"Note.—The supputation of the year of our Lord in the Church of England beginneth the five-and-twentieth day of March."
This note does not now appear in our Prayer Books, being omitted, I suppose, in consequence of the adoption of the new style in England in 1752. The daily course of lessons used to begin, as it does now, with the Book of Genesis and of St. Matthew, in January; the collects, epistles, and gospels with those for Advent.
M.
Oxford.
Paying through the Nose (No. 21. p. 335.).—I have always understood this to be merely a degenerated pronunciation of the last word. Paying through the noose gives the idea so exactly, that, as far as the etymology goes, it is explanatory enough. But whether that reading has an historical origin may be another question. It scarcely seems to need one.
C.W.H.
Quem Deus vult perdere, &c. (No. 22. p. 351.).—The correct reading is, "Quem Jupiter vult perdere, dementat prius." See Duport's Gnomologia Homerica, p. 282. (Cantab. 1660.) Athenagoras quotes Greek lines, and renders them in Latin (p. 121. Oxon. 1682):
"At dæmon homini quum struit aliquid malum,
Pervertit illi primitus mentem suam."
The word "dementat" is not to be met with, I believe, in the works of any real classical author. Butler has employed the idea in part 3. canto 2. line 565. of Hudibras: