Vol. III.—No. 84. NOTES AND QUERIES: A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

VOL. III.—No. 84.

SATURDAY, JUNE 7. 1851.

Price Sixpence.   Stamped Edition 7d.

CONTENTS.

NOTES:—

QUERIES:—

REPLIES:—

MISCELLANEOUS:—

Notes.

EDMUND BURKE, AND THE "ANNUAL REGISTER."

That Burke wrote the Annual Registers for Dodsley for some period after its commencement is well known, but no one has yet distinctly stated when his participation in that work ceased. Mr. Prior, in his Life of Burke, places in his list of his writings: "Annual Register, at first the whole work, afterwards only the Historical Article, 1758," &c. He also states that "many of the sketches of contemporary history were written from his immediate dictation for about thirty years," and that "latterly a Mr. Ireland wrote much of it under Mr. Burke's immediate direction." (Life, vol. i. p. 85. edit. 1826.)

In proof of this statement, a fac-simile is given of Burke's receipts to Dodsley for two sums of 50l. each "for the Annual Register of 1761," the originals of which were in Upcott's collection. At the sale of Mr. Wilks's autographs this month, I observe there was another receipt for writing the Annual Register for 1763. I am not aware whether any other receipts from Burke are in existence for the money paid to him for his contributions to this periodical, but for the Annual Registers beginning with 1767, and terminating in 1791, I have the receipts of Thomas English, who appears to have received from Dodsley, first 140l., and subsequently 150l. annually, for writing and compiling the historical portion of the work. Burke's connexion with the publication must therefore have lasted a much shorter period than Mr. Prior appears to have supposed, and apparently was not continued beyond seven or eight years, from 1758 to 1766, after which year, English seems to have taken his place.

Everything relating to Burke is of importance; and if any of your correspondents can afford any further assistance in defining as correctly as possible the limits of his participation in the Annual Register, I feel assured that the information will be gladly received by your readers.

I have not seen it noticed, that the historical articles in the Annual Registers, from 1758 to 1762 inclusive, were collected in an 8vo. vol. under the title of—

[442]"A compleat History of the late War, or Annual Register of its Rise, Progress, and Events in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, &c." London, 1763.

This work went through more than one edition. My copy, containing 559 pages, is a Dublin edition of the date of 1763, printed by John Exshaw.

As there seems to be no question that what is contained in this volume is the composition of Burke, and as it has never yet been superseded as a spirited history of the stirring period to which it relates, it ought undoubtedly to be attached as a supplement to the 8vo. edition of Burke's Works, with his "Account of the European Settlements in America," his title to which is now placed beyond dispute.

It is greatly to be regretted that some of Burke's early publications are yet undiscovered, amongst which are his poetical translations from the Latin, and his attack upon Henry Brooks, the author of the Fool of Quality.

JAS. CROSSLEY.

JEWS IN CHINA.

The mail which arrived from East India and China about the middle or end of March last, brought news of the discovery of a race of Jews in the interior of the latter country, of which I have seen no notice taken by the English press.

It being a subject in which a number of your readers will probably feel interested, and but comparatively few of them see the China newspapers, I beg to enclose you an account from the Overland China Mail, dated Hong Kong, Jan. 29, 1851.

The existence of a fragment of the family of Abraham in the interior of China has been certainly known for upwards of two hundred years, and surmised much longer. The Jesuit Ricci, during his residence at Peking in the beginning of the seventeenth century, was the means of exciting the attention of foreigners to the Jews of Kai-fung-fú, the ancient capital of Ho-nan province. In 1618 they were visited by Aleni, a follower of Ricci; and a hundred years later, between 1704 and 1723, Fathers Gozani, Domenge, and Gaubil were enabled from personal investigation on the spot to give minute descriptions of the people, their synagogue and sacred books, the latter of which few could even then read, while the former was, with the peculiar institutions of Moses, fast falling to decay. Beyond a few feeble and ineffective efforts on the part of Biblical critics, nothing was subsequently attempted to maintain a communication with this handful of Jews until in 1815 some brethren in London addressed a letter to them in Hebrew, and offered a large reward if any one would bring an answer in the same language. The letter was entrusted to a Chinese bookseller, a native of the province, who is reported to have delivered it, which was doubted, as he brought no written answer.

Recently the Jews' Society in London, encouraged by the munificence of Miss Cook, who placed ample funds at their disposal, instituted enquiries on the subject, and sought the co-operation of the Bishop of Victoria, who having previously opened a correspondence with Dr. Medhurst on the subject, during his Lordship's recent visit to Shanghae, the plan of operations was agreed upon. This was to despatch two Chinese Christians, one of them a literary graduate, the other a young man with a competent knowledge of English, acquired at the London Missionary School. The North China Herald of the 18th January contains an interesting account of their mission, from which we gather the following particulars.

The two emissaries started on the 15th November last, and after an absence of fifty-five days, returned to Shanghae, the distance between the two cities being about six hundred miles.[1] Arrived at their destination, they found in the decayed city of Kai-fung-fú, both Mohamedans and Jews, the latter poverty-stricken and degraded, their synagogue in a state of dilapidation, and the distinguishing symbols of their religion nearly extinct. The books of the Law, written in a small square character on sheepskin, are however still preserved, although it would seem for many years they have been seen by no one able to read them.

[1] Kai-fung-fú, according to Williams's map, is situated about a league from the southern bank of the Hwang-ho, or Yellow River, in 34° 55´ N. Lat., and 114° 40´ E. Long.

The Jesuits mention the existence of the sacred books, but were not suffered to copy or even to inspect them; but the Chinese Christians encountered no such scruples; so that, besides taking copies of inscriptions on the stone tablets, they were enabled to bring away eight Hebrew manuscripts, six of them containing portions of the Old Testament, and two of the Hebrew liturgy. The correspondent of the North China Herald states that—

"The portions of Scripture are from the 1st to the 6th chapters of Exodus, from the 38th to the 40th chapters of the same book, Leviticus 19th and 20th chapters, Numbers 13th, 14th, and 15th chapters, Deuteronomy from the 11th to the 16th chapters, with the 32nd chapter of that book. Various portions of the Pentateuch, Psalms, and Hagiographa occur in the books of prayers, which have not yet been definitely fixed. The character in which these portions are written is an antique form of the Hebrew, with points.[2] They are written on thick paper, evidently by means of a style, and the material employed, as well as the silk in which the books are bound, exhibit marks of a foreign origin. Two Israelitish gentlemen, to whom they have been shown in Shanghae, say that they have seen such books in Aden; and the occurrence here and [443]there of Persian words, written with Hebrew letters, in the notes appended, seem to indicate that the books in question came originally from the western part of Asia, perhaps Persia or Arabia. There is no trace whatever of the Chinese character about them, and they must have been manufactured entirely by foreigners residing in China, or who have come from a foreign country. Regarding their age, it would be difficult to hazard even a conjecture."

[2] The Jesuits state expressly that the Hebrew was without points.

The result of this mission has been such that it cannot be doubted another will be sent, and we trust the attempt at least will be made by some discreet foreigner—a Jew, or at all events a Hebrew scholar—to penetrate to Kai-fung-fú; for although the proofs brought away on the present occasion are so far satisfactory, yet in the account given, on the authority of the Chinese emissaries, we presume, there are several things that might otherwise excite incredulity.

SALOPIAN.

[The Jewish Intelligencer for May, 1851, contains a long article on the "Present State of the Jews at Kai-fung-fú;" also a fac-simile of the Hebrew MS. found in the synagogue at that place, and a map of the eastern coast of China.]

THE DUTCH MARTYROLOGY.

Wall, in his History of Infant Baptism, frequently mentions a book called The Dutch Martyrology as quoted by Danvers. He appears never to have seen it, and if I mistake not (although I cannot just now find the passage) he somewhere throws out a hint that no such book ever existed. Archdeacon Cotton, in his valuable edition of Wall's book, says (vol. ii. p. 131. note m.):

"Danvers cites this work as 'The Dutch Martyrology called The bloody Theatre; a most elaborate and worthy collection: written in Dutch, by M. J. Van Braght.' I have never seen it."

A very fine copy of this curious and very important work is in the Fagel collection in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. It is on large paper, with the exception of some few leaves in different parts of the volume, which have been mounted to match the rest. It is full of beautiful engravings by Jan Luyken, representing the sufferings of the martyrs; some of them, indeed all, possessing very great artistic merit. The first in the volume, a crucifixion, representing Our Lord in the very act of being nailed to the cross, is a most striking picture: and I may also mention another, at p. 385., representing a party in a boat reading the Bible, having put out to sea to escape observation.

The book is a large folio in 2 vols.: the first consisting of 450, the second of 840 pages; and contains a most important collection of original documents, which are indispensable to the history of the Reformation, and many of them are intimately connected with the English Reformation. The history of the martyrs begins with Our Saviour's crucifixion (for He is represented as the first Anabaptist martyr!), and ends with the year 1660. The Dublin copy is the second edition, and its full title is as follows:—

"Het Bloedig Tooneel, of Martelaers Spiegel der Doops-gesinde of Weerloose Christenen, die om't getuygenis van JESUS naren Selighmaker, geleden hebben, ende gedood zijn, van CHRISTI tijd af tot desen tijd toe. Versamelt uyt verscheyde geloofweerdige Chronijken, Memorien, en Getuygenissen. Door T. J. V. Braght [or, as he is called on the engraved title-page, Tileman Van Braght]. Den Tweeden Druk, Bysonder vermeerdert met veele Autentijke Stucken, en over de hondert curieuse Konstplaten. Amsterdam. 1685."

Since writing the above, I see that the Bodleian Library has a copy; procured, however, it is right (for Dr. Cotton's sake) to say, since the publication of his edition of Wall's History of Infant Baptism.

J. H. T.

Trin. Coll., Dub.

LADY FLORA HASTINGS' BEQUEST.

All who reverence and love the memory of Lady Flora Hastings,—all who have had the happiness of a personal acquaintance with that gentle and gifted being,—who have mourned over her hapless fate,—who have read her poems, so full of beauty and promise, will receive her "Last Bequest" with feelings of deep interest.

This poem has never before been published.

ERZA.

WITCHCRAFT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Sir Roger Twysden, with all his learning, could not rise above the credulity of his age; and was, to the last, as firm a believer in palmistry and witchcraft, and all the illusions of magic, as the generality of his cotemporaries. His commonplace-books furnish numerous instances of the childlike simplicity with which he gave credence to any tale of superstition for which the slightest shadow of authenticity could be discovered.

The following amusing instance of this almost infantine credulity, I have extracted from one of his note-books; merely premising that his wife Isabella was daughter of Sir Nicholas Saunders, the narrator of the tale:—

"The 24th September, 1632, Sir Nicholas Saunders told me hee herd my lady of Arundall, widow of Phylip who dyed in ye Tower 1595, a virtuous and religious lady in her way, tell the ensuing relation of a Cat her Lord had. Her Lord's butler on a tyme, lost a cuppe or bowle of sylver, or at least of yt prise he was much troubled for, and knowing no other way, he went to a wyzard or Conjurer to know what was become of it, who told him he could tell him where he might see the bowle if he durst take it. The servant sayd he would venture to take it if he could see it, bee it where it would. The wyzard then told hym in such a wood there was a bare place, where if he hyed himself for a tyme he appoynted, behind a tree late in the night he should see ye Cuppe brought in, but wth all advised him if he stept in to take it, he should make hast away wth it as fast as myght bee. The servant observed what he was commanded by ye Conjurer, and about Mydnyght he saw his Lord's Cat bring in the cup was myst, and divers other creatures bring in severall other things; hee stept in, went, and felt ye Cuppe, and hyde home: where when he came he told his fellow servants this tale, so yt at ye last it was caryed to my Lord of Arundel's eare; who, when his Cat came to him, purring about his leggs as they used to doo, began jestingly to speake to her of it. The Cat presently upon his speech flewe in his face, at his throat, so yt wthout ye help of company he had not escaped wthout hurt, it was wth such violence: and after my lord being rescued got away, unknown how, and never after seene.

"There is just such a tale told of a cat a Lord Willoughby had, but this former coming from so good hands I cannot but believe.—R. T."

L. B. L.

Witchcraft. In the 13th year of the reign of King William the Third—

"One Hathaway, a most notorious rogue, feigned himself bewitched and deprived of his sight, and pretended to have fasted nine weeks together; and continuing, as he pretended, under this evil influence, he was advised, in order to discover the person supposed to have bewitched him, to boil his own water in a glass bottle till the bottle should break, and the first that came into the house after, should be the witch; and that if he scratched the body of that person till he fetched blood, it would cure him; which being done, and a poor old woman coming by chance into the house, she was seized on as the witch, and obliged to submit to be scratched till the blood came, whereupon the fellow pretended to find present ease. The poor woman hereupon was indicted for witchcraft, and tried and acquitted at Surrey assizes, before Holt, chief justice, a man of no great faith in these things; and the fellow persisting in his wicked contrivance, pretended still to be ill, and the poor woman, notwithstanding the acquittal, forced by the mob to suffer herself to be scratched by him. And this being discovered to be all imposition, an information was filed against him."—Modern Reports, vol. xii. p. 556.

Q. D.

INDULGENCES PROPOSED TO BENEFACTORS TO THE CHURCH OF ST. GEORGE THE MARTYR, SOUTHWARK.

As I believe little is known of the early history of this church, which was dependent upon the Abbey and Convent of Bermondsey, the following curious hand-bill or affiche, printed in black letter (which must have been promulgated previous to the disgrace of Cardinal Wolsey, and the suppression of religious houses in the reign of Henry VIII.), seems worthy of preservation. It was part of the [445]lining of an old cover of a book, and thus escaped destruction. It is surmounted, at the left hand corner, by a small woodcut representing St. George slaying the dragon, and on the right, by a shield, which, with part of the margin, has been cut away by the bookbinder. But few words are wanting, which are supplied by conjecture in Italics.

It appears from Staveley's History of Churches in England, p. 99., that the monks were sent up and down the country, with briefs of a similar character, to gather contributions of the people on these occasions, and that the king's letter was sometimes obtained, in order that they might prove more effectual.

It is most probable that the collectors were authorised to grant special indulgences proportionate to the value of the contribution. No comment is necessary upon these proceedings, from which at least the Reformation relieved the people, and placed pious benefactions upon purer and better motives.

MISO-DOLOS.

"Unto all maner and synguler Cristen people beholdynge or herynge these present letters shall come gretynge.

"Our holy Fathers, xii. Cardynallys of Rome chosen by the mercy of Almighty God and by the Auctorite of these appostles Peter and Paule, to all and synguler cristen people of eyther kynde, trewely penytent and confessyd, and deuoutly gyue to the churche of oure lady and Seynt George the martyr in Sowthwerke, protector and defender of this Realme of Englande, any thyng or helpe with any parte of theyr goodes to the Reparacions or maynteyninge of the seruyce of almighty God done in ye same place, as gyuynge any boke, belle, or lyght, or any other churchly Ornamentis, they shall haue of eche of us Cardinallys syngulerly aforesayd a C. dayes of pardon. ¶ Also there is founded in the same parysshe churche aforesayd, iii. Chauntre preestis perpetually to praye in the sayd churche for the Bretherne and Systers of the same Fraternyte, and for the soules of them that be departed, and for all cristen soules. And also iiii. tymes by the yere Placebo and Dirige, with xiiii. preestis and clerkes, with iii. solempne Masses, one of our Lady, another of Seynt George, with a Masse of Requiem. ¶ Moreouer our holy Fathers, Cardynallys of Rome aforesayd, hathe graunted the pardons followethe to all theym that be Bretherne and Systers of the same Fraternyte at euery of the dayes followynge, that is to say, the firste sonday after the feest of Seynt Johannes Baptyst, on the whiche the same churche was halowed, xii. C. dayes of pardon. ¶ Also the feest of Seynt Mychael ye Archangell, xii. C. dayes of pardon. ¶ Also the second sonday in Lent, xii. C. dayes of pardon. ¶ Also good Frydaye, the whiche daye Criste sufferyd his passion, xii. C. dayes of pardon. ¶ Also Tewisday in the wytson weke, xii. C. dayes of pardon. ¶ And also at euery feeste of our lorde Criste syngulerly by himselfe, from the firste euynsonge to the seconde euynsonge inclusyuely, xii. C. dayes of pardon. ¶ Also my lorde Cardynall and Chaunceller of Englande hathe gyuen a C. dayes of pardon.

