Notes and Queries Vol. IV., No. 104, Saturday, October 25. 1851

NOTES:—

QUERIES:—

REPLIES:—

MISCELLANEOUS:—

The various notices and inquiries at times in your publication respecting this lady, including, as they do, some sceptical doubts of her existence, induce me to trouble you with several particulars upon this subject, of which I have at sundry times, according to the admirable suggestion of your motto, "when found, made a note." Some of them, derived from local antiquarian opportunities, will be new; of all I shall endeavour to make an intelligible arrangement; and as the subject will probably extend itself too much for a single article suited to your pages, I propose to place it under these distinct headings:—Was there an old Countess of Desmond? Is there really a portrait of her? And, Who was she?

In reference to the first inquiry, I would observe that the fact of the existence of such a personage rests upon no modern or uncertain tradition. This aged lady, according to an account I shall mention presently, is supposed to have lived to the latter end of the reign of James I. or beginning of that of Charles I.; and mention is made of her by Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World (bk. i. p. i. c. 5.), as "personally known to him" as having been married in the reign of Edward IV. (who died A.D. 1485); and who was living in 1589, and "many years afterwards, as all the noblemen and gentlemen of Munster can witness."

Lord Bacon, in his Natural History (cent. viii. sect. 755.) refers to her thus:

"They tell a tale of the old Countess of Desmond, who lived until she was seven score years old; that she did dentize twice or thrice, casting her old teeth, and others coming in their place."

Horace Walpole, in his Historic Doubts respecting Richard III. (p. 102.), correcting the "misrepresentations regarding his person," says:

"The old Countess of Desmond, who had danced with Richard, declared he was the handsomest man in the room except his brother Edward, and was very well made."

This last anecdote of Walpole's is taken from an account which I certainly have seen and read, but the name of the authority I cannot now recollect, which stated that the Countess actually outlived the "trust term for securing her jointure" (a period generally of ninety-nine years from the date of marriage), "and was obliged in her old age to appear in a court of justice to establish her rights; and that it was there and then she delivered Walpole's anecdote to the judge and audience." All these different yet concurring testimonies seem satisfactorily to establish the fact that there was a Countess of Desmond "passing old."

Then, as to her celebrated picture, of which I have frequently seen the original on wood, in possession of the "Right Hon. Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight of Kerry," and have now a print before me, there are some particulars and questions which may interest your readers.

The print (same size as the original) is a mezzo-tint, ten inches by seven inches and a half, and has under it the following inscription:

"CATHERINE FITZGERALD (the long-lived) COUNTESS OF DESMOND, from an original Family Picture of the same size, painted on Board, in the possession of the Right Honorable Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight of Kerry, &c. &c. &c., to whom this plate is most respectfully dedicated by her very obedient and much obliged humble servant, HENRY PELHAM.

"This illustrious lady was born about the year 1464, and was married in the reign of Edward IV., lived during the reigns of Edward V., Richard III., Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, and died in the latter end of James I., or beginning of Charles I.'s reign, at the great age (as is generally supposed) of 162 years. Published as the Act directs, at Bear Island, June 4, 1806. By Henry Pelham, Esq."

In this print the features are large and strongly marked; the forehead and upper part of the nose deeply wrinkled, the head covered with a large full black hood, showing no hair whatever about the face; the person wrapped in a dark cloak, held by a single button over the breast. As some of your correspondents speak of portraits of this lady at Knowle (Vol. iii., p. 341.), Bedgebury, and Penshurst, it may be useful to compare them with this description, for the following reason.

Horace Walpole, whose "mission" seems to have been to raise "Historic Doubts," in a letter to Rev. Mr. Cole, dated May 28, 1774, has the following sentence:

"Mr. Pennant has given a new edition of his former Tour, with more cuts: among others is the vulgar head called the Countess of Desmond. I told him I had discovered, and proved past contradiction, that it is Rembrandt's mother. He owned it, and said he would correct it by a note: but he has not. This is a brave way of being an antiquary: as if there could be any merit in giving for genuine what one knows to be spurious."

This is a very teasing passage. I have no copy of Pennant's Tour by me; nor do I recollect ever to have seen one with the print here referred to. Probably some of your numerous correspondents will find one, and inform us, whether the print in it resembles the description I have given. It is not at all probable that Pennant's "cut" was copied from the Knight of Kerry's picture: but if it was copied from any of those mentioned by your correspondents; and if these be duplicates of the Knight of Kerry's "family portrait;" and if Horace Walpole's cruel criticism on Mr. Pennant be correct—then have we all been shamed with a sham. These are a considerable number of ifs, upon which this conclusion depends; but in one thing Walpole is correct: "there is no merit in giving for genuine what one knows to be spurious."

Of the Mr. Pelham who published the print I have described, there are some particulars which may interest your readers. He will be found among the correspondents of the late General Vallancey, whose interest in Irish antiquities is well known. Mr. Pelham was an ingenious gentleman, who came to Kerry in the end of the last century, in the character of agent to the Marquis of Lansdowne; which engagement, after a few years, he resigned, but continued in the county, a zealous studier of its antiquities, and intending, as I have heard, either a new County History or a reprint of Smith's work. He was a good civil engineer, and executed a great part of a large county and baronial map, afterwards finished by another hand. Mr. Pelham, who perished prematurely by sudden death, in his boat, while superintending the building of a Martello tower on Bear Island, in the River Kenmare, in the very year he published this print, is said to have been an uncle by half-blood to the present Lord Lyndhurst, whose grandmother, Sarah Singleton, is said to have married to her second husband, —— Pelham, an American—Henry Pelham being the only issue of her second marriage, as John Singleton Copley, father to the ex-chancellor, was of her first. In my next I propose to consider the question, Who was the old Countess of Desmond?

A. B. R.

The idea and conception of Panslavism are the produce of the latent political events on the Continent, viz. the idea of a re-crystallisation of a race of people comprising even now sixty millions, and which in former epochs extended from Archangelsk to Tissalonichi, where it bordered on the abodes of the Hellenic race. Having lost their primeval (Indian) civilisation by migrations which extend to times historical, the only monuments testifying to their most ancient origin are the languages of these various tribes,—the Russians, Czechs, Poles, &c. But these languages have all acquired a more modern type, by a great susception of Greek, Tartarian, Latin, Turkish, and German phrases and constructions. Fortunately, however, there have been other branches of this huge nation-tree, which, settled on the shores of the German ocean, afar from the tracts of migration and the stations of war, have escaped the influence of the changes contingent on the contentions and intercourse of men. And thus, the Old Prussian, the Lithuanian, and the Lettish tongues (dialects) have escaped, as it were, the changes of improvement, and have remained, in the mouth of aboriginal inhabitants, such as they were many centuries ago. If the mythology of the Slavian nations, and their universal complex of languages, are undoubtedly Indian (Sanscrit), the above-named three dialects have retained most of their primordial type. I subjoin the Lord's Prayer, written in these three ancient Slavonic dialects, now hardly understood by any other save those very same tribes. The approximation to Sanscrit is most striking, and deserves the notice of philologists. As a number of persons conversant with Sanscrit, and even the dialects spoken in India, are to be met with in the British capital, their attention is most respectfully called to these venerable remains of old Panslavic tongues.

DR. J. LOTSKY, Panslave.

8. Robert Street, Hampstead Road.

Tava nuson, kas tu essei en dangon, svintints virst tvais emnes; pereit tvais ryks; tvais quaits audasin kagi en dandon tyt deigi no semien, nuson deinennin geitien dais numans s̄an deinan; bhe etverpeis numas nusons ausautins, kaimes etverpimai nusons aus̄autenikamans; bhe ni veddeis mans em perbandasnan, s̄lait isrankeis mans esse vissan vargan.

Tive musû, kurs essi danguie, te essie s̄venē amas tavo vardas; te ateinie tavo karaliste; te nusidŭdie tavo vale, kaip danguie taip ir ant z̄èmês; dŭna musû diesnis̄ka dûk mums ir sa diena; ir attèisk mums musû kattes, kaip mes attèidsam savo kattiemus; ir ne vesk mus i pagundima, bet gèlbèk mus nŭ pikto.

Mûsu têvs debbesîs, svêtîts lai tôp tavs vârds, lai nâk tava valstiba; tavs prâts lai noteek, ka debbesîs ta arridzan zemmes virzû; mûsû deenis̄ku maiz dôd mums s̄odeen; un pametti mums mûsu parradus, ka arrimês pamettam saveem parradneekeem; un ne ceveddi mûs eeks̄ kârdinas̄anas, bet atpesti mûs no ta launa.

Mr. T. Kite, the parish clerk of Stratford-on-Avon, has recently completed a copy in imitation stone from a cast of the monumental bust of Shakspeare, which appears to me, after a very close and minute comparison, to be a far more faithful transcript of the original than any of the kind hitherto accessible to the public. It gives in detail most accurately those peculiarities which led Sir F. Chantrey to the opinion that the artist worked from a cast made after death; and if you would kindly spare a few lines of your paper for a paragraph to that effect, I feel sure you would not only confer a benefit on Shakspearian collectors, but at the same time pay a just tribute to Mr. Kite, for the intelligent pains he has bestowed upon the work. It is scarcely necessary to say an accurate copy of the Stratford bust is the best memorial of Shakspeare the public can possess, it being so much superior in authenticity to any other resemblance.

J. O. HALLIWELL.

Stratford on Avon, Oct. 15.

I. "Acti Fatis."—Virg. Æn. I. 36.

"Si fatis, nulla Junonis invidia est. Si Junonis invidiâ fatigabantur quomodo dicit acti fatis? Sed hoc ipsum Junonis odium fatale est. Agebantur fatis Junonis, i.e. voluntate; vel fatis, pro malis, ut iii. 182."—SERVIUS.

"Non tam quoniam hoc Junonis odium fatale erat, ut Servius; sed potius, quoniam hi ipsi Trojanorum, errores fatales erant."—HEYNE.

Not only these two, but all other commentators and translators, as far as I know, have wholly mistaken the meaning of this passage, which is not that the Trojans were jactati, fatigati, or agitati, harassed, or driven hither and thither by the fates, (actus being never used in the sense assigned to it in such interpretation), but simply that they were driven onward, or toward Latium, by the fates (acti fatis); while at the same time they were driven backward, or from Latium, by Juno, (arcebat longe Latio). The result was "multos per annos errabant maria omnia circum:" words could not more clearly express the opposition of the forces between which the Trojans were placed; an opposition on which hangs the whole action of the poem. The invidia of Juno, concerning which Servius queries, was manifested by her using her utmost exertions to prevent the Trojans from arriving at the place toward which they were impelled by the fates, i.e. at which it was fated they should arrive.

As "acti fatis" here, so "fato profugus venit," verse 6; "sedes ubi fata quietas ostendunt," verse 209; "data fata secutus," verse 386; "fata deum vestras exquirere terras imperiis egere suis" (Æn. VII. 239.); "fatisque vocantia regna" (Æn. v. 656.); &c.; through all which expressions runs the one constant idea of the fates calling, forcing, driving (agentia) the Trojans toward Latium.

II. "Sævus ubi Æacidæ telo jacet Hector ubi ingens
Sarpedon."—Virg. Æn. I. 103.[1]

[1] The numbering of the lines is that of the Delphin edition.

Observe how the poet surmounts the obvious difficulty of uniting Hector, the principal champion of Troy, and Sarpedon, the son of Jove, in one and the same sentence, without implying a preference for either, without exalting one at the expense of the other; viz., by counterbalancing, by an inferior position towards the end of a line, that advantage of priority of mention, which he must necessarily give to one of them; and by compensating the other for the disadvantage of being placed second in order, by the double advantage of first place in a line, and separation from the rest of the line by a sudden pause.

III. "Ubi tot Simois correpta sub undis
Scuta virum galeasque et fortia corpora volvit."—Virg. Æn. I. 104.

"Contendit cum Homero (Il. μ. 22. seq.). Potest sane oratio nimis ornata videri ex Æneæ persona; sed innumeris locis poetæ cum epici, tum tragici, ac lyrici, sibi indulgent in ornatu, etiam ubi alios loquentes inducunt."—HEYNE.

This stricture, very seasonable in a commentary on Statius or Lucan, is wholly inapplicable to Virgil; a poet remarkable, above all others, for his abstinence from gaudy ornament, and singularly careful to adapt the sentiment to the character and circumstances of the speaker. The words in the text, or some similar words, were indispensable to give full expression to the idea of Æneas; very imperfectly understood either by the annotators, or, with the exception of Caro, by the translators: Happy those who died on the plains of Troy, in the sight of their sires? Oh! that I, too, had perished there by the hand of Tydides, or been swept away along with so many of my friends by the Simois!

JAMES HENRY.

34. Westland Row, Dublin.

—It is a subject for painful reflection, that beings of so great skill and useful industry should be so liable to take affront, as is proved by the anecdotes related of bees by L. L. L. Who would not grieve, that bees—who have been said to partake of the Divine nature,

should reduce themselves, by this susceptibility of offence at (in most cases imaginary) neglect, to a level with the weakness and folly of human creatures,—I say human creatures; for in the country I have known feuds caused by omitting to bid to the funeral of a deceased neighbour, or to send black gloves. It was to be hoped that these "offensiones muliebres" (we may add "viriles" also) were peculiar to the human race; but that, it is apparent, is not so. The custom of giving a piece of the funeral cake is new to me; though it looks like want of feeling to be greedy of cake in the hour of affliction, yet there is a sort of retributive fitness in presenting to these busy people

It is a grateful acknowledgment of past favours conferred upon the deceased head of the family, and a retainer for future services to the survivors.

With regard to the custom of informing the bees of a death in the family, and the penalty of omitting to do so, I can add to the proof of it. I find among some memoranda I made more than five-and-twenty years ago, the following note:

"In Buckinghamshire it is common, on the death of any one of the family, for the nurse to go to all the bee-hives in the garden, and tap gently three times, each time repeating three times these words, 'Little brownie, little brownie, your master's dead;' when the bees, beginning to hum, show their consent to remain. The omission of this ceremony, it is believed, would occasion the loss of the bees by flight, or otherwise."

To show that a similar custom and belief, though varying in some particulars, are found upon the continent of Europe, I give the following extract:

"In Lithuania, when the master or mistress of the house dies, it is considered necessary to give notice of the fact to the bees, horses, and cows, by rattling a bunch of keys; and it is believed, that if this were omitted the bees and cattle would die."—See the Journal of Agriculture. Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, Oct. 1848, p. 538.

One word more of bees: "His head is full of bees" is a Scotch proverb, said of a drunkard. (Ray's Proverbs, p. 198.) "He has a bee in his head" is an English proverb. So, "He has a bee in his bonnet." What is the meaning? As I was writing the last lines I said to a friend who was lounging in his arm-chair by our fireside, "Why is a drunkard's head said to be full of bees?" "I don't know," he answered, "unless it is on account of their humming. You remember," he added,

The half-hour bell rang before we had done talking of and repeating parts of V. Bourne's "The Wish." Many a time has "NOTES AND QUERIES" given subjects for talk in our family before and after dinner.

F. W. T.

Oliver, in his account of Cherry-Burton (History of Beverley, p. 499.), speaks thus on the superstitious practice of informing bees, and putting them in mourning on the occasion of a death in the family:

"The inhabitants entertain a superstitious belief, that when the head of a family dies, it is necessary to clothe the bees in mourning on the funeral day to ensure the future prosperity of the hive."

He then refers to an instance, and says:

"A scarf of black crape was formally applied to each bee-hive; and an offering of pounded funeral biscuit, soaked in wine, was placed at its entrance."

In a note, he accounts for the ceremony's origin by a quotation from Porph. De Ant. Nymp., p. 261., in which honey is spoken of as being "anciently a symbol of death." For other notices of superstitions in reference to bees, see Hone's Mysteries, pp. 220. 222. 283.

R. W. ELLIOT.

I was lately informed by a native of Monmouthshire, that the belief relative to bees is entertained in that and some of the adjacent counties even by educated persons. My informant gravely assured me that though the bees are aware of the approaching event, from the acuteness of their organs of smell, they require to be duly and timely communicated with on the subject, to induce them to remain with the survivors; but if this be neglected, they will desert their hives, and disappear. The propriety or necessity of offering them any refreshment was not stated.

YUNAF.

The custom mentioned by L. L. L. still prevails in the Weald of Surrey and Sussex; probably through all the southern counties; but certainly in the Isle of Wight, where the writer only the other day, on noticing an empty apiary in the grounds of a villa, was told that the country people attributed its desertion to the bees not having had this formal notice of their master's death.

The same superstition is practised in some parts of France, when a mistress of the house dies; the formula being much like our English one, i.e. to tap thrice on the hive, repeating these words, "Petits abeilles, votre maîtresse est morte."

A. D.

—At Bradfield, a primitive village on the edge of the moors, in the parish of Ecclesfield, I was informed by a person of much intelligence, that a custom has obtained in the district from time immemorial—"for hundreds of years" was the expression used—of inviting bees to funerals; and that an instance could be produced of the superstition having been practised even within the last year. What is done is this. When a death occurs, a person is appointed to call the neighbours to the funeral, who delivers the invitations in one form of words: "You are invited to the funeral of A. B., which is to take place at such an hour, on such a day; and there will be dinner on table at —— o'clock." And if it should happen that bees were kept in the garden of the house where the corpse lies (not an unlikely thing near moors), the messenger is instructed to address the same invitation to the bees in their hives; because it is considered that, if this compliment be omitted, the bees will die.

I asked the sexton of Bradfield why, in a churchyard that was rather crowded with graves, there was no appearance of either mound or tombstone on the north side? His only answer was, "It's mostly them 'at died i' t' workhus is buried at t' backside o' t' church." An instance, but no explanation of the prejudice entertained against the north side of churchyards.

ALFRED GATTY.

In answer to your correspondent L. L. L. respecting bee etiquette, I can inform him, from my personal observation, that the ceremony of informing the bees of their owner's death is in full force in Ashborne, Derbyshire, Hinton, Wilts, and even in the highly intellectual city of Oxford. The ceremony is the same in all these places. Three taps are made on the hives with the house-key, while the informant repeats: "Bees, bees, bees, your master is dead, and you must work for ——," naming the future owner. A piece of black crape is then fastened to the hive. Many bee owners think it is politic to inform the bees of the death of a relation: but in this case they never give the name, but the degree of relationship; as "your master's brother, sister, aunt, &c. is dead." On weddings the bees always expect to be informed of the auspicious event, and to have their hive decorated with a wedding favour.

J. G. WOOD.

Oxford.

—The ashton faggot is burned on Christmas eve. The faggot is composed entirely of ash timber, and the separate sticks or branches are securely bound together with ash bands. The faggot is made as large as can conveniently be burned in the fireplace, or rather upon the floor, grates not being in use. A numerous company is generally assembled to spend the evening in games and amusement, the diversion being heightened as the faggot blazes on the hearth, as a quart of cider is considered due, and is called for, and served upon the bursting of every hoop or band bound round the faggot. The timber being green and elastic, each band generally bursts open with a smart report when the individual stick or hoop has been partially burned through.

—It was a custom in Devonshire, and probably in some of the adjoining counties also, to perform the following ceremonial on Old Christmas Eve, or Twelfth Day, namely: In the evening the farmer's family and friends being assembled, hot wheat-flour cakes were introduced, with cider; and this was served round to the company, the cake being dipped in the cider, and then eaten. As the evening wore on, the assembled company adjourned into the orchard, some one bearing hot cake and cider as an offering to the principal tree in the orchard; the cake was deposited on a fork of the tree, and the cider was then thrown over it, the men firing off muskets, fowling-pieces, pistols, &c., the women, girls, and boys shouting and screaming to the trees with all the excitement of young Indians the following rhyme:—

Query, Do these customs prevail to this day either in Devonshire or in other European countries?

R. R.

It has always been a pleasing office of criticism, to observe how often an excellent thought, having sprung from some master mind, or from some inferior mind in a happy moment, has been used by succeeding writers.

Homer,

has, in Il. v. 406. et seq., the following lines:

"The son of Tydeus is foolish and rash, nor is aware that he who fights with the immortals is not long-lived, and that no children, as he returns from war and strife, gather round his knees to call him father."

The idea of children saluting their parent at his knees, has been adopted, and accompanied with various additions, by several subsequent authors. Among the writers in Homer's language, however, we find no imitation of it, unless the following lines of Callimachus can be regarded as taken from it:

"She (Diana), yet a child, sitting sportively on the knees of her father, said to him, Allow me, dear parent, to preserve a perpetual virginity."

In the Latin writers the thought occurs several times. The first in whom it is found is Lucretius:

"But thy cheerful home shall no more receive thee, nor thy excellent wife; nor shall thy sweet children run to snatch kisses from thee, and touch thy breast with secret delight."

In whose steps Virgil treads:

(Virgil liked the expression dulces nati. He has

Statius, doubtless, had both Lucretius and Virgil in his view, when he wrote,

"Again from them springs a new race; a forward little troop, which sometimes climb on the shoulders of their grandfather, and sometimes, in pleasing congress, run to catch a kiss from the gentle Polla."

Seneca, Thyest. I. 145., has another imitation:

"The little Pelops, met by the impious sword, while he was running to receive his father's kiss, fell a premature victim on the hearth."

Claudian, Rapt. Proserp. III. 173., has another:

"She was accustomed to bear the little infant, after it had slept in its cradle, in her fragrant bosom, to present it to almighty Jove, and to place it sporting on its father's knees."

But the best adaptations and expansions of the thought have been among the writers of our own country. The earliest allusion to it, I believe, occurs in Thomson's description of the traveller lost in the snow:

But this is a less pointed imitation than that of Gray, which succeeded it. Gray had his eye on Lucretius:

Next followed Collins, in his Ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands, who, however, seems to have had Thomson chiefly in view:

To him succeeded Dyer:

Burns has a picture equal to any of these:

Burns may have taken the thought from Gray, or some other English source. But he has not disgraced it by his mode of treating it.

Allen Ramsay, in his Gentle Shepherd, has a very pretty allusion to children, which I have not at hand to consult, but which concludes with,

J. S. W.

Stockwell.

The foregoing is a very famous old Gloucestershire ballad, corrected according to the fragments of a MS. found in the Speech-house of Dean several centuries ago, and used to be sung at the meetings of the Gloucestershire Society, a charitable institution held at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand.

Both these ballads are literally copied from the Broadsides.

H. G. D.

The biographers of Caxton may be divided into two classes; those who wrote before the publication of the Typographical antiquities, A.D. 1749, and those who wrote after that date. The same distinction may be made with regard to those who have incidentally noticed his life or publications.

The principal writers of the first period are Leland, Bale, Stow, Pits, Fuller, Nicolson, Middleton, Birch, Oldys, Lewis and Tanner. At the present moment, I must content myself with a critical remark on the mode in which Leland has been so often quoted. The first passage contains the expression to which I allude.

(1.) "Gulielmus Caxodunus, Angliæ prototypographus, hæc, aut similia his, Anglice refert" etc.

(2.) "Quanquam priusquam id, quod modo sum pollicitus, præstitero, non alienum meo erit instituto palam facere Gulielmum Caxodunum, hominem nec indiligentem, nec indoctum, et quem constat primum LONDINI artem exercuisse typographicam, Chauceri opera, quotquot vel pretio vel precibus comparare potuit, in unum volumen collegisse."

The incidental expression Angliæ prototypographus has been considered as a proof that Leland discredited the typographical claims of Oxford. The second quotation conveys an opposite notion. I tax no one, however, with unfairness, but ascribe the oversight to reliance on the Index scriptorum à Joanne Lelando laudatorum, which refers only to the first quotation.

BOLTON CORNEY.

—As Mr. Clinton and others have endeavoured to invalidate Newton's conclusions with respect to the length of reigns, by examples from modern history, I have made a Note on that subject which may be of use. Taking in the times which may be supposed most to resemble those to which the question refers, we find in England, from Alfred to the Conquest, 13 kings in 166 years:

From 1066 to 1272 8 kings 206 yrs.

From 1272 to 1837 27 [kings] 565 [yrs.] An average on the whole of 19-1/2 years.

If we add the time from Egbert, 5 kings, 73 yrs., the average becomes 19 yrs.

The average from 1272 is only 21.

In France 559 to 814 18 kings 255 yrs.

[In France] 814 [to] 1830 47 [kings] 1016 [yrs.] Average 19-1/2.

Average from 814 only 21-1/2.

In Germany 840 to 1835 50 emper. 995 yrs. Average not 20.

Turks 1299 to 1808, 30 sover. 509 yrs. Average 17.

Scotland 1057 to 1567, 20 kings 510 yrs. Average 25-1/2

Spain 1479 to 1833, 14 kings 354 yrs. Average 25.

Portugal 1102 to 1826, 27 kings 724 yrs. Average not 21.

Denmark 1157 to 1839, 28 kings 672 yrs. Average 25.

Russia 1722 to 1825, 9 sover. 103 yrs. Average 11-1/2 yrs.

Total: 294 sovereigns, 6085 years; being an average of about 20-2/3, although including the latest times. It is evidently unfair to take recent times only, as Hales, Clinton, &c. do.

ALTRON.

—One of your correspondents, in a late reply (Vol. iv., p. 243.), alludes to "a marvellous or cock and bull story." Query, as to the origin of this saying. From an early number of the Phonetic Journal made the following Note.

Dr. Burgess, a Methodist preacher, who often indulged in pointed remarks, perceiving some young men attending his preaching, whose behaviour plainly showed that amusement was their only object, turned his discourse, and addressed himself particularly to them as follows:—

"Young men, I know you are come to hear a story, and I will tell you one. There was once a man, a cock, and a bull, who, being intimate, agreed to travel together. They had not gone far on their journey when they found themselves on the brink of a river, which they had determined to cross, but could discover neither bridge nor ferry. After a consultation it was agreed the cock should first make the attempt of crossing the water, which he did without much difficulty; the bull afterwards plunged into the stream, and by mere strength waded through. The man, not being able to swim, was afraid to follow his companions; and while they were encouraging him from the other side to get over, he was observed to cut some osiers which grew by the water-side. Perhaps you imagine these were intended to form a vehicle for conveying him across the river? No such thing, I assure you. What other purpose could he design them for? I will tell you, young men; it was to lash the backs of those fools who chose to hear a story of a cock and a bull, rather than the word of God."

PHILIP S. KING.

—To show how stories are made standing dishes with what we may call current sauce (no pun intended), take the following:—If we believe anything to have happened in our own day, that is, in Liverpool or Castlereagh time, it is the anecdote of the borough-monger who would answer nothing to the excuses of the minister, except "There are five of us." This story was told as an old one in the Telegraph in 1798; and a long dialogue was given between Lord Falmouth, who wanted the Captaincy of the Yeomen of the Guard, and Henry Pelham, who had promised it elsewhere. To all the poor minister could say, the peer could only answer, "There are seven of us." I hope that, in an age when coincidences are sought for, Wordsworth will not be suspected of plagiarism.

Again, what reader of gossip does not know that when George III. went to Weymouth, the Mayor, in making his address, mistook the private directions of his prompter for parts of his address, and gave it the King as follows:—"Hold up your head, and look like a man—what the —— do you mean?... By ——, Sir, you'll ruin us all." This story was told in a newspaper in 1797, as having happened between James II. and the Mayor of Winchester.

In the Monthly Magazine in 1798, is a paper on peculiarities of expression, among which are several which we flatter ourselves belong to our own time. For instance, "to cut a person," which was then current: some tried to change it into spear, but failed. Also, to vote, as in "he voted it a bad lounge;" and the words bore, done up, dished, &c.; not forgetting spilt for "upset" in a carriage.

The parliamentary phrases of "catching the speaker's eye," "being upon his legs," "meeting the ideas of the house," "committing himself," "taking shame to himself," "being free to confess," "putting a question roundly," "answering it fairly," "pushing an investigation," are all noted as then worthy of remark. And, if we are to trust the article cited, the word truism was born and bred in the House of Commons, in the sense of a forcible and undeniable truth. And the same origin is given to the idiom "in my own mind" as in "I feel no doubt, in my own mind,..."

M.

—I recollect two curious historical instances of mere vulgar mis-pronunciation, which have established themselves in use; perhaps others of your readers may mention more, which it would be interesting to trace to their origin.

Massaniello is universally recognised as the name of the celebrated Neapolitan insurrectionist, who at one time nearly overturned the government of that kingdom. How few who use the word are aware that "Mas-Aniello" is but a corruption of Thomas Aniello, so pronounced by his vulgar companions, and now raised to the dignity of an historical name.

Hougoumont is a conspicuous feature of the great field of Waterloo, and a name familiarly used in speaking of the famous battle; in course of time it will be forgotten that this is a mere mistake, said to have originated with the great general who achieved the victory, catching up from the peasantry around, the sound of Chateau Goumont, the real name of the little rural demesne in question. Nobody doubts, however, the right of the "Great Duke" to call a place he has made so famous by any name he might please to apply, and so Hougoumont it will remain while history lasts.

A. B. R.

Although Mr. Cosh, at p. 248. of his admirable work on The Method of Divine Government, observes on the rapidity with which females descend to the depths of sin, the old apothegm, "Nemo repenti turpissimus fuit," recurs when thinking of Mary Queen of Scots, and leads me to ask the following question. Permit me to preface it with a remark. Mary is represented by all contemporary and subsequent writers to have been, from her earliest years to the death of Darnley, worthily beloved for her amiable qualities of heart and her superiority of intellect, and then to have fallen suddenly into an abyss of sin and wickedness, comprising domestic treason, murder, perjury, the subornation of perjurers, adultery, the conniving at divorce without adequate grounds, and all the other crimes connected with such proceedings; and then, after fifteen months of such a desperate course, to have risen to her former elevation, and have passed the remainder of her life with dignity, calmness, resignation, and in the habitual exercise of sincere piety, and to have met her death with a degree of heroism which has secured the admiration of posterity, and strengthened the doubts of her being guilty of the crimes imputed to her. The whole controversy, from Buchanan to Bell, is, I take for granted, known to your readers. Your publication is not the place suited to an examination of such mental operations, which are without a historical prototype, and without a known parallel. If any light can be thrown on any part of this subject, it becomes an act of historical justice, a work of Christian charity to Mary, and an illustration of the workings of the mind in a great emergency.

The late Chevalier Bronsted, of whose learning and accuracy his archæological works bear record, and whose straightforward simplicity of mind was highly estimated by all who knew him, had read in manuscript the second part of the confession of Bothwell, made previous to his death. I think the manuscript was in the private cabinet of the King of Denmark. In that confession he owned to have violated the person of Mary, and that she became enceinte; that she miscarried, and immediately took measures to rid herself of him. Concluding that event to have transpired, there seems to be some clue to her forwarding the discussion of her council, and acquiescing in their request to marry Bothwell. A young queen, surrounded by ruffians, barbarians, and selfish and unprincipled leaders of factions, placed in a situation in which every feeling of the woman was outraged, every sentiment lacerated, her honour, her station, her life in jeopardy, her memory liable to degradation and disgrace, in terror, having in such extremity no friend to whom she could apply for advice and succour, she may have been induced to adopt means for her safety which, if injudicious, were excusable. My request is, to learn if any of your correspondents have seen or are cognisant of this very curious and important document.

ÆGROTUS.

—Can any of your correspondents tell me where the following lines are to be found?—

I met with them in a newspaper (I think the Morning Herald) between twenty and thirty years ago, but I believe they have been transferred to that sheet from the pages of some periodical. The lines above given are the concluding lines of the piece; the preceding lines were devoted to the description of the dying away of the tones of the organ, and the musings of the poet amongst the tombs in Westminster Abbey.

REMIGIUS.

—Can any of your correspondents explain to me the reason why, according to Herodotus, the Scythians used to blind their slaves? The passage is in chapter ii. book iv. I believe the reasoning to be hopelessly unreasonable, and have always been told that it is so, though I have met with many who have read the chapter again and again without even noticing the difficulty. The question is this:—What are we to supply in thought in order to connect the practice of blinding the slaves with the process of milking the mares, and stirring the milk to separate the cream or butter from it? Is it thus? The Scythians only feed cattle, and have no other use for slaves than to stir the milk, which they can do when blinded, at the same time that they are unable to escape, having been deprived of sight, and so their masters have not the trouble of watching them. This does not satisfy me; nor will it, I think, satisfy any one else.

THEOPHYLACT.

Blackheath.

—In the Note on "The Antiquity of Kilts," MR. STEPHENS quotes the Gododin, an ancient poem, or poems, on which there is great diversity of opinion regarding its contents. The Gododin was written or composed by Aneurin, in the dialect of the Northumbrian Britons, about the year 510, according to Llwyd. It is evident that a work of this description, with the usual accidents attending on transmission, must necessarily be somewhat obscure at the present day. Indeed, it appears to be so much so, that there are two very different versions; one giving it as the description of a battle, in which the intoxicated Britons were easy victims to the swords of the "stranger;" the other version, by the Rev. E. Davies, refers it to the "Brad y Cyllyll Hirion," (or, Plot of the Long Knives), or massacre of the British chiefs at Stonehenge, during a feast. Now as this event is stated to have occurred in 472, the Dinogat of Aneurin is not the Dinogat of 577. Moreover Davies describes him as Octa, a son of the Saxon Hengist. As MR. STEPHENS does not follow this version, and as he has given considerable attention to those subjects, perhaps he is enabled to decide this questio vexata. It should be observed that Davies accompanies his version with reasons that give it much weight.

GOMER.

—There are curious circumstances about this frontispiece which some of your readers may explain. The figure of Leviathan represents the upper part of a man with a crown on his head, a sword in his right hand, and a crozier in his left, the body and arms being made up of small human figures in various dresses. In the common editions the face has a manifest resemblance to Cromwell (the work was published in 1651), although it wears, as I have said, a regal crown. But in the copy belonging to Trinity College Library, the face appears to be intended for Charles I. The engraving of this copy is very much worse than the other, and is not worked into the same careful detail by the artist, though the outline is the same: and the text of the book is a separate and worse impression, though the errata are the same with the other copies, as well as the date. How Hobbes himself, or any other person, should come to print the Leviathan in this manner, it seems difficult to explain.

I have also a small French translation of Hobbes, De Corpore Politico, dated 1652, which has a similar figure for a frontispiece, but with an upright sword in the right, and a balance in the left, hand.

W. W.

Cambridge.

—What is the origin of the arrow head as a government mark?

↗

—Mr. Robert Hooke, professor at Gresham College, writing in 1674, says he has—

"seen at a gentleman's house, not far from Bansted-Downs in Surrey, a well which is dug through a body of chalk, and is near 360 feet deep, and yet dry almost to the very bottom."

Is this well still known, and can any of your correspondents vindicate its situation, and give any particulars relating to it? The pamphlet in which it is mentioned is curious, for it is "an attempt to prove the motion of the earth [in its orbit] from observations." It will be observed that the work was written in the year 1674.

W. S. G.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

—About nine miles from Reading, on the road to Newbury, and removed about two miles from the high road, is an ancient manor house called Upton Court. It is most curious as to architecture, and is a most interesting specimen of the houses of the gentry of former days. It belonged to a Catholic family of the name of Perkins. The chapel, in the house, and the hiding-place for priests, can still be seen. It is said that Pope wrote the Rape of the Lock there. I should be glad to know if any of your correspondents can confirm this fact from authentic evidence.

A. E.

—In Vol. iv., p. 175., Pirog is stated to be the Russian custom of the mistress of a family distributing on certain occasions bread or cake to her guests.

Query, Is this the origin of our slang word prog, meaning provisions?

J. SS.

—I am nearly an octogenarian, consequently I ought to have something better, and humbly hope I have something better, to employ my thoughts than relics of old ditties and forgotten rhymes. Still the recurring questions of numerous grandchildren compel one to resort to long forgotten lore, and to request those whose memory still survives to compensate for the deficiencies of my own. I am particularly anxious to recover my lapsis in the following metrical, yet logical, history of England, which I have long ago forgotten:

If either MR. HALLIWELL, or DR. RIMBAULT, will favour me, they will confer a great obligation, and add much to the hilarity of my ensuing Christmas table.

MÆRIS.

—Besides some interesting monuments, &c., to be found in the church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, there stands under the western gallery a finger pillory, or stocks to confine the fingers only: it is fastened at its right-hand extremity into the wall, and consists of two pieces of oak; the bottom and fixed piece is three feet eight inches long; the width of the whole is four and a half inches, and when closed it is five inches deep: the left-hand extremity is supported by a leg of the same width as the top, and two feet six inches in length; the upper piece is joined to the lower by a hinge, and in this lower and fixed horizontal part are thirteen perpendicular holes, varying in size; the largest are towards the right hand: these holes are sufficiently deep to admit the finger to the second joint, and a slight hollow is made to receive the third one, which lies flat; there is of course a corresponding hollow in the top or movable part, which, when shut down, incloses the whole finger.

Its use is stated to have been for the punishment of persons guilty of mal-practices during divine service: truly, a mischievous urchin, or a lout of a farm servant, dragged off to the stocks, must have been a scene extremely edifying to the congregation, particularly if the offenders were obstreperous, and had no inclination whatever to be in a fix.

Query, Is there another known instance of stocks for the fingers alone, and applied to similar purposes?

THOS. LAWRENCE.

Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

—1. What was the christian name, birth, and parentage of the Stallenge who planted the mulberry trees at Sion House at the commencement of the seventeenth century?

2. What was the name of the first wife of that Sir Nicholas Stallenge who, towards the close of the sixteenth century, married as his second wife Florence Kenn, widow of Sir Christopher Kenn, of Kenn, in the county of Somerset?

3. What city or castle in England was Sir Thomas Stallenge his son governor of?

4. What was the name of the wife of the said Sir Thomas Stallenge?

M. C. U.

—In the year 1796, there was in the possession of the Rev. Robert Rennie, minister of Kilsyth, Stirlingshire, an old MS. which that gentleman (in Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account) thus describes:—

"It seems to be a chronicle of Scotland. The most of it is legible. It takes up the history of Scotland at the Christian era, and contains a regular series of all the remarkable events in every king's reign, with the name of the kings, down to the year 1565. I have compared it with many histories and annals of Scotland, but am of opinion that it is an original, and not a copy."

Can any of your correspondents give any additional information regarding it?

ABERDONIENSIS.

—Can you tell me the meaning of Pharetram de Tutesbit and sagittas flectatas in the following?

"William de Gresely tenet manerium de Drakelow in Com. Derby in Capite, et reddit unum arcum sine corda, et unum Pharetram de Tutesbit, et duodecim Sagittas flectatas, et unum buzonem."—Blount's Tenures.

H. N. E.

Bitton Vicarage, Oct. 1851.

—In Lysons' Environs of London, vol. iv. p. 359., it is stated that in the year 1671 a great inundation happened at and near Deptford, which did much mischief, so that the inhabitants were obliged to retire in boats to the upper town, and that an account of it was extant in a small pamphlet published at the time. If any of your correspondents could inform me where a copy of this is to be met with, or give me any further particulars concerning the occurrence, I should feel very much obliged.

W. H. HART.

New Cross.

—In the account of Bishop Butler, attached to his works, mention is made of MS. sermons, from which those which have been published were selected. Is it known if there are any writings of his in existence, and where they are? His executor was Dr. Nathaniel Foster.

L.

—Can any one familiar with the Coleridge Papers inform me whether the following is a veritable fragment of the poet's own continuation of Christabel, or perhaps of one of those conclusions (some serious, some jocose) which we owe to Tupper, Moir, and Maginn?

MORTIMER COLLINS.

—When the Queen visited the library of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1849, she was shown an early edition of Sallust, which had belonged to Mary Queen of Scots, and has her autograph signature, and many MS. notes and a MS. Latin epigram, supposed to be her Majesty's composition. The volume is a small quarto, title Opera Sallustiana, with the date 1523, and a colophon:

"Impressus per Antonium Blanchard anno domini M. quingentessimo xxiii. pridie Kalend. Sextilis."

But on a page following the title there appears—

"Ex officina nostra caleographa Parrhisiis pridie Kalendas Novembris anni hujus M. CCCCC quarti."

The volume was presented to the College library by Mr. Croker, as appears by a dono dedit in his handwriting, and by the following note in that of the learned Dr. Barrett:—

"This book, which formerly belonged to Mary Queen of Scots, was presented by James I. to Bishop Hall (fol. 90.), and presented to this library, July 26, 1800, by John Wilson Croker, F.C., A.B."

The presentation by James to the Bishop is thus recorded:—

"Hunk [sic] librum Jacobus rex dono dedit amico suo reverendo Doctori Hall."

These details may interest bibliographers, as I do not find any notice of this edition in Dibdin, or any other work within my reach[2] but the main object of my curiosity is the Latin epigram in the Queen's hand, and supposed (I suspect erroneously) to be her composition. The lines are:

[2] [See Panzer's Annales Typog., vol. vii. p. 335.]

The obvious reason for doubting ex facie that this is the Queen's composition, is its masculine character; but some of your many learned correspondents may be able to say whether the verses are to be found elsewhere, and attributed to any other author?

I myself have not seen the volume for above fifty years; but the foregoing extracts have been furnished me by a friend who lately examined it. One curious particular, however, I remember. The capital letters at the head of the several divisions of the work are, after the manner of the time, ornamented with devices, and one of these, which Queen Mary must have seen (if she, indeed, wrote the MS. notes), is of a most grotesque character, totally unfit for a lady's, or indeed for any body's eye; and I dare say that page was not exhibited in 1849.

C.

—Devonshire leases for lives often reserve a money payment on the death of each life as a "heriot" or "farlieu." Can you inform me of the etymology and meaning of the latter word? it appears almost synonymous with "heriot."

CLERICUS.

[Bailey, in his Dictionary, says "Farleu or Farley is a duty of sixpence paid to the lord of the manor of West Slapton in Devonshire, in the western parts; farleu being distinguished as the best good thing from heriot the best beast."]

—I would be glad if any of your readers can afford me any information regarding the writer of a work bearing the following title:—

"A History of the Island of Anglesey, from its first Invasion by the Romans, until finally acceded to the Crown of England, &c. Serving as a Supplement to Rowlands' Mona Antiqua Restaurata. To which are also added, Memoirs of Owen Glendower, 4to. Lond. 1775, pp. 88."

Watt, in his Bibliotheca Britannica, ascribes to Dr. John Campbell, author of a Political Survey of Great Britain, &c., &c., the authorship of a little world entitled—

"A true and exact Description of the Island of Shetland, &c. Together with an account of the Great White Herring Fishery of that place, 12 mo. Lond. 1750, and 2d ed. 1753."

In the preface the writer states that he spent five years in Shetland. Now I want to know if Dr. Campbell ever spent five years in Shetland; for if not, he could not be the author, though it would appear from vol. i. p. 679. of the Political Survey that he had at least visited Shetland more than once. Also, as I have only the second edition, if any one would be so kind as to give me a copy of the title-page of the first edition, and the number of pages, I would feel obliged, as I suspect that in both these respects the editions differ.

Βορεας.

[The following is a copy of the title-page of the first edition of the latter work:—"An Exact and Authentic Account of the greatest White Herring Fishery in Scotland, carried on yearly in the Island of Zetland, by the Dutch only. The Method the Dutch use in catching the Herrings, and an exact account of their way of curing, and lasting, or casking them. And a Method laid down whereby we may easily engross that profitable branch of trade into our own hands. To which is prefixed a Description of the Island, its situation, produce, the manners and customs of the inhabitants, and their method of trading with the Dutch. By a Gentleman who resided Five Years on the Island. London: Printed for Joseph Davidson, at the Angel, in the Poultry, 1750." Pp. 34, and a Preface to the Candid Reader of three pages.]

—May I add to the East-Anglian Vocabulary the adjective rile == muddy? "The water is too rile to drink" was the remark of a servant the other day. The verb to rile is given in Forby's Vocabulary.

CHARLES THIRIOLD.

[Is not rile a corruption of the American colloquialism royle or roil, to make turbid by stirring up the sediment, or to make angry? Theodore de la Guard, in The Simple Cobler of Aggawam, p. 2. A.D. 1647, says: "Sathan is now in his passions, he feeles his passion approaching: he loves to fish in royled waters."]

The pathetic story of a person sentenced to death for sheep-stealing, winning the heart of the gaoler by a long course of good conduct, and executed at last on the "death-warrant" being found in the office, is utterly apocryphal. There has not been such a thing as a death-warrant in England for centuries, except in London and Middlesex (where the recorder communicated the pleasure of the crown to spare certain prisoners, and leave others to their fate, in an instrument improperly so called), and in the special case referred to hereafter. It was necessary, when sentence was pronounced by Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, that a precept under their hands and seals should be made out; but in the case of Commissioners of Gaol Delivery the entry on record of the judgement of the court is sufficient; and though a calendar is now made out, and delivered to the sheriff, specifying the several sentences or acquittals of all the prisoners in gaol, yet it is not necessary. Lord Hale says:

"Rolle would never subscribe any such calendar, but would command the sheriff openly in court to take notice of the judgments and orders of what kind soever, and command the sheriff to execute them at his peril."

And, until a few years ago (when the law requiring murderers to be executed the day next but one after sentence was repealed), murderers were executed on verbal authority only, as no calendar was made out until the close of the assizes, some time after the execution. The special case above referred to is, when a person was tried by the Court of Peers before the Lord High Steward, in which case that officer issued a precept for execution. But if the trial be in parliament, a writ for execution issues under the Great Seal, as in the case of Lord William Russell.

Having demolished one story, I feel bound to give you another.

The Crown never directs execution, but respites it either to a day fixed, or during her Majesty's pleasure, which last is what is commonly called a reprieve. A late learned Baron is said to have respited an unlucky criminal on whose fate he hesitated, once, twice, thrice, till, having lost his reckoning, he wrote to this effect:

"I do not know whether John Smith's respite has expired; if it has, it is no matter; if not, let the execution be further respited until the —— day of —— next."

A. B.

I have seen in an Exeter paper an article taken from "NOTES AND QUERIES," entitled "Execution under singular Circumstances," the writer of which is in manifest error. There is no such thing as a warrant for execution; I will venture to say it could not have happened as is therein stated. I have been repeatedly undersheriff of Devon, and therefore beg to state the mode in which executions take place.

At the end of the assizes the crown-bar judge and the clerk of assize sit down quietly together, and go over the sentences of the prisoners, after which they are classed, and a fair copy signed by the clerk of the assize—not the judge—is delivered to the undersheriff, which is his only authority for carrying the different sentences into execution. If a man is to be hung, opposite his name is written, "Let him be hanged by the neck," and an asterisk is added to draw the undersheriff's attention. Should the man afterwards be respited, the judge, or the clerk of assize, writes to the undersheriff, and also (ex abundanti cautelâ) to the gaoler, to say so. Should the undersheriff hear nothing further, he hangs the man at the end of the respite, as a matter of course. A reprieve comes from the secretary of state's office. At the end of the shrievalty this list of sentences is sent to the Court of Exchequer, as forming part of what is called the Bill of Cravings, and in which the sheriff is allowed a certain sum towards the expenses of the execution. What may be the practice in London I do not know, but the above would be the practice at Winchester.

P. J.

Exeter, Sept. 15. 1851.

Halliwell illustrates this word by a quotation from Nash's Pierce Penilesse, 1592:

"A young heyre or cockney, that is his mother's darling, if hee playde the waste-good at the innes of the court, or about London, falles in a quarrelling humor with his fortune, because she made him not king of the Indies."

Richardson gives the following quotation from Fuller's Worthies:

"I meet with a double sense of this word cockeney.... 1st, One coaks'd or cockered, made a wanton or nestle-cock of.... 2nd, One utterly ignorant of husbandry and housewifery, such as is practised in the country...."

Webster gives the following derivation, &c.:

"COCKNEY, n. [Most probably from L. coquina, a kitchin, or coquino, to cook; Fr. coquin, idle; Fr. cocagne, It. cuccagna, an imaginary country of idleness and luxury.... Hence, a citizen who leads an idle life, or never leaves the city.]

"1. A native of London, by way of contempt. Watts. Shak.

Chaucer, in the above lines quoted by Webster, probably refers to any substantial dish of fresh meat, which might be cut in collops; possibly, however, to young roasted pigs, which, as every one knows, are continually running about, all over the land of cockaigne, with knives and forks stuck into them, crying, "Come eat me, come eat me."

Whether the word cockney be derived from the the land of cockaigne, or the legend of cockaigne arise from cockney, it appears probable that both words have their origin in the same root with the verb to cook, and that the epithet originally conveyed the imputation to citizens, of a superfluous consumption of cooked meat; inasmuch as the inhabitants of large cities generally consider the daily use of fresh meat almost as a necessary of life, while the provincial population is content to exist on less nutritious food.

Whatever may be the original import of the epithet, the modern application of it is, I believe, confined to the natives of the metropolis, and it corresponds in use and signification with the terms rustic and chaw-bacon, which distinguish the natives of the provinces; the latter term being exclusively appropriated to agriculturalists. Epithets, apparently of similar origin, exist in the seaman's land-lubber, the landsman's jack-tar, the Englishman's froggy, and the Frenchman's ros-bif.

Londoners themselves appear to have a theoretical notion that the inhabitants of Belgravia, and other enlightened metropolitan districts, are strictly entitled to the designation cockney, in virtue of their birth and residence within the sound of Bow-bells; but practically limit its application to those members of the lower, and more ignorant classes of the community, who traditionally retain some of the obsolete idioms, and other peculiarities of speech, of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers.

A LONDONER.

For the information of your correspondent A TRANSATLANTIC READER, I beg to inform him that Sir Edmund Plowden or Ployden was 2nd son of Francis Plowden of Plowden, Salop, and Shiplake in Berks: a family which can claim its descent from the Saxon kings of England; and by a Saxon charter, granting lands in Salop to the family, that the family had large estates in that remote period. The Saxon derivation of the name (from the Saxon Plean deen, or kill the Dane) alone shows the great antiquity of the family; and there are few, if any, families in England who have retained their ancestral property so direct in the male line as this family. It is also connected with some of the oldest and noblest families in England—the Howards and Staffords are allied to this family by intermarriages. In the reign of Richard I. Sir Roger de Plowden was a crusader; and for his heroic conduct at the siege of Acre, was knighted, and also permitted by the king to bear on his shield the royal arms, the fleur de lis, which is retained to this day. In 9 Edward II., John de Plowden was by parliamentary writ, signed at Clopstow 5th March, called to parliament as one of the lords of the township of Plowden, Salop. Edmund Plowden, the great lawyer in Edw. VI. and Elizabeth's reigns, who was in those times called the oracle of the law, was enrolled among Fuller's Worthies of England, with Camden's Latin verses on him: "Vitæ integritati inter homines suæ professionis nulli secundus."

He was offered by Elizabeth, whose autograph letter was until recently in the possession of the family, the Lord Chancellorship of England, with a peerage, if he would give up his creed as Catholic and turn Protestant; which he declined, preferring to abide by his moral convictions of the truthfulness of what he deemed his faith to worldly honour and aggrandisement. Sir Edmund died at Wanstead, county of Southampton, in 1659; and in possession of large estates in eleven parishes in England, besides his American province of New Albion. To each of these parishes he leaves by his will of 1655 a sum of money to be paid "eight days after his demise, and directs to be buried in the chapel of the Plowdens at Lydbury, in Salop; a stone monument, with an inscription in brass bearing the names of his children, and another with his correct pedigree as drawn out at his house in Wanstead." He appears to have gone to America about the year 1620, and remained there, in Virginia and New England, till about 1630. While there, his sister Ann was married to Sir Arthur Lake, son of Sir Thomas Lake, then Secretary of State to James I.; and through whose influence, we presume, on his return to England he was introduced to the great Lord Strafford, with whom it is believed he proceeded to Ireland; for in the Heralds' Visitation of Salop, 1632, (vide Sims' H. Vist., Brit. Mus.), he is entered in the Plowden pedigree as being then in Ireland. By the Strafford State Papers it appears that in this year he made petition to Charles I. through Lord Strafford, then Lieut. and Capt.-General of Ireland, for the colonising of New Albion:—

"Near the continent of Virginia, sixty leagues N. from James City, without the Bay of Chesapeake, there is a habitable and fruitful island, named Isle Plowden, otherwise Long Isle, with other small isles between 30° and 40° of lat., about sixty leagues from the main, near De la Warre Bay, where Your Majesty, nor any of your Progenitors, were ever possessed of any estate, &c ... to enable the petitioners, their heirs and assigns, for ever to enjoy the said Isle, and forty leagues square of the adjoining continent, as in the nature of a County Palatine or Body Politick, by the name of New Albion, to be held of your Majesty's Crown of Ireland, exempt from all appeal to the Governor of Virginia, and with such other additions, privileges, and dignities therein, to be given to Sir Edmund Plowden, like has been heretofore granted to Sir George Calvert, Knight, late Lord Calvert, in Newfoundland, together with the usual grants and privileges that other Colonies have for governing, &c., and we agree to settle with 500 inhabitants."

The king's warrant was given at Oatlands 24th July, 1632, granting the whole asked for, under the Great Seal of Ireland, signed by John Coke. Between this period and 1634, Sir Edmund was engaged in fulfilling the conditions of the warrant by carrying out the colonisation by indentures, which were executed and enrolled in Dublin, and St. Mary's in Maryland in America. In Dublin the parties were Viscount Musherry, 100 planters; Lord Monson, 100 planters; Sir Thomas Denby, 100 planters; Captain Clayborne (of American notoriety) 50; Captain Balls; and amounting in all to 540 colonisers, beside others in Maryland, Virginia, and New England. The parties who joined in the petition were Sir John Lawrence, Knight and Baronet, who died in America; Sir Bowyer Worstley, Knight, and Charles Barrett, Esq.,—both died there in 1634; George Noble, Gent., Thomas Ribread, Roger Packe, William Inwood, and John Trustler. Having completed the conditions he was granted a charter, bearing date Oatlands, 21st June, 1634; and enrolled in Dublin in 17 pages folio; and confirmed 24th July, 1634, in the eighth year of the reign of Charles I., running thus:

"And according to the tenour and effect of certain of our letters, signed with our proper hand, and sealed with our seal now enrolled in the Rolls of our Chancery of the said Kingdom of Ireland, We have given, granted, and confirmed, and by this our present Charter, for Us, our heirs, and successors, do give, grant, and confirm such the before said Sir Edmund Plowden, Knight, his heirs and assigns, for ever, all that entire island near the continent of Terra Firma of North Virginia, called the Island of Plowden, or Long Island, and lying near and between the 39° and 40° of N. lat.; together with part of the continent or Terra Firma aforesaid near adjoining, described to begin from the point of an angle of a certain promontory called Cape Cod, from thence to the westward for the space of 40°, running by the river Delaware, closely following its course by the N. lat. into a certain rivulet there arising from a spring of Lord Baltimore in the lands of Maryland, and the summit aforesaid to the south, where it touches, joins, and determines in all its breadth, from thence takes its course into a square leading to the north by a right line for the space of 40° to the river and port of Reachu Cod, and descends to a savannah, touching and including the top of Sand Bay, where it determines, and from thence towards the south by a square, stretching to a savannah which passes by and washes the shores of the Plowden aforesaid to the point of the promontory of Cape May above mentioned, and determines where it begins." And p. 4. continues: "Therefore We, for Us, our heirs, and successors, do give unto the aforesaid Sir Edmund Plowden, and his heirs and assigns, free and full power graciously to confer favours and honours upon the well-deserving citizens and inhabitants within the province aforesaid with whatever titles and dignities he shall choose to decorate them with (in such a manner as they may but now be usurped in England), and to cut and stamp different pieces of gold such as shall be lawful, current, and acceptable to all the inhabitants; and We command all, and enjoin other things to be done in the premises which to him or them shall be seen to be proper, in as free and ample a manner and form as by the Society of Newfoundland and East Indies, Island of Bermuda, Bishop of Durham within the Bishoprick or County Palatine of Durham; or Lord Baltimore within his lands and premises of Maryland and Glastonbury; or James Earl of Carlisle within the island of St. Christopher and Barbadoes; or any other Governor or Founder of a Colony."

In fact, the powers granted were never exceeded by any former charter of the Crown: they were all but regal. Under this charter a lease, enrolled in Dublin, was granted by Lord Plowden in 1634 to Sir Thomas Danby for 10,000 acres, and a release, dated 20th Dec. 1634, sealed and signed at St. Mary's, Maryland, and witnessed by Vall Havord and Richard Benham, by R. Packe for 200 acres; T. Ribread, 100; W. Inwood, 100; and John Trustler, 100; segregating 500 acres in trust for the "Earl of Albion, when they deliver up their claims or trusts in consideration for this grant of land; and confirmed unto Lord Francis Plowden, son and heir of Sir Edmund Plowden, Earl Palatine, and George and Thomas Plowden, two of the sons of the said Sir Edmund, Earl Palatine." Sir Edmund Plowden resided with his wife and family as Governor of New Albion six years; his eldest son, Francis, and Lady Plowden, returned to England to look after his father's estates in his absence: but Francis so abused the confidence reposed in him, as to oblige the Governor to return to England (leaving his sons George and Thomas as his locum tenens). On his arrival he was incarcerated in the Fleet Prison on a base charge emanating from his son, from which he was released by order of the Peers Committee, House of Lords; and likewise involved in a lawsuit to recover certain estates sold by his son, which cost him 15,000l. before he was clear. This unnatural and illegal conduct induced him to disinherit his son Francis; for, in the 15th of Charles I., 1st June, 1646, Sir Edmund obtained license from the Crown to alienate from his son the manors of Wanstead, Southwick, and many others in the county of Southampton, as is enrolled in the Rolls Chapel. By his will, in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, London, Sir Wm. Mason was in trust for Sir Edmund's second son and heir, Thomas Plowden; and also for the New Albion colony. And the will proceeds:

"And I think it fit that my English lands and estates shall be settled and united to my Honor, County Palatine, and Province of New Albion, for the maintenance of the same; and again, that all my lease lands in England be sold with all convenient speed by my executors and overseers herein named, and with the money arising therefrom to buy good freehold, to be settled and entailed as the rest of my lands are settled on my second son Thomas Plowden, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, or to be begotten; also my County Palatine of New Albion, and Peerage as a Peer of Ireland, as aforesaid, unto Thomas Plowden my son during his natural life, and after his decease, to the heirs male of my son Thomas, begotten or to be begotten; and again, I do enter and will that my son Thomas Plowden, and, after his decease his eldest heir in male, and, if he be under age, then his guardian, with all speed after my decease do employ by consent of Sir William Mason of Gray's Inn, Knight, whom I make a trustee of this my plantation of New Albion; and if my son Thomas shall by fail, defence, loose, agree, give, or alien any part of my estates, lands, or rents in England to Francis my son, or his issue, then my son shall forfeit and lose to his eldest son all lands and estates and rents in England herein settled, entailed, or given him, and to be forfeited during his life."

George either died, or was killed, in the massacres by the Indians; as was also Francis, third son of Thomas, along with his wife and family, as alluded to in his father's will, dated 1698.

These attacks on the infant colony were instigated by the Dutch and Swedes of the New Netherlands, as they called New Albion, and who did all they could to obstruct and thwart the Earl Palatine's plans, as is alluded to in The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain: Speed and Basset, 1676, dedicated to James I.; and recommended as a most authentic work by Sir Richard St. George, Norroy King of Arms.

"Moreover these proceedings, upon complaint made to his late Majesty, and by whom represented to the State of Holland, were absolutely disowned by them, and wholly laid upon the East India Company of Amsterdam. The most northerly part towards New England was by his Majesty granted by patent to Sir Edmund Plowden, by the name of New Albion. The most southerly towards Virginia to Sir George Calvert, now Lord Baltimore, by the name of Maryland. The Dutch, upon some consideration agreed on, were forthwith to have quitted the place; yet, for all this, as the custom of this people is never to let go any opportunity that serves their turn, whether by right or wrong, they took advantage of the unhappy dissentions and cruel wars that soon after happened within this nation: they not only stood upon higher demands than was at first agreed on, but also contrived to stir up the natives against the English, that they might have the better opportunity of fixing themselves. In this state things remained till his present Majesty, after his restoration, resolved to send three ships of war."

Charles II. most tyrannically, privately, without sanction from Parliament, and without even alluding to his father's charter to Sir Edmund Plowden, gave a charter of the Province to his brother James, at the same time creating him Duke of Albany. Before James was duly clothed with the powers of Governor, he sold a large portion of it to Lord Berkely for 65,000l. For years afterwards, the Duke of York's title was disputed, and many disturbances arose, and Chancery suits, as entered in the American chancery suits of that period. Lord Sutherland, as the colonial officer, disputed the validity of the Duke's claim. A greater act of injustice could hardly be perpetrated than this virtual abrogation of the original charter, after so many years of labour had been expended, charges incurred, loss of estates and relations, and the other evils attending planting this colony which absence from England gave rise to. Sir Edmund Plowden was not inferior to any of his co-governors in ability, fortune, position, or family. Though he made a greater sacrifice than any, he never received the slightest compensation like the other early colonisers. We conclude that family dissentions connected with the disinheritance of Francis Plowden, must have tended to facilitate Charles II.'s illegal conduct; for, in Thomas Plowden's Will, 1698, in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, he alludes to his son-in-law, Walter Hall, illegally and forcibly retaining papers connected with the estates: Province of New Albion Charter, the Patent for the Peerage of Ireland. The first cousin of the disinherited son was a Col. Plowden of the Life Guards, who followed James II.'s fortunes, and accompanied him on his leaving England, and died as his chamberlain at St. Germains in France. These documents may have come into his hands, and have been lost in France. It is quite clear that the only estate which came to Thomas's eldest son James of Ewhurst was Lassam in Southampton, and his son James also held it; he was married to Sarah Chichely, daughter of Sir John Chichely, son of Sir Henry Chichely, formerly Governor of Virginia, the lineal descendant of Thomas, Lord Mayor of London, and brother of Archbishop Chichely, founder of All Souls, Oxford. This family is now extinct in the male, but still exist in the female line in the Plowden family, which is the nearest of kin of any family, and consequently has a stronger claim to the Fellowships of that college as founder's kin. There can be no question but that the family have a legal claim against the government for the unjust alienation of that province to James II.; but the loss of the charter, and the ignorance of the family that it was enrolled in Ireland (now found), prevented the heir and representative of Sir Edmund from claiming compensation. Nothing but an act of parliament can nullify the sacred rights of a charter; if it were not so, no public or private right would be safe a day. As to his peerage, it was litigated at the time, and decided in his favour; but the Commonwealth did not favour the restoration of titles granted by Charles I., and on the Restoration, Sir Edmund's papers were lost to those to whom they would have been useful. Notwithstanding the sarcastic and bad spirit in which Beauchamp Plantagenet's New Albion of 1648 was reviewed by Mr. Pennington of Philadelphia, I trust that the Americans will treat the early pioneer of one of the best portions of America in a more liberal spirit, and do justice to his memory. We have now no new worlds to discover; and the present race of men can hardly appreciate the labours, dangers, and hardships our first colonisers had to endure—but they however know the value of their exertions. They have secured for America one of the finest countries in the world, which may one day be an empire of vast power. Its separation from the mother country was the greatest national calamity that ever befell her. How fatal has it been to France; first for abetting clandestinely the Americans against England, and at last throwing away the mask, openly assisting her with her arms. Since then, what calamities have befallen her, and may even yet befall her. Had we then, as Macaulay says, had a Clive at the head of our armies, and a Hastings in council, that separation might either have been deferred, or we might have parted friendly, instead of in enmity. Had I time to glean it, I have no doubt I could furnish much important matter connected with New Albion, derived from sources within my reach.

ALBION.

P.S. There are two seals attached to Sir Edmund Plowden's Will; his private seal of the Plowdens, and his Earl's with supporters, signed "Albion:" the same as is given in Beauchamp Plantagenet's New Albion, 1648 (King's Lib. B. Mus.).

He was born in a house now inhabited by the vicar, at Westerham, Kent, on the 2d of January, 1727, and not, as the various notices of his life state, the 15th of January, 1726 (see Penny Cyclopædia and other works). His mother's Christian name was Henrietta, and she, I believe, came from or near Deptford, to which place in the latter years of her life, she again went to reside. Wolfe was an only child; the name is still to be found in the neighbourhood of Westerham. Shortly after his birth, his parents removed to a house at the extreme end of the town,—a picturesque mansion it is, and is named after him Quebec House. Under this roof Wolfe's happiest hours were spent.

Sir Jeffrey Amherst (a native of the same valley, Holmsdale), patronised him, but where first engaged I never could discover. His body was brought to England, and interred at Greenwich; monuments were erected to him in Westminster Abbey, Squerries Park, Westerham, and Westerham Church. The inscription on the marble tablet, erected in the latter, I subjoin:—

His sword is preserved in the United Service Museum, and was engraved about two years since in the Illustrated London News. An old professed portrait of him dangles as the sign of a beer-shop in Westerham. Wolfe was ardently attached to Colonel Barré, whose portrait is introduced in West's celebrated picture of the Death of Wolfe; another head in the picture is, I have been told, a likeness of a person who had been captured by the Indians, and was about to be scalped, when his life was saved by the intercession of a chief Wolfe had formerly pardoned.

Wolfe was the youngest general ever entrusted with such a responsible command; but his bravery, his great humanity, his love to his troops, and above all, his glorious death, will render his name immortal in the page of British history.

H. G. D.

The inclosed lines were given to me some years since by an old lady, who stated that they came into her possession through some relatives of the lady to whom they were addressed. I now much regret that I did not hear (or if I heard it have forgotten) the lady's name. Perhaps in the last letter of the series now in the hands of Ʒ , some allusion may be found to one in whom the parting hero felt so deep an interest; at all events the lines may be acceptable to Ʒ or others of your readers desirous for some further knowledge of the private life of this "faithful soldier." Might not the parish register of Westerham in Kent, the birthplace of Wolfe, possibly supply his mother's maiden name, or some other particular as to his family connexions? His father, also General Wolfe, may perhaps have distinguished himself in "the 45," but James Wolfe was then barely nineteen years of age, and I have never met with any allusion to his taking part in that campaign. His appointment to the American service is said to have been the result of his display of military talent in Germany.

YUNAF.

I am enabled to reply to the third Query of Ʒ from papers in my possession. Wolfe's commission as second lieutenant in his father's (Col. Edward Wolfe's) regiment of marines,[3] is dated 3d November, 1741; as ensign in Col. Scipio Duroure's regiment, 27th March, 1742; as lieutenant in the same regiment, 14th July, 1743; as adjutant in the same regiment, 22d July, 1743; as captain in Barrell's regiment, 23d June, 1744; as major in Lord George Sackville's regiment,[4] 5th January, 1748-49; as lieut.-col. of the same regiment, 20th March, 1749-50, and colonel by brevet, 21st Oct. 1757; colonel of the 67th regiment, 21st April, 1758; brigadier in America, 23d July, 1758; killed at siege of Quebec.

[3] This regiment was afterwards numbered the 1st regiment.

[4] This regiment was afterwards numbered the 20th, and then the 67th.

Wolfe's father, Edward Wolfe, was appointed brigadier-general, 25th April, 1745; major-general, 27th May, 1745, and lieut.-general, 30th Sept. 1747.

If Ʒ will communicate with me personally, I may be able to furnish him with some other information relating to Wolfe.

ROBERT COLE.

The following memoranda from MSS. in my care, relative to this distinguished man, may, perhaps, be of use to your correspondent Ʒ .

Feb. 1746, a petition (dated Feb. 1746) to the Duke of Bedford for his interference relative to the pay due to him as Inspector of Marines.

Another letter, dated July 7, 1746, printed in the first volume of the Bedford Correspondence.

Another letter, dated Feb. 16, 1747, on the same subject as the first.

Another letter, dated Feb. 19, 1757, also printed in the Bedford Correspondence.

Another letter, dated July 22, 1767, relative to his embarkation of a regiment in which he was lieut.-col.

Another letter, dated Jan. 26, 1788, printed in the Bedford Correspondence.

Copy of a letter to Lord George Sackville, dated Halifax, May 12.

W. A.

Major-General Edward Wolfe resided in one of the villas in Montague Walk, on the west side of Greenwich Park; afterwards the residence of the Hon. Mr. Lyttelton, Henry Drax, Esq., Mr. Scott, and his widow.

In the register book of St. Alphege in Greenwich occurs this entry:

His body was brought to England from Quebec, and laid by the side of his father, Major-Gen. E. Wolfe, who was buried there on April 2, 1759.

His mother's Christian name was Henrietta; she bequeathed 500l. to Bromley College at her death in 1765.

The short sword worn by General Wolfe at the time of his death is in the United Service Institution in Scotland Yard. His military cloak is, I believe, kept in the Tower.

MACKENZIE WALCOTT, M.A.

In the church of Westerham, the place of Wolfe's birth, as well as in Westminster Abbey, is a cenotaph. Is it well known who was the author of the pleasing lines inscribed at Westerham?

May I also ask whether the packet of autograph letters in the possession of your correspondent was ever shown to Southey, and whether an intention was not entertained by him, at one period, of writing a memoir of Wolfe? If these letters were unknown to Southey, I have strong reasons for believing that another collection of General Wolfe's letters exists. Would not your correspondent's collection or a selection from it, form a very interesting publication?

J. H. M.

I am much obliged to your correspondents who have taken the trouble to answer my Query respecting the lines in Childe Harold; but I am sorry that you did not print one of the replies "at considerable length" to which you allude in your note to MR. CROSSLEY'S brief one: for MR. CROSSLEY'S settlement of the question will hardly, I think, appear so satisfactory to all readers as it evidently does to him. Will you allow me to explain the reasons for thinking so?

In his opinion it is quite transparent that Lord Byron meant to say, speaking to the Ocean of its shores:

But in my former letter I quoted a German translator's version of the lines, and he did not understand them thus; and I have just referred to a French translator's, and he also differs from MR. CROSSLEY. In fact, his view of the matter so completely tallies with mine, that I will, with your permission, quote his words:

"Tes rivages sont des empires, où tout est changé, excepté toi. Que sont devenus l'Assyrie, la Grèce, Rome, Carthage? Tes flots battaient leurs frontières aux jours de la liberté, comme depuis sous le règne de plus d'un tyran."

