Title: Notes and Queries, Number 205, October 1, 1853
Author: Various
Editor: George Bell
Release date: September 1, 2021 [eBook #66199]
Language: English
Credits: Charlene Taylor, Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Library of Early Journals.)
No. 205.] |
Saturday, October 1. 1853. |
[Price Fourpence. |
Notes:— | Page |
The Groaning-board, a Story of the Days of Charles II., by Dr. E. F. Rimbault | 309 |
The Etymology of the Word "Awkward" | 310 |
Inedited Poem—"The Deceitfulness of Love," by Chris. Roberts | 311 |
Bale MSS., referred to in Tanner's "Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica," by Sir F. Madden | 311 |
Charles Fox and Gibbon | 312 |
Samuel Williams | 312 |
Shakspeare Correspondence, by Samuel Hickson, &c. | 313 |
Minor Notes:—Doings of the Calf's Head Club—Epitaph by Wordsworth—Tailor's "Cabbage"—Misquotations—The Ducking Stool—Watch-paper Inscription | 315 |
Queries:— | |
Birthplace of Gen. Monk, by F. Kyffin Lenthall | 316 |
Minor Queries:—Harmony of the Four Gospels—The Noel Family—Council of Trent—Roman Catholic Patriarchs—The "Temple Lands" in Scotland—Cottons of Fowey—Draught or Draft of Air—Admiral Sir Thomas Tyddeman—Pedigree Indices—Apparition of the White Lady—Rundlestone—Tottenham—Duval Family—Noses of the Descendants of John of Gaunt—General Wall—John Daniel and Sir Ambrose Nicholas Salter—Edward Bysshe—President Bradshaw and John Milton | 316 |
Minor Queries with Answers:—Ket the Tanner—"Namby-pamby" | 318 |
Replies:— | |
Editions of Books of Common Prayer, by the Rev. Thomas Lathbury, &c. | 318 |
The Crescent, by J. W. Thomas | 319 |
Seals of the Borough of Great Yarmouth | 321 |
Moon Superstitions, by J. N. Radcliffe and G. William Skyring | 321 |
Latin Riddle, by the Rev. Robert Gibbings | 322 |
"Hurrah!" by Sir J. E. Tennent and J. Sansom | 323 |
Photographic Correspondence:—Process for Printing on Albumenized Paper | 324 |
Replies to Minor Queries:—Anderson's Royal Genealogies—Thomas Wright of Durham—Weather Predictions—Bacon's Essays: Bullaces—Nixon the Prophet—Parochial Libraries—"Ampers and," &c.—The Arms of De Sissonne—St. Patrick's Purgatory—Sir George Carr—Gravestone Inscription—"A Tub to the Whale"—Hour-glasses in Pulpits—Slow-worm Superstition—Sincere—Books chained to Desks in Churches: Seven Candlesticks—D. Ferrand: French Patois—Wood of the Cross—'Ladies' Arms in a Lozenge—Burial in unconsecrated Ground—Table-turning—"Well's a fret"—Tenet for Tenent | 326 |
Miscellaneous:— | |
Books and Odd Volumes wanted | 330 |
Notices to Correspondents | 330 |
Advertisements | 331 |
The English public has ever been distinguished by an enormous amount of gullibility.
"Ha ha, ha ha! this world doth pass
Most merrily I'll be sworn;
For many an honest Indian ass
Goes for an unicorn."
So sung old Thomas Weelkes in the year 1608, and so echo we in the year 1853! What with "spirit-rapping," "table-moving," "Chelsea ghosts," "Aztec children," &c., we shall soon, if we go on at the same rate, get the reputation of being past all cure.
In looking over, the other day, a volume in the Museum, marked MS. Sloane 958., I noticed the following hand-bill pasted on the first page:
"At the sign of the Wool-sack, in Newgate Market, is to be seen a strange and wonderful thing, which is an elm board, being touched with a hot iron, doth express itself as if it were a man dying with groans, and trembling, to the great admiration of all the hearers. It hath been presented before the king and his nobles, and hath given great satisfaction. Vivat Rex."
