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Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they are listed at the end of the text.
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NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.
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"When found, make a note of."—CAPTAIN CUTTLE.
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No. 191.] Saturday, June 25, 1853. [Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition 5d.
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CONTENTS.
NOTES:— Page
Witchcraft in Somersetshire 613
"Emblemata Horatiana," by Weld Taylor 614
Shakspeare Criticism, by Thomas Keightley 615
Red Hair a Reproach, by T. Hughes 616
Extracts from Newspapers, 1714, by E. G. Ballard 616
MINOR NOTES:—Last Suicide buried at a Cross Road. —Andrew's Edition of Freund's Latin Lexicon— Slang Expressions—"Quem Deus vult perdere"— White Roses 617
QUERIES:—
"Merk Lands" and "Ures:" Norwegian Antiquities 618
The Leigh Peerage, and Stoneley Estates, Warwickshire 619
MINOR QUERIES:—Phillips Family—Engine-a-verge —Garrick's Funeral Epigram—The Rosicrucians— Passage in Schiller—Sir John Vanbrugh—Historical Engraving—Hall-close, Silverstone, Northamptonshire —Junius's Letters to Wilkes—The Reformer's Elm—How to take Paint off old Oak 619
MINOR QUERIES WITH ANSWERS:—Cadenus and Vanessa —Boom—"A Letter to a Member of Parliament" —Ancient Chessmen—Guthryisms 620
REPLIES:—
Correspondence of Cranmer and Calvin, by Henry Walter 621
"Populus vult decipi," by Robert Gibbings, &c. 621
Latin: Latiner 622
Jack 622
Passage in St. James, by T. J. Buckton, &c. 623
Faithfull Teate 624
Parvise 624
The Coenaculum of Lionardo da Vinci 624
Font Inscriptions, by F. B. Relton, &c. 625
Burn at Croydon 626
Christian Names, by William Bates, &c. 626
Weather Rules 627
Rococo, by Henry H. Breen 627
Descendants of John of Gaunt, by J. S. Warden 628
The Order of St. John of Jerusalem 628
REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES:—Anticipatory Worship of the Cross—Ennui—"Qui facit per alium, facit per se," &c.—Vincent Family—Judge Smith—"Dimidiation" in Impalements—Worth—"Elementa sex," &c.—"A Diasii 'Salve,'" &c.—Meaning of "Claret" —"The Temple of Truth"—Wellborne Family —Devonianisms—Humbug—George Miller, D.D. —"A Letter to a Convocation Man"—Sheriffs of Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire—Ferdinand Mendez Pinto—"Other-some" and "Unneath" —Willow Pattern—Cross and Pile—Old Fogie —Another odd Mistake—Spontaneous Combustion —Erroneous Forms of Speech—Ecclesia Anglicana— Gloves at Fairs—The Sparrows at Lindholme, &c. 629
MISCELLANEOUS:—
Books and Odd Volumes wanted 634
Notices to Correspondents 634
Advertisements 634
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Notes.
WITCHCRAFT IN SOMERSETSHIRE.
Perhaps the following account of superstitions now entertained in some parts of Somersetshire, will be interesting to the inquirers into the history of witchcraft. I was lately informed by a member of my congregation that two children living near his house were bewitched. I made inquiries into the matter, and found that witchcraft is by far less uncommon than I had imagined. I can hardly adduce the two children as an authenticated case, because the medical gentleman who attended them pronounced their illness to be a kind of ague: but I leave the two following cases on record in "N. & Q." as memorable instances of witchcraft in the nineteenth century.
A cottager, who does not live five minutes' walk from my house, found his pig seized with a strange and unaccountable disorder. He, being a sensible man, instead of asking the advice of a veterinary surgeon, immediately went to the white witch (a gentleman who drives a flourishing trade in this neighbourhood). He received his directions, and went home and implicitly followed them. In perfect silence, he went to the pigsty; and lancing each foot and both ears of the pig, he allowed the blood to run into a piece of common dowlas. Then taking two large pins, he pierced the dowlas in opposite directions; and still keeping silence, entered his cottage, locked the door, placed the bloody rag upon the fire, heaped up some turf over it, and reading a few verses of the Bible, waited till the dowlas was burned. As soon as this was done, he returned to the pigsty; found his pig perfectly restored to health, and, mirabile dictu! as the white witch had predicted, the old woman, who it was supposed had bewitched the pig, came to inquire after the pig's health. The animal never suffered a day's illness afterwards. My informant was the owner of the pig himself.
Perhaps, when I heard this story, there may have been a lurking expression of doubt upon my face, so that my friend thought it necessary to give me farther proof. Some time ago a lane in this town began to be looked upon with a mysterious awe, for every evening a strange white rabbit {614} would appear in it, and, running up and down, would mysteriously disappear. Dogs were frequently put on the scent, but all to no purpose, the white rabbit could not be caught; and rumours soon began to assert pretty confidently, that the white rabbit was nothing more nor less than a witch. The man whose pig had been bewitched was all the more confident; as every evening when the rabbit appeared, he had noticed the bed-room window of his old enemy's house open! At last a large party of bold-hearted men one evening were successful enough to find the white rabbit in a garden, the only egress from which is through a narrow passage between two cottages, all the rest of the garden being securely surrounded by brick-walls. They placed a strong guard in this entry to let nothing pass, while the remainder advanced as skirmishers among the cabbages: one of these was successful, and caught the white rabbit by the ears, and, not without some trepidation, carried it towards the reserve in the entry. But, as he came nearer to his friends, his courage grew; and gradually all the wrongs his poor pig had suffered, took form and vigour in a powerful kick at the poor little rabbit! No sooner had he done this than, he cannot tell how, the rabbit was out of his grasp; the people in the entry saw it come, but could not stop it; through them all it went, and has never been seen again. But now to the proof of the witchcraft. The old woman, whom all suspected, was laid up in her bed for three days afterwards, unable to walk about: all in consequence of the kick she had received in the shape of a white rabbit!
S. A. S.
Bridgewater.
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"EMBLEMATA HORATIANA."
Whatever may be proposed as to republishing works of English emblems, the work published in Holland with the above title at all events deserves to be better known. All the English works on the subject I ever saw, are poor indeed compared with the above: indeed, I think most books of emblems are either grounded or compiled from this interesting work; which is to the artist a work of the deepest interest, since all the designs are by Otho Venius, the master of Rubens. Not only are the morals conveyed lofty and sound, but the figures are first-rate specimens of drawing. I believe it is this work that Malone says Sir Joshua Reynolds learned to draw from: and if he really did, he could have had nothing better, whatever age he might be. "His principal fund of imitation," says Malone, "was Jacob Cat's book of emblems, which his great-grandmother, by his father's side, who was a Dutch woman, had brought with her from Holland." There is a small copy I think published in England, but a very poor one: the original work, of which I possess a portion only, is large, and engraved with great care. And I have often thought it a pity such an admirable work should be so scarce and little known. Whoever did it, it must have occupied many years, in those slow days, to make the designs and engrave them. At the present day lithography, or some of the easy modes of engraving, would soon multiply it. The size of the engravings are rather more than seven inches. Many of the figures have been used repeatedly by Rubens, and also some of the compositions. And though he is certainly a better painter, he falls far short in originality compared with his master; and, I may add, in richness of material. I should say his chief works are to be found in that book. One of my leaves is numbered 195: so I should judge the work to be very large, and to embrace a variety of subjects. Some of the figures are worthy of Raffaelle. I may instance one called the "Balance of Friendship." Two young men have a balance between them; one side is filled with feathers, and the other with weightier offerings: the meaning being, we should not allow favours and gifts to come all from one side. The figures have their hands joined, and appear to be in argument: their ample drapery is worthy of a study for apostles.
"Undertake nothing beyond your Strength" is emblemised by the giants scaling the heavens: one very fine figure, full of action, in the centre, is most admirably drawn.
"Education and Habit" is another, full of meaning. Two dogs are running: one after game, and another to a porringer. Some one has translated the verses at the bottom on the back of the print as follows. This has a fine group of figures in it:
"When taught by man, the hound pursues The panting stag o'er hill and fell, With steadfast eyes he keeps in view The noble game he loves so well. A mongrel coward slinks away, The buck, the chase, ne'er warms his soul; No huntsman's cheer can make him stay, He runs to nothing, but his porridge bowl.
Throughout the race of men, 'tis still the same, And all pursue a different kind of game. Taverns and wine will form the tastes of some, Others success in maids or wives undone. To solid good, the wise pursues his way; Nor for low pleasure ever deigns to stay. Though in thy chamber all the live-long day, In studious mood, you pass the hours away; Or though you pace the noisy streets alone, And silent watch day's burning orb go down; Nature to thee displays her honest page: Read there—and see the follies of an age."
The taste for emblemata appears to have passed by, but a good selection would be I think received with favour; particularly if access could be obtained to a good collection. And I should like to {615} see any addition to the REV. J. CORSER's list in the Number of the 14th of May.
WELD TAYLOR.
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SHAKSPEARE CRITICISM.
When I entered on the game of criticism in "N. & Q.," I deemed that it was to be played with good humour, in the spirit of courtesy and urbanity, and that, consequently, though there might be much worthless criticism and conjecture, the result would on the whole be profitable. Finding that such is not to be the case, I retire from the field, and will trouble "N. & Q." with no more of my lucubrations.
I have been led to this resolution by the language employed by MR. ARROWSMITH in No. 189., where, with little modesty, and less courtesy, he styles the commentators on Shakspeare—naming in particular, KNIGHT, COLLIER, and DYCE, and including SINGER and all of the present day—criticasters who "stumble and bungle in sentences of that simplicity and grammatical clearness as not to tax the powers of a third-form schoolboy to explain." In order to bring me "within his danger," he actually transposes two lines of Shakspeare; and so, to the unwary, makes me appear to be a very shallow person indeed.
"It was gravely," says Mr. A., "almost magisterially, proposed by one of the disputants [MR. SINGER] to corrupt the concluding lines by altering their the pronoun into there the adverb, because (shade of Murray!) the commentator could not discover of what noun their could possibly be the pronoun, in these lines following:
'When great things labouring perish in their birth, Their form confounded makes most form in mirth;'
and it was left to MR. KEIGHTLEY to bless the world with the information that it was things."
In all the modern editions that I have been able to consult, these lines are thus printed and punctuated:
"Their form confounded makes most form in mirth; When great things labouring perish in the birth:"
and their is referred to contents. I certainly seem to have been the first to refer it to things.
Allow me, as it is my last, to give once more the whole passage as it is in the folios, unaltered by MR. COLLIER's Magnus Apollo, and with my own punctuation:
"That sport best pleases, that doth least know how, Where zeal strives to content, and the contents Dyes in the zeal of that which it presents. Their form confounded makes most form in mirth, When great things labouring perish in the birth." Love's Labour's Lost, Act V. Sc. 2.
