492
NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. i. JUNE 17, 1916.
' w Touching or striking hands for luck wa s
once a common practice. An understand-
ing or bargain having been arrived at by
two persons, each extended a hand, palms
together. If a sailor or soldier came home
to a village on furlough, all his friends
hastened to touch or strike hands with him
for luck. It was not an ordinary hand-
shake. I noted this on several occasions
after both the Crimean War and the Indian
Mutiny. THOS. RATCLIFFE.
Worksop.
"AGNOSTIC" AND "AGNOSCO" (12 S. i. 429). If Cecil Rhodes, in respect of religious opinion, said, " Agnosco, I do not know," is it necessary to charge him with the error of making agnoscere = ayvotlv ? May we not understand the phrase in another sense ? One of the forces of agnoscere is certainly to allow, admit, acknowledge (Ovid, 'Met.,' xiii. 27, and "me non agnoscetis ducem?" Livy, vi. 7). Why, then, should not Rhodes have meant, with a subtle play on the words, "I admit that I do not know " *' The subject is too profound for the grasp of my understanding ' ' ? True, Rhodes founded scholarships at Oxford, but not, surely, as implying any idea of his own scholarly powers, but from his love of his old university. S. R. C.
Canterbury.
It is quite probable that Cecil Rhodes may have made such a mistake as trans- lating agnosco ("I recognize") by "I do not know " ; but it is curious that the mis- take should have been continued. The origin of the word "agnostic "(from ay yaxrTos) is, I believe, this : Huxley, at a meeting for the formation of the now defunct Meta- physical Society, held at Sir James Knowles's house on. Clapham Common one evening in 1869, suggested the name "agnostic." He took it from St. Paul's mention of the altar to the " unknown God." See * The Oxford English Dictionary, " Agnostic."
A. GWYTHER.
Windham Club.
Whether Cecil Rhodes ever perpetrated the betise mentioned in the query I do not know ; but surely it is no more an absolute necessity for pious founders to be exact scholars than it is for one who drives fat oxen to be also fat. In 1870, at Umko- maas, Rhodes certainly endeavoured to keep up his classics ; and in October, 1871, he started for Colesberg Kopje in a Scotch cart drawn by a team of oxen, carrying a pick, two spades, several volumes of the classics, and a Greek lexicon. In 1881, when 28, he
at length passed the ordinary examination at
Oxford for the B.A. degree; and Marcus
Aurelius is recorded to have been his con-
stant companion.
Dr. Brewer would, apparently, have con- strued the unhappy Dido's famous confes- sion in precisely the opposite sense to that usually given by classical scholars.
A. R. BAYLEY.
ALTARS OF ANTIQUARIAN INTEREST (12 S. i. 410). The book which will most assist MR. BROTHERTON is ' La Messe,. Etudes Archeologiques sur ses Monuments,' Paris, 1883. The first volume of this fine and scholarly book is largely devoted to the history of altars. Pp. 93-240 contain a very full historical essay, beginning with " origines," and followed by chapters dealing: with every aspect of the subject, and ending with a useful analytical table. Beyond this,, and much to the point, there is a series of illustrations of altars of all periods repro- duced in a sequence of magnificent full-page plates, numbered 23 to 89. On each full page there are several altars represented, and in all there are some hundreds of exact reproductions and descriptions.
Next in importance is a work just issued, by the Clarendon Press, ' The Chancel of English Churches,' by Francis Bond. The first fifty pages of this book consist of an his- torical treatise upon the Christian and Jewish altars, with very many illustrations, drawn, chiefly from English sources. The book has excellent bibliographical notes. Dr. Cox's ' English Church Furniture ' (1907) has seventeen pages packed full with valuable information. It includes a list of places where altar- slabs are found to survive. Sir St. John Hope issued in 1899, through the Alcuin Club, a small work with thirty-six illustrations of altars taken from illuminated manuscripts of the tenth to the sixteenth centuries.
Sir James Frazer's ' Pausanias ' contains much valuable information regarding pagan, altars. There is a separate index volume to this great work, and it has two alphabets r one to the translation and the other to illustrative notes. Both indexes contain, many references to pagan altars. I advise MR. BROTHERTON to consult the chapter on ' Rites and Ceremonies ' in Tylor's-
- Primitive Culture,' and also to look at
e Comparative Religion, its Adjuncts and Allies,' by Louis Henry Jordan, 1915. This last-named new book is an analysis of the chief books upon comparative religion, and it is of the greatest value to students.
