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| Table of Contents | |
| Section | Page |
| Start of eBook | 1 |
| C. | 1 |
| J.E.B. MAYOR | 1 |
| TO A YOUNG LADY | 2 |
| C. | 16 |
| QUERIES. | 20 |
| REPLIES. | 27 |
| C. | 35 |
| MISCELLANEOUS. | 37 |
| BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES | 38 |
* * * * *
NOTES ON BACON AND JEREMY TAYLOR.
In his essay “On Delays,” Bacon quotes a “common verse” to this effect:—“Occasion turneth a bald noddle after she hath presented her locks in front, and no hold taken.” As no reference is given, some readers may be glad to see the original, which occurs in an epigram on [Greek: Kairos] (Brunck’s Analecta, ii. 49.; Posidippi Epigr. 13. in Jacob’s Anthol. ii. 49.).
[Greek:
Hae de komae, ti kat’ opsin; hupantiasanti
labesthai,
nae Dia. Taxopithen d’
eis ti phalakra pelei;
Ton gar apax ptaenoisi parathrexanta me
possin
outis eth’ himeiron
draxetai exopithen.]
In Jermey Taylor’s Life of Christ (Pref. Sec. 29. p. 23. Eden’s edition), it is said that Mela and Solinus report of the Thracians that they believed in the resurrection of the dead. That passage of Mela referred to is, l. ii. c. ii. Sec. 3., where see Tzschucke.
In the same work (Pref. Sec. 20. p. 17.), “AElian tells us of a nation who had a law binding them to beat their parents to death with clubs when they lived to a decrepit age.” See AElian, Var. Hist. iv. 1. p. 330. Gronov., who, however, says nothing of clubs.
In the next sentence, the statement, “the Persian magi mingled with their mothers and all their nearest relatives,” is from Xanthus (Fragm. 28., Didot), apud Clem. Alexandr. (Strom. iii. p. 431 A.). See Jacob’s Lect. Stob. p. 144.; Bahr, On Herodotus, iii. 31.
In the same work (Part I. sect. viii. Sec. 5. note n, p. 174.) is a quotation from Seneca, “O quam contempta res est homo, nisi super humana se erexerit!” which is plainly the original of the lines of Daniel, so often quoted by Coleridge ("Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland"):—
“Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, now mean a thing is man!”
Perhaps some of your readers can supply the reference to the passage in Seneca; which is wanting in Mr. Eden’s edition.
In Part III. sect. xv. Sec. 19. p. 694. note a, of the Life of Christ, is a quotation from Strabo, lib. xv. Add. p. 713., Casaub.
As the two great writers on whom I have made these notes are now in course of publication, any notes which your correspondents can furnish upon them cannot fail to be welcome. Milton also, and Pope, are in the hands of competent editors, who, doubtless, would be glad to have their work rendered more complete through the medium of “NOTES AND QUERIES.”
Marlborough Coll., April 8.
* * * * *
DUKE OF MONMOUTH’S CORRESPONDENCE.
Thomas Vernon, author of Vernon’s Reports, was in early life private secretary to the Duke of Monouth, and is supposed to have had a pretty large collection of Monmouth’s correspondence. Vernon settled himself at Hanbury Hall, in Worcestershire, where he built a fine house, and left a large estate. In course of time this passed to an heiress, who married Mr. Cecil (the Earl of Exeter of Alfred Tennyson), and was divorced from him. Lord Exeter sold or carried away the fine library, family plate, and nearly everything curious or valuable that was not an heirloom in the Vernon family. He laid waste the extensive gardens, and sold the elaborate iron gates, which now adorn the avenue to Mere Hall in the immediate neighbourhood. The divorcee married a Mr. Phillips, and dying without surviving issue, the estates passed to a distant branch of her family. About ten years ago I made a careful search (by permission) at Hanbury Hall for the supposed Monmouth MSS., but found none; and I ascertained by inquiry that there were none at Enstone Hall, the seat of Mr. Phillips’s second wife and widow. The MSS. might have been carried to Burleigh, and a friend obtained for me a promise from the Marquis of Exeter that search should be made for them there, but I have reason to believe that the matter was forgotten. Perhaps some of your correspondents may have the means of ascertaining whether there are such MSS. in Lord Exeter’s library. I confess my doubt whether so cautious a man as Thomas Vernon would have retained in his possession a mass of correspondence that might have been fraught with danger to himself personally; and, had it been in the Burleigh library, whether it could have escaped notice. This, however, is to be noted. After Vernon’s death there was a dispute whether his MSS. were to pass to his heir-at-law or to his personal representatives, and the court ordered the MSS. (Reports) to be printed. This was done very incorrectly, and Lord Kenyon seems to have hinted that private reasons have been assigned for that, but these could hardly have related to the Monmouth MSS.
SCOTUS.
* * * * *
PARNELL.
The following verses by Parnell are not included in any edition of his poems that I have seen. {428} They are printed in Steele’s Miscellany (12mo. 1714), p. 63., and in the second edition of the same Miscellany (12mo. 1727), p. 51., with Parnell’s name, and, what is more, on both occasions among other poems by the same author.
On her Translation of the Story of Phoebus and Daphne, from Ovid.
In Phoebus, Wit (as Ovid said)
Enchanting Beauty woo’d;
In Daphne beauty coily fled,
While vainly Wit pursu’d.
But when you trace what Ovid writ,
A diff’rent turn we
view;
Beauty no longer flies from Wit,
Since both are join’d
in you.
Your lines the wond’rous change
impart,
From whence our laurels spring;
In numbers fram’d to please the
heart,
And merit what they sing.
Methinks thy poet’s gentle shade
Its wreath presents to thee;
What Daphne owes you as a Maid,
She pays you as a Tree.
The charming poem by the same author, beginning—
“My days have been so wond’rous free,”
has the additional fourth stanza,—
“An eager hope within my breast,
Does ev’ry doubt controul,
And charming Nancy stands confest
The fav’rite of my soul.”
Can any of your readers supply the name of the “young lady” who translated the story of Phoebus and Daphne?
C.P.
* * * * *
EARLY ENGLISH AND EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.—“NEWS” AND “NOISE.”
I am anxious to put a question as to the communication that may have taken place between the English and German tongues previous to the sixteenth century. Possibly the materials for answering it may not exist; but it appears to me that it is of great importance, in an etymological point of view, that the extent of such communication, and the influence it has had upon our language, should be ascertained. In turning over the leaves of the Shakspeare Society’s Papers, vol. i., some time ago, my attention was attracted by a “Song in praise of his Mistress,” by John Heywood, the dramatist. I was immediately struck by the great resemblance it presented to another poem on the same subject by a German writer, whose real or assumed name, I do not know which, was “Muscanbluet,” and which poem is to be found in Der Clara Haetzlerin Liederbuch, a collection made by a nun of Augsburg in 1471. The following are passages for comparison:—
“Fyrst was her skyn,
Whith, smoth, and thyn,
And every vayne
So blewe sene playne;
Her golden heare
To see her weare,
Her werying gere,
Alas! I fere
To tell all to you
I shall undo you.
“Her eye so rollyng,
Ech harte conterollyng;
Her nose not long,
Nor stode not wrong;
Her finger typs
So clene she clyps;
Her rosy lyps,
Her chekes gossyps,”
&c. &c.
S.S. Papers, vol. i. p. 72
“Ir muendlin rott
Uss senender nott
Mir helffen kan,
Das mir kain man
Mit nichten kan puessen.
O liechte kel,
Wie vein, wie gel
Ist dir dein har,
Dein aeuglin clar,
Zartt fraw, lass mich an sehen.
Und tu mir kund
Uss rottem mund, &c.
Dein aermlin weisz Mit gantzem fleisz Geschnitzet sein, Die hennde dein Gar hofelich gezieret, Dem leib ist ran, Gar wolgetan Sind dir dein prust,” &c. &c.
Clara Haetzlerin Liederbuch, p. 111.
In all this there is certainly nothing to warrant the conclusion that the German poem was the original of Heywood’s song; but, considering that the latter was produced so near to the same age as the former, that is, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and considering that the older German poetical literature had already passed its culminating point, while ours was upon the ascending scale, there is likeness enough, both in manner and measure, to excite the suspicion of direct or indirect communication.
The etymology of the word “news,” on which you have recently had some notes, is a case in illustration of the importance of this point. I have never had the least doubt that this word is derived immediately from the German. It is, in fact, “das Neue” in the genitive case; the German phrase “Was giebt’s Neues?” giving the exact sense of our “What is the news?” This will appear {429} even stronger if we go back to the date of the first use of the word in England. Possibly about the same time, or not much earlier, we find in his same collection of Clara Haetzlerin, the word spelt “new” and rhyming to “triu.”
“Empfach mich uff das New
In deines hertzen triu.”
The genitive of this would be “newes,” thus spelt and probably pronounced the same as in England. That the word is not derived from the English adjective “new”—that it is not of English manufacture at all—I feel well assured: in that case the “s” would be the sign of the plural: and we should have, as the Germans have, either extant or obsolete, also “the new.” The English language, however, has never dealt in these abstractions, except in its higher poetry; though some recent translators from the German have disregarded the difference in this respect between the powers of the two languages. “News” is a noun singular, and as such must have been adopted bodily into the language; the form of the genitive case, commonly used in conversation, not being understood, but being taken for an integral part of the word, as formerly the Koran was called “The Alcoran.”
“Noise,” again, is evidently of the same derivation, though from a dialect from which the modern German pronunciation of the diphthong is derived. Richardson, in his English Dictionary, assumes it to be of the same derivation as “noxious” and “noisome;” but there is no process known to the English language by which it could be manufactured without making a plural noun of it. In short, the two words are identical; “news” retaining its primitive, and “noise” adopting a consequential meaning.
SAMUEL HICKSON.
* * * * *
FOLK LORE.
Charm for the Toothache.—A reverend friend, very conversant in the popular customs and superstitions of Ireland, and who has seen the charm mentioned in pp. 293, 349, and 397, given by a Roman Catholic priest in the north-west of Ireland, has kindly furnished me with the genuine version, and the form in which it was written, which are as follows:—
“As Peter sat on a marble stone,
The Lord came to him all alone;
‘Peter, what makes thee sit
there?’
‘My Lord, I am troubled with the
toothache.’
’Peter arise, and go home;
And you, and whosoever for my sake
Shall keep these words in memory,
Shall never be troubled with the toothache.’”
T.J.
Charms.—The Evil Eye.—Going one day into a cottage in the village of Catterick, in Yorkshire, I observed hung up behind the door a ponderous necklace of “lucky stones,” i.e. stones with a hole through them. On hinting an inquiry as to their use, I found the good lady of the house disposed to shuffle off any explanation; but by a little importunity I discovered that they had the credit of being able to preserve the house and its inhabitants from the baneful influence of the “evil eye.” “Why, Nanny,” said I, “you surely don’t believe in witches now-a-days?” “No! I don’t say ‘at I do; but certainly i’ former times there was wizzards an’ buzzards, and them sort o’ things.” “Well,” said I, laughing, “but you surely don’t think there are any now?” “No! I don’t say at ther’ are; but I do believe in a yevil eye.” After a little time I extracted from poor Nanny more particulars on the subject, as viz.:—how that there was a woman in the village whom she strongly suspected of being able to look with an evil eye; how, further, a neighbour’s daughter, against whom the old lady in question had a grudge owing to some love affair, had suddenly fallen into a sort of pining sickness, of which the doctors could make nothing at all; and how the poor thing fell away without any accountable cause, and finally died, nobody knew why; but how it was her (Nanny’s) strong belief that she had pined away in consequence of a glance from the evil eye. Finally, I got from her an account of how any one who chose could themselves obtain the power of the evil eye, and the receipt was, as nearly as I can recollect, as follows:—
“Ye gang out ov’ a night—ivery night, while ye find nine toads—an’ when ye’ve gitten t’ nine toads, ye hang ’em up ov’ a string, an’ ye make a hole and buries t’ toads i’t hole—and as ’t toads pines away, so ’t person pines away ’at you’ve looked upon wiv a yevil eye, an’ they pine and pine away while they die, without ony disease at all!”
I do not know if this is the orthodox creed respecting the mode of gaining the power of the evil eye, but it is at all events a genuine piece of Folk Lore.
The above will corroborate an old story rife in Yorkshire, of an ignorant person, who, being asked if he ever said his prayers, repeated as follows:—
“From witches and wizards and long-tail’d
buzzards,
And creeping things that run in
hedge-bottoms,
Good lord,
deliver us.”
MARGARET GATTY.
Ecclesfield, April 24. 1850.
