Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/210

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202


NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. x. SEPT. 13, im.


Here is a quotation from the ' Address to the Eeader ' prefixed to ' The Alchemist.' It is made up of parts of two ' Discoveries,' bits of which are transposed to accord with the structure of the address, and every word of it, save the linking phrases, copies the notes verbatim. Not only SQ, the notes and the address repeat Bacon :

" For they commend writers, as they do fencers or wrestlers ; who if they come in robustuously, and put for it with a great deal of violence; are received for the braver fellows : when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. I deny not, but that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may sometime happen on some thing that is good, and great ; but very seldom : and when it comes it doth not recom- pense the rest of their ill. It sticks out, perhaps, and is more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about it ; as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness, than a faint shadow, i speak not this, out of a hope to do good to any man against his will ; for I know, if I were put to the question of theirs and mine, the worse would rind more suffrages : because the most favour common errors. But 1 give this warning, that there is a great differ- ence between those, that, to gain the opinion of copy, utter all they can, however unfitly ; and those that use election and a mean. For it is only the disease of the unskilful, to think rude things greater than polished ; or scattered more numerous than composed."

The ' Discoveries ' that are mingled in this quotation are headed 'Ingeniorum Discri- mina ' and ' Cestius. Cicero,' &c. Other parts of the quotation parallel Bacon's work, but I will now deal with the concluding sen- tence only. In the ' Discoveries ' the passage reads thus :

"But in these things the unskilful are naturally deceived, and judging wholly by the bulk, think rude things greater than polished ; and scattered more numerous than composed."

^Jonson here distinctly alludes to the Baconian "colour," with its reprehension that

"that which consists of more parts, and those divisible, is greater, and more one than what is made up of fewer ; for all things when they are looked upon piecemeal seem greater ; when also a plurality of parts make a show of bulk considerable which a plurality of parts affects more strongly it they be in no certain order ; for it then resembles an infamty, and hinders the comprehending of

A m i r~ V olours of Good and Evi V v., and 'De Aug., book vi. c. iii. sophism xii.

That there can be no manner of doubt about the allusion is further proved by the concluding ' Discoveries,' which go under the general title 'Of the Magnitude and Compass of any table, .Epic or Dramatic.' These latter boldly copy Bacon's colour and its answer throughout. But the passages are too long to quote here, and therefore I must leave


readers to compare the two authors for them- selves, and turn to other matter which is capable of more concise treatment.

C. CKAWFORD.

53, Hampden Road, Hornsey, N. ( To be continued. )


ADDITIONS TO THE 'N.E.D.'

(Continued from 9 th S. ix. 483.)

Dcedalum (not in). 1897, E. W. Scripture, ' New Psychology, 5 p. 109, " When the figures and slits go in opposite directions, a continuous movement is likewise obtained. This form of stroboscope is called the dsedalum."

Darnick (not in). 1869, Clemens [Mark Twain], 'Innocents Abroad,' ch. xxxv., " I have found him breaking a stone in two, and labelling half of it ' Chunk busted from the pulpit of Demosthenes,' and the other half ' Darnick from the tomb of Abe- lard and Heloise.' "

Decentralizer (not in). 1898, Bodley, ' France,' L 36, " The venerable savant, himself a decentralizer."

Degenerescence (earlier). 1859, Ar ledge in Marx, 'Capital' (1896), p. 229, " The degenerescence of the population of this district."

Demantoid (not in;. 1895, Anderson, 'Prospec- tor's Handbook' (sixth ed.), p. 96, "Demantoid, green." [Of colour, &c., of the garnet class of gems.]

Demeasle (not in). 1900, Huxley, 'Life,' vol. i. p. 500, The final cause of boys is to catch some- thing or other. I trust that yours is demeasling himself properly."

Devotionated (earlier). 1591, in ' Camden Mis- cellany,' I. Rouen, p. 36.

DeviUcaniae (not in). 1899, English Mechanic, p. 316, "Any one who can devulcanise india-rubber."

Dextroform (not in). 1897, English Mechanic, p. 554, " A very similar substance [to amyloform]

has been prepared from dextrin which Prof.

Classen calls ' dextroform."'

Diaboloid (not in). 1853, J. C. Maxwell in ' Life ' (ed. 1884), p. 343, "The conclusion that a table of which the plane surface is touched by believing ringers may be transformed into a diaboloid of revolution." [Spiritualistic seance.]

Diad (obs.). 1895, Bloxam, ' Chem.,' p. 10, " Oxy- gen is said to be divalent, or diad."

Diatomed (not in). 1895, G. E. Davis, ' Pract. Microscopy ' (third ed.), p. 390, " The diatomed side being uppermost."

Diclimc (= Diclinous). 1883, Miiller, ' Fert. Flowers' (tr. Thompson), p. 587, "The Gymno- sperms have diclinic anemophilous flowers."

Didiny (not in). Miiller, ut supra, p. 589, "The reversion of monoclinic flowers to dicliny."

Digonal (not in). 1898, Nature, 27 January, p. 309, "Only digonal, trigonal, and hexagonal axes Of symmetry are possible with crystals."

Dotiness (not in). 1893, Spon, ' Mechanics' Own Book' (fourth ed.), p. 167, "Doatiness, a speckled stain found in beech, American oak, and others."

Double-edgedness (not in). 1901, Jastrow, 'Fact and Fable in Psychology,' p. 165, " With peculiar obliviousness to the double-edgedness of his re- mark."

Draggletailedness (not in). 1896, E. F. Knight, ' Falcon on the Baltic,' p. 62, " The outrageously bad taste and gaudy draggletailedness of Englisn girls of the same degree."