Notes.

ST. AUGUSTINE ON CLAIRVOYANCE.

Dr. Maitland, in his valuable Illustrations of Mesmerism, has not, I think, noticed an important passage in St. Augustine's treatise, De Genesi ad litteram, l. XII. c. 17. §§ 34. seq., in which, after saying that demons can read men's thoughts, and know what is passing at a distance, he proceeds to give a detailed account of two cases of clairvoyance. The whole is written with his usual graphic power, and will well reward the perusal. I must content myself with a brief outline of the facts.

1. A patient, suffering from a fever, was supposed to be possessed by an unclean spirit. Twelve miles off lived a presbyter, with whom, in mesmerist phraseology, he was en rapport. He would receive no food from any other hands; with him, except when a fit was upon him, he was calm and submissive. When the presbyter left his home the patient would indicate his position at each stage of his journey, and mark his nearer and nearer approach. "He is entering the farm—the house—he is at the door;" and his visitor stood before him. Once he foretold the death of a neighbour, not as though he were predicting a future event, but as if recollecting a past. For when she was mentioned in his hearing, he exclaimed, "She is dead, I saw her funeral; that way they carried out her corpse." In a few days she fell sick and died, and was carried out along that very road which he had named.

2. A boy was labouring under a painful disorder, which the physicians had vainly endeavoured to relieve. In the exhaustion which followed on his convulsive struggles, he would pass into a trance, keeping his eyes open, but insensible to what was going on around him, and passively submitting to pinches from the bystanders (ad nullam se vellicationem movens). After awhile he awoke and told what he had seen. Generally an old man and a youth appeared to him; at the beginning of Lent they promised him ease during the forty days, and gave him directions by which he might be relieved and finally cured. He followed their counsel, with the promised success.

Augustine's remarks (c. xviii. § 39.) on these and similar phenomena are well worth reading. He begs the learned not to mock him as speaking confidently, and the unlearned not to take what he says on trust, but hopes that both will regard him simply as an inquirer. He compares these visions to those in dreams. Some come true, and some false; some are clear, others obscure. But men love to search into what is singular, neglecting what is usual, though even more inexplicable; just as when a man hears a word whose sound is new to him, he is curious to know its meaning; while he never thinks of asking the meaning of words familiar to his ear, however little he may really understand them. If any one then wishes for a satisfactory account of these strange phenomena, let him first explain the phenomena of dreams, or let him show how the images of material objects reach the mind through the eyes.

J. E. B. Mayor.

St. John's College, Cambridge.

EDWARD GIBBON, FATHER AND SON.

Gibbon mentions in his Memoirs (edit. 1796, p. 18.), that in 1741 his father and Mr. Delmé successfully contested Southampton against Mr. Henly, subsequently Lord Chancellor, but that, after the dissolution in 1747, he was unable or unwilling to maintain another contest, and "the life of the senator expired in that dissolution." Not so the hopes of the senator, as will appear from the following extract from a letter, dated "Beriton, January 27, 1754:"

"I received the favour of your letter according to the time you promised. As Lord M—— has promised his own votes, I find there is nothing to be done: strange behaviour, sure! But there seems to be such infatuation upon this poor country, that even a good Catholic shall join with a Dissenter to rivet on her chains. There are several of the Independents would have me stand it out, but I would not on any account, for I find it would make great dissensions, and even several of Lord M——'s fagots and tenants would vote against him; and another thing, it would lessen him in the opinion of a great many people to have him making interest for the two present worthy candidates against me. I shall therefore, upon his account, give over all thoughts of standing; and I hope it may give me some little more credit and merit with him against another election, especially if you would be so good as to improve it for me."

The following is of far greater interest—full of character. How well it illustrates the paragraph in the Memoirs (pp. 82-3.):

"My stay at Beriton was always voluntary ... I never handled a gun, I seldom mounted a horse; and my philosophic walks were soon terminated by a shady bench, where I was long detained by the sedentary amusement of reading or meditation."

It appears however, by this letter, that on one occasion he trespassed on some neighbour's game preserves, and received a hint on the subject:

Beriton, Nov. 16, 1758.

As I am extremely well convinced of your politeness, and your readiness to grant your neighbours any reasonable liberty with regard to country sports, so I should be very sorry if either myself or my servants had taken any improper ones.

I am no sportsman, Sir, and was as much tempted this morning by the beauty of the day and the pleasure of the ride as by the hopes of any sport. I went out, and, neither acquainted with the bounds of the manors nor your request to the neighbouring gentlemen, could only follow my groom where he led me. I quitted your manor the instant I received your message, without having killed anything in it. I assure you that you shall never have again the same subject of complaint. With regard to the liberty you are so good as to grant me for other sports, I return you my most humble thanks, but shall not make much use of it, as there are still in my father's manor more game than would satisfy so moderate a sportsman as myself.