"¶ The summe of the masses that is sayd and songe within the same Parysshe Churche of Seynt George, is a m. and xliiii.

"¶ God Saue the Kynge."

GRAY'S PLAGIARISMS.

Your correspondent VARRO (Vol. iii., p. 206.) rejects as a plagiarism in Gray the instance quoted by me from a note in Byron (Vol. iii., p. 35.), on the ground that Gray has himself expressly stated that the passage was "an imitation" of the one in Dante. I always thought that in literature, as in other things, some thefts were acknowledged and others unacknowledged, and that the only difference between them was, that, while the acknowledgment went to extenuate the offence, it the more completely established the fact of the appropriation. A great many actual borrowings, but for such acknowledgment, might pass for coincidences. "On peut se rencontrer," as the Chevalier Ramsay said on a similar occasion.

The object, however, of this Note is not to shake VARRO'S belief in the impeccability of Gray, for whose genius I entertain the highest admiration and respect, but to show your readers that the imputation of plagiarism against that poet is not wholly unfounded. First, we have the well-known line in his poem of The Bard,—

which is shown to have been appropriated from the following passage in Dryden's tragedy of Don Sebastian:

To this I shall add the famous apothegm at the close of the following stanzas, in his Ode On a Prospect of Eton College:

The same thought is expressed by Sir W. Davenant in the lines:

But the source of Gray's apothegm is still more obviously traceable to these lines in Prior:

A third sample in Gray is borrowed from Milton. The latter, in speaking of the Deity, has this beautiful image:

[446]And Gray, with true poetic feeling, has applied this image to Milton himself in those forceful lines in the Progress of Poesy, in which he alludes to the poet's blindness:

There is a passage in Longinus which appears to me to have furnished Milton with the germ of this thought. The Greek rhetorician is commenting on the use of figurative language, and, after illustrating his views by a quotation from Demosthenes, he adds: "In what has the orator here concealed the figure? plainly in its own lustre." In this passage Longinus elucidates one figure by another,—a not unusual practice with that elegant writer.

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia, April, 1851.

ON THE APPLICATION OF THE WORD "LITTUS" IN THE SENSE OF RIPA, THE BANK OF A RIVER.

The late Marquis Wellesley, towards the close of his long and glorious life, wrote the beautiful copy of Latin verses upon the theme "Salix Babylonica," which is printed among his Reliquiæ.

In this copy of verses is to be found the line,—

Certain critics object to this word "littoris," used here in the sense of "ripa." The question is, whether such an application can be borne out by ancient authorities. To be sure, the substitution of "marginis" for "littoris" would obviate all controversy; but as the objection has been started, and urged with some pertinacity, it may be worth while to consider it. The ordinary meaning of littus is undoubtedly the sea-shore; but it seems quite certain that it is used occasionally in the sense of "ripa."

In the 2d Ode of Horace, book 1st, we find:

—meaning, as I conceive, that the waters of the Tiber were thrown back from the Etruscan shore, or right bank, which was the steep side, so as to flood the left bank, and do all the mischief. If this interpretation be correct, which Gesner supports by the following note, the question is settled by this single passage:

"Quod fere malim propter ea quæ sequuntur, littus ipsius Tiberis dextrum, quod spectat Etruriam: unde retortis undis sinistrâ ripâ Romam alluente, labitur."

Thus, at all events, I have the authority of Gesner's scholarship for "littus ipsius Tiberis."

There are two other passages in Horace's Odes where "littus" seems to bear a different sense from the sea-shore. The first, book iii. ode 4.:

The next, book iii. ode 17.:

Upon which latter Gesner says, that as Marica was a nymph from whom the river received its name,—

"Hinc patet Lirim atque Maricam fuisse duo unius fluminis nomina."

But I will not insist upon these examples even with the support of Gesner, because Marica may have been a district situate on the sea-shore, and because, in the former passage, "littus Assyrium" may mean the Syrian coast, which is washed by the Mediterranean.

But to go to another author, in book x. of Lucan's Pharsalia will be found (line 244.):

This seems to be a clear case of the Nile breaking its banks, and is conclusive. Again, in book viii. l. 641.:

[3] Sc. Zephyri.

And again, "littore Niliaco," book ix. l. 135.

Lastly, in Scheller's Dictionary, the same meaning is given from the 8th book of Virgil's Æneid:

where, beyond a doubt, is meant "littore" fluviali.

It appears, then, from these examples that Lord Wellesley is justified in his application of the word "littus" to the adjective "Thamesinus."

Minor Notes.

Epigrams by Coulanges and Prior.

—Has the following coincidence been noticed between an epigram of M. de Coulanges and some verses by Mat. Prior?

C. P. PH***.

Brewhouse Antiquities.

—In Forth and others versus Stanton, Trinity Term, 20 Charles II., Timothy Alsopp and others sue for 100l. for cost of beer, sold by them to defendant's late husband. Can this Timothy Alsopp be a lineal predecessor of the present eminent firm of Samuel Alsopp and Sons? We are told that Child's is the oldest banking-house—which may be the oldest brewing establishment?

J. H. S.

Joseph of Exeter de Bello Antiocheno.

—Joseph of Exeter, or Iscanus, was the author of two poems: 1st, De Bello Trojano; 2dly, De Bello Antiocheno. The first has been printed and published. The second was only known by fragments to Leland. See his work De Scrip. Brit. p. 239. Mr. Warton, in his History of English Poetry (1774), affirms, that Mr. Wise, the Radcliffe librarian, had informed him that a MS. copy of the latter was in the library of the Duke of Chandos at Canons. Query, where is it? It was not at Stowe. It is not in Lord Ashburnham's collection, nor in the British Museum; nor in the Bodleian Library, nor in the archives of Sir Thomas Phillipps. For the honour of the nation, we earnestly hope that it may be discovered and committed to the press.

EXONIENSIS.

Illustrations of Welsh History:
1. Offer by David, Prince of Wales, to become a Vassal of the Pope.—
2. Death in the Tower of Griffith ap Llewellyn, Prince of North Wales.

—In Madox's Collections in the British Museum (Add. MSS. No. 4565., vol. lxxxviii. p. 387.) are the annexed references to two interesting incidents in the history of Wales, noticed in a MS. Chronicle of John De Malverne, in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The references are sent for insertion in "NOTES AND QUERIES," in the hope that some member of the University may be induced to favour the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" with the passages referred to by Madox.

"Per idem tempus David Princeps Norwalliæ ad alas papalis protectionis confugere proponens, terram suam optulit ei ab ipso tenere, reddendo inde sibi quingentas marcas, cui perhibetur D. Papa favorem præbuisse in magnum regni Angliæ præjudicium: novit enim mundus Principem Walliæ ab antiquo vassallum Regis Angliæ extitisse. Ex eod. Chron. [MS. Joh. de Malverne, M. 14.] A. Dom. 1244."

"Griff. fil. Lewel. Princeps Norwalliæ, being in the Tower of London, fell down as he tryed to make his escape out of a window, and dyed. Ib. ad. Ann. 1244."

JOHN AP WILLIAM AP JOHN.

Inner Temple, May 28.

Queries.

THE WINDOW-TAX, LOCAL MINTS, AND NOBBS OF NORWICH.

In a MS. chronicle, now before me, of remarkable events which occurred, in connexion with the history of the city of Norwich, from the earliest period to the year 1716, compiled by an inhabitant of the place named Nobbs, of whom a word or two at the end of this note, occurs the following passage:

"This year (1695) the parliament made an act for remedying the coin of the nation, which was generally debased by counterfeits, and diminished by clipping, and laid a tax upon glass windows, to make good the deficiency when it should be taken in. And, for the speedy supply of money to the subjects, upon calling in of the old money, there were mints set up in York, Bristol, Chester, Exeter, and Norwich. The mint in Norwich began to work in Sept. 1696. Coined there 259,371l. The amount of plate and coin brought into this mint was 17,709 ounces."

These quantities are identical with those given by Blomefield (History of Norwich, fol., 1741, p. 300.).

1. The duties chargeable on windows, as now collected, were regulated by Sched. A. of 48 Geo. III. c. 55.; but, assuming the correctness of Nobbs' statement, is it generally known that this tax originated in the year, and under the circumstances, above recorded?

Bishop Burnet (Hist. Own Time, 8vo., 1833, vol. iv. pp. 252. 258.), describing the proceedings taken by parliament for rectifying the state of the coinage, without telling us by what means the money was raised, says (p. 290.):

"Twelve thousand pounds was given to supply the deficiency of the bad and clipped money."

Is this sum the amount of the proceeds of the tax laid, as our chronicle records, upon glass windows? If so, or from whatever source obtained, it may, in passing, be remarked, that it appears to be ridiculously inadequate to meet the requirements of the case; for, according to the Bishop, in another place (p. 316.):

"About five millions of clipped money was brought into the exchequer, and the loss that the nation suffered, by the recoining of the money, amounted to two millions and two hundred thousand pounds."

The window duties have of late provoked much discussion, and it would prove of some interest, if, through the medium of your pages, any of your correspondents would take the trouble to investigate a little further the subject of this note. It very easily admits of confirmation or denial.

2. The principal reason, however, for now writing, is to request answers to the two following Queries: 1. What amount of money was respectively coined during 1696, and the following year, in the cities of York, Bristol, Chester, and Exeter? [448]and 2. In what parish of each of these places, including Norwich, was the mint situated?

And now let me add a sentence or two respecting the compiler of the above-named chronicle, which I am induced to do, as his name is closely connected with that of one of the most celebrated controversial writers of the Augustan age of Anne and George I., the friend of Whiston, of Newton, and of Hoadley, and the subject of Pope's sarcastic allusion:

It appears, on the authority of a MS. letter before me, dated Aylsham, Norfolk, Jan. 25, 1755, and addressed to Mr. Nehemiah Lodge, town clerk of Norwich, by Mr. Thos. Johnson, who was speaker of the common council of that city from 1731 to 1736, that Nobbs

"Was many years clerk of St. Gregory's parish in Norwich, where he kept a school, and was so good a scholar as to fit youths for the university, amongst whom were the great Dr. Samuel Clarke, and his brother, the Dean of Salisbury."

The old man's MS. is very neatly written, and arranged with much method. It was made great use of, frequently without acknowledgment, by Blomefield, in the compilation of his history; and besides the chronicle of events immediately connected with the city, there are interspersed through its pages notices of earthquakes, great famines, blazing stars, dry summers, long frosts, and other similar unusual occurrences. The simplicity, and grave unhesitating credulity, with which some of the more astonishing marvels, culled, I suppose, from the pages "of Holinshed or Stow," are recorded, is very amusing. I cannot refrain from offering you a couple of examples, and with them I will bring this heterogeneous "note" to a close.

"In the eighth year of this king's reign (E. II.) it was ordained by parliament, that an ox fatted with grass should be sold for 15s., fatted with corn 20s., the best cow for 12s.; a fat hog of two years 3s. 4d.; a fat sheep shorn 14d., and with fleece 20d.; a fat capon 2d., a fat hen 1d., four pigeons 1d. And whosoever sold for more, should forfeit his ware to the king. But this order was soon revoked, by reason of the scarcity that after followed. For, in the year following, 1315, there was so great a dearth, that continued three years, and therewith a mortality, that the living were not sufficient to bury the dead; horses, dogs, and children were eaten in that famine, and thieves in prison plucked in pieces those that were newly brought in, and eat them half alive."

But, again, sub ann. 1349:

"This year dyed in Norwich of the plague, from the first of January to the last of June, 57,374 persons, besides religious people and beggars; and in Yarmouth, 7053. This plague began November the first, 1348, and continued to 1357, and it hath been observed that they that were born after this had but twenty-eight teeth, whereas before they had thirty-two."

This latter notice refers to the first of those three destructive epidemics which visited Europe during the reign of our Edw. III., and are so frequently mentioned in ancient records. It is styled the "Pestilencia Prima et Magna, Anno Domini 1349, a festo Stæ. Petronillæ usque ad festum Sti. Michaelis." (Nicolas, Chron. of Hist., p. 345.)

COWGILL.

Minor Queries.

Gillingham.

—Can you, or any of your correspondents, furnish me with any historical or local data that may tend to identify the place where that memorable council was convened, by which the succession to the English crown was transferred from the Danish to the Saxon line? Hutchins, in his History of Dorset (Edw. II., 1813, vol. iii. p. 196.), says:

"Malmsbury[4] mentions a council held at Gillingham, in which Edward the Confessor was chosen king. It was really a grand council of the realm; but the generality of our historians place it with more probability at London, or in the environs thereof."

[4] Book ii. c. 12. p. 45.

I am not aware of anything else that can be advanced in support of the claims of the Dorset shire Gillingham to be the scene of this event except it be the fact that a royal palace or hunting-seat there was the occasional residence of the English kings early in the twelfth century, and subsequently. I do not know whether its existence can be traced prior to the Conquest; and unless that can be done, it is obviously of no importance in the present inquiry. Now it had occurred to me that, after all, Gillingham, near Chatham in Kent, may be the true locality; but, unfortunately, my knowledge of that place is limited to the fact, that our London letters, when directed without the addition of "Dorset," are usually sent to rusticate there for a day or two. Perhaps one of your Kentish correspondents will favour me with some more pertinent information.

QUIDAM.

"We hope, and hope, and hope."

—I wish to discover the author (a disappointed courtier, I believe) of a poem ending thus:

C. P. PH***.

What is Champak?

—In Shelley's "Lines to an Indian Air," I read—"The Champak odours fail." Is it connected with the spice-bearing regions of Champava, or Tsiampa, in Siam?

C. P. PH***.

Encorah and Millicent.

—These are very common baptismal names for females in this parish, and I should be very much obliged to any one [449]who could refer me to the origin and meaning of either or both of them. The former is also spelt Anchōra and Enchōra.

J. EASTWOOD.

Ecclesfield.

Diogenes in his Tub.

—It may be hypercritical, but is there any authority for placing Diogenes in the tub at the time of his interview with Alexander, which took place at Corinth, as Landseer has done in his celebrated dog-picture?

A. A. D.

Topical Memory.

—Where can I find the subject of "topical memory" treated of? Cic. de Orat. i. 34. alludes to it.

A. A. D.

St. Paul's Clock striking Thirteen.

—Will you allow me on this subject to put to men of science, and to watchmakers, the  à priori question—Is the alleged fact mechanically possible?

AVENA.

A regular Mull—Origin of the Phrase.

