As I live at a distance from any large library, and have consulted in vain such biographical works as my own scanty shelves afford, I shall be greatly obliged to any of your correspondents who have access to our public libraries, to inform me who Lucas Lossius was, and where any account of him may be met with? Also, who Wendelinus Helbachius, Stigelius, and Bernardus Bomgardius were, whose "Disticha" are interspersed throughout the volume? In the "Epistola Nuncupatoria" mention is made of "Joannis Stigelij, Poetæ clarissimi, nostra ætate," and of "M. Bernardi Bomgardij, Ludimoderatoris Vlzeniani;" but I cannot find any account of these worthies.
I ought to add that each Sunday or Saint's Day is preceded by a curious woodcut representing the subject of which the Gospel treats.
R. BN.
[Lucas Lossius, of Lunenburg, was a Lutheran divine and schoolmaster, well skilled in music, who published at Nuremberg, in 1553, Erotemata Musicæ practicæ, and together with Melancthon, the Lutheran ritual, Psalmodia, seu Cantica sacra veteris ecclesiæ selecta. At the period of the Reformation, the Lutherans preserved more of the ancient hymns and music of the church in their services than the Calvinists. Some account of Lossius is given in Hawkins's History of Music, vol. iii. p. 102. There is an edition of Annotationes Scholasticæ, with the curious woodcuts printed in the year 1560, at Leipsic.]
The "Athenian Oracle."
—Can you inform me who were the authors of the "Athenian Oracle," or, in other words, the members of the "Learned Society" who conducted this work? You may feel some interest in it as a kind of prototype and progenitor of your own "N. & Q." Your work, as I apprehend, does not profess to solve and answer so many nice puzzling points in divinity, philosophy, love, &c., as that of the Oracle, which furnishes us with a curious picture of the wants, opinions, and manners of the age in which it appeared; but yours, though neither dipping so deeply nor ranging so widely, ought to be highly prized as the exponent of the demands of our times more improved, enlightened, and not less inquisitive, and as affording to some of your correspondents far from the great metropolis of letters, a ready channel for information, much to their instruction and pleasure. Pardoning this digression, the copy of the Athenian Oracle I possess is in 3 vols. 8vo., purporting to be an entire collection of all the valuable questions and answers in the old Athenian Mercuries, &c., by a member of the Athenian Society; London, printed for Andrew Bell at the Cross Keys and Bible in Cornhill, near Stocks Market, the second volume 1703, the first and third 1704. The copy bears an autograph on the fly-leaf; "Ex Libris Thomas Browne, Ex Dono plurim; Mri Guil Carstairs Acad. Edinburg. primarij professoris Cui omnia (two words obscure) Ed. Nov. 23, 1706." The historical celebrity of Carstairs is a small feather in the cap of the copy, but unimportant to some farther knowledge from you of the book and its authors, the former having often supplied much rational fireside entertainment.
N.
Glasgow.
[The Athenian Gazette, afterwards called The Athenian Mercury, swelled at last to twenty volumes folio; these becoming scarce, a collection of the most valuable questions and answers was reprinted under the title of The Athenian Oracle, in 4 vols. 8vo. The fourth volume contains a Supplement, to which is prefixed "The History of the Athenian Society," and an "Essay upon Learning." It was projected by the celebrated John Dunton, who says, "My first project was the Athenian Gazette. As the Athenian Society had their first meeting in my brain, so it has been kept ever since religiously secret: but I will now oblige the reader with a true discovery of the question-project, and of the several persons that engaged in it." These were his brother-in-law, the Rev. Samuel Wesley and Mr. Richard Sault, who were occasionally assisted by Dr. Norris. The work was also countenanced by several of the most eminent writers of the age; and was honoured in particular with a commendatory poem by Swift. Some curious notices respecting Dunton and his numerous literary projects will be found in the Life and Errors of John Dunton, 2 vols. 8vo., 1818; and in Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, vol. v. pp. 59-83.]