C.B.
Vox et præterea Nihil (No. 16. p. 247., and No. 24. p. 387.).—This saying is to be found in Plutarch's Laconic Apophthegms ([Greek: Apophthegmata Lakonika]), Plutarchi Opera Moralia, ed. Dan. Wyttenbach, vol. i. p. 649.
Philemon Holland has "turned it into English" thus:—
"Another [Laconian] having plucked all the feathers off from a nightingale, and seeing what a little body it had: 'Surely,' quoth he, 'thou art all voice, and nothing else.'"—Plutarch's Morals, fol. 1603. p. 470.
W.B.R.
Law of Horses.—The following is from Oliphant's Law of Horses, &c., p. 75. Will any of your readers kindly tell me whether the view is correct?
"It is said in Southerene v. Howe (2 Rol. Rep. 5.), Si home vend chivall que est lame, null action gist peur ceo, mes caveat emptor: lou jeo vend chivall que ad null oculus la null action gist; autrement lou il ad un conterfeit faux et bright eye." "If a man sell a horse which is lame, no action lyes for that, but caveat emptor; and when I sell a horse that has no eye, there no action lies; otherwise where he has a counterfeit, false, and bright eye."
Thus it appears that a distinction is here made between a horse having no eye at all, and having a counterfeit, false or bright one. And probably by bright eye is meant glass eye, or gutta serena; and the words "counterfeit" and "false" may be an attempt of the reporter to explain an expression which he did not understand. Because putting a false eye into a horse is far in advance of the sharpest practices of the present day, or of any former period.
Note.—Gutta Serena, commonly called glass-eye, is a species of blindness; the pupil is unusually dilated; it is immovable, bright, and glassy.
G.H. HEWIT OLIPHANT.