At the top of the bill is the king's arms, and the letters C. R., and in an old hand is written the date 1682. On the same page is an autograph of the original possessor of the volume, "Ex libris Jo. Coniers, Londini, pharmacopol, 1673."
In turning to Malcolm (Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London, 4to. 1811, p. 427.), we find the following elucidation of this mysterious exhibition:
"One of the most curious and ingenious amusements ever offered to the publick ear was contrived in the year 1682, when an elm plank was exhibited to the king and the credulous of London, which being touched by a hot iron, invariably produced a sound resembling deep groans. This sensible, and very irritable board, received numbers of noble visitors; and other boards, sympathising with their afflicted brother, demonstrated how much affected they might be by similar means. The publicans in different parts of the city immediately applied ignited metal to all the woodwork of their houses, in hopes of finding sensitive timber; but I do{310} not perceive any were so successful as the landlord of the Bowman Tavern in Drury Lane, who had a mantle tree so extremely prompt and loud in its responses, that the sagacious observers were nearly unanimous in pronouncing it part of the same trunk which had afforded the original plank."
The following paragraph is also given by Malcolm from the Loyal London Mercury, Oct. 4, 1682:
"Some persons being this week drinking at the Queen's Arms Tavern, in St. Martin's-le-Grand, in the kitchen, and having laid the fire-fork in the fire to light their pipes, accidentally fell a discoursing of the groaning-board, and what might be the cause of it. One in the company, having the fork in his hand to light his pipe, would needs make trial of a long dresser that stood there, which, upon the first touch, made a great noise and groaning, more than ever the board that was showed did; and then they touched it three or four times, and found it far beyond the other. They all having seen it, the house is almost filled with spectators day and night, and any company calling for a glass of wine may see it; which, in the judgment of all, is far louder, and makes a longer groan than the other; which to report, unless seen, would seem incredible."
Among the Bagford Ballads in the Museum (three vols., under the press-mark 643. m.) is preserved the following singular broadside upon the subject, which is now reprinted for the first time:
"A NEW SONG, ON THE STRANGE AND WONDERFUL GROANING-BOARD.
"What fate inspir'd thee with groans,
To fill phanatick brains?
What is't thou sadly thus bemoans,
In thy prophetick strains?
"Art thou the ghost of William Pryn,
Or some old politician?
Who, long tormented for his sin,
Laments his sad condition?
"Or must we now believe in thee,
The old cheat transmigration?
And that thou now art come to be
A call to reformation?
"The giddy vulgar to thee run,
Amaz'd with fear and wonder;
Some dare affirm, that hear thee groan,
Thy noise is petty thunder.
"One says and swears, you do foretell
A change in Church and State;
Another says, you like not well
Your master Stephen's fate.[1]
"Some say you groan much like a whigg,
Or rather like a ranter;
Some say as loud, and full as big,
As Conventicle Canter.
"Some say you do petition,
And think you represent
The woe and sad condition
Of Old Rump Parliament.
"The wisest say you are a cheat;
Another politician
Says, 'tis a misery as great
And true as Hatfield's vision.[2]
"Some say, 'tis a new evidence,
Or witness of the plot;
And can discover many things
Which are the Lord knows what.
"And lest you should the plot disgrace,
For wanting of a name,
Narrative Board henceforth we'll place
In registers of fame.
"London: Printed for T. P. in the year 1682."
The extraordinary and long-lived popularity of the "groaning-board" is fully evinced by the number of cotemporary allusions: a few will suffice.
Mrs. Mary Astell, in her Essay in Defence of the Female Sex, 1696, speaking of the character of a "coffee-house politician," observes:
"He is a mighty listener after prodigies: and never hears of a whale or a comet, but he apprehends some sudden revolution in the state, and looks upon a groaning-board, or a speaking-head, as forerunners of the day of judgment."
Swift, in his Tale of a Tub, written in the following year (1697), says of Jack:
"He wore a large plaister of artificiall causticks on his stomach, with the fervor of which he would set himself a groaning like the famous board upon application of a red-hot iron."
Steele, in the 44th number of the Tatler, speaking of Powell, the "puppet showman," says:
"He has not brains enough to make even wood speak as it ought to do: and I, that have heard the groaning-board, can despise all that his puppets shall be able to speak as long as they live."
