12
NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. XL JAN. 2, 1015.
FIELDING'S ' TOM JONES ' : ITS GEO-
GRAPHY (11 S. ix. 507 ; x. 191, 253, 292, 372).
There is another passage in * Tom Jones '
where Fielding was very probably referring
to the battle of Malplaquet :
" For surely the gentlemen of the ^Esculapian art are in the right in advising, that the moment the disease has entered at one door, the physician should be introduced at the other ; what else is meant by that old adage : ' Venienti occurrite morbo ' ? ' Oppose a distemper at its first approach.' Thus the doctor and the disease meet in fair and equal conflict ; whereas by giving time to the latter, we often suffer him to fortify and entrench himself, like a French army ; so that the learned gentleman finds it very difficult, and sometimes impossible to come at the enemy." Book v. chap. vii.
Possibly Fielding might again have been thinking of this battle in book vi. chap. xii. :
" Sophia soon returned to his imagination, and allayed the joy of his triumph with no less bitter pangs than a good-natured general must feel when he surveys the bleeding heaps, at the cost of whose blood he hath purchased his laurels."
The very heavy losses of the allied forces at Malplaquet, which were about twice as numerous as those of the defeated army, were due to a delay of two days having enabled the French to construct formidable entrenchments.
The figure of 90,000 for the allied army may be below the mark, but even if their total was nearly 100,000 their losses were over 20 per cent. The question naturally arises : Was Fielding's father at Malplaquet, or the regiment to which he belonged ?
One would like more definite information than that on p. 6 of Mr. G. M. Godden's ' Henry Fielding,' where we are told that " soon after Henry's birth [22 April, 1707], however, his father had doubtless left the Low Countries, for, about 1709, he appears as purchas- ing the colonelcy of an Irish regiment."
EDWARD BENSLY.
MEDALLIC LEGENDS (11 S. x. 28, 48, 68, 89, 109, 315, 356). No. 138, on p. 109, " Tantum calcaribus opus," is apparently based on a criticism attributed to Isocrates, which is mentioned several times in Latin literature. See Cicero, ' Epist. ad Att.,' VI. i. 12; 'De Oratore,' III. ix. 36; 'Brutus,' 56, 204. But the passage the wording of which bears most resemblance to the above motto is in Quintilian, II. viii. 11 :
" Clarissimus ille prseeeptor Isocrates cum de
Ephoro atque Theopompo sic iudicaret, ut alteri frenis alteri calcaribus opus esse diceret"
The same criticism on pupils of opposite dispositions is attributed to Plato and Aristotle in Diogenes Laertius, IV. ii. 2, and V. ii. 7 (39). EDWARD BENSLY.
' THE TITLED NOBILITY OF EUROPE ' (11 S.
x. 419). In your kind notice of this work
your reviewer says that " the canting posi-
tion of the inescutcheon in the Belgian arms,,
and the substitution of a bird for the familiar
crowned stockfish of Iceland in the Danish
shield, require some explanation."
A correspondent has already pointed out (US. x. 447) that the Iceland arms have recently been changed, and that the quartering as given by me is correct ; and I shall be glad if you will allow me to say that the Belgian arms are an exact reproduction of those sent me by the private secretary to the King of the Belgians, and were approved by His Majesty.
As to the question of supporters not hav- ing " been served out impartially," I would call your reviewer's attention to the fact that certain sovereigns do not use them. I went into this question fully with the Spanish authorities, and was assured that His Catholic Majesty had none. The same applies to the mantle. In nearly every case the arms given are reproduced from drawings officially supplied, and I considered it best to follow these exactly. The statement that " for France only ducal titles as yet appear " is doubtless a slip, as hundreds of others are included. THE EDITOR
' TITLED NOBILITY OF EUROPE.'
HERALDRY OF LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL. (11 S. x. 467). Arms: 1. Bellomont or Beaumont, Earl of Leicester. Bobert, 2nd Earl, was Canon Regular of Leicester (d. 1167). 2. De Montford, Earl of Leicester. 3. Welsh origin. Could it be Leoline, Prince of N.Wales? 4. Perhaps Vermandois.
E. E. COPE.
FIRE AND NEW-BIRTH (US. viii. 325, 376, 418, 454; ix. 14, 113; x. 472). Although not presumably connected with the action of fire, I should like to record a curious pheno- menon which came under my notice nearly ten years ago. When I took up my resi- dence here in 1905, 1 broke up to use as a gar- den some turf land which had been devoted to grazing purposes for quite thirty years previously. It lay broken during the winter, and in the following spring was literally covered with the common fumitory (Fu- maria officinalis). The seeds must have lain dormant beneath the turf for the whole of the period mentioned, as this plant is rarely > if ever, seen on any but cultivated ground or in hedgerows. Although I invariably de- stroy every specimen I see, I am still troubled with this lively weed. JOHN T. PAGE.
Long Itchington, Warwickshire.
