Minor Queries with Answers.
History of M. Oufle.—Johnson, in his Life of Pope, says of the Memoirs of Scriblerus:
"The design cannot boast of much originality: for, besides its general resemblance to Don Quixote, there will be found in it particular imitations of the History of M. Oufle."
What is the History of M. Oufle?
L. M.
[The History of the Religious Extravagancies of Monsieur Oufle is a remarkable book, written by the Abbé Bordelon, and first published, we believe, at Amsterdam, in 2 vols., 1710. The Paris edition of 1754, in 2 vols., entitled L'Histoire des Imaginations Extavagantes de Monsieur Oufle, is the best, as it contains some curious illustrations. From the title-page we learn that the work was "Occasioned by the author having read books treating of magic, the black art, demoniacs, conjurors, witches, hobgoblins, incubuses, succubuses, and the diabolical Sabbath; of elves, fairies, wanton spirits, geniuses, spectres, and ghosts; of dreams, the philosopher's stone, judicial astrology, horoscopes, talismans, lucky and unlucky days, eclipses, comets, and all sorts of apparitions, divinations, charms, enchantments, and other superstitious practices; with notes containing a multitude of quotations out of those books which have either caused such extravagant imaginations, or may serve to cure them." If any of our readers should feel inclined to collect what we may term "A Diabolical Library," he has only to consult vol. i. ch. iii. for a catalogue of the principal books in Mons. Oufle's study, which is the most curious list of the black art we have ever seen. An English translation of these Religious Extravagancies was published in 1711.]
Lysons' MSS.—Is the present repository of the MS. notes, used by Messrs. Lysons in editing their great work, the Magna Britannia, known?
T. P. L.
[The topographical collections made by the Rev. Daniel Lysons for the Magna Britannia and the Environs of London, making sixty-four volumes, are in the British Museum, Add. MSS. 9408-9471. They were presented by that gentleman.]
"Luke's Iron Crown" (Goldsmith's Traveller, last line but two). To whom does this refer, and what are the particulars?
P. J. (A Subscriber).
[This Query is best answered by the following note from Mr. P. Cunningham's new edition of Goldsmith:
"When Tom Davies, at the request of Granger, asked Goldsmith about this line, Goldsmith referred him for an explanation of 'Luke's iron crown' to a book called Géographie Curieuse; and added, that by 'Damiens' bed of steel' he meant the rack. See Granger's Letters, 8vo., 1805, p. 52.
"George and Luke Dosa were two brothers who headed an unsuccessful revolt against the Hungarian nobles at the opening of the sixteenth century: and George (not Luke) underwent the torture of the
red-hot iron crown, as a punishment for allowing himself to be proclaimed King of Hungary (1513) by the rebellious peasants (see Biographie Universelle, xi. 604.). The two brothers belonged to one of the native races of Transylvania called Szecklers, or Zecklers (Forster's Goldsmith, i. 395., edit. 1854).">[
"Horam coram Dago."—In the first volume of Lavengro, p. 89.:
"From the river a chorus plaintive, wild, the words of which seem in memory's ear to sound like 'Horam coram Dago.'"
I have somewhere read a song, the chorus or refrain of which contained these three words. Can any of your readers explain?
Σ.
[Our correspondent is thinking of the song "Amo, amas," by O'Keefe, which will be found in The Universal Songster, vol. i. p. 52., and other collections. We subjoin the chorus:
"Rorum coram,
Sunt divorum,
Harum scarum
Divo!
Tag rag, merry derry, perriwig and hat-band,
Hic hoc horum genitivo!">[