Notes and Queries Vol. IV., No. 100, Saturday, September 27. 1851

NOTES:—

QUERIES:—

REPLIES:—

MISCELLANEOUS:—

It is the privilege of age to be garrulous; and as we have this week reached our Hundredth Number—an age to which comparatively few Periodicals ever attain—we may be pardoned if, on thus completing our first Century of Inventions, we borrow a few words from the noble author of that well-known work, and beg you, Gentle Reader, "to cast your gracious eye over this summary collection and there to pick and choose:" and when you have done so, to admit that, thanks to the kind assistance of our friends and correspondents, we have not only (like Master Lupton) presented you with A Thousand Notable Things, but fulfilled the objects which we proposed in the publication of "NOTES AND QUERIES."

During the hundred weeks our paper has existed we have received from Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and France—from the United States—from India—from Australia—from the West Indies—from almost every one of our Colonies—letters expressive of the pleasure which the writers (many of them obviously scholars "ripe and good," though far removed from the busy world of letters), derive from the perusal of "Notes and Queries;" and it is surely a good work to put to students so situated,

And, on the other hand, our readers cannot but have noticed how many a pertinent Note, suggestive Query, and apt Reply have reached us from the same remote quarters.

Our columns have, however, not only thus administered to the intellectual enjoyment of our brethren abroad, but they have rendered good service to men of letters here at home: and We could set forth a goodly list of works of learning and research—from Mr. Cunningham's Handbook of London Past and Present, published when we had been but a few months in existence, down to Wyclyffe's Three Treatises on the Church, recently edited by the Rev. Dr. Todd—in which the utility of "NOTES AND QUERIES" is publicly recognised in terms which are highly gratifying to us.

We do not make these statements in any vainglorious spirit. We believe our success is due to the manner in which, thanks to the ready assistance of zealous and learned Friends and Correspondents, we have been enabled to supply a want which all literary men have felt more or less: and believing that the more we are known, and the wider our circulation, the greater will be our usefulness, and the better shall we be enabled to serve the cause we seek to promote. We feel we may fairly invite increased support for "NOTES AND QUERIES" on the grounds of what it has already accomplished.

And so, wishing ourselves many happy returns of this Centenary—and that you, Gentle Reader, may be spared to enjoy them, We bid you heartily Farewell!

What every one learns from the almanac, over and above Easter and its consequences for the current year, is that what happens this year is no index at all to what will happen next year. And even those who preserve their almanacs, and compare them in long series, never have been able, so far as I know, to lay hands upon any law connecting the Easters of different years, without having had recourse to the very complicated law on which the whole calendar is constructed.

Nevertheless there does exist a simple relation which reduces the uncertainty in the proportion of five to two; so that by means of one past almanac, we may name two Sundays, one or the other of which must be Easter Sunday. I have never seen this relation noticed, though I have read much (for these days) on the calendar: has any one of your readers ever met with it?

Let us make a cycle of the days on which Easter day can fall, so that when we come to the last (April 25), we begin again at the first (March 22). Thus, six days in advance of April 23, comes March 25; seven days behind March 24, comes April 21.

The following is the rule, after which come two cases of exception:—

Take any year which is not leap year, then, by passing over eleven years, we either leave Easter day unaltered, or throw it back a week; and it is nearly three to one that we have to leave it unaltered. Thus 1941 is not leap year, and eleven years more give 1952; both have April 13 for Easter day; but of 1943 and 1954, the first gives April 25, the second April 18.

Take any year which is leap year, then, by passing over eleven years, we either throw Easter one day forward, or six days back; and it is about three to two that it will be thrown forward. Thus 1852 (leap year) gives April 11, but 1863 gives April 5.

But when, in passing over eleven years, we pass over 1700, 1800, or any Gregorian omission of leap year, the common year takes the rule just described for leap year; while, if we begin with leap year, the passage over eleven years throws Easter two days forward, or five days back. There is another class of single exceptions, occurring at long intervals, which it is hardly worth while to examine. The only case which occurs between 1582 and 2000, is when the first year is 1970.

Any number of instances may be taken from my Book of Almanacs, and the general rule may be easily seen to belong also to the old style. Those who understand the construction of the calendar will very easily find the explanation of the whole.

A. DE MORGAN.

[By the great kindness of a correspondent who has placed at our disposal two hitherto inedited letters written by Swift, we are enabled to present the following literal copies of them to our readers.

They are obviously addressed to Frances Lady Worsley, only daughter of Thomas Lord Viscount Weymouth, and wife of Sir Robert Worsley, Baronet, and the mother of Lady Carteret. In Sir Walter Scott's edition of Swift's Works (vol. xvii. p. 302.) will be found one letter from the Dean of St. Patrick to Lady Worsely; and in vol. xviii. p. 26. is the letter from that lady to the Dean which accompanied the escritoire alluded to in the second of the two letters which we now print. This appears from Swift's endorsement of it—"Lady Worsley, with a present of a writing-box japanned by herself."]

"Madam,—It is now three years and a half since I had the Honor to see Your Ladyship, and I take it very ill that You have not finished my Box above a Month. But this is allways the way that You Ladyes treat your adorers in their absence. However upon Mrs. Barber's account I will pardon You, because she tells me it is the handsomest piece of work she ever saw; and because you have accepted the honor to be one of her protectors, and are determined to be one of her principall recommenders and encouragers. I am in some doubt whether envy had not a great share in your work, for you were I suppose informed that my Lady Carteret had made for me with her own hands the finest box in Ireland; upon which you grew jealous, and resolved to outdo her by making for me the finest box in England; for so Mrs. Barber assures me. In short, I am quite overloaden with favors from Your Ladyship and your Daughter; and what is worse, those loads will lye upon my Shoulders as long as I live. But I confess my self a little ungrateful, because I cannot deny Your Ladyship to have been the most constant of all my Goddesses, as I am the most constant of all your Worshippers. I hope the Carterets and the Worsleys are all happy and in health, and You are obliged to let Sir Robert Worsley know that I am his most humble Servant; but You need say nothing of my being so long his Rival. I hear my friend Harry is returning from the fiery Zone, I hope with more money than he knows what to do with; but whether his vagabond Spirit will ever fix is a question. I beg your Ladyship will prevail on Sr Robert Worsley to give me a Vicarage in the Isle of Wight; for I am weary of living at such a distance from You. It need not be above forty pounds a year.

"As to Mrs. Barber, I can assure you she is but one of four Poetesses in this town, and all Citizens' wives; but she has the vogue of being the best: yet one of them is a Scholar, and hath published a new edition of Tacitus, with a Latin dedication to My Lord Carteret.

"I require that Your Ladyship shall still preserve me some little corner in your memory; and do not think to put me off onely with a Box, which I can assure you will not contribute in the least to[1] ... my esteem and regard for Your Ladyship.... I have been always, and shall ever remain,

"Madam,

"Your Lady ...

"Obedient and ... humble ... JON N....

"Dublin, May 1re, 1731."

[1] A small portion of the original letter has been lost.

[As Lady Worsley's letter serves to explain several allusions in Swift's letters, and is obviously the one to which the second letter we print is the reply, we here insert it.]

"August 6th, 1732.

"Sir,—I flatter myself, that if you had received my last letter, you would have favoured me with an answer; therefore I take it for granted it is lost.

"I was so proud of your commands, and so fearful of being supplanted by my daughter, that I went to work immediately, that her box might not keep her in your remembrance, while there was nothing to put you in mind of an old friend and humble servant. But Mrs. Barber's long stay here (who promised me to convey it to you) has made me appear very negligent. I doubt not but you think me unworthy of the share (you once told me) I had in your heart. I am yet vain enough to think I deserve it better than all those flirting girls you coquet with. I will not yield (even) to dirty Patty, whom I was the most jealous of when you were last here. What if I am a great-grandmother, I can still distinguish your merit from all the rest of the world; but it is not consistent with your good-breeding to put one in mind of it, therefore I am determined not to use my interest with Sir Robert for a living in the Isle of Wight,[2] though nothing else could reconcile me to the place. But if I could make you Archbishop of Canterbury, I should forget my resentments, for the sake of the flock, who very much want a careful shepherd. Are we to have the honour of seeing you, or not? I have fresh hopes given me; but I dare not please myself too much with them, lest I should be again disappointed. If I had it as much in my power as my inclination to serve Mrs. Barber, she should not be kept thus long attending; but I hope her next voyage may prove more successful. She is just come in, and tells me you have sprained your foot, which will prevent your journey till next summer; but assure yourself the Bath is the only infallible cure for such an accident. If you have any regard remaining for me, you will shew it by taking my advice; if not, I will endeavour to forget you, if I can. But, till that doubt is cleared, I am as much as ever, the Dean's

"Obedient humble Servant,

"F. WORSLEY."

[2] Where her husband, Sir Robert Worsley, possessed the estate of Appuldercombe.

"Madam,—I will never tell, but I will always remember how many years have run out since I had first the honor and happiness to be known to Your Ladyship, which however I have a thousand times wished to have never happened, since it was followed by the misfortune of being banished from You for ever. I believe you are the onely Lady in England that for a thousand years past hath so long remembered a useless friend in absence, which is too great a load of favor for me and all my gratitude to support.

"I can faithfully assure your Ladyship that I never received from You more than one letter since I saw you last; and that I sent you a long answer. I often forget what I did yesterday, or what passed half an hour ago; and yet I can well remember a hundred particulars in Your Ladyship's company. This is the memory of those who grow old. I have no room left for new Ideas. I am offended with one passage in Your Ladyship's letter; but I will forgive You, because I do not believe the fact, and all my acquaintance here joyn with me in my unbelief. You make excuses for not sooner sending me the most agreeable present that ever was made, whereas it is agreed by all the curious and skilfull of both sexes among us, that such a piece of work could not be performed by the most dextrous pair of hands and finest eyes in Christendom, in less than a year and a half, at twelve hours a day. Yet Mrs. Barber, corrupted by the obligations she hath to you, would pretend that I over reckon six months, and six hours a day. Be that as it will, our best virtuosi are unanimous that the Invention exceeds, if possible, the work itself. But to all these praises I coldly answer, that although what they say be perfectly true, or indeed below the truth, yet if they had ever seen or conversed with Your Ladyship as I have done, they would have thought this escritoire a very poor performance from such hands, such eyes, and such an imagination. To speak my own thoughts, the work itself does not delight me more than the little cares you were pleased to descend to in contriving ways to have it conveyed so far without damage, whereof it received not the least from without; what there was came from within; for one of the little rings that lifts a drawer for wax, hath touched a part of one of the Pictures, and made a mark as large as the head of a small pin; but it touches onely an end of a cloud; and yet I have been carefull to twist a small thread of silk round that wicked ring, who promiseth to do so no more.

"Your Ladyship wrongs me in saying that I twitted you with being a great-grandmother. I was too prudent and carefull of my own credit to offer the least hint upon that head, while I was conscious that I might have been great-grandfather to you.

"I beg you, Madam, that there may be no quarrells of jealousy between Your Ladyship and My Lady Carteret: I set her at work by the authority I claymed over her as your daughter. The young woman showed her readynesse, and performed very well for a new beginner, and deserves encouragement. Besides, she filled the Chest with Tea, whereas you did not send me a single pen, a stick of wax, or a drop of Ink; for all which I must bear the charge out of my own pocket. And after all if Your Ladyship were not by I would say that My Lady Carteret's Box (as you disdainfully call it instead of a Tea-chest) is a most beautiful piece of work, and is oftener used than yours, because it is brought down for tea after dinner among Ladyes, whereas my escritoire never stirrs out of my closet, but when it is brought for a sight. Therefore I again desire there may be no family quarrells upon my account.

"As to Patty Blount, you wrong her very much. She was a neighbor's child, a good Catholick, an honest Girl, and a tolerable Courtier at Richmond. I deny she was dirty, but a little careless, and sometimes wore a ragged gown, when she and I took long walks. She saved her money in summer onely to be able to keep a Chair at London in winter: this is the worst you can say; and she might have a whole coat to her back if her good nature did not make her a fool to her mother and sanctifyed sister Teresa. And she was the onely Girl I coquetted in the whole half year that I lived with Mr. Pope in Twitenham, whatever evil tongues might have informed your Ladyship, in hopes to set you against me. And after this usage, if I accept the Archbishoprick of Canterbury from your Ladyship's hands, I think you ought to acknowledge it as a favor.

"Are you not weary, Madam? Have you patience to read all this? I am bringing back past times; I imagine myself talking with you as I used to do; but on a sudden I recollect where I am sitting, banished to a country of slaves and beggars; my blood soured, my spirits sunk, fighting with Beasts like St. Paul, not at Ephesus, but in Ireland.

"I am not of your opinion, that the flocks (in either Kingdom) want better Shepherds; for, as the French say, 'à tels brebis tel pasteur:' and God be thanked that I have no flock at all, so that I neither can corrupt nor be corrupted.

"I never saw any person so full of acknowledgment as Mrs. Barber is for Your Ladyship's continued favors to her, nor have I known any person of a more humble and gratefull spirit than her, or who knows better how to distinguish the Persons by whom she is favored. But I will not honor myself so far, or dishonor you so much, as to think I can add the least weight to your own naturall goodness and generosity.

"You must, as occasion serves, Present my humble respects to My Lord and Lady Carteret, and my Lady Dysert, and to Sr Robert Worsley.

"I am, and shall be ever, with the truest respect, esteem, and gratitude,

"Madam,

"Your Ladyship's most obedient

and most humble Servant,

"JONATH. SWIFT.

"Dublin, Nov. 4re, 1732.

"I know not where my old friend Harry Worsley is, but I am his most humble servant."

[On the back of the Letter is the following Postscript.]

"Madam,—I writ this Letter two months ago, and was to send it by Mrs. Barber; but she falling ill of the gout, and I deferring from day to day, expecting her to mend, I was at last out of patience. I have sent it among others by a private hand.

"I wish Your Ladyship and all your family many happy new years.

"Jan. 8e, 1732."

The accumulation of these treasures in London and Paris, leads to the belief that they will soon be decyphered. The following remarks are offered in promotion of so desirable an object. It must be premised that a printer, when requiring type from the type-founder for English books, does not order the same quantity for each letter; but, according to a scale adapted to the requirements of printing, he orders only so many of each letter as he is likely to use. That scale may be nearly represented in the following way: the letter z being the one least used in English, he will require

	Twice the number of letter z for letter x
	Twice also	—— j
	2½ times	—— q
	4   "	—— k
	6   "	—— v
	8   "	—— b
	8½   "	—— p
	8½   "	—— g
	10   "	—— y
	10   "	—— w
	15   "	—— m
	15   "	—— c
	17   "	—— u
	20½   "	—— l
	21      "	—— f
	22   "	—— d
	31    "	—— r
	32    "	—— h
	40    "	—— s
	40    "	—— n
	40    "	—— o
	41½    "	—— i
	42½   "	—— a
	45   "	—— t
	60    "	—— e

Suppose now a person to write English in cypher, using unknown characters for the well-known letters; it would be easy to decypher his writing, if of sufficient length to make the general rule acted on in the printing trade applicable. The decypherer, by selecting each distinct unknown character, and numbering them respectively, would find that the character oftenest occurring was e, the next oftenest t, and so on to the character having the lowest number, being least used, which would of course be z. Persons accustomed to decypher European correspondence for diplomatic purposes, will pronounce best on the practicability of this method for the decyphering of modern languages.