Charms.—I beg to represent to the correspondents of the “NOTES AND QUERIES,” especially to the clergy and medical men resident in the country, that notices of the superstitious practices still prevalent, or recently prevalent, in different parts of the kingdom, for the cure of diseases, are highly instructive and even valuable, on many accounts. Independently of their archaeological {430} interest as illustrations of the mode of thinking and acting of past times, they become really valuable to the philosophical physician, as throwing light on the natural history of diseases. The prescribers and practisers of such “charms,” as well as the lookers-on, have all unquestionable evidence of the efficacy of the prescriptions, in a great many cases: that is to say, the diseases for which the charms are prescribed are cured; and, according to the mode of reasoning prevalent with prescribers, orthodox and heterodox, they must be cured by them,—post hoc ergo propter hoc. Unhappily for the scientific study of diseases, the universal interference of ART in an active form renders it difficult to meet with pure specimens of corporeal maladies; and, consequently, it is often difficult to say whether it is nature or art that must be credited for the event. This is a positive misfortune, in a scientific point of view. Now, as there can be no question as to the non-efficiency of charms in a material or physical point of view (their action through the imagination is a distinct and important subject of inquiry), it follows that every disease getting well in the practice of the charmer, is curable and cured by Nature. A faithful list of such cases could not fail to be most useful to the scientific inquirer, and to the progress of truth; and it is therefore that I am desirous of calling the attention of your correspondents to the subject. As a general rule, it will be found that the diseases in which charms have obtained most fame as curative are those of long duration, not dangerous, yet not at all, or very slightly, benefited by ordinary medicines. In such cases, of course, there is not room for the display of an imaginary agency:—“For,” as Crabbe says,—and I hope your medical readers will pardon the irreverence—
“For NATURE then has time to work
her way;
And doing nothing often has prevailed,
When ten physicians have prescribed, and
failed.”
The notice in your last Number respecting the cure of hooping-cough, is a capital example of what has just been stated; and I doubt not but many of your correspondents could supply numerous prescriptions equally scientific and equally effective. On a future occasion, I will myself furnish you with some; but as I have already trespassed so far on your space, I will conclude by naming a few diseases in which the charmers may be expected to charm most wisely and well. They will all be found to come within the category of the diseases characterised above:—Epilepsy, St. Vitus’s Dance (Chorea), Hysteria, Toothache, Warts, Ague, Mild Skin-diseases, Tic Douloureux, Jaundice, Asthma, Bleeding from the Nose, St. Anthony’s Fire or The Rose (Erysipelas), King’s Evil (Scrofula), Mumps, Rheutmatic Pains, &c., &c.
EMDEE.
April 25. 1850.
Roasted Mouse.—I have often heard my father say, that when he had the measles, his nurse gave him a roasted mouse to cure him.
SCOTUS.
* * * * *
THE ANGLO-SAXON WORD “UNLAED.”
A long etymological disquisition may seem a trifling matter; but what a clear insight into historic truth, into the manners, the customs, and the possessions of people of former ages, is sometimes obtained by the accurate definition of even a single word. A pertinent instance will be found in the true etymon of Brytenwealda, given by Mr. Kemble in his chapter “On the Growth of the kingly Power.” (Saxons in Engl. B. II. c. 1.) Upon this consideration I must rest for this somewhat lengthy investigation.
The word UNLAED, as far as we at present know, occurs only five times in Anglo-Saxon; three of which are in the legend of Andreas in the Vercelli MS., which legend was first printed, under the auspices of the Record Commission, by Mr. Thorpe; but the Report to which the poetry of the Vercelli MS. was attached has, for reasons with which I am unacquainted, never been made public. In 1840, James Grimm, “feeling (as Mr. Kemble says) that this was a wrong done to the world of letters at large,” published it at Cassell, together with the Legend of Elene, or the Finding of the Cross, with an Introduction and very copious notes. In 1844, it was printed for the Aelfric Society by Mr. Kemble, accompanied by a translation, in which the passages are thus given.—
“Such was the people’s
peaceless token,
the suffering of the wretched.”
l. 57-9.
“When they of savage spirits
believed in the might,”
l. 283-4.
“Ye are rude,
of poor thoughts.”
The fifth instance of the occurrence of the word is in a passage cited by Wanley, Catal. p. 134., {431} from a homily occurring in a MS. in Corpus Christi College, s. 14.:—
“Men etha leoces can hep re3þ se hal3a se[s] Io[hs] þaep re Hael. eode ofen þone bupnan the Ledpoc hatte, on in[=e]n aenne p[.y]ptun. Tha piste se unlaesde iudas se þe hune to deaþe beleaped haefde.”
In Grimm’s Elucidations to Andreas he thus notices it:—
“Unlaed, miser, improbus, infelix. (A. 142. 744. Judith, 134, 43.). A rare adjective never occurring in Beowulf, Coedmon, or the Cod. Exon., and belonging to those which only appear in conjunction with un. Thus, also, the Goth. unleds, pauper, miser; and the O.H.G. unlat (Graff, 2. 166.); we nowhere find a leds, laed, lat, as an antithesis. It must have signified dives, felix; and its root is wholly obscure.”
In all the Anglo-Saxon examples of unlaed, the sense appears to be wretched, miserable; in the Gothic it is uniformly poor[1]: but poverty and wretchedness are nearly allied. Led, or laed, would evidently therefore signify rich, and by inference happy. Now we have abundant examples of the use of the word ledes in old English; not only for people, but for riches, goods, movable property. Lond and lede, or ledes, or lith, frequently occur unequivocally in this latter sense, thus:—
“He was the first of Inglond that
gaf God his tithe
Of isshue of bestes, of londes, or of
lithe.”
P. Plouhm.
“I bed hem bothe lond and lede,
To have his douhter in worthlie wede,
And spouse here with my ring.”
K. of Tars, 124.
“For to have lond or lede,
Or other riches, so God me spede!
Yt ys to muche for me.”
Sir Cleges, 409.
“Who schall us now geve londes or
lythe,
Hawkys, or houndes, or stedys stithe,
As he was wont to do.”
Le B. Florence of Rome, 841.
“No asked he lond or lithe,
Bot that maiden bright.”
Sir Tristrem, xlviii.
In “William and the Werwolf” the cowherd and his wife resolve to leave William
“Al
here godis
Londes and ludes as ether after
her lif dawes.”
p. 4
In this poem, ludes and ledes are used indiscriminately, but most frequently in the sense of men, people. Sir Frederick Madden has shown, from the equivalent words in the French original of Robert of Brunne, “that he always uses the word in the meaning of possessions, whether consisting of tenements, rents, fees, &c.;” in short, wealth.
If, therefore, the word has this sense in old English, we might expect to find it in Anglo-Saxon, and I think it is quite clear that we have it at least in one instance. In the Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, vol. i. p. 184., an oath is given, in which the following passage occurs:
“Do spa to lane beo þe he þinum I leat me be minum ne 3ypne le þines ne laedes ne landes ne sac ne socne ne þu mines ne þeapst ne mint ic þe nan þio3.”
Mr. Thorpe has not translated the word, nor is it noticed in his Glossary; but I think there can be no doubt that it should be rendered by goods, chattels, or wealth, i.e., movable property.
This will be even more obvious from an extract given by Bishop Nicholson, in the preface to Wilkin’s Leges Saxonicae p. vii. It is part of the oath of a Scotish baron of much later date, and the sense here is unequivocal:—
“I becom zour man my
liege king in land, lith[2], life and
lim, warldly honour, homage,
fealty, and leawty, against all
that live and die.”
Numerous examples are to be found in the M.H. German, of which I will cite a few:
“Ir habt doch zu iuwere hant
Beidin liute unde lant.”
Tristr. 13934.
“Und bevelhet ir liute unde lant.”
Iwein. 2889. {432}
“Ich teile ir liute unde lant.”
Id. 7714.
And in the old translation of the Liber Dialogorum of St. Gregory, printed in the cloister of S. Ulrich at Augspurg in 1473:—
“In der Statt waren
hoch Tueren und schoene Heueser von Silber und
Gold, und aller Hand leuet,
und die Frawen und Man naygten im
alle.”
Lastly, Jo. Morsheim in his Untreuer Frawen:—
“Das was mein Herr gar gerne hoert,
Und ob es Leut und Land bethort.”
Now, when we recollect the state of the people in those times, the serf-like vassalage, the Hoerigkeit or Leibeigenthum, which prevailed, we cannot be surprised that a word which signified possessions should designate also the people. It must still, however, be quite uncertain which is the secondary sense.
The root of the word, as Grimm justly remarks, is very obscure; and yet it seems to me that he himself has indirectly pointed it out:—
“Goth. liudan[3] (crescere); O.H.G. liotan (sometimes unorganic, hliotan); O.H.G. liut (populus); A.-S. leoeth; O.N. lioeth: Goth. lauths -is (homo), ju33alauths -dis (adolescens); O.H.G. sumar -lota (virgulta palmitis, i.e. qui una aestate creverunt, Gl. Rhb. 926’b, Jun. 242.); M.H.G. corrupted into sumer -late (M.S. i. 124’b. 2. 161’a. virga herba). It is doubtful whether ludja (facies), O.H.G. andlutti, is to be reckoned among them.”—Deutsche Gram. ii. 21. For this last see Diefenbach, Vergl. Gram. der Goth. Spr. i. 242.
In his Erlauterungen zu Elene, p. 166., Grimm further remarks:—
“The verb is leoethan, leaeth, luethon (crescere), O.S. lioethan, loeth, luethun. Leluethon (Caedm. 93. 28.) is creverunt, pullulant; and 3eloethen (ap. Hickes, p. 135. note) onustus, but rather cretus. Elene, 1227. 3eloethen unethep leapum (cretus sub foliis).”
It has been surmised that LEDE was connected with the O.N. hlyt[4]—which not only signified sors, portio, but res consistentia—and the A.-S. hlet, hlyt, lot, portion, inheritance: thus, in the A.-S. Psal. xxx. 18., on hanethum ethinum hlyt min, my heritage is in thy hands. Notker’s version is: Min loz ist in dinen handen. I have since found that Kindlinger (Geschichte der Deutchen Hoerigkeit) has made an attempt to derive it from Lied, Lit, which in Dutch, Flemish, and Low German, still signify a limb; I think, unsuccessfully.
Ray, in his Gloss. Northanymbr., has “unlead, nomen opprobrii;” but he gives a false derivation: Grose, in his Provincial Glossary, “unleed or unlead, a general name for any crawling venomous creature, as a toad, &c. It is sometimes ascribed to a man, and then it denotes a sly wicked fellow, that in a manner creeps to do mischief. See Mr. Nicholson’s Catalogue.”
In the 2d edition of Mr. Brockett’s Glossary, we have: “Unletes, displacers or destroyers of the farmer’s produce.”
This provincial preservation of a word of such rare occurrence in Anglo-Saxon, and of which no example has yet been found in old English, is a remarkable circumstance. The word has evidently signified, like the Gothic, in the first place poor; then wretched, miserable; and hence, perhaps, its opprobrious sense of mischievous or wicked.
“In those rude times when wealth or movable property consisted almost entirely of living money, in which debts were contracted and paid, and for which land was given in mortgage or sold; it is quite certain that the serfs were transferred with the land, the lord considering them as so much live-stock, or part of his chattels.”
A vestige of this feeling with regard to dependants remains in the use of the word Man (which formerly had the same sense as lede). We still speak of “a general and his men,” and use the expression “our men.” But, happily for the masses of mankind, few vestiges of serfdom and slavery, and those in a mitigated form, now virtually exist.
S.W. SINGER.
April 16. 1850.
[Footnote 1: It occurs many times in the Moeso-Gothic version of the Gospels for [Greek: ptochos]. From the Glossaries, it appears that iungalauths is used three times for [Greek: neaniskos], a young man; therefore lauths or lauds would signify simply man; and the plural, laudeis, would be people. See this established by the analogy of vairths, or O.H.G. virahi, also signifying people. Grimm’s Deutsche Gram. iii. 472., note. “Es konnte zwar unleds (pauper) aber auch unleths heissen.”—D. Gr. 225.]
[Footnote 2: Sir F. Palgrave has given this extract in the Appendix to his Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, p. ccccvii., where, by an error of the press, or of transcription, the word stands lich. It may be as well to remark, that the corresponding word in Latin formulas of the same kind is “catallis,” i.e. chattels. A passage in Havelok, v. 2515., will clearly demonstrate that lith was at least one kind of chattel, and equivalent to fe (fee).
“Thanne
he was ded that Sathanas
Sket
was seysed al that his was,
In the King’s
hand il del,
Lond
and lith, and other catel,
And the King ful
sone it yaf
Ubbe in the hond
with a fayr staf,
And seyde, ’Her
ich sayse the
In al the lond
in al the fe.’”]