—"You have made a regular mull of it," meaning a complete failure. This expression I have often heard, from my school days even to the present time. Can you give me the origin of it? In reading a very clever and interesting paper communicated by J. M. Kemble, Esq., to the Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in the volume of their proceedings for 1845, entitled, "The Names, Surnames, and Nicnames of the Anglo-Saxons," I found the following paragraph:

"Two among the early kings of Wessex are worthy of peculiar attention, viz., the celebrated sons of Cênberht, Cædwealha and his brother Mûl. Of the former it is known, that after a short and brilliant career of victory, he voluntarily relinquished the power he had won, became a convert to Christianity, and having retired to Rome, was there baptised by the name Petrus, and died while yet in the Albs, a few days after the ceremony. His brother Mûl, during their wars in Kent, suffered himself to be surprised by the country-people and was burnt to death, together with twelve comrades, in a house where they had taken refuge."

This "Note," I think, answers my Query. Do you know of any other explanation?

W. E. W.

Register-book of the Parish of Petworth.

—Can any reader of "NOTES AND QUERIES" assist in discovering a document which was formerly quoted by this title? Heylin used it for the reign of Edward VI., but his learned editor (Mr. Robertson) appears to have searched for it in vain.

C. H.

St. Catharine's Hall, Cambridge.

Going to Old Weston.

—When a Huntingdonshire man is asked "If he has ever been to Old Weston," and replies in the negative, he is invariably told, "You must go before you die." Old Weston is an out-of-the-way village in the county, and until within a few years was almost inapproachable by carriages in winter; but in what the point of the remark lies, I do not know.

ARUN.

"As drunk as Chloe."

—Who was Chloe, and what gave rise to the expression?

J. N. C.

Mark for a Dollar.

—What is the origin of the mark for a dollar, $?

T. C.

Stepony. (Vol. ii., p. 267.)

—If not too stale by this time, may I put a Query to any Worcestershire reader on the possible connexion of Stepony ale with a well-known country inn in that county, which must have startled many a traveller with strange hippophagous apprehensions, viz., Stew-poney?

B.

Lincoln.

Longueville MSS.

—Was the collection of MSS. possessed by Henry Viscount Longueville, and catalogued in Cat. Lib. MSS. Angliæ, 1697, dispersed; or, if not, where is it to be found?

E. T. B.

York, May 13.

Carling Sunday.

—Carling Sunday, occurring nowabouts, is observed on the north coast of England by the custom of frying dry peas; and much augury attends the process, as indicated by the different effect of the bounding peas on the hot plate. Is any solution to be given? The writer has heard that the practice originated in the loss of a ship (freighted with peas) on the coast of Northumberland. Carling is the foundation beam of a ship, or the main beam on the keel.

X.

Lion Rampant holding a Crozier.

—I met with this crest some time since on a private seal, and should be glad to ascertain whether the device was borne by chancellors and archbishops who exercised these functions contemporaneously, the last of whom was the Archbishop of York, who was also Lord Keeper from 1621 to Nov. 1625. The motto on the seal is—

"Malentour."

To this I cannot trace any meaning. Perhaps some of your heraldic antiquaries can favour me with a solution of the above device of the motto?

F. E. M.

Monumental Symbolism.

—On a monument dated 1600, or thereabouts, erected to a member of an ancient Roman Catholic family in Leicestershire, there are effigies of his children sculptured. Two of the sons are represented in a kneeling posture, with their hands clasped and upraised; while all the others are standing, some cased in armour, or otherwise. Can you, from knowledge of heraldry, or any other source, decide confidently what is the reason of the difference of posture, or rather what it is intended to denote?

READER.

Ptolemy's Presents to the Seventy-two.

—Josephus (Ant. b. xii. ch. ii. sect. 15.) mentions, as among the presents bestowed by Ptolemy on the Seventy-two elders, "the furniture of the room in which [450]they were entertained." Was this a usual custom of antiquity?

H. J.

Baronette. (Vol. ii., p. 194.)

—In an extract from a statute temp. Hen. IV., it is stated that "dukes, earls, barons, and baronettes might use livery of our lord the king, or his collar," &c. Query the meaning of the term baronette, in the reign of Henry IV.?

B. DE M.

Meaning of "Hernshaw."

—Hernshaw occurs in Hamlet, II. 2. Query, What is the derivation of it? It means, I believe, a young heron. Chaucer ("Squire's Tale," l. 90.) spells it "heronsewe." As sewe signifies a dish (whence the word sewer, he who serves up the dinner), this word applied to heron may mean one fit for eating, young and tender.

J. H. C.

Adelaide, South Australia.

Hogan.—

"For your reputation we keep to ourselves your not hunting nor drinking hogan, either of which here would be sufficient to lay your honor in the dust."

This passage occurs in a letter from Gray to Horace Walpole in 1737. Can any subscriber state what "hogan" was, the not drinking of which was "to lay your honor in the dust?"

HENRY CAMPKIN.

"Trepidation talk'd."

—What mean the following words in Milton, Paradise Lost, book iii. line 481?

By the last three words we may easily understand the primum mobile of the Ptolemaic astronomy; and trepidation is thus explained in the Imperial Dictionary:

"In the old astr. a libration of the eighth sphere, or a motion which the Ptolemaic system ascribes to the firmament, to account for the changes and motion of the axis of the world."

Newton, in his edition of Milton, is silent. Bentley says in a note:

"Foolish ostentation, in a thing that a child may be taught in a map of these imaginary spheres. Talk'd, not good English, for called, styled, named."

Paterson, in his Commentary on Paradise Lost, 1744, for the sight of which I am indebted to the courtesy of the librarian of the Chetham Library, says:

"Trepidation, Lat., an astronomical T., a trembling, a passing. Here, two imagined motions of those spheres. Therefore Milton justly ridicules those wild notions."

Granting that trepidation and whose balance weighs are understood, can any of your readers explain the phrase trepidation talk'd?

W. B. H.

Manchester.

Lines on the Temple.

—Can any of your readers inform me if these lines, said to be the impromptu production of some passer-by struck with the horse and lamb over the Temple gates, have ever been in print, and where?

J. S.

Death.

—I am making a collection, for a literary purpose, of the forms or similitudes under which the idea of Death has been embodied in different ages, and among different nations, and shall be highly obliged by any additions which your numerous learned and intelligent correspondents may be able to make to my stock of materials. References to manuscripts, books, coins, paintings, and sculptures, will be highly acceptable. I must confess that it has not yet been in my power to trace satisfactorily the origin, or the earliest pictorial example, of the current representation of Death as a skeleton, with hour-glass and scythe.

S. T. D.

Was Stella Swift's Sister?

—Being last week on a visit to Dublin, I went to see St. Patrick's Cathedral there, when, contemplating the monuments of the Dean and Stella, the verger's boy informed me, that after the death of the latter, the Dean discovered that she was his own sister, which occasioned him to go mad. Is there any foundation for this?

J. H. S.

Minor Queries Answered.

John Marwoode.

—A house in the town of Honiton, Devon, has the following inscription carved above the dining-room mantelpiece:

From a marble tablet in the porch, J. M. appears to have been "Gentleman Physician" to Queen Elizabeth. Any information respecting him will be acceptable to

C. P. PH***.

[Dr. Thomas Marwood, of Honiton, was a physician of the first eminence in the West of England, and succeeded in effecting a cure in a diseased foot of the Earl of Essex, for which he received from Queen Elizabeth, as a reward for his professional skill, an estate near Honiton. From an inscription on his tomb in the parish church, it appears that "he died the 18th Sept., 1617, aged above 105." The house [451]mentioned by our correspondent was erected in 1619 by John Marwood, who was also a physician, and by Bridget his wife. For further particulars respecting the family of the Marwoods, see Gentleman's Magazine, vols. lxi. p. 608.; lxiii. 113.; lxxix. 3.; lxxx. pt. i. 429.; lxxx. pt. ii. 320.]

St. Paul.

—I shall be obliged if you will allow me the opportunity of asking your correspondents for a reference to the fullest and most reliable life of St. Paul the apostle?

EMUN.

[Our correspondent is referred to The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, comprising a complete Biography of the Apostle and a paraphrastic Translation of his Epistles, inserted in Chronological Order, now in course of publication by Messrs. Longman, under the editorship of the Rev. W. J. Conybeare, M.A., and the Rev. J. S. Howson. The work is copiously illustrated with maps plans, views, &c.]

Meaning of Zoll-verein.

—Should a one-shilling visitor to the Crystal Palace ask a question of a holder of a season ticket touching the exact meaning and history of the word Zoll-verein, I wonder what he would tell him?

CORDEROY.

[Zoll-Verein, i. e. Customs Union.—An union of smaller states with Prussia for the purposes of Customs uniformity, first commenced in 1819 by the union of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, and which now includes Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Wirtemburg, Baden, Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick, and Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and all intermediate principalities. For the purposes of trade and customs these different kingdoms and principalities act as one empire.]

Crex, the White Bullace.

—Will you insert a Query from a new correspondent but old subscriber? Crex is the ordinary name with Cambridgeshire folk for the White Bullace. I cannot answer for the orthography, as neither Dictionary nor Provincial Glossary acknowledges the word. Can any of your correspondents enlighten me?

CHARLES THIRIOLD.

St. Dunstan.

[This Cambridgeshire name for the White Bullace is clearly connected with the Dutch name for Cherry, Kriecke. See Killian, s. v., where we find KRIECKE, Cerasum, and the several kinds of cherry, described as Swarte Kriecke, Spaensche Kriecke, Roode Kriecke, &c.]

Replies.

THE OUTER TEMPLE.
(Vol. iii., p. 375.)

While I thank MR. PETER CUNNINGHAM for his ready compliance with my request, I am sorry to say that I cannot concur in the reliance which he expresses on the authority of Sir George Buc. The passage quoted from that writer contains so palpable a blunder in that part of the history of the Temple of which we have authentic records, that I look with much suspicion on that portion of the relation, with regard to which no documentary evidence has been found.

He makes "Hugh Spencer, Earle of Glocester," the next successor of the Earl of Lancaster in the possession of the Temple after the suppression, and places "Andomare de Valence" in the house after the execution of Spencer for treason: an account which receives a somewhat significant contradiction in the fact, that Valence died in 1323, and Spencer was beheaded in 1326.

With reference to Buc's assertion, that "the other third part, called the Outward Temple, Doctor Stapleton, Bishop of Exceter, had gotten in the raign of the former king, Edward the Second, and conuerted it to a house for him and his successors, Bishops of Exceter," I can only say that no such grant has ever been discovered, and that every fact on which we have any information in relation to the Templars' possessions in London, contradicts the presumption that any part of them was disposed of to the bishop. He was raised to his see in 1307. The Templars were suppressed in 1309. Their lands and tenements in London were then placed in the hands of custodes appointed by the king, who in 1311 transferred them into the custody of the sheriffs of London, with directions to account for the rents into the Exchequer. In both of these documents, and in the grants to the Earls of Lancaster and Pembroke, ALL the property that belonged to the Templars in London and its suburbs is expressly included; without excepting any part of it as having been previously granted to the bishop; which, had any such been made, would inevitably have been specially noticed. And I have already shown in my former communication (p. 325.) that the grant by the Hospitallers themselves to Hugh le Despenser in 1324 is of the whole of their house called the New Temple, and that the bishop's mansion is therein stated to be its western boundary.

All these particulars confirm me in my opinion, that the bishop's house never formed any part of the New Temple.

EDWARD FOSS.

THE OLD LONDON BELLMAN AND HIS SONGS OR CRIES.
(Vol. iii., pp. 324. 377.)

The songs of the old bellman are interesting relics of the manners and customs of "London in the olden time;" but they must not be confounded with the more modern "copies of verses" which, until lately, were annually handed about at Christmas time by that all-important functionary the "Parish Beadle." The history of the old London bellman may be gleaned from a series of tracts from the pen of those two prolific writers—Thomas Dekker and Samuel Rowlands. The first of these in the order of date is The Belman of London. Bringing to light the most notorious Villanies that are now practised in the Kingdome. Profitable for Gentlemen, Lawyers, Merchants, Citizens, Farmers, [452] Masters of Households, and all sortes of Servants to marke, and delightfull for all Men to Reade. Printed at London for Nathaniel Butler, 4to. 1608. The author of this tract was Thomas Dekker. Its popularity was so great that it passed through three editions in the course of one year. The title-page above given is that of the first impression. It is adorned with an interesting woodcut of the bellman with bell, lantern, and halberd, followed by his dog. In the following year the same author printed his Lanthorne and Candle-light, or the Bellman's second Nights-walke. In which he brings to light a Brood of more strange Villanies then ever were till this yeare discovered, &c. London, printed for John Busbie, 4to. 1609. The success of the Bellman of London, which Dekker published anonymously, induced him to write this second part, to the dedication of which "to Maister Francis Mustian of Peckham" he puts his name, while he also admits the authorship of the first part. This is the second edition of Lanthorne and Candle-light, but it came out originally in the same year. On the title-page of this tract the bellman is represented in a night-cap, without his dog, and with a "brown bill" on his shoulder. Three years later Dekker produced his O per se O, or a New Cryer of Lanthorne and Candle-light. Being an Addition, or Lengthening of the Bellman's Second Night-walke, &c. Printed at London for John Busbie, 4to. 1612. Previous to the year 1648, this production went through no fewer than nine distinct editions, varying only in a slight degree from each other. One of these editions, now before me, has for its title English Villanies Eight severall times Prest to Death by the Printers, 4to. 1648. The author in this calls the bellman "the childe of darkeness, a common night-walker, a man that hath no man to wait upon him, but onely a dogge; one that was a disordered person, and at midnight would beat at men's doores bidding them (in meere mockerie) to looke to their candles, when they themselves were in their dead sleepes." The following verses are at the back of the title-page, preceded by a woodcut of a bellman. The same lines are also given, "with additions," in the earlier editions of the Villanies, but they are too indecent to quote:

The exceeding popularity of the Bellman of London induced Samuel Rowlands to bring out his Martin Mark-all, Beadle of Bridewell, his Defence and Answere to the Belman of London, discovering the long-concealed Originall and Regiment of Rogues when they first began to take head, and how they have succeeded, &c. Printed for John Budge, &c., 4to. 1610. The object of this publication was to expose Dekker's Bellman, which Rowlands says was only a "vamp up" of Harman's Caveat or Warening for Common Cursetors; but Harman himself was only a borrower, and the origin of his work is The Fraternitye of Vacabondes, printed prior to 1565. Greene's Ground-work of Coney-catching is another work which may be pointed out as having been taken from the same original. But as these tracts do not contain any "bellman's songs," I need not now dwell upon them.

Among the many curious musical works printed in London at the close of the sixteenth and the beginning of the following century, I can scarcely point out a more desirable volume than one with this title: Melismata, Musical Phansies fitting the Court, City, and Country Humours, to three, four, and five voices:

London, printed by William Stansby, &c., 4to. 1611. The work is in five divisions, viz., 1. Court Varieties; 2. Citie Rounds; 3. Citie Conceits; 4. Country Rounds; 5. Country Pastimes. Among the "City Conceits" we have the following:

But perhaps the most curious collection of bellman's songs that has been handed down to us, is a small tract of twelve leaves entitled The Common Calls, Cries, and Sounds of the Bel-Man; or Diverse Verses to put us in minde of our Mortality, 12mo. Printed at London, 1639. This excessively rare and interesting "set of rhymes" is now before me, and from them I have extracted a few specimens of the genuine old songs of the London bellman of past times:—

The collection of Bellman's songs here described is sometimes found appended to a little work entitled Time well Improved, or Some Helps for Weak Heads in their Meditations, 12mo. 1657. The latter publication is a reprint, with a new title-page, of Samuel Rowlands' Heaven's Glory, seeke it; Earth's Vanitie, fly it; Hell's Horror, fere it. But whether the songs in question were written, or merely collected by Rowlands, does not appear.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

The Bellman (Vol. iii., p. 324.).—Your correspondent F. W. T. will find a very amusing sketch of a night-watchman in Gemälde aus dem häuslichen Leben und Erzählungen of G. W. C. Starke: whether it may help his inquiries or not I cannot say. It will at least inform him of the difficulties in which a conscientious and gallant watchman found himself when he attempted to improve on the time-honoured terms in which he had to "cry the hours."