It is proposed then to apply the same method in the several languages supposed nearest of kin to that of the Nineveh inscriptions. Without entering into the reasons for that opinion, it may suffice, for the present purpose of illustration, to assume that the language of these inscriptions is Chaldee. To apply this method the numbers of each letter occurring in the Targum of Onkelos on Genesis, or the whole Pentateuch, should be taken. This enumeration has been made as regards the Hebrew (see Bagster's Family Bible, at the end of Deuteronomy). The readiest mode of effecting such enumeration would be to employ twenty-two persons knowing the Chaldee letters, and to assign a letter to each, calling out to them each letter as it occurred in Onkelos, whilst each person kept count of his own letter on a tally, and summing up the total gave in the result to the reader at the end of each chapter. This would be necessary with a view to ascertain what quantity of unknown inscription was required to evolve the rule, as the proposed method is clearly inapplicable when the quantity of matter to be decyphered is inconsiderable.

Having gone over sufficient ground to satisfy himself of the certainty of the rule, the decypherer would next count the numbers of each distinct character in all the cuneiform inscriptions accessible to him, making allowance for final letters, also for vowel points which may be attached to the character, as in Ethiopic. Assuming the rule in Chaldee to be the same as in Hebrew (it is in fact very different), he would find the character oftenest occurring in the Nineveh inscriptions to be ו, the next מ, the rest in the following order as to frequency of occurrence, ט , ס , ע , צ , [?] ד , פ , ז , ק , [?] ח , [?] ב , ש , [?] ד , [?] ב , ל , נ , א , ה , כ , ת , י , the first letter, ו, vau, occurring nearly seven times as often as ט, teth. The order of the letters would, in fact, vary much from this in Chaldee; the servile letters being different would alone much disturb the assumed order, actually ascertained nevertheless, as respects the Hebrew letters, in the five books of Moses. One word as to the order in which the several languages should be experimented on. The Chaldee would be the first, and next in succession, (2) the Syriac, (3) the Ethiopic, (4) the Arabic, (5) the Hebrew (die jungste Schwester),[3] and (6) the Pehlvi. The Indo-European languages would, in case of failure in the above, claim next attention: of these first the Zend, next (2) the Sanscrit, then (3) the Armenian, &c. &c.

[3] Adelung in Mithridates.

The resemblance of many of the characters on the Babylonian bricks, as well as on the stones of Nineveh, is very great to the characters known in our Bibles as Hebrew, but which are in fact not Hebrew but Chaldee, and were introduced by the Jews subsequent to their Babylonish captivity: the original Hebrew character was that still existing on coins, and nearly approximates in many respects to the Samaritan character. In some MSS. collated by Kennicott, he found the tetragrammaton "Jehovah" written in this ancient character, whilst the rest was Chaldee. The characteristic of the unknown letters is their resemblance to nails, to arrow-heads, and to wedges, from which, indeed, they are commonly designated. In the Chaldee (the Hebrew of our Bibles) this is also strikingly visible, notwithstanding the effect of time in wearing down the arridges: thus, in the oftenest recurring letter, ו, in the left leg of the ת, in ע, in צ, in ט, in נ, in מ, and especially in ש, the cuneiform type is most clearly traceable. One of the unknown characters,

seems almost identical with ש, allowance being made for the cursive form which written characters assume after centuries of use.

The horn is very conspicuous on the heads of men in the Nineveh (Asshur) sculptures, still, as a fashion, retained in Ethiopia (Cush, Abyssinia[4]), the origin of the Chaldeans, through Nimrod the Cushite (Gen. x. 8.), who probably derived their chief sustenance from the river Tigris (Hiddekel). Subsistence from (1) fishing, (2) hunting (e.g. Nimrod), (3) grazing, and (4) agriculture, seems to have succeeded in the order named. The repeated appearance of fish on the same sculptures, is in allusion, doubtless, to the name Nineveh (= fish + habitation); and their worship of the half-man, half-fish (the fabulous mermaid or merman), to which many of the Cetaceæ bear a close resemblance (the sea-horse for example), common with them and the Phœnicians (in the latter tongue named Dagon), is probably allusive, in their symbolic style, to the abstract notion of fecundity, so general an element of veneration in all the known mythological religions of ancient and modern times. See Nahum passim.

[4] Alexander the Great adopted the horns as Jupiter Ammon. See Vincent's Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, and frontispiece. The women of Lebanon have, it appears, retained the fashion. See Pict. Bible on Zech. i. 18.

From an attentive examination of these monuments in the British Museum, it appears highly probable that the writing is from left to right, as in the Ethiopic and Coptic, and in the Indo-European family generally, and is the reverse of all the other Shemitic tongues. This inference is derived from the fact that each line (with few exceptions) ranges with those above and below, as in a printed book, perpendicularly on the left, and breaks off on the right hand, as at the termination of a sentence, whilst some of the characters seem to stretch beyond the usual line of limit to the right, as if the sculptor had made the common error of not having quite space enough for a word not divisible.

The daguerreotype might be advantageously used in copying all the inscriptions yet discovered, of each of which three or four copies should be taken, to obviate mistakes and accidents. These being brought to England and carefully examined by the microscope, should be legibly engraved and stereotyped, and sent to all the linguists of Europe and elsewhere, and copies should also be deposited in all public libraries.

A comparison of the twelve cursive letters in Mr. Layard's Nineveh, vol. ii. p. 166., with Büttner's tables at the end of the first volume of Eichhorn's Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Leipzic, 1803), has led to an unexpected result. The particular table with which the comparison was instituted, is No. II. Class i. Phœnician, col. 2., headed "Palæstinæ in nummis;" any person therefore can verify it. This result is the following reading in the proper Chaldee character:—

The meaning is "Rabbi (Mr.) Kalbeno"—"And six"—"Judge." Perhaps Kalbeno should be Albeno, the initial letter being obscure. The above is put forth as a curious coincidence, not by any means with the certainty which a much more extended examination than a dozen letters can afford.

T. J. BUCKTON.

Lichfield.

[The circumstances which led to Alfieri's hasty retreat from England in 1771, and to Lord Ligonier's successful application for a divorce, are doubtless familiar to all who have read the very amusing Autobiography of the Italian poet. At all events we must presume so, as they are scarcely of a nature to be reproduced in "NOTES AND QUERIES." Twenty years after that even, when about to embark for the Continent with the Countess of Albany, Alfieri, as he was stepping on board the packet, saw again for the first time since 1771 Lady Ligonier, who was on the quay. They recognised each other, but that was all.

Alfieri, after describing this event in the 21st chapter of his Autobiography, proceeds:—"Si arrivo a Calais; di dove io molto colpito di quella vista così inespettata le volli scrivere per isfogo del cuore, e mandai la mia lettera al Banchiere de Douvres, che glie la rimettesse in proprie mani, e me ne trasmettesse poi la risposta a Bruxelles, dove sarei stato fra pochi giorni. La mia lettera, di cui mi spiace di non aver serbato copia era certamente piena d' affetti, non già d' amore, ma di una vera e profonda commozione di vederla ancora menare una vita errante e sì poco decorosa al suo stato e nascita, e di dolore che io ne sentiva tanto più pensando di esserne io stato ancorchè innocentement o la cagione o il pretesto."

The original letter of Alfieri (which we presume he would have inserted in his Autobiography, had he kept a copy of it, seeing that he has there printed Lady Ligonier's reply) is in the possession of a nobleman, a relative of the unfortunate lady; and we are enabled by the kindness of a correspondent to lay before our readers the following copy of it.

How far it bears out the writer's description of it we do not stop to ask; but certainly if the reader will take the trouble to turn to the conclusion of the chapter to which we have referred, we think he cannot fail to be struck with the difference between the terms in which the quondam lover writes of the lady, and those which he addresses to her in the following Epistle.[5]]

[5] In the only edition of the Vita (12mo. 1809) to which we have an opportunity of referring, this event is represented as occurring in 1791: it will be seen that it really took place in 1792. The lady's reply is there dated (tom. ii. p. 193.) "Dover, 25th April," instead of 24th August.

"Calais, Mercredi, 24 Aout, 1792.

"Madam,—Mon silence en vous revoyant après vingt années d'absence, a été le fruit de l'étonnement, et non pas de l'indifférence. C'est un sentiment qui m'est inconnu pour les personnes qui m'ont intéressé une fois, et pour vous surtout, dont j'ai à me reprocher toute ma vie d'avoir été la principale cause de toutes vos vicissitudes. Si j'avois eu le courage de m'approcher de vous, ma langue n'auroit certainement jamais retrouvé d'expression pour vous rendre tous les mouvemens tumultueux de mon âme et de mon cœur à cette apparition si subite et si momentanée. Je n'aurois trouvé que des larmes pour vous dire tout ce que je sentais; et en vous le traçant confusement sur ce papier, elles viennent encore m'interrompre. Ce n'est pourtant pas de l'amour qui me parle pour vous, mais c'est un mélange de sentimens si tendres, de souvenirs, de regrets, et d'inquiétude pour votre sort présent et future, que vous pouvez seule comprendre ou diviner. Je n'ai dans le cours de ces vingt ans jamais sçu au juste de vos nouvelles. Un mariage d'inclination que j'appris que vous aviez fait, devoit faire votre bonheur. J'apprends à présent que cela n'a pas rempli vos espérances: je m'en afflige pour vous. Au nom de Dieu, faites-moi seulement sçavoir si vous êtes heureuse au moins; c'est là l'objet de mes vœux les plus ardents. Je ne vous parle point de moi; je ne sçais pas si mon sort peut vous intéresser de même; je vous dirai seulement que l'âge ne me corrige point du défaut de trop sentir; que, malgré cela, je suis aussi heureux que je puis l'être, et que rien ne manqueroit à ma félicité, si je vous sçavois contente et heureuse. Mais au cas que cela ne soit pas, adoucissez-moi du moins l'amertume de cette nouvelle en me disant expressément que ce n'est point moi qui en ai été la cause, et que vous ne désespérez pas d'être encore heureuse et d'accord avec vous-même.

"Je finis, parce que j'aurois trop de choses à vous dire, et que ma lettre deviendroit plustôt celle d'un père, que celle d'un ancien amant. Mais la cause de mes paroles étant dans le sensibilité de mon cœur, je ne doute point que la sensibilité du vôtre, dont j'ai été convaincu, ne les reçoive avec indulgence, et avec un reste d'affection que je n'ai pas mérité de perdre de votre part. Si vous voulez donc me dire quelque chose de vous, et que ma lettre ne vous a point déplu, vous pouvez addresser votre réponse à Bruxelles, poste restante. Si vous ne jugez point à-propos de me répondre, faites seulement sçavoir à la personne qui vous fera remettre celle-ci, que vous l'avez reçue. Cela me consolera un peu de la douleur que m'a causé le rétracement subit de vos infortunes, que votre vue a toute réveillées dans mon âme. Adieu, donc, adieu.

"VITTORIO ALFIERI."

There is a famous passage in one of Lord Byron's most famous poems, which I am ashamed to confess that, though I am English born, and a constant reader of poetry, I cannot clearly understand. It seems to present no difficulties to anybody else, for it has been quoted a thousand times over and over, without any intimation that it is not as clear as light. It is in the sublime Address to the Ocean at the end of Canto IV. of Childe Harold, stanza 182.:

I have copied out to the end of the stanza; for in fact it is not easy to stop the pen when copying such stanzas as these: but my business is with the fourth and fifth lines only. In the fourth line, as you will observe, a semicolon is inserted after the word "since." I find it there in the first edition of the fourth canto of Childe Harold, published in 1818; it is there in the standard edition of Lord Byron's Works, issued by Murray about 1832; it is there in the splendid illustrated edition of Childe Harold published by Murray in 1841,—one of the finest books of the kind, if not the finest, that has yet done honour to the English press. This punctuation is found, therefore, in the earliest edition that was issued, and in those on which the most care has been bestowed. Yet what is the sense which the lines thus punctuated present?

They waters wasted many a tyrant? How, in the name of wonder? What sort of an occupation is this to assign to the majestic ocean? Does the poet mean to assert that anciently it wasted empires, and now it only wastes individuals. Absurd! Yet such is the only meaning, as far as I see, that can be assigned to the lines as they stand.

If the punctuation be altered, that is, if the semicolon after "since" be removed, and a comma placed at the end of the line, the whole becomes luminous:

That is (I beg pardon if I am unnecessarily explanatory), "The waters wasted these empires while they were free, and since they have been enslaved,"—an apt illustration of that indifference to human affairs which the poet is attributing to the ocean. The words, "the stranger, slave, or savage," which follow in the next line, are to be taken in connexion with the phrase "many a tyrant," and as an enumeration of the different sorts of tyrants to which these unhappy empires have been subjected.

This is my view of the sense of this famous passage: if any of your correspondents can point out a better, I can only say "candidus imperti," &c.

There was a very elaborate article on Lord Byron's Address to the Ocean in Blackwood's Magazine for October, 1848; but the writer, who dissects it almost line by line, has somehow, as is the wont of commentators, happened to pass over the difficulty which stands right in his way. To make up for this, however, he contrives to find new difficulties of his own. The following is a specimen:

"Recite," he says, "the stanza beginning,

and when the sonorous roll has subsided, try to understand it. You will find some difficulty, if we mistake not, in knowing who or what is the apostrophized subject. Unquestionably the world's ocean, and not the Mediterranean. The very last verse we were far in the Atlantic:

The shores of the world's ocean are empires. There are, or have been, the British empire, the German empire, the Russian empire, and the empire of the Great Mogul, the Chinese empire, the empire of Morocco, the four great empires of antiquity, the French empire, and some others. The poet does not intend names and things in this very strict way, however," &c.

What empires the poet did mean there is surely no difficulty in discovering, for those who wish to understand rather than to cavil. The very next line to that quoted is—

and it would require some hardihood to assert that these empires were not on the shores of the Mediterranean.

After all, the best commentators are translators: they are obliged to take the difficulties by the horns. I find, in a translation of Byron's Works published at Pforzheim in 1842, the lines thus rendered by Dr. Duttenhofer:

Duttenhofer has here taken the text as he found it, and has given it as much meaning as he could; but alas for those who are compelled to take their notion of the poetry of Childe Harold from his German, instead of the original English! There is one passage in which the reader finds this reflection driven hard upon him. Who is there that does not know Byron's stanza on the Dying Gladiator, when, speaking of

he adds, in lines which will be read till Homer and Virgil are forgotten:

There are two phrases in this stanza which seem to me to have never been surpassed: "young barbarians," and "all this gushed with his blood." How inimitable is "young barbarians!" The "curiosa felicitas" of Horace never carried him farther,—or perhaps so far. Herr Duttenhofer contents himself by saying—

"Afar on the shore of the Danube are his children, diverting themselves at play." Good heavens! is this translation, and German translation too, of which we have heard so much? Again:

"As his blood flows away, he thinks of this!" What could Herr Duttenhofer be thinking of?

