Præripere, et tacitâ pectus dulcedine tangent."
Echo.
Queries.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL QUERIES.
(Continued from Vol. iii., p. 87.)
(39.) Does any one now feel inclined to vindicate for Inchofer, Scioppius, Bariac, or Contarini, the authorship of the Monarchia Solipsorum? Notwithstanding the testimony of the Venice edition of 1652, as well as the very abundant evidence of successive witnesses, in favour of the first-named writer, (whose claim has been recognised so lately as the year 1790, by the Indice Ultimo of Madrid), can there be the smallest doubt that the veritable inventor of this satire upon the Jesuits was their former associate, Jules-Clement Scotti? For the interpretation of his pseudonyme, "Lucius Cornelius Europæus," see Niceron, Mém. xxxix. 70-1.
(40.) Mr. Cureton (Ant. Syr. vers. of Ep. of S. Ignat. Preface, p. ii., Lond. 1845) has asserted that—
"The first Epistles published, bearing the name of St. Ignatius—one to the Holy Virgin, and two to the Apostle St. John, in Latin,—were printed in the year 1495. Three years later there appeared an edition of eleven Epistles, also in Latin, attributed to the same holy Martyr. But nearly seventy years more elapsed before any edition of these Epistles in Greek was printed. In 1557, Val. Paceus published twelve," &c.
Two connected Queries may be founded upon this statement:—(1.) Is not Mr. Cureton undoubtedly in error with respect to the year 1495? for, if we may believe Orlandi, Maittaire, Fabricius (B. G.), and Ceillier, the three Latin Epistles above named had been set forth previously at Cologne, in 1478. (2.) By what mysterious species of arithmetic can it be demonstrated that "nearly seventy years" elapsed between 1498 and 1557? The process must be a somewhat similar one to that by which "A.D. 360" is made equivalent to "five-and-twenty years after the Council of Nice." (Pref., p. xxxiv.) In the former instance "seventy" is hardly a literal translation of Bishop Pearson's "sexaginta:" but whether these miscalculations have been already adverted to, and subsequently amended, or not, I cannot tell.