Notes and Queries, Number 38, July 20, 1850 | Page 9

motto? They are part of a line in one of
Owen's epigrams.
N.B.
Lord Richard Christophilus.--Can any of your readers give any account
of Lord Richard Christophilus, a Turk converted to Christianity, to
whom, immediately after the Restoration, in July, 1660, the Privy
Council appointed a pension of 50l. a-year, and an additional allowance
of 2l. a-week.
CH.
_Fiz-gigs_.--In those excellent poems, Sandys's _Paraphrases on Job
and other Books of the Bible_, there is a word of a most destructive
character to the effect. Speaking of leviathan, he asks,
"Canst thou with _fiz-gigs_ pierce him to the quick?"
It may be an ignorant question, but I do not know what fiz-gigs are.
C.B.
Specimens of Erica in Bloom.--Can any of your correspondents oblige
me by the information where I can procure specimens in bloom of the
following plants, viz. Erica crescenta, Erica paperina, E. purpurea, E.

flammea, and at what season they come into blossom in England? If
specimens are not procurable without much expense and trouble, can
you supply me with the name of a work in which these plants are
figured?
E.S.
Dover.
_Michael Scott, the Wizard_.--What works by Michael Scott, the
reputed wizard, (Sir Walter's Deus ex Machina in _The Lay of the Last
Minstrel_), have been printed?
X.Y.A.
Stone Chalices.--Can any of the readers of "Notes and Queries" inform
me whether the use of stone chalices was authorised by the ancient
constitutions of the Church; and, if so, at what period, and where the
said constitutions were enacted?
X.Y.A.
* * * * *{121}
REPLIES.
ULRICH VON HUTTEN AND THE "EPISTOLÆ OBSCURORUM
VIRONUM."
(Vol. ii., p. 55.)
I have never seen the article in the Quarterly Review to which your
correspondent H.B.C. alludes: he will probably find it by reference to
the index, which is not just now within my reach. The neat London
edition, 1710, of the _Epistolæ_ was given by Michael Mattaire. There
are several subsequent reimpressions, but none worth notice except that
by Henr. Guil. Rotermund, Hanover, 1827, 8vo.; and again, with
improvements, "cum nova præfatione, nec non illustratione historica
circa originem earum, atque notitia de vita et scriptis virorum in

Epistolis occurentium aucta," 1830, both in 8vo.
The best edition, however, is that given by Dr. Ernst Münch, Leipsic,
1827, 8vo., with the following title:
"Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum aliaque Ævi Decimi sexti Monimenta
Rarissima. Die Briefe der Finsterlinge an Magister Ortuinus von
Deventer, nebst andern sehr seltenen Beiträgen zur
Literatur-Sitten-und-Kirchengeschichte des xvi'n Jahrhunderts."
This contains many important additions, and a copious historical
introduction. Both the editors write in German.
That this admirable satire produced an immense effect at the period of
its publication, there can be no doubt; but that it has ever been
thoroughly understood and relished among us may be doubted. Mr.
Hallam, in his _Literature of Europe_, vol. i., seems to have been
disgusted with the monkish dog-Latin and bald jokes, not recollecting
that this was a necessary and essential part of the design. Nor is it
strange that Steele, who was perhaps not very well acquainted with the
history of literature, should have misconceived the nature of the
publication, when we learn from an epistle of Sir Thomas More to
Erasmus, that some of the stupid theologasters themselves, who were
held up to ridicule, received it with approbation as a serious work:
"_Epist. Obs. Viror_. operæ pretium est videre quantopere placeant
omnibus, et doctis joco, et indoctis serio, qui dum ridemus, putant
rideri stylum tantum, quem illi non defendunt, sed gravitate
sententiarum dicunt compensatum, et latere sub rudi vagina
pulcherrimum gladium. Utinam fuisset inditus libello alius titulus!
Profecto intra centum annos homines studio stupidi non sensissent
nasum, quamquam rhinocerotico longiorem."[8]
Erasmus evidently enjoyed the witty contrivance, though he affects to
disapprove it as an anonymous libel. Simler, in his life of Bullinger,
relates that on the first reading Erasmus fell into such a fit of laughter
as to burst an abscess in his face with which he was at that time
troubled, and which prevented the necessity of a surgical operation.

The literary history of the _Epistolæ_ and the Dialogue is involved in
obscurity. That Ulrich von Hutten had a large share in their concoction
there can be no doubt; and that he was assisted by Crotus Rubianus and
Hermann von Busch, if not by others, seems highly probable. The
authorship of Lamentationes Obscurorum Virorum is a paradox which
has not yet been solved. They are a parody, but a poor one, of the
_Epistolæ_, and in the second edition are attributed to Ortuinus Gratius.
If they are by him, he must have been a dull dog indeed; but by some it
has been thought that they are the work of a Reuchlinist, to mystify the
monks of Cologne, and render them still more ridiculous; yet, as the
Pope's bull against