(_Continued from_ Vol. ii., p. 493.)
(31.) P. H. F. (Vol. iii., pp. 24, 25.) has described a 12mo., or rather an
8vo., copy of Latin Psalter in his possession, and he wishes to know
whether Montanus had any connexion with one of the translations therein
exhibited. The title-page of your correspondent's volume will tell him
precisely what the book contains. He had better not rely too much upon MS.
remarks in any of his treasures; and when a bibliographical question is
being investigated, let _Cyclopaedias_ by all means not be disturbed from
their shelves. Would it not be truly marvellous if a volume, printed by
Robert Stephens in 1556, could in that year have presented, by prolepsis,
to its precocious owner a version which Bened. Arias Montanus did not
execute until 1571? But P. H. F.'s communication excites another query. He
appears to set a special value upon his Psalter because that the verses are
in it distinguished by cyphers; but Pagnini's whole Bible, which I spoke
of, came thirty years before it, and we have still to go nearly twenty
years farther back in search of the earliest example of the employment of
Arabic figures to mark the verses in the Book of Psalms. The _Quincuplex
Psalterium_, by Jacques le Fevre, is a most beautiful book, perhaps the
finest production of the press of Henry Stephens the elder; and not only
are the verses numbered in the copy before me, which is of the improved
"secunda emissio" in 1513, but the initial letters of them are in red. At
signature A iiij. there is a very handsome woodcut of the letter A.,
somewhat of a different style, from the larger (not the Ascensian) P.,
within the periphery of which St. Paul is represented, and which is so well
worthy of notice in Le Fevre's edition of the _Epistole diui Pauli
Apostoli_, Paris, 1517. The inquiry toward which I have been travelling is
this, When did Henry Stephens first make use of the open Ratdoltian letter
on dotted ground? (See Maitland's _Lambeth List_, p. 328. Dibdin's _Typog.
Antiq._ vol. i., Prel. Disquis., p. xl.)
(32.) Is there extant any collation of the various exemplars of the
_Alphabetum divini Amoris_? And has an incontrovertible opinion been formed
as to the paternity of this tract? For the common error of ascribing it to
Gerson is entirely inexcusable, as this Parisian chancellor is frequently
alleged therein. The third volume of his works, set forth by Du Pin, in
1706, contains this "Treatise of the Elevation of the Soul to God," and the
editor has left the blunder uncorrected in his _Eccles. Hist._ iii. 53.
Again, can it be affirmed that the folio impression of Louvain, (Panzer,
ix. 243.), in which Gerson's name occurs, was assuredly anterior to the
small black-letter and {87} anonymous editions, likewise without dates? Two
of the latter (one much older than the other) are of 12mo. size, in 8vo.,
as is also Bonaventura's _Stimulus divini Amoris_, printed in 1510 and
1517.
(33.) In what way can we detect the propounder of the _Notabilis expositio
super canonem misse_? His work is of small folio size without mention of
place or year; but it certainly proceeded from Nuremberg, and was it not
one of the _primitiae_ of Creusner?
(34.) Who is designated by the letters "G. N. N. D.," which are put at the
head of the Epistle to Zuinglius, _De Magistris nostris Lovaniensibus, quot
et quales sint_? And why has the _Vita S. Nicolai, sive Stultitiae
Exemplar_, originally attached to this performance, been omitted by Dr.
Muench in his edition of the _Epistolae obscurorum Vivorum, aliaque aevi
decimi sexti Monimenta rarissima_, Leipzig, 1827? If he had reprinted this
very desirable appendix, it would have furnished him with the date "Anno
M.D.XX.," which would have prevented him from assigning this satirical
composition to the year "1521." (Einl. p. 408.)
(35.) A student can scarcely be considered moderately well versed in
ancient ecclesiastical documents who has neither read nor heard of the
_Somnium Viridarii_; and we may wonder at, and pity, the learned Goldast,
for having fallen into the extravagant mistake of attributing this Latin
translation of the celebrated Dialogue, _Le Songe du Verger_, to
"Philotheus Achillinus, Consiliarius Regius." (_Monarch. S. Rom. Imper_. i.
58. Hanov. 1612.) The question arises, How was he misled? Was it not
through a strange misconception of a sentence in the _Silva Nuptialis_ of
Nevizan, to which he refers in his preliminary "Dissertatio de Auctoribus?"
This writer, who has been plentifully purified by the Roman _Index_, had
cited the preface of an Italian poem, "Il Viridario," composed by his
contemporary, Giovanni FILOTEO ACHILLINI; and is it thus that an author of
the sixteenth century has got credit for an anonymous achievement of the
fourteenth age? Goldastus has hardly been out-Heroded by those who have
devised an individual named _Viridarius_, or "Le Sieur _du Vergier_." (See
Baillet, _Deguisemens des Auteurs_, p. 479., and M. De la Monnoye's note,
pp. 501-2.)
(36.) Is there not a transpositional misprint in the colophon of the old
German _Life of S. Dorothea_, the so-called patroness of Prussia? For it
would seem to be inevitable that we should endeavour to elicit 1492, and
not 1512, from the following date: "Den Dingstag nach Gregory als man
tzelete, M.CCCC. unde cxii." (Vid. Lilienthal, _Histor. B. Doroth_. p. 6.
Dantisc., 1744.)
(37.):--
"The Original Manuscript of both volumes of this History will be
deposited in the Cotton Library, by
"T. BURNETT."
Has this declaration been inserted, in the handwriting of Thomas Burnet, on
the reverse of the title-page of the second volume, in all large-paper
copies (and is it strictly limited to them?) of Bishop Burnet's _History of
his own Time_, Lond., 1734? Compare the printed "Advertisement to the
Reader" in the first volume, published in 1724.
(38.) Mr. T. R. Hampson, the author of _Medii AEvi Kalendarium_, which has,
I believe, been commended in "NOTES AND QUERIES," informs us, in a precious
production which he has lately issued on the _Religious Deceptions of the
Church of Rome_, p. 30., that--
"Dr. Geddes, himself a learned Romanist, has selected many [remarkable
errors] in his tract, _A Discovery of some Gross Mistakes in the Roman
Martyrology_."
Only fancy a Romanist, learned or unlearned, having the effrontery to
bestow so outrageous an appellation upon such an exploit. Does not the
second volume of _Miscellaneous Tracts_, in which the said treatise may be
seen, explicitly admonish us to remember that Michael Geddes, LL.D., was
erst a chancellor of the Church of Sarum? "Quid Romae faciam?" he
upbraidingly asks in one of his title-pages, "mentiri nescio."