408
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. XIL NOV. 20, 1915.
The passage omitted is merely a repetition
cf previous sentences. Takutia (chanda) cha
chini, literally, " I will put (for) you my finger
on the ground " (on the analogy of Wamtia
Icidole cha jicho=" He (A) put his finger into
his (B's) eye "), seems to be merely a sense-
less retort to the taunt conveyed in " (Ni)
takutia chanda cha utosi." The use of the
word chanda, which belongs to the Mombasa
dialect, instead of the Zanzibar kidole, seems
to indicate that the story comes from the
north, while other words (such as chini for
tini) show that the narrator used the Zanzibar
dialect. A. WEBNEK.
HENRY FIELDING (US. xii. 300, 351). Hogarth's pen - and - ink sketch ,of Fielding, drawn, apparently, from memory some time after the novelist's death, to supply a frontispiece for Arthur Murphy's collected edition of the works (1762), has been so generally ^regarded as| our only direct evidence for Fielding's appearance that it may interest some readers to be directed to the reproduction, in Miss G. M. Godden's 'Henry Fielding: a Memoir' (1910), of the print of ' The Conjurers,' 1753, " in which occurs the only representation of Henry Fielding known to have been drawn during his lifetime." The print is described in ' The Catalogue of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum,' Division I., ' Satires,' vol. iii. pt. ii. No. 3213.
By an oversight Miss Godden has described one of the pictures on the wall as that of the College of Surgeons, but a recollection of the frontispiece of Garth's ' Dispensary ' suggests that it ought to be " Physicians," and a closer examination shows this to be the case. That it should now be possible to obtain Miss Godden's excellent work, which supplements Mr. Austin Dobson's
- Fielding,' one of the most delightful of
the "E. M. L." series, as a remainder is not very creditable to the national taste .in book- buying. EDWABD BENSLY.
SIB HENBY MOODY AND HIS CAMEBA OBSCTJBA (US. xii. 278). An early, if not the very earliest, description in English of the camera obscura is in a letter of Sir Henry Wotton written to Bacon in reply to " your Lordships Letters dated the 20th of October [1620] " :
" Let me tell your Lordship a pretty thing which I saw coming down the Danuby, though more remarkable for the Application, then for the
Theory. I lay a night at Lintz there I found
Keplar [.sic], a man famous in the Sciences, as your
Lordship knows In this man's study I was
much taken with the draught of a Landskip on a
piece of paper, me thought masterly done f whereof
enquiring the Author, he bewrayed with a smile, it
was himself ; adding, he had done it, Non tanquam
Pictor, sed tanquam Mathematicus. This set me on
fire. At last he told me how."
Then follows a description of Kepler' & camera obscura. Wotton concludes hi& account with :
" This 1 have described to your Lordship, because I think there might be good use made of it for Chorography : for otherwise, to make Lanclskips by it were illiberal ; though surely no Painter can dp them so precisely." See ' Reliquiae Wotto- nianse,' pp. 299 seq. (ed. 1672).
Carlyle refers to this passage twice in his
- Frederick the Great.' In Bk. III. chap. xiv.
he quotes the description, " He hath a little black Tent," &c. EDWABD BENSLY.
LATIN INSCBIPTION (11 S. xii. 339). Thirty years ago, stopping at Abergwili Palace, I asked the Bishop of St. David's the correct interpretation of the inscription " Ceri Mani Memineris Mane " on a mantel- piece at Cawdor which I was intimately acquainted with. Seme time afterwards he forwarded to me (1) a letter from the late Archdeacon North (Cardigan) ; and (2) a more critical explanation ircm the Vicar of Carmarthen, now Bishop of St. Asaph.
The first writes :
" I find that Cents manus is noticed by Festus as- a term in some old Carmen Saliare ; he interprets it as ' Creator bonus. ' Scaliger in his revisions of Festus makes Cerus, Sanctus. If mane means early in a broad sense, it is very suggestive of Ecclesias- ticus xii. 1, but this can hardly be if I recollect where your lordship stated the inscription is."
The Vicar of Carmarthen writes : Ceri mani memineris mane. The good creator remember in good time. Cents manus. Cerus occurs in a Salian hymn quoted by Varro, ' L. L.,' vii. 26 :
iDuonus cerus es, duonus Janus. Also quoted by Festus as = creator bonus.
Germ is derived from the root Kar, Cer, or Cre* Compare Ceres proceruscreo.
The Irish Cerd, a framer or carpenter.
Minus Compare immanis (not good); manes the good spirits ; mane, mani = in good timet also d-fj-eivuv.
The root is perhaps md, seen in v-trpov, metior f mtmoria.
The family motto is " Be mindful."
In addition to the inscription, on the left (proper) of the mantelpiece we find a rudely cut figure of a fox smoking a pipe.
It seems by the ' Cawdor Book ' presented to the Spalding Club that about 1636 addi- tions were made to the castle round the tower, viz., a hall and a kitchen, and that no architect was employed, the work being