282
NOTES AND QUERIES. &* s. XL APRIL n, 1903.
Torquatus are of the flimsiest nature prac-
tically hypothetical. The three special words
selected above by Marston are not to be found
in Jonson prior to 'The Scourge,' for the best
of reasons, that we have no work of his that
is certainly earlier than 1598.
I begin with the name Torquatus. -Re- ferring to Ainsworth, I find " To make ropes, Funes torquere," with a reference to Pro- pertius, 4, 3, 31. The greatest insult to Gabriel was to be told he was the son of a ropemaker. His father was a ropemaker at Saffron Walden. He had a Latin inscrip- tion over his fireplace, referring apparently to his trade, from which there is a missing word (Grosart, iii. p. xi), which may have been "Torquatus." Grosart admits, The solitary cause of offence was Greene's jestful allusion to Harvey's father being a Rope- maker " (Hi. p. vii). This circumstance is well known and abundantly proved in the various tracts. The wits rubbed it in. The father was proud of his trade. Gabriel tells Nashe that next time he meets him, before he leaves powdering him, he will make him "swear thy [his] father was a Ropemaker." Of course the sting was barbed by a refer- ence to the trade of hangman, the wearing of a hempen collar. I submit this explains the name. Part of Nashe's title of 'Have with you,' &c. (1596), is " a full answer to the eldest son of the halter-maker."
Judicial Torquatus and judicial perusers. The adjective here has, I think, the sense of "giving judgment," "critical," of which the earliest example in 'N.E.D.' is from Nashe's 'Preface to Greene's Menaphon,' 1589. But I find it earlier in Harvey (i. 70), about 1575 ; while on a previous page (i. 68) Harvey has the substantive "indifferente peruser," and " peruse him over and over." Harvey's reply to Lyly is all through in the tone of an exalted moderator or critic over all men's writings. Both these words are greatly affected, and occur passim in Harvey. Nashe' preface has no reference to Harvey. It was before the troubles began. I mention this because Arber, in his ' Chronological List prefixed to Greene's 'Menaphon,' states (at is generally stated) that Richard Harvey's ' Lamb of God ' (1590) was " the beginning o: the strife between the Harvey s and Lyly Greene and Nashe." But Lyly's ' Pap with an Hatchet ' started the paper war two o three years earlier, according to my view.
The late perfumed fist. Harvey has thi affected term at least twice : " All he sentences spiced with wittines, perfumec with delight " (i. 278), and " the drunkennes sot when liis braynes are sweetly perfumed
i. 283), both bearing date 1593. There seems
o be a special reference here to some recent
writing of the Harveys, no doubt to their joint
roduction, 'The Trimming of Thomas Nashe'
1597). This was nominally the work of the
)arber-surgeon Richard Harvey, to whom
he term is exactly suitable, as a trimmer.
' Barmy froth " may allude to the lathering
gave Nashe.
/ know he will vouchsafe it some of his new- minted epithets This also directly refers to he 'Trimming.' In the preamble "To the entle reader " of that scurrilous but amusing
- ract occurs
- "In trimming of which de-
icription, though I have found out and fetched from the mint some few new words
- o colour him, grant me pardon " (iii. 6).
ilarvey has the metaphor elsewhere earlier 1589) : "A mint of quaint and uncouth similes " (ii. 212), a very correct summary of Lyly's euphuism. As might be expected 'rom a writer of Gabriel's lofty pretensions, ' vouchsafe " is a very favourite term in his writings. I have simply noted it with passim. The word "epithet," in the sense of "a sig- nificant appellation " (' N.E.D.'), first appears in Harvey's ' Letter Book ' (1579). Harvey has
- his hardly established word again in i. 115,
ii. 156 (1589), and ii. 19. Some of these latter references are needed in 'N.E.D.'
H. C. HART. (To be continued.)
A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BOOK SALE:
RICHARD SMITH'S LIBRARY.
(See ante, p. 241.)
I COME now to a group of little biographies which would put one almost into a frenzy of delight to have transferred to one's shelves : roughly speaking, they number over fifty. A few of them are here noted, as well as their prices. 'Life of Father Paul the Venetian,' 1651, went for 2s. Qd. ; "Life and Death of Dr. Thomas Fuller, with a Catalogue of his Writings," 1662, 2s. 2d.; " Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney, by Sir Fulke Grevil," 1652, 3s. ; "Life and Death of Henry Prince of Wales, by Sir Oh. Cornwallis," 1644, 2s. 4d. ; " Life and Death of Mr. Joseph Allein, Minister once at Taunton," 1672, Is. Qd. ; " Life of Mr. George Herbert, by Iz. Walton (with Mr. Smith's Observation MS.)," 1670, Is. 6c. ; 'Life of Matthew Parker, the seven- tieth Arch-Bishop of Canterbury,' 1574, 5s. But to me the surprise of the list is it is the highest priced of the group the 'Holy Life of Monsieur de Renty, a Nobleman of France,' 1658, which realized 5s. 8d. In this section one of the name of Pullein was the principal