BENBOW.

Birmingham.

THE TRAVELS OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN, AND THE AUTHOR OF THE SABBATH.
(Vol. iii., p. 305.)

1. In answer to the communication of A COLLECTOR, allow me to remark, that although Bruce did not publish his Travels till about seventeen years after his return to Great Britain, various details had got abroad; and, as usually happens, the actual facts, as given by himself, were either intentionally or accidentally misrepresented. Latterly, Bruce, indignant at the persecution he suffered, held his tongue, and patiently awaited the publication of his Travels to silence his accusers. Amongst other teasing occurrences, Paul Jodrell brought him on the stage in a clever after-piece which was acted in the Haymarket in 1779, and was published in 8vo. in 1780. A copy of this piece, which is called A Widow and no Widow, is now before me: and Macfable, a Scotch travelling impostor, was acted by Bannister; and the hits at Bruce cannot be mistaken.

Further, Bruce himself understood that he was the party meant by "Munchausen," and he complained of this and many other attacks to a distant relative of mine, who died a few years since, and who mentioned the circumstances to me; adding, that Bruce uniformly declared that the publication of his work would, he had no doubt, afford a triumphant answer to his calumniators.

Whilst on the subject of Munchausen, I may observe, that the story of the frozen words is to be found in Nugæ venales, or a Complaisant Companion, by Head, the author or compiler of the English Rogue. It occurs among the lies, p. 133.:

"A soldier swore desperately that being in the wars between the Russians and Polemen, there chanced to be a parley between the two generals where a river parted them. At that time it froze so excessive that the words were no sooner out of their mouths but they were frozen, and could not be heard till eleven days after, that a thaw came, when the dissolved words themselves made them audible to all."

As my copy has a MS. title, I should be obliged if any of your readers could furnish me with a correct one.

2. There were not "two James Grahame" cotemporaries. The author of Wallace was the author of The Sabbath, as well as of Poems and Tales, Scotch and English, thin 8vo., Paisley, 1794: a copy of which, as well as of Mary Stewart and Wallace, is in my tolerably extensive dramatic library. The latter is defective, ending at p. 88.; and was saved some years ago from a lot of the drama about to be consigned to the snuff-shop. Probably the same reasons which caused the suppression of a political romance from the same pen, and of which I have reason to believe the only existing copy is in my library, may have induced the non-completion of Wallace. Grahame, like many other young men just emerging at that particular time from the Scotch Universities, had imbibed opinions which in after years his good sense repudiated. He concealed his authorship of the Paisley poems (now very scarce), and the secret only transpired after his death. From the intimacy that subsisted between myself and his amiable nephew and namesake, whose untimely death, in 1817, at the age of twenty, I have never ceased to lament, I had the best means of learning many facts relative to the poet, who was, according to all accounts, one of the most estimable and truly pious men that ever lived. As to the crude opinions of early youth, [454]can we forget that the truly admirable Southey was the author of Wat Tyler?

Whether there were only six copies of Wallace completed, I cannot say; but this much I can assert, that there were a great many printed, and that, as before mentioned, the greater part went to the snuff-shop; probably, because people were not fond of purchasing a drama wanting the title and end.

In concluding, I may mention, that the "Mary Stewart" in the 12mo. edition of the Poems of Grahame, is quite altered from the one printed in 8vo. in 1801.

J. M.

THE PENN FAMILY.
(Vol. iii., p. 409.)

In reply to your correspondent A. N. C., William Penn, eldest son of the famous Quaker, married Mary Jones, by whom he had three children, Gulielma Maria, Springett, and William. The latter had a daughter by his first wife, Miss Fowler, who married a Gaskill, from which marriage the present Penn Gaskills of Rolfe's Hould, Buckinghamshire, are descended. While writing on this subject, allow me to send you two other "notes."

Hugh David, a Welshman, who went out to America in the same vessel with William Penn, used to relate this curious anecdote of the state founder. Penn, he says, after watching a goat gnaw at a broom which lay on deck, called out to him, "Hugh, dost thou observe the goat? See what hardy fellows the Welsh are; how they can feed on a broom! However, Hugh, I am a Welshman myself, and will relate by how strange a circumstance our family lost their name. My grandfather was named John Tudor, and lived on the top of a hill or mountain in Wales. He was generally called John Penmunith, which in English is—John on the top of the hill. He removed from Wales into Ireland, where he acquired considerable property. Upon his return to his own country he was addressed by his friends and neighbours, not in the former way, but as Mr. Penn. He afterwards removed to London, where he continued to reside under the name of John Penn, which has since been the family name." David told this story to a Quaker, who wrote it down in these words, and gave the MS. to Robert Proud, the historian of Pennsylvania. The same David, in a copy of doggrel verses presented to Thomas Penn on a visit to Philadelphia in 1732, made an allusion to this descent. I quote four of the lines:

This is at least curious. But I attach little credit to Mr. David's report. He certainly mistook or ill remembered Penn's words; as his grandfather was Giles Penn, and his ancestors for two generations before Giles are known to have been William.

The second note refers to Penn's descendants, and may claim a corner in your chronicle on more than one ground. William Penn was born in 1644: in 1844 his grandson, Granville Penn, well known as a writer on classical subjects, was still alive! The descendants of his first marriage with Miss Springett, six years ago were in the fifth and sixth generation after him; those by his second wife, Hannah Callowhill, in the second.

HEPWORTH DIXON.

ON THE WORD "PRENZIE" IN "MEASURE FOR MEASURE."
(Vol. iii., p. 401.)

I have read with attention the argument of your correspondent LEGES on the passage in Measure for Measure, in which the word "prenzie" occurs; and to much that he advances I should, like the modest orator who followed Mr. Burke, be contented to say "ditto." Nevertheless, as I cannot agree with him altogether, I beg permission to make a few remarks upon the question. The extent of my agreement with your correspondent will be shown in stating, that I think neither "priestly," "princely," nor "precise" to be the true word. We disagree, however, in the measure of our dislike; for of the three suggested corrections, "princely" is, to my mind, by far the best, and "precise," beyond all measure, the worst. Indeed, but that Mr. Knight has adopted the latter term, as well as Tieck, I should have regarded it as an instance of the difficulty in the way of the best qualified Germans of understanding the niceties of English meaning, or of feeling how far license might be tolerated in English versification. In adopting this term Mr. Knight appears to have forgotten that it has a special application as the Duke (Act I. Sc. 4.) uses it. Taken in connexion with the expressions "stands at a guard" and "scarce confesses," cautiously exact would appear to express the sense in a passage the whole spirit of which shows a scarcely disguised suspicion. The Duke, evidently, would not have been surprised, as Claudio was; and the expression appropriate to a close observer like the one, is a most unlikely epithet to have been chosen by the other. More fatal, however, is the destruction of the measure. Both instances go beyond all bounds of license. And though we may pass over the error in a critic so eminent even as Tieck, we need feel no compunction at exposing "earless on high" an Englishman who has pilloried so often and so mercilessly others for the same offence.

While, however, LEGES has shown good cause against the adoption of either of the above epithets, it does not appear to me that he has succeeded in establishing a case in favour of the [455]word "pensive," which he proposes instead. In the first place, the passages your correspondent quotes, show Angelo to be "strict," "firm," "precise," to be "a man whose blood is very snow-broth," &c., but certainly not "pensive" in the common acceptation of the word. Secondly, he fails to show that, if Shakspeare meant by "pensive" anything more than thoughtful in the passages he cites, he meant anything so strong as religiously melancholy, which would be the sense required to be of any service to him as an epithet to the word "guards."

I will now, with your permission, call attention to what I consider an oversight of enquirers into this subject. The conditions required, as your correspondent well states, are "that the word adopted shall be (1) suitable to the reputed character of Angelo; (2) an appropriate epithet to the word 'guards;' (3) of the proper metre in both places; and (4) similar in appearance to the word 'prenzie.'" Now, it does not appear to have been considered that this similarity was to be sought in manuscript, and not in print; or, if considered, that much more radical errors arise from illegible manuscripts than the critics have allowed for. In his "Introductory Notice," Mr. Knight says the word (prenzie) "appears to have been inserted by the printer in despair of deciphering the author's manuscript." Yet in his note to the text he has printed it, together with three suggested emendations, as though he would call attention to the comparative similarity in print. But if, as all have hitherto assumed, the printer had read the first three or four letters correctly, is it not most probable that the context, with the word recurring within four lines, would have set him right? And his having twice inserted a word having no apparent meaning, is it not as probable that he was misled at the very beginning of the word by some careless combination of letters presenting accidentally the same appearance in the two instances? Having thus shown that the search for the true word may have been too restricted, I will proceed to make a final suggestion.

When Claudio exclaims in surprise—

it is quite clear that the epithet which has to be supplied is one in total contrast to the character just given of him by Isabella. What is this character?

To this it appears to me Claudio would naturally exclaim:

and Isabella, as naturally following up the contrast, would continue—

My acquaintance with the handwriting of the age is very limited, but I have no doubt there are possible scrawls in which saintlie might be made to look like prenzie. If any one knows a better word, let him propose it; only I beg leave to warn him against pious, which I have already tried, and for various reasons rejected.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

St. John's Wood, May 24. 1851.

"Prenzie" in "Measure for Measure."—It must be gratifying to the correspondents of "NOTES AND QUERIES" to know that their suggestions receive attention and consideration, even though the result be unfavourable to their views. I am therefore induced to express, as an individual opinion, that the reading of the word "prenzie," as proposed by LEGES, does not appear more satisfactory than those already suggested in the various editions.

Of these, "precise" is by far the most consonant with the sense of the context; while "pensive," almost exclusively restricted to the single meaning, contemplative,—action of mind rather than strictness of manner,—is scarcely applicable to the hypocritical safeguard denounced by Isabella.

From the original word, too, the deviation of "precise" is less than that of "pensive." Since the former substitutes e for n, and transposes two letters in immediate proximity, while the latter substitutes v for r, and transposes it from one end of the word to the other.

But "precise" has the immeasurable advantage of repetition by Shakspeare himself, in the same play, applied to the same person, and coupled with the same word "guard," which is undoubtedly used in both instances in the metaphorical sense of defensive covering, and not in that of "countenance or demeanour," nor yet in that of "the formal trimmings of scholastic robes:"

Therefore, while I cannot quite join with Mr. Knight in understanding "precise" as applicable to the formal cut of Angelo's garments, I nevertheless agree with him, on other grounds, in awarding a decided preference to the reading of the German critic.

A. E. B.

The Obsolete Word "Prenzie."—I agree with your correspondent LEGES, that the several emendations which have been suggested of the word "prenzie," do not "answer all the necessary conditions."[456] LEGES says, "it is universally agreed that the word is a misprint."[5] Now misprinting may be traced to wrong letters being dropped in the boxes into which compositors put the types, and which generally are found to be neighbours (this is hardly intelligible but to the initiated). However, they will at once see that a more unfortunate illustration could hardly have been suggested. An error, made by the printer, often passes "the reader" or corrector, because it is something, in appearance and sound, like what should have been used. But in this word there is no assimilation of either to any one of the words conjectured to have been meant. Moreover, such a word would never have been twice used erroneously in the same piece. May it not rather have been an adaptation from the Norman prisé, or the Latin prenso, signifying assumed, seized, &c.? The sound comes much nearer, the sense would do. I hardly like to venture a suggestion where so many eminent commentators entertain other views; but it seems to me that it is a main excellence of your periodical to encourage such suggestions; and if mine be not too wild, your insertion of it will oblige

B. B.

[5] Old as well as modern typographers need have broad backs. Bale, in his Preface to the Image of both Churches, says, "But ij cruel enemies have my just labours had * * * The printers are the first whose heady hast, negligence, and couetousnesse commonly corrupteth all bokes * * * though they had in their handes ij learned correctours wh take all paynes possyble to preserue them."

P.S. May I end this note by adopting a Query many years since put forth by a highly valued and, alas! deceased friend and coadjutor in antiquarian pursuits,—"What is the date of that edition of the Bible which reads (Psalm cxix. 161.): Printers have persecuted me without a cause?"

On a Passage in "Measure for Measure" (Vol. iii., p. 401.).—One of the very few admissible conjectural emendations on Shakspeare made by the ingenious and gifted poet and critic Tieck, is that which Mr. Knight adopted, and I cannot think your correspondent LEGES happy in proposing to substitute "pensive."

There can be no doubt that "guards" in the passage in question signifies facings, trimmings, ornaments, and that it is used metaphorically for dress, habit, appearance, and not for countenance, demeanour.

The context clearly shows this:

Isabella had before characterised Angelo—

and the Duke afterwards says:

In Much Ado about Nothing (Act I. Sc. 1.), Benedick says:

"The body of your discourse is sometimes guarded with fragments, and the guards are but slightly basted on neither."

That the epithet "precise" is peculiarly applicable to the assumed sanctity of Angelo, the poet has decided in Act I. Sc. 4., where the Duke describes him thus:

"The 'pensive' Angelo" might be admissible, though not so appropriate as "the precise;" but "pensive" is inapplicable to the word "guards," in the sense which the poet everywhere attaches to it. In the second Scene of this Act the Clown says:

"Craft being richer than innocency, stands for the facing."

Your correspondent may be assured that the word he would substitute was never written or printed "penzive" in Shakspeare's time.

Mr. Collier's objection, that "precise" "sounds ill as regards the metre, the accent falling on the wrong syllable," has no weight with me, for it is doubtful whether the accent was not placed on the first syllable of "prècise" by the poet and his cotemporaries; but were this not the case, I should still very much prefer the reading proposed by Tieck, and adopted by Mr. Knight, to any other that has been proposed, and have little doubt that it is the true one.

S. W. SINGER.

Replies to Minor Queries.

Countess of Pembroke's Epitaph (Vol. iii., p. 307.).

—Let me thank your correspondent MR. GATTY for his information. In order to complete the history of this inscription, it may be stated that though Gifford is silent as to Jonson having any claim to it, yet, by admitting it into his works (vol. viii. p. 337.), he concurs apparently with Whalley and others, in assigning this "delicate epitaph," as Whalley terms it, to Jonson, though it "hath never yet been printed with his works." Gifford considers that Jonson did not "cancel," as it has been alleged, the six lines, "Marble piles let no man raise," but that he possibly never saw them. They certainly contradict the preceding ones; admitting that such a character as the Countess might again appear. These last-mentioned verses, Gifford adds, were copied from the poems of William Herbert Earl of Pembroke, "a humble votary of the Muses." This nobleman, whose amiable character is beautifully drawn by Clarendon, deeply venerated his excellent mother; he, perhaps, could not feel satisfied in leaving her [457]praises to be sung by another poet, and therefore added this well-intended but feeble supplement.

J. H. M.

Court Dress (Vol. iii., p. 407.).

—There are no orders of the Earl Marshal, printed or manuscript, upon the subject of court costume—it is not within his department. It is more likely that the Lord Chamberlain has notices upon the subject. In all cases of court mourning, his lordship specifies the dress, and notifies the changes, not always, however, strictly adopted or comprehended.

