Notes and Queries Vol. IV., No. 111, Saturday, December 13. 1851

NOTES:—

QUERIES:—

REPLIES:—

MISCELLANEOUS:—

Before again recurring to Gray's partiality for the poems of Cowley, I will make a remark or two on Mr. Wakefield's edition of Gray.

In his delightful "Ode to Adversity" Gray has written:

Upon which Wakefield gives us this brilliant criticism:

"'Torturing hour.' There seems to be some little impropriety and incongruity in this. Consistency of figure rather required some material image, like iron scourge and adamantine chain."

Afterwards he seems to speak diffidently of his own judgment, which is rather an unusual thing in Mr. Wakefield. Well would it have been for the reputations of Bentley, Johnson, and Wakefield, that, before improving upon Milton and Gray and Collins, they had remembered the words of a truly great critic, even Horace himself:

Not by any means that I am allowing in this case the existence of a "macula," or an "incuria" either. To D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature I think I am indebted for the remark, that Gray borrowed the expressions from Milton:

It is therefore with Milton, and not with Gray, that Mr. Wakefield must settle the matter. And in proof of my earnest sympathies with him during the very unequal contest, I will console him with "proprieties," "congruities," "consistencies of figure," and "material images," enough.

Or better for this purpose still:

"Torturing hour" is used by Campbell in his Pleasures of Hope, Part I.:

And, indeed, "sweetest Shakspeare, Fancy's child," had used it before any of them:

Again, Gray writes in his truly sublime ode, "The Bard:"

Ordinary readers would have innocently supposed the above "pictured" passage beyond all praise or criticism. "At non infelix" Wakefield:

I must give his note as it stands, for I question whether the whole range of verbal criticism could produce anything more ludicrous:

"I wish Mr. Gray could have introduced a more poetical expression, than the inactive term stood, into this fine passage: as Shakspeare has, for instance, in his description of Dover cliff:

"Which is the same happy picture as that of Virgil:

He might, when his hand was in, have adduced other passages also from Virgil, e.g.:

However, with all due respect for Mr. Wakefield's "happy pictures," I do not see anything left, but his eyebrows, for the luckless bard to hang by! He could not have hung by his hair, which "stream'd like a meteor to the troubled air;" nor yet by his hands, which "swept the deep sorrows of his lyre." Besides, there can scarcely be more opposite pictures than that of a man gathering samphire, or kids browsing, amongst beetling rocks; and the commanding and awe-inspiring position in which Gray ingeniously places his bard. The expressions chosen by Virgil, Shakspeare, and Gray were each peculiarly suitable to the particular objects in view. If Gray was thinking of Milton, as I intimated in a former letter, he may have still kept him in mind:

Or again:

It would be easy to adduce similar instances from the ancient sources, but I will only mention From Milton an illustration of the συστρεψας of Demosthenes, and of the passionate abruptness with which Gray commences "The Bard:"

Wakefield's hypercritical fastidiousness would have completely defeated the intentions of Gray. His "Bard" had a mission to fulfil which could not have been fulfilled by one suspended like king Solomon, in the ancient Jewish traditions, or like Mahomet's coffin, mid-way between heaven and earth. His cry was δος που στω, and the poet heard him. And thus, from his majestic position, was not—

In the full blaze of poetic phrensy, he flashes out at once with the awfully grand and terrible exordium:

Collins thus describes the passion of anger:

Word-painting can go no farther. When, however, he comes to melancholy, in lines which contain more suggestive beauty, as well as more poetic inspiration, than perhaps any others of the same length in the English language, how does he sing?

This is the concentrated essence of poetry. Surely Gray had forgotten Collins when he penned the beautiful lines:

From a memorandum made by Gray himself, it is evident that he once had contemplated placing his "Bard" in a sitting posture; but I cannot but rejoice that he altered his mind, for such breath-taking words could never have been uttered in so composed and contented a posture. I give part of it from Mr. Mason's edition:

"The army of Edward I., as they marched through a deep valley, are suddenly stopped by the appearance of a venerable figure, seated on the summit of an inaccessible rock; who, with a voice more than human, reproaches the king with all the misery and desolation he had brought on his country, &c., &c. His song ended, he precipitates himself from the mountain, and is swallowed up by the river that rolls at its foot."—Vol. i. p. 73. Lond. 1807.

The last two lines of the passage before us—

remind us in some degree of Cowley:

Again:

And—

Also—

The word chastised is similarly used by Cowley:

The idea of the whole passage may be found in Pope:

Again:

Wakefield mentions some parallel passages, but omits the best of all:

"A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; Yea, and nothing shall escape them."—Joel, ii. 3.

In the "Ode on the Installation" Gray says:

Wakefield dwells enraptured on the expression human passions. Cowley speaks of "humana quies" (Davideidos, lib. i. p. 3.). Horace says:

Human passions is not, however, a creation of Gray's; for, if not anywhere else, he might have found the words very often in the writings of William Law, as vigorous a prose writer as England can boast of since the days of Dr. South. See his answer to Dr. Trapp's Not Righteous overmuch, p. 62., Lond. 1741; and his Serious Call, cap. xii. p. 137., and cap. xxi. p. 293., Lond. 1816.

To mention its use by modern writers would be endless. I selected these few passages on reading Mr. Wakefield's laudations, for otherwise I should not perhaps have remarked the words as unusual. Wakefield adduces from Pope's Eloisa to Abelard:

"Noble rage," Gray's Elegy. "Noble rage," Cowley's Davideidos, lib. iv. p. 137. Again, in the Elegy:

Cowley, in describing the palace of Lucifer, has some fine sentences; and amongst them:

And in English:

Akenside constantly used the adjective human in different conjunctions.

RT.

Warmington.

The following song I never saw in print. I knew an old lady, who fifty years ago used to sing it. Is it known?