So much for the "story" of the groaning-board. As to "how it was done," we leave the matter open to the reader's sagacity.
Footnote 1:(return)
This was Stephen College, a joiner by trade, but a man of an active and violent spirit, who, making himself conspicuous by his opposition to the Court, obtained the name of the Protestant joiner. His fate is well known.
Footnote 2:(return)
Martha Hatfield, a child twelve years old in Sept. 1652, who pretended to have visions "concerning Christ, faith, and other subjects." She was a second edition of the "holy maid of Kent."
Most persons who have given their attention to the formation of words, and have employed their leisure in endeavouring to trace them to their source, must have remarked that there are many words in the English language which show on the{311} part of learned philologists, the compilers of dictionaries, either a strange deficiency in reading, or a want of acquaintance with the older tongues: or perhaps, if we must find an excuse for them, a habit of "nodding."
The word awkward is one of these. Skinner's account is as follows:
"Ineptus, ἀμφαριστερός, præposterus, ab A.-S. æþerd perversus; hoc ab æ præp. loquelari negativa privativa, et weard, versus."
Johnson follows Skinner, interpreting awkward in the same way, and with the same derivation; but unfortunately he had met with the little word awk, and, not caring to inquire into the origin of it, as it seemed so plain, he explains it as "a barbarous contraction of awkward," giving the following example from L'Estrange:
"We have heard as arrant jingling in the pulpits as the steeples; and the professors ringing as awk as the bells to give notice of the conflagration."
Now the real state of the case is, that just as forward and backward are correlatives, so also are toward and awkward. We speak of a toward child as one who is quick and ready and apt; while, by an awkward one, we mean precisely the contrary. By the former we imply a disposition or readiness to press on to the mark; by the latter, that which is averse to it, and fails of the right way. Parallel instances, though of course not corresponding in meaning, are found in the Latin adversus, reversus, inversus, aversus.
The term awkward is compounded of the two A.-S. words aweg or awæg (which is itself made up of a, from, and wæg, a way), meaning away, out: "auferendi vim habet," says Bosworth, of which we have an instance in aweg weorpan, to throw away; and weard, toward, as in hamweard, homewards. We thus have the correlatives to-weard and aweg-weard, with the same termination, but with prefixes of exactly opposite meanings. In the latter word, the prefix would naturally come to be pronounced as one syllable, and the g as naturally converted into k.
The propriety of the use of the word awkward by Shakspeare, in the Second Part of Henry VI., Act III. Sc. 2., is thus rendered apparent:
"And twice by awkward wind from England's bank,
Drove back again," &c.,
i.e. untoward wind, or contrary: an epithet which editors, while they thought it required an apology, have been unable to explain rightly.
With regard to the word awk, I can only say that it is one of very unfrequent occurrence; I have met with it but once in the course of my own reading, so that I am unable to confirm my view as fully as I could wish; still, that one instance seems, as far as it goes, satisfactory enough: it occurs in Golding's translation of Ovid's Metam., London, 1567, fol. 177. p. 2.:
"She sprincled us with bitter jewce of uncouth herbes, and strake
The awk end of her charmed rod uppon our heads, and spake
Woordes to the former contrarie," &c.
The awk end here is, of course, the wrong end, that which was not towards them.
Perhaps some of the readers of "N. & Q." may have met with other instances of the usage of the word. It does not occur in Chaucer nor (I am pretty sure) in Gower.
The following lines, written about 1600, are, I think, well worthy of preservation in your columns. I believe they have never been published; but if any of your correspondents should have met with them, and can inform me of the author, I shall feel much obliged.
Bradford, Yorkshire.
Deceitfulness of Love.
Go, sit by the summer sea,
Thou, whom scorn wasteth,
And let thy musing be
Where the flood hasteth.
Mark how o'er ocean's breast
Rolls the hoar billow's crest;
Such is his heart's unrest
Who of love tasteth.
Griev'st thou that hearts should change?
Lo! where life reigneth,
Or the free sight doth range,
What long remaineth?