Ʒ.

Ex Pede Herculem (Vol. iii., p. 302.).

—The origin of this proverb is to be found, I think, in Plutarch, who is quoted by Aulus Gellius (i. 1.) as saying in substance as follows:

"Pythagoras ingeniously calculated the great stature of Hercules, by comparing the length of various stadia in Greece. All these courses were nominally 600 feet in length, but Hercules was said to have measured out the stadium at Olympia with his own feet, while the others followed a standard of later days. The philosopher argued that by how much the Olympic course exceeded all others in length, by the same proportion did the foot of Hercules exceed that of men of a subsequent age; and again, by the same proportion must the stature of Hercules have been pre-eminent."

(The original is to be found also in Plutarchi Varia Scripta, ed. Tauchnitz, vol. vi. p. 393.)

C. P. PH***.

The Day of the Accession of Richard III. (Vol. iii., p. 351.).

—I have examined the original inrolment of the entry upon the Remembrance Roll ex parte Capitalis Rememoratoris Hiberniæ, of the second year of Richard III., with the fac-simile of that entry which appears in the Irish Record Reports (1810-1815, plate 9.), and I find that the fac-simile is correct. The accession of Richard III. is shown by the entry upon the original record to have taken place on the twenty-sixth day of June. This entry is, as I have stated, upon the roll of the second year of Richard III., and not of the first year, as stated by the said Record Reports, there being no Remembrance or Memoranda Roll of the first year of that monarch to be found amongst the Exchequer Records of Ireland. Upon this subject of Richard III.'s accession, I beg to transmit to you the copy of a regal table which is entered in the Red Book of the Exchequer, probably the most ancient, as well as the most curious, record in Ireland. Judging by the character of the handwriting of this Tabula Regum, I would come to the conclusion, that the entries prior in date to that of Henry VIII.'s reign have been made during the time of that monarch; or, in other words, that this table has probably not been compiled at any time previous to the reign of Henry VIII.

J. F. F.

Nomina Regum [Angliae] post [conquestum] [Willielmi] [Bastardi].

Tennyson's "In Memoriam" (Vol. iii., pp. 142. 227.).

—[458]I beg to withdraw my former suggestion as to "the crimson-circled star," which, on reconsideration, appears to me manifestly erroneous.

If you can find space for a second suggestion, I think the question will be cleared up by the following extract from the valuable work which I cited before (the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, edited by Dr. W. Smith):

"Eos, Ἠώς, in Latin Aurora, the goddess of the morning red, who brings up the light of day from the east. At the close of night she ascended up to the heaven from the river Oceanus to announce the coming light of the sun to the gods as well as to men. In the Homeric poems, Eos not only announces the coming Helios (the sun), but accompanies him throughout the day, and her career is not complete till the evening: hence she is sometimes mentioned when one would have expected Helios (Od. v. 390. x. 144.); and the tragic writers completely identify her with Hemera (the day), of whom, in later times the same mythes are related as of Eos."

As Aurora rises from the river Oceanus, he may be called her father, and as she sinks into the same, he may be called her grave. The expression then will mean neither more nor less than this, "We returned home before the close of day."

Perhaps Mr. Tennyson had a line of Lycidas running in his mind:

Milton's day-star, however, I take to be the sun himself.

Another of your correspondents, I see, suggests a different interpretation of the "crimson-circled star."

I hope I shall not be considered as taking too great a liberty if I avail myself of the medium of your pages to request Mr. Tennyson (deus ex machinâ) to descend and settle the question.

X. Z.

Cardinal Azzolin (Vol. iii., pp. 370. 371.).

—Cardinal Azzolini was appointed by Alexander VII. Intendant to Queen Christina on her receiving a pension of 12,000 scudi from that Pope. On the withdrawal of this grant by Innocent XI., her majesty wrote a furious letter to the Cardinal, which is one of the most curious pieces contained in a Collection of Letters, edited by M. Matter (Paris, chez Amiot). That a close intimacy existed between the Queen and the Cardinal appears from some allusions in contemporary letters (1685-1687). See M. Valéry's Correspondence de Mabillon et de Montfaucon avec l'Italie (Paris, 1846), vol. i. p. 99.: "La Reine de Suède, grande amie du Cardinal Azzolin" ... vol. ii. p. 83.:

"Il n'y a plus de différend qu'entre le marquis Del Monte et le Cardinal Azzolin [sic], à qui aura meilleure part dans les bonnes grâces de la Reine pendant sa vie, et dans son testament après sa mort."

The editor adds (vol. iii. p. 298.):

"Le Cardinal Azzolini fut le principal héritier de Christine."

C. P. PH***.

Babington's Conspiracy (Vol. iii., p. 390.).

—In Dr. Maitland's Index of English Books in the Lambeth Library will be found the following entry:

"* Babington (Anthony), His Letter to the Queen. No place, printer, or date." The asterisk denotes that it is not mentioned by Herbert in his edition of Ames.

This, I believe, will be a satisfactory answer to J. BT.'s Query.

H. P.

Robert de Welle (Vol. ii., p. 71.).

—Not observing that H. W.'s Query regarding Robert de Welle has as yet been answered, I would refer him to Blomefield's Hist. of Norf., vol. vii. p. 288., edit. 1807, 8vo., where under "Bicham-well" he will find a Robert de Welle, lord of the manor of Well Hall, an. 1326 (20 Edw. II.), which was held under the Earl of Clare, the capital lord. He died circ. 9 Edw. III.

I have met also with a Roger de Welle, in an old roll undated, but about the time of Hen. III., in which he is entered as holding a manor in Wimbotsham, co. Norf.:

Rogerus de Welle tenet manerium suum de Winebodesham cum libero tenemento villanis suis et cotariis ad illud manerium pertinentibus de comite Warenne per servicium quarte partis unius scuti et comes de domino rege in capite, per quale servicium nescimus. Et habet in eodem manerio unum messuagium et unam carucatam terre arabilis et xiiij acras prati in dominico unum molendinum ad ventum liberum tauros et verres eidem manerio pertinentes et facit sectam ad curiam de Castelacre de tribus septimanis in tres septimanas. Et capit amerciamenta pistorum et braciatorum et hoc sine waranto ut credimus. Et clamat habere warennam per cartam domini regis.

The manor passed from him to Ingaldesthorp, under which manor the continuator of Blomefield mentions (vol. vii. p. 517.) that Roger de Frevil in 13 Hen. III. had a carucate of land here. This is probably the same person as Roger de Welle, as it was not uncommon for persons at that period to be known by different designations.

Thomas Knox, M.P. for Dungannon, was created Baron Welles, 1780. H. W. will find the history of the family in Lodge's Peerage of Ireland, by Archdall, vol. vii. p. 195., ed. 1789.

G. H. D.

Family of Sir John Banks (Vol. iii., p. 390.).

—The following is a correct list of the descendants of Sir John Banks; and as his wife is an historical character, her own immediate descent, as well as the notice of those of the present day who may claim her as their ancestor, may not be uninteresting to your correspondent:—[459]

Of these only two appear to have left descendants: Sir Ralph Banks, who is the ancestor of the Earl of Falmouth, and Baroness Le Despenser; and of George Bankes, Esq., M. P. for Corfe Castle, his lineal descendant. Mary Banks, third daughter, married Sir Robert Jenkinson, Knt.; and is the ancestor of the Earls of Liverpool and Verulam, of the Countesses of Craven, Clarendon, and Caledon; Viscountess Milton, and Viscountess Folkestone.

Burke's Commoners would probably answer the rest of R. C. H. H.'s Query, or Lysons' Middlesex.

L. H.

Charles Lamb's Epitaph (Vol. iii., p. 322.).

—I can explain to MARIA S. how this epitaph came to be attributed to Wordsworth. The late laureate did write some lines on the occasion of Lamb's death, beginning—

They were composed, the author says,

C. P. PH***.

Quebeça and his Epitaph (Vol. iii., p. 223.).

This epitaph is said, upon the authority of Segrais, to be upon the king of Spain's preceptor, and to be seen at Saragossa. The version of it in my possession differs from that supplied by your correspondent, and is as follows:

"Here lies John Cabeça, preceptor of my lord the king. When he is admitted to the choir of angels, whose society he will embellish by his powers of song, God shall say to the angels, 'Cease, ye calves! and let me hear John Cabeça, the preceptor of my lord the king.'"

J. B. COLMAN.

Eye, March 24. 1851.

The Frozen Horn (Vol. iii., p. 282.).

—The story of the frozen and thawed words in Rabelais' Pantagruel, book iv. c. 55. and 56., is borrowed from a passage in Plutarch's Morals, vol. vi. p. 293., Leipsic, Reiske's edition. I beg to subjoin the Latin translation of this fable of so remote a date:

"Joco enim Antiphanes dixit, in urbe quadam voces illico frigore loci congelare, ac per æstatem, gelu soluto, demum exaudiri, quæ dicta erant hyeme; ita ille quæ adolescentes e Platone audivissent, aiebat, plerosque vix tandem ingravescente ætate intelligere."

C. I. R.

West Chester (Vol. iii., p. 353.).

—JOHN FRANCIS X. asks "why so designated?" Camden will answer him. That antiquary gives the Roman, British, and Saxon names, and adds:

"Nos contractius West Chester ab occidentali situ."—Britannia, edit. 1607, p. 458.

But X. adds:

[460] "In Maps of Cheshire 1670, and perhaps later, the city is thus called."

The writer has the maps and plans of Braun, Hollar, Saxton, Speed, and Blome, before him, but these have "Chester" simply; and does not at present recollect any county map with the prefix mentioned. Perhaps X. will oblige by a reference.

LANCASTRIENSIS.

West Chester (Vol. iii., p. 353.).—So called in contradistinction to Chester-le-Street, Chester Magna, Chester Parva, Chesterfield, Chesterton, and a hundred other Chesters throughout England. To be sent to West Chester (frequently so called in the beginning of the last century), was to be sent into banishment, i. e. into Ireland; of which Chester was in those days the usual, and indeed almost the only, route.

C.

Registry of Dissenters (Vol. iii., p. 370.).

—I beg to inform D. X. that I have met with several instances of Dissenters' burials being entered in parish registers, at a time when a more amicable feeling than now exists prevailed between churchmen and themselves. In the register of Warbleton, co. Sussex, in particular, there are several entries of Quakers who were buried in their own cemetery in that parish, about 150 years since.

M. A. LOWER.

Lewes.

Registry of Ministerial Offices performed by Dissenters (Vol. iii., p. 370.).—The note of D. X. has led me to examine the baptismal registers of Ecclesfield parish, and I find on the parchment fly-leaf of the book which contains the baptisms, that date from nearly the beginning of the seventeenth century, the following heading—"Births of the children of some Dissenters enter'd as given." Then comes a list of the names of fourteen children, with the dates of their births; and, after several miscellaneous entries of baptisms, I find,

"January 3. 1750-1, Samuel, son of Thomas Sayles, said to be baptised at Sheffield by ye Popish priest."

The enrolment of births is, no doubt, quite improper. But the entering of dissenting baptisms in the parish register (mentioned by D. X.) would not, I think, be equally open to reprobation; inasmuch as the registering has always been of baptisms in the parish, and not merely in the church. Hence, if dissenting baptism be, as no doubt it is, a valid title to burial by the clergyman, he might, not unreasonably, be disposed to keep a list of such irregular administrations. That the law has regarded them as irregular, is evident from the fact, that when in 1812 an act was passed "for the better regulating and preserving parish and other registers of births, baptisms, marriages, and burials in England," the 146th chap. of the same distinctly declares, that when a baptism is performed by any other than the licensed minister of the parish, the certificate of its performance must state that it was "according to the rites of the United Church of England and Ireland." No dissenting baptism, therefore, could now be registered by the clergyman.

In our burial register there is a slip of paper pinned, with this inscription upon it:

"These are to certify that the remains of Ann, the wife of Thomas Ellis, was buried in the Methodist chapel-yard in Ecclesfield, the 5th day of November, 1826, aged (about) seventy-three."

The poor woman chose to lie apart from her "rude forefathers;" and she has continued to be the solitary tenant of the small enclosure round the chapel. It seems, however, that her friends did the best they could towards preserving her name on the list of those who sleep in the consecrated cemetery.

ALFRED GATTY.

Poem on the Grave (Vol. iii., p. 372.).

—A correspondent in your No. of May 10th, signed A. D., wishes to be informed of the author of "The Grave," a very beautiful poem; and he gives a portion of it thus:—

(From what I remember of the poem, this stanza flows on thus):—

This poem extends to fifteen or twenty stanzas, and is exquisite in its imagery, and peculiarly forcible (its author was a Russian, I think Derzhavin), and in its original language might compare with the works of the most polished poetry of advanced nations. It can be found translated in Bowring's Russian Anthology, 12mo., published about 1824: where also will be found some beautiful translations from Lomonosoff, "Or Broken Nose," and other Russian poets. Derzhavin also has his grandest poem on God, translated there: this poem is popular in no less than thirty-six languages, and is familiar to the Chinese and Tartar nations, and even as far as Southern India. I give the exordium, which is noble:—

And in a further portion of the poem, describing Heaven as the abode of God, he speaks thus:

I think I have quoted sufficient to direct A. D.'s attention to the northern poets, who, though few in number, make up their deficiency in quantity by the sterling and magnificent quality of their works.

GREGORY BATEMAN.

Tansor Rectory, near Oundle, Northamptonshire,
May 15. 1851.

The poem inquired for by A. D. is copied in an album in my possession "from Bowring's translation of Russian Poetry," and is entitled "The Churchyard."

J. R. PLANCHÉ.

Round Robin (Vol. iii., p. 353.).

—The "little predie round-robin," mentioned by Dr. Heylin, was no doubt a small pancake. (See Halliwell's Archaic and Provincial Dictionary, under "Round Robin.")

Of the derivation of the petition also called a round robin, I find the following account in the Imperial Dictionary:—

"ROUND ROBIN, n. [Fr. rond and ruban.] A written petition, memorial, or remonstrance signed by names in a ring or circle. The phrase is originally derived from a custom of the French officers, who, in signing a remonstrance to their superiors, wrote their names in a circular form so that it might be impossible to ascertain who had headed the list. It is now used to signify an act by which a certain number of individuals bind themselves to pursue a certain line of conduct."

The round robin sent to Dr. Johnson on the subject of his epitaph on Goldsmith is well known. In speaking of it Boswell states that the sailors make use of it "when they enter into a conspiracy, so as not to let it be known who puts his name first or last to the paper."

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge, May 3. 1851.

Derivation of the Word "Yankee" (Vol. iii., p. 260.).

—Your correspondent J. M., and M. Philarète Charles, are both incorrect in saying that this derivation is not given in any English or American work. In the Poetical Works of John Trumbull, LL.D., published at Hartford (U.S.), 1820, in two volumes, in the Appendix, appears the following Note:

"Yankies.—The first settlers of New England were mostly emigrants from London and its vicinity, and exclusively styled themselves the English. The Indians, in attempting to utter the word English, with their broad guttural accent, gave it a sound which would be nearly represented in this way, Yaunghees; the letter g being pronounced hard, and approaching to the sound of k joined with a strong aspirate, like the Hebrew cheth, or the Greek chi, and the l suppressed, as almost impossible to be distinctly heard in that combination. The Dutch settlers on the river Hudson and the adjacent country, during their long contest concerning the right of territory, adopted the name, and applied it in contempt to the inhabitants of New England. The British of the lower class have since extended it to all the people of the United States. This seems the most probable origin of the term. The pretended Indian tribe of Yankoos does not appear to have ever had an existence; as little can we believe in an etymological derivation of the word from ancient Scythia or Siberia, or that it was ever the name of a horde of savages in any part of the world."