To my surprise, on turning to the passage this moment in Byron's poems, I find it stands—

instead of "gush'd." It is so in the original edition, in the Works, and in the splendid edition of 1841, all three. Can there be any doubt of the superiority of "gush'd?" To me there seems none; and, singularly enough, it so happens that twice in conversation with two of the most distinguished writers of this age—one a prosaist and the other a poet, whose names I wish I were at liberty to mention—I have had occasion to quote this passage, and they both agreed with me in ascribing the highest degree of poetical excellence to the use of this very word. I wish I could believe myself the author of such an improvement; but I have certainly somewhere seen the line printed as I have given it; very possibly in Ebenezer Elliott the Corn-law Rhymer's Lectures on Poetry, in which I distinctly remember that he quoted the stanza.

T. W.

I send, with some explanation, a few Notes, taken from among others that I had marked in my copy of the edition of Bishop Jewel's Works, issued by the Oxford university press, 8 vols. 8vo. 1848.

Vol. ii. p. 352., l. 6., has, in Jewel's Reply to Harding's Answer, Article v., "Of Real Presence," seventh division, the following: "And therefore St. Paul saith, 'That I live now, I live in the flesh of the Son of God.'" To this the following is appended by the Oxford editor:

"[Galatians ii. 20 '... And the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me?' It cannot be denied that Jewel is here guilty, to say the least, of very unjustifiable carelessness.]"

The true state of the case is, that Bishop Jewel, in the original Reply to Harding, published in his lifetime, 1565, had given the text with entire correctness—"That I live now in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God:" but this, long after the Bishop's death, was misprinted in the editions of 1609 and 1611. The Oxford Jewel, moreover, of 1848 does not even profess to follow the editions of 1609 and 1611; and it is stated, vol. i. p. 130., that "this edition of the Reply in passing through the press has been collated with the original one of 1565." Still in this vital case, where the very question was, what Jewel himself had written, it is plain that the early edition of 1565 was never consulted. The roughness of the censure might surely in any case have been spared. It may be noted (vol. viii. p. 195. Oxf. edit.), that Jewel in 1568 wrote to Archbishop Parker: "I beseech your grace to give strait orders that the Latin Apology be not printed again in any case, before either your grace or some other have well perused it. I am afraid of printers: their tyranny is intolerable."

In vol. iv. p. 92., l. 1. et seq., in the Recapitulation of Jewel's Apology, the words of the original Latin, "quid de Spiritu sancto," marked in the following extract by Italics, are omitted in the Oxford edition "Exposuimus tibi universam rationem religionis nostræ, quid de Deo Patre, quid de ejus unico Filio Jesu Christo, quid de Spiritu sancto, quid de ecclesia, quid de sacramentis ... sentiamus." And in vol. vi. p. 523., l. 6., where Bishop Jewel gives that passage as rendered by Lady Bacon, namely: "We have declared at large unto you the very whole manner of our religion, what our opinion is of God the Father, and of his only Son Jesus Christ, of the Holy Ghost, of the church, of the sacrament," the following is appended:—

"[In the Latin Apology no words occur here relating to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.]"

A similar notice is also given in vol. viii. p. 385.—The fact is, that the words "quid de Spiritu sancto" do occur in the Latin Apology, 1562, which was the first edition of that work, and, so far as I am aware, the only edition printed in Jewel's life, from which too the Oxford reprint professes to be taken, and a copy of which any one can consult in the British Museum. Those words will also be found, within six or eight pages of the end, in the various later editions, as for example those of Vautrollier, London, 1581; Forster, Amberg, 1606; Boler, London, 1637; and Dring, London, 1692 (which are in my own possession); as also in the editions of Bowier, 1584; Chard, 1591; and Hatfield, London, 1599. The editions of Jewel's works printed in 1609 and 1611, edited by Fuller, under the sanction of Archbishop Bancroft, did not contain the Latin Apology. There is not a shadow of authority for the omission. All the modern reprints too, with which I am acquainted, only excepting a small edition printed at Cambridge, 1818, p. 140., give the words in question. It would seem that the Oxford editor must have used the very inaccurate reprint of 1818, for supplying copy for the printer;[6] and reference either to that first edition of 1562, which the reprint of 1848 professes to follow, or to any early edition, even in this case, where the context clearly requires the omitted words, was neglected.

[6] I have observed another error in the Cambridge edition, 1818, p. 115., last line but five, "domum manere" instead of the original and classical reading, "domi manere." That misprint of 1818 is followed by the Oxford edition of 1848, vol. iv. p. 77. l. 12., Apol. pars vi. cap. 8. div. 1.

I have said that the Oxford Jewel of 1848 professes to follow the Latin Apology of 1562, as a copy of the Latin title, with the date 1562, is prefixed to the Oxford edition, vol. iv. p. 1.: but the colophon appended to that reprint, p. 95., is strangely dated 1567. Was there any Latin edition of the Apology printed in that year? And, if so, why are different dates given for the title and colophon of the Oxford reprint? One can only conclude that the date 1567 is itself an error.

The following is printed in vol. viii. p. 290., l. 11., from Lady Bacon's translation of Jewel's Apology, 1564, part ii. ch. 7. div. 5.: "As touching the Bishop of Rome, for all his parasites state and ringly sing those words in his ears, 'To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven,'" &c. This case is different from those mentioned above, in the respect that the words "state and ringly" do occur in the printed edition of 1564; but it scarcely need be observed that the words "state & ringly" are a misprint for "flatteringly," when it is added that Jewel himself, in his revised edition of Lady Bacon's translation, in the Defence of the Apology, 1567 and 1570, reads: "for all that his flattering parasites sing these words in his ears." The original Latin is "quamvis illi suaviter cantilentur illa verba a parasitis suis."

There are also various errors and several omissions in the Oxford Jewel, in the verification of the numerous references. Among various notes (I would however add) which are inaccurate, and several that appear to me superfluous, there are some which are most useful, as, for example, that in vol. ii. p. 195., on the Gloss in the Canon Law, "Our Lord God the Pope."

COLET.

You have now completed the third volume of "NOTES AND QUERIES," and, to the no small surprise of all lovers of "jeux de mots," not a single specimen of the genus Anagram has found its way into your columns. To what are we to ascribe such a circumstance? The ancients were not ashamed to indulge in this intellectual pastime, and their anagrams, says Samuel Maunder, occasionally contained some happy allusion. The moderns have given unequivocal proofs of their fecundity in the same line, and the anagrammatic labours of the French nation alone would form several volumes. Indeed, to that nation belongs the honour of having introduced the anagram; and such is the estimation in which "the art" was held by them at one time, that their kings were provided with a salaried Anagrammatist, as ours are with a pensioned Laureate. How comes it then that a species of composition, once so popular, has found no representative among the many learned correspondents of your popular periodical? Has the anagram become altogether extinct, or is it only awaiting the advent of some competent genius to restore it to its proper rank in the republic of letters?

To me it is clear that the real cause of the prevailing dearth of anagrams is the great difficulty of producing good ones. Good anagrams are, to say the least of it, quite as scarce as good epic poems; for, if it be true that the utmost efforts of the human intellect have not given birth to more than six good epic poems, it is no less true that the utmost exertion of human ingenuity has not brought forth more than half a dozen good anagrams. Some critics are of opinion that we do possess six good epic poems. Now, where shall we find six good anagrams? If they exist, let them be exhibited in the pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES."

Indeed, it may be said that the anagram and the epic poem are the alpha and omega of literature. I am aware that by thus placing them in juxtaposition the contrast may have the effect of disparaging the anagram. The epic poem will naturally enough suggest the idea of the sublime, and the anagram, as naturally, that of the ridiculous: and then it will be said that between the two there is but a step. But let any gentleman make the experiment, and he will find that, instead of a step, the intermediate space will present to his astonished legs a surface co-extensive with the wide field of modern mediocrity. As for myself, I have ransacked in search of anagrams every hole and corner in ancient and modern literature, and have found very few samples worthy of the name. Reserving the ancients for future consideration, let us see what the moderns have to boast of in this respect.

And first, what says Isaac Disraeli? Anagrams being literary curiosities, one would naturally expect to meet with some respectable samples of them in that writer's Curiosities of Literature. Yet, what do we find? Among about a score which he quotes, there is not one that can be reckoned a tolerable anagram, while by far the greater number are no anagrams at all. An anagram is the change of a word or sentence into another word or sentences by an exact transposition of the letters. Where a single letter is either omitted or added, the anagram is incomplete. Of this description are the following, cited by Disraeli:—

I next turned to Samuel Maunder and his Scientific and Literary Treasury, little suspecting that, in a repertory bearing so ambitious a title, I should fail to discover the object of my search. True, he quotes the anagram made by Dr. Burney after the battle of the Nile:

And this, it must be confessed, is one of the best on record. The transposition is complete, and the allusion most apposite. But with that exception, what does this pretended Treasury disclose? A silly attempt to anagrammatise the name of our beloved queen; thus:

coupled with the admission that nothing can be more ridiculous or inapplicable, and that one-half of the anagrams in existence are not a whit less absurd. And yet, for this piece of absurdity, as well as for another of the same calibre, on—

Mr. Maunder claims the merit of originality. In other words (which are no other than his own), he claims merit for being "puerile," "ridiculous," and "absurd." Alas! for the credit of anagrams! Alas! for the reputation of Galileo, Newton, and other philosophers, who could make great discoveries, and resort to anagrams to announce them to the world, but who were incapable of discovering that an anagram was an absurdity!

Finding matters at so low an ebb in our own literature, and that English anagrams are little better than Irish bulls, I directed my attention to the literary records of the French, among whom the anagrammatic bump is very prominent. From its character, and the process of its formation, the anagram is peculiarly adapted to the genius of that people. It is light and airy: so are they. It is conceited and fantastical: so are they. It seems to be what it is not: so do they. Its very essence is transposition, involution; what one might call a sort of Jump-Jim-Crow-ism: and so is theirs. Hence the partiality which they have always shown for the anagram: their Rebuses, Almanacs, Annuaires, and collections of trifles are full of them. One-half of the disguises adopted by their anonymous writers are in the shape of anagrams, formed from their names; and one of them has gone the length of composing and publishing a poem of 1200 lines, every line of which contains an anagram. The name assumed by the author (Gabriel Antoine Joseph Hécart) is L'Anagramme d'Archet; and the book bears the title of Anagramméana, Poëme en VIII Chants, XCVe Edition, à Anagrammatopolis, l'An XIV de l'Ere anagrammatique. But it so happens that out of the 1200 anagrams not a single one is worth quoting. Quérard describes this poem, not inaptly, as a "débauche d'esprit;" and the author himself calls it "une ineptie;" to which I may add the opinion of Richelet, that "l'anagramme est une des plus grandes inepties de l'esprit humain: il faut être sot pour s'en amuser, et pis que sot pour en faire."

With such an appreciation of the value of anagrams, is it surprising that the French should have produced so few good ones? M. de Pixérécourt mentions two which he deems so unexceptionable, that they might induce us to overlook the general worthlessness of that kind of composition. They are as follows:

Now, the first is only true in France, where true liberty was never understood: and the second is true nowhere. Benoist is merely a vulgar name, and the adoption of it does not necessarily imply that the bearer is a "sot." M. De Pixérécourt might have quoted some better samples; the famous one, for instance, on the assassin of Henri III.:—

Or the following Latin anagrams on the names of two of his most distinguished countrymen:—

I was on the point of relinquishing in despair my search for anagrams, when an accidental circumstance put me in possession of one of the best specimens I have met with. Some time ago, in an idle mood, I took up a newspaper for the purpose of glancing at its contents, and as I was about to read, I discovered that I held the paper by the wrong end. Among the remarkable headings of news there was one which I was desirous of decyphering before I restored the paper to its proper position, and this happened to be the word "[inverted]DNALERI".

Instead, however, of making out the name from letters thus inverted, I found the anagram—

My first impression, on ascertaining this result, was one of horror at the treasonable "jeu de mots" I had so unwittingly perpetrated. Remembering, however, that Daniel O'Connell is dead, and that Irish loyalty has nothing to fear from Daniel the Second, I resolved to give the public the benefit of the discovery by sending it to you for "NOTES AND QUERIES."

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia, August, 1851.

—It is said by the inhabitants of the forest of Bere, East Hants, that new milk drank out of a cup made of the wood of the variegated holly is a cure for the hooping cough.

↗

—In the village of Drumcondra, about a mile and half on the northern side of Dublin, there is an old churchyard, remarkable as the burying-place of Gandon the architect, Grose the antiquary, and Thomas Furlong the translator of Carolan's Remains. On the borders of this churchyard there is a well of beautiful water, which is resorted to by the folks of the village afflicted with toothache, who, on their way across the graves pick up an old skull, which they carry with them to drink from, the doing of which they assert to be an infallible cure. Others merely resort to the place for the purpose of pulling a tooth from a skull, which they place on or over the hole or stump of the grown tooth, and they affirm that by keeping it there for a certain time the pain ceases altogether. There is a young woman at this instant in the employment of my mother, who has practised these two remedies, and who tells me she knows several others who have done the same.

C. HOEY.

Near Drumcondra, County Dublin.

"'They apply pigeons to draw the vapours from the head.'"—Dr. Donne's "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions," Works, vol. iii. p. 550. Lond. 1839.

Mr. Alford appends to the above-cited passage the following note:

"After a careful search in Pliny, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar Errors, I can find no mention of this strange remedy."

I am inclined to suspect that the application of pigeons was by no means an uncommon remedy in cases particularly of fever and delirium. To quote one passage from Evelyn:

"Neither the cupping nor the pidgeons, those last of remedyes, wrought any effect."—Life of Mr. Godolphin, p. 148. Lond. 1847.

Some of your correspondents may possibly be able to furnish additional information respecting this custom; for I am confident of having seen it alluded to, though at the moment I cannot remember by whom.

RT.

Warmington.

—In the Medical Times of 30th Sept. there is a case of a woman who fancied herself under its influence, in which the name (in a note) is derived from Obi, the town, district, or province in Africa where it was first practised; and there is appended to it the following description of one of the superstitions as given by a witness on a trial:

"Do you know the prisoner to be an Obeah man?—Ees, massa; shadow catcher true.

"What do you mean by shadow catcher?—Him hab coffin [a little coffin was here produced]; him set to catch dem shadow.

"What shadow do you mean?—When him set Obeah for somebody him catch dem shadow, and dem go dead."

The derivation of the name from a place is very different from the supposition so cleverly argued in the Third Vol. connecting it with Ob; but I cannot find in any gazetteer to which I at present have had access, any place in Africa of the name, or a similar name. I do not remember in the various descriptions I have read of the charms practised, that one of catching the shadow mentioned.

E. N. W.

I resume the chain of evidence where I left off in my last communication.

The account given by Pomerania's best and most trusty historian, Thomas Kanzow, Kantzow, Kamzow, Kansow, Kahnsow, Kantzouw, or Cantzow[7] (born 1505; died 25th September, 1542), of Stralsund, in his Pomerania (ed. Meden, p. 405., 1841, W. Dietze, Anclam.), of Wollin, only previously alluded to by your correspondents, is as follows:

"Of Wollin.—Wollin was before, as it appears from heretofore written histories, a powerful city; and one yet finds far about the town foundations and tokens that the city was once very great; but it has since been destroyed, and numbers now scarcely 300 to 400 citizens.[8] It has a parish church and nunnery (jungfrauenkloster), and a ducal government. It lies on a piece of marshland, on the Dievenow, called the Werder. The citizens are customed like the other Pomeranians, but they are considered somewhat awkwarder (unhandlicher = unhandier). It is a curious custom of this land and city that generally more inhuman things take place there than anywhere else; and that I may relate something, I will tell of a dreadful occurrence that lately happened there.[9] Of Wollyn there is nothing more to be written, except that the revered Master Doctor Joannes Buggenhagen was born in this city, who is no insignificant ornament both of the holy New Testament and of his fatherland."