Spring with her flow'rs doth die;
Fast fades the gilded sky;
And the full moon on high
Ceaselessly waneth.
Smile, then, ye sage and wise;
And if love sever
Bonds which thy soul doth love,
Such does it ever!
Deep as the rolling seas,
Soft as the twilight breeze,
But of more than these
Boast could it never!
Most persons who consult this laborious and useful work will probably have been struck and puzzled by the frequent occurrence of two references given by the Bishop as his authorities, namely, "MS. Bal. Sloan." and "MS. Bal. Glynn."{312} To answer, therefore (by anticipation), a Query very likely to be made on this subject, I have to state, that by "MS. Bal. Sloan." Tanner refers to a manuscript work in two volumes, in Bale's handwriting, formerly in Sir Hans Sloane's collection, and numbered 287, but presented by him to the Bodleian Library; as appears by a letter from Hearne to Baker (in MS. Harl. 7031. f. 142.), dated August 6, 1715, in which he writes:
"We have Bale's accounts of the Carmelites, in two volumes, being not long since given to our public library by Dr. Sloane."
In the original MS. Sloane Catalogue, the work was thus entered: Joannes Balæus de sanctis et illustribus viris Ordinis Carmelitarum, et eorum Scriptis: Joannis Balæi Annales Carmelitarum. Another volume, partly, if not wholly, in Bale's handwriting, relative to the Carmelite Order, existed formerly in the Cottonian Library, under the press-mark Otho, D. IV., but was almost entirely destroyed in the fire which took place in 1731.
By "MS. Bal. Glynn.," or (as more fully referred to under "Adamus Carthusiensis") "MS. Bale penes D. Will. Glynn.," Tanner undoubtedly means a printed copy of Bale's Scriptorum Illustrium Majoris Brytanniæ Catalogus, with marginal notes in manuscript (probably by Bale himself) which was preserved in the library of Sir William Glynne, Bart., of Anbrosden. I learn this from Tanner's original Memoranda for his Bibliotheca, preserved in the Additional MSS. 6261. 6262., British Museum; in the former of which, ff. 122—124., is a transcript of the "MS. notæ in margine Balei, penes D. Will. Glynne." The Glynne MSS. are described in the Catt. MSS. Angliæ, fol. 1697, vol. ii. pt. 1. p. 49.; but the copy of Bale, here mentioned, is not included among them. These MSS. are said to be preserved at present in the library of Christ Church College, Oxford; and it is somewhat singular, that no account of the MSS. in this college should have been printed, either in the folio Catalogue of 1697, or in the valuable Catalogue of the MSS. in the college libraries recently published. Perhaps some of the correspondents of "N. & Q." may communicate information on this head.
The following is taken from the fly-leaves of my copy of Gibbon's Rome, 1st vol. 1779, 8vo.:
"The following anecdote and verses were written by the late Charles James Fox in the first volume of his Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
"The author of this work declared publicly at Brookes's (a gaming-house in St. James' Street), upon the delivery of the Spanish Rescript in June, 1779, that there was no salvation for this country unless six of the heads of the cabinet council were cut off and laid upon the tables of both houses of parliament as examples; and in less than a fortnight he accepted a place under the same cabinet council.
"On the Author's Promotion to the Board of Trade in 1779.
By the Right Hon. C. J. Fox."King George in a fright
Lest Gibbon should write
The story of Britain's disgrace,
Thought no means more sure
His pen to secure
Than to give the historian a place.
"But his caution is vain,
'Tis the curse of his reign
That his projects should never succeed;
Tho' he wrote not a line,
Yet a cause of decline
In our author's example we read.
"His book well describes
How corruption and bribes
O'erthrew the great empire of Rome;
And his writings declare
A degeneracy there,
Which his conduct exhibits at home."