I some time ago thought of sending you a copy of this "Note," but had forgotten it, until recalled to my memory by reading J. M.'s extract.

T. H. KERSLEY, A.B.

King William's College, Isle of Man.

Yankee—Yankee-doodle (Vol. iii., p. 260.).—In a curious book on the Round Towers of Ireland (I forget the title), the origin of the term Yankee-doodle was traced to the Persian phrase, "Yanki dooniah," or "Inhabitants of the New World." Layard, in his book on Nineveh and its Remains, also mentions "Yanghi-dunia" as the Persian name of America.

BENBOW.

Birmingham.

Yankee.—The following lines from a poem, written in England by the Rev. James Cook Richmond, of Providence, Rhode Island, and dated Sept. 7, 1848, gives the derivation of this word:—

M. Philarète Charles then has too hastily concluded that this etymology is not given in "aucun ouvrage américain ou anglais," and has supplied us with a surprising coincidence, since he appears to have fairly translated the first two lines, viz.: "Les Anglais, quand ils se moquent des Yankies, se moquent d'eux-mêmes."

W. DN.

Letters on the British Museum (Vol. iii., pp. 208. 261.).

Your correspondent's Query as to the author of these letters, published by Dodsley in 1767, 12mo., has not yet been answered. The author's name was Alexander Thomson. It is inserted in manuscript in two copies of this work which I possess. I have also seen the assignment of the copyright to Dodsley, in which the same name occurs as that of the author.

JAS. CROSSLEY.

Names of the Ferret (Vol. iii., p. 390.).

—The name by which the male ferret is known in the midland counties is the hob: the female is called the jill. In that district there is a saying current, which is applied to the human genus:

In Welsh, the name of the ferret is ffured, which means a wily, crafty creature.

A RATCATCHER.

Anonymous Ravennas (Vol. i., p. 124.).

—[462] W. C.'s Query has not received much elucidation as yet; as a small contribution, I may remark that the Benedictine Dom. Porcheron brought the MS. to light, and published it at Paris, 1686, 8vo., under the title, Anonymi Ravennatis, qui circa sæculum septimum vixit, de Geographiâ libri quinque, with a dedication to the Duc de Bourbon, son of the great Condé. My authority is, the Correspondence inédite de Mabillon et de Montfaucon avec l'Italie, par M. Valéry, Paris, 1846, vol. ii. pp. 2, 3, 5.

"Paucis abhinc diebus prodiit ab uno e nostris erutus in lucem Anonymus Ravennas, qui ante annos circiter mille de Geographia scripsit libros quinque. [Michel Germain à Gattola, Dec. 31. 1686.] Je vous destine un volume in 8vo. que notre cher Dom. Placide Porcheron vient de donner au public, c'est un Anonyme de Ravenne, Goth ou Grec de naissance, qui vivait il y a mille ans ... [the same, to Magliabechi, Jan. 10. 1687.]"

The editor gives the date 1688, and the form 4to., for this book; the date is evidently a misprint.

C. P. PH***.

The Lion, a Symbol of the Resurrection (Vol. i., pp. 385. 472.).

—As JARLTZBERG has not replied to MR. EASTWOOD'S Query, permit me to refer the latter to Sacred Latin Poetry Selected, by R. C. Trench, London, 1849, pp. 67. 152. 153.:

"The Middle-Age legend, that the lion's whelps were born dead and first roused to life on the third day by the roar of their sire, was often alluded to in connexion with, and as a natural type of the Resurrection. Adam de S. Victore (De SS. Evangelistis, verse 25.):

"Again, De Resurrectione Domini, verse 54.:

"Hugo de S. Victore (De Best., lib. ii. cap. 1.):

"Cum leæna parit, suos catulos mortuos parit, et ita custodit tribus diebus, donec veniens Pater eorum in faciem eorum exhalet, et vivificentur. Sic Omnipotens Pater Filium suum tertiâ die suscitavit a mortuis.

"Hildebert (De Leone):

"Natus non vigilat dum Sol se tertiògyrat,

Sed dans rugitum pater ejus suscitat illum:

Tunc quasi vivescit, tunc sensus quinque capescit."

C. P. PH***.

Paring the Nails, &c. (Vol. ii., p. 511.; Vol. iii., p. 55.).

—The legend that I have heard in Devonshire differs from that quoted in Vol. ii. It ran thus:

The meaning given to it was, that cutting horn was a kind of work, and therefore a breach of the Sabbath and that cutting hair on the Friday was, like a hundred other things, thought unlucky on a Friday, from some obscure reference to the great sacrifice of Good Friday. Sir Thomas Browne shows that this was perhaps the continuation of ancient superstition; and it is peculiarly remarkable that amongst the Romans the Dies Veneris (Friday) should have been thought unlucky for hair-cutting. His reference to the crime of Manasses, "of observing times," enters into no detail, and the text is evidently a general condemnation of superstitious observances. I may as well here remark that Browne's reference to Manasses, 1 Chron. xxxv., in my edition (1686), is erroneous: it should be 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6.

C.

Meaning of Gig-Hill (Vol. iii., pp. 222. 283.).

—Your correspondent N. B., p. 283., has doubtless aptly illustrated Shakspeare's use of the word gig, but not as a local name, where "there is no indication of anything in the land to warrant it;" but if your querist K., p. 222., will refer to Bailey's Dictionary, article "Gig Mill," "a mill for the fulling of woollen cloth," he will find the key to the local name; and full information as to the illegality and injurious tendency of Gig Mills, with an order for their suppression, &c., will be found in the statute 5 & 6 Edward VI., c. 22, intitled, "An Act for the putting down of Gig Mills." The presence of such mills previous to the suppression would give the name to the sites now known as "Gig's Hills."

BLOWEN.

The Mistletoe on the Oak (Vol. ii., pp. 163. 214.; Vol. iii., pp. 192.226.).

—MR. BUCKMAN calls the Poplar and Lime native, and the Sycamore and Robinia foreign trees, and adds that the two latter are comparatively recently introduced.

Without doubt, all four are foreign, except the Asp among Poplars, which is a native tree. And the Sycamore was introduced into England long before the Lombardy, and I think before any of the Poplar tribe.

I have seen the Mistletoe propagated by seed inserted, with an upward cut of a knife, under the bark of an apple-tree.

On the Oak I have never seen the Mistletoe. The late Mr. Loudon, when shown it on an oak on the estate of the late Miss Woods, of Shopwyke, near Chichester, said he had only seen it in one other instance.

A. HOLT WHITE.

For much learned lore relating to this remarkable plant, see the Encyclopædia Metropolitana. Your querist ACHE may be assured that the Mistletoe may be often found in the counties of Devon and Somerset growing on oaks, and frequently on old apple-trees in neglected [463]orchards. A specimen of it may also be occasionally found on other trees the bark of which is rough, such as the acacia and some species of willow, when of large size. I have heard of an instance of its growing in a furze-bush.

S. S. S.

Spelling of "Britannicus" (Vol. iii., p. 275.).

—If R. W. C. will turn to Akerman's Coins of the Romans relating to Britain, he will find, at p. 36., the description of a brass medallion of Commodus having on the reverse a legend commencing "BRITTANIA P. M. TR.," &c.

The author observes:

"The spelling of Britannia is worthy of observation. Dr. Charles Grotefend thinks it is from the Greek, Βρεττανια."

And in a Note to this adds:

"That in Horace and Propertius, the first syllable of Britannia is short, but in Lucretius, on the contrary, it is long."

I would further observe, that the same mode of spelling "Britannia," with two t's, obtains on the coins of Severus, Caracalla, and Geta.

J. COVE JONES.

Temple, April 17. 1851.

T. Gilbert on Clandestine Marriages (Vol. iii., p. 167.).

—Thomas Gilbert, the author of the MS. treatise mentioned by your correspondent, was the son of William Gilbert, of Priss, in Shropshire. He was born in 1613, and at the age of sixteen entered the University of Oxford. He took the degree of M.A. in 1638, and was afterwards appointed minister of Upper Winchington, in Buckinghamshire. He joined the Puritan party at the beginning of the rebellion, and was made vicar of St. Lawrence, Reading. Wood says that he turned Independent, "was actually created Bachelor of Divinity in the time of the Parliamentarian visitation," and was preferred to the rich rectory of Edgmond, in his native county of Shropshire. Being very active against the Royalists, he was commonly called the "Bishop of Shropshire." After the Restoration he was, of course, ejected, when he retired to Oxford, and lived obscurely many years, with his wife, in the parish of St. Ebbs. He lived latterly upon charity, and died in the extreme of poverty, in the year 1694. For more minute particulars of the life of this person, and a catalogue of his writings, see Wood's Athenæ Oxon., edit. Bliss, vol. iv. p. 406.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

Dog's Head in the Pot (Vol. iii., p. 264.).

—I have seen this carved and gilt as the sign of R. O. Backwell, ironmonger, Devonport. A person now sitting by me recollects its being adopted there about forty years since. It is perhaps always the sign of an ironmonger, instead of a public-house, as suggested by your correspondent. The pot (as at Blackfriars) is the three-legged cast-iron vessel called in Devonshire a "crock."

K. TH.

Pope Joan (Vol. iii., p. 265.).

—If the man who believes in this fable can be found in England, he will meet with the demonstration of its falsehood in the cotemporary chronicles of Galindo, Bishop of Troyes, otherwise called by his assumed name of religion, Prudentius Trecensis, or Trecassensis. (See Monumenta Germaniæ Historica, Hanover, 1826, vol. i. p. 449.) It there appears clearly that no Pope John VIII. succeeded Leo IV., or preceded Benedict III. Prudentius survived them both by three years. His words are "Mense Augusto Leo apostolicæ sedis antistes defunctus est, eique Benedictus successit. Eodem mense duæ stellæ majoris et minoris quantitatis visæ sunt," &c. &c.

It seems to me that a just blindness fell upon men so evil-minded as to desire the falsification of chronology and history for polemical ends, that they should have utterly missed the moral principle by which they would be thought animated. No prelate ordaining a young person, unknown to himself, save by academical reputation, could know that person's sex. The want of beard is no criterion; nor is the female lip in all instances very smooth. But if it were true that a person eminently distinguished by studies, and bringing from Athens a high reputation for merit, could upon those grounds alone obtain the suffrages of the Roman chapter, more honour would be conferred upon it than that chapter, or other dispensers of patronage, have usually merited. Instead of being unknown, the candidates in the days of Benedict III. were, if anything, too well known; for the jobbery and faction, of which this fable would indicate the entire, and almost unnatural, absence, were sufficiently at work.

A. N.

"Nettle in dock out" (Vol. iii., p. 205.).

—Bishop Andrewes uses the phrase, "in docke out nettle, in nettle out docke," to denote unsteadiness. The passage occurs in Sermon I., "Of the Resurrection," folio, p. 391.:

"Now then that we bee not, all our life long, thus off and on, fast or loose, in docke out nettle, and in nettle out docke; it will behove us once more yet to looke back," &c. &c. &c.

REVERT. Wittingham, Easter Eve.

Mind your P's and Q's (Vol. iii., pp. 328. 357.).

—This phrase was, I believe, originally "Mind your toupées and your queues,"—the toupée being the artificial locks of hair on the head, and the queue the pigtail of olden time.

There used to be an old riddle as follows:—Who is the best person to keep the alphabet in order?—Answer: A barber, because he ties up the queue, and puts toupées in irons.

NEDLAM.[464]

"Lay of the Last Minstrel" (Vol. iii., p. 367.).

—The BORDERER, with whom, I fancy, every one will fully agree, has himself been guilty of incuria in charging it upon Walter Scott. The great festival at which Michael Scott marches off with the Goblin Page, was to celebrate, not the nuptials, but the betrothal, of the hero and heroine. I do not think I have read the Lay since I was a boy; but yet I will bet five nothings to one, that the following lines are spoken by the Lady, when she gives way, as she says, to Fate:—

It would be an excellent thing if some of your correspondents would furnish you with materials for a corner, to be entitled, "The Prophecy of Criticism." It should give, by short extract, those presages in which criticism abounds, taken from the Reviews of twenty years or more preceding the current year. Thus, in this year of 1851, the corner should be open to any prophecy uttered in or before 1831, and palpably either fulfilled or falsified. In a little while, when the subject begins to cool, the admission should be restricted to prophecy of precisely twenty years of previous date. Such a corner would be useful warning to critics, and useful knowledge to their readers.

M.

Tingry (Vol. ii., p. 477.).

—In reply to E.V.'s Query, if there is any place in the north of France bearing that name, I may inform him that Tingry is a commune near Samer, in the arrondissement of Boulogne. Tingry Hill is the highest spot in the neighbourhood. In the Boulogne Museum are several mediæval antiquities found at Tingry.

P. S. KG.

Sabbatical and Jubilee Years of the Jews (Vol. iii., p. 373.).

—You must find it difficult to know what to do when a correspondent obtains admission into your columns who absolutely requires to be sent back to elementary books. On the one hand, care must be taken not to discourage communication: on the other hand, there is a species of communication which must be gently discouraged. Nothing has ever appeared in your columns which makes this remark more necessary than the communication headed as above, and signed by the venerable name of HIPPARCHUS. Your well meaning, but hitherto not sufficiently instructed, correspondent, seems to imagine either that the Jewish year was wholly lunar, or that a solar year may consist of a fixed number of (wrong) lunar months. Now, the lunar month is not 29 days, but 29-½ days; and the Jews, whom he calls ignorant of astronomy (which they were, compared with Hipparchus of Rhodes), met this, as most know, by using months of 29 days and of 30 days in equal numbers. And surely every one must know that the Jewish year was regulated, as to its commencement, by the sun and the equinox. The year opened just before the Passover, which required a supply of lamb. Unless lamb had been obtainable all the solar year round, a regular lunar year (such as the Mahometans have) would have made a due observance of the Passover impossible. I hope your correspondent can bear to be told, good-humouredly, that it passes all reasonable permission that he should speculate on chronological questions as yet.

M.

Luncheon (Vol. iii., p. 369.).

—I cannot help doubting this derivation; and I suspect that the true meaning of the word is, a piece, or slice (or vulgo, a "hunch") of bread. When people who dined early, and breakfasted comparatively late, wanted any intermediate refreshment, "a luncheon" (or, as we should now say, "just a crust of bread") was sufficient. The Query brought to my mind some verses of the younger Beattie, which were published with his father's Minstrel, &c., in which he uses the word "luncheon" for the piece of bread placed beside the plate at dinner. I have no doubt of the fact, though I cannot recollect the lines, or find the book. But after searching in vain for it, I took down Johnson's Dictionary; and under the word I found this couplet by Gay, which is perhaps a better authority:

S. R. M.

Prophecy respecting the Discovery of America (Vol. i., p. 107.).

—Your correspondent C. quotes the following passage from Seneca:

and he says that some commentator describes these lines as "a vaticination of the Spanish discovery of America." I believe, however, that Lord Bacon may claim the merit of having been the first to notice this vaticination. In his essay "Of Prophecies" he says:

"Seneca, the tragedian, hath these verses:—

"'A prophecy,' he adds, 'of the discovery of America.'"

