Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 | Page 7

of Latin and English poems, commencing with "Shunamitis Poema Stephani Duck Latine redditum?"
The last verse of some commendatory verses prefixed point out the author as the son of some well-known character:
"And sure that is the most distinguish'd fame, Which rises from your own, not father's name. London, 21 April, 1738."
My copy has no title-page: a transcript of it would oblige.
E.D.
_Lachrymatories._--In many ancient places of sepulture we find long narrow phials which are called lachrymatories, and are supposed to have been receptacles for tears: can you inform me on what authority this supposition rests?
J.H.C.
_Egg-cups used by the Romans._--That the Romans used egg-cups, and of a shape very similar to our own, the ruins at Pompeii and other places afford ocular demonstration. Can you tell me by what name they called them?
J.H.C.
_Sir Oliver Chamberlaine._--In Miss Lefanu's _Memoirs of Mrs. Frances Sheridan_, the celebrated authoress of _Sidney Biddulph_, _Nourjahad_, and _The Discovery_, and mother of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, it is stated that "her grandfather, Sir {327} Oliver Chamberlaine," was an "English baronet." The absence of his name in any of the Baronetages induces the supposition, however, that he had received only the honour of knighthood; and the connexion of his son with Dublin, that the statement of Whitelaw and Walsh, in their history of that city, may be more correct,--viz. that "Sir Oliver Chamberlaine was descended from a respectable English family that had been settled in Dublin since the Reformation." I should be glad to be informed on this point, and also respecting the paternity of this Sir Oliver, who is not only distinguished as one of the progenitors of the Sheridans, but also of Dr. William Chamberlaine, the learned author of the _Abridgement of the Laws of Jamaica_, which he for some time administered, as one of the judges in that island; and of his grandson, the brave, but ill-fated, Colonel Chamberlaine, aide-de-camp to the president Bolivar.
J.R.W.
October 10. 1850.
_Meleteticks._--In Boyle's Occasional Reflections (ed. 1669), he uses the word meleteticks (pp. 8. 38.) to express the "way and kind of meditation" he "would persuade." Was this then a new word coined by him, and has it been used by any other writer?
P.H.F.
_Luther's Hymns._--"In the midst of life we are in death," &c., in the Burial Service, is almost identical with one of Luther's hymns, the words and music of which are frequently closely copied from older sources. Whence?
F.Q.
_"Pair of Twises."_--What was the article, carried by gentlemen, and called by Boyle (R.B.), in his Occasional Reflections (edit. 1669, p. 180.), "a pair of _twises_," out of which he drew a little penknife?
P.H.F.
_Countermarks on Roman Coin._--Several coins in my cabinet of Tiberius, Trajan, &c. bear the stamp NCAPR; others have an open hand, &c. I should be glad to know the reason of this practice, and what they denote.
E.S.T.
* * * * *
REPLIES.
GAUDENTIO DI LUCCA.
(Vol. ii., p. 247. 298.)
The _Memoirs of Sig. Gaudentio di Lucca_ have very generally been ascribed to Bishop Berkeley. In Moser's _Diary_, written at the close of the last century (MS. penes me), the writer says,--
"I have been reading Berkeley's amusing account of _Sig. Gaudentio_. What an excellent system of patriarchal government is there developed!"
See the _Retrospective Review_, vol iv. p. 316., where the work is also ascribed to the celebrated Bishop Berkeley.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
In the corrigenda and addenda to Kippis's _Biographia Britannica_, prefixed to vol. iii. is the following note, under the head of _Berkeley_:
"On the same authority [viz., that of Dr. George Berkeley, the bishop's son,] we are assured that his father did not write, and never read through, the Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca. Upon this head, the editor of the Biographia must record himself as having exhibited an instance of the folly of building facts upon the foundation of conjectural reasonings. Having heard the book ascribed to Bishop Berkeley, and seen it mentioned as his in catalogues of libraries, I read over the work again under this impression, and fancied that I perceived internal arguments of its having been written by our excellent prelate. I was even pleased with the apprehended ingenuity of my discoveries. But the whole was a mistake, which, whilst it will be a warning to myself, may furnish an instructive lesson to others. At the same time, I do not retract the character which I have given of the Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca. Whoever was the author of that performance, it does credit to his abilities and to his heart."
After this decisive testimony of Bishop Berkeley's son, accompanied by the candid confession of error on the part of the editor of the _Biographia Britannica_, the rumour as to Berkeley's authorship of Gaudentio ought to have been finally discredited. Nevertheless, it seems still to maintain its ground: it is stated as probable by Dunlop, in his _History of Fiction_; while the