The obituary of the past week records the death of Samuel Williams, a self-taught artist, whose pencil and graver have illustrated very many of the most popular works during the last forty years, and to whose productions the modern school of book-illustrations owes its chief force and character. Samuel Williams was born Feb. 23, 1788, at Colchester in Essex; and during his very earliest years, his self-taught powers were remarkable, as he could draw or copy with the greatest ease anything he saw; and he would get up at early dawn, before the other members of the family were stirring, to follow the bent of his genius. His boyish talents attracted much notice, and, had he not been very diffident, would have brought him before the world as a painter. In 1802, he was apprenticed to Mr. J. Marsden, a printer in Colchester, and thenceforward his pencil was destined to be employed in illustrating books. Whilst yet a lad, he etched on copper a frontispiece to a brochure entitled the Coggeshall Volunteers; and this was a remarkable production, as he had never seen etching or engraving on copper; and he about the same time taught himself engraving on wood, executing numerous little cuts for Mr. Marsden: amongst others, a frontispiece to a History of Colchester. So much was his talent seen by parties calling at his employer's, that Mr. Crosby, a publisher of some note in his day, promised that, when his apprenticeship ended, he{313} should draw and engrave for him a natural history; and this promise was faithfully performed, and a series of three hundred cuts given to him immediately. Besides these, he executed numerous commissions for Mozley, Darton and Harvey, Arliss's Pocket Magazine, and other works; in all which a strong natural feeling and vigorous drawing were leading characteristics.
In 1809 he visited London for a short time, and returned to Colchester; and resided there till 1819, when he settled in London. In 1822, Mr. C. Whittingham published an edition of Robinson Crusoe, the illustrations to which are drawn and engraved by the subject of this notice; and the freedom of handling, as compared with cotemporary works, was conspicuous. After these, Trimmer's Natural History, published by Whittingham; the illustrations to Wiffin's Garcilasso de la Vega; and other works, showed his talents as a designer as well as engraver.
In 1825, William Hone started his Every-Day Book, employing Mr. Williams to make the drawings for the "Months," and other illustrations; and the peculiar style, like pen-and-ink sketches, attracted much notice, the freedom and ease of these drawings being greatly admired; and some of our present artists confess to having been first taught by copying the free off-hand sketches in Hone's Every-Day Book. A second volume followed in 1846, and the Table Book in 1847; in 1848 the Olio was published, and afterwards the Parterre; both works remarkable for their spirited illustrations. Several of the engravings to the London Stage, 1847, displayed great variety of expression in the figures and faces. Howitt's Rural Life of England, Selby's Forest Trees, Thomson's Seasons (the edition published by Bogue), Miller's Pictures of Country Life, all drawn and engraved by him, exhibit exquisite rural "bits," in which, like Bewick, Samuel Williams could express with the graver the touch of his pencil, thus far excelling his cotemporaries. The Memorials of the Martyrs was the last work on which he exercised his double skill. Of works not drawn by himself, Wiffin's Tasso shows some of his best efforts; but as for years past he had been engaged on most of the best works of the day, it is impossible to specify all. Had he devoted his time to painting, which the constant employment with pencil and graver prevented, he would have taken high rank as a painter of rural life, as his pictures of "Sketching a Countryman," and "Interior of a Blacksmith's Shop," exhibited in the Royal Academy when at Somerset House, testify, as they are marked by perfect drawing and admirable expression. Some miniatures on ivory, painted in his very youthful days, are marvellous for close manipulation and correct likeness. After a long and painful illness, borne with great fortitude, Mr. Williams expired on the 19th September, his wife having predeceased him not quite six weeks, leaving behind him four sons.
On a Passage in the Second Part of Henry IV.—The Death of Falstaff.—I have read with much pleasure your very temperate remarks on the fiery contributions of some of your correspondents; and I trust that, after so gentle a rebuke from certainly the most good-natured Editor living, all will henceforth go "merry as a marriage bell." Amongst the lore that I have picked up since my first acquaintance with "N. & Q.," is that profound truth,
"'Tis a very good world that we live in:"
but I must say I think it would be a very dull one if we all thought alike; as "N. & Q." would be a very dull book if it were not seasoned with differences of opinion, and its pages diversified with discussions and ingenious argument. And what can be more agreeable, when, like an animated conversation, it is conducted with fairness and good temper?
