical Collections," I am unable to examine. At any rate, Heylin, in his Cyprianus Anglicus, Lond., 1671 fol. p. 159., may be understood to imply the correctness of the assertion.
A copy of this now rare sermon before me {452} proves, however, that the statement is incorrect. At the back of the title is as follows:--
"I have read over this sermon upon Rom. xiii. 7., preached at Northampton, at the assises for the county, Feb. 22, 1626, by Robert Synthorpe, Doctor of Divinity, Vicar of Brackley, and I doe approve it as a sermon learnedly and discreetly preached, and agreeable to the ancient Doctrine of the Primitive Church, both for Faith and good manners, and to the Doctrine established in the Church of England, and, therefore, under my hand I give authority for the printing of it, May 8. 1627."
GEO. LONDON.
It was therefore Bishop Mountague, and not Laud, who licensed the sermon.
JOHN. J. DREDGE.
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POPE AND PETRONIUS.
I have read "Mr. RICH'S" letter with great interest, and I willingly allow that he has combated my charge of plagiarism against Pope, and discussed the subject generally with equal fairness and ability. "But yet," I think that he wanders a little from the point when he says, "the surmise of the plagiarism originates in a misconception of the terms employed by the Latin author, especially corcillum." Now the question, in my opinion, turns not so much on what Petronius said, as on what Pope read; i.e. not on the meaning that Petronius gave to the word (corcillum), but on that which Pope attributed to it. I cannot, without further proof, give him credit for having read the words as critically and correctly as "Mr. R." has done. I believe that he looked on it merely as a simple derivative of cor, and therefore rendered it "worth," i.e. a moral, not a mental quality.
C. FORBES.
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QUERIES.
QUERIES RESPECTING PURVEY ON THE APOCALYPSE, AND BONNER ON THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS.
I beg leave to make the two following Queries:--
1. In Bayle's very useful work, _Scriptorum Illustrium Majoris Brytanni? Catalogus_, fol. Bas. 1559, among the writings ascribed to John Purvey, one of Wycliffe's followers, and (as Walden styles him) Glossator, is mentioned Commentarius in Apocalypsin, beginning "Apocalypsis, quasi diceret;" and Bayle adds:--
"Pr?dictus in Apocalypsin Commentarius ex magistri Wielevi lectionibus publicis per Joannem Purv?um collectus, et nunc per Martinum Lutherum, Ante centum annos intitularus, anno Domini 1528, sine authoris nomine, Witemberg? fuit excusus. Fuit et ipse Author in carcere, ac cathenis insuper chalybeis, cum ea Commentaria scripsit, ut ex decimo et undecimo ejus scripti capite apparet. Scripsit autem Purv?us hunc librum anno Domini 1390, ut ex decimo tertio capite et principio vigesimi apparet."
This account of Bayle (who is mistaken, however, about the title of the work) is confirmed by Panzer; who, in his Annales, vol. ix. p. 87. enters the volume thus, "_Commentarius in Apolcalypsin ante Centum Annos ?ditus, cum Pr?fatione Maritini Lutheri_. Wittemberg?, 1528. 8vo." Can any of your readers refer me to a copy of this book in a public library, or in private hands?
2. In Lewis's History of the Translations of the Bible, edit. 1818. p. 25., he quotes a work of Bishop Bonner, "Of the Seven Sacraments, 1555," in which a manuscript English Bible is cited by the Bishop, as then in his possession, "translated out of Latyne in tyme of heresye almost eight-score years before that tyme, i.e. about 1395, fayre and truly written in parchment." Lewis proceeds to conjecture, that this MS. was the same which is preserved in the Bodleian Library under the mark Fairfax, 2. And in this erroneous supposition he has been followed by later writers. The copy in question, which belonged to Bonner, is