My interpretation, it will be seen, beside referring their to things, makes dyes in signify tinges, imbues with; of which use of the expression I now offer the following instances:
"And the grey ocean into purple dye." Faery Queene, ii. 10. 48.
"Are deck'd with blossoms dyed in white and red." Ib.., ii. 12. 12.
"Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes." King John, Act II. Sc. 2.
"And it was dyed in mummy." Othello, Act III. Sc. 4.
"O truant Muse! what shall be thy amends For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?" Sonn. 101.
For the use of this figure I may quote from the Shakspeare of France:
"Mais pour moi, qui, cache sous une autre aventure, D'une ame plus commune ai pris quelque teinture." Heraclius, Act III. Sc. 1.
"The house ought to dye all the surrounding country with a strength of colouring, and to an extent proportioned to its own importance."—Life of Wordsworth, i. 355.
Another place on which I had offered a conjecture, and which MR. A. takes under his patronage, is "Clamor your tongues" (Winter's Tale, Act IV. Sc. 4.) and in proof of clamor being the right word, he quotes passages from a book printed in 1542, in which are chaumbreed and chaumbre, in the sense of restraining. I see little resemblance here to clamor, and he does not say that he would substitute chaumbre. He says, "Most judiciously does Nares reject Gifford's corruption of this word into charm [it was Grey not Gifford]; nor will the suffrage of the 'clever' old commentator," &c. It is very curious, only that we criticasters are so apt to overrun our game, that the only place where "charm your tongue" really occurs, seems to have escaped MR. COLLIER. In Othello, Act V. Sc. 2., Iago says to his wife, "Go to, charm your tongue;" and she replies, "I will not charm my tongue." My conjecture was that clamor was clam, or, as it was usually spelt, clem, to press or restrain; and to this I still adhere.
"When my entrails Were clemmed with keeping a perpetual fast." Massinger, Rom. Actor., Act II. Sc. 1.
"I cannot eat stones and turfs: say, what will he clem me and my followers?"—Jonson, Poetaster, Act I. Sc. 2.
"Hard is the choice when the valiant must eat their arms or clem." Id., Every Man Out of his Humour Act III. Sc. 6.
In these places of Jonson, clem is usually rendered starve; but it appears to me, from the kindred of the term, that it is used elliptically. Perhaps, instead of "Till famine cling thee" (Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5.), Shakspeare wrote "Till {616} famine clem thee." While in the region of conjecture, I will add that coasting, in Troilus and Cressida (Act IV. Sc. 5.), is, in my opinion, simply accosting, lopped in the usual way by aphaeresis; and that "the still-peering air" in All's Well that Ends Well (Act III. Sc. 2.), is, by the same figure, "the still-appearing air," i. e. the air that appears still and silent, but that yet "sings with piercing."
One conjecture more, and I have done. I do not like altering the text without absolute necessity; but there was always a puzzle to me in this passage:
"Where I find him, were it At home, upon my brother's guard, even there, Against the hospitable canon, would I Wash my fierce hand in 's blood." Coriol., Act I. Sc. 10.
Why should Aufidius speak thus of a brother who is not mentioned anywhere else in the play or in Plutarch? It struck me one day that Shakspeare might have written, "Upon my household hearth;" and on looking into North's Plutarch, I found that when Coriolanus went to the house of Aufidius, "he got him up straight to the chimney-hearth, and sate him downe." The poet who adhered so faithfully to his Plutarch may have wished to preserve this image, and, chimney not being a very poetic word, may have substituted household, or some equivalent term. Again I say this is all but conjecture.
THOMAS KEIGHTLEY.
P.S.—It is really very annoying to have to reply to unhandsome and unjust accusations. The REV. MR. ARROWSMITH first transposes two lines of Shakspeare, and then, by notes of admiration, holds me up as a mere simpleton; and then A. E. B. charges me with having pirated from him my explanation of a passage in Love's Labour's Lost, Act V. Sc. 2. Let any one compare his (in "N. & Q.," Vol. vi., p. 297.) with mine (Vol. vii., p. 136.), and he will see the utter falseness of the assertion. He makes contents the nom. to dies, taken in its ordinary sense (rather an unusual concord). I take dyes in the sense of tinges, imbues with, and make it governed of zeal. But perhaps it is to the full-stop at presents that the "that's my thunder!" applies. I answer, that that was a necessary consequence of the sense in which I had taken dies, and that their must then refer to things maugre MR. ARROWSMITH. And when he says that I "do him the honour of requoting the line with which he had supported it," I merely observe that it is the line immediately following, and that I have eyes and senses as well as A. E. B.
A. E. B. deceives himself, if he thinks that literary fame is to be acquired in this way. I do not much approve either of the manner in which, at least to my apprehension, in his opening paragraph, he seems to insinuate a charge of forgery against MR. COLLIER. Finally, I can tell him that he need not crow and clap his wings so much at his emendation of the passage in Lear, for, if I mistake not, few indeed will receive it. It may be nuts to him and MR. ARROWSMITH to know that they have succeeded in driving my name out of the "N. & Q."
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RED HAIR A REPROACH.
I do not know the why or the wherefore, but in every part of England I have visited, there appears to be a deep-rooted prejudice in the eyes of the million against people with red hair. Tradition, whether truly or not must remain a mystery, assigns to Absalom's hair a reddish tinge; and Judas, the traitorous disciple, is ever painted with locks of the same unhappy colour. Shakspeare, too, seems to have been embued with the like morbid feeling of distrust for those on whose hapless heads the invidious mark appeared. In his play of As You Like It, he makes Rosalind (who is pettishly complaining of her lover's tardiness coming to her) say to Celia:
"Ros. His very hair is of the dissembling colour. Celia. Something browner than Judas'."
It will be apparent from this quotation, that in England, at any rate, the prejudice spoken of is not of very recent development; and that it has not yet vanished before the intellectual progress of our race, will, I think, be painfully evident to many a bearer of this unenviable distinction. It seems to be generally supposed, by those who harbour the doctrine, that red-headed people are dissemblers, deceitful, and, in fact, not to be trusted like others whose hair is of a different colour; and I may add, that I myself know persons who, on that account alone, never admit into their service any whose hair is thus objectionable. In Wales, pen coch (red head) is a term of reproach universally applied to all who come under the category; and if such a wight should by any chance involve himself in a scrape, it is the signal at once for a regular tirade against all who have the misfortune to possess hair of the same fiery colour.
I cannot bring myself to believe that there is any really valid foundation for this prejudice; and certainly, if not, it were indeed a pity that the superstitious feeling thus engendered is not at once and for ever banished from the memory.
T. HUGHES.
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EXTRACTS FROM NEWSPAPERS, 1714.
Daily Courant, Jan. 9, 1714:
"Rome, Dec. 16.—The famous painter, Carlo Maratta, died some days ago, in the ninetieth year of his age."
The Post Boy, Jan. 12-14, 1714.—Old MSS. relating to Winchester.—In the Post Boy, Jan. {617} 12-14, 1714, appears the following curious advertisement:
"Winchester Antiquities, written by Mr. Trussell, Dr. Bettes, and Mr. Butler of St. Edmund's Bury, in one of which manuscripts is the Original of Cities; which manuscripts were never published. If the person who hath either of them, and will communicate, or permit the same to be copied or perused, he is earnestly desired to give notice thereof to Mr. Mathew Imber, one of the aldermen of the city of Winchester, in the county of Southampton, who is compleating the idea or description of the ancient and present state of that ancient city, to be speedily printed; together with a faithful collection of all the memorable and useful things relating to the same city."
Gough, in his Topography, vol. i. p. 387., thus notices these MSS.:
"Wood says (Ath. Ox., vol. i. p. 448.) that Trussell the historian, who was alderman of Winchester, continued to Bishop Curll's time, 1632, an old MS. history of the see and bishops in the Cathedral library. He also wrote A Description of the City of Winchester; with an Historical Relation of divers memorable Occurrences touching the same, and prefixed to it A Preamble of the Original of Cities in general. In a catalogue of the famous Robert Smith's books, sold by auction, 1682, No. 24. among the MSS. has this identical title, by J. Trussell, fol., and was purchased for twelve shillings by a Mr. Rothwell, a frequent purchaser at this sale. The Description, &c., written by Trussell about 1620, is now in the hands of John Duthy, Esq.; and from it large extracts were made in The History and Antiquities of Winchester, 1773. Bishop Nicolson guesses that it was too voluminous, and Bishop Kennett that it was too imperfect to be published.
"The former mentions something on the same subject by Dr. Bettes, whose book is still in MS.
"Dr. Butler, of St. Edmund's Bury, made observations on the ancient monuments of this city under the Romans."
E. G. BALLARD.
[Trussell's MSS. are now in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps.—ED.]
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Minor Notes.
Last Suicide buried at a Cross Road.—I have reason to believe that the last person subjected to this barbarous ceremony was the wretched parricide and suicide Griffiths, who was buried at the cross road formed by Eaton Street, Grosvenor Place, and the King's Road, as late as June, 1823. I subjoin the following account from the Chronicle:
"The extreme privacy which the officers observed, as to the hour and place of interment, increased in a great degree the anxiety of those that were waiting, and it being suspected that the body would have been privately carried away, through the back part of the workhouse (St. George's) into Farm Street Mews, and from thence to its final destination, different parties stationed themselves at the several passages through which it must unavoidably pass, in order to prevent disappointment. All anxiety however, on this account, was ultimately removed, by preparations being made for the removal of the body through the principal entry of the workhouse leading into Mount Street, and about half-past one o'clock the body was brought out in a shell supported on the shoulders of four men, and followed by a party of constables and watchmen. The solitary procession, which increased in numbers as it went along, proceeded up Mount Street, down South Audley Street into Stanhope Street, from thence into Park Lane through Hyde Park Corner, and along Grosvenor Place, until its final arrival at the cross road formed by Eaton Street, Grosvenor Place, and the King's Road. When the procession arrived at the grave, which had been previously dug, the constables arranged themselves around it to keep the crowd off, upon which the shell was laid on the ground, and the body of the unfortunate deceased taken out. It had on a winding-sheet, drawers, and stockings, and a quantity of blood was clotted about the head, and the lining of the shell entirely stained. The body was then wrapped in a piece of Russia matting, tied round with some cord, and then instantly dropped into the hole, which was about five feet in depth: it was then immediately filled up, and it was gratifying to see that that disgusting part of the ceremony of throwing lime over the body, and driving a stake through it, was on this occasion dispensed with. The surrounding spectators, consisting of about two hundred persons, amongst whom were several persons of respectable appearance, were much disgusted at this horrid ceremony."