My father would be extremely angry if his servants had destroyed any of your game; but they all assure him they have killed no one hare upon your liberties. As to pheasants, they have only killed one this season, and that in Inwood copse.

E. G. F. S.

BOHN'S "ORDERICUS VITALIS."

In looking through the pages of Ordericus Vitalis, vol. ii. (Bohn's edition), I have noticed some trifling inaccuracies, to one or more of which you will perhaps suffer me to call the editor's attention through the medium of "N. & Q.," in case he be not already aware of them.

At p. 70. King William is described as offering the bishopric of Mans to "Samson, Bishop of Bayeux, his chaplain." So in the index to Histor. Anglic. circa tempus Conquestûs, &c., a Francisco Maseres, I find this passage of Vitalis referred to under the title of "Sanson Baiocensis episcopus."

But yet Odo was Bishop of Bayeux at this time; and notwithstanding what Marbode afterwards said of Bayeux, when he invited his old pupil to meet him there, viz. "Sedes præsulibus sufficit illa tribus," yet Samson, even then, was not Bishop of Bayeux, but of Worcester.

The original words of Vitalis are, "Sansoni Baiocensi," Samson being (temp. Will. I.) Canon and Treasurer of Bayeux, as well as Baron of Dover, and Canon of St. Martin's there, Dean of Wolverhampton, and chaplain to William. He was a married man, and apparently at the time in question only in deacon's orders. One of his sons, at a later period, became Bishop of Bayeux, as did also a grandson, whose mother (according to Beziers) was "Isabelle de Dovre, maîtresse de Robert Conte de Glocester, bâtard de Henri I., Roi d'Angleterre." Upon which I would found a Query, viz., Was this grandson of Samson, whose name was Richard, an uterine or a half brother of Roger, Bishop of Worcester? Both are described as sons of Robert, Earl of Gloucester.

At p. 261. Alberede is described in the text of the translation to be a daughter of "Hugh, Bishop of Evreux," whereas in the original she is said to be "Hugonis Bajocensis episcopi filia."

In a note to this passage we are informed that Hugh, Bishop of Lisieux, died at the Council of Rheims (Oct. 1049), and that he was eldest son of Ralph, Count d'Ivri &c. On the contrary, we are told at p. 428, note 2, that it was Odo's predecessor (i. e. Hugh d'Ivri) in the see of Bayeux, who died at the Council of Rheims, Oct. 1049. Again, in a note at p. 118, we learn that Hugh d'Eu, who succeeded Herbert as Bishop of Lisieux in 1050, or the year following the Council in question, did not vacate that see until 1077.

Before I close this Note, I should be glad to inquire what grounds the editor has for asserting (p. 32, n. 1.) that Thomas, Archbishop of York, "was not a chaplain to the king" before his promotion. Thierry, Histoire de la Conquête, &c. (Par. 1825, tome ii. p. 18.), says: "Thomas, l'un des chapelains du roi, fut nommé archevêque d'York." And by Godwin (De Præsul. Angl., tom. ii. p. 244.) we are told that Odo—

"Eum (Thomam) Thesaurarium Baiocensem constituit, et postea Regi fratri commendavit, ut illi esset a sacras."

Anon.

A CURIOUS EXPOSITION.

The following curious illustration, which I met with the other day in a book where few would be likely to look for it, seems to me fairly to deserve a place among the Notes of your interesting publication. It forms the moral exposition, by Cornelius à Lapide, of Ex. vii. 22.: "And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments," &c.

"See here," he says, "how the devil contends with God, the magicians with the prophets, and heretics with the orthodox, by imitating their words and deeds. In our days, as the English Martyrology testifies, Richard White (Vitus) disputed with a wicked English Calvinist, who was more mighty in drinking than in argument, concerning the keys of the Church, and when the heretic pertinaciously asserted that they were given to himself, White wittily and ingeniously replied: 'I believe that they have been given to you as they were to Peter, but with this distinction, that his were the keys of heaven, but yours of the beer-cellar; for this the rubicund promontory of your nose indicates.' Thus do heretics turn water into blood. This is their miracle."

Richard White I presume to have been an ejected Fellow of New College, Oxford, afterwards rector of the University of Douai, and a Count Palatine of the empire, author of sundry antiquarian and theological works; but it is surely strange that this piece of ribaldry, of which he had been guilty, should be thought worthy of being recorded; and still more so, that it should be thus applied by a grave and learned Jesuit commentator.

C. W. B.