This passage is taken from the complete translation of Lord Byron's Works, published at Paris in 1836, by M. Benjamin de Laroche, vol. i. p. 754.

M. de Laroche was no doubt led to form his opinion of the real meaning of these two lines from a careful consideration of those which immediately precede and immediately follow. The theme of the poet is the proud superiority of the ocean to human authority, and its insensibility to human vicissitude. He rebukes the haughty assumption that "Britannia rules the waves;" he refers in proof to the striking fact, that of the two most memorable tempests recorded in the naval history of Spain and England, the one aided our triumph, and the other tore the fruits of a triumph from us.

And then he proceeds, according to my view of the passage, and according to the French translator's view, to point out, that while the shores of the ocean are changed, the action of the ocean continues the same; that it wasted the empires of the ancient world when they were free, and wasted them when they fell under the sway of tyrants:

Here there seems to be a logical sequence, which is surely not to be found if the semicolon is kept, as MR. CROSSLEY wishes to keep it, after the word "since."

meaning, as he declares, that many a tyrant since has wasted them. There may be grammatical construction here, but what becomes of the meaning? The direct force of the words would surely be, that the ocean was in the habit of ravaging its shores in times of liberty, but that it left off when the tyrants began. I suppose it will be admitted that this is not exactly what the poet wished to convey. To his real meaning it will, I hope, be allowed to be essential that the statement should be made, that the ocean's ravages continue; and if this is not done in the fourth line, it is done nowhere,—the chain of reasoning is left without a link. To say that the ocean wasted empires once, and tyrants did it afterwards, is as little to the purpose as it would have been to say, in the preceding stanza, that the ocean destroyed the Armada, but that Nelson won Trafalgar. The lines become incoherent.

I beg pardon for trespassing so long on your attention; but the question seems to have excited some interest, and I think the occasion may plead my excuse.

T. W.

There is no occasion to say any more on the subject of T. W.'s doubts (Vol. iv., p. 223.) as to the construction of certain lines in the 182nd stanza: but his remarks on the substitution of the word gush'd for rush'd, in the 141st stanza, induce me to offer a suggestion, or rather ask a Query, with respect to a word in another stanza (180th) of the same canto, which I shall quote entire.

The blot which disfigures the last line of this fine stanza, in the use of the word lay for lie, has, I believe, been often observed; but the question I wish to throw out for the consideration of your readers is, whether it is quite certain that Lord Byron really wrote, or intended to write, the word lay. The following reasons appear to me to render it improbable that he did. 1. His lordship is admittedly, I believe, a great master of the English language, and would therefore be very unlikely to commit the somewhat vulgar blunder of writing lay for lie, whatever might be the requirements of the rhyme. 2. This improbability is rendered much stronger by his having used the word lies in the line next but one preceding; and therefore his attention could hardly have been averted from the distinction between the two words. 3. Though not professing to be a critic, it does appear to me that the sense itself of the line (taking the word lay in the sense of lie) is weak and unmeaning, or at least far from worthy of the former part of the stanza.

I am not perhaps bound to offer any emendation of the line, but in default of anything better I will venture to suggest that his lordship may have written, or intended to write, the word pray as the concluding word of the stanza. The sense, with pray instead of lay, would not, in my judgment, be inferior to that of the line in its present form; nor would it be in itself inappropriate, as allusion has just been made to man being sent "howling to his gods;" and, at all events, by the adoption of pray, an almost unpardonable grammatical error is avoided.

PRISCIAN.

I cannot agree with T. W. as to the stanza quoted from the Hymn to the Ocean.

is very good sense, and much more Byronic than the cacophonous inversion T. W. proposes.

Blackwood's criticism of this hymn (probably by the Professor) is not at all too severe. Noble as are some parts of it, it is full of cockneyisms and platitudes. What can be worse than

Again:

is most magnificent in its sonorous march: but the next line is equally absurd:

In vain! Why, did not Columbus discover a world? Did not Nelson make England's fame eternal? Do not our tea, coffee, wine, and cotton cross the surging seas?

As to the "Gladiator" stanza, nobody can doubt that rushed is the right and most poetic reading. Rush is a strong word: gush a weak one, much hackneyed by neoteric poetasters. Byron never used gush in such a sense. Thoughts do not gush, though blood and water may. I therefore venture to differ from T. W. and his two illustrious friends.

MORTIMER COLLINS.

The difficulty which your correspondent T. W. finds in Lord Byron's celebrated Address to the Ocean is occasioned by his having taken up a wrong notion of the construction at the first reading; and the solution of his perplexity is so obvious, when this is once pointed out, that it must have already occurred to many of your readers, and very probably, by this time, to T. W. himself. The lines that puzzle him are—

"What!" exclaims T. W., "The waters wasted many a tyrant? How, in the name of wonder?" How indeed! Probably more readers at once caught the sense:—

The word "wasted" is used in a somewhat different sense in the two cases, but this is the price of the antithesis; and the result follows, that their shores now obey the stranger, the slave, or the savage, as exemplified in Greece, Asia and Africa respectively. And here we may observe, that the writer in Blackwood's Magazine, whom T. W. quotes, and who thinks the ocean appealed to is the world's ocean, and not the Mediterranean, has been just as blind to the train of thought in the other part as T. W. in this.

But in the way of doing something beyond the solution of this particular obscurity, so far as there is any, I would remark, that Byron's efforts at concentration and point not unfrequently give rise to an obscurity of this kind; which for a moment produces a perplexity that seems laughable as soon as the true sense occurs to us. For instance, on first reading these verses in the Corsair,—

I exclaimed, like T. W., "What! his sword fatigued his foes? What a most absurd expression! To be sure, one may imagine that when Conrad was killing his enemies one after another without stopping, they would say, What a tiresome man he is! but this does not seem to be in the vein of the narration." And then, reading the passage again, and considering that the pirate complains of the guard of his sword being too narrow, I saw plainly that, with whatever damage to the rhythm, the verse was to be read—

"Last time, it more fatigued my arm than foes" (did).

My sword, by its not fitting to my hand, fatigued my arm more than all the resistance that foes could offer.

I will give another example of the same kind, again taken from the Pirate. In the enthusiastic description of a ship, he says:

"Who?" I exclaimed; "but who wants to move him? This monarch is, I suppose, the captain; but why should men in general wish to move him?" I suppose most of your readers see at the first what I saw at the second glance, that Byron meant "to move as the monarch of this deck," that is, to be the captain.

If I have satisfied T. W. and the rest of your readers of the construction of the first passage, I have, I think, also shown that the tendency to such transient mistakes in reading Byron is not uncommon.

W. W.

Cambridge, Oct. 10. 1851.

—For the information of W. S. W. I beg to notify that the "mundane era" quoted by him is the Septuagint era of Venerable Bede, who, in his chronology of the world, uses two eras; one of which he calls "juxta Hebraicam veritatem," the other, "juxta septuaginta interpretes."

He makes the concurrence of these with A.D. 1, at the birth of Christ, to be respectively as follows:—

The two latter, as W. S. W. will perceive, are exactly in the same relation as those in the MS. note.

I should also suggest that "S" may be the initial in the writer's name, and not "T": in which case "q̱. T." probably signifies "quam tribuit."

A. E. B.

P.S.—Upon a second reference to the communication of W. S. W. I find that the above dates are not consistent with those quoted by him, but differ by exactly a hundred years: that this should be the exact difference is very singular, and would lead me to suspect that there might have been a mistake in transcription, were it not that in his smaller work Bede has this sentence:

"Hujus anno Dominus nascitur, completis ab Adam annis 3952.—Juxta alios, 5199."

—Undoubtedly in Latin naturalis is opposed to "adopted;" e.g. "P. Scipio ... naturalis consulis Paulli, adoptione Africani nepos." (Livy, xliv. 44.) I stumbled some time ago upon the following:

"The Act of Settlement by which Napoleon, Emperor of France, was declared King of Italy, with the right of succession to his sons natural or adopted, and male heirs.... He declared that he accepted, and would defend, the iron crown; and that even during his lifetime he would consent to separate the two crowns, and place one of his natural or adopted sons upon the throne."—Alison's History, chap. xxxix. §§ 38, 39.

I have no means of ascertaining whether this is a literal rendering from the French document. If I may trust my Dictionnaire de l'Académie, this sense of the word is unknown to the French language, as well as to ours.

CHARLES THIRIOLD.

—The following method is given as infallible by Mr. Stannard in the Art-Union for 1847, pp. 179. 261.:

"Immerse the print for an hour or so in a lye made by adding to the strongest muriatic acid its own weight in water, and to three parts of this mixture adding one of red oxide of lead, or black oxide of manganese. A print, if not quickly cleaned, may remain in the liquid twenty-four hours without harm. Indian ink stains should in the first instance be assisted out with hot water. Pencil marks, if carefully done, should be partially rubbed out with India rubber or day-old bread; that is, if it can be safely done, as rubbing an engraving is always hazardous. If the print had been mounted, the paste on the back should be thoroughly removed with warm water. The saline crystals left by the solution may be removed by repeated rinsings with warm water."

ALTRON.

—My copy of Don Quixote has the following note on the passage referred to by Mr. C. H. COOPER:—

"Two old men appeared before Sancho, etc.—I believe this story is told, for the first time, in some of the Talmudic writings; but Cervantes, in all probability, took it from the Legenda Aurea Jacobi de Voragine, in which monkish collection it occurs in these words:

"'Vir quidam ab uno Judæo quamdam summam pecuniæ mutuo accepit, jurans super altare Sancti Nicolai quod quam citius posset sibi redderet. Tenente autem illo diu pecuniam Judæus expostulavit: sed eam sibi reddidisse affirmat. Trahit ergo eum ad judicem et juramentum indicitur debitori: Ille baculum cavatum quem auro minuto impleverat secum detulerat, ac si ejus adminiculo indigeret: Volens igitur facere juramentum Judæo baculum tradidit servandum. Juravit quod plus sibi reddiderat etiam quam debet; et facto juramento baculum repetiit. Et Judæus ignorans astutiæ eum sibi reddidit. Rediens autem qui fraudem fecerat in quodam bivio oppressus corruit somno: Currusque eum, cum impetu veniens, necuit, et baculum plenum auro fregit, et aurum effudit.'

"The conclusion of the story is, that the Jew having received his money, was earnestly entreated to acknowledge his sense of the Divine interposition in his favour, by receiving baptism. He said he would do so if Saint Nicholas would, at his prayer, restore the dead man to life. The saint was, without much difficulty, induced to do this, and the Jew became an edifying specimen of conversion. See the chapter de Sancto Nicolao."—The History of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha; translated from the Spanish by Motteux. A new Edition, with copious Notes, &c. Edinburgh, 1822, vol. v. p. 334.

May not Jeremy Taylor, in the passage cited from the Ductor Dubitantium ("NOTES AND QUERIES, Vol. iv., p. 208.), have been quoting from memory, and confused the Talmudic(?) legend with a well-known passage in Juvenal, Sat. xiii. 199-207.? Compare—

"The Greek that denied the depositum of his friend, and offered to swear at the altar,"

with

The Spartan's name was Glaucus. The story is told at large in Herodot. vi. 86. See Stocker's note on Juv. Sat. xiii. 199. The use of "sibi," in the extract from the Legenda Aurea, is new to me. Is it common in monkish Latin?

C. FORBES.

Temple.

—MR. BREEN put another Query besides "Where shall we find six good anagrams?" He asked, "How comes it that a species of composition once so popular should have become extinct?"

Let me venture to refer MR. BREEN to The Spectator for an answer to this inquiry; where, in Addison's brilliant papers on "False Wit" (Nos. 58. &c.), he will find the whole family of ingenious quibblings,—anagrams, acrostics, chronograms, puns, bouts-rimes, &c.,—mown down to their just level. And MR. BREEN cannot, I am sure, as a man of taste, fail to be delighted, even although he may think the following passage (which I quote chiefly as a warning against the rise of an anagrammatric epidemic among your correspondents) a little severe on his old friends:

"The acrostic was probably invented about the same time with the anagram, though it is impossible to decide whether the inventor of the one or the other were the greater blockhead."

It is a tempting folly I admit for an idle hour, and I must plead guilty to having (in consequence of MR. BREEN'S letter) wasted nearly a whole evening in discovering that

and also offers the following warning to its contributors—

while as an encouragement it observes (so an ingenious friend informs us)—

HERMES.

—The Egils Saga describes the duel between the armies of Olaf and Athelstan to have been fought in a champ clos, inclosed with branches of hazel, upon a space called the Vinheidi, or heidi of Vin, situate near (vid) or in (á) the Vinskogr, or forest of Vin. Heidi is a rough open space, with scrubs or bushes, such as furze, juniper, broom, &c. The heidi and the skogr were distinct, the latter affording shelter to the fugitives from the former, p. 290. The text, both Norse and Latin, says, "Then he brought his army to the Vin-heidi. A certain town stood towards the north of the heidi." But a various reading in the note says, "to the town of Vinheidi, which was to the north of the heidi." But it seems as unreasonable for the town to be called Vinheidi, as Vinskogr. Vin should be taken for the name of the town, and the root of the other phrases. The downs or brakes called Vinheidi were inclosed with hazel, and lay between the forest, or skogr, and some river. The town, being Olaf's head quarters, lay north of them. Athelstan occupied the nearest town to the south of the heidi. [Query, whether south of the river?] The northern town Vin is no doubt the Weon from which the Weon-dune (downs of Weon, or heidi of Vin) was called. The other name given by Simeon Dunelmensis to that space is curious, as showing how well the spot was adapted for attack and pursuit, "eth-runnan-werc," that is, "facilis-ad-opus-currendi." The name Brunanburg, probably signifying "the town of bourns," or watercourses, is unequivocally that of a town. Since Olaf or Arlaf had his quarters at Vin, it was probably at that place where Athelstan was stationed. Find these two places, Vin the northern-most of the two, and find the river. The heidi and the skogr are probably grubbed and ploughed up.

A. N.

—Some three years ago I saw a prospectus announcing that they would be published by Mr. Parker of Oxford, under the direction of Mrs. Praed; but I believe nothing has been done in the matter since.

W. J.

—Messrs. Puttick and Simpson, 191. Piccadilly, have, or had recently, an original MS. of this eminent lawyer and poet. Perhaps L. GYFFES would learn something of it by communication with them, and, if curious, oblige your readers with an account of it.

R.

—MR. TAYLOR appears to me not altogether correct in his distinctions of these coins. The name VAL. certainly generally denotes Constantius Chlorus, but there are coins of Constantius II. also with VAL. It is impossible for a practised numismatist to confound the coins of these emperors, not only from the difference of lettering and workmanship, but from the change in the size, thickness, &c. of the coins. I have coins of Constantius II. with VAL. bearing the same reverse as others with IVL. (PROVIDENTIAE CAESS) in my cabinet. I have also several coins of Constantius II. with P.F.AVG., which have A. behind the head. I refer above only to coins of bronze, second and third sizes; but I should suppose the rules would apply also to the gold coins. I see "NOTES AND QUERIES" only monthly, or I should have written sooner, but I hope not to be too late.

W. H. S.

Edinburgh.

I much fear your correspondent HENRY H. BREEN suggests an alteration in Sir Charles Sedley's couplet more favourable to the witty baronet's principles than facts will admit. It is too probable that he conceived the sentiment just as it stands; for we must remember that he belonged to that school of loose wits of the Restoration, who, "Regis ad exemplar," made a mock of all which tended to place "virtue" above "interest," or to make men "too fond of the right to pursue the expedient."

Charles II. and his long train of licentious courtiers now stand at the bar of history, and the verdict on him must be, that if he had a principle in latter life it was this,—that he would never endanger himself for any abstract rule of right; or as Sir W. Scott, in Peveril, accurately says: "he had sworn never to kiss the block on which his father suffered," when yielding to the current would save him from it; hence, there is too good reason to think that, in his estimation, and in the judgment of the school he formed, "loyalty" was "folly," and to take the strongest side "wisdom."

The reference in Sedley's couplet to the line—

is too obvious to need notice; and it is but too certain that in the estimation of a courtier of Charles II., Cato dying for his country would be but "a fool for his pains." It is painful to be obliged to remind MR. BREEN that, in order to understand Sedley's meaning, we are not to look for what would be "most consistent with truth," but for what was most probably accordant with the lax morality of the author.

A. B. R.

Belmont, Oct. 6. 1851.

—This work was printed at Venice in 1538, in 4to. Münster republished it in the next following year, with an epitome of its contents in Latin. (G. B. de' Rossi, Dizionario Storico, &c., art. "Levita.").

T. T.

Manchester.

—P. P.'s objection to Sir R. C. Hoare's derivation of Stonehenge seems hardly justifiable. Surely the horizontal stones there may be said to hang, μετέωροι, or μετάρσιοι, sublime: as in the case of "Rocq Pendant" of Alderney, the term "hanging" is loosely applied. That leans forth from the cliff at a considerable angle out of the perpendicular, and is "hanging," in another sense of the word, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and as, in another acceptation, the famous terrace gardens of Babylon are called the Hanging Gardens.

THEOPHYLACT.

—Referring to this subject, allow me to add a Note I have from the will of Robert Birkes, of Doncaster, alderman, proved at York, July 30, 1590, in further illustration. The testator gives to his son Robert all "the seeling work and portalls" in and about the house where he dwelt, "with all doors, glass windows," &c., in full of his child's portion of his goods; and then his house he gave to his wife for her life. If by "seeling work and portalls" are meant what we now understand by those terms, the above extract shows that other essential parts of a house besides glass windows were formerly considered as moveable chattels.

C. J.

—The explanation offered by a writer in the Magasin Pittoresque for 1850, seems perfectly clear without the proposed transposition of the adverb fort into fait of your correspondent D. C.

If the sentence be read according to the French explanation D. C. has quoted, viz. by reading infortune as a verb, fort the adverb to it, it must be plain that the reading of the sentence must be:

If we turned fort into fait, it would entirely spoil the sentence.

Query, But is "infortuner" to be found as a verb in any old dictionary? We have the adjective "infortuné," which looks much like a participle.

J. C. W.

Francis Terrace, Kentish Town.

—MR. SANSOM will find the desired MS. in the British Museum, 14 C. vii. (Macray's Manual of Brit. Hist., p. 26. Lond. 1845.)

R. G.

In the Cottonian library, Claudius D. vi. 9., will be found "Abbreviatio compendiosa Chronicorum Angliæ, ab Ao 1000, ad A. 1255. Scripsit quidam ad calcem, 'Hic desinit Mat. Paris Historia Minor, quæ est epitome Majoris, quæ ad A.D. 1258 continuatur.'"

The Bibliothecæ Regiæ, 14 C. vii., contains "Historiæ M. Paris. Continuatio ad A.D. 1273, alia manu. De possessione hujus Codicis multa fuit altercatio." (See Warton's History of English Poetry, vol. i. p. lxxxviii. edit. 1840.) There are also MSS. at Corpus Christi College (No. 56.) and Ben'et College, Cambridge (No. 31.). Macray states, that the Historia Minor was made out of the Historia Major by Paris, both from Wendover to 1235, and his own large additions after that period.

J. Y.

Hoxton.

—The work of Hugo Sanfordus, De Descensu Domini nostri Jesu Christi ad inferos, was published as a separate work at Amsterdam in 1611, and its title is inserted in the printed catalogue of the Bodleian Library. Can ÆGROTUS give a specific reference to the book, page, and edition of Gale's Court of the Gentiles in which it is spoken of, and also his authority for the statement that it was published in the works of a bishop who survived him?

TYRO.

—MR. NATHANIEL ELLISON will find in the Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope, vol. iii. p. 141., a passage which pretty nearly confirms the account of the desertion of Pitt's death-bed. She said that James, a servant, was the only person present with Pitt when he died, and that she herself was the last person who saw him alive except James. She also stated that Dr. Pretyman, who seems to have been in the house, was fast asleep at the time; and that Sir Walter Farquhar, the physician, was absent. The account of Pitt's last moments in Gifford's life of him, where a prayer for forgiveness, &c. is put into his mouth, she pronounced to be all a lie.

J. S. W.

Stockwell.

—In reply to the Query of your correspondent H. L., I have to inform him that there have been published two histories of Hawick, viz.,—

1. Robert Wilson's Sketch of the History of Hawick, a small 8vo. printed in 1825. It contains a notice of the altercations between the Abbot of Melrose and Langlands the Baron of Wilton, relative to the arrear of tithes due to the abbacy of Melrose. A copy of this work can be procured for about 5s.

2. James Wilson's Annals of Hawick, 1214-1814, a small 8vo. printed in 1850. This work, under date 1494-5, has a notice of the murder of the chaplain by Langlands. This book can be had for 6s. 6d.

A notice of the trial of Langlands for the murder will also be found in Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, vol. i. p. 20.

T. G. S.

Edinburgh, Oct. 6. 1851.

—J. R. says that "the first edition of the Prophecies of Nostradamus is not only in the National Library, but in several others, both in Paris and elsewhere." Does J. R. speak from personal observation or at second-hand? When I was in Paris I spent some hours in searching the catalogue and shelves of both the National Library and that of St. Geneviève, but I could find no edition of Nostradamus dated 1555 in either. To convince myself that my search had been accurate, I turned to Nostradamus, par Eugène Bareste, Paris, 1840, and there found it distinctly asserted that there is no copy of the first edition of the book (viz. that of 1555) in any public library in Paris, and that the copy used in compiling that edition of 1840 was borrowed from a private collection. I cannot give the exact words of M. Bareste, as I only made a "Note" of their purport; but if J. R. will say upon what authority his statement as to this rare little book is based, I will certainly some day renew my search for it at the National Library.

H. C. DE ST. CROIX.

—Monuments, with inscriptions, to William Bourchier, Earl of Bath, 1623; Henry Bourchier, Earl of Bath; many of the family of Bourchier-Wrey, and others allied to them, are in the church of Tavistock, in the county of Devon; and the whole of them have been carefully transcribed with notes of the heraldry.

S. S. S.

—Jenkins, the historian of Exeter, in relating the prince's public entry into that city, states that he was preceded by the Earl of Macclesfield and two hundred horsemen, most of whom were English nobles and gentlemen. There is in the Bodleian Library a fo. broadsheet entitled, A True and Exact Relation of the Prince of Orange, his Publick Entrance into Exeter, which, if I remember right, was reprinted in Somers' Tracts, but I do not think any names of those gentlemen are therein mentioned.

S. S. S.

—Does not Herbert imply in these lines—

that the payer of tithes receives an equivalent in the ministrations of the priest?

S. C. C.

Corfe Castle.

This passage alludes doubtless to the tithe of the parson, and maintains that the tithe-payer is no loser if the sermons for which tithe is paid produce their effects. In fact, it is a paraphrase of Proverbs, iii. 9, 10.:

"Honour the Lord with all thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine."

J. A. PICTON.

Liverpool.

—This was formerly the general practice in the South of England, and it has occasionally been resorted to within the last thirty years. At Chalvington, in Sussex, there once resided, according to a popular tradition, the only honest miller ever known. About a century since, this person, finding it impossible to succeed in business, hanged himself in his own mill, and was buried in a neighbouring "crossways." An oaken stake, driven through his body, taking root, grew into a tree, and threw a singular shrivelled branch, the only one it ever produced, across the road. It was the most singular tree I ever saw, and had something extremely hag-like and ghostly in its look. The spot was of course haunted, and many a rustic received a severe shock to his feelings on passing it after nightfall. The tradition was of course received by the intelligent as a piece of superstitious folk-lore, and the story of the "only honest miller" was regarded as a mere myth, until about twenty-five years ago, when a labourer employed in digging sand near the roots of the scraggy oak tree, discovered a human skeleton. This part of the history I can vouch for, having seen, when a schoolboy, some of the bones. I must not omit to mention that the honest miller of Chalvington owned the remarkable peculiarity of a "tot" or tuft of hair growing in the palm of each hand!

MARK ANTONY LOWER.

—The coat of arms described by F. I. B. is given by Robson and by Burke to the family of Kelley of Terrington, co. Devon, and the crests are similar, but I can find no authority for the coat in any work relating to that county. The ancient family, Kelly of Kelly, in Devon, bore a very different coat and crest. There is no such place as Terrington in that county, unless Torrington be meant, but no family of note bearing the name of Kelley had possessions there. I conclude, therefore, that there must be a mistake as to the county.

S. S. S.

—No life of Cromwell was ever written by "one Kember;" there is a Life of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, the second edition (London, 1725) of which, greatly enlarged from the first, is now before me, and which has the autograph of Malone, who has on the fly-leaf asserted it to have been "written by Isaac Kimber, a Dissenting minister, who was born at Vantage in Berkshire, Dec. 1, 1692. His son, Edward Kimber, refers to it as the work of his father, in a history of England in ten volumes, which he published."

Kimber's life is a much better one than Carlyle's; but the best biography of that most extraordinary man is by Thomas Cromwell, published some twenty or thirty years since, and of which there was a second edition.

J. MT.

—In answer to the inquiry of T. C. W., relative to a Bible (Reeves, 1802) in the possession of his friend, I beg leave to state that the said Bible was illustrated with original drawings by my father, J. Harris of Walworth, who died seventeen years since, and that I am his only son surviving him in his profession. Any further communication relative to him I shall be most happy to give on a personal interview.

J. HARRIS.

40. Sidmouth Street, Regent Square,
Sept. 27. 1851.

—AN OLD BENGAL CIVILIAN is informed that, no matter whom Byron may have intended to designate by the above glorious appellation, there is but ONE to whom it properly belongs. If your correspondent will consult the 110th Psalm, he will find David representing God the Father as thus addressing God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ: "The dew of Thy birth is of the womb of the morning."

G. L. S.

Pemb. Coll. Oxon., Sept. 20. 1851.

This seems to be an invocation to the personification of Light, Lucifer, or φωσφορος, the "son of the morning," by which intellectual light is indicated, through whose assistance we are enabled to discover the true faith.

The poet enters a caveat that the latter do not act the part of an Iconoclast, as has too often been her wont. At least this appears to me to be the interpretation.

E. I. U. S. Club.

—Your Querist NAUTICUS describes the vallum or ditch called "Grimsdyke, or Grimesditch, or the Devil's Ditch," running from Great Berkhampstead, Hants, to Bradenham, Bucks, and then puts two Queries.

NAUTICUS assumes that this ditch had, at some distant day, been an artificial earthwork; but at the same time he points out that, "from its total want of flank defence, it could hardly hold an enemy in check for long; and that it does not seem to have been a military way." He asks, "Are there other earthworks of the same name (Grimsdyke) in England?" I find no trace of any other earthworks of that name in England; and it may be very questionable whether this ditch be of ancient earthwork, or of its original natural formation.

But there is, in Cheshire, a brook or rivulet in its pristine state, called Grimsditch. This brook or rivulet is one of the contributory streams of Cheshire to the great rivers, the Mersey and the Weaver; and is described by the author of King's Vale Royal of England, or the County Palatine of Chester illustrated, published in 1656, as follows:

"The Grimsditch cometh from the Hall of Grimsditch, by Preston, Daresbury, Keckwith, and so falleth into the Marsey."

Here then we have the name of a place which gives the name of Grimsditch to the brook or rivulet; and it is, moreover, shown by the County History that the place (the hamlet or lands of Grimsditch) has been in the possession of a family of the name of Grimsditch from the time of Henry III.

From the words of the original grant this hamlet, by which Thomas Tuschet, in 10 Hen. III. 1226, grants to Hugo de Grimsditch "totam terram de Grimsdich pertinentem ad villam de Witeleigh" (Ormerod's Chesh. i. 488.), it may be inferred that the place went by the name of Grimsditch prior to the Norman Conquest. There can therefore be but little doubt that the name is of Anglo-Saxon origin.

The present possessor of the property is Thomas Grimsditch, Esq., late M.P. for the borough of Macclesfield.

The second Query of NAUTICUS applies to the etymology of the word Grimsditch.

This is a very difficult question to solve. Take the first syllable: Grim, grime, dirt, sullying blackness.

"She sweats; a man may go over shoes in the grime of it."—Shakspeare.

Then the word ditch: this is derived from dic (Saxon), dük (Erse); but whatever may be the true etymology of the word, it can scarcely be doubted that it is of Anglo-Saxon origin.