J. R. RELTON.

This poem, though not absolutely the earliest in point of date, is the longest of the numerous poems produced among the Kymry of the north of England during the sixth and seventh centuries. Two translations have already appeared in English; one by the Rev. Edward Davies, the author of Celtic Researches, and the other by a gentleman named Probert. Of these the latter, though very imperfect and extremely defective, is the only one which an English reader should consult; the version given by Davies is only a very ingenious misrepresentation. The poem has no more reference to Hengist than it has to the man-in-the-moon; and GOMER might have suspected that a version which, without rule or reason, deprived historic personages of their reality, could not have been correct. Every proper name mentioned in the Gododin may be shown without any alteration to be those of persons living between 577 and 642. The proof of this assertion, when carefully examined, is all but overwhelming; but here I can only cite a few of the most tangible facts. The design of the poem is thus described by the bard himself:—

These lines may be thus translated:—

From frequent notices in other parts of the poem, we find that the subject is the defeat of (the Ottadini) the men of Gododin, in a battle which took place in the year 603, near Cattraeth, which may be identified with the Cataracton of Ptolemy, the Cataract of Bede, and the present Catterick in Yorkshire. The men of Gododin in this campaign were in league with the Novantæ of Wigtonshire, the Britons of Strathclyde, the Scots of Argyle, and the Picts of Fife and Perth. Of this army the chiefs alone amounted to three hundred and sixty; but, to use the words of the bard, "Mead brought shame on the best of armies;" and the chiefs, on account of temporary success over a part of Ethelfrith's Northumbrian army, spent the night in wild carousal. Overtures of peace were made to them by Ethelfrith, and contemptuously rejected; they rushed pell-mell to battle before the break of day; and the bard, seeing them falling helplessly drunk from their horses, "drew a veil over his face and fled, weeping on his way." I here assume that Cattraeth and Cataract are the same place; and to cite only one of many evidences, the position of the Ottadini in the immediate neighbourhood of Catterick, lends this view strong confirmation. But there is here another assumption, to which I invite the attention of English antiquaries. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates the occurrence of a great battle between Ethelfrith of Northumbria and the northern Britons in the year 603: of that battle the site is variously named Degstan, Dægsanstane, and Egesanstane; but antiquarian researches have not determined where Egesanstane was. Some place it at Dawston, near Jedburg, in Scotland, and others at Dalston in Cumberland; but all confess uncertainty. Now I assume that the place called Egesanstane is more likely to be Siggeston, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, which is about five or six miles east of Catterick; and this conjecture is strongly supported by the fact that Ethelfrith in this case was not the invader but the invaded, as it is said, "Hering, the son of Hussa, led the enemy thither," to the dominions of Ethelfrith, which were then but little else than the eastern coast of Northumberland and Yorkshire. If this view be correct, our antiquaries have hitherto been in error on this point; the site of the great battle of 603 is no longer unknown; and Egesanstane and Cattraeth are only two names for the same battle, just as another battle-field is variously named the battle of Waterloo by us, and that of Mont St. Jean by the French.

Probert places the death of Aneurin in 570: the Gododin shows him to have been an eyewitness of an event which took place in 642. Davies, whose works are striking evidences of a powerful intellect completely led astray, makes the subject to have been the reported massacre at Stonehenge, which possibly never took place, but which he fixes in 472. Now I have cited a passage which, referring to Taliesin as an authority, implies that Aneurin was his junior; and Taliesin was living in 610. Again, Davies makes an abortive attempt to get rid of the last poem of Llywarch Hen, which shows him to have been living as late as the year 640, when most of his sons had fallen in battle. Llywarch himself was either at the battle of Cattraeth, or assisted in organising the campaign; for though not mentioned by Aneurin, he himself alludes to the time "when we attacked the great-smoker-of-towns (Ethelfrith)."

At this battle Aneurin was taken prisoner, and confined in "an earthen house," from which he was released "by the bright sword of Cenau, the son of Llywarch." The son of Llywarch could scarcely have been living in 472; and Davies in vain essays to get rid of this obdurate fact. This passage in Aneurin—

shows the use of under-ground hovels to have extended far into the historic period.

One fact more, and this demonstration that Aneurin has been ante-dated will be complete. The bard in three several places mentions a battle of Mannan, in much the same way as we at this day speak of Waterloo; and it is evident that, in the estimation of the bard and his countrymen, the battle of Mannan was the last great event before the battle of Cattraeth. The first of these passages is—

Cæog, whom Davies converts into the adjective "adorned," was the brother of Cynddylan, Prince of Powys (Elegies of Llywarch Hen, p. 70.). On the death of his brother in 577, he went to North Briton; he escaped from the blows of Mannan, and afterwards fell at Cattraeth. Again, of a chief named Twrch it is said:—

Again he says of another chief:—

Here we have three separate proofs of the fact, that Cadvannan was anterior to the battle of Cattraeth: now when and where did that take place? In the year 582, and probably at Clackmannan, on the Firth of Forth in Scotland. Here is my authority (Annals of Ulster):

"DLXXXII. Bellum Manan, in quo victor erat Aodhan Mar Gawran."

The battle of Cattraeth must be that of 603, at which Aeddan was also present.

These few annotations from a new translation of The Gododin now in MS., will, it is hoped, satisfy your correspondent GOMER that I am justified in repeating the views of Davies. Should he wish to get a correct text, and a judicious version of The Gododin, he had better subscribe to a translation by the Rev. J. Williams (author of the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of the Cymry), now about to issue from the Llandovery press, at a very moderate price. Probert's translation is very scarce.

Is there no tradition of this battle at Sigston?

THOS. STEPHENS.

