316
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9< s. vii. APRIL 20, 1901.
15
appearing with his head bare, both as a
child and when full-grown ; while on*the
.,'old hat piece of 1591 he is seen wearing a
.ligh-crowned hat. His mother, Mary, Queen
of Scots, also is more often represented as
uncrowned and wearing a close-fitting cap.
Her father, again, James V., on the bonnet
piece of 1539 wears the fashionable bonnet
of the period. A. R. BAYLEY.
St. Margaret's, Malvern.
" ROUEN" AND " SUCCEDANEUM" (9 th S. vii. 149, 214, 258). As the example of " ruen cheese " given at the last reference is likely to raise a query among many of your readers, it may be useful to observe that it is other- wise named eddish, aftermath, and ivinter cheese (see the ' H.E.D.,' arts. ' Eddish ' and 'Aftermath'). The following is from the Dictionarium Rusticum,' 1704, art. ' Cheese': " For your Eddixh or Winter Cheese, there is no difference between it and your Summer Cheese, as to the making thereof ; only because the Season of the Year denies a kindly drying or hardning thereof, it varies much in taste, and will be always soft ; and of these Eddish Cheeses you may make as many kinds as of Summer Cheeses, as of one Meal, two Meals, or of Milk that is Mitten" (i.e., skimmed).
F. ADAMS.
PAGINATION (9 th S. vi. 147, 258, 373, 411). I feel greatly honoured that ME. MURRAY should have been so kind as to answer my query ; but may I ask how the Americans manage to use one style of pagination the Arabic numerals while the English cannot ?
As regards the sizing of books, I do not write in the interest of bibliophiles or bibliognostics, who are supposed to have readers like myself, and I still submit that learned leisure, but for hurried every-day the old terms of folio, quarto, octavo, &c., are obsolete in the present day. Still, I am not the less obliged for an answer from so great an expert.
As a good thing cannot be repeated too often, I may perhaps be permitted to quote from your own columns of years ago on this subject the words of a famous bibliognostic, which reappeared in 'A Handy-Book about Books, for Book -lovers, Book buyers, and Booksellers,' attempted by John Power, pp. 217 (1870) :
" SIZES OF BOOKS (3 rd S. viii. 540 ; ix. 83). Paper- moulds have fixed conventional sizes ; but, since the introduction of machinery for making paper, and the consequent disuse of moulds, makers work more by a given number of inches than by names of sizes. Consequently, the correct description of book sizes has become impossible, and the trade describe the new by the name of the old size
they most resemble. The true size of a volume is
determined by the number of leaves into which a
single sheet is folded by the binder. Thus, a sheet
of ' N. & Q.' has twelve leaves ; and although rank-
ing as a foolscap quarto, is strictly speaking a triple
foolscap duodecimo, and a little too large for that.
To determine the real size of a bound book, find a
signature (a letter or figure at the bottom of the
page) and count the leaves (not pages) to the
next say from c to n, or from 3 to 4. If you find
eight leaves, the book is certainly octavo ; if sixteen
leaves, sixteenmo and so on. If a further test be
desired, find the binder's thread, which runs through
the middle of every sheet, and the number of leaves
from one thread to the next will give the same
result. These rules do not, however, apply to old
black-letter books and others of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, where the most satisfactory
test is the position of the water-mark.
' Dr. Dibdin, England's most famous and most careless bibliographer, often erred through not noticing this. The rule is a folio volume will have all the water-marks in the middle of the page ; a quarto has the water-mark folded in half in the back of the book, still midway between the top and bottom ; an octavo has the water-mark in the back, but at the very top, and often considerably cropt by the binder's plough ; and 12mo and 16mo have the water-mark on the fore edge.
" WILLIAM BLADES."
So, after this, I must submit the simplest and best plan in these days to describe the size of a book is by inches and number of pages. RICHARD HEMMING.
Ardwick.
DANTEIANA (9 th S. vii. 201). ME. McGovERN says Dante dubs Theseus duke in the sense of leader, "and both Chaucer and Shakespeare follow in his wake." He has overlooked the fact, I think, that there were actually Dukes of Athens in the Middle Ages. Walter de Brienne was Duke of Athens. He retained the title after his father was driven out of Greece. He was tyrant of Florence and Con- stable of France, and lost his life in the battle of Poitiers. Gibbon says in his ' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.' chap. Ixii.: " From the Latin princes of the fourteenth century Boccace, Chaucer, and Shakspeare have bor- rowed their Theseus duke of Athens." Gibbon does not seem to have known that Dante has mentioned the title. Dante, however, lived in the fourteenth century at a time when there were actually Dukes of Athens.
E. YARDLEY.
With reference to MR. McGovERN's interest- ing communication on this subject, and with regard to the remark " that Dante did study at Oxford," I beg that I may be allowed to direct attention to the following quotation from ' Dante Alighieri,' by Paget Toynbee (London, Methuen & Co., 1900) :
" That Dante visited Paris during his exile is stated both by Boccaccio and by Villani jn his