I have quoted this from an edition of Bacon's Essays, printed at the Chiswick Press, by C. Whittingham, for J. Carpenter, Old Bond Street, [465]London, 1812: and not the least curious circumstance is the curious form which Bacon, evidently quoting from memory, has given to the passage.

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia, March, 1851.

Shakspeare's Designation of Cleopatra (Vol. iii., p. 273.).

—I fully agree with your correspondent S. W. SINGER that an imperfect acquaintance with our older language has been the weak point of the commentators, but at the same time I think they have been equally guilty of an imperfect acquaintance with the history and character of Cleopatra, and one at least of a careless reading of the text; otherwise it appears incomprehensible how, on the one hand, the words of the great poet could have been so distorted; on the other hand, how Scarus could be thought to allude, by the word "ribald," to Antony. On reference to Rider's Dictionary, published in 1589, the very year in which Malone places Shakspeare's first play, First Part of Henry VI., may be found the word Ribaud, leno, a bawd, a pander; Ribaudrie, lascivia, obscœnitas, impudicitia, Venus; and Ribaudrous, obscœnus, impudicus, impurus.

Hagge, doubtless the word of Shakspeare, also may be found in Rider, answering to the Latin lamia, fascinatrix, oculo maligna mulier.

Arguing from the above, what more appropriate term than "ribaudred hagge" could be applied to Cleopatra, a queen celebrated for her beauty, her cunning, her debauchery, nay, even adultery. The sister and wife of Ptolemy Dionysius, she admitted Cæsar to her embraces, and by him had a son called Cæsarion, and afterwards became enamoured of Antony, who, forgetful of his connexion with Octavia, the sister of Cæsar, publicly married her; thus causing the rupture between him and Cæsar, who met in a naval engagement off Actium, where Cleopatra, "when 'vantage like a pair of twins appeared," by flying with sixty sail, ruined the interest of Antony, and he was defeated; and so were called forth the imprecatory words of Scarus.

Harlequins (Vol. iii., p. 287.).

—The origin of the word hellequin, unknown to M. Paul Paris, is to be sought in Scandinavia, especially Norway, whence so many swarms of fierce Pagan settlers rushed into Normandy and other parts of France. The helle-quinna or hell-quean was the famous hela or hel, the death-goddess (whence our word hell, the death-realm, as still used in the Creed, &c.), so well known also to our own West Scandinavian (commonly called Anglo-Saxon) forefathers. The Wild Hunt of the Helle-quinna (the Death-quean and her Meynie) was therefore soon easily synonymous with that of La Mort, and, as M. Paris has well observed, naturally led to the grotesque mummeries of notre famille d'Arlequin.

GEORGE STEPHENS.

Stockholm.

Christ's-cross Row (Vol. iii., p. 330.).

—Quarles, in his Emblems, b. 2. 12, p. 124., edition 1812, has the following passage: "Christ's cross is the christ-cross of all our happiness," i. e. the alphabet, the beginning, perhaps the alpha and omega. Grose, in his Olio, p. 195., 1796, relates the following story:

"An Irishman explaining the reason why the Alphabet is called the Criss-cross-Rowe, said it was because Christ's cross was prefixed at the beginning and end of it."

W. B. H.

Manchester.

Meaning of "Waste-book" (Vol. iii., pp. 118. 195. 251. 307.).

—The gentlemen who have hitherto attempted to explain this term are very evidently unacquainted with the subject on which they write; with the exception, however, of MR. CROSSLEY, whose quotation from the Merchant's Mirrour confirms what I am about to say. To the clerk in a merchant's counting-house, like him

the waste-book may indeed be a weary waste; but he does not call it so for that reason, any more than he gives poetical names to the day-book or ledger. In short, we must not go to the merchant's counting-house at all to discover its meaning; or, if we do, "the book-keeper and cashier" who makes the Query may refer us to one of the elders, or head of the firm, who, if he be not too proud to own it, may just recollect that his progenitors or predecessors in the chandler's shop made their rough entries in a book which was literally waste. For origins we must look to the lowest forms or types existing. The merchant's system of book-keeping was not invented perfect; and we may see its various stages in the different gradations of trade at the present day. In many respectable shops, in the country especially, the waste-book is formed by a quire or two of the commonest paper used in the particular trade, that will bear pen and ink, sown together. An advance upon this is the waste-book as a distinct book, bound and ruled, of which the day-book or journal is merely a fair copy; and this being made, the former is held of no account. The importance, however, of reference to original entries has no doubt led to the preservation of the "Waste-book" in regular book-keeping, and a modification of its character.

S. H.

St. John's Wood, April 22. 1851.

Sallust (Vol. iii., p. 325.).

—May I ask your correspondent whether the following lines in the [466]"Georgics" (iii. 284.), the most exact composition in existence, prove that they were first delivered by word of mouth, from notes only:—

"Sed fugit interea, fugit irreparabile tempus,

Singula dum capti circumvectamur amore."

I might add the passage in Pindar, 4th Pythian, 439.:

"Μακρά μοι νεῖσθαι κατ' ἀμαξιτὸν· ὥρα γὰρ συνάπτει· καί τινα οἶμον ἴσαμι βραχύν."

Such passages are common in all authors.

C. B.

Hand-bells at Funerals (Vol. ii., p. 478.).

—With reference to B.'s remark on the Host being often preceded by a hand-bell, it may more correctly be stated, that the Host, when carried in procession to the sick, is in all Catholic countries uniformly preceded by a bell, in order to warn all persons of its approach, that they may be ready to pay all due reverence as the procession passes. The ringing of the bell on this occasion was first instituted by the Cardinal Guido, who was sent Legate to Germany, to confirm the election of the Emperor Otto.

R. R. M.

[Query, May not this have been the original passing bell?]

"Laus tua non tua Fraus," &c. (Vol. i., p. 416.; Vol. ii., p. 77.;Vol. iii., p. 290.).

—There is the following allusion to these lines by Question and Answer in the New Help to Discourse, published about 1670, p. 102.:

Q. "How came the famous Buchanan off, when travelling into Italy, he was, for the freeness of his writing, suspected of his religion, and taken hold of by some of the Pope's Inquisitors?"

A. "By writing to his Holiness this distich:

For which encomium he was set at liberty; and being gone out of the Pope's jurisdiction, he sent to his Holiness, and desired, according to his own true meaning, to read the self-same verses backward.

If George Buchanan, born 1506, was indeed the author of them, it is certain that no Pope Alexander could have been the subject of them, when written, I presume, in 1551, that being the year in which he obtained his liberty. And now to J. F. M.'s Query p. 290.—If he has transcribed Puttenham aright, he might justly condemn them as very bad "verse Lyon," if that be Leonine; but I take it that he has condemned what is worthy of some praise, and of being "called verse Lyon," for Lyric.

It would lose nothing of the lyrical by translation, but your readers being all classical I forbear.

BLOWEN.

Francis Moore (Vol. iii., pp. 263. 381.).

—Francis Moore, physician, was one of the many quack doctors who duped the credulous at the latter period of the seventeenth century; he practised in Westminster: in all probability then, as in our own time, the publication of the almanac was to act as an advertisement of his healing powers, &c. Cookson, Salmon, Gadbury, Andrewes, Tanner, Coley, Partridge, &c. &c., were all his predecessors, and were students in physic and astrology. Moore's Almanac appears to be a perfect copy of Tanner's, which was first published in 1656, forty-two years prior to the appearance of Moore's. The portrait in Knight's London is certainly imaginary. There is a genuine and very characteristic portrait, now of considerable rarity, representing him as a fat-faced man in a wig and large neck-cloth, inscribed "Francis Moore, born in Bridgnorth, in the county of Salop, the 29th of January, 1656/7.—JOHN DRAPENTIER, delin. et sculp."

I may mention it as a curious fact, that the portraits of these quack doctors, when in a good state, are frequently of great rarity. I possess one which was in the Stow collection, being a fine impression of the following print by Drapentier, for which the sum of five guineas had been paid:

"The effigies of George Jones, whom God hath blessed with greate success in healing."—"Student in the art of physick and chirurgery for about thirty years in the Upper More Fields, two golden balls on the tops of the two posts of the portel before my door."

W. W. C.

National Debts (Vol. iii., p. 374.).

—A description of the foundation of a "national debt" in Florence in the years 1344-45 is to be found in the Florentine History, by Henry Edward Napier, R. N. (published by Edward Moxon, Dover Street), chap. xxi. p. 125.

FIRENEYE.

Law Courts at St. Alban's (Vol. i., p. 366.).

—I beg to send a copy of a Latin inscription discovered some years since over the west door inside the great nave of St. Alban's Abbey. It may possibly prove to be a record of some historical value, and at all events furnishes a partial reply to the Query of Σ. in your First Volume:—

"Propter vicinii situm, et amplum hujus Templi spatium ad magnam confluentium multitudinem excipiendam opportunum, temporibus R. H. VIII. et denuo R. Elizabethæ, peste Londini sæviente, Conventus Juridicus hic agebatur."

Underneath this is written,—

Can any of your learned correspondents clear up the nature and extent of these fear-stricken flights to the old abbey? Was it the Commons, or Westminster Hall, or the Convocation, or all together, avoiding the plague? I may observe that our ancestors seem to have put to some practical use the vast space of an abbey-church on extraordinary occasions; and I would humbly suggest that we too of the nineteenth century might [467]take the hint, and employ the many unoccupied naves of our ecclesiastical buildings for religious purposes on ordinary occasions.

W. M. K.

The Fifteen O's (Vol. iii., p. 391.).

—They are sometimes called St. Bridget's Prayers. I have a very small volume entitled:

"¶ A breefe Directory and playne way how to say the Rosary of our blessed Lady: with Meditations for such as are not exercised therein. Whereunto are adioyned the prayers of S. Bryget with others. Bruges Flandrorum, excudebat Hu. Holost. 1576."

At the end (beginning with fresh signature A i.) are—

"¶ Fifteene Prayers, righte good and vertuous, vsually called the XV Oos, and of diuers called S. Briget's prayers, because the holye and blessed Virgin vsed dayly to say them before the Image of the Crucifix in S. Paules Church in Rome."

Of this diminutive volume I never saw another copy. It was published by J. M., who dates his dedication to his dear sister A. M., "from the Englishe Charter House in Bridges (sic), the vigil of the Assumption of Our Lady, 1576." It seems that the sister was resident in England, and had, previously to her brother's departure for Bruges, requested him to send her a translation of the Rosary, which having obtained, his cousin and friend J. Noel procured it to be printed. J. M. willingly confessing "for that I know there be many good women in Englande that honour Our Lady, but good bookes to stirre vp deuotion in them are scarse." Would not a list of English books printed abroad be an interesting subject for some bibliographical antiquary, and an acceptable addition to our literary antiquities?

P. B.

Bunyan and the Visions of Heaven and Hell (Vol. iii., p. 89.).

—MR. OFFOR has very satisfactorily shown that Bunyan could not, from its grandiloquent style, have been the author of the Visions of Heaven and Hell, attributed to him in an edition of that work published in the reign of George I., entitled, The Visions of John Bunyan, being his last Remains.

This title must have been a surreptitious one, for, since MR. OFFOR made the above communication, I have obtained a copy of this scarce book published in the previous reign, under its legitimate title (as in the Sunderland copy of 1771, mentioned at p. 70. supra), and said to be "By G. L. φιλανθρωπο London, printed for John Gwillim, against Crossby Square in Bishopsgate-street, 1711."

In his address "To the Reader" (also signed G. L.), the author even makes the following direct allusion to Bunyan's allegory:

"And since the Way to Heaven has been so taking under the similitude of a dream, why should not the Journey's End be as acceptable under the similitude of a vision? Nay, why should it not be more acceptable, since the end is preferable to the means, and Heaven to the Way that brings us thither? The Pilgrim met with many difficulties; but here they are all over. All storms and tempests here are hush'd in silence and serenity."

It will therefore, I think, be admitted that the name of Bunyan ought no longer to be associated with this work, and that all inferences drawn from the fallacy of his having been the author of it should henceforth be disregarded.

It would, however, be desirable, if possible, to ascertain who G. L. really was, and how the spurious title-page came to be affixed by "Edward Midwinter, at the Looking-Glass upon London Bridge," to his edition of this allegory?

N. H.

Mazer Wood (Vol. iii., pp. 239. 288.).

—Your Querist asks, "Has the word Mazer any signification in itself?" It signifies Maple, being a corruptions of the Welsh word Masarn—the maple-tree. Probably, therefore, the use of the wood of the maple for bowls and drinking-cups prevailed in this country many centuries before the times of Spenser and Chaucer, in whose works they are mentioned. In Devonshire the black cherry-tree, which grows to a large size in that county, is called the mazer-tree. From this circumstance I conjecture that this wood has been used there in former times for bowls and drinking-cups as a substitute for maple. That the original word, mazer, should have been retained, is not to be wondered at. It is known that when the mazer bowl was made of silver, the old name was retained. The name of the maple-tree, in the Irish language, is crann-mhalpais; therefore the name of the Irish wooden drinking-cup maedher cannot be derived from it.

S. S. S.

Robertii Sphæria (Vol. iii., p. 398.).

—Any of your readers who are curious in natural history will find, in the Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. ii. p. 591., a very full description of this extraordinary production, by Dr. Pereira. It is used as a medicine by the Chinese, by whom it is called the "summer-plant-winter-worm," and who attribute to it great cordial and restorative powers. The mode of employing it is curious. A duck is stuffed with five drachms of the insect fungus, and roasted by a slow fire; when done, the stuffing is taken out, the virtue of which has passed into the duck, which is to be eaten twice a day for eight or ten days. In the same work, vol. iv. p. 204., Dr. Pereira gives a further account of the moth on whose larva the fungus grows.

E. N.

Southwark, May 19. 1851.

Count Xavier de Maistre (Vol. iii., p. 227.).

—I notice a slight inaccuracy in MR. SINGER'S reference to the author of Voyage autour de ma Chambre. He gives the name as "Jean Xavier [468]Maitre;" whereas the correct designation is "Count Xavier de Maistre;" the s in the patronymic being distinctly pronounced. Such trifling errors are only worth noticing because they appear in a work, one of the main features of which is the correctness of its references to authors and books. No doubt it is his extensive acquaintance with both that induced MR. SINGER, on this occasion, to trust to his memory, rather than turn to a biographical dictionary.

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia, April, 1851.

Amicus Plato (Vol. iii., p. 389.).

—The origin of the sentiment, "Amicus Plato," &c., seems to be Aristot. Eth. Nicom. c. iv., where he disputes against Plato, and says: "Both being dear to me, it is right to prefer truth:

"Ἀμφοῖν φίλοιν ὄντοιν, ὅσιον προτιμᾶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν."

C. B.

The Coptic Language (Vol. ii., pp. 376. 499.).

