Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 | Page 3

found among the books of Chaucer's Doctour,
"Whose studie was but litel on the Bible."
Chaucer's Damascene is the author of _Aphorismorum Liber_, and of _Medicin? Therapeutic?_, libri vii. Some suppose him to have lived in the ninth, others in the eleventh century, A.D.; and this is about all that is known about him. (See _Biographie Universelle_, s.v.)
ED. S. JACKSON.
_Long Friday, meaning of._--C. Knight, in his _Pictorial Shakspeare_, explains Mrs. Quickly's phrase in _Henry the Fourth_--"'Tis a long loan for a poor lone woman to bear,"--by the synonym _great_: asserting that long is still used in the sense of great, in the north of England; and quoting the Scotch proverb, "Between you and the long day be it," where we talk of the great day of judgment. May not this be the meaning of the name _Long Friday_, which was almost invariably used by our Saxon forefathers for what we now call Good Friday? The commentators on the Prayer Book, who all confess themselves ignorant of the real meaning of the term, absurdly suggest that it was so called from the great length of the services on that day; or else, from the length of the fast which preceded. Surely, The Great Friday, the Friday on which the great work of our redemption was completed, makes better sense?
T.E.L.L.
_Hip, hip, Hurrah!_--Originally a war cry, adopted by the stormers of a German town, wherein a great many Jews had taken their refuge. The place being sacked, they were all put to the sword, under the shouts of, _Hierosolyma est perdita_! From the first letter of those words (_H.e.p._) an exclamation was contrived. We little think, when the red wine sparkles in the cup, and soul-stirring toasts are applauded by our _Hip, hip, hurrah!_ that we record the fall of Jerusalem, and the cruelty of Christians against the chosen people of God.
JANUS DOUSA.
Under the Rose (Vol. i., p. 214.).--Near Zandpoort, a village in the vicinity of Haarlem, Prince William of Orange, the third of his name, had a favourite hunting-seat, called after him the Princenbosch, now more generally known under the designation of the Kruidberg. In the neighbourhood of these grounds there was a little summer-house, making part, if I recollect rightly, of an Amsterdam burgomaster's country place, who resided there at the times I speak of. In this pavilion, it is said, _and beneath a stucco rose_, being one of the ornaments of the ceiling, William III. communicated the scheme of his intended invasion in England to the two burgomasters of Amsterdam there present. You know the result.
Can the expression of "being under the rose" date from this occasion, or was it merely owing to coincidence that such an ornament protected, as it were, the mysterious conversation to which England owes her liberty, and Protestant Christendom the maintenance of its rights?
JANUS DOUSA.
Huis te Manpadt.
_Albanian Literature.--Bogdano, Pietro, Archivescovo di Scopia, L'Infallibile Verita della Cattolica Fede_, in Venetia, per G. Albrizzi, MDXCI, is I think much older than any Albanian book mentioned by Hobhouse. The same additional characters are used which occur in the later publications of the Propaganda, in two parts, pp. 182. 162.
F.Q.
* * * * *
Queries.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL QUERIES.
1. Has anything recently transpired which could lead bibliographers to form an absolute decision with regard to the "unknown" printer who used the singular letter R which is said to have originated with Finiguerra in 1452? That Mentelin was the individual seems scarcely credible; and there is a manifest difference between his type and that of the anonymous printer of the editio princeps of Rabanus Maurus, _De Universo_, the copy of which work (illuminated, ruled, and rubricated) now before me was once in Heber's possession; and it exhibits the peculiar letter R, which resembles an ill-formed A, destitute of the cross stroke, and supporting a round O on its reclined back. (Panzer, i. 78.; Santander, i. 240.)
2. Is it not quite certain that the acts and decrees of the synod of W��rtzburg, held in the year 1452, were printed in that city previously to the publication of the Breviarium Herbiplense in 1479? The letter Q which is used in the volume of these acts is remarkable for being of a double semilunar shape; and the type, which is very Gothic, is evidently the same as that employed in an edition of other synodal decrees in Germany about the year 1470.
3. When and where was the _Liber de Laudibus gloriosissime Dei genitricis Marie semper Virginis_, by Albertus Magnus, first printed? I do not mean the supposititious work, which is often confounded with the other one; but that which is also styled Super Evangelium Missus est _Qu?stiones_. And why are these Questions invariably said to be 230 in number, when there are 275 chapters in the book? Beughem asserts that the earliest edition is that of Milan in 1489