However, now we are to start fair again; and to begin with a difference, I must presume to question a decision of your own which I would fain see recalled. I believe with you that Mr. Collier's Notes and Emendations gives the true reading of the passage in Henry V., "on a table of green frieze," and I, moreover, think that Theobald's conjecture "and 'a babbled o' green fields," was worthy of any poet. Theobald was engaged in the laborious work of minute verbal correction, and necessarily took an isolated view of particular passages. Presenting the difficulty which this passage did, his suggestion was a happy and poetical thought. But when you say that the scholiast excelled his author, we must take another view of the case. The question is not as to which passage is the most poetical, but which is most in place; which was the idea most natural to be expressed. And in this I think you will admit that Shakspeare's judgment must be deferred to, and that taking the character of Falstaff, together with the other circumstances detailed of his death, it is not natural that he should be represented as "babbling o' green fields."
You are aware that Fielding, in his Journey from this World to the next, met with Shakspeare, who, in answer to a similar question to that put to Göthe, gave a like answer to the one you report. This arises in a great measure from the imperfection of language; the most careful writers at times express themselves obscurely. But with regard to Ben Jonson, I should say that, though neither a mean nor an unfriendly critic, he was certainly a prejudiced one. He saw Shakspeare from the conventional-classic point of view, and{314} would doubtless have "blotted" much that we should have regretted submitting to his judgment. Yet, after all, the anecdote is not according to the fact. Shakspeare did "blot" thousands of lines, probably many more than Ben Jonson himself ever did; and of this we have the best evidence in whole plays almost re-written. Even in the single instance rare Ben gives of Shakspeare's incorrectness, published many years after the latter's death, the memory or hearing of the former either were at fault, or the line had been "blotted."
Absolute perfection is, of course, not to be looked for; there is no such thing in reference to human affairs, unless it be in constant and unobstructed growth and development. This is exhibited in Shakspeare's writing to a degree shown by no other writer. The shortcomings of Shakspeare are most evident when he is compared with himself,—the earlier with the later writer. But take his earliest work, so far as can be ascertained, in its earliest form, and the literature of the age cannot produce its equal.
"I knew there was but one way, for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields."—Shakspeare.
"I knew there was but one way, for his nose was as sharp as a pen on a table of green frieze."—Shakspeare corrected.
Some of the alterations in the manuscript corrections in Mr. Collier's old edition of Shakspeare's plays I agree with, but certainly not in this one, since we lose much and gain nothing by it. Shakspeare, in drawing a character such as Falstaff, loaded with every vice that flesh is heir to, and yet making him a favourite with the audience, must have been most anxious respecting his death, and therefore awakened our sympathy in his favour. In ushering in the account of the death-bed scene, he makes Bardolph say:
"Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell."
This expression Burns the poet considered the highest mark of regard that one man could pay to another, for in his poem on a departed friend, he says:
"With such as he, where'er he be,
May I be saved, or damn'd."
Mrs. Quickly, in describing the scene, says:
"He's in Arthur's (Abraham's) bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his finger's ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields."
Mrs. Quickly, after describing the outward signs of decay and second childishness, tells us he babbled. Shakspeare, as the only means of gaining our forgiveness, makes him die in repentance for his sins, and seems to have had the Twenty-third Psalm in his mind, where David puts his trust in God's grace, when amongst other passages it says: "He maketh me lie down in green pastures," and further on, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." I have endeavoured to give you a reason why I prefer the old reading of the text: if any of your correspondents will give a better for the new, I shall be glad to see it, as I am convinced the more we examine into the works of our wonderful bard, the more we shall be convinced of his superhuman genius; we are, therefore, all indebted to Mr. Collier for his searching investigations, as they set us in a reflective mood.
Your just remarks on Theobald's "'a babbled of green fields" recalls to me a note which I find appended to the passage in the margin of my Shakspeare,
"'A babbled of green fields, i.e. singing snatches of the 23rd Psalm:
'In pastures green He feedeth me,' &c.
'And though I walk e'en at death's door,' &c."
This note I jotted down in my schoolboy days, and thirty years' experience at the beds of the dying only convinces me of its correctness. Again and again have I heard the same sweet strains hymned from the lips of the dying, and soothing with hope the sinking spirit, ay, even of great and grievous sinners. