The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical Part 1

The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical.

by Frank H. Stauffer.

INTRODUCTION.

Custom doth often reason overrule, And only serves for reason to the fool.-_Rochester._

A moon dial, with Napier's bones, And sev'ral constellation stones.-_Butler._

He shows, on holidays, a sacred pin, That touch'd the ruff that touch'd Queen Bess's chin.

-_Wolcot's Peter Pindar._

Stretching away on the one hand into the deep gloom of barbaric ignorance, and on the other hand into the full radiance of Christian intelligence, and, grounding itself strongly in the instinctive recognition by all men of the intimate relations between the seen and the unseen, the empire of SUPERSt.i.tION possesses all ages of human history and all stages of human progress.-_Nimno._

Matrons who toss the cup, and see The grounds of _fate_ in _grounds_ of _tea_.-_Churchill._

I have known the shooting of a star to spoil a night's rest; I have seen a man in love grow pale upon the plucking of a merry-thought. There is nothing so inconsiderable which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with omens and prognostics.-_Addison._

_Books with Unp.r.o.nounceable Names._

In the seventeenth century there was a book published ent.i.tled: "Crononhotonthologos, the most tragical tragedy that ever was tragedized by any company of tragedians." The first two lines of this effusion read-

"Aldeborontiphoscophosnio!

Where left you Chrononhotonthologos?"

We might name another singular t.i.tle of a work published in 1661 by Robert Lovell, ent.i.tled: "Panzoologicomineralogia; a complete history of animals and minerals, contain'g the summs of all authors, Galenical and Chymicall, with the anatomie of man, &c."-_Salad for the Solitary._

_Most Curious Book in the World._

The most singular bibliographic curiosity is that which belonged to the family of the Prince de Ligne, and is now in France. It is neither written nor printed. All of the letters of the text are cut out of each folio upon the finest vellum; and, being interlaced with blue paper, it is read as easily as the best print. The labor and patience bestowed upon it must have been excessive, especially when the precision and minuteness of the letters are considered. The general execution is admirable in every respect, and the vellum is of the most delicate and costly kind. Rodolphus II., of Germany, offered for it, in 1640, eleven thousand ducats, which was probably equal to sixty thousand at this day.

The most remarkable circ.u.mstance connected with this literary treasure is that it bears the royal arms of England, but it cannot be shown that it was ever in that country. The book is ent.i.tled: _Liber Pa.s.sionis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi c.u.m Characteribus Nulla Materia Compositis_.

_A Long Lost Book Recovered._

The book called "The Ascension of Isaiah the Prophet" had been known to exist in former ages, but had disappeared after the fifth century.

During the present century Dr. Richard Laurence, the professor of Hebrew at Oxford, and afterwards Archbishop of Ca.s.sel, accidentally met with an aethiopic MS. at the shop of a bookseller in Drury Lane, which proved to be this apocryphal book. There was something remarkable in the discovery, in a small bookseller's shop, of a book which had been lost to the learned for more than a thousand years.

_The Bug Bible._

Among the literary curiosities in the Southampton library, England, is an old Bible known as the "Bug Bible," printed by John Daye, 1551, with a prologue by Tyndall. It derives its name from the peculiar rendering of the fifth verse in the 91st Psalm, which reads thus: "So that thou shalt not need to be afraid for any bugs by night."

_Illuminated Ma.n.u.script Bible._

Guido de Jars devoted half a century to the production of a ma.n.u.script copy of the Bible, with illuminated letters. He began it in his fortieth year, and did not finish it until his ninetieth (1294). It is of exceeding beauty.

_The Mazarine Bible._

This is so called from its having been found in the Cardinal's library.

It was the first book printed with metal types, and cost $2,500.

_A Book without Words._

A literary curiosity exists in England in the shape of "A Wordless Book," so called because, after the t.i.tle page, it contains not a single word. It is a religious allegory devised by a religious enthusiast, and the thought is in the symbolic color of its leaves, of which two are black, two crimson, two pure white, two pure gold. The black symbolizes the unregenerate heart of man; the crimson, the blessed redemption; the white, the purity of the soul "washed in the blood of the Lamb;" the gold, the radiant joy of eternal felicity.

_Wierix's Bible._

The edition of this Bible contains a plate by John Wierix, representing the feast of Dives, with Lazarus at his door. In the rich man's banqueting room there is a dwarf playing with a monkey, to contribute to the merriment of the company, according to the custom among people of rank in the sixteenth century.

_Gilt Beards._

There was a French Bible printed in Paris in 1538, by Anthony Bonnemere, wherein is related "that the ashes of the golden calf which Moses caused to be burnt, and mixed with the water that was drank by the Israelites, stuck to the beards of such as had fallen down before it, by which they appeared with gilt beards, as a peculiar mark to distinguish those who had wors.h.i.+pped the calf." This idle story is actually interwoven with the 32d chapter of Exodus.

_Printed in Gold Letters._

Bede speaks of a magnificent copy of the Gospels in letters of the purest gold, upon leaves of purple parchment.

_Magnificent Latin Bible._

Amongst the rare and costly relics in the library of the Vatican, is the magnificent Latin Bible of the Duke of Urbino. It consists of two large folios, embellished by numerous figures and landscapes, in the ancient arabesque.

_Interesting Ma.n.u.script Bibles._

In the British Museum there are two copies of the Scriptures which are peculiarly calculated to interest the pious visitors, from the circ.u.mstances under which they were transcribed. The elder ma.n.u.script contains "The Old and New Testaments, in short hand, in 1686," which were copied, during many a wakeful night, by a zealous Protestant, in the reign of James II., who feared that the attempts of that monarch to re-establish Popery would terminate in the suppression of the sacred Scriptures.

The other ma.n.u.script contains the book of Psalms and the New Testament, in 15 volumes, folio, written in characters an inch long, with white ink, on black paper manufactured for the purpose. This perfectly unique copy was written in 1745, at the cost of a Mr. Harries, a London tradesman. His sight having failed with age so as to prevent his reading the Scriptures, though printed in the largest type, he incurred the expense of this transcription that he might enjoy those sources of comfort which "are more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold."

The British Museum paid $3750 for the ma.n.u.script Bible made by Alcuin, in the eighth century, for the Emperor Charlemagne, whose instructor and friend he was.

_The Vinegar Bible._

This Bible derives its t.i.tle from an edition which contained an error in the heading to the twentieth chapter of St. Luke, in which "Parable of the Vineyard" is printed "Parable of the Vinegar." The edition was issued in the year 1717, by the University of Oxford, at their Clarendon Press.