—The reply of HERMAPION to the questions put by J. E. is scarcely satisfactory. I will endeavour to answer then more directly. The Coptic language is not an inflected one; and it has very few affixes. There are many prefixes to its nouns and verbs, which before the former are articles or demonstrative pronouns. Between these prefixes and the noun or verb, pronominal infixes are introduced, by which possession is denoted in the case of a noun, and the subject in that of a verb. Thus, ran is "a name;" pi-ran, "the name;" pe-v-ran, "his name;" i, is the verbal root, "come;" a, the prefix of the past tense; and a-v-i, "he came." Some nouns take affixes, as jo-v, "his head." Pronominal affixes are also joined to verbs to express their objects, and to prepositions. In the old Egyptian language, from which the Coptic is derived, there were more affixes. I am not aware that infixes have been met with in inscriptions prior to the eighteenth dynasty; and those which are in use are the same as the affixes which annexed to nouns denote possession, and to verbs the subject. The old Egyptian affixes which denoted the object of the verb, are in general different. En-v-tu would be "he bringeth thee;" and en-ka-su, "thou bringest him." In Coptic, the former would be e-o-en-k; the latter, e-k-en-v. Probably the Coptic prefixes were originally auxiliary verbs, or prepositions. The old Egyptian affixes greatly resemble the Hebrew ones, especially if s be substituted for the Hebrew h; and it is very remarkable that the Assyrio-Babylonian affixes differ from the Hebrew principally in this same respect. In like manner, the causative conjugation is formed from the simple one by prefixing h in Hebrew, but by prefixing s in both Assyrio-Babylonian and Egyptian. No doubt can then exist as to the old Egyptian language being Semitic; but the opposition between the Semitic languages and the Indo-European ones is by no means so great as was formerly supposed. Relations between them are now clearly to be traced, which prove that they had a common origin, and that at no distant period.

E. H. D. D.

Benedicite (Vol. ii., p. 463.).

— is, I believe, two words—benedici te—"that you may be blessed;" and not a single word, as PETER CORONA supposes. The ellipsis is of jubeo, or some similar word.

D. X.

Porci solidi-pedes (Vol. iii., pp. 263. 357.).

—I find, on further inquiry, that my account of the porci solidi-pedes is correct; and I can now add the following: that under the eye there was a small protuberance, not, I believe, found in our ordinary English pigs, but which forms a remarkable characteristic of the African wild boar. In the African species it is large; in the Chinese, if it be rightly so called, it is about half the length of a forefinger, and a quarter of an inch in height. I have no doubt that Mr. Ramsden, of Carlton Hall, Notts, would furnish additional information concerning these pigs, should it be required; and the publication of it would perhaps be interesting to many.

E. J. SELWYN.

Blackheath.

The Cart before the Horse (Vol. i., p. 348.).

—F. C. B. says, "I know not how old may be, 'to put the cart before the horse.'" Lucian quotes the proverb ἡ ἅμαξα τὸν βοῦν [scil. ἕλκει] to illustrate the case of the young dying before the old; it is an exact equivalent to the English proverb. (Lucian. Dial. Mortuor. vi. 2.)

C. P. PH***.

Dies Iræ (Vol. ii., p. 72.).

—I beg to refer MR. SIMPSON to the Rev. R. C. Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry Selected, London, 1849, pp. 270-277. The account of Wadding, historiographer of the Franciscan Order, is there adopted, who names Thomas of Celano as the author. The question has been thoroughly discussed by Mohnike, Hymnologische Forschungen, vol. i. pp. 1-24. See also Daniel, Thesaur. Hymnolog., vol. ii. p. 103.

C. P. PH***.

Apple-pie Order (Vol. iii., p. 330.).

—If MR. SNEAK will consult a work—viz. Mrs. Glasse's (or rather Dr. Hill's) volume of cookery, which may possibly be in his lady's library—he will find a receipt for making a Devonshire squab pie. This is to be formed "by alternate layers of sliced pippins and mutton steaks," to be adjusted in the most orderly manner. Now, from the nicety and care requisite in this arrangement, may we not "surmise," though, with Sir Walter Raleigh in the Critic, I may add, "forgive, my friend, if the conjecture's rash," that the expression "Apple-pie order" has sprung from the dish in question?

J. H. M.

The Image of both Churches (Vol. iii., p. 407.).

—[469] There seems to be no doubt that this curious book, respecting which DR. RIMBAULT inquires, was written by Dr. Matthew Pattenson, or Patteson (not Paterson). Gee, in his Foot out of the Snare, published in 1624, the year after the publication of The Image of both Churches, in his Catalogue of "English Bookes," mentions "The Image of both Churches, by M. Pateson, now in London, a bitter and seditious book." The author is subsequently referred to as "F.(ather) Pateson, a Jesuit, lodging in Fetter Lane."

See also the Preface to Foulis's History of the Romish Treasons and Usurpations, 1671, fol., and Wood's Athenæ, edit. Bliss, vol. iv. p. 139., in which it is stated to have been mostly collected from the answers of Anti-Cotton and Joh. Brierley, Priest. In Dodd's Catholic Church History, vol. ii. p. 427., folio edit., it is also attributed to Dr. M. Pattenson, of whom some account is given, and who is mentioned to have been Physician in Ordinary to Charles I.

JAS. CROSSLEY.

School of the Heart (Vol. iii., p. 390.).

—Your correspondent S. T. D. will find in the "Prefatory Notice to the Synagogue," printed with Herbert's Temple, edit. Pickering, an account of Christopher Harvey and his works; also in Walton's Angler, edited by Sir H. Nicolas.

ϖ.

Meaning of Mosaic (Vol. iii., p. 389.).

—The breast-plate of the Jewish High Priest, as commanded by Moses, was to be four square, and that divided into twelve squares, to designate the twelve tribes of Israel: from this circumstance, the word Mosaic was derived as a term of Art, being a series or congregate of small squares of different coloured stones, applicable to the formation of any tesselated figure.

Vide 39th chap. of Exodus, from verse 8. to 14, inclusive.

JOHN KENTOR.

Glyn y mêl, May 21. 1851.

Mosaic.—This word would appear to be derived from the Greek, μοῦσα ἐκ μύω, to close by pressure; Latin, musa vel musivum, that is, "opus eximia compositione tessellatum," a piece of tesselated or chequered work of superior manufacture, in regard to the manner in which the small stones or pieces of wood are closed or joined together.

FRANCISCUS.

The Tradescants (Vol. iii, pp. 119. 286. 353. 391.).

—In common with several of your correspondents, I have for some time past taken great interest in the Tradescants, and have read with much pleasure the letters of DR. RIMBAULT, MR. SINGER, and MR. PINKERTON.

I have hitherto been unsuccessful in discovering any further particulars of the family of the Tradescants; but a few days since, in looking into a copy of Dr. Ducarel's tract on the subject, preserved among the books in the Ashmolean Museum, I found the following note in pencil, not very legibly written in the margin of the tract, where Dr. Ducarel says he has not been able to find any account in the Lambeth Register of the death of the elder Tradescant. "Consult (with certainty of finding information concerning the Tradescants) the Registers of ——apham, Kent." Since this note was written, the tract has been bound and the commencement of several words cut off. Amongst them is the name of the place of which the registers are to be consulted. I imagine it to be Meapham (apham is all that can be read).

Perhaps some of your correspondents may have an opportunity of consulting the registers of Meapham, and should any information respecting the Tradescants be found there, the marginal note will not have been without its use.

I am looking forward with great interest to the information which MR. PINKERTON promises us on the subject; and should this letter be the means of directing him to a new source of information, it will be a matter of great satisfaction to me.

C.C.R.

Linc. Coll., Oxon.

St. John's Bridge Fair (Vol. iii., pp. 88. 287. 341.).

—Having received the last polish at Peterborough Grammar School in 1840, and from a three years' residence off and on, I am enabled to speak to the fact of there being two fairs held at Peterborough.

One, commonly called St. John's Fair, is usually held on the 18th July; but whether it is also called St. John's Bridge Fair I am unable to say, as this fair was always held in our holidays, although it might be so termed.

The other, commonly called "Bridge Fair," is held in the early part of October, and is so called from its proximity to the bridge. The piece in which the fairs are held is called the Bridge Close. Indeed I believe both these fairs were held in the same piece, or at least close by each other, although held at different times.

I hope this may assist, but whether it is the same spoken of at p. 88. I cannot say.

J. N. C.

A Tye (Vol. iii., p. 263.)

is described by your correspondent as a place where three roads meet. Perhaps he means a place where one road divides into two. The nucleus of old English towns will be almost always found to consist of such a fork of one road into two, requiring three principal gates or entrances, and distinguishing the plans of towns from those of cities, in which four roads meet, forming the Carfoix, and requiring four principal gates. Is there any affinity of the words two, tye, and town? The parallel case of the junction of two rivers into one affects the names of places situated there, as Tiverton.

K. TH.

Vineyard (Vol. ii., pp. 392. 414. 446. 522.).

—In[470] reference to the subject of the name "Vineyard" being still applied to certain places in England, it may be curious to note that the little village of Fingest, on the borders of Oxon and Bucks, was formerly called Vingest; and a farm in the same parish, now known as the Fineing, appears on an old tablet in the church as "the Vineing." I should add that the country around is full of steep sunny slopes; and would be, in a warmer climate admirably adapted for vines.

G. R. M.

Legend represented in Frettenham Church (Vol. iii, p. 407.).

—Your Cambridge correspondent C. J. E. will do well to refer to the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, "June 25, St. Eloy,"—or to any of the numerous biographical notices of that saint, so dear to the French, especially to the Limousins; and he will find, if not the identical legend represented in Frettenham Church, the one which probably suggested it.

A. B.

Family of Rowe (Vol. iii., p. 408.).

—In answer to the inquiry of TEE BEE, I beg to refer him to vol. iii. No. 10., pages 225. to 231. of the Antiquarian Repertory, where he will find the will of Sir Thomas Rowe of the 2d May, 1569; of his wife Dame Sarah Rowe of the 21st March, 1579; and of Sir Thomas Rowe of Woodford. They were communicated to the publishers by T. Astle, Esq., as well worthy of publication, and containing many pious and charitable bequests, particular directions for their funerals, and the price of wearing apparel in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

I have been unable to learn in whose possession the original "MS. Extracts of Wills" now remain.

J. R. D. T.

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.

It having occurred to Mr. Hudson Turner that our national records might be made available to illustrate the history of architecture in England, he has for the last sixteen years "made a brief in his note-book" of every fact bearing on the subject which came under his notice in the course of his daily reference to those documents for professional objects and he has now given to the world some portions of the valuable materials thus collected in a handsome volume published by Mr. Parker, of Oxford, under the title of Some Account of Domestic Architecture in England, from the Conquest to the end of the Thirteenth Century, with numerous illustrations of existing Remains from original Drawings. It is not, of course, within our limits to trace even briefly the results of Mr. Turner's labours, or to point out how much light he has thrown upon a branch of architectural study which, although involved in great obscurity, has hitherto received but little attention. But we may remark that its perusal shows, that to an intimate acquaintance with the invaluable materials for elucidating every department of historical or antiquarian knowledge to be found in our records, Mr. Turner adds considerable tact in the employment of his materials, and has endeavoured therefore, and very successfully, to make his history of domestic architecture an important contribution towards that of our social progress. The consequence is, that while, thanks to the valuable assistance of Mr. Parker, the architectural student will find in this handsomely illustrated volume much to instruct and delight him, it may be read with interest by those who are altogether indifferent to the subject to which it is more immediately devoted.

Our able and indefatigable contributor, Dr. Rimbault, has put forth for the especial delight of those who, like Mopsa, "love a ballad in print," A Little Book of Songs and Ballads gathered from Ancient Musick Books MS. and Printed. The various pieces contained in it have been selected from many volumes of considerable rarity, and are illustrated by numerous notes, which are characterised by Dr. Rimbault's accustomed ability and industry.

Mr. Delf has received from America some copies of an octavo volume bearing the title of A Library Manual, containing a Catalogue Raisonnée of upwards of Twelve Thousand of the most important Works in every Department of Knowledge. Although very imperfectly executed (and the circumstances under which we are informed it was executed may perhaps be pleaded as some excuse for such imperfections), it is still a book which might with advantage be placed on the shelves of newly formed literary societies, as a means of informing the members as to the principal works existing in the various departments of learning. The idea upon which the book is founded is so good, and its object one of such obvious utility, that we have little doubt but it will ere long be much more successfully carried out.

CATALOGUES RECEIVED.—J. Russell Smith's (4. Old Compton Street, Soho) Catalogue Part 4. for 1851 of Choice, Useful, and Curious Books; W. S. Lincoln's (Cheltenham House, Westminster Road) Sixty-ninth Catalogue of Cheap Miscellaneous English and Foreign Books; J. Petheram's (94. High Holborn) Catalogue Part 123., No. 4. for 1851 of Old and New Books.

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES
WANTED TO PURCHASE.

• ALBERT LUNEL, a Novel in 3 Vols.
• DR. ADAMS' SERMON ON THE OBLIGATION OF VIRTUE. Any edition.
• ENGRAVED PORTRAITS OF BISHOP BUTLER.
• RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW. Vol. IV.
• DENS' THEOLOGIA MORALIS ET DOGMATICA. 8 Vols. 12mo. Dublin, 1832.
• MARLBOROUGH DISPATCHES. Volumes IV. and V.
• ART JOURNAL, 1839 to 1844 inclusive. Also 1849.
• BULWER'S NOVELS. 12mo. Published at 6s. per Vol. Pilgrims of the Rhine, Alice, and Zanoni.
• STEPHANI THESAURUS. Valpy. Parts I. II. X. XI. and XXIX.
• KIRBY'S BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. 2 Vols.
• The Second Vol. of CHAMBER'S CYCLOPÉDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
• GOODWIN'S COURSE OF MATHEMATICS. Last edition.
• MITFORD'S HISTORY OF GREECE, continued by Davenport. 12mo. 8 Vols. Published by Tegg and Son, 1835. Volume Eight wanted.
• L'ABBÉ DE SAINT PIERRE, PROJET DE PAIX PERPETUELLE. 3 Vols. 12mo. Utrecht, 1713.
• [471]AIKIN'S SELECT WORKS OF THE BRITISH POETS. 10 Vols. 24mo. Published by Longmans and Co. 1821. Vols. I. V. and VIII. wanted.
• CAXTON'S REYNARD THE FOX (Percy Society Edition). Sm. 8vo. 1844.
• CRESPET, PERE. Deux Livres de la Haine de Satan et des Malins Esprits contre l'Homme. 8vo. Francfort, 1581.
• CHEVALIER RAMSAY, Essai de Politique, où l'on traite de la Nécessité, de l'Origine, des Droits, des Bornes et des différentes Formes de la Souveraineté, selon les Principes de l'Auteur de Télémaque. 2 Vols. 12mo. La Haye, without date, but printed in 1719.
• The same. Second Edition, under the title "Essai Philosophique sur le Gouvernement Civil, selon les Principes de Fénélon," 12mo. Londres, 1721.

*** Letters, stating particulars and lowest price, carriage free, to be sent to MR. BELL, Publisher of "NOTES AND QUERIES," 186. Fleet Street.

Notices to Correspondents.

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J. B. C. Akerman's Numismatic Manual will probably best answer our correspondent's purpose. The communication referred to by him is one of many on nearly the same subject, which have been reserved for publication at some future time.

JAMES C. The "Dissertation on Dunmore Fort" has not reached us.

Will N. H. kindly favour MR. OFFOR with a sight of the edition of The Visions in his possession? If left with our publisher, it shall be forwarded to him, and duly returned to N. H. as he may direct.

REPLIES RECEIVED.—Handel's Occasional Oratorio—The Ten Commandments—Verses in Pope—Lines on the Roses—Swabbers—Rag Sunday—Hugh Peachell—Earth thrown upon the Coffin—Curse of Scotland—Carved Ceiling in Dorsetshire—Fit to a T.—Names of the Ferret—Knapp Family—Tanthony—Fiat Justitia—San Graal—To learn by Heart—Folk Talk—Eysell and Captious—Passage in Cymbeline—Skeletons at Egyptian Banquet—Barker the Panoramist—Royal Library—Dieu et mon Droit—A Kemble Pipe—Baldrocks.

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