Imagine such scene in the "centre of civilisation" only thirty years ago!
VINCENT T. STERNBERG.
Andrew's Edition of Freund's Latin Lexicon.—A singular plan seems to have been pursued in this valuable lexicon in one point. Wherever the meaning of a word in a certain passage is disputed, all reference to that place is omitted! Here are a few examples of this "dodge" from one book, Horace:
Subjectus. Car. 1. 12. 55. Divido. 1. 15. 15. Incola. 1. 16. 5. Vertex. 3. 24. 6. Pars. 2. 17. 18. Tormentum. 3. 21. 13. Laudo. Ep. 11. 19. Offendo. Ep. 15. 15. Octonus. S. 1. 6. 75. AEra. Ib. Duplex. S. 2. 4. 63. Vulpecula. Epist. 1. 7. 29. Proprius. A. P. 128., &c.
A. A. D.
Slang Expressions.—It would be curious to investigate farther how some odd forms of expression of this kind have crept into, if not the English language, at least into every-day parlance; and by what classes of men they have been introduced. I do not of course mean the vile argot, or St. Giles' {618} Greek, prevalent among housebreakers and pick-pockets; though a great deal of that is traceable to the Rommany or gipsy language, and other sufficiently odd sources: but I allude more particularly to phrases used by even educated men—such as "a regular mull," "bosh," "just the cheese," &c. The first has already been proved an importation from our Anglo-Indian friends in the pages of "N. & Q."; and I have been informed that the other two are also exotics from the land of the Qui-Hies. Bosh, used by us in the sense of "nonsense," "rubbish," is a Persian word, meaning "dirt" and cheese, a corruption of a Hindostani word denoting "thing:" which is exactly the sense of the expression I have quoted. "Just the cheese," "quite the cheese," i. e. just the thing I require, quite comme il faut, &c.
Probably some of your correspondents could furnish other examples.
E. S. TAYLOR.
"Quem Deus vult perdere."—In Croker's Johnson, vol. v. p. 60., the phrase, "Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat," is stated to be from a Greek iambic of Euripides:
"[Greek: Hon theos thelei apolesai prot' apophrenai]."
This statement is made first by Mr. John Pitts, late Rector of Great Brickhill, Bucks[1], to Mr. Richard How of Aspley, Beds, and is taken for granted successively by Boswell, Malone, and Croker. But no such Greek is, in fact, to be found in Euripides; the words conveying a like sentiment are,—
"[Greek: Hotan de Daimon andri porsunei kaka], [Greek: Ton noun eblapse proton]."
The cause of this classical blunder of so many eminent annotators is, that these words are not to be found in the usual college and school editions of Euripides. The edition from which the above correct extract is made is in ten volumes, published at Padua in 1743-53, with an Italian translation in verse by P. Carmeli, and is to be found in vol. x. p. 268. as the 436-7th verses of the Tragedie incerte, the meaning of which he thus gives in prose "Quando vogliono gli Dei far perire alcuno, gli toglie la mente."
T.J. BUCKTON.
Lichfield.
P.S.—In Croker's Johnson, vol. iv. p. 170., the phrase "Omnia mea mecum porto" is incorrectly quoted from Val. Max. vii. 2., instead of "Bona mea mecum porto."
[Footnote 1: This gentleman is wrong in saying demento is of no authority, as it is found in Lactantius. (See Facciolati.)]
White Roses.—The paragraph quoted from "an old newspaper," dated Saturday, June 15th, 1723, alludes to the commemoration of the birthday of King James VIII. (the 10th of June), which was the Monday mentioned as that before the Saturday on which the newspaper was published. All faithful adherents of the House of Stuart showed their loyalty by wearing the white rose (its distinguishing badge) on the 10th of June, when no other way was left them of declaring their devotion to the exiled family; and, from my own knowledge, I can affirm that there still exist some people who would think that day desecrated unless they wore a white rose, or, when that is not to be procured, a cockade of white ribbon, in token of their veneration for the memory of him of whose birth it is the anniversary.
L. M. M. R.
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Queries.
"MERK LANDS" AND "URES."—NORWEGIAN ANTIQUITIES.
In Shetland, at the present day, all public assessments are levied, and divisions made, according to the number of merk lands in a parish. All arable lands were anciently, under the Norwegian law, rated as merks,—a merk containing eight ures. These merks are quite indefinite as to extent. It is, indeed, clear that the ancient denomination of merk land had not reference to superficial extent of surface, but was a denomination of value alone, in which was included the proportion of the surrounding commonty or scattald. Merk lands are of different values, as sixpenny, ninepenny, twelvepenny,—a twelvepenny merk having, formerly at least, been considered equal to two sixpenny merks; and in some old deeds lands are described as thirty merks sixpenny, otherwise fifteen merks twelvepenny land. All assessments have, however, for a very long period, been levied and all privileges apportioned, according to merks, without relation to whether they were sixpenny or twelvepenny. The ancient rentals of Shetland contain about fourteen thousand merks of land; and it will be noticed that, however much the ancient inclosed land be increased by additional improvements, the number of merks ought to be, and are, stationary. The valued rent, divided according the merk lands, would make a merk land in Shetland equal to 2l. Scots of valued rent. There are only one or two places of Scotland proper where merks are in use,—Stirling and Dunfermline, I think. As these two places were the occasional residences of our ancient Scottish kings, it is possible this plan of estimating land may have obtained there, to equalise and make better understood some arrangements relating to land entered into between the kings of Norway and Scotland. Possibly some of the correspondents of "N. & Q." in the north may be able to throw some light on this subject. It was stated some time ago that Dr. Munch, Professor in the University of Christiana, had presented to the Society of Northern Archaeology, in {619} Copenhagen, a very curious manuscript which he had discovered and purchased during a voyage to the Orkneys and Shetland in 1850. The manuscript is said to be in good preservation, and the form of the characters assigns the tenth, or perhaps the ninth century as its date. It is said to contain, in the Latin tongue, several episodes of Norwegian history, relating to important facts hitherto unknown, and which throw much light on feudal tenures, holdings, superstitions, omens, &c., which have been handed down to our day, with their origin involved in obscurity, and on the darkness of the centuries that preceded the introduction of Christianity into Norway. Has this manuscript ever been printed?
KIRKWALLENSIS.
* * * * *
THE LEIGH PEERAGE, AND STONELEY ESTATES, WARWICKSHIRE.
The fifth Lord Leigh left his estates to his sister, the Hon. Mary Leigh, for her life, and at her decease without issue to "the first and nearest of his kindred, being male, and of his name and blood," &c. On the death of Mrs. Mary Leigh in 1806, the estates were taken possession of by her very distant kinsman, the Rev. Thomas Leigh. The first person to dispute his right to them was Mr. George Smith Leigh, who claimed them as being descended from a daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh, son of the first Baron Leigh. His claim was not allowed, because he had the name of Leigh only by royal license, and not by inheritance. Subsequently, the Barony of Leigh was claimed by another Mr. George Leigh, of Lancashire, as descended from a son of the Hon. Christopher Leigh (fourth son of the aforesaid Sir Thomas Leigh), by his second wife. His claim was disallowed when heard by a committee of the House of Lords in 1828, because he could not prove the second marriage of Christopher Leigh, nor the birth of any son by such marriage.
Being about to print a genealogy of the Leigh family, I should be under an obligation to any one who will, without delay furnish me with—
1st. The descent, with dates, of the aforesaid Mr. George Smith Leigh from Sir Thomas Leigh.
2nd. The wife, and descendants to the present time, of the aforesaid Mr. George Leigh.
In return for this information I shall be happy to send my informant a copy of the genealogy when it is printed. I give you my name and address.
J. M. G.
* * * * *
Minor Queries.
Phillips Family.—Is there a family of Phillips now bearing the ancient arms of William Phillips, Lord Bardolph: viz. Quarterly, gu. and az., in the chief dexter quarter an eagle displayed or.
H. G. S.
Engine-a-verge.—What is the engine-a-verge, mentioned by P. Daniel in his Hist. de la Milice Franc., and what the origin of the name?
CAPE.
Garrick's Funeral Epigram.—Who is the author of these verses?
"Through weeping London's crowded streets, As Garrick's funeral pass'd, Contending wits and poets strove Which should desert him last.
"Not so this world behaved to Him Who came this world to save; By solitary Joseph borne Unheeded to the grave."
K. N.
The Rosicrucians.—I should be extremely glad of a little information respecting "the Brethren of the Rosy Cross." Was there ever a regular fraternity of philosophers bearing this appellation; or was it given merely as a title to all students in alchemy?
I should wish to obtain a list of works which might contain a record of their studies and discoveries. I subjoin the few in my own library, which I imagine to belong to this class.
Albertus Magnus de Animalibus, libr. xxvi. fol. Venet. 1495.
Albertus Magnus de Secretis Mulierum, de Virtutibus Herbarum, Lapidum at Animalium.
Albertus Magnus de Miribilibus Mundi, item.
Michael Scotus de Secretis Naturae, 12mo., Lugd. 1584.
Henr. Corn. Agrippa on the Vanitie of Sciences, 4to., London, 1575.
Joann. Baptist. Van Helmont, Opera Omnina, 4to., Francofurti, 1682.
Dr. Charleton, Ternary of Paradoxes, London, 1650.
Perhaps some of your correspondents will kindly furnish me with notices of other works by these writers, and by others who have written on similar subjects, as Paracelsus, &c.
E. S. TAYLOR.
Passage in Schiller.—In the Memoirs of a Stomach, lately published, the editor asks a question of you: "Is it Schiller who says, 'The metaphysical part of love commences with the first sigh, and terminates with the first kiss'?" I pray you look to the merry and witty and learned little book, and respond to his Query.
AMICUS.
Sir John Vanbrugh.—This eminent architect and poet of the last century is stated by his biographers to have been "born in Cheshire." Can anybody furnish me with the place and date of his birth?
T. HUGHES.
Chester.
Historical Engraving.—I have an ancient engraving, size 143/4 in. wide and 113/4 in. high, without title or engraver's name, which I should be {620} glad to authenticate. It appears to represent Charles II. at the Hague in 1660.
The foreground is occupied by groups of figures in the costume of the period. In the distance is seen a street in perspective, down which the royal carriage is proceeding, drawn by six horses. On one side is a row of horses, on the other an avenue of trees. To the right of this is a canal, on the bank of which a battery of seven guns is firing a salute. The opposite bank is occupied by public buildings.
In the air a figure of Fame holds a shield charged with the royal arms of England, surrounded by a garter, without the motto. Five cherubs in various positions are dispersed around, holding respectively a globe, a laurel crown, palm branches, &c., and a crowned shield bearing a lion rampant, and a second with a stork, whose beak holds a serpent.
A portion of the zodiacal circle, containing Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius, marks, I suppose, the month in which the event took place.
E. S. TAYLOR.
Hall-close, Silverstone, Northamptonshire.—Adjoining the church-yard is a greensward field called "Hall-close," which is more likely to be the site of the mansion visited by the early kings of England, when hunting in Whittlebury Forest, than the one mentioned by Bridles in his History of the county. About 1798, whilst digging here, a fire-place containing ashes was discovered; also many large wrought freestones.
The well, close by, still retains the name of Hall-well; and there are other things in the immediate vicinity which favour the supposition; but can an extract from an old MS., as a will, deed, indenture, &c., be supplied to confirm it?
H. T. WAKE.
Stepney.
Junius's Letters to Wilkes.—Where are the original letters addressed by Junius to Mr. Wilkes? The editor of the Grenville Papers says, "It is uncertain in whose custody the letters now remain, many unsuccessful attempts having been recently made to ascertain the place of their deposit."
D. G.
The Reformer's Elm.—What was the origin of the name of "The Reformer's Elm?" Where and what was it?
C. M. T.
Oare.
How to take Paint off old Oak.—Can any of your correspondents inform me of some way to take paint off old oak?
F. M. MIDDLETON.
* * * * *
Minor Queries with Answers.
Cadenus and Vanessa.—What author is referred to in the lines in Swift's "Cadenus and Vanessa,"—
"He proves as sure as GOD's in Gloster, That Moses was a grand impostor; That all his miracles were tricks," &c.?
W. FRASER.
Tor-Mohun.
[These lines occur in the Dean's verses "On the Death of Dr. Swift," and refer to Thomas Woolston, the celebrated heterodox divine, who, as stated in a note quoted in Scott's edition, "for want of bread hath, in several treatises, in the most blasphemous manner, attempted to turn our Saviour's miracles in ridicule."]
Boom.—Is there an English verb active to boom, and what is the precise meaning of it? Sir Walter Scott uses the participle:
"The bittern booming from the sedgy shallow." Lady of the Lake, canto i. 31.
VOGEL.
[Richardson defines BOOM, v., applied as bumble by Chaucer, and bump by Dryden, to the noise of the bittern, and quotes from Cotton's Night's Quatrains,—
"Philomel chants it whilst it bleeds, The bittern booms it in the reeds," &c.]
"A Letter to a Member of Parliament."—Who was the author of A Letter to a Member of Parliament, occasioned by A Letter to a Convocation Man: W. Rogers, London, 1697?
W. FRASER.
Tor-Mohun.
[Attributed to Mr. Wright, a gentleman of the Bar, who maintains the same opinions with Dr. Wake.]
Ancient Chessmen.—I should be glad to learn, through the medium of "N. & Q.," some particulars relative to the sixty-four chessmen and fourteen draughtsmen, made of walrus tusk, found in the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, and now in case 94. Mediaeval Collection of the British Museum?
HORNOWAY.
[See Archaeologia, vol. xxiv. p. 203., for a valuable article, entitled "Historical Remarks on the introduction of the Game of Chess into Europe, and on the ancient Chessmen discovered in the Isle of Lewis, by Frederick Madden, Esq., F.R.S., in a Letter addressed to Henry Ellis, Esq., F.R.S., Secretary."]
Guthryisms.—In a work entitled Select Trials at the Old Bailey is an account of the trial and execution of Robert Hallam, for murder, in the year 1731. Narrating the execution of the criminal, and mentioning some papers which he had prepared, the writer says: "We will not tire the reader's patience with transcribing these prayers, in which we can see nothing more than commonplace phrases and unmeaning Guthryisms." What {621} is the meaning of this last word, and to whom does it refer?
S. S. S.
[James Guthrie was chaplain of Newgate in 1731; and the phrase Guthryisms, we conjecture, agrees in common parlance with a later saying, that of "stuffing Cotton in the prisoner's ears."]
* * * * *
Replies.
CORRESPONDENCE OF CRANMER AND CALVIN.
(Vol. vii., p. 501.)
The question put by C. D., respecting the existence of letters said to have passed between Archbishop Cranmer and Calvin, and to exist in print at Geneva, upon the seeming sanction given by our liturgy to the belief that baptism confers regeneration, is a revival of an inquiry made by several persons about ten years ago. It then induced M. Merle d'Aubigne to make the search of which C. D. has heard; and the result of that search was given in a communication from the Protestant historian to the editor of the Record, bearing date April 22, 1843.
I have that communication before me, as a cutting from the Record; but have not preserved the date of the number in which it appeared[2], though likely to be soon after its receipt by the editor. Merle d'Aubigne says, in his letter, that both the printed and manuscript correspondence of Calvin, in the public library of Geneva, had been examined in vain by himself, and by Professor Diodati the librarian, for any such topic; but he declares himself disposed to believe that the assertion, respecting which C. D. inquires, arose from the following passage in a letter from Calvin to the English primate:
"Sic correctae sunt externae superstitiones, ut residui maneant innumeri surculi, qui assidue pullulent. Imo ex corruptelis papatus audio relictum esse congeriem, quae non obscuret modo, sed propemodum obruat purum et genuinum Dei cultum."
Part of this letter, but with important omissions, had been published by Dean Jenkyns in 1833. (Cranmer's Remains, vol. i. p. 347.) M. d'Aubigne's communication gave the whole of it; and it ought to have appeared in the Parker Society volume of original letters relative to the English Reformation. That volume contains one of Calvin's letters to the Protector Somerset; but omits another, of which Merle d'Aubigne's communication supplied a portion, containing this important sentence:
"Quod ad formulam precum et rituum ecclesiasticorum, valde probo ut certa illa extet, a qua pastoribus discedere in functione sua non liceat, tam ut consulatur quorumdam simplicitati et imperitiae, quam ut certius ita constet omnium inter se ecclesiarum consensus."
Another portion of a letter from Calvin, communicated by D'Aubigne, is headed in the Record "Cnoxo et gregalibus, S. D.;" but seems to be the one cited in the Parker Society, vol. ii. of Letters, pp. 755-6, notes 941, as a letter to Richard Cox and others; so that Cnoxo should have been Coxo.
The same valuable communication farther contained the letter of Cranmer inviting Calvin to unite with Melancthon and Bullinger in forming arrangements for holding a Protestant synod in some safe place; meaning in England, as he states more expressly to Melancthon. This letter, however, had been printed entire by Dean Jenkyns, vol. i. p. 346.; and it is given, with an English translation, in the Parker Society edition of Cranmer's Works as Letter CCXCVII., p. 431. It is important, as proving that Heylyn stated what was untrue, Eccles. Restaur., p. 65.; where he has said, "Calvin had offered his assistance to Archbishop Cranmer. But the archbishop knew the man, and refused his offer." Instead of such an offer, Calvin replied courteously and affectionately to Cranmer's invitation; but says, "Tenuitatem meam facturam spero, ut mihi parcatur ... Mihi utinam par studii ardori suppeteret facultas." This reply, the longest letter in their correspondence, is printed in the note attached to Cranmer's letter (Park. Soc., as above, p. 432.; and a translation of it in Park. Soc. Original Letters, vol. ii. p. 711.: and there are extracts from it in Jenkyns, p. 346., n.p.). D'Aubigne gave it entire; but has placed both Calvin's letters to the archbishop before the latter's epistle to him, to which they both refer.
HENRY WALTER.
[Footnote 2: It appeared in the No. for May 15, 1849.—ED.]
* * * * *
"POPULUS VULT DECIPI."
(Vol. vii., p. 572.)
If MR. TEMPLE will turn to p. 141. of Mathias Prideaux's Easy and Compendious Introduction for reading all Sorts of Histories, 6th edit., Oxford, 1682, small 4to., he will find his Query thus answered:
"It was this Pope's [Paul IV.] Legate, Cardinal Carafa, that gave this blessing to the devout Parisians, Quandoquidem populus decipi vult, decipiatur. Inasmuch as this people will be deceived, let them be deceived."
This book of Prideaux's is full of mottoes, of which I shall give a few instances. Of Frederick Barbarosa "his saying was, Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit imperare:" of Justinian "His word was, Summum jus, summa injuria—The rigour of the law may prove injurious to conscience:" of Theodosius II. "His motto was, Tempori parendum—We must fit us (as far as it may be done with a good conscience) to the time wherein we live, with Christian prudence:" of Nerva "His motto sums {622} up his excellencies, Mens bona regnum possidet—My mind to me a kingdom is:" of Richard Coeur de Lion, "The motto of Dieu et mon droit is attributed to him; ascribing the victory he had at Gisors against the French, not to himself, but to God and His might."
EIRIONNACH.
Cardinal Carafa seems to have been the author of the above memorable dictum. Dr. John Prideaux thus alludes to the circumstance:
"Cardinalis (ut ferunt) quidam [Greek: meta polles phantasias] Lutetiam aliquando ingrediens, cum instant importunius turbae ut benedictionem impertiret: Quandoquidem (inquit) hic populus vult decipi, decipiatur in nomine Diaboli."—Lectiones Novem, p. 54.: Oxoniae, 1625, 4to.
I must also quote from Dr. Jackson:
"Do all the learned of that religion in heart approve that commonly reported saying of Leo X., 'Quantum profuit nobis fabula Christi,' and yet resolve (as Cardinal Carafa did, Quoniam populus iste vult decipi, decipiatur) to puzzle the people in their credulity?"—Works, vol. i. p. 585.: Lond. 1673, fol.
The margin directs me to the following passage in Thuanus:
"Inde Carafa Lutetiam regni metropolim tanquam Pontificis legatus solita pompa ingreditur, ubi cum signum crucis, ut fit, ederet, verborum, quae proferri mos est, loco, ferunt eum, ut erat securo de numine animo et summus religionis derisor, occursante passim populo et in genua ad ipsius conspectum procumbente, saepius secreta murmuratione haec verba ingeminasse: Quandoquidem populus iste vult decipi, decipiatur."—Histor., lib. xvii., ad ann. 1556, vol. i. p. 521.: Genevae, 1626, fol.
ROBERT GIBBINGS.
* * * * *
LATIN—LATINER.
(Vol. vii., p. 423.)
Latin was likewise used for the language or song of birds:
"E cantino gli angelli Ciascuno in suo Latino." Dante, canzone i.
"This faire kinges doughter Canace, That on hire finger bare the queinte ring, Thurgh which she understood wel every thing That any foule may in his leden sain, And coude answere him in his leden again, Hath understonden what this faucon seyd." Chaucer, The Squieres Tale, 10746.
Chaucer, it will be observed, uses the Anglo-Saxon form of the word. Leden was employed by the Anglo-Saxons in the sense of language generally, as well as to express the Latin tongue.
In the German version of Sir Tristram, Latin is also used for the song of birds, and is so explained by Ziemann:
"Latin, Latein; fuer jede fremde eigenthuemliche Sprache, selbst fuer den Vogelgesang. Tristan und Isolt, 17365."—Ziemann, Mittelhochdeutsches Woerterbuch.
Spenser, who was a great imitator of Chaucer, probably derives the word leden or ledden from him:
"Thereto he was expert in prophecies, And could the ledden of the gods unfold." The Faerie Queene, book iv. ch. xi. st. 19.
"And those that do to Cynthia expound The ledden of straunge languages in charge." Colin Clout, 744.
In the last passage, perhaps, meaning, knowledge, best expresses the sense. Ledden may have been one of the words which led Ben Jonson to charge Spenser with "affecting the ancients." However, I find it employed by one of his cotemporaries, Fairfax:
"With party-colour'd plumes and purple bill, A wond'rous bird among the rest there flew, That in plain speech sung love-lays loud and shrill, Her leden was like human language true." Fairfax's Tasso, book xvi. st. 13.
The expression lede, in lede, which so often occurs in Sir Tristram, may also have arisen from the Anglo-Saxon form of the word Latin. Sir W. Scott, in his Glossary, explains it: "Lede, in lede. In language, an expletive, synonymous to I tell you." The following are a few of the passages in which it is found:
"Monestow neuer in lede Nought lain."—Fytte i. st. 60.
"In lede is nought to layn, He set him by his side."—Fytte i. st. 65.
"Bothe busked that night, To Beliagog in lede."—Fytte iii. st. 59.
It is not necessary to descant on thieves' Latin, dog-Latin, Latin de Cuisine, &c.; but I should be glad to learn when dog-Latin first appeared in our language.
E. M. B.
Lincoln.
* * * * *
JACK.
(Vol. vii., p. 326.)
The list of Jacks supplied by your correspondent JOHN JACKSON is amusing and curious. A few additions towards a complete collection may not be altogether unacceptable or unworthy of notice.
Supple (usually pronounced souple) Jack, a flexible cane; Jack by the hedge, a plant (Erysimum cordifolium); the jacks of a harpsichord; jack, an engine to raise ponderous bodies (Bailey); Jack, the male of birds of sport (Ditto); Jack of Dover, a joint twice dressed (Ditto, from Chaucer); jack pan, used by barbers (Ditto); jack, a frame used by sawyers. I have also noted Jack-Latin, Jack-a-nod, but cannot give their authority or meaning. {623}
The term was very familiar to our older writers. The following to Dodsley's Collection of old Plays (1st edition, 1744) may assist in explaining its use:
Vol. I.—Page 45. Jack Strawe. Page 65. New Jack. Page 217. Sir Jacke. Page 232. Jack Fletcher. Page 263. Jacknapes. Page 271. Jack Sauce.
Vol. II.—Page 139. Clapper Jack.
Vol. III.—Page 34. Prating Jack. Page 64. Jack-a-lent. Page 168. His Jacks. Page 214. Black Jacks.
Vol. V.—Page 161. Every Jack. Page 341. Skip-Jack.
Vol. VI.—Page 290. Jack Sauce. Page 325. Flap-Jacks. Page 359. Whirling Jacks.
Vol. VIII.—Page 55. Jack Sauce.
Vol. X.—Pages 46. 49. His Jack.
Your correspondent is perhaps aware that Dr. Johnson is disposed to consider the derivation from John to be an error, and rather refers the word to the common usage of the French word Jacques (James). His conjecture seems probable, from many of its applications in this language. Jacques, a jacket, is decidedly French; Jacques de mailles equally so; and the word Jacquerie embraces all the catalogue of virtues and vices which we connect with our Jack.
On the other hand, John, in his integrity, occurs familiarly in John Bull, John-a-Nokes, John Doe, John apple, John Doree, Blue John, John Trot, John's Wort, John-a-dreams, &c.; and Poor John is found in Dodsley, vol. viii. pp. 197. 356.
C. H. P.
Brighton.
* * * * *
PASSAGE IN ST. JAMES.
(Vol. vii., p. 549)
On referring to the passage cited by S. S. S. in Bishop Taylor's Holy Dying, vol. iv. p. 345. (Heber's edit.), I find I had marked two passages in St. James's Epistle as being those to which, in all probability, the bishop alluded; one in the first chapter, and one in the third. In the commencement of his Epistle St. James exhorts his hearers to exercise patience in all the worldly accidents that might befal them; to resign themselves into God's hands, and accept in faith whatever might happen. He then proceeds:
"If any of you lack wisdom" (prudentia ad dijudicandum quid in singulis circumstantiis agendum sit—Grotius), "let him ask of God" (postulet ab eo, qui dat, nempe Deo: ut intelligas non aliunde petendum sapientiam.—Erasmus).
Again, in chap. iii. 13., he asks:
"Who is a wise man, and endued with knowledge among you" ([Greek: epistemon], i. e. sciens, sive scientia praeditus, quod recentiores vocant scientificus.—Erasmus).
He bids him prove his wisdom by submission to the truth; for that cunning craftiness which manifests itself only in generating heresies and contentions, is—
"Not from above," [Greek: all' epigeios, Psuchike ] (animalis,—ista sapientia a natura est, non a Deo) [Greek: daimoniodes].—Vid. Eph. ii. 2., and 2 Cor. iv. 4.
These passages would naturally afford ample scope for the exuberant fancy of ancient commentators; and it is not unreasonable to suppose that Bishop Taylor may have had the remarks of one of these writers running in his mind, when he quoted St. James as reprobating, with such minuteness of detail, the folly of consulting oracles, spirits, sorcerers, and the like.
I have not, at present, access to any of the commentators to whom I allude; so I am unable to confirm this suggestion.
H. C. K.
—— Rectory, Hereford.
There is no uncanonical epistle attributed to this apostle, although the one received by the English from the Greek and Latin churches was pronounced uncanonical by Luther. The passage to which Jeremy Taylor refers, is iv. 13, 14., which he interpreted as referring to an unlawful inquiry into the future:
"Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow: for what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."
Hug (Wait's Trans., vol. ii. p. 579.) considers the apostle as reproving the Jews for attempting to evade the national punishment threatened them, by removing out of their own country of Judaea. Probably, however, neither Taylor nor Hug are correct in departing from the more obvious signification, which refers to the mercantile character of the twelve tribes (i. 1.), arising mainly out of the fact of their captivities and dispersions ([Greek: diasporai]). The practice is still common in the East for merchants on a large and small scale to spend a whole season or year in trafficking in one city, and passing thence to another with the varied products suitable respectively to each city; and such products were interchanged without that extreme division of labour or despatch which the magnitude of modern commerce requires. The whole passage, from James iv. 13. to v. 6. inclusive, must be taken as specially applicable to the sins of mercantile men whose works of righteousness St. James (iii. 17-20.) declared to be wanting, in proof of their holding the faith necessary, {624} according, to St. Paul (Rom. iii. 27.), for their salvation.
T. J. BUCKTON.
Birmingham.
* * * * *
FAITHFULL TEATE.
(Vol. vii., p. 529.)
The Ter Tria[3], about which your correspondent J. S. inquires, is neither a rare nor a very valuable book; and if his copy has cost him more than some three and sixpence, it is a poor investment of capital. Mine, which is of the second edition, 1669, has the following book-note:
"The worthy Faithfull Teate indulges himself in the then prevailing bad taste of anagramising his name: see the result after the title. A better play upon his name is that of Jo. Chishull, who, in lashing the prophane wits of the day, and eulogising the author, has the following comical allusion thereto:
'Let all wise-hearted sav'ring things divine Come suck this TEAT that yields both milk and wine, Loe depths where elephants may swim, yet here The weakest lamb of Christ wades without fear.'"
The Ter Tria was originally published in 1658; its author, F. T., was the father of the better known Nahum Tate, the co-translator of the last authorised version of the Psalms,—a Teat which, following the metaphor of Mr. Chishull, has nourished not a few generations of the godly, but now, like a sucked orange, thrown aside for the more juicy productions of our modern Psalmists. Old Teate (or Tate, as the junior would have it) is styled in this book, "preacher at Sudbury." He seems subsequently to have removed to Ireland, where his son Nahum, the laureat, was born.
J. O.
[Footnote 3: "Ter Tria; or the Doctrine of the Three Sacred Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. Principal Graces: Faith, Hope, and Love. Main Duties: Prayer, Hearing, and Meditation. Summarily digested for the Pleasure and Profit of the pious and ingenious Reader. By F. T. Tria sunt omnia."]
* * * * *
PARVISE.
(Vol. viii., p. 528.)
Parvise seems to have been a porch, used as a school or place for disputation. The parvise mentioned in the Oxford "Little-Go" (Responsions) Testamur is alluded to in Bishop Cooper's book against Private Mass (published by the Parker Society). He ridicules his opponent's arguments as worthy of "a sophister in the parvyse schools." The Serjeant-at-law, in Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, had been often at the paruise. In some notes on this character in a number of the Penny Magazine for 1840 or 1841, it is farther remarked that the choristers of Norwich Cathedral were formerly taught in the parvise, i. e. porch. The chamber over a porch in some churches may have been the school meant. Instances of this arrangement were to be found at Doncaster Church (where it was used as a library), and at Sherborne Abbey Church. The porch here was Norman, and the chamber Third Pointed; and at the restoration lately effected the pitch of the roof was raised, and the chamber removed.
B. A. OXON.
Oxford University.
I believe that the parvisus, or paradisus of the Responsions Testamur, is the pro-scholium of the divinity school, otherwise called the "pig-market," from its site having been so occupied up to the year 1554. This is said to be the locality in which the Responsions were formerly held.
It is ordered by the statutes, tit. vi.,—
"Quod priusquam quis ad Gradum Baccalaurei in Artibus admittatur, in Parviso semel Quaestionibus Magistrorum Scholarum respondeat."
However, they go on to direct, "Locus hisce Responsionibus assignetur Schola Metaphysices;" and there they are at present held. (See the Glossary to Tyrwhitt's Chaucer; and also Parker's Glossary of Architecture, ad voc. "Parvise.")
CHEVERELLS.
The term parvise, though used in somewhat different senses by old writers, appears to mean strictly a porch or antechamber. Your correspondent OXONIENSIS will find in Parker's Glossary ample information respecting this word, with references to various writers, showing the different meanings which have been attached to it. "Responsions," or the preliminary examinations at Oxford, are said to be held in parviso; that is, in the porch, as it were, or antechamber before the schools, which are the scene of the greater examinations for the degree.
