12 S. III. DEC., 1917.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
503
" CORRTJPTIO OPTIMI PESSIMA." On
j>. 122 of his agreeable ' Bookman's Budget,' Mr. Austin Dobson has noted that this Latin saying is placed among the ' Adespota ' in King's ' Classical and Foreign Quotations,' .and said there to be found in Feltham's ' Resolves,' art. ' Of Women ' [sic], 1628 (the second and third editions were pub- lished in this year). What we find in Feltham, however, is worded otherwise :
" I know, when they prove bad, they are a sort -of the 'vilest creatures : yet still the same reason gives it: tor, Optima corrupta pessima: 'The best things corrupted become the worst.' " ' Resolves,' xxx., ' Of Woman,' p. 70 in Pickering's reprint of the fourth (1631) edition.
The more familiar form is to be met with still earlier, in Purchas's ' Pilgrimage,' apropos of the perversions of the Christian religion :
" So true is that old saying, Gorruptio optimi jaessima." 'Purchas his Pilgrimage,' third edition, 1617, ' To the Reader,' sign. U 5 verso.
If the saying was already old in Purchas's >day, one may reasonably look further back for its first occurrence. That the thought, AS suggested in King's book, may be traced "to Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle (' Eth. Nic.,' viii. 10, 1-2), seems probable.
Giuseppe Fumagalli, in his ' Chi 1'ha detto?' fourth ed., Milan, 1904, says that Corruptio optimi pessima comes from St. Gregory's ' Moralia ' on Job. He vouch- safes no further reference. Those who are acquainted with the bulk of Gregory's ' Moralia ' will appreciate the situation.
The thought is developed by Sir John Denharn in his ' Progress of Learning ' :
'Tis the most certain sign, the world's accurst, That the best things corrupted, are the worst ; 'Twas the corrupted Light of knowledg, hurl'd Sin, Death, and Ignorance o're all the world ; That Sun like this, (from which our sight we have) Xjraz'd on too long, resumes the light he gave.
' Poems,' 1671, p. 183.
EDWARD BENSLY.
WILLIAM AMHERST. At 11 S. v. 488 I quoted a letter of June 9, 1767, referring .apparently to Sandgate Castle. MR. W. R. WILLIAMS forwards me a notice from Gent. M.ag., 1764, of the appointment of Lieut. - Col. Amherst as Deputy Governor of Sand- gate Castle. Col. Amherst was elected M.P. for Hythe, Kent, Nov. 17, 1766, but was not a candidate at the election in March, 1768. He was succeeded as M.P. by William Evelyn, Esq., who was made Captain of the Castle, June 25, 1767, and whose deputy was Lieut. John Rolfe, appointed Dec. 25, 1767.
Probably Col. Amherst severed his con-
nexion with Hythe and Sandgate for active
service, and the visit of H.R.H. the Duke
of Gloucester, referred to in the letter as
to take place about June 24, fell through.
Sandgate. R ' J ' FYNMORE.
ONION v. MAGNET. The notorious Count de Benyowsky, at the end of chap. iii. of his ' Memoirs and Travels,' mentions the " stratagem " which he tried at sea to falsify the compass by the use of iron and garlic. I find now that in the seventeenth century the belief actually prevailed in England that an onion would destroy the power of a magnet. Thus Sir John Pettus of Suffolk, Kt., after describing his visit as a youth to the lead mines of Derbyshire in company with Sir Thomas Bendish, says that having magnetized the blade of his knife, and hearing that contact with an onion would utterly destroy that power, he preferred to believe rather than risk losing his magnet. The passage occurs in a rambling note on " Mineralls " in the second part of his ' Fleta Minor ' (London, 1683). When this book appeared, he was an old man. L. L. K.
CANDLES : A HEAVY PENALTY. In un- enlightened times, when the candle duty (imposed in 1709, and not repealed until as late as 1831) was in force, infringements of the regulations were heavily visited, as will appear from the following extract from ' The Annual Register ' for May, 1769 (p. 100) :
" A Baronet was convicted by the Justices of Barnet in the penalty of 3,100Z. for making his own candles but the amount was reduced to 110Z. before the Justices left the Court."
R. B.
JAMES TASSIE : GEORGE ROMNEY. On the subject of artists' prices it is worth noting that in December, 1779, Tassie re- ceived from Lord George Germain Ql. 19s. 6d. for " modeling his Lordship's Portrait in a Medalion and making in white Paste in. imitation of Statury marble," also making a fram'e and three duplicates. In January, 1780, Romney had from Lord George Ger- main 311. 16s. for a half-length portrait of him, a picture which is, happily, still at Drayton House.
I take the above from Mr. S. G. Stopford Sackville's recently published extracts from the accounts of Mr. Henry Gladwell, the steward of Drayton. The frame for the portrait cost six guineas.
W. H. QTJARRELL.
