Minor Queries with Answers.
"Vox Populi Vox Dei."—Lieber, in the last chapter of his Civil Liberty, treating of this dictum, ascribes its origin to the Middle Ages, acknowledging, however, that he is unable to give anything very definite. Sir William Hamilton, in his edition of the Works of Thomas Reid, gives the concluding words of Hesiod's Works and Days thus:
"The word proclaimed by the concordant voice of mankind fails not; for in man speaks God."
And to this the great philosopher adds:
"Hence the adage (?), 'Vox Populi vox Dei.'"
The sign of interrogation is Sir William Hamilton's, and he was right to put it; for whatever the psychological connexion between Hesiod's dictum and V. P. V. D. may be, there is surely no historical. "Vox Populi vox Dei" is a different concept, breathing the spirit of a different age.
How far back, then, can the dictum in these very words be traced?
Does it, as Lieber says, originally belong to the election of bishops by the people?
Or was it of Crusade origin?
America begs Europe to give her facts, not speculation, and hopes that Europe will be good enough to comply with her request. Europe has given the serious "V. P. V. D." to America, so she may as well give its history to America too.
Americus.
[As this Query of Americus contains some new illustration of the history of this phrase, we have given it insertion, although the subject has already been discussed in our columns. The writer will, however, find that the earliest known instances of the use of the sayings are, by William of Malmesbury, who, speaking of Odo yielding his consent to be Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 920, says: "Recogitans illud Proverbium, Vox Populi Vox Dei;" and by Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, as we learn from Walsingham, took it as his text for the sermon which he preached when Edward III. was called to the throne, from which the people had pulled down Edward II. Americus is farther referred to Mr. G. Cornewall Lewis' Essay on the Influence of Authority in Matters of Opinion (pp. 172, 173., and the accompanying notes) for some interesting remarks upon it. See farther, "N. & Q.," Vol. i., pp. 370. 419. 492.; Vol. iii., pp. 288. 381.]
"Lanquettes Cronicles."—Of what date is the earliest printed copy of these Chronicles? The oldest I am acquainted with is 1560, in quarto (continued up to 1540 by Bishop Cooper). Is this edition rare?
R. C. Warde.
Kidderminster.
[The earliest edition is that printed by T. Berthelet, 4to., 1549. The first two parts of this Chronicle,
and the beginning of the third, as far as the seventeenth year after Christ, were composed by Thomas Lanquet, a young man of twenty-four years of age. Owing to his early death, Bishop Cooper finished the work; and his part, which is the third, contains almost thrice as much as Lanquet's two parts, being taken from Achilles Pyrminius. When it was finished, a surreptitious edition appeared in 1559, under the title of Lanquet's Chronicle; hereupon the bishop protested against "the vnhonest dealynge" of this book, edited by Thomas Crowley, in the next edition, entitled Cooper's Chronicle, "printed in the house late Thomas Berthelettes," 1560. The running title to the first and second parts is, "Lanquet's Chronicle;" and to the third, "The Epitome of Chronicles." The other editions are, "London, 1554," 4to., and "London, 1565," 4to. We should think the edition of 1560 rare: it was in the collections of Mr. Heber and Mr. Herbert. In this work the following memorable passage occurs, under the year 1542:—"One named Johannes Faustius fyrste founde the crafte of printynge in the citee of Mens in Germanie.">[
"Our English Milo."—Bishop Hall extols in his Heaven upon Earth the valour of a countryman in a Spanish bull-fight (see p. 335., collected ed. Works, 1622). Of whom does he speak?
R. C. Warde.
Kidderminster.
[If we may offer a conjecture, in the passage cited the bishop seems to refer to that "greatest scourge of Spain" Sir Walter Raleigh, and not so much to a bull-fight as to the Spanish Armada. The bishop is prescribing Expectation as a remedy for Crosses, and says, "Is it not credible what a fore-resolved mind can do—can suffer? Could our English Milo, of whom Spain yet speaketh, since their last peace, have overthrown that furious beast, made now more violent through the rage of his baiting, if he had not settled himself in his station, and expected?" Sir Walter's "fore-resolved and expectant mind" was shown in the publication of his treatise, Notes of Directions for the Defence of the Kingdom, written three years before the Spanish invasion of 1588.]