[Footnote 3: The author of Tripartita seu de Analogia Linguacum, under the words “Leute” and “Barn,” says:—“Respice Ebr. Id. Ebr. ledah, partus, proles est. Ebr. lad, led, gigno.” A remarkable coincidence at least with Grimm’s derivation of leod from the Goth. liudan, crescere.]
[Footnote 4: Thus, Anthon, Teutschen Landwirthschaft, Th. i. p. 61.:—“Das Land eines jeden Dorfes, einer jeden Germarkung war wirklich getheilt und, wie es sehr wahrscheinlich, alsdan verlost worden. Daher nannte man dasjenige, was zu einem Grunstueke an Aekern, Wiesen gehoerte, ein Los (Sors). Das Burgundische Gesetz redet ausfdruecklich vom Lande das man in Lose erhalten hat (Terra sortis titulo acquisita,Page 11
Tit. i. Sec. 1.)” Schmeller, in his Bayrishces Wort. B. v. Lud-aigen, also points to the connection of Lud with hluz-hlut, sors, portio; but he rather inclines to derive it from the Low-Latin, ALLODIUM. It appears to me that the converse of this is most likely to have been the case, and that this very word LEDS or LAEDS is likely to furnish a more satisfactory etymology of ALLODIUM than has hitherto been offered.]
* * * * * {433}
BP. COSIN’S MSS.—INDEX TO BAKER’S MSS.
Your correspondent “J. SANSOM” (No. 19. p. 303.) may perhaps find some unpublished remains of Bp. Cosin in Baker’s MSS.; from the excellent index to which (Cambridge, 1848, p. 57.) I transcribe the following notices, premising that of the volumes of the MSS. the first twenty-three are in the British Museum, and the remainder in the University Library, (not, as Mr. Carlyle says in a note in, I think, the 3d vol. of his Letters. &c. of Cromwell in the library of Trin. Coll.).
“Cosin, Bp.—
Notes of, in his
Common Prayer, edit. 1636, xx. 175.
Benefactions to
See of Durham, xxx. 377-380.
Conference with
Abp. of Trebisond, xx. 178.
Diary in Paris,
1651, xxxvi. 329.
Intended donation
for a Senate-House, xxx. 454.
Letters to Peter
Gunning, principally concerning
the
authority of the Apocrypha, vi. 174-180.
230-238.
Manual of Devotion,
xxxvi. 338.”
As the editors of the Index to Baker’s MSS. invite corrections from those who use the MSS., you will perhaps be willing to print the following additions and corrections, which may be of use in case a new edition of the Index should be required:—
Preface, p. vii. add,
in Thoresby Correspondence, one or two
of Baker’s Letters
have been printed, others have appeared in
Nichols’s Literary
Anecdotes.
Index, p. 2. Altars,
suppression of, in Ely Diocese, 1550, xxx.
213. Printed in the British
Magazine, Oct. 1849, p. 401.
P. 5. Babraham, Hullier,
Vicar of, burnt for heresy. Brit.
Mag. Nov. 1849, p. 543.
P. 13. Bucer incepts
as Dr. of Divinty, 1549, xxiv. 114. See Dr.
Lamb’s Documents
from MSS. C.C.C.C. p. 153.
Appointed to lecture by Edw.
VI., 1549, xxx. 370. See Dr. Lamb,
p. 152.
Letter of University to Edw.,
recommending his family to care,
x. 396. Dr. Lamb, p.
154.
P. 14. Buckingham, Dr.
Eglisham’s account of his poisoning James
I., xxxii. 149-153. See
Hurl. Misc.
Buckmaster’s Letter concerning the King’s Divorce, x. 243. This is printed in Burnet, vol. iii. lib. 1. collect. No. 16., from a copy sent by Baker, but more fully in Dr. Lamb, p. 23., and in Cooper’s Annals.
P. 25. Renunciation of
the Pope, 1535. See Ant. Harmer,
Specimen, p. 163.
P. 51. Cowel, Dr., charge
against, and defence of his
Antisanderus. Brit.
Mag. Aug. 1849, p. 184.
Cranmer, extract from C.C.C.
MS. concerning. Brit. Mag. Aug.
1849, p. 169, seq.
Cranmer, life of, xxxi. 1-3. Brit. Mag. Aug. 1849, p. 165.
P. 57. Convocation, subscribers
to the judgment of, xxxi. 9.
British Magazine, Sept.
1849, p. 317.
P. 68. Ely, Altars, suppression
of, 1550, xxx. 213. Brit. Mag.
Oct. 1849, p. 401.
P. 77. Several of the
papers relating to Bishop Fisher will be
found in Dr. Hymers’
edition of The Funeral Sermon on Lady
Margaret.
P. 80. Gloucester, Abbey
of, &c., a Poem by Malvern, v. 285-7.
Brit. Mag. xxi.
377.; Caius Coll. MSS. No. 391. art 13.
Goodman, Declaration concerning
the articles in his book.
Strype’s Annals,
I. i. 184.
P. 89. Henry VII., Letter
to Lady Margaret, xix. 262. See Dr.
Hymers, as above, p. 160.
P. 91. Henry VIII., Letter
to, giving an account of the death of
Wyngfield, &c. See Sir
H. Ellis, Ser. III. No. 134.
P. 94. Humphrey, Bishop,
Account, &c., xxxv. 1-19. Rend xxvi.
1-19.
Humphrey, Bishop, Images and
Relics, &c., xxx. 133-4. Brit.
Mag. Sept. 1849, p. 300.
P. 121-2. Lady Margaret.
Several of the articles relating to
Lady Margaret have been printed
by Dr. Hymers (ut sup.).
P. 137. Pole Card.
Oratio Johannis Stoyks, &c., v. 310-312. Dr.
Lamb, p. 177.
P. 143. Redman, Dr.,
Particulars of, xxxii. 495.—Brit.
Mag.
Oct. 1849, p. 402.
P. 151. Spelman’s
Proposition concerning the Saxon Lecture, &c.
Sir H. Ellis Letters of
Eminent Literary Men, Camd. Soc. No.
59.
P. 169. Noy’s Will, xxxvi. 375., read 379.
Many of the articles relating to Cambridge in the MSS. have been printed by Mr. Cooper in his Annals of Cambridge: some relating to Cromwell are to be found in Mr. Carlyle’s work; and several, besides those which I have named, are contained in Dr. Lamb’s Documents.
J.E.B. MAYOR.
Marlborough Coll., March 30.
* * * * *
ARABIC NUMERALS AND CIPHER.
Will you suffer me to add some further remarks on the subject of the Arabic numerals and cipher; as neither the querists nor respondents seem to have duly appreciated the immense importance of the step taken by introducing the use of a cipher. I would commence with observing, that we know of no people tolerably advanced in civilisation, whose system of notation had made such little progress, beyond that of the mere savage, as the Romans. The rudest
I have been induced to trespass on your columns with this extended notice of the difficulty which was never solved by either the Hebrews or Greeks, from understanding your correspondent “T.S.D.” p. 367, to say that “the mode of obviating it would suggest itself at once.” As to the original query,—whence came the invention of the cipher, which was felt to be so valuable as to be entitled to give its name to all the process of arithmetic?—“T.S.D.” has given the querist his best clue in sending him to Mr. Strachey’s Bija Ganita, and to Sir E. Colebrooke’s Algebra of the Hindus, from the Sanscrit of Brahmegupta. Perhaps a few sentences may sufficiently point out where the difficulty lies. In the beginning of the sixth century, the celebrated Boethius described the present system as an invention of the Pythagoreans, meaning, probably, to express some indistinct notion of its coming from the east. The figures in MS. copies of Boethius are the same as our own for 1, 8, and 9; the same, but inverted, for 2 and 5; and are not without vestiges of resemblance in the remaining figures. In the ninth century we come to the Arabian Al Sephadi, and derive some information from him; but his figures have attracted most notice, because though nearly all of them are different from those found in Boethius, they are the same as occur in Planudes, a Greek monk of the fourteenth century, who says of his own units, “These nine characters are Indian,” and adds, “they have a tenth character called [Greek: tziphra], which they express by an 0, and which denotes the absence of any number.” The date of Boethius is obviously too early for the supposition of an Arabic origin; but it is doubted whether the figures are of his time, as the copyists of a work in MS. were wont to use the characters of their own age in letters, and might do so in the case of figures also.
H.W.
* * * * *
ROMAN NUMERALS.
There are several points connected with the subject of numerals that are important in the history of practical arithmetic, to which neither scientific men nor antiquaries have paid much attention. Yet if the principal questions were brought in a definite form before the contributors to the “NOTES AND QUERIES,” I feel quite sure that a not inconsiderable number of them will be able to contribute each his portion to the solution of what may till now be considered as almost a mystery. With your permission, I will propose a few queries relating to the subject,
1. When did the abacus, or the “tabel” referred to in my former letters, cease to be used as calculating instruments?
The last printed work in which the abacal practice was given for the purposes of tuition that I have been able to discover, is a 12mo. edition, by Andrew Mellis, of Dee’s Robert Recorde, 1682.
2. When did the method of recording results in Roman numerals cease to be used in mercantile account-books? Do any ledgers or other account-books, of ancient dates, exist in the archives of the City Companies, or in the office of the City Chamberlain? If there do, these would go far towards settling the question.
3. When in the public offices of the Government? It is probable that criteria will be found in many of them, which are inaccessible to the public generally.
4. When in the household-books of royalty and nobility? This is a class of MSS. to which I have paid next to no attention; and, possibly, had the query been in my mind through life, many fragments {435} tending towards the solution that have passed me unnoticed would have saved me from the necessity of troubling your correspondents. The latest that I remember to have particularly noticed is that of Charles I. in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge; but I shall not be surprised to find that the system was continued down to George I., or later still. Conservatism is displayed in its perfection in the tenacious adherence of official underlings to established forms and venerable routine.
T.S.D.
Shooter’s Hill, April 8.
[Our correspondent will find some curious notices of early dates of Arabic numerals, from the Rev. Edmund Venables, Rev. W. Gunner, and Mr. Ouvry, in the March number of the Archaeological Journal, p. 75-76.; and the same number also contains, at p. 85., some very interesting remarks by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, illustrative of the subject, and instancing a warrant from Hugh le Despenseer to Bonefez de Peruche and his partners, merchants of a company, to pay forty pounds, dated Feb. 4, 19 Edward II., i.e. 1325, in which the date of the year is expressed in Roman numerals; and on the dorso, written by one of the Italian merchants to whom the warrant was addressed, the date of the payment, Feb. 1325. in Arabic numerals, of which Mr. Hunter exhibited a fac-simile at a meeting of the Institute.]
* * * * *
Arabic Numerals.—In the lists of works which treat of Arabic Numerals, the following have not been noticed, although they contain a review of what has been written on their introduction into this part of Europe:—Archaeologia, vols. x. xiii.; Bibliotheca Literaria, Nos. 8. and 10., including Huetiana on this subject; and Morant’s Colchester, b. iii. p. 28.
T.J.
* * * * *
ERROR IN HALLAM’S HISTORY OF LITERATURE.
If Mr. Hallam’s accuracy in parvis could be fairly judged by the following instance, and that given by your correspondent “CANTAB.” (No. 4, p. 51.), I fear much could not be said for it. The following passage is from Mr. Hallam’s account of Campanella and his disciple Adami. My reference is to the first edition of Mr. Hallam’s work; but the passage stands unaltered in the second. I believe these to be rare instances of inaccuracy.
“Tobias Adami, ... who dedicated to the philosophers of Germany his own Prodromus Philosophiae Instauratio, prefixed to his edition of Campanella’s Compendium de Rerum Naturae, published at Frankfort in 1617. Most of the other writings of the master seem to have preceded this edition, for Adami enumerates them in his Prodromus.”—Hist. of Literature, iii. 149.
The title is not Prodromus Philosophiae Instauratio, which is not sense; but Prodromus Philosophiae Instaurandae (Forerunner of a philosophy to be constructed). This Prodromus is a treatise of Campanella’s, not, as Mr. Hallam says, of Adami. Adami published the Prodromus for Campanella, who was in prison; and he wrote a preface, in which he gives a list of other writings of Campanella, which he proposes to publish afterwards. What Mr. Hallam calls an “edition,” was the first publication.
Mere accident enabled me to detect these errors. I am not a bibliographer and do not know a ten-thousandth part of what Mr. Hallam knows. I extract this note from my common-place book, and send it to you, hoping to elicit the opinions of some of your learned correspondents on the general accuracy in biography and bibliography of Mr. Hallam’s History of Literature. Has Mr. Bolton Corney, if I may venture to name him, examined the work? His notes and opinion would be particularly valuable.
As a few inaccuracies such as this may occur in any work of large scope proceeding from the most learned of men, and be accidentally detected by an ignoramus, so a more extensive impeachment of Mr. Hallam’s accuracy would make a very trifling deduction from his great claims to respect and well-established fame. I believe I rightly understand the spirit in which you desire your periodical to be the medium for emending valuable works, when I thus guard myself against the appearance of disrespect to a great ornament of literature.
* * * * *
NOTES FROM CUNNINGHAM’S HANDBOOK FOR LONDON.
We have already shown pretty clearly, how high is the opinion we entertain of the value of our able contributor Mr. Peter Cunningham’s amusing Handbook for London, by the insertion of numerous Notes upon his first edition. We will now give our readers an opportunity of judging how much the second edition, which is just published, has been improved through the further researches of that gentleman, by giving them a few Notes from it, consisting entirely of new matter, and very curious withal. When we add that the work is now enriched by a very copious Index of Names, it will readily be seen how much the value and utility of the book has been increased.
Hanover Square.—“The statue of William Pitt, by Sir Francis Chantrey, set up in the year 1831, is of bronze, and cost 7000l. I was present at its erection with Sir Francis Chantrey and my father, who was Chantrey’s assistant. The statue was placed on its pedestal between seven and eight in the morning, and while the workmen were away at their breakfasts, a rope was thrown round the neck of the figure, and a vigorous attempt made by several sturdy Reformers to pull it down. When word of what they were about was brought to my father, he exclaimed, with a smile {436} upon his face, ‘The cramps are leaded, and they may pull to doomsday.’ The cramps are the iron bolts fastening the statue to the pedestal. The attempt was soon abandoned.”
Hyde Park Corner.—“There were cottages here in 1655; and the middle of the reign of George II. till the erection of Apsely House, the small entrance gateway was flanked on its east site by a poor tenement known as ‘Allen’s stall.’ Allen, whose wife kept a moveable apple-stall at the park entrance, was recognised by George II. as an old soldier at the battle of Dettingen, and asked (so pleased was the King at meeting the veteran) ‘what he could do for him.’ Allen, after some hesitation, asked for a piece of ground for a permanent apple-stall at Hyde Park Corner, and a grant was made to him of a piece of ground which his children afterwards sold to Apsley, Lord Bathurst. Mr. Crace has a careful drawing of the Hyde Park Corner, showing Allen’s stall and the Hercules’ Pillars.”
Pall Mall.—“Mr. Fox told Mr. Rogers, that Sydenham was sitting at his window looking on the Mall, with his pipe in his mouth and a silver tankard before him, when a fellow made a snatch at the tankard, and ran off with it. Nor was he overtaken, said Fox, before he got among the bushes in Bond Street, and there they lost him.”
Lansdowne House.—“The iron bars at the two ends of Lansdowne Passage (a near cut from Curzon Street to Hay Hill) were put up late in the last century, in consequence of a mounted highwayman, who had committed a robbery in Piccadilly, having escaped from his pursuers through this narrow passage by riding his horse up the steps. This anecdote was told by the late Thomas Grenville to Sir Thomas Frankland Lewis. It occurred while George Grenville was Minister, the robber passing his residence in Bolton Street full gallop.”
Newcastle House.—“The old and expensive custom of ‘vails-giving,’ received its death-glow at Newcastle House. Sir Timothy Waldo, on his way from the Duke’s dinner table to his carriage, put a crown into the hand of the cook, who returned it, saying: ‘Sir, I do not take silver.’ ‘Don’t you, indeed?’ said Sir Timothy, putting it in his pocket; ’then I do not give gold.’ Hanway’s ‘Eight Letters to the Duke of ——,’ had their origin in Sir Timothy’s complaint.”
Red Lion Square.—“The benevolent Jonas Hanway, the traveller, lived and died (1786) in a house in Red Lion Square, the principal rooms of which he decorated with paintings and emblematical devices, ’in a style,’ says his biographer, ‘peculiar to himself.’ ‘I found,’ he used to say, when speaking of these ornaments, ’that my countrymen and women were not au fait in the art of conversation, and that instead of recurring to their cards, when the discourse began to flag, the minutes between the time of assembling and the placing the card-tables are spent in an irksome suspense. To relieve this vacuum in social intercourse and prevent cards from engrossing the whole of my visitors’ minds, I have presented them with objects the most attractive I could imagine—and when that fails there are the cards.’ Hanway was the first man who ventured to walk the streets of London with an umbrella over his head. After carrying one near thirty years, he saw them come into general use.”
Downing Street.—“Baron Bothmar’s house was part of the forfeited property of Lee, Lord Lichfield, who retired with James II., to whom he was Master of the Horse. At the beginning of the present century there was no other official residence in the street than the house which belonged, by right of office, to the First Lord of the Treasury, but by degrees one house was bought after another: first the Foreign Office, increased afterwards by three other houses; then the Colonial Office; then the house in the north corner, which was the Judge Advocate’s, since added to the Colonial Office; then a house for the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and lastly, a whole row of lodging-houses, chiefly for Scotch and Irish members.”
Whitehall.—“King Charles I. was executed on a scaffold erected in front of the Banqueting House, towards the park. The warrant directs that he should be executed ‘in the open street before Whitehall.’ Lord Leicester tells us in his Journal, that he was ’beheaded at Whitehall Gate.’ Dugdale, in his Diary, that he was ’beheaded at the gate of Whitehall;’ and a single sheet of the time reserved in the British Museum, that ‘the King was beheaded at Whitehall Gate.’ There cannot, therefore, be a doubt that the scaffold was erected in front of the building facing the present Horse Guards. We now come to the next point which has excited some discussion. It appears from Herbert’s minute account of the King’s last moments, that ’the King was led all along the galleries and Banqueting House, and there was a passage broken through the wall, by which the king passed unto the scaffold.’ This seems particular enough, and leads, it is said, to a conclusion that the scaffold was erected on the north side. Where the passage was broken through, one thing is certain, the scaffold was erected on the west side, or, in other words, ‘in the open street,’ now called Whitehall; and that the King, as Ludlow relates in his Memoirs, ’was
We shall probably next week indulge in a few QUERIES which have suggested themselves to us, and to which Mr. Cunningham will perhaps be good enough to reply.
* * * * * {437}
ANECDOTE OF CHARLES I.
I have great pleasure in forwarding to you an anecdote of the captivity of Charles I., which I think will be considered interesting to your readers. Of its authenticity there can be no doubt. I extract it from a small paper book, purchased some fifty years since, at Newport, in the Isle of Wight, which contains the history of a family named Douglas, for some years resident in that town, written by the last representative, Eliza Douglas, at the sale of whose effects it came into my grandfather’s hands. There are many curious particulars in it besides the anecdote I have sent you; especially an account of the writer’s great-great-grandfather (the husband of the heroine of this tale), who “traded abroad, and was took into Turkey as a slave,” and there gained the affections of his master’s daughter, after the most approved old-ballad fashion; though, alas! it was not to her love that he owed his liberty, but (dreadful bathos!) to his skill in “cooking fowls, &c. &c. in the English taste;” which, on a certain occasion, when some English merchants came to dine with his master, “so pleased the company, that they offered to redeem him, which was accepted; and when freed he came home to England, and lived in London to an advanced age; so old that they fed him with a tea-spoon.”
After his death his wife married again; and it was during this second marriage that the interview with King Charles took place.
“My mother’s great-grandmother, when a-breeding with her daughter, Mary Craige, which was at y’e time of King Charles being a prisoner in Carisbrook Castle, she longed to kiss the King’s hand; and when he was brought to Newport to be carried off, she being acquainted with the gentleman’s housekeeper, where the King was coming to stay, till orders for him to leave the island, she wentPage 20
to the housekeeper, told her what she wanted, and they contrived for her to come the morning he was to go away. So up she got, and dressed herself, and set off to call her midwife, and going along, the first and second guard stopped her and asked her where she was going; she told them ‘to call her midwife,’ which she did. They went to this lady, and she went and acquainted his Majesty with the affair; he desired she may come up to him, and she said, when she came into the room, his Majesty seemed to appear as if he had been at prayers. He rose up and came to her, who fell on her knees before him; he took her up by the arm himself, and put his cheek to her, and she said she gave him a good hearty smack on his cheek. His Majesty then said, ’Pray God bless you, and that you go withal.’ She then went down stairs to wait and see the King take coach; she got so close that she saw a gentleman in it; and when the King stept into the coach, he said, ’Pray, Sir, what is your name?’ he replied, ‘I am Col. Pride.’ ’Not miscalled,’ says the King. Then Pride says, ’Drive on, coachman.’”
E.V.
* * * * *
THE MAUDELEYNE GRACE.
The rector of Slimbridge, in the diocese of Gloucester, is bound to pay ten pounds a year to Magdalen College, for “choir music on the top of the College tower on May-day.” (See Rudder’s Gloucestershire.) Some years ago a prospectus was issued, announcing as in preparation, “The Maudeleyne Grace, including the Hymnus Eucharisticus, with the music by Dr. Rogers, as sung every year on May Morning, on the Tower of Magdalene College, Oxford, in Latin and English. With an Historical Introduction by William Henry Black.” Can any of your readers inform me whether this interesting work ever made its appearance? I am inclined to think it did not, and have an indistinct recollection that the original MS. of the “Grace” was lost through the carelessness of the lithographer who was entrusted with it for the purpose of making a fac-simile.
Whilst making some researches in the library of Christ Church, Oxford, I accidentally met with what appears to me to be the first draft of the “Grace” in question. It commences “Te Deum Patrem colimus,” and has the following note:—“This Hymn is sung every day in Magdalen College Hall, Oxon, dinner and supper throughout the year for the after grace, by the chaplains, clarkes, and choristers there. Composed by Benjamin Rogers, Doctor of Musique of the University of Oxon, 1685.” It is entered in a folio volume, with this note on the fly-leaf,—“Ben Rogers, his book, Aug. 18. 1673, and presented me by Mr. John Playford, Stationer in the Temple, London.” The Latin Grace, Te Deum Patrem colimus, is popularly supposed to be the Hymnus Eucharisticus written by Dr. Nathaniel Ingelo, and sung at the civic feast at Guildhall on the 5th July, 1660, while the king and the other royal personages were at dinner; but this is a mistake, for the words of Ingelo’s hymn, very different from the Magdalen hymn, still exist, and are to be found in Wood’s collection in the Ashmolean Museum. The music, too, of the Te Deum is in a grand religious style, and not of a festal character.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
* * * * *
“ESQUIRE” AND “GENTLEMAN.”
The custom of addressing almost every man above the rank of an artizan or a huckster as “Esquire,” seems now to be settled as a matter of ordinary politeness and courtesy; whilst the degradation of the gentleman into the “Gent,” has caused this term, as the title of a social class, to have fallen into total disuse. Originally, they were terms that had their respective meanings as much as Duke, Knight, Yeoman, or Hind; but now they simply mean courtesy or contempt towards {438} the person to whom they are applied,—with the exception, indeed, of certain combinations of circumstances under which the word “Gentleman” is applied as a character.
It would be an interesting occupation to trace the mutations of meaning which these words have undergone, and the circumstances which gave rise to the successive applications of them. The subject has been often touched upon more or less slightly; but I know of no work in which it is discussed fully, though, indeed, there may be such. Of course, many of your readers are men whose pursuits have lain in other directions than social customs, social language, and social tastes; and, as one of them, I may be permitted to ask either where a full discussion can be found, or that some of your correspondents will furnish through your medium a clear and tolerably full exposition of the question. I believe it would be of general and public interest.
We naturally expect, that in official correspondence, the public boards, through their proper officers, would be very precise in assigning to every person his proper title, in the address of a letter. Yet nothing can be more negligent and capricious than the way in which this is done. I have held an appointment in the public service, which is generally considered to carry with it the title of “Esquire,” (but really whether it do or not, I am unable to tell), and have at different times had a good deal of official correspondence, sometimes mere routine, and sometimes involving topics of a critical character. From my own experience I am led to think that no definite rule exists, and that the temper of the moment will dictate the style of address. For instance, in matter-of-course business, or in any correspondence that was agreeable to official persons, I was addressed as “Esq.;” but if the correspondence took a turn that was unpleasant, it was “Mr. ——;” and on one occasion I received a note addressed with my name denuded of all title whatever, even of the office I filled. The note, I hardly need say, was “full of fire and fury;” and yet, in less than half an hour, I received a second (the writer having discovered his mistake), opening with “My dear Sir,” and superscribed with the “Esquire” at full length. This, I think, proves the capriciousness of men in public stations in their assignment of titles of this kind.
I certainly expected to find, however, in the “List of the Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries,” due attention paid to this circumstance. The one just circulated was therefore referred to, and it would seem to be as full of anomalies as a “Court Guide” or a “Royal Blue Book.” We have, indeed, the Knights and Baronets duly titled, and the Peers, lay and spiritual, sufficiently distinguished both by capitals and mode of insertion. All those who have no other title (as D.D. or F.R.S.) recognised by the Society, are courteously designated by the affix “Esq.” In this, it will be strange indeed if all be entitled to the appellation in its legitimate sense; or, in other words, if the principle of courtesy does not supersede, amongst the otherwise untitled mass of Fellows, the principle of social rank. To this in itself, as the distinction of “Gent” after a man’s name has become derogatory, there cannot be the least objection; for antiquarianism does not palliate rudeness or offensive language.
At the same time, the adoption of this principle should surely be uniform, and invidious distinctions should not be made. The title “Esq.,” should not be given to one man, and left out in designating another whose social position is precisely the same. For instance, we find in this list “——, M.D.,” and “——, Esq., M.D.,” employed to designate two different Doctors in Medicine. We find “——, F.R.S.” and “——, Esq., F.R.S.” to designate two Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries, who are also Fellows of the Royal. We see one or two D.D.’s deprived of their titles of “Rev.,” and, as if to make amends (in point of quantity at least), we have one Fellow with titles at each end of his name that seem incompatible with each other, viz., “Rev. ——, Esq.”
Anomalies like these can only be the result of sheer carelessness, or of the ignorance of some clerk employed to make out the list without adequate instructions given to him. It has, in my hearing, been held up as a specimen of invidious distinction to gratify some petty dislike; but this notion is simply absurd, and deserves no notice. At the same time, it betokens a carelessness that it is desirable to avoid.
As a mere question of dignity, it appears to me to savour too much of Clapham-Common or Hampstead-Heath grandeur, to add much to our respectability or worldly importance. It would, indeed, be more “dignified” to drop, in the lists, all use of “Esq.” under any circumstances; or, if this be objected to, to at least treat “M.A.,” “D.D.,” “F.R.S.” as higher titles, in which the “Esq.” may properly be merged, and thus leave the appellation to designate the absence of any higher literary or scientific title.
A good deal of this is irrelevant to the primary object of my letter; but certainly not altogether irrelevant to the dignity of the highest English representative body of archaeology, the Society of Antiquaries. I hope, at least, that this irrelevancy will give neither pain nor offence to any one, for nothing could be further from my wish or intention than such an effect. I have only wished to illustrate the necessity for an accurate description of what are really the original, subsequent, and present significations of the words “Esquire” and “Gentleman,” and to urge that either some definite rule should be adopted as to their use in official {439} and semi-official cases, or else that they should be discontinued altogether.
BROWN RAPPEE.
April 18.
* * * * *
FIVE QUERIES.
1. Lines by Sir John Suckling.—Is Sir John Suckling, or Owen Feltham, the real author of the poem whose first verse runs thus:
“When, dearest, I but think on thee,
Methinks all things that lovely be
Are present, and my soul delighted;
For beauties that from worth arise,
Are like the grace of deities,
Still present with us though unsighted.”
I find it in the twelfth edition of Feltham’s Works, 1709, p. 593., with the following title:
“This ensuing copy of
the late Printer hath been pleased to
honour, by mistaking it among
those of the most ingenious and
too early lost, Sir John Suckling.”
I find it also in the edition of Suckling’s Works published at Dublin, 1766. As I feel interested in all that relates to Suckling, I shall be glad to have the authorship of this short poem rightly assigned.
2. What is the origin and exact meaning of the phrase “Sleeveless errand”? It is mentioned as late even as the last century, by Swift, in his poem entitled Reasons for not building at Drapier’s Hill:
“Who send my mind as I believe,
less
Than others do on errands sleeveless.”
3. What is the origin and derivation of the word “Trianon,” the name of the two palaces, Le Grand and Le Petit, at Versailles? and why was it applied to them?
4. What is the correct blazon of the arms of Godin; with crest and motto? I have seen an imperfect drawing of the arms, Party per fess, a goblet transpierced with a dagger.
5. Whose is the line,
“With upward finger pointing to the sky.”
I have heard it generally referred to Goldsmith, but cannot find it.
HENRY KERSLEY.
Corpus Christi Hall, Maidstone, April 15. 1850.
* * * * *
QUERIES PROPOSED, NO. I.
The non-appearance of my name as a querist has been rather fortuitous, and it shall now be made evident that I am neither so rich in materials, nor so proud in spirit, as to decline such assistance as may be derived from the information and courtesy of other contributors to the “Notes and Queries.”
1. Did the following critical remarks on Shakspere, by Edward Phillips, appear verbatim in the Thesaurus of J. Buchlerus, 1669?
The Bodleian library has the London edition of 1636; and the British Museum that of 1652. Wood cites an edition of 1669. I transcribe from that of 1679.
“Hoc seculo [sc. temporibus Elizabetha reginae et Jacobi regis] floruerunt—Gulielmus Shacsperus, qui praeter opera dramatica, duo poematia Lucretiae stuprum a Tarquinio, et Amores Veneris in Adonidem, lyrica carmina nonnulla composuit; videtur fuisse, siquis alius, re vera poeta natus. Samuel Daniel non obseurus hujus aetatis poeta, etc....
Ex eis qui dramatice scripserunt, primas sibi vendicant Shacsperus, Jonsonus et Fletcherus, quorum hic facunda et polita quadam familiaritate sermonis, ille erudito judicio et usu veterum authorum, alter nativa quadam et poetica sublimitate ingenii excelluisse videntur. Ante hos in hoc genere poeseos apud nos eminuit nemo. Pauci quidem antea scripserunt, at parum foeliciter; hos autem tanquam duces itineris plurimi saltem aemulati sunt, inter quos praeter Sherleium, proximum a supra memorato triumviratu. Suclingium, Randolphium, Davenantium et Carturitium—enumerandi veniunt Ric. Bromeus, Tho. Heivodus,” etc.
2. What are the contents of a work entitled, [Old German script: Schaubune Englischer und Franssofischer Comaedianten], printed before 1671?
This work is recorded, but without a date, in the Historia literaria of Simon Paulli, which was printed at Strasbourg in 1671. A statement of its contents would be very acceptable to myself, and to other admirers of our early dramatic literature.
3. Who is the fortunate possessor of the Lives and characters of the English dramatick poets with the marginal marks of Garrick?
The copy in question was sold with the unreserved books of Garrick in 1823, No. 1269. It contained this note:
“All the plays marked
thus * in this catalogue, I bought of
Dodsley. Those marked
thus O, I have added to the collection
since. D.G.”
Each of the above queries would have admitted further remarks, but I wish to set an example of obedience to the recent editorial injunction on brevity.
BOLTON CORNEY.
* * * * *
MINOR QUERIES.
Elizabeth and Isabel.—“A.C.” inquires whether these names are not varied forms of the same name, and if so, what is the common origin of the two? Camden, in his Remains, has—
“ELIZABETH, Heb. Peace of the Lord, or quiet rest of the Lord, the which England has found verified in the most honoured name of our late sovereign. Mantuan, playing with it maketh it Eliza-bella; and of Isabel he says ’The same with Elizabeth, if the Spaniards do not mistake, which always translate Elizabeth into Isabel, and the French into Isabeau.’” {440}
Howard, Earl of Surrey.—Dr. Percy is said, in Watt’s Bibliotheca Britannica, to have prepared an edition of the poems of the Earl of Surrey, the whole impression of which was consumed in the fire which took place in Mr. Nicholl’s premises in 1808. Can any of your readers say whether Dr. Percy had a copy of the sheets, and whether he had prefixed thereto any life of the Earl of Surrey? or did Sir Egerton Brydges ever print any account of Surrey amongst his numerous issues from the Lee or other presses?
G.
Bulls called William.—In looking into the notes in my Provincial Glossary, I find that bulls are in Somersetshire invariably called William. Is this peculiar to that county?
C.W.B.
Bawn.—Mutual.—In vol. iii. p. 506. of Hallam’s Constitutional History of England, there occurs the following passage in reference to the colonisation of Ulster in 1612, after Tyrone’s rebellion:
“Those who received 2000 acres were bound within four years to build a castle and bawn, or strong court-yard; the second class within two years to build a stone or brick house, with a bawn; the third class a bawn only.”
What was the bawn, which was equally indispensable to the grantee of 2000, 1500, or 1000 acres? Richardson variously describes the term as almost any kind of dwelling, or “an enclosure of walls to keep cattle from being stolen at night;” in fact, a court-yard. This, however, conveys a very unsatisfactory idea, unless I am justified in supposing that a court-yard was insisted upon, even when a house could not be built, as insuring a future residential settlement, and thereby warding off the evils of absenteeism.
At page 514. of the same volume, I read,—
“Wentworth had so balanced the protestant and recusant parties, employed so skilfully the resources of fair promises and intimidation, that he procured six subsidies to be granted before a prorogation, without any mutual concession from the crown.”
Will Dr. Kennedy, or any other strict verbal critic, sanction this use of the word “mutual?”
ALFRED GATTY.
April 6. 1850.
[It is obvious, from the following lines from Swift’s poem, The Grand Question debated whether Hamilton’s Bawn should be turned into a Barrack or Malt-house, 1729, that a Bawn was there used to signify a building, and not an inclosure:—
“This Hamilton’s
bawn, while it sticks in my hand,
I lose by the
house what I get by the land;
But how to dispose
of it to the best bidder,
For a barrack
or malt-house, we now must consider.”
And in a foot-note on Hamilton’s
bawn, in the original
edition, it is described as
“a large old house, two miles from
Sir Arthur Acheson’s
seat.”]
Versicle and Response.—What is the meaning of the following versicle and its response, which occur in both Morning and Evening Prayer?
“Give peace in our time, O Lord,
Because there is none other that fighteth
for us
but only thou, O God!”
Surely the “because” &c. is a non sequitur!
ALFRED GATTY.
April 6. 1850.
[In Palmer’s Origines Liturgice, vol. i. p. 241. (2d edit.), we find the following note on the response, “Quia non est alius,” &c.:—“Brev. Eboracens. fol. 264.; Brev. Sarisb. fol. 85.” Bishop Lloyd remarks on this verse and response as follows:—“I do not know what Burnet means by stating that this response was made in the year 1549, on the occasion of political occurrences, for this answer is found in all the foreign breviaries, in the Salisbury primer, and in the primer of Hen. VIII. See Burnet’s Hist. Ref. p. ii. b. 1. anno 1549.”]
Yeoman.—This word, the origin of which Dr. Johnson says is much doubted, in the general acceptation of it meaning signifies a small farmer; though several authorities quoted by Johnson tend to show it also signifies a certain description of servants, and that it is applied also to soldiers, as Yeoman of the Guard. It is not, however, confined to soldiers, for we hear of Yeoman of the Chamber; Yeoman of the Robes; Yeoman of the Pantry; Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod.
I should be glad if any of your readers can give an explanation of the word as used in the latter instances.
P.R.A.
Pusan.—Iklynton Collar.—Among the royal orders issued on the occasion of the marriage of Henry VI., contained in the fifth volume of Rymer’s Faedera, p. 142., occurs the following:—
“We wol and charge you, that ye deliver unto oure trusty and well-beloved Squier, John Merston, keeper of our Jewell, a Pusan of golde, called Iklynton colar, garnished with iv Rubies, &c., &c.”
What is the meaning and derivation of this word Pusan, and why called Iklynton collar?
E.V.
Who was Lord Karinthon, murdered 1665?—Can any of your readers inform me who was the English lord, murdered in France by his Flemish valet, in March, 1665, as stated in the following passage of Gui Patin’s Letters, tom. iii. p. 519., ed. 1846:—
“Hier, ce 18 Mars, je vis sur le pont Notre Dame, mene a la Greve, un certain mechant malheureux coquin, natif de Flandre, qui avoit poignarde son maitre dans Pontoise; c’etoit un seigneur anglois, doint il vouloit avoir la bourse.... Ce seigneur anglois qui fut poignarde dans son lit avoit nom de Milord Karinthon.... Dans le testament de ce bon mais malheureux maitre il se trouve qui’il donnoit a ce pendard de valet 20,000 livres.”
C. {441}
Christian Captives.—Where can any information be obtained respecting the Christian captives taken by the Barbary pirates—the subscriptions raised for their relief, by briefs, &c., and what became of the funds?
R.W.B.
Ancient Churchyard Customs.—In an article in The Ecclesiologist on churchyards and churchyard crosses,—but not having the volume by me, I am unable to give an exact reference,—it is stated,
“In them (churchyards) prayers are not now commonly poured forth to God nor are doles distributed to His poor; the epitsphium is no longer delivered from the steps of the churchyard cross, nor does the solemn lamprophoria symbolize the life of the deceased.”
I shall be much obliged for a fuller account of these ancient customs, more particularly of the last two, and for notes of any allusions to them in old books. I may say the same with reference to the following extract from the Handbook of English Ecclesiology, p. 190.:
“Under this head may
also be mentioned the Funa’l or
Deadlight, which was
lighted in some churchyards at night.”
STOKE.
"Rotten Row” and “Stockwell” Street.—“R.R.,” of Glasgow, inquires the etymology of these names, which, occurring both in Scotland and in England, and at a time when the countries were almost always at war, would scarcely have been copied by the one from the other. He rejects, as of course, the etymology of the former from its passing by the buildings which were old and “rotten;” neither does he favour the belief that the original word was “Routine” Row, so called from the processions of the church passing in that direction.
* * * * *
EARLY STATISTICS.—CHART, KENT.
(No. 21. p. 329.)
The Registrar-General, in his Eighth Report, enters at length into the causes which have brought about the variations in the number of marriages, and consequently, as I need scarcely say, of births. In comparing the marriage returns since 1754, which are given in the report, with the history of events since that period, he certainly makes it clear, to use his own words, that “The marriage returns in England point out periods of prosperity little less distinctly than the funds measure the hopes and fears of the money-market.” (p. 26. 8vo. edit.)
And that
“The great fluctuations in the marriages of England are the results of peace after war, abundance after dearth, high wages after want of employment, speculation after languid enterprise, confidence after distrust, national triumphs after national disasters.” (p. 27.)
During the civil wars, the diminishing influences indicated in the reverse of this statement were at work with an intensity unequalled in any other period of our modern history, so that there can be no doubt
Staindrop, Durham.—“1644. From this time to 1646, through want of a Minister, and carelessness of ye Cleark, during ye wars, much of ye Register is lost, only here and there a name registered.”
“1652. June 14.
Mem. From this time till August there was noe
Minister, soe that ye children
were carried to other parishes to
be baptized.”
St. Helen’s Aukland, Durham, A.D. 1633.—“Mr. John Vaux, our minister, was suspended.... Mr. Robert Cowper, of Durham, served in his place, and left out divers christenings unrecorded, and regestered others disorderly.”
Gainford, Durham.—“Courteous Reader, this is to let thee understand that many children were left unrecorded or redgestered, but the reason and cause was this; some would and some would not, being of a fickle condition, as the time was then; this being their end and aim, to save a groate from the poor Clarke, so they would rather have them unredgestered—but now ... it is their design to have them redgestered.”
Lowestoft, Suffolk, 1644 ... “For some time following there was in this Town neither Minister nor Clarke, but the inhabitants were inforced to procure now one and then another to baptize their children, by which means there was no Register kept, only those few hereafter mentioned weare by myself baptized in those intervalls when I enjoyed my freedom.”
Hexham, Northumberland, c. 1655.—“Note y’t Mr. Will. Lister, Minister of S’t. John Lees in those distracted times, did both marry and baptize all that made ther application to him, for w’ch he was sometimes severely threatened by y’e souldiers, and had once a cockt pistoll held to his breest, &c., so y’t its no wond’r y’t y’e {442} Registers for these times are so imperfect, and besides, they are extremely confused.”
In the Preface to the Enumeration Abstract of the Census of 1841, pp. 34-37., your correspondent will find information and statistics relative to the estimated population of England and Wales, 1570-1750, compiled from the parish registers, and—
“calculated on the supposition, that the registered baptisms, burials, and marriages, on an average of three years, in 1570, 1600, 1630, 1670, 1700, and 1750, bore the same proportion to the actual population as in the year 1801.”
From the Table, pp. 36, 37, it appears, that whilst the population (estimated) in the thirty years 1600-1630 increased upwards of 16 percent., in the forty years 1630-1670 it increased a mere trifle over 3 per cent. only. In no fewer than twenty English counties, the population, estimated as before, was absolutely less in 1670 than in 1630; and in Kent, the county in which Chart is situate, the decrease is striking: population of Kent in 1630, 189,212; in 1670, 167,398; in 1700, 157,833; in 1750, 181,267; and in 1801, the enumerated population was 307,624.
Your correspondent might also find it useful to consult Sir William Petty’s Political Arithmetic, the various documents compiled at the different censuses, and the Reports of the Registrar-General.
ARUN.
* * * * *
PARISH REGISTER STATISTICS.—CHART, KENT.
Your correspondent “E.R.J.H.” (No. 21. p. 330.) inquires whether any general statistical returns, compiled from our early parish registers, have been published. It must be a matter of regret to all who are acquainted with the value of these national records—which for extent and antiquity are unequalled in any other country—that this question cannot be answered affirmatively. By the exertions of the late Mr. Rickman, their importance, in a statistical point of view, has been shown, but only to a very limited extent. In 1801, being entrusted with the duty of collecting and arranging the returns of the first actual enumeration of the population, he obtained from the clergyman of each parish a statement of the number of baptisms and burials recorded in the register book in every tenth year from 1700, and of marriages in every consecutive year from 1754, when the Marriage Act of George II. took effect. The results were published with the census returns of 1801; but, instead of each parish being separately shown, only the totals of the hundreds and similar county divisions, and of a few principal towns, were given. In subsequent “Parish Register Abstracts” down to that of 1841, the same meagre information has been afforded by an adherence to this generalising system.
In 1836, with a view of forming an estimate of the probable population for England and Wales at certain periods anterior to 1801, Mr. Rickman, acting upon the result of inquiries previously made respecting the condition and earliest date of the register books in every parish, applied to the clergy for returns of the number of baptisms, burials, and marriages registered in three years at six irregular periods, viz. A.D. 1570, 1600, 1630, 1670, 1700, and 1750. The clergy, with their accustomed readiness to aid in any useful investigation, responded very
During the Civil Wars and the Protectorate, few parochial registers were kept with any degree of accuracy; indeed, in many parishes they are altogether defective at that period, owing to the temporary expulsion of the clergy from their benefices. It is not improbable, therefore, that the remarkable decrease of baptismal entries in the register book of Chart next Sutton Valence may have arisen partly from imperfect registration, as well as from the other causes suggested. But the trifling increase observable after the Restoration undoubtedly points to the conclusion arrived at by your corespondent—that a great diminution had taken place in the population of the parish: and Mr. Rickman’s estimate above referred to gives a result for the entire county, which, if it does not fully establish the supposed decrease, shows at least that the registers of other Kentish parishes were affected in a similar manner. The following is the estimated population of Kent, deduced from the baptisms, burials, and marriages, by Mr. Rickman:—
A.D. Population 1570 136,710 1600 161,236 1630 189,212 1670 167,398 1700 157,833 1750 181,267
The population enumerated in 1801 was 307,624, which had increased to 548,337 in 1841.
Applying the average of England to the parish {443} of Chart, the 120 baptisms in the years 1640-1659, if representing the actual births, would indicate a population of about 200 during that period; while the 246 entries in the previous twenty years would give upwards of 400 inhabitants. According to the several censuses, Chart contained 381 persons in 1801, and 424, 500, 610, 604, respectively, at the subsequent decades.
While on the subject of parish registers, I may add, that a scheme has been propounded by the Rev. E. Wyatt Edgell, in a paper read before the Statistical Society, for transcribing and printing in a convenient form the whole of the extant parish register books of England and Wales, thus concentrating those valuable records, and preserving, before it is too late, their contents from the effects of time and accidental injuries. The want of funds to defray the cost of copying and printing is the one great difficulty of the plan.
JAMES T. HAMMACK.
April 2.
* * * * *
EARLY STATISTICS.—PARISH REGISTERS.
In reference to the observations of your correspondent “E.R.J.H.,” he will find, upon closer examination, that no comparison approaching to accuracy can be made between the population of any place at different periods of the seventeenth century, founded upon the entries in parish registers of baptisms, births, or marriages. In 1653 the ecclesiastical registers ceased to contain much of the information they had before given. In that year was passed, “An Act how Marriages shall be solemnised and registered, and also for a Register of Births and Burials;” which first introduced registers of births and not of baptisms. The Act treated marriage as a civil contract, to be solemnised before a justice of the peace; and it directed that, for the entry of all marriages, and “of all births of children, and burial of all sorts of people, within every parish,” the rated inhabitants should choose “an honest and able person to be called ‘The Parish Register,’” sworn before and approved by a neighbouring magistrate. Until after the Restoration, this Act was found practicable; and in many parishes these books (distinct from the clergyman’s register of baptisms, &c., celebrated in the church) continue to be fairly preserved. In such parishes, and in no others, a correct comparative estimate of the population may be formed.
The value of the parochial registers for statistical and historical purposes cannot be overrated; and yet their great loss in very recent times is beyond all doubt. It was given in evidence before the committee on registration, that out of seventy or eighty parishes for which Bridges made collections a century since, thirteen of the old registers have been lost, and three accidentally burnt. On a comparison of the dates of the Sussex registers, seen by Sir W. Burrell between 1770 and 1780, and of those returned as the earliest in the population returns of 1831, the old registers, in no less than twenty-nine parishes, had in the interval disappeared; whilst, during the same half-century, nineteen old registers had found their way back to the proper repository. On searching the MSS. in Skelton Castle, in Cleveland, a few years since, the first register of that parish was discovered, and has been restored.
These changes show how great the danger is to which the old registers are exposed; and in many instances it saves time and trouble to search the Bishop’s transcripts before searching the original registers.
WM. DURRANT COOPER.
81. Guildford Street, March 25. 1850.
* * * * *
BYRON’S LARA.
I cannot agree with your able corespondent “C.B.” (No. 20. p. 324., and No. 17. p. 262.), that Ezzelin in “Lara” is Seyd of the “Corsair.” My interpretation of both tales is as follows:—Lara and Ezzelin both lived in youth where they afterwards met, viz. in a midland county of England—time about the fourteenth century. Ezzelin was a kinsman, or, more probably, a lover of Medora, whom Lara induced to fly with him, and who shared his corsair life. When Lara had returned home, the midnight scene in the gallery arose from some Frankenstein creation of his own bad conscience; a “horrible shadow,” an “unreal mockery.” Kaled was Gulnare disguised as a page; and when Lara met Ezzelin at Otho’s house, Ezzelin’s indignation arose from his recollection of Medora’s abduction. Otho favours Ezzelin in this quarrel; and, when Kaled looks down upon the “sudden strife,” and becomes deeply moved, her agitation was from seeing in Ezzelin the champion of Medora, her own rival in the affections of Lara. Ezzelin is murdered, probably by the contrivance of Kaled, who had before shown that she could lend a hand in such an affair. After this, Lara collects a band, like what David gathered to himself in the cave of Adullam, and what follows suits the mediaeval period of English history.
I will briefly quote in support of this view. Otho shows that Lara and Ezzelin had both sprung from one spot, when he says,
“I pledge myself for thee, as not
unknown,
Though like Count Lara now return’d
alone
From other lands, almost a stranger
grown.”
The 9th section of canto 1. is a description of Byron himself at Newstead (the two poems are merely vehicles of their authors’ own feelings), with the celebrated skull, since made into a drinking cup, beside him. The succeeding section is a picture {444} of “our own dear lake.” That Medora was a gentlewoman, and not from the slave-market, is shown by Conrad’s appreciation of her in the 12th section of the first canto of the “Corsair;” and why not formerly beloved by Ezzelin, and thus alluded to by him in the quarrel scene?
“And deem’st thou me unknown
too? Gaze again!
At least thy memory was not given
in vain,
Oh! never canst thou cancel half
her debt,
Eternity forbids thee to forget.”
The accents, muttered in a foreign tongue by Lara, on recovering from his swoon in the gallery,—
“And
meant to meet an ear
That hears him not—alas! that
cannot hear”—
were addressed, I think, to Medora; and I am only the more disposed to this opinion by their effect on Kaled. (See canto 1. sec. 14.)
I quite agree with “EMDEE” in esteeming “Lara” a magnificent poem.
A.G.
Ecclesfield, March 18, 1850.
* * * * *
REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.
Dr. Whichcot and Lord Shaftesbury.—Your correspondent “C.” (No. 24. p. 382.) will find in the Alumni Etonenses, by Harwood, printed at Birmingham by Pearson, and by Caddell, jun., and Davies, Strand, 1797, at p. 46. in the account of Whichcot, under the head of “Provosts of King’s College,” the following passage:—“A volume of his sermons was published in 1628, from copies taken in short-hand as they were delivered from the pulpit, with a preface by Lord Shaftesbury.” In a MS. account of the provosts it is stated, “the first volume of his discourses, published by Lord Shaftesbury, 1698;” and that one of his brothers was alive in 1749, at Finchley, aged 96.