[7] The publication of whose works in English I strongly recommend.

[8] In later times, however, the population has become greater.

[9] Not to be found.

On Vineta he writes (High German Chronicle, ed. Meden, lib. ii. pp. 32-35.):—

"Not long after this Schwenotto threw off Christianity, and set himself against his father Harald, king in Denmark, and drove him from the kingdom. So Harald fled to Wollyn, in Pomerania. There the Wends, notwithstanding that he was a Christian, and they still of the ancient faith, received him kindly, and, together with the other Wends and Pomeranians, fitted out ships and an armament, and brought him with force back into his kingdom, and fought the whole day with Schweno, so that it was uncertain who had or had not won there. Then the next day they arose and made a smiting,[10] and in the fray Harald was shot by a Dane, and perhaps by his son's command. Then brought the Wollyners him to their ships, and carried him away to their city that there they might doctor (artzten) him. But he died of the wound, and was buried there, after he had reigned about fifty years, about the thousandth year after the birth of Christ. So writeth Saxo. But Helmold writes, that he came to Vineta: these holp him into his kingdom again, and when he was shot in the skirmish, they brought him back to their town, where he died[11] and was buried. And that I myself believe; for though Wollyn was a mighty state at that time, still Vineta was much mightier; and it is therefore to be concluded that he fled to Vineta, rather than to Wollyn, and that Vineta was on that account afterwards destroyed: and as we are come to Vineta, we will say what Helmold writes thereof, which is this:—

"Vineta has been a powerful city, with a good harbour for the surrounding nations; and after so much has been told of the city which is totally (schyr = sheerly) incredible, I will relate this much. It is said to have been as great a city as any which Europe contained at that time, and it was promiscuously inhabited by Greeks, Slavonians, Wends, and other nations. The Saxons, also, upon condition of not openly practising Christianity, were permitted to inhabit with them; for all the citizens were idolaters down to the final destruction and fall of the city. Yet in customs, manners, and hospitality there is not a more worthy nation, or so worthy a one, to be found. The city was full of all sorts of merchandise (kaufwahr) from all countries, and had everything which was curious, luxurious (lustig = lustful), and necessary; and a king of Denmark destroyed them a great fleet of war. The ruins and recollection of the town remain even to this day, and the island on which it lay is flowed round by three streams, of which one is of a green colour, the other greyish, and the third dashes and rushes by reason of storm and wind. And so far Helmold, who wrote about 400 years ago.

"And it is true that the remains exist at the present day: for when one desires to go from Wolgast over the Pene, in the country of Usedom, and comes by a village called Damerow, which is by [about] two miles[12] from Wolgast, so sees one about a long quarter way into the sea (for the ocean has encroached upon the land so much since then), great stones and foundations. So have I with others rowed thither, and have carefully looked at it. But no brickwork is there now; for it is so many hundred years since the destruction of the city, that it is impossible that it can have remained so long in the stormy sea. Yet the great foundation-stones are there still, and lie in a row, as they are usually disposed under a house, one by the other; and in some places others upon them. Among these stones are some so great, in three or four places, that they reach ell high above the water; so that it is conjectured that their churches or assembly-houses stood there. But the other stones, as they still lie in the order in which they lay under the buildings (geben), show also manifestly how the streets went through the length and breadth (in die lenge und übers quer) of the city. And the fishermen of the place told us that still whole paving-stones of the streets lay there, and were covered with moss[13] (übermoset), so that they could not be seen; yet if one pricked therein with a sharp-pointed pole or lance, they were easily to be felt. And the stones lay somehow after that manner: and as we rowed backward and forward over the foundations, and remarked the fashion of the streets, saw we that the town was built lengthways from east to west. But the sea deepens the farther we go, so that we could not perceive the greatness of the city fully; but what we could see, made us think that it was very probably of about the size of Lübeck: for it was about a short quarter[14] long, and the breadth broader than the city Lübeck. By this one may guess what was the size of the part we could not see. And according to my way of thinking, when this town was destroyed, Wisbu in Gottland was restored."

[10] I have in the translation adopted the phrase of Holy Writ, "made a smiting."

[11] This shows that the MSS. of Helmold were corrupted at a very early period. I have seen one uncorrupted. A list of them would be a thing desirable.

[12] German, answering to about eight English.

[13] I have translated übermoset as above, though nothing at the bottom could be covered with moss. I suspect the true lection to be übermodert, as moder exists in the present German, answering to our word "mother."

[14] This expression, as well as a previous one, alludes to the distance. "Of a mile" is, in both cases, to be understood.

Wisby, en passant, may be described as a merchant town of great importance in the mediæval period, and whence we have derived our navigation laws. It has now about 4000 inhabitants, and has many ruined buildings and sculptured marble about it.

So far Kantzow in the High German Chronicle: in the Low German Chronicle (ed. Böhmer, Greifswald, 1832), I find nothing bearing on the subject.

Indistinct and wavering is Kantzow in his account, but thus much is to be gathered from it.

1. That the soi-disant Vineta lay east and west; Julin or Wollin lies north and south.

2. That the destruction of Wollin ensued on its aiding an enemy against Denmark.

3. That in the mind of Kantzow the two towns were not confounded, and that he had heard both legends, but had not sufficient critical sagacity to disentangle the mess.

The oldest MSS. of Helmold have not this error. I have myself, as previously stated, seen one uncorrupted. The closing words of Kantzow seem to make it necessary to search for the date of the rebuilding of Wisby, which I have not at present the means of doing, though I will take an early opportunity of settling this, oddly enough, contested point.

Von Raumer emphatically brands the legend of Vineta as a fable; as also my friend M. de Kaiserling. And I myself am forcibly reminded of an old Irish legend I read long ago somewhere or other, of the disappearance of a city in the Lake of Killarney, of which, my authority stated, the towers were occasionally to be perceived. Another legend, of which the scene was laid in Mexico, I recollect, was to the same effect; and in this I am confirmed by a friend, who has traveled much in that country. I must myself totally deny the existence of Vineta, except as the capital city of the Veneti, when I would place it in Rügen.

I may as well add that M. de Kaiserling dug up his coins in the north-western corner of Wollin, near the Rathhaus.

The Salmarks are in the neighbourhood of the town, the Greater one to the north, the Lesser to the south.

I will now close the paper, already too long, and hope for elucidations and remarks from abler pens.

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

September 25, 1851.

—The following inscription is on the tombstone of one Margaret Scott, who died in the town of Dalkeith, February 9, 1738, aged 125 years:—

I thought that the above instance of what might be termed "historical longevity" was worthy of a place in your pages, along with others proving how "traditions from remote periods may come through few hands."

BLOWEN.

—However doubtful may be the derivation of our English "Collar of Esses," there is a pretty explanation given of a similar device granted to a Spanish nobleman.

It is said that Gatierre de Cardenas was the first person who announced to the young Princess Isabella of Castile the approach of her future husband, Ferdinand of Aragon (after his romantic journey to Valladolid in 1469), exclaiming, "Esse es, esse es,"—"This is he!" He obtained permission to add to his escutcheon the letters SS. to commemorate this circumstance.

O. P. Q.

—Having seen in "NOTES AND QUERIES" a remark about Lord Edward Fitzgerald, I wish to add the following.

The body of Lord Edward Fitzgerald has never been removed by his relatives, but has lain in an outside vault or passage, under the parish church of St. Werburgh, Dublin, until very lately, when (I believe within the last year) Lady Campbell, widow of General Sir Guy Campbell, Bart., and daughter of Pamela, caused it to be placed in an oak coffin, the old one being greatly decayed. It is now removed into what is called the chancel vault.

L. M. M.

—Why it is that here in England—

is a mystery still unsolved by English antiquaries. For, even if the story that Queen Elizabeth was eating a goose on Michaelmas Day when she received the news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, rested on unquestionable authority, it would not explain the origin of the custom, since Brand has shown, by a reference to Blount's Jocular Tenures, that it existed as early as the tenth year of Edward IV. If we seek an illustration from the practice of our continental neighbours, we shall fail; or only learn that we have transferred to the Feast of St. Michael a practice which is observed abroad on that of St. Martin, the 11th November: indeed, St. Martin's Bird is a name by which the goose is known among many of the continental nations. In the Runic Calendar the 11th November is marked by a goose. In the old Bauern Practica (ed. 1567), Wintermonat or November boasts, in one of the Rhymes of the Month,—

And in the curious old Story Book of Peter Leu, reprinted by von der Hagen in his Narrenbuch, one of the adventures commences:

A learned German, however, Nork (Festkalender, s. 567.), sees in our Michaelmas Goose the last traces of the goose offered of old to Proserpina, the infernal goddess of death (on which account it is that the figure of this bird is so frequently seen on monumental remains); and also of the offerings (among which the goose figured) formerly made to Odin at this season, a pagan festival which on the introduction of Christianity was not abolished, but transferred to St. Michael.

WILLIAM J. THOMS.

—In a letter from Sir Thomas Heneage to Sir Christopher Hatton, dated 2nd May, 1585, given in Nicolas's Memoir of the Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton (p. 426.), is this passage:

"Her Highness thinketh your house will shortly be like a Gravesend barge, never without a knave, a priest, or a thief," &c.

"Her Highness" was Queen Elizabeth, and the purport of the letter was to convey "her Highness's pleasure" touching one Isaac Higgins, then in the custody of Sir Christopher Hatton.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge, Sept. 19. 1851.

—There are so very few consecutive and methodical readers left, that it is not surprising that Mr. Blackwell, the editor of Bohn's Mallet, should have adopted the groundless charge of one Magnusen against Olaus Wormius, who understood Ragnar's death-song much better than certain ironical dilettanti of Cockneyland. Charlemagne's secretary, Paul Warnefrid, the Lombard deacon of Aquileia, swears that, about 200 years after the event, King Ratchis had shown him the cup made out of Cunimund's skull, in which Queen Rosamund, his daughter, refused to drink, in the year 574.[15] (Paul. Diac. ii. 8.) Open the Acta Sanctorum for the 1st of May, and they will tell you that the monks of Triers had enchased in silver the skull of St. Theodulf, out of which they administered fever-drink to the sick. Moreover, when, in the year 1465, Leo von Rozmital came to Neuss, he saw a costly tomb wherein lay the blessed Saint Quirinus, and he drank out of his skull-cup. St. Sebastian's skull at Ebersberg, and St. Ernhart's at Ratisbonne, had also been converted into chalices.

[15] See Grotius's valuable Collection of Gothic and Lombard Historians.

I refer the reader to Jacob Grimm's Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, pp. 143. 146., for further details: he shows that to drink ale out of buigvîdum hausa, can only mean out of "hollow skulls," literally "vacuitas curva."

To prove the antiquity of the custom, Grimm alleges likewise a passage of the Vilkinasaga, in which Völundr, the smith, our Belenger,[16] or Will o' the Wisp, enchases in silver the amputated skulls of Nidads' two boys.

[16] Fœu Bélenger, in one of the dialects of the Low-Norman Isles.

GEORGE MÉTIVIER.

—Doubtless many of your readers have seen in the Exhibition a large equestrian figure of Elizabeth; it is in the N.W. gallery, in one of the large plate cases. Now the horse is described as pacing, which the explanation states was a step taught the horses belonging to the ladies of that period. Query, where a description of pacing, or rules for teaching horses to pace, amble, &c., may be found? for what appears so extraordinary in the figure is that the fore and hind legs of the same side of the horse are extended together, or simultaneously. I have in the Graphic Illustrator a picture of Elizabeth hawking (the figure in the Exhibition may have been copied from the original), where the horse is in the same attitude. I feel anxious to know if that unnatural gait is possible, or whether it is a part or the whole of the pacing step.

THOS. LAWRENCE.

Ashby de la Zouch.

—Is there any foundation for Pliny's account of the Indian ants, which were, according to Herodotus, "not so large as a dog, but bigger than a fox?"

A. C. W.

—What is the meaning of the following? (Herbert's Poems, "Charms and Knots," ver. 8.):—

H. T. G.

—Mention of this road, in the neighbourhood of Malmsbury, occurs in two charters of the Saxon kings Athelstan and Eadwig, Nos. 355. & 460. Cod. Dipl. Aevi. Sax. The road is said to be known in Wiltshire as King Athelstan's Way. Can any of your correspondents oblige me by pointing out its course, and the immediate purpose for which it was constructed? There is a King's-way Field (Cyngwey-ffeld) mentioned in the ancient terriers of Bampton, Oxon, and still known there.

B. W.

—I have heard of marriages solemnized within ruined churches in Ireland within the last twenty years. What is the origin of this custom; was it general, and is it still observed?

R. H.

—In an old Account Book of a Sussex county gentleman I find the following items:—

"1780. I paid for the inoculation of William and Polly Parker, £5 15s. 6d."

and again in 1784:

"Paid towards R. Stephen's inoculation, £1 11s. 0d."

from which it would appear that the process was a very expensive one in those days. I should feel obliged to any of your correspondents to give me some information on this point.

R. W. B.

—Can any of your readers explain the allusion contained in the following extract from Sir Thomas Browne?

"I was born in the eighth climate, but seem for to be framed and constellated unto all."—Religio Medici, ii. 1.

Will the notions of astrology throw any light upon it?

N. H.

—Who was the King of France that subjected the Chevalier Macaire to the ordeal by combat with this famous dog? In some of the authorities it is said to be Charles VI., and in others "Le Roi Jean," meaning, I presume, John II.

HENRY H. BREEN.

St. Lucia.

—Can any of your correspondents say if Sanford's Descensus has ever been published separately? It is spoken of in the 2nd vol. of Gale's Court of the Gentiles, and was published in the works of a bishop who survived him. A copy of that prelate's works is in the Bodleian Library, and contains the Descensus. What is the bishop's name?

ÆGROTUS.

—What acts of parliament since the reign of George I. affect parish registers?

On what authority were collections made in churches by brief; in what year was that mode of collection decreed; and when did it cease?

J. B. (A Subscriber.)

—I am a compositor, and have read with great interest the "Notes" on Caxton and Printing in your valuable publication. May I venture to put a Query which has often crossed my mind, especially when I went to see Mr. Maclise's great painting at the Royal Academy. What kind of press did Caxton and his successors use? Also, is anything known of the shape of their "sticks" and "chases?" Mr. Maclise seems to have taken a modern pattern for all of these, especially the two last.

EM QUAD.

—Horace Walpole speaks in many of his letters of the great benefit he had experienced from the use of bootikins in his attacks of gout. In a letter to George Montagu, Esq., dated July 31, 1767, he says:

"Except one day's gout, which I cured with the bootikins, I have been quite well since I saw you."

