Notes and Queries | Page 7

and the Buddhist legends from India.
F.Q.
_Junnius and Sir Philip Francis._--A few years ago, an aged intelligent person named Garner was living at Belgrave, near Leicester. I have heard him say that, when he was a farm bailiff to Lord Thanet, at Sevenoaks, in Kent, Sir Philip Francis was a frequent visitor there, and had a private room set apart for literary occupation. On one occasion, when he (Mr. Garner) was riding over the farm with Sir Philip Francis, the former alluded to one of the replies to Junius, by a clergyman who had been the subject of the "Great Unknown's" anonymous attacks, adding, "They say, Sir Philip, you are Junius." Sir Philip did not deny that he was the man, but simply smiled at the remark. This, and other circumstances coupled with the fact of Sir Philip's frequent visits to the house of so noted a politician as Lord Thanet, rendered Mr. Garner a firm believer in the identity of Sir Philip and Junius to the end of his days.
JAYTEE.
Jews under the Commonwealth (Vol. i., pp. 401. 474.; vol ii., p. 25.).--There is a confirmation of the story of the Jews being in treaty for St. Paul's and the Oxford Library in a passage in Carte's _Letters_, i. 276, April 2, 1649:--
"They are about demolishing and selling cathedral churches. I hear Norwich is designed already, and that the Jews proffer 600,000l. for Paul's and Oxford Library, and may have them for 200,000l. more."
CH.
"_Is anything but," &c._--As your work seems adapted, amongst other subjects, to check the introduction into our language of undesirable words, phrases, and forms of speech, I would call the attention of your readers to the modern phrases, "is anything but," and the like, which have lately crept into use, and will be found, in many (otherwise) well-written books.
I read the phrase "is anything but," for the first time, in Napier's _Peninsular War_; where it struck me as being so much beneath the dignity of historical composition, and at the same time asserting an impossibility, that I meditated calling the author's attention to it. The not unfrequent use of the same phrase by other writers, since that time, has by no means reconciled me to its use.
In the Edinburgh Review for January last (1850) I find the following sentence:--"But as pains have been taken to fix the blame upon any one except the parties culpable;" and in the July number of the same Review (p. 90.) occurs the sentence, "any impulse rather than that of patriotism," &c.
Now, a "thing," or "person," or "impulse,"--though it may not be the "thing," or "person," or "impulse" charged as the agent,--must yet be some certain and specific thing, or party, or impulse, {295} if existing as an agent at all in the matter; and cannot be "any thing," or "any party," or "any impulse," in the indefinite sense intended in these phrases. Moreover, there seems no difficulty in expressing, in a simple and direct manner, that the agent was a very different, or opposite, or dissimilar "thing," or "person," or "impulse" from that supposed.
I wish some persons of competent authority in the science of our language (and many such there are who write in your pages) would take up this subject, with a view to preserve the purity of it; and would also, for the future, exercise a watchful vigilance over the use, for the first time, of any incorrect, or low words or phrases, in composition; and so endeavour to confine them to the vulgar, or to those who ape the vulgar in their style.
P.H.F.
_Fastitocalon._--_Fastitocalon. Cod. Exon._ fol. 96. b. p. 360. 18. read [Greek: Aspido ... chelonae]. Tychsen, _Physiologus Syrus_, cap. xxx.: did the digamma get to Crediton by way of Cricklade?
F.Q.
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QUERIES
BISHOP COSIN'S CONFERENCE.
Basire in his _Dead Man's Real Speech_ (pp. 59, 60.), amongst other "notable instances" of Bishop Cosin's zeal and constancy in defence of the Church of England, mentions
"A solemn conference both by word and writing betwixt him and the Prior of the English Benedictines at Paris, supposed to be Robinson. The argument was concerning the validity of the ordination of our priests, &c., in the Church of England. The issue was, our Doctor had the better so far, that he could never get from the Prior any reply to his last answer. This conference was undertaken to fix a person of honour then wavering about that point; the sum of which conference (as I am informed), was written by Dr. Cosin to Dr. Morley, the now Right Reverend Lord Bishop of Winchester, in two letters bearing date June 11, July 11, 1645."
The substance of this conference has been preserved among the Smith Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library; but it is not in the form of letters to Dr. Morley. Vol. xl. of this