Minor Queries with Answers.
"The Basilics."—What is the manuscript called the "Basilics" in the following passage, which occurs in a cotemporary MS., "Memoirs of the Life of the Right Hon. John Lord Scudamore, Viscount Sligo in Ireland," in the library of P. Howard, Esq., at Corby Castle? Is it known where it is now preserved?
Have these memoirs been printed? Lord S. was born in 1600, and was ambassador to France when this circumstance occurred.
"There having been intelligence given to his Excellence by that renowned person, and his then great acquaintance, Mons. Grotius, lieger in Paris for the crown of Sweden, of a very valuable manuscript of many volumes, being the body of the civil law in Greek, commonly called the 'Basilics,' in the hands of the heirs of the famous lawyer lately deceased, Petrus Faber,—desirous to enrich his country with this treasure, he transacted and agreed with the possessors for the price of it, which was no less than 500l. But when it should have been delivered, and the money was ready to be paid down, Cardinal Richelieu (the great French minister of state at that time) having notice of the transaction interposed, and forbad the going on upon the contract, as thinking it would have been a diminution to their nation to permit such a prize to come into the hands of strangers, and by their charge and labour be communicated to the world."
W. C. Trevelyan.
Wallington.
[Basilica is a name given to a digest of laws commenced by the Emperor Basilius in the year 867, and completed by his son Leo the philosopher in the year 880, the former having carried the work as far as forty books, and the latter having added twenty more, in which state it was published. The complete edition of Charles Annibal Fabrot, which appeared at Paris in 1647, proved of great service to the study of ancient jurisprudence. It is contained in seven volumes folio, and accompanied with Latin version of the text, as well as of the Greek scholia subjoined. See a valuable article on the Greek texts of the Roman law, in the Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. vii. p. 461.—The MS. "Memoirs of the Hon. John Lord Scudamore" seem to have been used by Matthew Gibson in his View of the Ancient and Present State of the Churches of Door, Horne-Lacy, and Hempsted, with Memoirs of the Scudamore Family, 4to., 1727, as the substance of the passage quoted by our correspondent is given at p. 95. of that work.]
Fire at Honiton.—I am solicitous to learn the particulars of a fire which occurred at Honiton, in Devonshire, in the year 1765, when the chapel and school-house were burned down, and the former thereupon rebuilt by collections under a brief.
In a review of Mr. Digby Wyatt's "Industrial Arts of the Nineteenth Century" (in the Athenæum for June 18th of the current year), reference is made by Mrs. Treadwin of Exeter to "a book mentioning two great fires which occurred in 1756 and 1767 in Honiton," but it is not stated who was the author of that book.
Can you or any of your readers furnish me with the title of the book intended, or direct me to any other sources of information on the subject of the Honiton fires?
S. T.
[Notices of fires at Honiton occur in the following works:—The Wisdom and Righteousness of Divine Providence. A sermon preached at Honiton on occasion of a dreadful fire, 21st August, 1765, which consumed 140 houses, a chapel, and a meeting-house. By R. Harrison, 4to. 1765.—Shaw, in his Tour to the West of England, p. 444., mentions a dreadful fire, 19th July, 1747, which reduced three parts of the town to ashes.—Lysons' Devonshire, p. 281., states that Honiton has been visited by the destructive calamity of fire in 1672, 1747, 1754, and 1765. The last-mentioned happened on the 21st August, and was the most calamitous; 115 houses were burnt down, and the steeple of Allhallows Chapel, with the school, were destroyed. The damage was estimated at above 10,500l.]
Michaelmas Goose.—The following little inconsistency in a commonly-received tradition has led me, at the request of a large party of well-read and literary friends, to request your solution of the difficulty in an early Number of your paper.
It is currently reported, and nine men in ten will tell you, if you ask them the reason why goose is always eaten on the 29th Sept., Michaelmas Day, that Queen Elizabeth was eating goose when the news of the destruction of the Invincible Armada was brought, and she immediately put down her knife and fork, and said, "From this day forth let all British-born subjects eat goose on this day."
Now in Creasy's Battles it is stated that the Spanish fleet was destroyed in the month of July. How could it then be the 29th of Sept. when the news of its defeat reached her majesty? If any of your readers can solve this seeming improbability be will greatly oblige
Michaelmas Day.
[Although it may be difficult to show how it is that the custom of eating goose has in this country been transferred to Michaelmas Day, while on the Continent it is observed at Martinmas, from which practice the goose is often called St. Martin's bird, it is very easy to prove that there is no foundation for the tradition referred to by our correspondent. For the following extract from Stow's Annales (ed. Howes), p. 749., will show that, so far from the news of the defeat of the Armada not reaching Elizabeth until the 29th of September, public thanksgivings for the victory had been offered on the 20th of the preceding month:
"On the 20th of August, M. Nowell, Deane of Paules, preached at Paules Crosse, in presence of the lord Maior and Aldermen, and the companies in their best liveries, moving them to give laud and praise unto Almightie God, for the great victorie by him given to our English nation, by the overthrowe of the Spanish fleete.">[