{233} REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.

Praise undeserved.—­The correct quotation, referred to in No. 14. p. 222., is

    “Praise undeserved is Satire in disguise.”

It is by Mr. Br——­st, author of a copy of verses called the British Beauties.  I cannot fill up the “hiatus,” which in this case is not “maxime deflendus,” because I have now no time to search the Museum Catalogue.  I apprehend that the author belonged to the “mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease,” as it is something like Savage’s “tenth transmitter” (which, by the bye, your correspondent, Mr. Gutch, should have said is said to be Pope’s)—­his only good line.  Here is my authority: 

EPIGRAM

On a certain line of Mr. Br——­, author of a copy of verses called the “British Beauties.”—­From the “GARLAND,” a collection of Poems, 1721.

“When one good line did much my wonder raise In Br——­st’s works, I stood resolved to praise; And had, but that the modest author cries, Praise undeserv’d is satire in disguise.”

I would add, that I believe this Epigram to be Dr. Kenrick’s, Goldsmith’s old persecutor in later years.

JAMES H. FRISWELL

French Maxim.—­I beg to inform your correspondent “R.V.” in reply to his query (No. 14. p. 215.), that the maxim quoted is the 218th of Rochefoucauld:  “L’hypocrisie est un hommage que le vice rend a la vertu.”

J.H.F.

Singular Motto.—­The “singular motto” which occasions “P.H.F.’s” wonder (No. 14. p. 214.), is, without doubt, a cypher, and only to be rendered by those who have a Key.  Such are not unfrequent in German, Austrian, or Bohemian Heraldry.

J.H.F.

Discurs.  Modest.—­At p. 205.  No. 13., your correspondent N. replies to A.T.’s query, that “there can be no reasonable doubt, that the original authority for Rem transubstantiationis patres ne altigisse quidem, is William Watson in his Quodlibet, ii. 4. p. 31.”

By a note of mine, I find that this secular priest, W. Watson, lays the expression in question to the charge of the Jesuits as “an heretical and most dangerous assertion of theirs.”  Admitting, therefore, the Discurs.  Modest. to have been published after Watson’s Decacordon, i.e. later than 1602 (which can hardly be doubted), still the further question remains to be asked:  “In what writings of the Jesuits, prior to 1602, had W. Watson himself found these words, with which he charges them?” Should you think this further query of importance enough to find a place in your paper, perhaps some one of your readers might throw yet another ray of light upon this subject.

J.S.

Oxford

Pallace (No. 13. p. 202).—­Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary of Archaic, &c.  Words, explains this word as used in Devonshire:—­