Lincolnshire Folk Lore.—The following, illustrating as it does a superstition still very prevalent in Lincolnshire, may interest some of your readers. I transcribed it a few days ago in the British Museum from Holly's Lincolnshire Notes, vol. iii. fol. 358.:—

"The other I receaued from Mr. Thomas Codd, minister of Laceby in Linc, wĉh he gave under his owne hand; he himself being a native of ye place where this same happened, and it was thus:

"At Axholme, alias Haxey, in ye Isle, one Mr. Edward Vicars (curate to Mr. Wm. Dalby, vicar), together with one Robert Hallywell a taylor, intending on St. Marke's even at night to watch in ye church porch to see who shoud die in ye yeare following (to this purpose using divers ceremonies), they addressing themselues to the busines, Vicars (being then in his chamber) wished Hallywell to be going before and he would pŝently follow him. Vicars fell asleep, and Hallywell (attending his coming in ye church porch) forthwith sees certaine shapes pŝnting themselves to his view, resemblances (as he thought) of diuers of his neighbours, who he did nominate; and all of them dyed the yeare following; and Vicars himselfe (being asleep) his phantome was seen of him also, and dyed with ye rest. This sight made Hallywell so agast that he looks like a Ghoast ever since. The lord Sheffield (hearing this relation) sent for Hallywell to receiue account of it. The fellow fearing my Lord would cause him to watch the church porch againe he hid himselfe in the Carrs till he was almost starued. The number of those that died (whose phantasmes Hallywell saw) was as I take it about fower score.

"Tho. Cod, Rector Ecclie de Laceby."

EDWARD PEACOCK.

Bottesford Moors, Messingham, Kirton in Lindsey.

—It is commonly stated in books of geography that the modern name of Athens is Statines. In Hennin's Manuel de Numismatique Ancienne it is stated to be Satines or Atini; and Mr. Akerman, in his most excellent Numismatic Manual, makes the same statement. We find it stated also universally that the modern name of Cos is Stanco; and this has been repeated in all maps and charts until the recently published Admiralty Chart, No. VI. of the Archipelago series, where it is called Cos.

The origin of this and other similar blunders is curious. Athens retains its plural termination, and is always used with the article, αι Αθηναι. If you ask a peasant walking from the Piræus whither he is going, he will answer you, Εις τας Αθηνας, but will rapidly enunciate it as follows, 'σ'τ'σΑθηνας, whence Statines, lately reduced to Satines.

I am surprised that Cos was not set down as Stinco rather than Stanco, for if you hail a Coan vessel, and ask whither it is bound, the καραβουκυρι, or skiff-master, would certainly reply στην Κῳ, if Cos were his destination.

I find that both M. Hennin and Mr. Akerman assert that Thebes is now called Stives. I conversed with a noble-looking youth on the ruins of Eleusis, and asking him from what part of the country he came, I shall not easily forget the stately dignity with which he tossed his capote over his shoulder, and answered ειμι Θηβαίος—I am a Theban. The bold Bœotian would have stared in amazement had I spoken to him of Stives, although, if homeward-bound, he would have said he was going 'σ τας Θηβας.

The Turks have made Istambol or Stamboul out of στην πολιν; and we may, perhaps, hear from our friends, the Nepaulese ambassadors, that the capital of England is called Tolondon, and that of France Apari.

L. H. J. T.

—The Duke of Wellington's reply to Mr. Huskisson, "There is no mistake," has become familiar in the mouths of both those who remember the political circumstances that gave rise to it, and those who have received it traditionally, without inquiring into the origin of it. You may perhaps think it worthy of a "Note" that this was not the first occasion on which the Duke used those celebrated words. The Duke (then Earl of Wellington) in a private letter to Lord Bathurst, dated Flores de Avila, 24th July, 1812, writes in the following easy style:

"I hope that you will be pleased with our battle, of which the dispatch contains as accurate an account as I can give you. There was no mistake, everything went on as it ought; and there never was an army so beaten in so short a time."

The whole letter is well deserving of insertion; but my object is simply to draw attention to the occasion on which the Duke first used the sentence now so well known.

F. W. J.

—The following prediction of St. Cæsario, Bishop of Arles, in the year 542, may not be considered void of interest at the present moment. It is taken from a book, entitled Liber Mirabilis, printed in Gothic characters, and deposited in the Royal Library, Paris:—

"The administration of the kingdom, France, will be so blended, that they shall leave it without defenders. The hand of God shall extend itself over them, and over all rich; all the nobles shall be deprived of their estates and dignity; a division shall spring up in the church of God, and there shall be two husbands, the one true, and the other adulterous. The legitimate husband shall be put to flight; there shall be great carnage, and as great a profusion of blood as in the day of the Gentiles. The universal church and the whole world shall deplore the ruin and destruction of a most celebrated city, the capital and mistress of France. The altars of the temple shall be destroyed, the holy virgins outraged shall fly from their seats, and the whole church shall be stripped of her temporal gods; but at length the black eagle and the lion shall appear hovering from far countries. Misery to thee, O city of philosophy! thou shalt be subjected! A captive humbled even to confusion, shall at last receive his crown, and destroy the children of Brutus."

ALPHA.

"The musket-ball that killed Nelson is now in the possession of the Rev. F. W. Baker, of Bathwick, near Bath. A considerable portion of the gold lace, pad, and silk cord of the epaulette, with a piece of coat, were found attached to it. The gold lace was as firmly fixed as if it had been inserted into the metal while in a state of fusion. The ball, together with the lace, &c., was mounted in crystal and silver, and presented by Captain Hardy to the late Sir William Beattie, the surgeon of the Victory."

I have extracted this from the Illustrated London News, First Number. If this relic be now in the possession of Prince Albert, I presume it became his by purchase or presentation from the above-named gentleman.

BLOWEN.