Eight years afterwards his expectations of cure from them were not so high. In a letter to the Rev. Mr. Cole, dated June 5, 1775, he remarks:

"I am perfectly well, and expect to be so for a year and a half. I desire no more of my bootikins than to curtail my fits."

Dr. E. J. Seymour (Thoughts on the Nature and Treatment of several severe Diseases of the Human Body, i. 107.: London, 1847), says that—

"The bootikins were simply a glove, with a partition for the thumb, but no separate ones for the fingers, like an infant's glove, made of oiled silk."

Can any of your readers shed light on this matter?

R. D.

Philadelphia.

—I have heard it confidently stated that printers have the privilege, if they are disposed to use it, to wear on all occasions a sword dangling at their sides. If it be so, whence does it arise? I have heard two explanations, one, bearing primâ facie evidence of incorrectness, a special grant as a mark of favour; the other, which is the only reasonable way of accounting for such a totally unsuitable privilege, that when the act passed forbidding arms to be commonly worn, all kinds and manner of people were mentioned by the name of their trades, businesses, &c., except printers, who were accidently omitted. How much of truth might there be in all this? What is the act alluded to?

TEE BEE.

—What authority is there for the accompanying statement respecting the death of Mr. Pitt?

"Among the anecdotes of statesmen few are more interesting than that which records the death of Pitt. The hand which had so long sustained the sceptre of this country found no hand to clasp it in death. By friends and by servants he was alike deserted; and a stranger wandering on from room to room of a deserted house, came at last by chance to a chamber untended but not unquiet, in which the great minister lay, alone and dead."—See Edinburgh Review for July, 1851, p. 78., on the Poems and Memoir of Hartley Coleridge.

NATHANIEL ELLISON.

—C. W. wishes to know if any of the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" can tell him the origin of the proverb, "A little bird told me."

C. W. has an idea that the origin is from the Koran, where is an account of all the birds being summoned before Solomon. The lapwing absents himself. Upon being questioned why he did not immediately obey, he says he has been at the court of the Queen of Sheba, who has resolved upon visiting Solomon. On the hint, Solomon prepares for the queen's reception. The lapwing sets off to Ethiopia, and tells the Queen that Solomon wishes to see her. The meeting, as we know, took place.

Not having the Koran, C. W. cannot refer to it to see if it is right or wrong.

—At page 105. of the volume of Bury Wills published by the Camden Society, is the will of William Place, priest, Master of the Hospital of St. John Evangelist without the south gate of Bury St. Edmunds, dated 21st July, 1504, whereby he willed that "Damp" William Carsey (elsewhere in the same will called Karsey), "Baroner" of the Monastery of Bury St. Edmunds, should assign two children to say De profundis at his grave for his soul every day from his burying day till his thirtieth day be past, and they to have each day for their labour one penny betwixt them. Mr. Tymms's notes to the above publication are copious and valuable, but he omits to explain the term "Baroner;" and the object of this Query is to ascertain if he, or any of your numerous correspondents, can do so. I conjecture that the Baroner was the master of the children (or song school), but I am not aware of any other instance of the use of the word as denoting a monastic officer.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge, Sept 19. 1851.

—1. Mr. Macaulay, in describing the entrance of William of Orange into Exeter, mentions that he was preceded, amongst others, by three hundred gentlemen of English birth. Can any of your correspondents inform me whether the names of these gentlemen are known, and, if so, where the roll may be met with?

2. I remember to have read an extract from a work called the History of Hawick in Teviotdale, but I have never met with any one acquainted with the work. Is the book now extant, and, if so, where can it be seen? If any of your correspondents should have seen this volume, perhaps he can inform me whether it narrates an altercation between the abbot of Melrose and a neighbouring baron, which ended in the death of the former?

H. L.

Maen-twrog, North Wales.

—The "Pronosticatio," or "prophecies," which bear this name, have been often reprinted since what I believe to be the first edition was published in the year 1488. In giving an account of the copies of it in the Lambeth Library, I stated that I knew of no other copy of this edition, except one in the Douce collection in the Bodleian. Eight years have elapsed since that time, and I have not heard of any; and as circumstances have lately led to my being engaged about the book, I shall be glad if you will allow me to ask whether any of your many learned correspondents know of a prior edition, or of any other copies of this one of 1488?

S. R. MAITLAND.

Gloucester.

—I have in my possession an apparently very old, though very elegant and very excellent, eight-day clock, with the maker's name on its face, Thomas Lestourgeon, London. Some years ago there was found among the apparatus of the Natural Philosophy class, in the University of Edinburgh, what is called in the inventory "an old watch, maker's name Lestourgeon, London." Can any of your readers tell me when that excellent horologist flourished? I know the history of the clock for about a century, but how much older it may be I should like to know.

JAMES LAURIE.

—Can any of your correspondents mention the work of any physiologist in which the cause is given why all herbivorous animals suck in what they drink, and all carnivorous animals lap it up by the action of the tongue? Also, what naturalists have specified that broad distinction, and whether it has been mentioned in any other work?

ÆGROTUS.

—Is there an earlier edition of De Grammont's Memoirs than that in 12mo. printed at Cologne in 1713?

PETER CUNNINGHAM.

—Can this expression be met with in any author; or what is its origin?

Is it simply synonymous to the more usual phrase, "To be frightened out of one's wits?"

Is there any other passage in the language where the possession of more than five senses is implied?

G. T. H.

Acton.

—What is the origin of a phrase known to readers of a certain Latinity, "Fides Carbonaria?" The French have an expression apparently equivalent, "Foi de Charbonnier;" but what originated either?

A QUERIST.

—I would be very much obliged to any correspondent who could tell me either the inscriptions on any monuments to the "Bourchier" family, or in what church they are to be found. I believe there are some in Northamptonshire.

L. M. M.

Dublin.

—"Warnings to Scotland, of the Eternal Spirit, to the City of Edinburgh, in Scotland, by the mouths of Thomas Dutton, Guy Nutt, John Glover, in their Mission by the Spirit to the said City, as they were delivered in the year 1709, and faithfully taken down in writing as they were spoken. London printed in the year 1710."

The trio also gave "warnings" to the sinful city of Glasgow, &c.

I would be glad if any of your correspondents could give me any information regarding this agitation, and if it produced any sensation at the time?

ELGINENSIS.

—Can one of your correspondents mention the name, and any other particulars, of the man who anticipated Herschel relative to the sun's motion; and was declared to be mad for entertaining such opinions?

ÆGROTUS.

—Where can a copy of the petition, presented by the Lord Mayor and Common Council, setting forth the insufficiency of the Duke of Wellington as a general, and his obvious incapacity, and begging his immediate recall, be obtained, and the date of it? It is a droll historical document, which should not sink into oblivion.

ÆGROTUS.

—I have seen an old black-letter book of homilies in Latin, with the following imprint:—

"Sermones Michaelis de Ungaria prædicabiles per totū annum licet breves. Et sic est finis sit laus et gloria trinis Impressū suburbiis sācti germani de praetis per Petrū Leuet, anno dn̅i millesimo quadringēte sino nonagesimo septimo primo die vero. xiij. Novembris."

I should be glad if any of your correspondents could furnish any information regarding the printer.

ABERDONIENSIS.

[Petrus Levet was one of the early Paris printers, and several of the works printed by him are noticed in Gresswell's Annals of Parisian Typography, pp. 96. 100. 104. At p. 178. will be found his device, copied from the Destructorium Vitiorum, anno 1497.]

—What is the origin of this expression?

P. S. KG.

["A nimble ninepence is better than a slow shilling."—Old Proverb.]

—Why are the glass balls filled with floating bubbles called Rupert balls? Was the prince a glass-blower?

↗

[The earliest experiments upon glass tears were made in 1656, both in London and Paris; but it is not certain in what country they were invented. They were first brought to England by Prince Rupert, and experiments were made upon them by the Right Hon. Sir Robert Moray, in 1661, by the command of his Majesty. An account of these experiments is to be found in the Registers of the Royal Society, of which he was one of the founders. See Edinburgh Encyclopædia, vol. x. p. 319.]

—To knock under, in the sense of succumb, yield: unde derivatur?

NOCAB.

["From the submission expressed among good fellows by knocking under the table."—Johnson.]

—Where can be found a good account of the origin of freemasons? And is there any truth in the story that Lord Doneraile made his daughter, the Honorable Miss E. St. Leger, a freemason?

↗

[For a circumstantial account of the origin of Freemasons, see a curious pamphlet published in 1812, entitled Jachin and Boaz; or an authentic Key to the Door of Freemasonry, both Ancient and Modern, &c.; also, Oliver's Antiquities of Freemasonry. A very interesting historico-critical inquiry into the origin of the Rosicrucians and Freemasons, from the pen of the English Opium-eater, who in it has abstracted, arranged, and in some respects re-arranged the German work of J. G. Buhle, Ueber den Ursprung und die vornehmsten Schicksale der Orden der Rosenkreuzer und Freymaurer, will be found in the London Magazine for January and February, 1824.

We believe it is perfectly true that the Hon. Miss E. St. Leger was made a mason, and that she always accompanied her lodge in its processions.]

In an article of A. C. in "NOTES AND QUERIES" for 30th August last, under the head "Plowden of Plowden" from Burke's Landed Gentry, I find this paragraph:

"The names of the followers of William the Conqueror are often alluded to; but the 'comers over' at the CONQUEST of Wales, SCOTLAND, and Ireland are but seldom thought of, though they lend to their descendants' pedigree a degree of historical interest."

I do not read this paragraph without pain, mingled with indignation. Who ever before heard of the conquest of Scotland? It is true, that, on repeated occasions, the English made successful inroads into that kingdom, sometimes of a larger, sometimes of a less extensive character; but the Scottish nation never did "lie at the proud foot of a conqueror."

Though Edward I., by means of intrigues unworthy of his high character, did for a short period, during the interregnum consequent on the death of the Maid of Norway, assume the government of the Scottish realm, and put to death some of the most distinguished of her defenders, yet his successor paid the penalty of this unjust assumption in the battle of Bannockburn; a battle having justice on the side of the victorious party, and regarded by all Scotsmen as to be ranked in military prowess with those of Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt.

It is not generally known, that upon the marriage of Mary to the Dauphin in 1558, Scotsmen were naturalised in France by an ordonnance of Henry II.; and that, in like manner, by an act of the parliament of Scotland, all Frenchmen were naturalised in that country. The ordonnance granting these privileges to Scotsmen within the realm of France, is printed in the Scottish statute-book along with the Scottish act granting similar privileges to Frenchmen within Scotland.

One of the most distinguished writers on the law of Scotland, when dedicating his work to King Charles II., reminds him of the inscription on the palace of Holyrood: "Nobis hæc invicta miserunt centum sex Prouvi."

When, in 1707, Scotland treated of an incorporating union with the realm of England, she treated as an independent and sovereign power, and the Treaty of Union was concluded with her in that character: a treaty which was at least as beneficial to England as it was to Scotland, by precluding in all time to come the intrigues of France with the Scottish sovereign and nation.

That Scotland was able for so many centuries to defend her liberties and independence against the powerful kingdom of England, does her great honour. There is no problem of more difficult solution than this: What might have happened, if some other great event had happened otherwise than it did? When England had overcome the kingdom of France, if Scotland had not afforded the means of annoyance to England, the seat of government might have been removed to France, and the great English nation have been absorbed in that country: but Providence ruled otherwise; England lost her dominion in France, and Scotland remained independent.

SCOTUS OCTOGENARIUS.

W. FRAZER'S Query, which are the towns or districts in England in which Borough-English prevails, or has prevailed, and whether there are any instances on record of its being carried into effect in modern times, would require more knowledge than any individual can be expected to possess of local customs throughout the country to give a full answer to; but if all your legal correspondents would contribute their quotas of information on the subject, a very fair list might be made, which would not be uninteresting as illustrative of this peculiar custom. I do not know any work in which the places where the custom prevails are collected together. But I send you a short list of such manors and places as I know of and have been able to collect, in which the custom of Borough-English is the rule of descent, hoping that other correspondents will add to the list which I have only made a commencement of:—

• Manors and Places where the Custom of Borough-English prevails.

• Surrey.
• The Manor of Lambeth
•    "   Kennington
• Kent.
•    "   Hoo (qy.)

Reve v. Maltster, Croke's Reports, Trin. Term, 11 Chas. I.

• Middlesex.
• The Manor of Tottenham
•    "   Edmonton

Termes de la Ley, Kitchin, fo. 102.

• Middlesex.
• The Manor of Turnham Green

Forester's Equity Reports, 276.

• Berks.
• The Manor of Bray

Co. Litt. Sec. 211.

I am informed that the custom also prevails in some of the Duchy manors in Cornwall, but I cannot at present give you the names.

I may be able to add to this list in a future communication, and I hope to see in your pages some considerable additions to this list from other correspondents.

As to the continuance of the custom to modern times, nothing can alter it but an act of parliament; so that where the custom has prevailed, it is still the law of descent: and I have had under my notice a descent of copyhold property, in the manors of Lambeth and Kennington, to the youngest brother within the present century.

G. R. C.

There is a farm of about a hundred acres in the parish of Sullescombe in Sussex, which is held by this tenure; but whether the adjoining land is so, I am not aware. In case of the owner dying intestate, the land would go to the younger son; but I am not aware of an instance of this having occurred.

E. H. Y.

Your correspondent A. E. B. appears, by his suggestion regarding Foucault's theory, to have rendered confusion worse confounded, mystery more mysterious. He says:

"If the propounders of this theory had from the first explained, that they do not claim for the plane of oscillation an exemption from the general rotation of the earth, but only the difference of rotation due to the excess of velocity with which one extremity of the line of oscillation may be affected more than the other, it would have saved a world of fruitless conjecture and misunderstanding."

This supposition makes an effect, which it is difficult to believe in, into one utterly impossible to conceive. It is hard enough to credit the theory, that the plane of oscillation of a pendulum is partially independent of the rotatory motion of the earth, but still not impossible, considering that the effect of the presumed cause is not inconsistent with the results of à priori calculation. For instance, during the swing of a two-seconds pendulum, the angular motion of the earth will have been 1', or thereabouts, which, supposing the oscillation to be independent, would produce an appreciable angle on an index circle placed concentric with the pendulum, and at right angles to its plane of oscillation.

But as to A. E. B.'s theory, which supposes the variation of the pendulum's plane to be "due to the excess of velocity with which one extremity of the line of oscillation may be affected more than the other," it appears to me quite untenable for a moment. Let him reduce it to paper, and find what difference of velocity there is on the earth's surface at the two ends of a line of ten feet, the assumed length of the arc of a two-seconds pendulum,—a larger one, I presume, than that used by Foucault in his cellar,—and I believe he will find it to be practically nothing.

I confess I have had no faith in this theory from the first; the effect, if any and constant, I believe to be magnetic. The results of experiments have been stated from the first very loosely, and the theory itself has been put forth very indistinctly, and not supported by any name of eminence, except that of Professor Powell.

In the meantime, and until some competent authority has pronounced on the point, I propose that such of your readers as are interested in the question make experiments for themselves, dividing them into four classes, viz., with the plane of oscillation E. and W., N. and S., N.E. and S.W., N.W. and S.E.; take the mean of a great many, and communicate them to the editor of "NOTES AND QUERIES;" and I venture to say that such a collection will do more towards confirming or disproving the theory absolutely, than all the papers we have yet seen on the subject.

I am myself about to make experiments with a twenty-five feet pendulum.

H. C. K.

—— Rectory, Hereford, Sept. 8. 1851.

In p. 180. I find some observations respecting the rank of the Lord Mayor of London, which seem to require further elucidation. But I should not trouble you except for one passage, which leads me to think that the writer is under some little mistake. He seems to think that upon the occasion of a new king's accession, only Privy Councillors are summoned. This is not so. I remember upon the accession of George IV., that I received a summons, being then a member of the House of Commons and holding an official appointment; and some other private gentlemen were also summoned. I think that the summonses were issued from the Home Office, but of this I am not certain; nor do I know if the same practice has been adopted upon the subsequent accessions. I remember that we all met at Carlton House; that we all signed some document, recognising the new sovereign, which I apprehend to be the authority for the proclamation; but that the Privy Councillors only went in to the presence.

I understand that the theory for summoning me and others was that some persons of various ranks and grades of society should concur in placing the new king upon the throne.

All this is, however, mere speculation of my own. The fact of my summons is certain. As to the Lord Mayor being Right Honorable, why need we look for other authority than usage? Usage only gives the title of Right Honorable to a Privy Councillor being a Commoner. Usage only gives that title to a Peer. Excuse this gossip.

DN.

I have the pleasure to add to the early examples of the collar of SS. given by MR. EDWARD FOSS, the names of some personages whose monuments are either represented or described in Blore's Monumental Remains, Dugdale's History of St. Paul's, Gough's Sepulchral Monuments, and Stothard's Monumental Effigies.

1. On the effigy of Sir Simon Burley, engraved by Hollar for Dugdale, is a collar apparently marked, but very indistinctly, with SS. Sir Simon was a Knight of the Garter, Chamberlain to Richard II., and was beheaded in 1388.

2 and 3. Sir Robert Waterton and his wife, in Methley church, Yorkshire. The collar was issued to this knight, when he was an esquire, out of the great wardrobe of Henry Earl of Derby, in the 20th year of Richard II.

4. Sir William Ryther, in Harwood church, Yorkshire: he lived in the time of Richard II.

5. John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, in the cathedral at Canterbury. He was Chamberlain of England, and Captain of Calais in the reign of Henry IV., and died in 1410.

6. Thomas Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, in Arundel church, Sussex; Chief Butler of England at the coronation of Henry IV., who with his queen was present at the earl's wedding in 1404; temporary Marshal of England in 1405. Died in 1416, the 4th of Henry V.

7 and 8. Sir Edmund de Thorpe and his wife, in Ashwell-Thorpe church, Norfolk. Two persons of this name, Mon' Esmond Thorp and Mon' Esmon de Thorp̃, were summoned to a great council held at Westminster in the 2nd of Henry IV. It is considered that this Sir Edmund is the person called Lord Thorpe, who was slain in Normandy in 1418; that his wife is Joan, daughter of Sir Robert Norwood, and widow of Roger Lord Scales; and that she is the Lady Thorpe who died in 1415.

9. Thomas Duke of Clarence, second son of Henry IV., President of the Council, and Lieutenant General of the Forces. He died in 1421. Monument in Canterbury cathedral.

10, 11, and 12. Ralph Nevill, Earl of Westmorland, and his two wives, in Staindrop church, co. Durham. He was created Earl of Westmorland by Richard II., made Earl Marshal of England by Henry IV., present at the battle of Agincourt with Henry V., and died in the 4th of Henry VI., 1425.

Margaret, his first wife, was the daughter of Hugh Earl of Stafford; and his second wife was Joan de Beaufort, only daughter of John of Ghent, Duke of Lancaster, by Catherine Swinford.

13. John Fitz-Alan, Lord Maltravers and Earl of Arundel, in the church at Arundel, Sussex. He distinguished himself by the capture of many towns and fortresses in Normandy in the year of his death, 1434.

14. William Phelip Lord Bardolf, in Dennington church, Suffolk. Treasurer of the household of Henry V., Knight of the Garter, and Chamberlain to Henry VI. Died in the 19th year of this reign, 1440.

15 and 16. John Beaufort Duke of Somerset, and his wife, in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, Knight of the Garter, created Duke of Somerset and Earl of Kendal, and at the same time made Lieutenant and Captain-General of Aquitaine, France and Normandy. Died in 1444.

17. Robert Lord Hungerford, who served in the wars in France and Guienne, and died in 1453. His effigy is drawn by Stothard (Mon. Eff. p. 98.).

18. Sir John Nevill, in Harwood church, Yorkshire. Died 22nd Edward IV., 1482.

I presume that MR. EDWARD FOSS would refer to the curious passage in the printed Rolls of Parliament, vol. iii. p. 313., wherein it appears that Richard II., in the 20th year of his reign, formally declared that he assumed, bore, and used, and that by his leave and wish persons of his retinue also bore and used, the livery of the collar of his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster.

Mr. John Gough Nichols, in the Gent. Mag. for 1842, quotes the principal part of this passage, and produces some interesting evidence in favour of the view that the livery of the collar of the Duke of Lancaster was the collar of SS.

LLEWELLYN.

The statement that the reading of sermons did not prevail in the early ages of Christianity not having been called in question, although irreconcileable with the practice of the Fathers, as ascertained from their own writings, I am induced to observe that in Ferrarius de Ritu Sac. Concionum, evidence is adduced that extemporaneous preaching was occasionally superseded by more elaborate and written discourses, sometimes committed to memory, sometimes recited, that is, read.

"Narrat Gregorius (Hom. 21. ex Libro Quadraginta Homiliarum) solemne ibi fuisse dum Concionem haberet, per Dictatum loqui; additque, Ob languentem stomachum jam legere se non posse quæ dictaverat; ac proinde velle se Evangelicæ Lectionis explanationem non amplius per Dictatum, sed per familiares collocutiones pronunciare. Per Dictatum autem loqui nihil aliud fuit Gregorio quam de scripto dicere ex eo perspicuum fit, quod verbo Dictare pro Scribere passim usi sunt Veteres Auctores, Sidonius Epistola septima Libri primi, undecima quarti, ultima septimi, sexta octavi, tertia noni; Aldhelmus de Laudibus Virginitatis, cap. vii., Gregorius Magnus, lib. x. Epistolarum, Ep. xxii. "ad Joannem Ravennæ Subdiaconum," et "Epistola ad Leonardum;" quæ præmittitur Expositioni in Job, et alii: usu nimirum ex prisco more petito quo Auctores olim, ut est apud Plinium in Epistolis non uno loco, Notariis dictare consueverant. Vox præterea Legere qua usus est Gregorius hoc ipsum aperte confirmat; ea enim dumtaxat legere possumus quaæ scripta sunt et ante oculos posita."—Ferrarius, ut suprà, lib ii. 15.

Fabricius, in his Bibliothecaria Antiquaria (cap. xi., De Concionibus Christianorum), thus refers to this passage:

"Conciones plerasque dictas ex memoria, quasdam etiam de scripto recitatas, observatum Ferrario, lib. ii. cap. 15."

It may therefore be inferred that he knew of no other testimony equally pertinent, but surely we may surmise that other fathers, e.g. Gregory Nazianzen (who, in the words of Bellarmine, "sapientiam mirificè cum eloquentia copulavit") occasionally were unable to commit to memory the numerous discussions which they had so diligently prepared.

I have been requested by the Rev. Richard Bingham, Jun., to state that he has in his possession autograph sermons by his illustrious ancestor, in some of which are notes only or heads of subjects, and which are therefore unfavourable to the suspicion expressed (p. 42.), that the author of the Antiquities of the Christian Church was prejudiced against extempore preaching.

BIBLIOTHECARIUS CHETHAMENSIS.

—As in a publication such as "NOTES AND QUERIES" the most precise correctness, even in matters of secondary importance, is, above all things, to be desiderated, I am sure J. R. will be glad to be corrected in a statement made by him, in the concluding sentence of his interesting communication, "Traditions from remote Periods through few Hands," concerning the above accomplished lady. This elegant writer was not "one of four congenital children," though it is quite true that such a birth occurred in her family. The following account of so unusual an occurrence is taken from Matchett's Norfolk and Norwich Remembrancer and Vade Mecum, a work compiled principally from the columns of The Norfolk Chronicle, of which Mr. Matchett was for many year a co-proprietor and assistant editor:—

"August 15, 1817. At Dr. R.'s house, at Framingham (a small village four miles from Norwich), Mrs. R., who in 1804 had first brought him twins, was safely delivered of four living children, three sons and a daughter, who were privately baptized by the names of Primus John, Secundus Charles Henry, Tertius Robert Palgrave, and Quarta Caroline. They were weighed with their shirts on by Dr. Hamel, physician to the Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia, who paid Dr. R. a visit a few days after the quadruple birth, and were found to be 21 lbs. 2 oz. One lived eighteen days; the other three from eight to ten weeks. Dr. R. being a grandfather at the time, the children were born great-uncles and a great-aunt."

They are buried in Framingham Earl churchyard, where is a table monument over their remains, setting forth the above particulars in full, with the respective periods of their deaths.

Dr. R. was Mayor of Norwich in 1805, and, as J. R. states, an eminent physician of that city. He was the author of An Essay on Animal Heat, On the Agriculture of Framingham and Holkham, and of other works on Midwifery, Medicine, and Agriculture. He died Oct. 27, 1821, aged seventy-three years.

COWGILL.

—Notwithstanding the MS. note referred to by DR. RIMBAULT in a recent number, I cannot think that G. A. Stevens was the author of "Winifreda," as he had barely attained his sixteenth year when that song was first printed in 1726. Neither is it easy to imagine that the commonplace lines quoted in Reed's Biographia Dramatica, vol. i. p. 687., from Stevens's poem called "Religion, or the Libertine Repentant," and "Winifreda," could have been the production of the same person. We learn also from Reed, that, owing to a pirated edition of Stevens's songs being published at Whitehaven, he in 1772 printed a genuine collection of them at Oxford. This book I never met with. Should it contain Winifreda, I shall be satisfied: if not, we may still say of the mysterious author, "Non est inventus."

BRAYBROOKE.

not d'Allemand, as your correspondent MR. BREEN has written it; this saying deriving its origin from the Allemans, a powerful family of the Dauphiné, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and having no reference whatever to the national character of the Germans, as will appear by the following extract from the Revue Historique de la Noblesse, voce ALLEMAN:—

"Durant le 13e et le 14e siècle, la région montagneuse qui s'élève entre le Drac et l'Isère était presque en totalité le domaine d'une immense famille de seigneurs qui portaient tous le nom d'Alleman.... Jamais souche féodale ne produisit plus de rameaux, et nulle part les membres d'une même famille ne se groupèrent autour de leurs chefs avec un soin plus jaloux.... Ils se mariaient entre eux, jugeaient entre eux leurs différends, et en toute circonstance se pretaient les uns aux autres un infaillible appui. Malheur à l'imprudent voisin qui eût troublé dans son héritage ou dans son honneur le plus humble des Alleman. Sur la plainte de l'offensé, un conseil de famille était réuni, la guerre votée par acclamations, et l'on voyait bientôt déboucher dans la plaine de Grenoble les bandes armées qui guidaient au châtiment de l'agresseur les bannières d'Uriage et de Valbonnais."

Hence, from the ardour with which this family avenged the smallest injury, came the saying, "Faire une querelle d'Alleman;" to which Oudin, in his Curiosités Françoises, gives the following interpretation:—

"Querelle d'Alleman, fondée sur peu de sujet et facile à appaiser."

Having reference to the same family was also the proverb, known in the Dauphiné, "Gare la queue des Alleman," applied to those entering upon some difficult enterprise; in other words, "mind the consequences."

In Le Roux de Lincy's Livres des Proverbes Français, vol. ii. p. 15., I find the following:

PHILIP S. KING.

—Not being exactly satisfied with my former reply to MR. WITTON on this subject, I have made further search on the subject in numismatic works, and I would refer him to the following note in Banduri, vol. ii. p. 418.:—

"Galli numismata Antiquarii olim cum nummis Constantii Augusti confundebant; sed Erud. Harduinus numismata omnia Constantii Cæsaris (Galli) in quibus FEL. TEMP. REPARATIO. item ea in quibus CONSTANTIVS. IVN. appellatur, aut FL. CL. CONSTANTIVS, ad Gallum nostrum pertinere ostendit; in quibus omnibus cum eadem effigies expressa sit a Constantii Augusti effigie plurimum diversa, et caput nudum semper sit; omnia numismata in quibus et caput nudum, et idem qui in cæteris vultus conspicitur, ad eundem Gallum retulimus, tametsi eorum numismatum nonnulla FL. IVL. Constantium appellant. Haud dissimulandum tamen descripta ab Occone fuisse numismata duo Constantii Augusti, in quibus FL. CL. Constantius nominatur, quæ inter numismata illius Principis ex ære incerti moduli exhibuimus suprà. Cæterum hujus Principis nummi omnes ex argento rari sunt, et desiderantur in Mediobarbo, excepto hoc, quem perperam (licet ex Tristano) inter æreos recenset laudatus Mediobarbus, et duobus sequentibus."

On the whole, therefore, I conclude, that we may more safely assign to Gallus the bare head; the legends "CONSTANTIVS IVN." and "FL. CL. CONSTANTIVS," and the diademed head, and the legends, "FL. IVL. CONSTANTIVS," and "CONSTANTIVS AVG.," to Constantius II. Those with "FL. VAL. CONSTANTIVS" would seem more properly to belong to Constantius Chlorus. I may add, that all those coins of Constantius which bear an A behind the portrait, certainly belong to Gallus.

E. S. TAYLOR.

—There can be no doubt that, according to modern usage, any short sentence which is commonly used, whether by way of enunciating a principle, foretelling a consequence, describing a situation, or recommending a course of action, &c., is a proverb. Brevity is an essential: that is, we apply the term proverb to nothing but apophthegms. In truth, nothing but what is said in few words can be frequently said by all. Accordingly a proverb, in the nineteenth century, is a commonly known and frequently cited apophthegm. But it was not always so. The proverb was only one of a class which we may cite under the name of adage, because the various folio collections of them generally have this word in the title, as descriptive of all. These works contain proverbs properly so called, sentences (sententiæ, pieces of sententiousness), parables, apologues, aphorisms, witticisms, apophthegms, &c. &c., many of the instances having a right to two or more of these names. According to Erasmus, all the definitions which he had met with of the parœmia or proverb might be contained under one or other of the following:—

"Proverbium est sermo ad vitæ rationem conducibilis, moderata quadam obscuritate multam in sese continens utilitatem."

"Proverbium est sermo, rem manifestam obscuritate tegens."

The old proverb then has a soul of utility, and a body of obscurity: the modern one has a soul of brevity, and a body of notoriety. This distinction will be held obscure enough for an old proverb, but not brief enough for a new one.

M.

