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

Now Mr. Saunders certainly, whatever
Warton did, has confounded Damascenus, the physician, with Johannes
Damascenus Chrysorrhoas, "the {323} last of the Greek Fathers,"
(Gibbon, iv. 472.) a voluminous writer on ecclesiastical subjects, but no
physician, and therefore not at all likely to be 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
_Medicinæ Therapeuticæ_, 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
Würtzburg, 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,