. xii. DEC. 26, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
509
The Pope excommunicated the Parliament o
Paris, which had espoused Louis's side o
the quarrel, but I cannot find that he excom
municated Louis himself, unless, indeed, hi
treatment of Lavardin was excommunication
by deputy. C. S. WAKD.
"ENGLISH TAKE THEIR PLEASURES SADLY (7 th S. viii. 466 ^ 9 th S. xii. 28, 372). While waiting and hoping for a clue to the origina of the French form of this idea, may I star another hare ? Hazlitt, in ' English Proverbs, p. 60, quotes the following, ^ which I havi verified in ' Reliquiae Hearnianse ; or, thi Genuine Remains of Thomas Hearne' (ed Bliss, Oxford, 1857, vol. i. p. 136) :
"May 17- The following words said of England Anglica gens optima flens, pessima ridens."
The date given is 1707-8; but where die Hearne meet with the phrase ?
Hazlitt adds : ** * Les Anglais,' according to the French critic, ' s'amusent tristement.' ' I wonder who is the French critic referred to by Hazlitt. EDWARD LATHAM.
Whilst reading Sir Arthur Brooke Faulk- ner's ' Visit to Germany,' 1829, I came across the following :
"I never before so well understood what De
Stael could mean by calling travelling a triste
plaisir. But certainly lion-hunting, after one's
friends have departed, is a very sombre enjoyment."
THORNE GEORGE.
PONTIUS PILATE : THEODORUS (9 th S. xii 405). The singing of ' Crossing the Bar ' at Lord Tennyson's funeral set the fashion of singing the words at burials not confined to Westminster Abbey ; and not long after the Laureate's death a worthy citizen of Rother- ham expressed a wish that the " hymn " should be chanted at his own obsequies. The wish was carried out, and an account of the proceedings, with Tennyson's stanzas, duly appeared in the local paper; but the effect was marred by the printing of the lines as follows :
I hope to meet my Pilate face to face, When I shall cross the bar.
If the Yorkshire spelling of Pilot is good, the possessive pronoun, " Pilatus noster," im- plying the hoped-for reunion with a dear friend not lost, but gone before, is nothing short of delicious. PHILIP NORTH.
NEAPOLITAN MARVELS : VIRGILIUS (9 th S. xii. 408, 470). I think there can be no doubt that here is^meant "Virgilius, the sage," though I cannot find that he was ever Bishop of Naples. He was a legendary figure men- tioned during the whole of the Middle Ages, especially in places like Naples, where Virgil,
the Roman poet, had played a great part,
and became in the traditions of the people a
popular magician. The first positive accounts
of the legends attached to the name of Vir-
gilius the sage were published in the ' Poli-
craticus ' by an Englishman, John of Salis-
bury, in the year 1159 ; and another English-
man, Gervase of Tilbury, published what he
had heard from the mouths of the Neapolitans
in his * Otia Imperialia' in 1211. These were
followed, by the English monk Alexander
Neckam in his ' De Naturis Rerum,' and his
sayings passed into the 'Cronica di Parte-
nopea' in 1382. Then came the pseudo-
Villani with his 'Le Croniche dell' inclita
Citta di Napoli ' in 1526, in which, perhaps,
may be found the legend of the mechanical
fly or wasp. I have no time just now to
search for the work in the libraries here and
ascertain. What a blessing it would be if
there were such a fly on the city gates now !
LILY WOLFFSOHN.
Naples.
Comparetti's ' Virgilio nel Medio Evo ' has been translated into English, and was pub- lished some years ago by Sonnenschein & Co. A short translation of ' The Wonderful His- tory of Virgilius the Sorcerer of Rome ' ap- peared in Mr. Nutt's "Mediaeval Legends" Series in 1893. L. L. K.
THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES (9 th S. xii. 467). The articles on theEleusinian mysteries will be found in the Contemporary Re- view for 1880, vol. xxxvii. pp. 847-71, and vol. xxxviii. pp. 121-49 and 412-33.
FRANCIS G. HALEY.
[MR. J. W. WALKER, MR. F. J. BURGOYNE, and >thers supply the same information.]
MARRIAGE HOUSE (9 th S. xii. 428). Within /he last twenty years a Marriage House was till standing at Braughing, adjoining the ihurchyard. It has been pulled down, and he site added to the churchyard. Salmon, writing in 1728, says :
" There is near the churchyard an old house, at
>resent the habitation of poor families. It was
iven with all sorts of furniture for the use of
weddings. They carried their provisions, and had
large kitchen with a cauldron, large spits and a
iripping pan, a large room for entertainment and
nerry-making, a lodging room with bride bed and
ood linen."
Salmon further mentions that this provision was also at Therfield, and the utensils of the kitchen and the bed lately lost. At Match- ng, Essex, is an old house adjoining the hurchyard, given for new-married couples o dwell in the first year. The furniture of he Braughing house was sold when the house