H. C. K.
If your correspondent will refer to the word Parvisium, in the Glossary at the end of Watt's edition of Matthew Paris, he will find a good deal of information. To this I will add that the word is now in use in Belgium in another sense. I saw some years since, and again last summer, in a street leading out of the Grande Place, by one side of the Halle at Bruges, on a house, this notice,—
"IN PERVISE VERKOOPT MEN DRANK."
D. P.
Begbrook.
* * * * *
THE COENACULUM OF LIONARDO DA VINCI.
(Vol. vii., pp. 524, 525.)
MR. SMIRKE's paper, questioning the received opinion as to the points of time and circumstance {625} expressed in this celebrated fresco, contains the following sentence:
"The work in question is now so generally accessible, through the medium of accurate engravings, that any one may easily exercise his own judgment on the matter."
Having within no very distant period spent an hour or two in examining the original, with copies lying close at hand for the purposes of comparison, allow me to offer you a few impressions of which, while fresh, I "made a note" in an interleaved copy of Bishop Burnet's curious Tour in Italy, which served me as a journal while abroad. Burnet mentions the Dominican Convent at Milan as in his day "very rich." My note is as follows:
"The Dominican convent is now suppressed. It is a cavalry barracks: dragoons have displaced Dominicans. There is a fine cupola to the church, the work of Bramante: in the salle or refectory of this convent was discovered, since Burnet's time, under a coat of wash or plaster, the celebrated fresco of Lionardo da Vinci, now so well known to the world by plates and copies, better finished than the original ever was, in all probability; certainly better than it is now, after abuse, neglect, damp, and, worst of all, restoring, have done their joint work upon it. A visit to this fresco disenchants one wonderfully. It is better to be satisfied with the fine engravings, and let the original live in its ideal excellence. The copyists have taken some liberties, of which these strike me as the chief:
"First, The Saviour's head is put more on one side, in what I would call a more languishing position than its actual one.
"Second, the expression of the figure seated at his left hand is quite changed. In the copies it is a grave, serious, fine face: in the original, though now indistinct, it evidently expressed 'open-mouthed horror' at the declaration, 'One of you shall betray me.'
"Third, Judas in all copies is identified not only by the held bag of money, but by the overturned saltcellar at his elbow. This last is not in the original.
"The whole fresco, though now as well kept as may be, seems spoiling fast. There is a Crucifixion at the other end of the same hall, in much better preservation, though of the same date; and the doorway which the tasteful Dominicans cut in the wall, through the bottom of the painting, is, though blocked up, still quite visible. It is but too probable that the monks valued the absurd and hideous frescoes in the cloisters outside, representing Saint Dominic's miracles! and the Virgin fishing souls out of purgatory with a rosary, beyond Lionardo's great work."
So far my original note, written without supposing that the received idea, as to the subject of the picture, had ever been questioned. In reference to the question raised, however, I will briefly say, that, as recollection serves me, it would require a well-sustained criticism to convince me that the two disciples at the Saviour's right hand were not designed to express the point of action described in the 23rd and 24th verses of chapter xiii. of St. John's Gospel. Possibly MR. SMIRKE might favour us with the argument of his MSS. on the group.
A. B. R.
Belmont.
* * * * *
FONT INSCRIPTIONS.
(Vol. vii., p. 408.)
I have in my note-book the following entries:—
Kiddington, Oxon.:
"This sacred Font Saint Edward first receaved, From womb to grace, from grace to glory went His virtuous life. To this fayre isle beqveth'd. Prase ... and to vs bvt lent. Let this remaine the trophies of his fame; A King baptized from hence a Saint became.
"This Fonte came from the King's Chapell in Islip."
Newark, round the base in black letter:
"Suis . Natis . sunt . Deo . hoc . Fonte . Renati . erunt."
On a pillar adjoining the font is a brass tablet with this inscription:
"This Font was demolished by the Rebels, May 9, 1646, and rebuilt by the charity of Nicholas Ridley in 1660."
Kirton, Lincoln:
"Orate pro aia Alauni Burton qui fontem istum fieri fec. A.D. MCCCCV."
Clee, Lincoln:
"The Font is formed of two cylindrical parts, one placed upon the other, over which, in the shaft of the circular column, is inlaid a small piece of marble, with a Latin inscription in Saxon characters, referring to the time of King Richard, and stating it was dedicated to the Holy Trinity and St. Mary, by Hugh Bishop of Lincoln, A.D. 1192."
The above are extracts from books, not copied by me from the fonts.
F. B. RELTON.
At Threckingham, Lincolnshire, round the base of the font—
"Ave Maria gratis . p . d . t."
At Little Billing, Northamptonshire,—
"Wilberthus artifex atq; cementarius hunc fabricavit, quisquis suum venit mergere corpus procul dubio capit."
J. P., Jun.
To the list of these should be added the early English font at Keysoe, Beds., noticed in the Ecclesiologist, vol. i. p. 124., and figured in Van Voorst's Baptismal Fonts. It bears the legend in Norman French:
+ "Trestui: ke par hiei passerui Pur le alme Warel prieui: Ke Deu par sa grace Verrey merci li face. Am."
{626} Or, in modern French:
"Restez: qui par ici passerez Pour l'ame de Warel priez: Que Dieu par sa grace Vraie merci lui fasse. Amen."
CHEVERELLS.
* * * * *
BURN AT CROYDON.
(Vol. vii., pp. 238. 393.)
The bourne at Croydon is one of the most remarkable of those intermitting springs which issue from the upper part of the chalk strata after long-continued rains.
All porous earth-beds are reservoirs of water, and give out their supplies more or less copiously according to their states of engorgement; and at higher or lower levels, as they are more or less replenished by rain. Rain percolates through the chalk rapidly at all times, it being greatly fissured and cavernous, and finds vent at the bottom of the hills, in ordinary seasons, in the perennial springs which issue there, at the top of the chalk marl, or of the galt (the clay so called) which underlies the chalk. But when long-continued rains have filled the fissures and caverns, and the chinks and crannies of the ordinary vents below are unequal to the drainage, the reservoir as it were overflows, and the superfluity exudes from the valleys and gullies of the upper surface; and these occasional sources continue to flow till the equilibrium is restored, and the perennial vents suffice to carry off the annual supply. Some approach to the full engorgement here spoken of takes place annually in many parts of the chalk districts, where springs break out after the autumnal and winter rains, and run themselves dry again in the course of a few months, or maybe have intermissions of a year or two, when the average falls are short. Thence it is we have so many "Winterbournes" in the counties of Wilts, Hants, and Dorset; as Winterbourne-basset, Winterbourne-gunner, Winterbourne-stoke, &c. (Vide Lewis's Topog. Dict.) The highest sources of the Test, Itchen, and some other of our southern rivers which take their rise in the chalk, are often dry for months, and their channels void of water for miles; failing altogether when the rains do not fill the neighbouring strata to repletion.
In the case of long intermissions, such as occur to the Croydon bourne, it is not wonderful that the sudden appearance of waters in considerable force, where none are usually seen to flow, should give rise to superstitious dread of coming evils. Indeed, the coincidence of the running of the bourne, a wet summer, a worse sowing-season, and a wet cold spring, may well inspire evil forebodings, and give a colourable pretext for such apprehensions as are often entertained on the occurrence of any unusual natural phenomenon. These intermittent rivulets have no affinity, as your correspondent E. G. R. supposes, to subterraneous rivers. The nearest approach to this kind of stream is to be found in the Mole, which sometimes sinks away, and leaves its channel dry between Dorking and Leatherhead, being absorbed into fissures in the chalk, and again discharged; these fissures being insufficient to receive its waters in times of more copious supply. The subterraneous rivers of more mountainous countries are also not to be included in the same category. They have a history of their own, to enlarge on which is not the business of this Note: but it may not be irrelevant to turn the attention for a moment to the use of the word bourne or burn. The former mode of spelling and pronouncing it appears to prevail in the south, and the latter in the north of England and in Scotland; both alike from the same source as the brun or brunen of Germany. The perennial bourne so often affords a convenient natural geographical boundary, and a convenient line of territorial division, that by an easy metonymy it has established itself in our language in either sense, signifying streamlet or boundary-line,—as witness the well-known lines:
"That undiscovered country, from whose bourne No traveller returns."—Shakspeare.
"I know each lane, and every alley green, And every bosky bourn from side to side."—Milton.
M.
* * * * *
CHRISTIAN NAMES.
(Vol. vii., pp. 406. 488, 489.)
The opinion of your correspondents, that instances of persons having more than one Christian name before the last century are, at least, very rare, is borne out by the learned Camden, who, however, enables me to adduce two earlier instances of polyonomy than those cited by J. J. H.:
"Two Christian names," says he (Remaines concerning Britaine, p. 44.), "are rare in England, and I onely remember now his majesty, who was named Charles James, and the prince his sonne Henry Frederic; and among private men, Thomas Maria Wingfield, and Sir Thomas Posthumous Hobby."
The custom must have been still rare at the end of the eighteenth century, for, as we are informed by Moore in a note to his Fudge Family in Paris (Letter IV.):
"The late Lord C. (Castlereagh?) of Ireland had a curious theory about names; he held that every man with three names was a Jacobin. His instances in Ireland were numerous; Archibald Hamilton Rowan, Theobald Wolfe Tone, James Napper Tandy, John Philpot Curran, &c.: and in England he produced as examples, Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley {627} Sheridan, John Horne Tooke, Francis Burdett Jones," &c.
Perhaps the noble lord thought with Sterne in Tristram Shandy, though the nexus is not easy to discover, that "there is a strange kind of magic bias, which good or bad names irresistibly impose upon our character and conduct," or perhaps he had misread that controverted passage in Plautus (Aulular. Act II. Sc. 4.):
"Tun' trium literarum homo Me vituperas? Fur."
The custom is now almost universal; and as, according to Camden (Remaines, &c., p. 96.),
"Shortly after the Conquest it seemed a disgrace for a gentleman to have but one single name, as the meaner sort and bastards had,"
so now, the tria nomina nobiliorum have become so common, as to render the epigram upon a certain M. L-P. Saint-Florentin, of almost universal applicability as a neat and befitting epitaph.
"On ne lui avait pas epargne," says the biographer of this gentleman (Biographie Universelle, tom. xxxix. p. 573.), "les epigrammes de son vivant; il en parut encore contre lui au moment de sa mort; en voici une:—
'Ci git un petit homme a l'air assez commun, Ayant porte trois noms, et n'en laissant aucun.'"
WILLIAM BATES.
Birmingham.
Leopold William Finch, fifth son of Heneage, second Earl of Nottingham, born about the year 1662, and afterwards Warden of All Souls, is an earlier instance of an English person with two Christian names than your correspondent J. J. H. has noticed.
J. B.
* * * * *
WEATHER RULES.
(Vol. vii., p. 522.)
Your correspondent J. A., JUN., makes a Note and asks a question regarding a popular opinion prevalent in Worcestershire, on the subject of a "Sunday's moon," as being one very much addicted to rain. In Sussex that bad repute attaches to the moon that changes on Saturday:
"A Saturday's moon, If it comes once in seven years, it comes too soon."
It may be hoped that the time is not far distant when a scientific meteorology will dissipate the errors of the traditional code now in existence. Of these errors none have greater or more extensive prevalence than the superstitions regarding the influence of the moon on the atmospheric phenomena of wet and dry weather. Howard, the author of The Climate of London, after twenty years of close observation, could not determine that the moon had any perceptible influence on the weather. And the best authorities now follow, still more decidedly, in the same train.
"The change of the moon," the expression in general use in predictions of the weather, is idly and inconsiderately used by educated people, without considering that in every phase that planet is the same to us, as a material agent, except as regards the power of reflected light; and no one supposes that moonlight produces wet or dry. Why then should that point in the moon's course, which we agree to call "the new" when it begins to emerge from the sun's rays, have any influence on our weather. Twice in each revolution, when in conjunction with the sun at new, and in opposition at the full, an atmospheric spring-tide may be supposed to exist, and to exert some sort of influence. But the existence of any atmospheric tide at all is denied by some naturalists, and is at most very problematical; and the absence of regular diurnal fluctuations of the barometric pressure favours the negative of this proposition. But, granting that it were so, and that the moon, in what is conventionally called the beginning of its course, and again in the middle, at the full, did produce changes in the weather, surely the most sanguine of rational lunarians would discard the idea of one moon differing from another, except in relation to the season of the year; or that a new moon on the Sabbath day, whether Jewish or Christian, had any special quality not shared by the new moons of any other days of the week.
Such a publication as "N. & Q." is not the place to discuss fully the question of lunar influence. Your correspondent J. A., JUN., and all persons who have inconsiderately taken up the popular belief in moon-weather, will do well to consult an interesting article on this subject (I believe attributed to Sir D. Brewster) in The Monthly Chronicle for 1838; and this will also refer such inquirers to Arago's Annuaire for 1833. There may be later and completer disquisitions on the lunar influences, but they are not known to me.
M.
* * * * *
ROCOCO.
(Vol. i., pp. 321. 356.)
This word is now receiving a curious illustration in this colony of French origin. Rococo—antiquated, old-fashioned—would seem to have become rococo itself; and in its place the negroes have adopted the word entete, wilful, headstrong, to express, as it were, the persistence of a person in retaining anything that has gone out of fashion. This term was first applied to white hats; and the wearers of such have been assailed from every corner of the streets with the cry of "Entete chapeau!" It was next applied to umbrellas of a {628} strange colour (the varieties of which are almost without number in this country of the sun); and it has now been extended to every article of wearing apparel of an unfashionable or peculiar shape. A negro woman, appearing with a blue umbrella, has been followed by half a dozen black boys with the cry of "Entete parasol!" and in order to get rid of the annoyance she had to shut the umbrella and continue her way under the broiling sun. But the term is not always used in derision. A few days ago, a young girl of colour, dressed in the extreme of the fashion, was passing along, when some bystanders began to rally her with the word "Entete." The girl, perceiving that she was the object of their notice, turned round, and in an attitude of conscious irreproachableness, retorted with the challenge in Creole French, "Qui entete ca?" But the smiles with which she was greeted showed her (what she had already partly suspected) that their cries of "Entete" were intended rather to compliment her on the style of her dress.
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia.
* * * * *
DESCENDANTS OF JOHN OF GAUNT.
(Vol. vii., p. 41.)
I am gratified to see that MR. HARDY's documentary researches have confirmed my conjectures as to the erroneous date assigned for the death of the first husband of Jane Beaufort. Perhaps it may be in his power also to rectify a chronological error, which has crept into the account usually given of the family into which one of her sons married. The Peerages all place the death of the last Lord Fauconberg of the original family in 1376, not observing that this date would make his daughter and heiress married to William Nevill, second son of the Earl of Westmoreland and Countess Joane, twenty-five years at the lowest computation; or, if we take the date which they assign for the death of Lord Ferrers of Wemme, forty years older than her husband,—a difference this, which, although perhaps it might not prove an insuperable impediment to marriage where the lady was a great heiress, would undoubtedly put a bar on all hopes of issue: whereas it stands on record that they had a family.
I must take this opportunity of complaining of the manner in which many, if not all these Peerages, are compiled: copying each others' errors, however obvious, without a word of doubt or an attempt to rectify them; though MR. HARDY's communication, above mentioned, shows that the materials for doing so, in many cases, exist if properly sought. Not to mention minor errors, they sometimes crowd into a given time more generations than could have possibly existed, and sometimes make the generations of a length that has not been witnessed since the patriarchal ages. As instances of the former may be mentioned, the pedigree of the Ferrerses, Earls of Derby (in which eight successions from father to son are given between 1137 and 1265), and those of the Netterville and Tracy families: and of the latter, the pedigree of the Fitzwarines, which gives only four generations between the Conquest and 1314; and that of the Clanricarde family. It is strange that Mr. Burke, who appears to claim descent from the latter, did not take more pains to rectify a point so nearly concerning him; instead of making, as he does in his Peerage, one of the family to have held the title (MacWilliam Eighter) and estates for 105 years!—an absurdity rendered still more glaring by this long-lived gentleman's father having possessed them fifty-four years before him, and his son for fifty-six years after him. If such can be supposed true, the Countess of Desmond's longevity was not so unusual after all.
J. S. WARDEN.
* * * * *
THE ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.
(Vol. vii., p. 407.)
May I be allowed to inform your correspondent R. L. P. that he is in error, when supposing that the English knights were deprived of their property by Queen Elizabeth, as it was done by act of parliament in the year 1534, and during the reign of Henry VIII.
For the information sought by your correspondent R. L. P., I would refer him to the following extract taken from Sutherland's History of the Knights of Malta, vol. ii. pp. 114, 115.:
"To increase the despondency of L'Isle Adam [the Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem], Henry VIII. of England having come to an open rupture with the Pope, in consequence of the Pontiff's steady refusal to countenance the divorcement of Catherine of Arragon his queen, commenced a fierce and bloody persecution against all persons in his dominions, who persisted in adhering to the Holy See. In these circumstances, the Knights of St. John, who held themselves bound to acknowledge the Pope as their superior at whatever hazard, did not long escape his ire. The power of the Order, composed as it was of the chivalry of the nation, while the Prior of London sat in parliament on an equality with the first baron of the realm, for a time deterred him from openly proscribing it; but at length his wrath burst forth in an ungovernable flame. The knights Ingley, Adrian Forrest, Adrian Fortescu, and Marmaduke Bohus, refusing to abjure their faith, perished on the scaffold. Thomas Mytton and Edward Waldegrave died in a dungeon; and Richard and James Bell, John Noel, and many others, abandoned their country for ever, and sought an asylum at Malta[4], completely stripped {629} of their possessions. In 1534, by an act of the legislature, the Order of St. John was abolished in the King of England's dominions; and such knights as survived the persecution, but who refused to stoop to the conditions offered them, were thrown entirely on the charity of their brethren at Malta. Henry offered Sir Wm. Weston, Lord Prior of England, a pension of a thousand pounds a year; but that knight was so overwhelmed with grief at the suppression of his Order, that he never received a penny, but soon after died. Other knights, less scrupulous, became pensioners of the crown."
W. W.
La Valetta, Malta.
[Footnote 4: I have sought in vain among the records of the Order at this island to find any mention made of those English knights, whom Sutherland thus mentions as having fled to Malta at the time of this persecution in their native land.]
* * * * *
Replies to Minor Queries.
Anticipatory Worship of the Cross (Vol. vii., p. 548.).—A correspondent wishes for farther information on the anticipatory worship of the cross in Mexico and at Alexandria. At the present moment I am unable to refer to the works on which I grounded the statement which he quotes. He will, however, find the details respecting Mexico in Stephens's Travels in Yucatan; and those respecting Alexandria in the commentators on Sozomen (H. E., vii. 15.), and Socrates (H. E., v. 16.). A similar instance is the worship of the Cross Fylfotte in Thibet.
THE WRITER OF "COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE UNSEEN WORLD."
Ennui (Vol. vii., p. 478.).—
"Cleland (voc. 165.) has, with his usual sagacity, and with a great deal of trouble, as he himself acknowledges, traced out the true meaning and derivation of this word: for after he had long despaired of discovering the origin of it, mere chance, he says, offered to him what he took to be the genuine one: 'In an old French book I met,' says he, 'with a passage where the author, speaking of a company that had sat up late, makes use of this expression, "l'ennuit les avoit gagnes," by the context of which it was plain he meant, that the common influence of the night, in bringing on heaviness and yawning, had come upon them. The proper sense is totally antiquated, but the figurative remains in full currency to this day."—Lemon's Etymological Dictionary.
The true synonym of ennui seem to be taedium, which appears to have the same relation to taedo, a torch, as ennui to nuit.
B. H. C.
"Qui facit per alium, facit per se," &c. (Vol. vii., p. 488.).—This maxim is found in the following form in the Regulae Juris, subjoined to the 6th Book of the Decretals, Reg. lxxii.: "Qui facit per alium, est perinde ac si faciat per seipsum."
J. B.
Vincent Family (Vol. vii., pp. 501. 586.).—The Memoir of Augustine Vincent, referred to by MR. MARTIN, was written by the late Sir N. Harris Nicolas, and published by Pickering in 1827, crown 8vo. Shortly after its publication, a few pages of Addenda were printed in consequence of some information communicated by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, respecting the descendants of Augustine Vincent. At that time Francis Offley Edmunds, Esq., of Westborough, was his representative.
G.
Judge Smith (Vol. vii., pp. 463. 508.).—I am well acquainted with the monumental inscriptions in Chesterfield Church, but I do not recollect one to the memory of Judge Smith.
Thomas Smith, who was an attorney in Sheffield, and died in 1774, had a brother, William Smith of Norwich, who died in 1801. Thomas Smith married Susan Battie, by whom he had a son Thomas Smith of Sheffield, and after of Dunston Hall, who married in 1791 Elizabeth Mary, only surviving child of Robert Mower of Woodseats, Esq., (by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Richard Milnes of Dunston Hall, Esq.) It was through this lady that the Dunston estate came to the Smiths by the will of her uncle Mr. Milnes. Mr. Smith died in 1811, having had issue by her (who married secondly John Frederick Smith, Esq., of London) three sons and several daughters. The second son (Rev. Wm. Smith of Dunston Hall) died in 1841, leaving male issue; but I am not aware of the death of either of the others. The family had a grant of arms in 1816. Dunston Hall had belonged to the Milnes family for about a century.
W. ST.
"Dimidiation" in Impalements (Vol. vii., p. 548.).—In reply to your correspondent's Query as to dimidiation, he will find that this was the most ancient form of impalement. Its manifest inconvenience no doubt at last banished it. Guillim (ed. 1724) says, at p. 425.:
"It was an ancient way of impaling, to take half the husband's coat, and with that to joyn as much of the wife's; as appeareth in an old roll, wherein three lions, being the arms of England, are dimidiated and impaled with half the pales of Arragon. The like hath been practised with quartered coats by leaving out half of them."
On p. 426. he gives the example of Mary, Henry VIII.'s sister, and her husband Louis XII. of France. Here the French king's coat is cut in half, so that the lily in the base point is dimidiated; and the queen's coat, being quarterly France and England, shows two quarters only; England in chief, France in base.
Sandford, in his Genealogical History, gives a plate of the tomb of Henry II. and Richard I. of England at Fontevrault, which was built anew in {630} 1638. Upon it are several impalements by dimidiation. Sandford (whose book seems to me to be strangely over-valued) gives no explanation of them. No doubt they were copied from the original tomb.
In Part II. of the Guide to the Architectural Antiquities in the Neighbourhood of Oxford, at p. 178., is figured an impalement by dimidiation existing at Stanton Harcourt, in the north transept of the church, in a brass on a piece of blue marble. The writer of the Guide supposes this bearing to be some union of Harcourt and Beke, in consequence of a will of John Lord Beke, and to be commemorative of the son of Sir Richard Harcourt and Margaret Beke. It is in fact commemorative of those persons themselves. Harcourt, two bars, is dimidiated, and meets Beke, a cross moline or ancree. The figure thus produced is a strange one, but perfectly intelligible when the practice of impaling by dimidiation is recollected. I know no modern instance of this method of impaling. I doubt if any can be found since the time of Henry VIII.
D. P.
Begbrook.
Worth (Vol. vii., p. 584.).—At one time, and in one locality, this word seems to have denoted manure; as appears by the following preamble to the statute 7 Jac. I. cap. 18.:
"Whereas the sea-sand, by long triall and experience, hath bin found to be very profitable for the bettering of land, and especially for the increase of corne and tillage, within the counties of Devon and Cornwall, where the inhabitants have not commonly used any other worth, for the bettering of their arable grounds and pastures."
I am not aware of any other instance of the use of this word in this sense.
C. H. COOPER.
Cambridge.
"Elementa sex," &c. (Vol. vii., p. 572.).—The answer to the Latin riddle propounded by your correspondent EFFIGY, seems to be the word putres; divided into utres, tres, res, es, and the letter s.
The allusion in putres is to Virgil, Georgic, i. 392.; and in utres probably to Georgic, ii. 384.: the rest is patent enough.
I send this response to save others from the trouble of seeking an answer, and being disappointed at their profitless labours. If I may venture a guess at its author, I should be inclined to ascribe it to some idle schoolboy, or perhaps schoolmaster, who deserved to be whipped for their pains.
C. W. B.
"A Diasii 'Salve'," &c. (Vol. vii., p. 571.).—The deliverance desired in these words is from treachery, similar to that which was exhibited by the fratricide Alfonso Diaz toward his brother Juan. (Vid. Senarclaei Historiam veram, 1546; Actiones et Monimenta Martyrum, foll. 126-139. [Genevae], 1560: Histoire des Martyrs, foll. 161-168., ed. 1597; M^cCrie's Reformation in Spain, pp. 181-188., Edinb. 1829.)
The "A Gallorum 'Venite,'" probably refers to the singing of the "Venite, exultemus Domino," on the occasion of the massacre of St. Bartholomew.
R. G.
Meaning of "Claret" (Vol. vii., pp. 237. 511.).—Old Bartholomew Glanville, the venerable Franciscan, gives a recipe for claret in his treatise De Proprietatibus Rerum, Argent., 1485., lib. xix. cap. 56., which proves it to be of older date than is generally supposed:
"Claretum ex vino et melle et speciebus aromaticis est confectum ... Unde a vino contrahit fortitudinem et acumen, a speciebus autem retinet aromaticitatem et odorem, sed a melle dulcedinem mutuat et saporem."
H. C. K.
—— Rectory, Hereford.
"The Temple of Truth" (Vol. vii., p. 549.).—The author of this work, according to Dr. Watt, was the Rev. C. E. de Coetlogon, rector of Godstone, Surrey.
[Greek: Halieus].
Dublin.
Wellborne Family (Vol. vii., p. 259.).—The following is from the Town and Country Magazine for 1772:
"Deaths.—Mr. Richard Wellborne, in Aldersgate Street, descended in a direct male line from the youngest son of Simon Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who flourished in King Henry III.'s time, and married that king's sister."
There is now a family of the name of Wellborne residing in Doncaster.
W. H. L.
Devonianisms (Vol. vii., p. 544.).—While a resident in Devonshire, I frequently met with localisms similar in character to those quoted by J. M. B.; but what at first struck me as most peculiar in common conversation, was the use, or rather abuse, of the little preposition to. When inquiring the whereabouts of an individual, Devonians ask one another, "Where is he to?" The invariable reply is, "To London," "To Plymouth," &c., as the case may be. The Cheshire clowns, on the other hand, murder the word at, in just the same strange and inappropriate manner.
The indiscriminate use of the term forrell, when describing the cover of a book, is a solecism, I fancy, peculiarly Devonian. Whether a book be bound in cloth, vellum, or morocco, it is all alike forrell in Devonshire parlance. I imagine, however, that the word, in its present corrupt sense, must have originated from forrell, a term still used by the trade to designate an inferior kind of vellum {631} or parchment, in which books are not unfrequently bound. When we consider that vellum was at one time in much greater request for bookbinding purposes than it is just now, we shall be at no great loss to reconcile this eccentricity in the vocabulary of our west country brethren.
T. HUGHES.
Chester.
Humbug (Vol. vii., p. 550.).—A recent number of Miller's Fly Leaves makes the following hazardous assertion as to the origin and derivation of the term Humbug:
"This, now common expression, is a corruption of the word Hamburgh, and originated in the following manner:—During a period when war prevailed on the Continent, so many false reports and lying bulletins were fabricated at Hamburgh, that at length, when any one would signify his disbelief of a statement, he would say, 'You had that from Hamburgh;' and thus, 'That is Hamburgh,' or Humbug, became a common expression of incredulity."
With all my credulity, I cannot help fancying that this bit of specious humbug is a leetle too far-fetched.
T. HUGHES.
Chester.
George Miller, D.D. (Vol. vii., p. 527.).—His Donnellan Lectures were never published.
[Greek: Halieus].
Dublin.
"A Letter to a Convocation Man" (Vol. vii., p. 502.).—Your correspondent W. FRASER may be informed that the "great preacher" for whom he inquires was Archbishop Tillotson.
[Greek: Halieus].
[Perhaps our correspondent can reply to another Query from MR. W. FRASER, viz. "Who is the 'certain author' quoted in A Letter to a Convocation Man, pp. 24, 25.?"—ED.]
Sheriffs of Huntingdonshire and Cambridgeshire (Vol. vii., p. 572.).—This is a very singular Query, inasmuch as Fuller's list of the sheriffs of these counties begins 1st Henry II., and not, as is assumed by your correspondent D., "from the time of Henry VIII."
C. H. COOPER.
Cambridge.
Ferdinand Mendez Pinto (Vol. vii., p. 551.).—INQUIRENS will find the passage he quotes in Congreve's Love for Love, Act II. Sc. 5. Foresight, addressing Sir Sampson Legend, says:
"Thou modern Mandeville, Ferdinand Mendez Pinto was but a type," &c.
In the Tatler, No. 254. (a paper ascribed to Addison and Steele conjointly), these veracious travellers are thus pleasantly noticed:
"There are no books which I more delight in than in travels, especially those that describe remote countries, and give the writer an opportunity of showing his parts without incurring any danger of being examined and contradicted. Among all the authors of this kind, our renowned countryman, Sir John Mandeville, has distinguished himself by the copiousness of his invention, and the greatness of his genius. The second to Sir John I take to have been Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, a person of infinite adventure and unbounded imagination. One reads the voyages of these two great wits with as much astonishment as the travels of Ulysses in Homer, or of the Red Cross Knight in Spenser. All is enchanted ground and fairy land."
Biographical sketches of Mandeville and Pinto are attached to this paper in the excellent edition of the Tatler ("with Illustrations and Notes" by Calder, Percy, and Nichols), published in six volumes in 1786. Godwin selected this quotation from Congreve as a fitting motto for his Tale of St. Leon.
J. H. M.
The passage referred to occurs in Congreve's Love for Love, Act II. Sc. 5. Cervantes had before designated Pinto as the "prince of liars." It seems that poor Pinto did not deserve the ill language applied to him by the wits. Ample notices of his travels may be seen in the Retrospective Review, vol. viii. pp. 83-105., and Macfarlane's Romance of Travel, vol. ii. pp. 104-192.
C. H. COOPER.
Cambridge.
"Other-some" and "Unneath" (Vol vii., p. 571.).—Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, has other-some, some other, "a quaint but pretty phrase of frequent occurrence." He gives two instances of its use. He has also "Unneath, beneath. Somerset."
C. H. COOPER.
Cambridge.
The word other-some occurs in the authorised version of the Bible, Acts xvii. 18. "Other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods." It does not occur in any of the earlier versions of this passage in Bagster's English Hexapla. Halliwell says that it is "a quaint but pretty phrase of frequent occurrence," and gives an example dated 1570. Unneath, according to the same authority, is used in Somersetshire. Other-some is constantly used in Norfolk. I think it, however, a pity that your space should be occupied by such Queries as these, which a simple reference to Halliwell's Dictionary would have answered.
E. G. R.
Willow Pattern (Vol. vi., p. 509.).—Evidently a Chinese design. The bridge-houses, &c., are purely Chinese; and also the want of perspective. I have seen crockery in the shops in Shanghai with the same pattern, or at least with very slight difference.
H. B.
Shanghai.
Cross and Pile (Vol. vii., p. 487.).—Another evidence that the word pile is of French origin: {632} "Pille, pile; that side of the coin which bears the head. Cross or pile, a game."—A Dictionary of the Norman French Language, by Robert Kelham of Lincoln's Inn: London, 1779, 8vo., p. 183. |
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