494
NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. L JUNE is, m
agree to differ about Boethius, for not many
can now feel much interest in his dreary
e'atitudes and philosophic commonplaces, e was the mediaeval Tupper." So writes R.R. at the last reference. Though the reputa- tion of Boethius is too well assured to suffer from this contemptuous kick, I may be per- mitted, for the sake of the younger readers of 'N. & Q., ; to put before them Gibbon's estimate of Boethius and ask them to weigh it against that of K. E. :
"While Boethius, oppressed with fetters, expected each moment the sentence of the stroke of death, he composed in the tower of Pa via the ' Consolation of Philosophy'; a golden volume, not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the situation of the author." Gibbon's ' Decline and Fall,' chap, xxxix.
Is not R. R. somewhat inconsistent in denouncing what he is pleased to term the "dreary platitudes" of Boethius, and yet quoting with high commendation a thought which almost certainly originated with him ? " In omni adversitate fortunse infelicissimum genus est infortunii, fuisse felicem," are the words in which Boethius expresses the thought (' De Consol. Phil.,' ii. 4). Dante, an earnest student of Boethius, evidently had them in mind when he put into the mouth of Francesca the words quoted by MR. HOOPER. Directly to Boethius, and not to Boethius vid Dante, Chaucer went, and almost literally translated him when in ' Troilus and Creseide ' he wrote :
For of Fortunis sharp adversite, The worste kind of infortune is this, A man to have been in prosperite, And it remembir when it passid is.
R. M. SPENCE, M.A. Manse of Arbuthnott, N.B.
As in the first communication on this sub- ject it was said, " This sentiment has become a commonplace among poets from Dante onwards," it seemed hardly necessary to pile up instances, but, as " unbuckled is the male," it is not fitting to leave out Shakespere :
that I were as great As is my Griefe, or lesser then my Name, Or that I could forget what 1 haue beene, Or not remember what I must be now.
' Richard II.,' III. iii.
Nor this, from Holinshed's * Chronicle,' 1577, ' Hist. Ireland,' p. 65 :
" Richard sore afflicted and troubled in mind with sorrow, for the decease of his wife Queene Anne that departed this life at Whitsuntide, last past, not able without teares to beholde his Palaces and Chambers of estate, that represented vnto him the solace past, and doubled his sorrow, sought some occasion of business; and now about Michaelmas passed ouer into Ireland."
Chaucer's lines in ' Troylus and Cryseyde '
have been quoted too often to be quoted
again here ; but the same thought may be
found in the following less popular books :
Lydgate's 'Fall of Princes' (Tottel, circa
1530), book i. f. 2; Sackville, 'Complaint of
Henry, Duke of Buckingham ' (J. R. Smith,
1859), p. 160; Tottel's 'Miscellany,' Arber's
Reprint, p. 149; Surrey's Poems (Tottel's
' Misc.'), Arber, p. 17 ; Spenser's 'Tears of the
Muses' 'Terpsichore'; Drummond of Haw-
thornden's 'Poems' (J. R. Smith, 1856), p. 37 ;
Gascoigne's 'Works' vol. i. p. 45, Hazlitt's
"Roxb. Library." R, R,
Boston, Lincolnshire.
I disclaim any pretence of knowing how our forefathers understood anything. A refer- ence to the Vulgate, where the words of Wisdom xi. 13 are "Duplex enim illos acce- perat tsedium et gemitus cum memoria prce- teritorum," will show that the Douay trans- lators have improved upon St. Jerome.
EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M.A.
Hastings.
ORIGIN OF EXPRESSION (9 th S. i. 67, 169). The French lines in the reply of MR. J. F. FRY have brought to my recollection a similar remark of Pascal in the 'Pensees,' "Le nez de Cleopatre : s'il eut ete plus court, toute la face de la terre aurait change " (vol. i. p. 84, Paris, 1887). Pascal was the earlier (1623), Favart much later (1710).
ED. MARSHALL, F.S.A.
" SHOT " OF LAND (9 th S. i. 308, 454). I am afraid that some knowledge of Anglo-Saxon is still a scarce accomplishment ; it is curious how totally unknown are the laws that con- cern its pronunciation. In answer to the question, What is a shot of land 1 we find some curious " shots " by way of reply.
One says it is the A.-S. sceat, which is obviously impossible, because ecu is not the same vowel as o. Moreover, there is no such word as sceat. The word meant is sceat, with long e ; the A.-S. e and e differ as much as the Gk. e and 17. Next, the modern spell- ing of A.-S. sceat is sheet, as is explained in most English dictionaries.
Another makes it all one with " scootes," and suggests A.-S. sceote. Here, again, there is no such word. The A.-S. e is long in this word also. Moreover the A.-S. sceote is not a substantive at all ; it is the first person present indicative of a verb, and means " I shoot." So this solution is equally hopeless.
A third quotes from some one else, who gives the form as sceot. This will do, though the dictionary form is scot. The A.-S. sc, originally an sk, came to be sounded as sh ;