—The Indian origin of the numerals of this people is evident from the following comparison:

	Sanscrit.	Hungarian Gypsy.	Spanish Gitáno.
	1. eka	jek	yeque
	2. dwaou	dui	dui
	3. traya	trin	trin
	4. tchatouara	schtar	estar
	5. panyntcha	pansch	pansche
	6. chach	tschov	job
	7. sapta	efta	hefta
	8. achtaou	ochto	otor
	9. nava	enija	esnia
	10. dasa	dösch	deque

The Sanscrit must be read with a French pronunciation, being from Balbi's Atlas Ethnographique; the Hungarian Gypsy as German, and the last as Spanish; the two latter are from Borrow's Zuicali, vol. ii. p. 118.

T. J. BUCKTON.

Lichfield.

The inclosed inscription was brought over for me from Karlsbad by the late Lord Chief Justice Tindal. Can any one throw light upon the capital letters? I give it copied exactly from Sir Nicholas Tindal's writing, with his observation beneath, and may safely venture to warrant his accuracy. It might be supposed to be a chronogram, but for the introduction of the letter "E."

"Motto from a Dial formed on the two Sides of the Angle of a House at Karlsbad.

"The letters which are written in capitals were so in the original inscription, and were coloured red: probably the anagram of some one's name is concealed under them."

Having been a collector of existing dial mottoes for many years, I shall feel greatly obliged to any of your correspondents who will inform me of remarkable ones in their own neighborhood.

There are four—one in English, one in Latin, one in Greek, and one in Hebrew—on the keep of Carlisle Castle; but though I possess the three former, I have not the last, and should be very glad to obtain it, if possible.

There is a motto at Bonneville in Switzerland, as I have been told:

What can be the interpretation thereof?

Of course I am acquainted with Leadbetter's Art of Dialling, and the curious list of mottoes he gives, together with the still more curious translations of the same; as e.g.

Or—

But what I want is, mottoes from dials actually in existence.

HERMES.

Mr. Payne Collier communicates to the Athenæum of the 22nd November, 1851, an interesting letter relative to an unspoken epilogue to Dryden, and Nat Lee's famous tragedy of The Duke of Guise. This rare composition, entitled "Another Epilogue intended to have been spoken to the Play before it was forbidden last Summer, written by Mr. Dryden," occurs in conjunction with the Prologue and Epilogue which were actually spoken, upon a separate sheet of foolscap; in which shape, as Mr. Collier informs us, they were often printed for sale at the playhouse doors. Mr. Collier's acceptable communication suggests a Query or two. At the end of my copy of this play, the 4to. edit. of 1687, is the following

"ADVERTISEMENT.

"There was a Preface intended to this play, in vindication of it, against two scurrilous libels lately printed. But it was judged, that a defence of this nature would require more room than a preface would reasonably allow. For this cause, and for the importunity of the stationers, who hastened their impression, 'tis deferred for some little time, and will be printed by itself. Most men are already of opinion that neither of the pamphlets deserve an answer, because they are stuffed with open falsities, and sometimes contradict each other; but, for once, they shall have a day or two thrown away upon them, tho' I break an old custom for their sakes, which was to scorn them."

Was this threatened preface ever issued? Are the "two scurrilous libels" here spoken of so scornfully, known to be in existence?

The new-found Epilogue belongs as much to the political as to the dramatic history of those troublous times; and let us hope, maugre the unfortunate coarseness of the school to which it belongs, that Mr. Collier will some day present us with a reprint of it in toto, accompanied by the above noted preface, if it exist. There is ample matter, as the pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES" have lately shown, for a new volume of Dryden Miscellanies.

HENRY CAMPKIN.

—Can any of your correspondents refer me to the etymon of this name, given to a vocation attached to our English courts of law? I can find none even in the comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of Nat. Bailey, unless, indeed, by dividing the word into two portions, viz. "bar" and "rister," and then, with a little of the critic's license, assuming that the latter half might originally have been written "roister." But as this analysis would render it so little characteristic of the class so named, and would strongly imply that some portion at least of that distinguished body was once viewed as the "roisters," i.e. "bullies and blusterers," of that division of our courts called "the Bar," it is evident that we cannot reasonably look for the derivation of the latter part of the word from that source. But still, as there may be those who are inclined, in spite of these cogent objections, to doubt whether this may be its true etymon; and it is fit that any such lurking and slanderous suspicion should be dispelled from every sceptic mind, some one of your curious and learned correspondents, anxious to effect it, will, perhaps, tax his etymological skill to the suggestion of a less offensive, and more just and appropriate derivation, than "Bar-roister."

W. Y.

—Can any of your readers favour me with references to any works containing an account of the trick practised by jugglers in the East Indies, and known there by the name of "growing a mango?" In performing this trick a seed is planted in a pot or basket of earth, which is then covered up from the sight by a cloth or other wire; in a little time this is removed, and the seed is seen to have germinated, and its growth is similarly shown in successive stages, the last of which exhibits the plant in fruit. Hundreds of Europeans have seen the trick, but I have never heard of any one who was able to detect the successive substitutions in which it obviously consists. I do not at present recollect the name of any author who takes any notice of it.

N.

—The Priory of Hertford was founded by Ralph de Limesey and his wife Hadewise, some time after the Conquest. Can any of your antiquarian correspondents inform me in what year this took place?

The Rev. DR. ROCK had the politeness to answer my Query respecting the Abbot Eustacius; perhaps he could oblige me by solving the present one.

J. L.

—Jacobi Creusii Theologi et Medici, Frisii, Victimas Humanas. I should be greatly obliged by any information respecting the author, or the book, which I find so mentioned in a MS. of 1677.

S. W. RIX.

Beccles.

—In the will of John Buttery of Bury, 1557, is this item:

"My capitall mesuage, with the maltinge house and the tenement called Banyards, with all the gardaines, yards, and close, to them belonginge,—except the ij tenements called the Clekit House."