—Your learned correspondent MR. CROSSLEY is right in his conjecture that this celebrated controversialist was of a family settled at Mayroyd in the parish of Halifax in Yorkshire. According to a pedigree certified in 1624 by Sir William Segar, Garter, he was the second son of John Sutcliffe of Melroyd, in the county of York, gent., by his wife Margaret, daughter of —-- Owlsworth of Ashley in the same county. The Doctor married Ann, daughter of John Bradley of Louth, co. Lincoln, Esq., and had issue an only daughter Ann, the wife of Mr. Halls or Halse, of the county of Devon. The Doctor had four brothers, viz. Adam, Solomon, Luke, and John. Adam, the eldest, lived at Grimsby, co. Lincoln, and had an only daughter, Judith. Solomon was of Melroyd and of Grimsby; he married Elizabeth, daughter of John Bradley of Louth, Esq., by Frances his wife, daughter of —— Fairfax of Denton, co. York, and had issue four daughters, and also one son, viz. John Sutcliffe, one of the esquires of the body to King James. His wife was Alice, daughter of Luke Woodhouse of Kimberley, co. Norfolk, Esq., and he had issue one daughter, Susan. Segar granted arms to this gentleman in 1624. Of the other brothers of the Dean, Luke died unmarried, and John married a daughter of Jo. Kirton of Lincolnshire.

F. R. R.

Milnrow Parsonage.

—Having every wish to accede to the request of your correspondent C., I have made a search, but am unable to lay my hand at present on the publication by Curll. There can be no doubt that I shall ultimately meet with it; and when I do, it will be quite at his service. Having compared it not very long ago with the folio edition by Boreman of this Imitation, which I suppose was the first in its complete state, I can be under no mistake as to the existence of the prior publication. It occurs in a thin 8vo. published by Curll in 1716, containing poetical miscellanies, which in my copy are bound up with other tracts. It is headed "By Mr. P——e," and contains only a portion of that subsequently printed. Curll afterwards reprinted the Imitation, as published by Boreman, in one of the volumes, I think the third of the collection, which he styles "Letters of Mr. Pope."

That the Imitation is by Pope, though I am not aware of any express acknowledgment of it by him, there can be no doubt, and as little that it found its way to the press, as published by Boreman, with his privity. Curll even says, if any weight be due to the assertions of such a miscreant, that Pope received a sum of money for it from Boreman. But I do not consider that Pope can be deemed to have affiliated it by its publication in Dodsley's edition in 1738; which is, as far as I have always understood, a mere bookseller's collection. The only collection of his works which can be called his own, and for which he is fairly responsible, is that in 2 vols., folio and 4to., 1717-35, to each volume of which a preface or notice by him is prefixed; and in the latter of these volumes, though previously published, he has not included this Imitation, which seems to indicate that he did not feel disposed to acknowledge it publicly, and indeed he had good reason to be ashamed of it.

JAS. CROSSLEY.

—The exact title of the work inquired for is, Blackloanæ Hæresis, olim in Pelagio et Manichæis damnatæ, nunc denuo renascentis, Historia et Confutatio. This 4to. volume consists of 332 pages, exclusive of the dedicatory epistle and the appendix; and a "printed account" of the author may be seen in Sir James Ware's Writers of Ireland (ed. Harris, pp. 191-3), and in Dodd's Church History of England, vol. iii. pp. 284-5.: Brussels, 1742. It is to be hoped that in the Bodleian Catalogue something further has been stated respecting this curious and very rare book than that it was written by "M. Lominus, Theologus," who was merely an imaginary divine. The real author was the famous PETER TALBOT, brother of "Lying Dick Talbot" (the Duke of Tyrconnel and Viceroy of Ireland), almoner to Catharine, queen of Charles II., and titular Archbishop of Dublin.

R. G.

The work referred to, entitled Blackloanæ Hæresis, olim in Pelagio et Manichæis damnatæ, nunc denuo renascentis, Historia et Confutatio, Gand. 1675, 4to., I have a copy of. It is written against the Blackloists, the leaders of whom were Thomas White, the follower of Sir Kenelm Digby, and John Sargeant, the voluminous Roman Catholic writer. The real author of the book was Peter Talbot, the brother of Richard Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnel. He also published the History of Manicheism and Pelagianism, in which it is shown that Thomas White and his Adherents have revived those Heresies: Paris, 1674, 8vo.

JAS. CROSSLEY.

—This belief is common in East Anglia, and such paths are called Bierways. When the common lands at Alby in Norfolk were enclosed, much difficulty was experienced in stopping one road, on account of its being an ancient bierway. In Norwich the passage through a part of the city called the Bull Close, is accounted public for this reason; and a very few years since a gentleman at Whittlesey, in Cambridgeshire, prevented a funeral from taking a shorter road through his grounds, through fear of its being afterwards esteemed a public thoroughfare.

E. S. TAYLOR.

—H. C. K. will probably find all he requires in the Penny Cyclopædia (Articles "Horology" and "Pendulum"), or in a two-shilling volume published by Weale last year, Denison on Clocks, Chimes, &c., or in the other works enumerated below:—Ellicott on regulating Clocks, 4to., 1753; Vulliamy's Considerations on Public Clocks, 4to., 1828; Derham's Artificial Clock Maker, 12mo., 1734; Berthoudi's Essai sur l'Horlogerie, 4to., 2 vols. 1763.

H. T. E.

Clyst St. George.

—In Charleston, the capital of the state of South Carolina, a bell is tolled twice every evening, at eight and ten o'clock in summer, and at seven and nine in winter: this custom dates from early times. At the ringing of the second bell the watch for the night is set, and our servants are prohibited from being abroad after that hour without a permit from their masters; the first bell subserves no purpose, and is merely rung in conformity to ancient usage. I am inclined to think that our ancestors had this bell rung in order to keep up the old custom of the curfew bell of their cherished mother-country. It is still a custom when "the first bell rings" for the younger children of the family to say "Good night," and retire to bed. This is the only practical use to which this early ringing is put, and a capital custom it is, though rather distasteful to the young folks when they are anxious to sit up a little longer.

H. H. B.

Monte Cavallo, South Carolina.

—A querist asks information as to the origin of the American figure of speech "to go the whole hog." I apprehend its parentage belongs less to America than to Ireland, where a "hog" is still the synonym for a shilling, and a "tester" or "taster" for a sixpence. Previously to the assimilation of the currency of the two countries in 1825, a "white hog" meant the English shilling or twelve pence, and a "black hog" the Irish shilling, of thirteen pence. To "go the whole hog" is a convivial determination to spend the whole shilling, and the prevalence of the expression, with an extension of its applications in America, can be readily traced to its importation by the multitudes of emigrants from Ireland.

M. R***SON.

Belfast.

—"—— Burleigh, M.A." who is mentioned by S. S. S. as one of the translators of the Bible in 1611, must have been a different person to John Bodley, the father of the celebrated Sir Thomas Bodley. In the very interesting "History of English Translations and Translators" prefixed to Bagster's English Hexapla, "Mr. Burgley of Stretford" is mentioned as one, with this note:—

"In the Lambeth MS. it is 'Mr. Henry Burleigh.' It is added, one of that name was B.D. in 1594, and D.D. in 1607."—P. 104.

Townley, however, in his Illustrations of Biblical Literature, 1821, vol. iii. p. 293, supposes him to have been the Francis Burleigh, D.D., who, according to Newcourt, became vicar of Stortford, or Bishop Stortford, in 1590. See Repertorium, vol. i. p. 896.

JOHN I. DREDGE.

Among my matches in and about London (which I shall always be glad to search for your correspondents) is the following:

"23 July 1608, John Bodleigh, Aldgate, printer B. 34, free of the stationers and a freeman; and Elizabeth Hemp of Paul's Wharf, Sp. 30. St. Brides."

J. S. B.

—In Adelung's Mithridates the titles of the best works explanatory of this language will be found. To these must be added those of Dr. Thomas Young and Champollian Junior. There are some recent German works on the subject; your correspondent will, however, be very little benefited after mastering all the writers, for they have really but little to tell. The method to be pursued with a feasible prospect of success is, to acquire the Coptic-Egyptian language from the New Testament and De Woide, with the special object of mastering the roots, about 200 in number, of that language. Next, some knowledge of the Chinese language should be obtained, so far at least as is necessary to comprehend the hieroglyphic principle, whereby 214 letter-keys are made to do duty in representing 5000, or more, distinct ideas. The next matter, which admits of a very simple explanation, is to ascertain how the Chinese dissevers the idea of a character (hieroglyphic) from its sound, and makes his ideas (hieroglyphic characters) stand for syllables alone, by prefixing the character more (mouth) to indicate that the characters next following are to be read as sounds and not as ideas. In the Egyptian hieroglyphic such characters (representing the names of places and persons) are inclosed in a sort of lozenge or parallelogram. Having found out certain sounds in the Egyptian hieroglyphic, e. g. Cle-o-pa-tra, turn to the Coptic Lexicon and ascertain what idea (thing) cle represents in Coptic, and so on with o, with pa, &c., and all other with syllable sounds. Here Champollian Junior stuck fast, and little has been done since his day in the way of translation; and the reason is evident—the separate characters representing sounds found in these lozenges are too few in number to give any hope that the Egyptian hieroglyphics will ever be rendered generally intelligible; their object, however, has been far more effectually secured by the paintings and representations of objects and actions, which supply an infinitely better means of knowing what was interesting in Egypt than mere words, sounds, or ideas (hieroglyphics) could convey.

J. BUCKTON.

Lichfield.

—If E. V. will take the trouble to apply to the Rev. Thomas Binney, of the Weigh House Chapel, London, he will be in the way of receiving the most authentic information concerning the happy conversion, and triumphant death, of William Hone, who adorned the doctrine of God his Saviour for some years previous to his decease in communion with a congregation of Protestant Dissenters.

O. T. D.

The interesting letter of the late William Hone, published in Vol. iv., pp. 105, 106., scarcely throws any discredit upon an anecdote I often have heard as to the means of his first awakening to a better mind, somewhat as follows:—that, asking a drink of milk of a little child, and observing a book in her hand, he inquired what it was? She answered, "A Bible:" and, in reply to some depreciatory remarks of his, added, "I thought everybody loved their Bible, Sir." I hope that this may not be contradicted, but confirmed.

C. W. B.

—The "Bensley tragedy" was no doubt the sudden death, in April or May, 1765, by a fall from his horse, of James Bensley, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn; probably an early acquaintance of Hill and Cowper. The melancholy death of another friend of theirs, poor Lloyd (which Southey also calls a tragedy), had happened three or four months earlier.

C.

—The name of John Lilburne occurs in Cleveland's Poems more than once, e. g. "The General Eclipse:"—

And again, "On the Inundation of the River Trent," p. 294.:

"One herd and flock in one kind hill found mercy,

Like Lilburn (and his wool) in the Isle of Jersey."

RT.

Warmington.

—Is your correspondent aware of Benedict Haeften's Schola Cordis, from which Harvey's School of the Heart was imitated? It was published at Antwerp in 1635. The copy I now have before me is dated 1699, but I will give its full title:

"Schola Cordis, sive aversi a Deo Cordis ad eumdem reductio, et instructio. Auctore Benedicto Haefteno, Reformati Monast. Affligeminsis, Ordinis S. Benedicti, præposito. Antverpiæ, apud Henricum et Cornelium Verdurrin, MDCXCIX."

P. S. The emblems are fifty-five in number.

RT.

Warmington.

—That Mr. Hallam should have forgotten to correct an incidental allusion is natural enough; and that Raleigh in person discovered Virginia was commonly believed. Sir Walter Scott, for instance, believed it, as appears by a passage at the end of Kenilworth. But the very title-page of Hariot's account of the discovery of Virginia (whether in the English of 1588, or the Frankfort Latin of 1590), negatives the idea of Raleigh assisting in person. And the Biographia Britannica, or, I believe, any similar work of authority, will show that no biographer of note has affirmed it. It was an expedition fitted out by Raleigh which discovered Virginia.

M.

It appears by the Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia, by Strachey, so ably edited by Mr. Major for the Hakluyt Society, that Sir Walter Raleigh sent out his first expedition to Virginia in 1584, under Captain Amadas; in 1585 a fleet under Sir R. Grenville, which he intended to have commanded in person, but jealousy at court prevented him. In 1587 a second fleet was sent to Roanoak under Captain White, in 1590 supplies by Captain White, and in 1602 he sent Samuel Mace. Neither Oldys nor Cayley mention his having gone there; and as they carry on the events of his life pretty clearly year by year, I think, in reply to the Query of MR. BREEN, that there is pretty good evidence to show that he never was there.

E. N. W.

Southwark.

—Can B. G. give any information respecting the list of persons who received grants of land in the county of Londonderry after the conclusion of the war in 1691? Also, whether he knows of an old ballad (cotemporary I believe) called "The Battle of the Boyne?" I have an old history of the siege of Derry, by Mr. George Walker, 1689. I should be glad to know what the pamphlet contains, and whether the family of Downing are mentioned in it.

A. C. L.

—For the satisfaction of your correspondent C. DE D., I transcribe from Jamieson's Dictionary the following:

"COWPER JUSTICE, trying a man after execution: the same with Jeddart, or Jedburgh justice[17] [See JEDDART JUSTICE.]

"This phrase is said to have had its rise from the conduct of a Baron-bailie in Coupar-Angus, before the abolition of heritable jurisdictions."/

[17] Also "Jedwood Justice." See Scott's Fair Maid of Perth, vol. xliii. p. 304.

CHARLES THIRIOLD.

Cambridge, Sept. 8. 1851.

—The precise meaning of this term is Doctor of the Canon Law. A doctor of laws was a doctor of both the laws (that is, the Civil Law and the Canon Law). The University of Cambridge was forbidden to grant degrees in Canon Law in 1535; and soon afterwards these degrees were discontinued in Oxford, in consequence of the repudiation of the Papal authority, although three or more persons took the degree of Bachelor of Decrees there in the reign of Queen Mary. Further details respecting the Canon Law, and the graduates in that faculty, will be found in Fuller's History of the University of Cambridge, ed. Priskett and Wright, pp. 220. 225.; Wood's History and Antiq. of the University of Oxford, ed. Gutch, vol. i. pp. 63. 359.; vol. ii. pp. 67. 79. 768, 769, 770. 902.; Hallam's Middle Ages, 9th ed. vol. ii. p. 2.; Peacock on Statutes of the University of Cambridge, Appendix A. xlix. n. 1.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge, Sept. 13. 1851.

W. J. BERNHARD SMITH.

Temple.

The earliest allusion to this fable, that I know of, occurs in the Passionate Pilgrim, Sect. xix.

Ovid, in his version of the fable of Tereus, does not introduce the thorn; so probably the allusion is not classical.

Apollodorus also gives this myth, but I have him not to refer to.

H. E. H.

—ALPHA will find in a very excellent work, entitled Storia della Economia Pubblica in Italia, &c., di Giuseppe Pecchio, Lugano, 1829, 8vo., the information he requires regarding the first work on political economy, by an Italian writer, who seems to have been Gasparo Scaruffi; and also learn that Gian Rinaldo Carli died in 1795.