A letter from Lord Lauderdale to Dr. Whichcot is in MS. Harl. 7045. p. 473. I take the figures from a printed, but not published, account of some of the proceedings relating to Dr. Whichcot’s deprivation of his provostship at the Restoration, in which Lord Lauderdale says, “For I took an opportunity, in the presence of my Lord Chamberlain, your Chancellor, to acquaint his Majesty with those excellent endowments with which God hath blesst you, and which render you so worthie of the place you enjoy, (which the King heard very graciously); afterwards he spoke with my Lord Chamberlain about your concerns, and he and I are both of opinion there is no fear as to your concerns.” Was Shaftesbury ever Chancellor of Cambridge? or who was the Lord Chamberlain who at that time was Chancellor of the university? I have no means of referring to any University History as to these points.
COLL. REGAL. SOCIUS.
Black Doll at Old Store Shops.—I asked you some time since the origin of the Black Doll at Old Store Shops; but you did not insert my Query, which curiously enough has since been alluded to by Punch, as a mystery only known to, or capable of being interpreted by, the editor of “Notes and Queries.”
A.C.
[We are obliged to our correspondent and also to our witty contemporary for this testimony to our omniscience, and show our sense of their kindness by giving them two explanations. The first is, the story which has been told of its originating with a person who kept a house for the sale of toys and rags in Norton Falgate some century since, to whom an old woman brought a large bundle of rags for sale, with a desire that it might remain unopened until she could call again to see it weighed. Several weeks having elapsed without her re-appearance, the ragman opened the bundle, and finding in it a black doll neatly dressed, with a pair of gold ear-rings, hung it over his door, for the purpose of its being owned by the woman who had left it. The plan succeeded, and the woman, who had by means of the black doll recovered her bundle of rags, presented it to the dealer; and the story becoming known, the black doll was adopted as the favourite sign of this class of shopkeepers. Such is the romance of the black doll; the reality, we believe, will bePage 34
found in the fact, that cast-off clothes having been formerly purchased by dealers in large quantities, for the purpose of being resold to merchants, to be exchanged by them in traffic with the uncivilised tribes, who, it is known, will barter any thing for articles of finery,—a black doll, gaily dressed out, was adopted as the sign of such dealers in old apparel.]
Journal of Sir William Beeston.—In reply to the inquiry of “C.” (No. 25. p. 400), I can state that a journal of Sir William Beeston is now preserved in the British Museum (MS. Add. 12,424.), and was presented to the national collection in 1842, by Charles Edward Long, Esq. It is a folio volume, entirely autograph, and extends from Dec. 10, 1671, when Beeston was in command of the Assistance frigate in the West Indies, to July 21, 1673; then from July 6 to September 6, 1680, in a voyage from Port Royal to London; and from December 19, 1692, to March 9, 1692-3, in returning from Portsmouth to Jamaica; and, lastly, from April 25 to June 28, 1702, in coming home from Jamaica to England. By a note written by Mr. Long on the fly-leaf of the volume, it appears that Sir William Beeston was baptized in Dec. 2, 1636, at Titchfield, co. Hants, and was the second son of William Beeston, of Posbrooke, the same parish, by Elizabeth, daughter of Arthur Bromfield. (See Visit. C. 19. Coll. Arm.) His elder brother, Henry, was Master of Winchester, and Warden of New College; and his daughter and heir Jane married, first, Sir Thomas Modyford, Bart., and, secondly, Charles Long, to whom she was a second wife. To this may be added, that Sir William received the honour of knighthood at Kensington, October 30, 1692, and was Governor of Jamaica from 1693 till 1700. In the Add. MS. {445} 12,430. is contained a narrative, by Sir William Beeston, of the descent by the French on Jamaica, in June, 1694; as also the copy of a Journal kept by Col. William Beeston from his first coming to Jamaica, 1655-1680.
M.
Shrew (No. 24. p. 381.).—I know not whether it will at all help the inquiry of “W.R.F.” to remind him that the local Dorsetshire name of the shrew-mouse is “shocrop” or “shrocrop.” The latter is the word given in Mr. Barnes’s excellent Glossary, but I have just applied for its name to two labourers, and their pronunciation of it is clearly the former.
I should be glad to hear any conjecture as to the final syllable. The only folk-lore connected with it in this part of the country seems to be that long ago reported by Pennant and others, viz. “Cats will kill, but not eat it.”
C.W.B.
Trunck Breeches.—“X.Y.Z.” (No. 24. p. 384) will also find the following in Dryden’s Translation of Perseus:—
“There on the walls by Polynotu’s
hand,
The conquered Medians in trunk-breeches
stand.”
Certainly a very free translation. See the original, Sat. 3. Trunck is from the Latin truncus, cut short, maimed, imperfect. In the preface to Johnson’s Dictionary we have the following:—
“The examples are too often injudicious truncated.”
Vide also Shaw, Museum Liverianum, or rather examples given in Richardson’s Dictionary. Shaw, in speaking of the feathers of certain birds, says,
“They appear as if cut
off transversely towards their ends with
scissors. This is a mode
of termination which in the language of
natural history is called
truncated.”
The word trunck-hose is often met with.
WREDJID KOOEZ.
Queen’s Messengers.—“J.U.G.G.,” who inquires about Queen’s messengers (No. 12. p. 186.), will, I think, find some such information as he wants in a parliamentary paper about King’s messengers, printed by the House of Commons in 1845 or 1846, on the motion of Mr. Warburton. Something, I think, also occurs on the subject in the Report of the Commons’ Committee of 1844 on the Opening of Letters in the Post-office. I am unable to refer to either of these documents at present.
Dissenting Ministers (No. 24. p. 383.).—The verses representing the distinctive characteristics of many ministers, by allegorical resemblance to flowers, were written by the lady whose paternal name is given by your correspondent. She married the Rev. Joseph Brooksbank. I think it quite improbable that those verses were ever published. It seems that two of the three names mentioned in your description of this “nosegay” are erroneous. The first is indisputable, RICHARD WINTER, a man of distinguished excellence, who died in 1799. “Hugh Washington” is certainly a mistake for HUGH WORTHINGTON; but for “James Jouyce” I can offer no conjecture.
J.P.S.
Ballad of “The Wars in France" (No. 20. p. 318.).—Your correspondent “NEMO” will find two versions of the ballad commencing,
“As our king lay musing on his bed,”
in appendices 20 and 21 to Sir Harris Nicolas’s History of the Battle of Agincourt, 2nd edit. They are not, I believe, in the first edition. I have a copy of the ballad myself, which I took down a few years ago, together with the quaint air to which it is sung, from the lips of an old miner in Derbyshire. My copy does not differ very much from the first of those given by Sir H. Nicolas.
C.W.G.
["J.W.” (Norwich), and “A.R.” (Kenilworth), have each kindly sent us a copy of the ballad. “F.M.” informs us that it exists as a broadside, printed and sold in Aldermary Church-yard, Bow Lane, London, under the title of “King Henry V., his Conquest of France, in Revenge for the Affront offered him by the French King, in sending him (instead of the tribute due) a ton of tennis balls.” And, lastly, the “Rev. J.R. WREFORD” has called our attention to the fact that it is printed in the collection of Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England,Page 36
edited by Mr. Dixon for the Percy Society in 1846.
Mr. Dixon’s version was taken down from the singing of an eccentric character, known as the “Skipton Minstrel,” and who used to sing it to the tune of “The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood.”]
Monody on the Death of Sir John Moore (No. 20. p. 320.).—This Query has brought us a number of communications from “A.G.,” “J.R.W.,” “G.W.B.,” “R.S.,” and “The Rev. L. COOPER,” who writes as follows:—
“The undoubted author is the late Rev. Charles Wolfe, a young Irishman, curate of Donoughmore, diocese of Armagh, who died 1823, in the 32nd year of his age. His Life and Remains were edited by the Archdeacon of Clogher; and a fifth edition of the vol., which is an 8vo., was published in 1832 by Hamilton, Adams, and Co., Paternoster Row. At the 25th page of the Memoir there is the narration of an interesting discussion between Lord Byron, Shelley, and others, as to the most perfect ode that had ever been produced. Shelley contended for Coleridge’s on Switzerland; others named Campbell’s Hohenlinden and Lord Byron’s Invocation in Manfred. But Lord Byron left the dinner-table before the cloth was removed, and returned with a magazine, from which he read this monody, which just then appeared anonymously. After he had read it, he repeated the third stanza, and pronounced it perfect, and especially the lines:— {446}
“’But
he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With
his martial cloak around him.’
“‘I should have
taken the whole,’ said Shelley, ’for a
rough
sketch of Campbell’s.’
“‘No,’ replied
Lord Byron, ’Campbell would have claimed it,
had
it been his.’
“The Memoir contains the fullest details on the subject of the authorship, Mr. Wolfe’s claim to which was also fully established by the Rev. Dr. Miller, late Fellow of Trinity, Dublin, and author of Lectures on the Philosophy of Modern History.”
[With regard to the French translation, professing to be a monody on Lally Tollendal, and to be found in the Appendix to his Memoirs, it was only a clever hoax from the ready pen of Father Prout, and first appears in Bentley’s Miscellany. No greater proof of the inconvenience of facetiae of this peculiar nature can be required than the circumstance, that the fiction, after a time, gets mistaken for a fact: and, as we learn in the present case, the translation has been quoted in a French newspaper as if it was really what it pretends to be.]
* * * * *
IRON RAILINGS ROUND ST. PAUL’S.
As the removal of the iron railing which surrounds St. Paul’s Churchyard is now said to be in contemplation, P.C.S.S. imagines that it may not be unacceptable to the readers of “NOTES AND QUERIES,” if he transcribes the following account of it from Hasted’s Kent, vol. ii. p. 382, which is to be found in his description of the parish of Lamberhurst:—
“It was called Gloucester Furnace in honour of the Duke of Gloucester, Queen Anne’s son, who, in the year 1698, visited it from Tunbridge Wells. The iron rails round St. Paul’s Churchyard, in London, were cast at this furnace. They compose the most magnificent balustrade, perhaps, in the universe, being of the height of five feet six inches, in which there are, at intervals, seven iron gates of beautiful workmanship, which, together with the rails, weigh two hundred tons and eighty-one pounds; the whole of which cost 6d. per pound, and with other charges, amounted to the sum of 11,202_l._ 0_s._ 6_d._”
P.C.S.S.
* * * * *
NOTES ON BOOKS, CATALOGUES, SALES, ETC.
If there was any ground, and we are inclined to believe there was, for the objection urged by the judicious few against that interesting series of illustrations of English history, Lodge’s Illustrious Portraits, namely, that in engraving the portraits selected, truth had often times been sacrificed to effect; so that one had a better picture, though a less faithful copy,—such an objection cannot be urged against a work to which our attention has just been directed, Harding’s Historical Portraits. In this endeavour to bring before us the men of past time, each “in his habit as he lived,” the scrupulous accuracy with which Mr. Harding copies an old portrait has been well seconded by the engravers, so that this work is unrivalled for the fidelity with which it exhibits, as by a Daguerrotype, copies in little of some very curious portraits of old-world worthies. The collection is limited in extent; but, as it contains plates of individuals of whom no other engraving exists, will be a treasure to illustrators of Clarendon, Granger, &c. Among the most interesting subjects are Henry VIII. and Charles V., from the remarkable picture formerly at Strawberry Hill; Sir Robert Dudley, son of Elizabeth’s favourite; Lord Russel of Thornhaugh, from the picture at Woburn; Speaker Lenthall; and the remarkable portrait of Henry Carey Viscount Falkland, dressed in white, painted by Van Somer, which suggested to Horace Walpole his Castle of Otranto.
Messrs. Sotheby and Co. will sell on Thursday next, a small but superb collection of drawings by modern artists; and on the following Monday will commence a six days’ sale of the third portion of the important stock of prints of Messrs. Smith; comprising some of the works of the most eminent engravers of the continental and English schools, including a matchless collection of the works of the Master of Fontainebleau, engraver’s proofs of book plates, and a few fine drawings.
We have received the following Catalogues:—J. Peteram’s (94. High Holborn) Catalogue, Part CXI., No. 5. for 1850 of Old and New Books; and J. Miller’s (43. Chandos Street) Catalogue No. 5. for 1850 of Books Old and New.
* * * * *
WANTED TO PURCHASE.
(In continuation of Lists in former Nos.)
ARNOT’S PHYSICS.—The gentleman who has a copy of this to dispose of, is requested to send his address.
JOLDERVY’S COLLECTION OF ENGLISH EPITAPHS, or any other.
* * * * *
NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.
Although we have this week again enlarged NOTES AND QUERIES from 16 to 24 pages, in fulfilment of our promise to do so when the number and extent of our communications called for it, we have been compelled to omit many Notes, Queries, and Replies of great interest.
