212
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. i. MARCH 12, 1904.
Christian and non-Christian arithmetology.
Thory points out that a Knight of the Temple
belongs generally to all rites of the Tem-
plar series. It is the eighth grade of the
Philaletes; but if READER cares to communicate
with me direct I will refer him to a Masonic
friend in Dublin from whom he may glean
fuller particulars.
CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D., F.R.S.A.I. Baltimore House, Bradford.
The eight points of the " Maltese " cross are in token of the eight beatitudes. The badge proper, however, of the Knights Tem- plar was a patriarchal cross, probably adopted on account of their immediate responsibility to the Patriarch of Jerusalem rather than to the Pope. (See both Favine's 'Theatre of Honour,' 1623, book ix. ch. v. p. 388, and Edmondson's 'Complete Body of Heraldry,' 1780, vol. i., ' The Several Orders of Knight- hood.') The patriarchal cross was enamelled red, and edged with gold (Plate I. fig. 10, ibid.). But the Knights Templar also wore, em- broidered on their upper habit, a " Maltese" cross, like the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem ; it was, however, red, while that of the Hospitallers of St. John was white, but in both cases it was the cross of Malta, of eight points. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.
MELANCHOLY (io th S. i. 148). If there were any such saying as "Nullum magnum in- genium sine melancholia, "it would have been quoted by Robert Burton in his 'Anatomy.' The phrase, however, is evidently founded on another twice given in that famous book. Speaking of " those superintendents of wit and learning, men above men, those refined men, minions of the Muses," Burton says, "You shall find that of Aristotle true, 'nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura demen tine '" (sixteenth ed., 1836, p. 67). We have the say- ing repeated on p. 279 in the following words which may have led Mr. W. S. Lilly to change it as he has done :
> \' melancho] y men are witty (which Aris-
otle hatn long since maintained in his problems;
that all learned men, famous philosophers and
SL 81 ^?' i uni ? m ei : e omnes melancholic!,' have still been melancholy is a problem much controverted. Jason Pratensis will P have i? under
SS!j T 1 "? el * nchol y ; which opinion Me- lanchthon inclines to in his book ' De Anima ' and Marcihus Ficinus('De San. Tuen.,' litU cap 5) but not simple; for that makes meA stupid, heavy! lull, being cold and dry, fearful .fools, and solitary but mixt with the other humours, flegm on v adu9t ' but so nfixt, asthat httle or no adustion, that they too hot nor too cold. Aponensis (cited
e x H - , , 9 m ancoy
, excluding all natural melancholy, as too
cold. Laurentius condemns his tenent, because
adustion of humours makes men mad, as lime
burns when water is cast on it. It must be mixt
with blood, and somewhat adust ; and so that old
aphorism of Aristotle may be verified : 'nullum
magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementi*,' no
excellent wit without a mixture of madness."
Hence we might conclude that the difference
between dementia and melancholia is little
more than that '"twixt Tweedledum and
Tweedledee." JOHN T. CURRY.
Dryden qualifies it thus : Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide. ' Absalom and Achitophel,' i. 163-4.
W. F. H. King, in his ' Classical Quotations,' says that Seneca quotes Aristotle (Problem 30), as also does Cicero ('Tusc./ i. 33, 80), to the effect that " Omnes ingeniosos melan- cholicos," All clever men (or great wits) are more or less tinctured with melancholy.
J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.
The quotation resembles a passage in Seneca's ' De Tranquillitate Animi ' (xvii. 10) : " Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementise fuit." Burton somewhere whim- sically paraphrases this : " They have a worm as well as others." J. DORMER.
MANGOSTEEN MARKINGS (9 th S. xii. 330, 417). It will be a propos of this subject to state that the Japanese date plum (Diospyros kaki, L.) is marked outside with rather inconspicuous longitudinal depressions, appa- rently corresponding to the divisions of its inside in the nascent stage, but not always agreeing in number with its kernels. There- fore people in this part amuse themselves when it is in season by guessing how many kernels a particular kaki fruit contains, and often it is made a substitute for dice.
KUMAGUSU MlNAKATA. Mount Nachi, Kii, Japan.
COMBER FAMILY (10 th S. i. 47, 89, 152). The following items may be of use to MR. COMBER.
Henry Gordon Comber, of Pembroke Col- lege, Cambridge, graduated in 1893 in Second- class Honours in the Mediaeval and Modern Languages Tripos, and is now a Fellow and Lecturer of the College.
When I was a boy a Mr. W. M. Comber resided at Brook Lodge, Chester, near the L. & N.W.R. station. He held some railway appointment, and was (like myself) one of the original members of the Chester Society of Natural Science, founded by Charles Kingsley when Canon of Chester in 1871, and now a very flourishing body of 1,000> members. Mr. Comber's sons went to the