F. R. A.

—It is no wonder that Henry VIII.'s chancellor Sir Thomas More should have heard of an extraordinary tale about a tub, since its earliest form—the model of so many copies—is in Apuleius, at the beginning of the 9th book. It forms likewise the argument of the second novel of Boccacio's Seventh Day, ove "Peronella mette un suo amante in un doglio." Girolamo Morlino told the same objectionable story in Latin; and Agnolo Firenzuola, the Italian translator of Apuleius, seems to have adopted the witty Florentine's imagery, forgetting the original which he professed to follow. See Manni, Istoria del Decamerone, Firenze, 1742, pp. 466. 472. "Tale of a tub," like Conte de peau d'âne, Conte de la Cigogne, Conte de la Mère Oie, denotes a marvellous or cock and bull story—Conte gras, Conte pour rire. There is no doubt that Jean-Jaques' miniature French opera, Le Tonnelier, was founded, though through certain strainers well refined, on the wicked Milesian fiction of the African jester:

GEORGE MÉTIVIER.

—May not Wyle Cop be derived from the Anglo-Saxon wylle, well or fountain, and cop, head or top? SALOPIAN can perhaps judge whether "Fountain Hill" or "Well Head" would be at all applicable to the Wyle Cop in Shrewsbury.

THOS. LAWRENCE.

Ashby de la Zouch.

—"Marriage à-la-Mode," Plate IV., supplies an additional proof of playing cards having done duty as Visiting Cards and Cards of Invitation during the middle of the last century. There are several lying on the floor, in the right-hand corner of the picture. One is inscribed—"Count Basset begs to no how Lade Squander sleapt last nite."

C. FORBES.

Temple.

—Your correspondent P. P. remarks in the number of "NOTES AND QUERIES" for August 23, that "Absalom's long hair had nothing to do with his death; his head itself, and not the hair upon it, having been caught in the boughs of the tree." Even allowing the silence of Scripture upon the matter, the tradition has certainly the basis of respectable antiquity to rest on. Bishop J. Taylor thus writes in his Second Sermon upon St. Matthew, xvi. 26. ad finem:—

"The Doctors of the Jews report that when Absalom hanged among the oaks by the hair of the head, he seemed to see under him Hell gaping wide ready to receive him; and he durst not cut off the hair that intangled him, for fear he should fall into the horrid Lake, whose portion is flames and torment, but chose to protract his miserable life a few minutes in that pain of posture, and to abide the stroke of his pursuing enemies. His condition was sad when his arts of remedy were so vain."

RT.

Warmington, Sept. 3, 1851.

—The name of the Durham monk referred to by W. S. W. is more probably "Swallwell" than "Wallwell," because the former is the name of a township or vill in Durham county.

E. S.

—The narrative related from memory of M. W. B. bears on its face strong indications of fiction: according to that statement a sheepstealer was "some years ago" condemned to death; a "warrant" for his execution was made out, but mislaid, by whom does not appear. After the lapse of years, during which the prisoner had been employed in "executing commissions in distant places" for the gaoler, and in obtaining a high character for his amiable and moral conduct, the fatal warrant arrives, and is "forwarded to the high sheriff, and to the delinquent himself," who is forthwith hanged.

Any one acquainted with the course of practice at assizes at the period to which this anecdote refers, must be aware that no "warrant," in the sense in which the word is here used, was ever made out in such cases. The prisoner is legally in the custody of the sheriff when sentence is passed in court, and he leaves the court in that same custody. The judgment so pronounced is itself the warrant, though a short memorandum or note of it is officially made at the time; unless the judge reprieves or suspends the sentence, no sheriff waits for any further authority, and as for the unfortunate delinquent, no judge, sheriff, or gaoler ever supposed that any copy of a warrant was to be handed to the prisoner himself! During the interval between sentence and execution, if there be no reprieve or release from imprisonment by the authority of the executive, the prisoner is, and always has been, kept by the sheriff in salvâ et arctâ custodiâ in the county gaol. The idea of an employment for years in rambling about the country on the gaoler's errands, is a preposterous figment, composed by some novelist who was unacquainted with the needful machinery for giving an air of verisimilitude to his story. The legend seems to be a version of the fate of Sir W. Raleigh adapted to low life; as in his case the scene is laid at Winchester, but the machinery and decorations are not contrived with a due regard to probability.

"Quodcunque essendis mihi sic, incredulus odi."

E. S.

—A good account of Locke's MSS. is to be found in Blakey's History of Metaphysics. They were in the possession of the Forster family, whose representative, Dr. Forster, M.D., is now, or was very lately, residing at Bruges.

ÆGROTUS.

—The definition of a peal, viz., "a performance of above 5,000 changes," was recently confirmed to me by the two following inscriptions, which I read in the belfry of the curfew tower at Windsor:—

"Feb. 21, 1748, was rung in this steeple a complete 5,040 of union trebles, never performed here before."

"College Youths.—This society rung in this steeple, Tuesday, April 10, 1787, a true and complete peal of 5,040 grandsire triples in three hours and fourteen minutes."

A stone tablet in the bell chamber of Ecclesfield church records, that a few months ago "was rung in this tower a peal of Kent treble bob major, consisting of 5,024 changes in three hours and five minutes."

ALFRED GATTY.

—If any one ever made a rational guess at who this factor may have been, he must have been still more likely to have known who was meant by Sir Balaam, at whose identity I have never yet heard a guess. I suppose that both factor and knight were fancy characters.

C.

—The judgment stated to have been given by Lord Chief Justice Campbell, was given by Lord Chief Justice Jervis.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge.

—The line of Virgil (Georg., lib. iv. 87.) quoted,

and the preceding line,

have been happily applied to the contrasted quiescence of Ash-Wednesday immediately succeeding the tumultuous carnival in Roman Catholic countries, when the cross marked by ashes on the forehead lulls to quiet the turbulent spirits of the previous weeks.

J. R.

—The Duke of Berwick, born in 1671, and so created the 19th of March, 1687, by his father (natural) James II., was indeed a Spanish grandee, which he was made by Philip V., after his victory of Almanza, in 1707; but the title was Liria, not Alva, which belonged to the great house of Toledo, and was rendered famous (or infamous) by its bearer under Philip II. Berwick, however, transferred this Spanish title of Liria to his son James, by his first wife Honera de Burgh, daughter of William, seventh Earl of Clanrickard, with the annexed territory, or majorat. She was the widow of Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, who conducted 14,000 Irish refugees to France in 1691, after the surrender of Limerick to Ginkle. She died of consumption, still young, at Montpelier, in 1698. The Duke of St. Simon, in his Mémoires, tome ii. p. 92., describes her as "belle, faite à peindre, touchante—une nymphe enfin;" but, though personally acquainted with her, he names her the daughter, instead of the widow, of Lucan. Berwick afterwards married Miss Buckley, one of the Queen Mary d'Este's maids of honour, by whom he had several children, who assumed the name of Fitz-James. Their descendants were colonels or proprietaires of the Irish Brigade regiment, called, after their founder, Berwick. The Spanish branch still maintains its rank and estates. Berwick was killed at the siege of Philpsburg, in Baden, the 12th June, 1734. His military talents were of acknowledged superiority; so far more resembling his uncle Marlborough than his father, whose dastardly flight at the Boyne he indignantly witnessed. His Mémoires, in two volumes 12mo., were published from his manuscript by his grandson, the Duke of Fitz-James, in 1778.

J. R.

Cork.

—The interpretation of "M.'s" woodcut will be found in Ulrich von Hutten's elegiac verses, which are exhibited in his ΟΥΤΙΣ, NEMO. Your correspondent's amusing conjecture about "nobody's child" was quite correct, as these lines prove:

I suspect that "M.'s" old 4to. tracts bear a somewhat earlier date than 1520-30; but probably, this matter might be determined by Burckhard's Commentarius de Ulrici ab Hutten fatis et meritis, or by his Analecta (Cf. Freytag, Adpar. Lit. iii. 519.), or by means of Münck's collection of De Hutten's works. I happen to have copies of two editions of the Nemo, which, though they are undated, must appertain to the year 1518. This was not, however, the period of the first publication of the poem; for the author, in a letter addressed to Erasmus in October, 1516, mentions it as having then appeared (Niceron, Mémoires, xv. 266.): but the original impression of this satirical performance is without the prefatory epistle to Crotus Rubianus [Johan Jager], who is believed to have had no inconsiderable share in the composition of the celebrated Epistolæ obscurorum Virorum.

R. G.

—I can mention at all events one other earthwork named Grimsdyke in England—the great earthwork, viz., south of Salisbury, which is called Grimsdyke. Mr. Guest has stated his belief that it was not a Belgic work, but a boundary line made by the Welsh after the treaty of the Mons Badonicus.

W. S. G.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

—Respecting the pronunciation of the name of Coke at page 138., I recollect having some discussion on it in 1812 with the late Mr. Andrew Lynch, Master in Chancery, then a student at the Temple, when he corrected me for calling it Cooke, which he maintained should be called Coake. We happened to dine that day at Mr. Charles Butler's, his future father-in-law, and agreed to refer the matter to him who had been associated with Hargrave in publishing Sir Edward Coke's Commentaries on Littleton (1809, 7 vols. 8vo.). Mr. Butler at once decided the question in my favour, adding that he had never heard the name otherwise pronounced, and that Coake was quite a novelty, which he should never adopt—indeed, I am sure it is so, though now I find it generally prevalent.

J. R.

Cork.

—I think that your correspondent will not readily ascertain the owner of this pseudonyme; but, in the presumed absence of any opposing evidence, I would suggest that the mask may belong to Marc-Antonio Flaminio. Melancthon's excellent Responsio ad scriptum quorundam delectorum à Clero secundario Coloniæ Agrippinæ, 4to., Francfurdiæ, 1543, is now before me, but it does not allude to the Querela set forth in the same year. It is said that the framer of the Cologne Judicium against Bucer was the Carmelite Eberhardus Billicus; and TYRO may be assured that he is fortunate if he be a possessor of the tract by the fictitious Antoninus; for, in the words of Seckendorf,—

"Ex scriptis reliquis, occasione Reformationis Coloniensis tunc publicatis, plurima in oblivionem fere venerunt, nec facile hodie inveniuntur, typis licet olim excusa."—Comm. de Luther. lib. iii. sect. 27. § cvii. p. 437. Francof. 1692.

R. G.

The sculptures which have been preserved with comparatively little injury for upwards of six centuries on the western front of the venerable cathedral of Wells have long excited the wonder and curiosity, as well as admiration, of all who looked upon them. All have been ready to recognise in them the expression of some grand design; but it has been reserved for Professor Cockerell to penetrate, through the quaintness of the style and the dilapidations of centuries, into their noble aim and purpose, and to describe at length this "extensive but hitherto unedited commentary in living sculpture of the thirteenth century, upon our earliest dynasties, our churchmen, and religious creed." This he has done in a handsome and richly illustrated volume, lately published by Mr. Parker under the title of Iconography of the West Front of Wells Cathedral, with an Appendix on the Sculptures of other Mediæval Churches in England: and the work will be found of the highest interest, not only for its valuable illustration of this "kalender for unlearned men," which we owe to the piety and love of art of Bishop Trotman, and which Flaxman speaks of as "the earliest specimen of such magnificent and varied sculpture united in a series of sacred history that is to be found in western Europe," but also for the light it throws upon the history of art in this country. For not only have we in these pages the results of Professor Cockerell's studies of the extensive and important series of sculptures which form the immediate subject of them; but also his criticisms and remarks upon the cognate objects to be found at Exeter, Norwich, Malmesbury, Canterbury, Rochester, York, Beverley, Lichfield, Worcester, Lincoln, Gloucester, Salisbury, Peterborough, Croyland, and Bath. And who can speak with greater authority upon such points? whose opinion would be received with greater respect?

Surely Rome must have been styled the Eternal City because there is no end to the books which are published respecting it:

"For every year and month sends forth a new one;"

yet the subject never seems exhausted. Now it is a high churchman who gives a picture of this "Niobe of nations," tinted couleur de rose; now a low churchman, who talks of nothing but abominations of a deeper dye; now some classical student tells how—

now some worshipper of art, who unfolds the treasures garnered within its walls; now a politician loud in his praises of Young Italy, or his condemnation of foreign interference. The Chevalier de Chatelaine is none of these, or rather, he is almost all of them by turns; and consequently his Rambles though Rome, descriptive of the Social, Political, and Ecclesiastical Condition of the City and its Inhabitants, is a volume of pleasant gossip, more amusing to the reader than flattering to the character of the Roman people or those who govern them.

CATALOGUE RECEIVED.—J. G. Bell's (17. Bedford Street, Covent Garden) Catalogue of Autograph Letters and other Documents, English and Foreign.

• FEARNE'S ESSAY ON HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS, 4to.
• BISHOP KIDDER'S LIFE OF ANTHONY HORNECK.
• TIGHE'S LIFE OF LAW.
• MACROPEDII, HECASTUS FABULA. 8vo. Antwerp, 1539.
• OMNES GEORGII MACROPEDII FABULÆ COMICÆ. Utrecht, 1552. 2 Vols. 8vo.
• OTHONIS LEXICON RABBINICUM.
• PLATO. Vols. VIII. X. XI. of the Bipont Edition.
• PARKINSON'S SERMONS. Vol. I.
• ATHENÆUM. Oct. and Nov. 1848. Parts CCL., CCLI.
• WILLIS' PRICE CURRENT. Nos. I. III. V. XXIV. XXVI. XXVII.—XLV.
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• RABBI SOLOMON JARCHI (RASCHI) ÜBER DAS ERSTE BUCH MOSIS VON L. HAYMANN. Bonn, 1833.
• No. 3 of SUMMER PRODUCTIONS, or PROGRESSIVE MISCELLANIES, by Thomas Johnson. London, 1790.
• HISTORY OF VIRGINIA. Folio. London, 1624.
• THE APOLOGETICS OF ATHENAGORAS, Englished by D. Humphreys. London, 1714. 8vo.
• BOVILLUS DE ANIMÆ IMMORTALITATE, ETC. Lugduni, 1522. 4to.
• KUINOEL'S NOV. TEST. Tom. I.
• THE FRIEND, by Coleridge. Vol. III. Pickering.

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MR. J. F. HARKINS will find the information he wishes respecting the dramatic works of Bishop Bale, &c., in Mr. Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry. The Arraignment of Paris is printed in Peele's works; and the plays attributed to Shakspeare, in a supplement to Knight's Pictorial Shakspeare. The other Queries shall appear very shortly.

A. N. The communication referred to shall be found if possible; but the number of papers we receive is not small, as our correspondent supposes.

J. B. C.'s communication was certainly intended for insertion. It shall be looked out and printed, with as little delay as possible.

REPLIES RECEIVED.—Marriage of Bishops—Names of Vermin and Payments for destroying—Suicides buried in Cross Roads—Tobacco used by Elizabethan Ladies—Ball that killed Nelson—Serpent with a Human Head—Bidding Weddings—White Rose—Annals of the Inquisition—Pope and Flatman—Quotation from Bacon—Story referred to by Jeremy Taylor—Lord Mayor not a Privy Councillor—Borough-English—The Sun Feminine—Sacre Cheveux—Blessing by the Hand—Nao a Ship—Illumination in 1802—Miserrimus—Tennyson—St. Frances—Whig and Tory—Simnels—Devenisch—Discovery of the Drowned—Forthfare—Royal Library, &c.—Antiquity of Kilts—Cagots—Burton Family—Fire unknown—Mad as a March Hare—Grimsdyke—Freedom from Serpents.

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