What is the meaning of Clekit? In the E.-Anglian dialect, clicket is "to chatter." Phillips has "CLICKET, the knocker of a door, but Chaucer uses it for a key."

BURIENSIS.

—Who is the author of a modern ballad on the Rising of the Vendée, of which the last lines are—

D. B. J.

—In some of the early quarto editions of Spenser, in the "Shepherd's Calender," June, there is a stanza which in almost all the subsequent folio editions is omitted. I shall be much obliged for any information as to when and why it was left out; in the copies in which it appears it is the twelfth stanza, and is as follows:—

The last line is a good specimen of alliteration.

E. N. W.

Southwark, Nov. 17. 1851.

—I remember seeing in the year 1837, I think in one of the morning papers, the following lines, which were said, as far as my memory serves me, to have been taken from an old almanac, in which they were prophetical of what should happen in the above-named year:—

Can any of your readers inform me whether these lines were only composed after the events related took place—that is, at the time the lines appeared in the paper in which I saw them, or whether they are really to be found in any old almanac; and if so, in what almanac, and in what year?

N. L. N.

Maidstone.

—In a small volume of Sacred Poetry, in the possession of a friend of mine, the following lines on the Bible are ascribed to Byron:

Not having met with these lines in the works of Lord Byron, can any of your readers say whether they are his, or not, or who is the author?

JOHN ALGOR.

Sheffield.

—The family of Cockayne of Ashbourne, co. Derby, used as a motto upon their seals, in the fourteenth century, the following words, "En bon et poyer." This has been explained to mean, "Boni est posse," or "Right is might." Can any of your readers suggest anything to confirm or throw doubt on this interpretation?

FRANCIS M. NICHOLS.

—For nearly fifty years our countrymen have taught their children Nelson's last signal—

Such was my impression of this emphatic form of words. I am surprised to see upon the column in Trafalgar Square,

Pray is there any authority for the inscription as it there stands?

E. N. H.

—Can any of your readers refer me to any sources of information, printed or in manuscript, in addition to those mentioned in the last edition of Dugdale's Monasticon, respecting the following religious houses in East Sussex: Otham, Bayham, Michelham, Robertsbridge?

E. V.

—Considerable attention has of late been excited with reference to the difficulties attending the ordinary means of access to various public depositories of documentary evidence in this country. In some of these departments, the commencement of a welcome reform is already apparent; others, it is but reasonable to hope, will, ere long, yield to the frank and inquisitive spirit of the times in this respect. The present communication is confined to a very wide, though less dignified source of official information, viz. Parish Registers. I am sure I need not say one word to illustrate the importance of the last-mentioned class of evidence to the genealogist, the topographer, or the archæological inquirer in general,—in one word, to those who enter into the spirit of the "NOTES AND QUERIES." I beg, therefore, to submit the following inquiries:

1. Have the actual parishioners of a place a right to consult their own register of baptisms, marriages, and burials, gratuitously? If not:—

2. What fee is legally demandable,—and by whom,—and under what restrictions? And—

3. Do the terms differ when the inquirer is not a parishioner? If so, in what respect do they differ?

These inquiries have reference to the contents of the chests kept in, or in connection with, parochial churches and chapels, and not to those in the custody of the modern "Registrar." I need scarcely add, that my concern is with the strictly legal rights of search, and demand of fees; and not as to what courtesy may concede, or usage sanction.

D.

Rotherfield.

—In Boswell's Journal of his Tour to the Hebrides he quotes the subjoined couplet, premising, "As Bacon says—

Is not Bacon here a slip of the pen or press? Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Bacon, and Bacon the sculptor, are the only conspicuous men of the name, and none of them that I know wrote verses.

R. CS.

—Where can I obtain any particulars of the life of Tregonwell Frampton, Esq., commonly called the "Father of the Turf," who died at an advanced age about 1727-8. Reference is made to him in the Rambler.

T. R. W.

—Can any of your readers direct the etcher of a portrait of Weever, where to find his autograph, from which to make a copy to illustrate it? It is not to be found in the British Museum. The extreme paucity of information respecting this worthy is somewhat strange, considering the value of his contributions to literature. In our leading biographies and cyclopædias his name does not occur. By-the-bye, where was he buried, and what inscription is there on his "funeral monument?"

An etched portrait is about to be published in the next part of the Antiquarian Etching Club, of Fuller, the author of Worthies, Church History, &c., without a copy of his signature for the same reason, unless one should be discovered.

It has been suggested that search made in the library of Queen's College, Cambridge, might prove successful in both cases, from the fact of their having both belonged to that college. Perhaps some member of the university would kindly undertake the inquiry.

A. E. C.

—Turner (Sacred History of the World, Letter XV. vol. i. p. 428. 4th edit. 1833) says:

"The beaver, otter, and badger are amphibious creatures, but not oviparous."

Surely this is a mistake, and worthy of a Note? I cannot find the badger mentioned as an amphibious animal in any modern zoology. I certainly have not by me Kerr's Linnæus to refer to, as a verification of Sharon Turner's note on this passage.

CHARLES PASLAM.

—I have nine volumes of a work published by Bew, Paternoster Row, and which appeared from 1778 to 1784, pretending to give sketches of the characters of public men by his Majesty. Can any of your correspondents inform me who was the writer, and what number of volumes were published?

B.

[This literary curiosity was completed in nine volumes, which are sometimes bound in three. In 1841 Mr. H. G. Bohn advertised a copy with all the names filled up in manuscript, the initials being no doubt sufficiently intelligible at that time. For a notion of the work on its first appearance, see the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xlviii. p. 130.]