"Delights for Ladies."—I lately picked up a small volume entitled—
"Delights for Ladies; to adorn their Persons, Tables, Closets, and Distillatories, with Beauties, Bouquets, Perfumes, and Waters. Reade, practise, and censure." London, Robert Young. 1640.
Who is the author of this interesting little work? Some one has written on the fly-leaf, "See Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 69., where there is a reference to this curious little book;" but as I cannot readily lay my hand on Douce, I will feel obliged for the information sought for from any of your valued correspondents.
George Lloyd.
Dublin.
[The author was Sir Hugh Plat, who, says Harte, "not to mention his most excellent talents, was the most ingenious husbandman of the age he lived in. In a word, no man ever discovered, or at least brought into use, so many new sorts of manure." The Delights for Ladies first appeared in 1602, and passed through several editions. Douce merely quotes this work. Plat was the author of several other works: see Watt and Lowndes.]
Burton's Death.—Did Burton, author of Anatomy of Melancholy, commit suicide?
C. S. W.
[The supposition that Robert Burton committed suicide originated from a statement found in Wood's Athenæ, vol. ii. p. 653. (Bliss). Wood says, "He, the said R. Burton, paid his last debt to nature in his chamber in Christ Church, at or very near that time which he had some years before foretold from the calculation of his own nativity; which, being exact, several of the students did not forbear to whisper among themselves that, rather than there should be a mistake in the calculation, he sent up his soul to heaven through a slip about his neck.">[
Joannes Audoënus.—I shall be obliged by any notices of the personal or literary history of John Owen, the famous Latin epigrammatist, in addition to those furnished by the Athenæ Oxonienses. Wood remarks, that "whereas he had made many epigrams on several people, so few were made on or written to him. Among the few, one by Stradling, and another by Dunbar, a Scot," I have met with one allusion to him among the epigrams of T. Bancroft, 4to., Lond. 1639, signat. A 3.:
"To the Reader.
Reader, till Martial thou hast well survey'd,
Or Owen's wit with Jonson's learning weighed,
Forbeare with thanklesse censure to accuse
My writ of errour, or condemne my Muse."
As translators of Audoënus, Wood mentions, in 1619, Joh. Vicars, usher of Christ's Hospital school, as having rendered some select epigrams, and Thomas Beck six hundred of Owen's, with other epigrams from Martial and More, under the title of Parnassi Puerperium, 8vo., Lond. 1659. In addition to these I find, in a catalogue of Lilly, King Street, Covent Garden, No. 4., 1844:
"Hayman, Robert. Certaine Epigrams out of the First Foure Bookes of the excellent Epigrammatist Master John Owen, translated into English at Harbor Grace in Bristol's Hope, anciently called Newfoundland, 4to., unbound; a rare poetical tract, 1628, 10s. 6d."
Balliolensis.
[The personal and literary history of John Owen (Audoënus) is given in the Biographia Britannica, vol. v., and in Chalmers' and Rose's Biographical Dictionaries.]
Hampden's Death.—Was the great patriot Hampden actually slain by the enemy on Chalgrove Field? or was his death, as some have asserted,
caused by the bursting of his own pistol, owing to its having been incautiously overcharged?
T. J.
Worcester.
[See the Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1815, p. 395., for "A true and faithfull Narrative of the Death of Master Hambden, who was mortally wounded at Challgrove Fight, A.D. 1643, and on the 18th of June." From this narrative we learn, that whilst Hampden was fighting against Prince Rupert at Chalgrove Field, he was struck with two carbine-balls in the shoulder, which broke the bone, and terminated fatally.]