1. Without wishing to protract the discussion about _eisell_, let me
tell the correspondent who questioned whether wormwood could be an
ingredient in any palatable drink, that _crême d'absinthe_ ordinarily
appears with noyau, &c. in a Parisian restaurateur's list of luxurious
cordials. Whilst that _eisell_ was equivalent to wormwood is confirmed
by its being joined with gall, in a page of Queen Elizabeth's book of
prayers, which caught my eye in one of those presses in the library of
the British Museum, where various literary curiosities are now so
judiciously arranged, and laid open for public inspection.
2. As a decisive affirmation of what _rack_ meant, where the word was
the derivative of the Saxon pecan, your correspondents may accept the
following from our martyr, Frith's, _Revelation of Antichrist_. He
renders the second clause of 2 Peter ii. 17., "And racks carried about
of a tempest;" and he immediately adds, "Racks are like clouds, but they
give no rain."
3. In answer to MR. BREEN'S inquiry where there is any evidence from the
writings of Gregory I., that he could be so shameless as to panegyrise
that female monster Queen Brunéhaut, he may read some of that Pope's
flattering language in his letter addressed to her on behalf of that
Augustine whom he sent to England, as contained in Spelman's _Concilia_.
Epist. xvii. (_Brunichildæ, Reginæ Francorum_) begins as follows:
"Gratias omnipotenti Deo referimus, qui inter cætera pietatis suæ
dona, quæ excellentiæ vestræ largitus est, _ita vos amore
Christianæ religionis implevit, ut quicquid ad animarum lucrum_,
quicquid ad propagationem fidei pertinere cognoscitis, _devota
mente et pio operari studio_ non cessetis.... Et quidem hæc de
Christianitate vestra mirentur alii, quibus adhuc beneficia vestra
minus sunt cognita; nam nobis, quibus experimentis jam nota sunt,
non mirandum est, sed gaudendum."--Spelm. _Concil._ p. 82.
And in Epist. xi.:
"Excellentia ergo vestra, _quæ prona in bonis consuevit esse
operibus_."--Id. p. 77.
4. The etymology of Fontainebleau (Vol. iv., p. 38.). I can only speak
from memory of what was read long ago. But I think that in one of
Montfaucon's works, probably _Les Monumens de la Monarchie Française_,
he ascribed the origin of that name to the discovery of a spring amongst
the sandy rocks of that forest by a hound called _Bleau_, to the great
satisfaction of a thirsty French monarch who was then hunting there, and
was thereby induced to erect a hunting-seat near the spring.
5. To A. B. C. (Vol. iv., p. 57.), your questionist about the marriage
of bishops in the early ages of the Christian church, who has had a
reply in p. 125., I would further say, that as we have no biographies
describing the domestic life of any Christian bishop earlier than
Cyprian, who belonged to the middle of the third century, it is only
incidentally that anything appears of the kind which he inquires after.
It would be enough for the primitive Christians to know that their
scriptures said of _marriage_, that it was _honourable in all;_ though
such as were especially exposed to persecution, from their prominence
as officers of the church, would also remember the apostle's advice as
good for the present distress, 1 Cor. vii. As, however, your
correspondent asks what evidence there is that Gregory Nazienzen's
father had children after he was raised to the episcopate, this fact is
gathered from his own poem, in which he makes his father say to him,
"Thy years are not so many as I have passed in sacred duties." For
though these sacred duties began with his admission into the priesthood,
he was made a bishop so soon afterwards, that his younger son, Cæsarius,
must at any rate be held to have been born after the elder Gregory
became a bishop.
Curiously enough, however, good evidence appears in the papal law
itself, that the marriages of ecclesiastics were not anciently deemed
unlawful. In the _Corpus Juris Canonici_, or _Decretum aureum_, D.
Gratiani, Distinctio lvi. canon 2., which professes to be a rescript of
Pope Damasus (A.D. 366-84), says:
"Theodorus papa filius [fuit] Theodori episcopi de civitate
Hierosolyma, Silverius papa filius Silverii episcopi Romæ--item
Gelasius, natione Afer, ex patre episcopo Valerio natus est. Quam
plures etiam alii inveniuntur: qui de sacerdotibus nati apostolicæ
sedi præfuerunt."
To which Gratian attaches as his own conclusion:
"Hine Augustinus ait, _Vicia parentum_ Filiis non imputentur."
Thereby throwing a slur on the said married bishops. But can. xiii., or
Cænomanensem, of the same Distinctio, says:
"Cum ergo ex sacerdotibus nati in summos pontifices supra legantur
esse promoti, non sunt intelligendi de fornicatione, sed de
legitimis conjugiis."
I will only add that Athanasius mentions a Bishop Eupsychius (Primâ
contra Arianos) who was martyred in the reign of Julian, and that the
historian Sozomen says of him (_Eccl. Hist._, lib. v. ch. 11.), that
when he suffered he had but recently married, [Greek: kai hoion eti
nymphion onta].