—Paul Hoste, a Jesuit, published early in the seventeenth century a small quarto with diagrams on "Breaking the Line," so much discussed, as being first done in Rodney's action. If any one can give me some account of Paul Hoste and his scientific views on naval architecture, the information will be acceptable to

ÆGROTUS.

[See Chalmers' and Gorton's Biographical Dictionaries; Moreri, Le Grand Dictionnaire, and Nouveau Dictionnaire Historique, s.v.]

—Can any of your readers inform me if there be a copy of the Liber Mirabilis in any library in the United Kingdom? It contains a remarkable prediction of St. Cæsario, Bishop of Arles, in the year 542. The work is printed in Gothic characters, and there is a copy in the Royal Library, Paris.

CLERICUS.

Dublin.

[A copy is in the library of the British Museum, consisting of two parts. Part I. is in Latin, and Part II. in French, 4to., 1523.]

—In the Romish Calendar we find, on the 7th February, amongst other saints, "Saint Richard, King of England." Which of our Richards does this refer to? I have never read in history of any of them having been canonized, nor should I have thought any of them at all a likely candidate for that honour; but if such was really the case, I presume that Cœur de Lion must be the man, and that his valour in the Crusades was suffered to outweigh his many other unsaintly qualities.

J. S. WARDEN.

Balica.

[St. Richard was an English prince, in the kingdom of the West Saxons, which it is probable he renounced that he might dedicate himself to the pursuit of Christian perfection. About the year 722, on his way to Rome, he died suddenly at Lucca in Italy. See Butler's Lives of the Saints, Feb. 7.]

—Can any of your correspondents direct me to where information may be found regarding the Saint Irene or St. Erini, from whom the Grecian island of Santorin takes its name?

Σ.

Bristol Dec. 1. 1851.

[Irene, Empress of Constantinople, A.D. 797-802, was one of the most extraordinary women in Byzantine history. The Greeks have placed her among their saints, and celebrate her memory on the 15th of August. Consult Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, and Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. xlviii.]

The following passages collected from various sources, will perhaps help to illustrate the origin and the several meanings of this word Cockney:—

Fuller's first sense is—

"One coaks'd or cockered, made a wanton or nestle-cock of, delicately bred and brought up, so that when grown men or women they can endure no hardship, nor comport with pains taking."

"'Tis not their fault, but our mothers', our cockering mothers, who for their labour make us to be called Cockneys."—Dekker, A Knight's Conjuring, 1607.

The following extracts will show that to this first sense Fuller might have added, one abundantly and daintily fed:—

"Unlesse it be shortly considered, and that faukons be broughte to a more homelye diete, it is ryght likely, that within a shorte space of yeares, our familiar pultry shall be as scarse, as be now partriche and fesaunte. I speake not this in disprayse of the faukons, but of them whiche keepeth them lyke Cokeneys."—Elyot, The Governour, 1557.

"Some again are in the other extreme, and draw this mischief on their heads by too ceremonious and strict diet, being over precise cockney-like, and curious in their observation of meats."—Burton. Anatomy of Melancholy.

Fuller's second sense is—

"One utterly ignorant of husbandry and huswifery such as is practised in the country, so that he may be easily persuaded anything about rural commodities, and the original thereof."

He relates the old cock-neigh story, and adds another jest of a similar kind:

"One merrily persuaded a she-citizen, that seeing malt did not grow, the good huswives in the country did spin it; 'I knew as much,' said the Cockney, 'for one may see the threads hang out at the ends thereof."

Shakspeare uses the word Cockney in this latter sense in King Lear, Act II. Sc. 4.:

"Lear. Oh me, my heart, my rising heart! But down."

"Fool. Cry to it, nuncle, as the Cockney did to the eels, when she put 'em i' th' paste alive; she knapt 'em o' th' coxcombs with a stick, and cried 'Down, wantons, down;' 'twas her brother, that in pure kindness to his horse buttered his hay."

Cokeney was apparently used in very early times to designate London. In the Britannia, art. "Suffolk," Hugh Bigod, a rebellious baron in the time of Henry II., boasts thus:

I conceive that Cokeney in this sense is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word cycene, a kitchen or cooking place. Nares, however, in his Glossary, says:

"Le pais de cocagne, in French, means a country of good cheer; in old French coquaine; cocagna, in Italian, has the same meaning. Both might be derived from coquina. This famous country, if it could be found, is described as a region 'where the hills were made of sugar-candy, and the loaves ran down the hills, crying 'Come eat me, come eat me.'"

Hickes gives, in his Anglo-Saxon Grammar, an ancient poem, describing the plenteous land of Cokeney or Cokaigne:

Shakspeare's use of Cockney, in Twelfth Night, Act IV. Sc. 1., is somewhat obscure; but I conceive that the Clown means to express his opinion that the world is already replete with folly:

The Clown probably intends to say, that to vent his folly to the world will be like sending coals to Newcastle, or provisions to Cocagne; for that, as regards folly, this great lubber the world will prove to be a Cocagne or Cokeney, i.e. a land of plenty. He may, however, mean to hint, in a round-about way, that Cockneys, or natives of London, are full of folly; or that the world is as well supplied with folly as a Cockney is with food.

I do not know whether I committed a Cockney, a clerical, or a canonical error, when I wrote the name of Chaucer under the following lines instead of the word Cokeney:—

The sentence for which I am responsible, p. 318., should read thus: "Cokeney, in the above lines quoted by Webster, probably refers to any substantial dish of fresh meat which might be cut in collops." I may add that this use of the word brings it into close alliance with the Anglo-Saxon word cocnunga, signifying things cooked, pies, puddings, and cock's-meat.

The French and Neapolitan festivals, called cocagne and cocagna, appear to have presented themselves in this country under the form of Cockneys' feasts and revels conducted by the King of Cockneys. Strype, in the first appendix to his edition of Stow's London, under the head "Stepney," describes at some length "The Cockney's Feast of Stepney;" and Dugdale, in his Origines Juridiciales, recapitulates an order entered on the Register of Lincoln's Inn, vol. iv. fo. 81a, in the 9th of Henry VIII.:

"That the King of Cockneys in Childermass-day should sit and have due service, and that he and all his officers should use honest and lawful manner and good order, without any waste of destruction making, in wine, brawn, chely, or other victuals: as also that he, his marshal, butler, and constable marshal, should have their lawful and honest commandments by delivery of the officers of Christmas: and that the said King of Cockneys, ne none of his officers, medyll neither in the buttry nor in the Stuard of Christmass his office—upon pain of xis. for every such medling. And lastly, that Jack Straw and all his adherents should be thenceforth utterly banisht, and no more to be used in this house upon pain to forfeit, for every time five pounds, to be levied on every fellow hapning to offend against this rule."

Some obliging bencher of Lincoln's Inn will perhaps have the goodness to examine, or to permit me to examine the Register, to ascertain whether this potentate was king of Cockneys, as Dugdale has it, or of Cockney.

A LONDONER.

—J. C. W. enquires, "Is infortuner to be found in any old Dictionary?" I would state that I have not been able to find it; but in Cockeram's English Dictionarie, 1639, I find "Infortunate, unhappy;" and in Bailey's Dictionary, vol. i. 1753, "Infortunate, unhappy, unlucky;" "Infortune, misfortune," referred to Chaucer; "Infortunes, an astrological term, applied to Saturn and Mars, because of their unfortunate influences;" "Infortunid, unfortunate," referred to Chaucer; and in vol. ii of Bailey's Dictionary, 1727, I find "Infortunateness, unhappiness, unluckiness." It is singular that Cockeram gives "infortunate" in his first alphabet, which, he says, in his preface, "hath the choicest words now in use, wherewith our language is enriched." "Unfortunate" he places in the second alphabet, which, he says, "contains the vulgar words." Neither Cole's English Dictionary, 1685, nor Blount's Glossographia, 1670, nor Phillips' World of Words, 1678, contain the word "unfortunate" in any of its terminations or applications. Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary of Provincial Words, gives the word "Infortune, misfortune," deriving it from the Anglo-Norman.

Whilst referring thus to our early lexicographers, allow me to allude to an anecdote respecting, Dr. Adam Lyttleton, who, when compiling his Latin Dictionary, announced the verb "concurro" to his amanuensis; the latter, imagining, from an affinity of sound, that the first two syllables gave the English meaning of the verb, said, "Concur, I suppose, sir." To which the Doctor peevishly replied, "Concur, condog." The scribe wrote down what he supposed his employer dictated, and the word "condog" was inserted, and stands as one interpretation of "concurro" in the first edition of the Dictionary; it is, of course, expunged from subsequent ones. I give this statement as I find it in print. I do not vouch for its correctness, not having the first edition of the Dictionary to refer to. Strange to say, however, "condog" was regarded as a synonym, or rather as an equivalent to "concur," long before the date of the first edition of Dr. Lyttleton's Dictionary. In Cockeram's Dictionarie, before referred to, sixth edition, 1639, I find the second alphabet, among the words which the author calls vulgar, the verb "to agree" defined "Concurre, cohere, condog, condiscend." Cockeram's Dictionary was evidently a work of some authority in its day; it was dedicated to Sir Richard Boyle, and reached to, at least, a sixth edition, which edition is announced in the title-page as "revised and enlarged," and therefore "condog" did not owe its place in it to the error of an amanuensis or transcriber. The book, although small, contains much curious matter, to which I may, perhaps, hereafter refer. In his "premonition to the reader," he says, "where thou meetest with a word marked thus +, know you that it is now out of use, and only used of some ancient writers." Among these words thus marked as obsolete in 1639, I find, on casually opening the book, the following, "abandon, abate, bardes, insanity." He also defines Troy weight as "a pound weight of twelve ounces, wherewith bread, precious stones, gold and silver are weighed." Blount also (1670), and Cole (1685), say bread was sold by Troy weight; the latter adds medicines to the articles sold by that standard. Cowell, in his Law Dictionary (1708), says, "Electuaries, and medicinal things, and brede, are to be weighed by Troy weight;" Bayley, in 1753, says, "Gold, silver, drugs," &c., are weighed by Troy weight, but does not enumerate bread. Can any of your readers inform me when bread was first directed to be sold by Troy weight, and when it ceased to be so?

P. T.

Stoke Newington.

—There is a list of French ambassadors, envoys, ministers, and other political agents at the court of England, in the Annuaire of the Société de l'histoire de France for 1848, which is the twelfth volume of the series. The list commences in 1396, and is continued to 1830.

I believe there is a copy of this most useful publication in the British Museum. If so, it should appear in the experimental catalogue of 1841, under the head of ACADEMIES—EUROPE—FRANCE—PARIS—Société de l'histoire de France!

BOLTON CORNEY.

—ÆGROTUS asked if a copy of the petition to the above effect from the Corporation of London to the Crown can be found, as it is a droll historical document, which should not sink into oblivion; he jumps at the conclusion that it does exist, but I think is mistaken. Through the kindness of a friend who is in the Corporation, I have had the journals searched, and have not been successful in finding any address to the above tenor. There are abundance congratulating the Prince Regent on the successes of the Duke, but none of censure. I have likewise ascertained that some of the oldest servants of the City feel quite sure that no such address was ever carried. If ÆGROTUS can give me any grounds for his belief, or anything likely to aid my inquiry, I will renew the search.

E. N. W.

Southwark.