I may however add that there is a tradition in the Grimsditch family of Cheshire, said to have been handed down for many ages, as to the origin of the name, to the following effect:

That in remote ages their first parents were warriors; that one of these warriors was attacked by a griffin; that a fierce contest ensued; and that the man was the conqueror of that fabulous bird or beast, the battle-ground being a dyke or ditch.

Hence, says the tradition, emanated the family coat of arms, which are certainly very singular, viz. Azure, a griffin or, about to tear, and ramping upon, a warrior, completely armed in plate armour, in bend dexter, across the lower part of the shield. Crest, a Talbot.

WILLIAM BEAUMONT.

In reply to your correspondent NAUTICUS, who inquires whether there are any ancient entrenchments in England known by the name of Grimsdyke, besides the one he mentions in Hants, I beg to remind him that the Roman wall (or ditch and rampart) executed between the Firths of Forth and Clyde during the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius, is popularly called by the above name. To account for the name, it has been said that it originated in the circumstance of a chieftain of the name of Graham having been the first to force his way through it; but those who gave such a derivation of the word could scarcely have been aware that it bears this name in common with at least two others, viz., that mentioned by NAUTICUS as existing at Great Berkhampstead, Hants; and the other pointed out by W. S. G. as near Salisbury.

L. D. L.

—In reply to the inquiry of RUSTICUS, I rather imagine the Cagots are the remains of the Paulician "Churches" of Thoulouse Albi and Cahors (Charhagensis) of Maitland's Albigenes and Waldenses, p. 428.; and that the Cretins are no other than credentes (cf. Maitland passim), probably remnants of the same body of heretics.

AJAX.

Is there any resemblance between them and Cretins? Are there any families or races of Cretins ever heard of?

C. B.

—I send you two instances of the serpent being represented with a human head; the first occurs in the Arundel MS. No. 23., in this College, containing the genealogical descent of King Edward IV., and apparently coeval with that sovereign. The other is a beautifully executed sketch of Adam and Eve in a MS., also in this College, of the time of Henry VII., at the commencement of The Genealogy of the Saxon Kings from Adam. They are both female heads, the latter, however, being the entire bust.

THOMAS W. KING (York Herald).

College of Arms.

In the stained glass of the east window in the Lady Chapel, Wells Cathedral (temp. Edw. III.), the serpent, which is entwined round a tree, and holds an apple, has not only the head but the upper half of a human figure. On a scroll is written in uncial letters, "Si comederitis de ligno vitæ eritis sicut Dii scientis bonis et malis;" and in a straight line below the subject, "Arbor cum Serpente."

T. WT.

—At the time when Leibnitz wrote, curious references to accounts of savages were not infrequent. All your readers will remember Locke's reference to some account of savages who had neither idea of God nor of being superior to man. It may be that narratives of tribes who did not use fire, who lived on dried flesh or fish, for instance, may have given rise to an idea of their not knowing fire. I think I remember to have seen it stated that some of the savages of Australia did not know fire. On this, five-and-twenty years ago, I made a note from Mr. Barron Field's Collection of Geographical Memoirs of New South Wales. Two wrecked Englishmen passed some time among the natives, and found they had no knowledge that water could be heated; but the very story seems to show that they knew of fire. On boiling some in a tin pot,

"The whole tribe gathered round them, and watched the pot till it began to boil, when they all took to their heels, shouting and screaming, nor could they be persuaded to return till they saw them pour the water out and clean the pot, when they slowly ventured back and carefully covered the place where the water was spilt with sand."

These two Englishmen were treated with great attention by the natives, they were painted twice a day, and it was quite their own faults that they did not have their noses bored and their bodies scarified.

M.

—The following is an extract from a periodical of 1848 or 1849:

"According to the Medical Times, Major Alvord has discovered on the American prairies a plant possessing the property of pointing north and south, and has given it the name of Sylphium laciniatum."

G. P***.

—M. Lottin de Laval, "by a new process," has produced the most accurate copies of cuneatic inscriptions that have yet been published. It is said that he has copied by his process (which must, I think, be some kind of heliography) 1200 inscriptions from the Sinaitic peninsula, the publication of which may be speedily expected, so that MR. BUCKTON'S wishes on this point are anticipated. These inscriptions have been already deciphered.

E. H. D. D.

—MR. CORNISH will find this statue at Mapledurham in Oxon, the living of the lady's son. It remains there, it is stated, until an appropriate site can be obtained.

W. A.

—I doubt that Sir Joshua Reynolds ever painted a miniature, and I should say certainly not after Mr. Burke "had passed the meridian of life." His sister, Miss Reynolds, was a professed miniature painter, and I have little doubt must have painted Mr. Burke, as she certainly did Johnson; but the description given of this miniature is very unlike Mr. Burke. The name of the possessor might, in some degree, enable us to ascertain whether the portraits mentioned are really of the great statesman.

C.

—Martial's distribution of hours and employments seems to me to be as follows:—From 6 till 8 the visits of the "salutantes" are received; from 8 till 9 the law tribunals are attended; from 9 till 11 the "varii labores" occupy; from 11 till 12 the "quies." The expression "in quintam" must bring us to the end of the 5th hour; and the "sexta hora" must be that which concludes at 12.

Your inquirer A. E. B. might have further asked what is the difference between the "quies" of the "sexta," and the "finis" of the "septima." To understand this is to understand the difficulty which he propounds. I apprehend the "quies" not to mean the "siesta," but that gradual and perhaps irregular cessation or suspension of employments which precedes the close of business for the day. The "siesta" is the "finis" of Martial, which would thus fall between 12 and 1; that time of the day at which A. E. B. fixes it rightly. I think he errs in identifying the "siesta" with the "sexta hora."

To question 214 I may be allowed to reply, that the effect of moonlight upon the face of those who sleep exposed to it in hot climates is very severe indeed, producing an appearance not very unlike that of a swollen and putrescent corpse. The Psalmist refers to it Ps. cxxi. 6.; and all who have lived in the East Indies are well acquainted with the phenomenon.

THEOPHYLACT.

The Antiquarian Gleanings in the North of England, being Examples of Antique Furniture, Plate, Church Decorations, Objects of Historical Interest, &c., drawn and etched by William B. Scott, Government School of Design, Newcastle, which has just been completed, is a valuable addition to the numerous works which have been published of late years illustrative of archæology in its most picturesque aspect. It will be seen from the title that Mr. Scott has not confined himself to any one class of objects; in some cases historical associations having determined his choice; in others, the rarity of examples of the object illustrated; in others, their intrinsic beauty. The Chair of the Venerable Bede, and the Swords of Cromwell, Fairfax, and Lambert, belong to the first of these divisions; as the Nautilus Cup set in gold, and the Ivory Cup, both the property of Mr. Howard of Corby, belong to the last: and so much taste and skill has Mr. Scott shown in the whole of the thirty-eight plates, as quite to justify the hope expressed by him, that in all of them the connoisseur and the artist will find something worthy attention.

We have before us two books to which we desire to direct the attention of our readers. The first is A Manual of Ecclesiastical History, from the First to the Twelfth Century, by the Rev. E. S. Foulkes, M.A., the main plan of which has been borrowed from Spanheim, and the materials principally compiled from that writer, Spondanus, Mosheim and Fleury, Gieseler, Döllinger, and others, respecting whom, however, Mr. Foulkes states, "I believe I have never once trusted to them on a point involving controversy without examining their authorities." "Let nobody," he elsewhere observes, "think that he can fairly know Church History from reading a single modern historian, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic; the only way of getting a correct view, unless a person should have time to consult the originals, is to read two opposite writers, side by side, and balance one set of facts against the other. Yet even so it is hopeless to get a true appreciation of past times except through cotemporary writings; I have therefore appended to the catalogue of modern historians a few of the principal cotemporary works, disciplinary, doctrinal, and historical, from age to age down to the end of the twelfth century, which would be a far more trustworthy clue to the real sentiments of the times than could be gained from a more modern source, and could not, I think, fail to be a corrective to narrow misapprehensions, and a great help to the student whose wish it is to be fair and candid." These extracts from Mr. Foulke's preface (which contains brief notices of the principal modern writers on the subject) sufficiently explain the nature of his very useful and carefully compiled volume.

The other, Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible, Abridged, Modernized, and Re-edited, according to the most recent Biblical Researches, by T. A. Buckley, B.A., is addressed to a wider class of readers, and in its preparation general utility has been the main object; while in the remodelling which this popular and useful work of Calmet has here undergone, care has been taken to purify it from the Rationalism with which all the later editions have been charged, and to supply its place by such copious additions and alterations from the most recent biblical researches, so as to make the present edition rather a new book than a reprint of an old one; and deserving of that extensive circulation which its extremely moderate price is calculated to procure for it.

The Principles of Chemistry illustrated by Simple Experiments, by Dr. J. A. Stöckhardt, Professor in the Royal Academy of Agriculture at Tharaud, having been extensively adopted as an introductory work in the Schools of Germany, in consequence of its convenient classification and its clear and concise elucidation of principles, and explanation of chemical phenomena, it was translated into English at the recommendation of Professor Horsford; and a reprint of it from the American edition forms the new volume of Bohn's Standard Library. It is illustrated with numerous engravings, and as the necessary apparatus for performing most of the experiments in it is extremely small, the book will no doubt soon become a popular one.

The Chetham Library, Manchester, will shortly receive a valuable addition to its literary treasures by Mr. Halliwell's donation of his extensive collection of Proclamations, Ballads, and Broadsides, which, we are informed, extends to upwards of 2500 articles, including many of great rarity, and a few probably unique. Amongst the latter are two curious black-letter ballads, printed in the year 1570, unnoticed by all bibliographers, and not to be found in the useful and interesting Extracts from the Registers of the Stationers' Company, recently published by Mr. Collier; but the greater portion of the collection belongs to the latter half of the seventeenth, and commencement of the eighteenth century, most of the ballads being reprints of much older copies.

We are requested to remind such of our readers as are members of the Archæological Institute that the Salisbury volume will be ready next week.

CATALOGUES RECEIVED.—J. Petheram's (94. High Holborn) Catalogue 127., being 8. for 1851, of Old and New Books; J. Gray Bell's (17. Bedford Street, Covent Garden) Catalogue Part 27. of Valuable and Interesting Books, Manuscripts, Prints, Drawings, &c.; W. Pedder's (10. Holywell Street) Catalogue Part 7. for 1851 of Ancient and Modern Books; B. Quaritch's (16. Castle Street, Leicester Square) Catalogue No. 35. of Books in European Languages, Dialects, Classics, &c.

POPE'S LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE. Vol. III. Curll. 1735.

ALMANACS, any for the year 1752.

MATTHIAS' OBSERVATIONS ON GRAY. 8vo. 1815.

SHAKSPEARE, JOHNSON, AND STEVENS, WITH REED'S ADDITIONS. 3rd Edition, 1785. Vol. V.

SWIFT'S WORKS, Faulkner's Edition. 8 Vols. 12mo. Dublin, 1747. Vol. III.

SOUTHEY'S PENINSULAR WAR. Vols. V. VI. 8vo.

JOURNAL OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. Vol. I. Part I. (One or more copies.)

THE ANTIQUARY. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1816. Vols. I. and II.

HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF TWICKENHAM, being the First Part of Parochial Collections for the County of Middlesex, begun in 1780 by E. Ironside, Esq., London, 1797. (This work forms 1 vol. of Miscell. Antiquities in continuation of the Bib. Topographica, and is usually bound in the 10th Volume.)

RITSON'S ROBIN HOOD. 12mo. London, 1795. Vol. II. (10s. will be given for a clean copy in boards, or 7s. 6d. for a clean copy bound.)

DR. JOHNSON'S PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS.

ANNUAL OBITUARY AND BIOGRAPHY. Vol. XXXI.

THEOPHILUS AND PHILODOXUS, or Several Conferences, &c., by Gilbert Giles, D.D., Oxon, 1674; or the same work republished 1679, under the title of a "Dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist."

PECK'S COMPLETE CATALOGUE OF ALL THE DISCOURSES WRITTEN BOTH FOR AND AGAINST PAPACY IN THE TIME OF KING JAMES II. 1735. 4to.

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

A. B. R. will find the passage he refers to—

in the opening scene of "Measure for Measure."

NOVUS. "The Three Treatises by Wickliffe," edited by Dr. Todd, have not actually been published as yet. Copies will, however, soon be on sale at Messrs. Hamilton and Adams', Paternoster Row.

E. A. D.'s communication did not reach us in time to enable us to do as he wished.

THEOPHYLACT will find the most important point in his letter treated in our next Number. Would he in future oblige us by separating his various communications?

ת א is thanked for his very kind letter, which we have availed ourselves of his permission to forward.

DAN. STONE, ESQUIRE'S "Anagrams" reached us at too late a period for insertion in the present Number.

REPLIES RECEIVED.—Ash Sap—Anagrams—Marriage of Ecclesiastics—Horology—Bourchier Family—Pauper's Badge—Carling Sunday—Three Estates of the Realm—Posie of other Men's Flowers—Sacro sancta Regum Majestas—The Soul's Errand—Middleton's Epigrams—Man is born to Trouble—Cockney—Flemings in Pembrokeshire—Image of both Churches, &c.—Crowns have their Compass—Aneroid Barometer—Eyre Family—Baxtorf's Translation of Levita—Wylecop—Equestrian Figure of Elizabeth—Nao for Ship—Medical Use of Pigeons, and others which are in type.

Copies of our Prospectus, according to the suggestion of T. E. H., will be forwarded to any correspondent willing to assist us by circulating them.

VOLS. I., II., and III., with very copious Indices, may still be had, prices 9s. 6d. each, neatly bound in cloth.

NOTES AND QUERIES is published at noon on Friday, so that our country Subscribers may receive it on Saturday. The subscription for the Stamped Edition is 10s. 2d. for Six Months, which may be paid by Post-office Order drawn in favour of our Publisher, MR. GEORGE BELL. 186. Fleet Street; to whose care all communications for the Editor should be addressed.

Printed by THOMAS CLARK SHAW, of No. 8. New Street Square, at No. 5. New Street Square, in the Parish of St. Bride in the City of London; and published by GEORGE BELL, of No. 186. Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Dunstan in the West, in the City of London, Publisher, at No. 186. Fleet Street aforesaid.—Saturday, October 25. 1851.