A. N.
The Editor of Jewel's Works in Folio (Vol. iv., p. 225.).
—Colet speaks of the editions of Jewel published in 1609 and 1611 as "edited by Fuller." On meeting with the statement elsewhere, I supposed it to be a mistake, as Fuller was born in 1608; but when I found it apparently countenanced by the notice of Jewel in Fuller's Abel Redivivus (Camb. 1651, p. 313.), I was much puzzled, until, on turning to the Introduction, § 11., I discovered that the writer of that notice, and editor of the folios, was not Fuller, but Featley.
J. C. R.
Poetaster (Vol. iv., p. 59.).
—In reply to A BORDERER, I do not think poetaster to be a genuine Latin word, though where first used I do not know. The French equivalent is poëtereau; the Italian poëterio; both formed according to the analogies of the respective languages. Poetaster seems to me to be formed upon the model of oleaster, pinaster, &c., as though to indicate that the person to whom the name is applied is as unlike a true poet as the wild olive to the true olive, or the wild pine to the true pine. What then is the derivation of aster as a termination? Some punster will say, respecting oleaster, that it is olea sterilis. Is it not ἄγριος? or is it rather a form cognate to the Greek termination -αζω, which generally means the performance of some energy, or the exhibiting of some state, implied in the substantive; as though the wild olive affected the characteristics and condition of the genuine olive? I am fully aware of many difficulties in the admission of these derivations. I would suggest another. Does aster signify that which affects or approaches the characteristics of the substantive to which it is added, as the terminations -estis or -estris, whereby adjectives are formed; as agrestis, sylvestris, campestris, at the same time that the forms are allied, -aster, -estris, -estis?
THEOPHYLACT.
Post Pascha (Vol. iv., p. 151.).
—A parallel to the "hypertautology" noticed by M. may be found in the determination of the University of Orleans on the question of Henry VIII.'s divorce, which is dated "die quinto mensis Aprilis, ante pascha," from which it has been argued, that that document must have been drawn up in 1530, not (as stated in the printed copies) in 1529, when Easter fell on March 28.
J. C. R.