If any doubt could exist as to the value of the Germania of Tacitus, as an invaluable contribution to the history of all the Teutonic races, a glance at the Appendix to Klemm's Germanische Altherthumskunde, in which that author has enumerated not only the best editions and translations of the Germania, but also the most important dissertations to which it has given rise, would at once dispel it. The scholar and the antiquary of this country may therefore be congratulated on the fact of Dr. Latham having prepared an edition of it, which has been issued under the title of The Germania of Tacitus, with Ethnological Dissertations and Notes. Although "the work," to use Dr. Latham's own words, "is rather a commentary upon the geographical part of the Germania, than on the Germania itself—the purely descriptive part relating to the customs of the early Germans being passed over almost sicco pede,"—yet our readers will have no difficulty in estimating its importance, when we inform them that the Ethnological Dissertations and Notes which accompany the text may be said to embody the views, (ofttimes indeed dissented from by Dr. Latham,) of Grimm and Zeuss, and the learning with which those distinguished men have illustrated the subject. Indeed, Dr. Latham, who sets an example of openly acknowledging his obligations to other scholars which we should be glad to see more generally followed, expressly states, that whether the work before us took its present form, or that of a translation with an elaborate commentary of Zeuss's learned and indispensable work, Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme, was a mere question of convenience.

If the story that we have heard be true, namely, that one of the most learned and active members of the episcopal bench did, at a late clerical meeting, hold up a copy of Whitaker's Clergyman's Diary and Ecclesiastical Directory, and pronounce it to be a little book so full of useful and invaluable information as to be indispensable to every clergyman, it is clear that the work is beyond all criticism.

The Family Almanack and Educational Register for 1852, contains—in addition to full particulars of nearly a thousand public schools, colleges, and universities, and a list (containing upwards of a thousand) of the principal private schools in the kingdom,—a vast amount of miscellaneous information (including for the first time the Statutes of the Irish University) and statistical tables, and so forms a volume which no person interested in the great question of education can at all do without.

While on the subject of education, we may acknowledge the receipt of several educational works, which we can only notice with great brevity.

M. Merlet's Dictionary of French Difficulties (which, but that the subject is almost too grave for such a jest, we should have suggested might very appropriately have been dedicated to the President) bears on its title the stamp of its merit in the words "third edition."

M. Falch Lebahn's Self Instructor in German; Practice in German; and German in One Volume (4th ed.), are very able attempts to facilitate the study of that most useful language.

The last work, containing as it does La Motte Fouque's beautiful tale of Undine, with explanatory notes on all the difficult words and phrases, and its vocabulary of 4500 words synonymous in German and English, cannot be found otherwise than most useful.

SOUTHEY'S EDITION OF COWPER. Vols. X. XII. XIII. XIV.

JOURNAL OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. Vol. I. Part I. (Several copies are wanted, and it is believed that many are lying in London or Dublin.)

MITFORD'S HISTORY OF GREECE. Vol. VI. Cadell, 1822. 8vo.

WILLIS'S ARCHITECTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 15s. will be given for a copy.

FLUDD (ROBERT, M.D.) alias DE FLUCTIBUS, called the Searcher. Any of his works.

BEHMEN'S (JACOB) GENESIS.

LAW'S APPEAL, &c.

LAW'S APPEAL CASE OF REASON.

HUNTER'S DEANERY OF DONCASTER. Vol. I. Large or small paper.

CLARE'S RURAL MUSE.

CHRISTIAN PIETY FREED FROM THE DELUSIONS OF MODERN ENTHUSIASTS. A.D. 1756 or 1757.

AN ANSWER TO FATHER HUDDLESTONE'S SHORT AND PLAIN WAY TO THE FAITH AND CHURCH. By Samuel Grascombe. London, 1703. 8vo.

REASONS FOR ABROGATING THE TEST IMPOSED UPON ALL MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT. By Samuel Parker, Lord Bishop of Oxon. 1688. 4to.

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

"Our correspondents will see, on very little reflection, that it is plainly the Editor's interest to take all he can get, and make the most and the best of every thing." Thus we spoke in our earlier numbers, and we repeat it now as a reply to two or three communications which have reached us during the present week. As in the management of "NOTES AND QUERIES" we can have no party to serve, no prejudices to gratify, we beg our correspondents—more especially those who are personally unknown to us (and to whose communications we always endeavor to give the earliest insertion possible, because we cannot explain to them, as we could to those to whom we are known, the reasons for delay.)—that for the delay or non-insertion of their communications there are always what we believe they would admit to be satisfactory reasons if they were but acquainted with them; although, from the difficulty attendant on the management of a work like the present, we are not able to bring those reasons before them.

Among other interesting articles which are in type, but necessarily omitted from the present number, are "The Crucifix as used by the Early Christians," by SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT; "Remains of James II.;" "Wady Mokatteb identified with Kibroth Hattavah," by the REV. M. MARGOLIOUTH; "Legend of the Red Breast," &c.

JARLTZBERG is thanked. His suggestion will be carried out at the commencement of the New Year.

GRUS. Surely the inscription is not correctly copied. The first line we should read "LADI, HELP!" and the second, "MERCY, JHESU!"

P. M. M. The article on "Deep Wells," is omitted this week only from want of room. The other communication is postponed for a short time.

W. W. R. (Oxford) is at present the only remonstrant. We will, however, give his suggestion our best consideration.

J. B. (Manchester), who inquires respecting the family of Tonge, is informed that his Query may be fully answered by a reference to vol. xiii. of the Rev. Canon Raine's Lancashire MSS.

W. L. (Hitchin) will find articles on "Vegetating Insects" in our 3rd Vol. pp. 166, 398, 436.

LONG'S ASTRONOMY has been reported, and may be had by applying to our Publisher.

Full price will be given for clean copies of No. 19. upon application to our Publisher.

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Erratum.—In last line but one of Art. 307. p. 424. for "proud father," read "grandfather."

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