Our attention has been called by more than one of our earliest contributors to the inconvenience of the single initial, which they had originally adopted, being assumed by subsequent correspondents, who probably had no idea that the A., B., or C., by which they thought to distinguish their communications, was already in use. Will our friends avoid this in future by prefixing another letter or two to their favourite A., B., or C.
Errata..—No. 25. p. 398. col. 2. line 44., for “L.D.” read “L.R.”; No 26. p. 416. col. 2. line 52., for “Beattie” read “Bentley”; and the Latin Epigram, p. 422., should commence “Longe” instead of “Longi,” and be subscribed “T.D.” instead of “W. (1).”
* * * * * {447}
NEW WORKS.
I. SOUTHEY’S LIFE and CORRESPONDENCE. Edited
by his Son. Vol. IV. with
Portrait of Miss Tyler, and Landscape. Post 8vo.
10s. 6d.
II. ESSAYS SELECTED from CONTRIBUTIONS to the
EDINBURGH REVIEW. By HENRY
ROGERS. 2 vols. 8vo. 24s.
III. A HISTORY of the ROMANS under the EMPIRE.
By the Rev. CHARLES
MERIVALE, B.D. Vols. I. and II. 8vo. 28s.
IV. CRITICAL HISTORY of the LANGUAGE and LITERATURE
of ANCIENT GREECE.
By Colonel WILLIAM MURE, M.P., of Caldwell. 3 vols.
8vo. 36s.
V. Col. CHESNEY’S EXPEDITION to SURVEY
the EUPHRATES and TIGRIS. With
Plates and Woodcuts. Vols. I. and II. royal
8vo. Map, 63s.—Atlas of
Charts, &c., 31s. 6d.
VI. Mr. S. LAING’S NOTES of a TRAVELLER,
2nd Series:—On the SOCIAL and
POLITICAL STATE of the EUROPEAN PEOPLE in 1848 and
1849. 8vo. 14s.
VII. Mr. W. C. TOWNSEND’S COLLECTION of MODERN STATE TRIALS. Revised and illustrated with Essays and Notes. 2 vols. 8vo. 30s.
VIII. BANFIELD and WELD’S STATISTICAL COMPANION for 1850. Corrected and extended to the Present Time. Fcp. 8vo. 5s.
IX. PRACTICAL HORSEMANSHIP. By HARRY HIEOVER.
With 2 Plates—“Going like
Workmen,” and “Going like Muffs.”
Fcap. 8vo. 5s.
X. Mr. C. F. CLIFFE’S BOOK of NORTH WALES: a Guide for Tourists. With large Map and Illustrations. Fcap. 8vo. 5s.
XI. The MABINOGION. With Translations and Notes, by Lady CHARLOTTE GUEST. 3 vols. royal 8vo. with Facsimiles and Woodcuts, 3l.; calf, 3l. 12s.; or in 7 Parts, 2l. 16s. sd.
XII. JAMES MONTGOMERY’S POETICAL WORKS. New Edition, complete In One Volume, with Portrait and Vignette. Square crown 8vo., 10s. 6d.; morocco, 21s.
XIII. ALETHEIA; or, the Doom of Mythology: with other Poems. By WILLIAM CHARLES KENT. Fcap. 8vo. 7s. 6d.
XIV. The EARLY CONFLICTS of CHRISTIANITY. By the Rev. Dr. W.I. KIP, M.A. Author of “The Christmas Holydays in Rome.” Fcp. 8vo. 5s.
XV. A VOLUME OF SERMONS. By the Rev. JOSEPH SORTAIN, A.B., Minister of North-street Chapel, Brighton. 8vo. 12s.
XVI. LOUDON’S ENCYCLOPAEDIA of GARDENING. New Edition (1850), corrected and improved by Mrs. LOUDON, with 1000 Woodcuts. 8vo. 50s.
Also, part I. 5s. To be completed in 10 Monthly parts, 5s. each.
XVII. Dr. REECES’S MEDICAL GUIDE. New Edition (1850), with Additions, revised and corrected by the Author’s Son. 8vo. 12s.
* * * * *
NEARLY READY.
XVIII. Mr. A.K. JOHNSTON’S NEW DICTIONARY
of DESCRIPTIVE and PHYSICAL
GEOGRAPHY, forming a complete General Gazetteer. 8vo.
(In May.)
XIX. GOD and MAN. By the Rev. ROBERT MONTGOMERY,
M.A., Author of “The
Christian Life,” &c. 8vo.
XX. LETTERS on HAPPINESS. By the Authoress
of “Letters to my Unknown
Friends,” &c Fcap. 8vo.
XXI. HEALTH, DISEASE, and REMEDY FAMILIARLY and PRACTICALLY CONSIDERED in RELATION to the BLOOD. By Dr. GEORGE MOORE, Author of “The Power of the Soul over the Body,” &c. Post 8vo.
London: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN and LONGMANS.
* * * * *
NEW BOOKS.
I. A HISTORY of POTTERY and PORCELAIN, in the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. By JOSEPH MARRYAT, Esq. Coloured Plates and Woodcuts. 8vo. (Just ready.)
II. LIFE of ROBERT PLUMER WARD, Esq. With Selections from his Political and Literary Correspondence, Diaries, and Unpublished Remains. By the Hon. EDMUND PHIPPS. Portrait. 2 vols. 8vo. (Next week.)
III. HANDBOOK of LONDON, Past and Present. By PETER CUNNINGHAM, F.S.A. A New Edition, thoroughly revised, with an INDEX OF NAMES. One Volume. Post 8vo. 16s.
IV. LIVES of VICE-ADMIRAL SIR C.V. PENROSE, K.C.B., and CAPT. JAMES TREVENEN. By their Nephew, Rev. JOHN PENROSE, M.A. Portraits. 8vo. 10s. 6d.
V. NINEVEH and its REMAINS; being a Narrative of Researches and Discoveries amidst the Ruins of Assyria. With an Account of the Chaldeau Christians of Kurdistan; the Yezidis, or Devil-worshippers, and an Inquiry into the Manners and Arts of the Ancient Assyrians. By AUSTEN H. LAYARD, D.C.L. FOURTH EDITION. With 100 Plates and Woodcuts. 2 vols. 8vo. 36s.
VI. LIVES of the CHIEF JUSTICES of ENGLAND. From the Norman Conquest to the Death of Lord Mansfield. By the Right Hon. LORD CHIEF JUSTICE CAMPBELL. 2 vols. 8vo., 30s.
VII. HORACE. A NEW EDITION, beautifully printed, and illustrated by Engravings of Coins, Gems, Bas-reliefs, Statues, &c., taken chiefly from the Antique. Edited, with a LIFE, BY Rev. H.H. MILMAN, Dean of St. Paul’s. With 300 Vignettes. Crown 8vo.
“Not a page can be opened where the eye does not light upon some antique gem. Mythology, history, art, manners, topography, have all their fitting representatives. It is the highest praise to say, that the designs throughout add to the pleasure with which Horace is read. Many of them carry us back to the very portraitures from which the old poets drew their inspirations.”—Classical Museum.
JOHN MURRAY: Albemarle Street.
* * * * *
NUMISMATICS.—Mr. C.R. TAYLOR respectfully invites the attention of Collectors and others to his extensive Stock of ANCIENT and MODERN COINS and MEDALS, which will be found to be generally fine in condition, at prices unusually moderate. This collection includes a magnificent specimen of the famous Decadrachm, or Medallion of Syracuse: the extremely rare Fifty-shilling piece and other Coins of Cromwell; many fine Proofs and Pattern Pieces of great rarity and interest; also, some choice Cabinets, Numismatic works, &c. orders, however small, punctually attended to. Articles forwarded to any part of the Country for inspection, and every information desired promptly furnished,. Coins, &c., bought, sold, or exchanged; and Commissions faithfully executed. Address, 2. Tavistock Street, Covent Garden.
* * * * * {448}
ENGLISH HISTORICAL PORTRAITS.
THIS SERIES OF PORTRAITS, ILLUSTRATIVE OF ENGLISH HISTORY, is engraved from highly-finished Drawings of ORIGINAL PICTURES, existing in various Galleries and Family Collections throughout the country, made with scrupulous accuracy by Mr. G.P. HARDING: the greater portion never having been previously engraved.
M.M. HOLLOWAY, having purchased the whole of the impressions and plates, now offers the Sets in a Folio Volume, bound in cloth, and including Biographical Letter-press to each subject, at the greatly reduced price of L2 12s. 6d., and L4 4s. 0d., for Proofs before Letters, of which but 18 copies remain.
The Collection consists of the following Portraits:—
KING HENRY VIII. and the EMPEROR CHARLES V., from the Original, formerly in the Strawberry Hill Gallery.
QUEEN KATHARINE OF ARRAGON, from a Miniature by HOLBEIN, in the possession of the Duke of Buccleugh.
SIR ANTHONY BROWNE, K.G., from the Original in the possession of Thomas Baylis, Esq., F.S.A.
ANTHONY BROWNE, VISCOUNT MONTAGUE, K.G., from the Collection of the Marquess of Exeter.
EDWARD VERE, EARL OF OXFORD, from the Original Picture in the Collection of the Duke of Portland.
SIR WILLIAM RUSSELL, BARON THORNHAUGH, LORD DEPUTY OF IRELAND, from the Original Picture in the Collection of the Duke of Bedford.
WILLIAM CAMDEN, CLARENCEUX KING OF ARMS, from the Picture in the possession of the Earl of Clarendon.
SIR ANTHONY SHIRLEY, AMBASSADOR FROM THE COURT OF PERSIA TO JAMES I., from the Original Miniature by Peter Oliver.
HENRY CAREY, LORD FALKLAND, LORD DEPUTY OF IRELAND, from the Original by VANSOMER, formerly in the Strawberry Hill Collection.
SIR ROBERT DUDLEY, SON OF THE EARL OF LEICESTER, from the Original Miniature by N. HILLIARD, in the possession of Lord De l’Isle and Dudley.
THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM LENTHALL, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, from a Miniature by J. COOPER, in the possession of R.S. Holford, Esq.
MARGARET CAVENDISH, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE, from the Original Picture in the Collection of F. Vernon Wentworth, Esq.
SIR THOMAS BROWNE, M.D., of NORWICH, from an Original Picture in the College of Physicians, London.
SIR CHARLES SCARBOROUGH, M.D., PHYSICIAN TO CHARLES II., JAMES II., and WILLIAM III., from the Original Picture in the Barber-Surgeons’ Hall.
FLORA MACDONALD, from the Original by A. RAMSAY, 1749, in the Picture Gallery, Oxford.
M.M. HOLLOWAY, 25. BEDFORD STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
* * * * *
Originally published at 6l. 6s., now re-issued by WASHBOURNE, New Bridge Street, in 12 vols. 8vo., at 3l. 3s.
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF VENERABLE BEDE,
Collected and edited by the Rev. Dr. GILES, comprising the COMMENTARY ON HOLY SCRIPTURE, ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY, HOMILIES, TRACTS, LETTERS, POEMS, LIFE, &c. &c., in Latin and English.—Also,
THE MISCELLANEOUS WORKS AND LIFE OF BEDE,
Published at 3l. 3s., may, for a short period, be had at 1l. 11s. 6d., in 6 vols. 8vo., cloth, lettered Contents.
It is intended to raise the price of these immediately on the disposal of a moiety of the small Stock now on hand.
“A new edition of Bede’s Works is now published by Dr. Giles, who has made a discovery amongst the MS. treasures which can scarcely fail of presenting the venerable Anglo-Saxon’s Homilies in a far more trustworthy form than the press has hitherto produced them.”—Soames’s Edition of Mosheim’s Note, vol. ii. p 142.
* * * * *
PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION,
With the Sanction of the Society of Arts, and the
Committee of the
Ancient and Mediaeval Exhibition,
A Description of the Works of Ancient and Mediaeval Art
COLLECTED AT THE SOCIETY OF ARTS IN 1850; WITH HISTORICAL
INTRODUCTIONS
ON THE VARIOUS ARTS, AND NOTICES OF THE ARTISTS.
By AUGUSTUS W. FRANKS, Honorary Secretary.
The Work will be handsomely printed in super-royal 8vo., and will be amply illustrated with Wood Engravings by P.H. DE LA MOTTE.
A LARGE PAPER EDITION will be printed if a sufficient
number of
Subscribers be obtained beforehand.
GEORGE BELL, 186. FLEET STREET.
* * * * *
Printed by THOMAS CLARK SHAW, of No. 8. New Street Square, at No. 5. New Street Square, in the Parish of St. Bride, in the City of London; and published by GEORGE BELL, of No. 186. Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Dunstan in the West, in the City of London, Publisher, at No. 186. Fleet Street aforesaid.—Saturday, May 4. 1850.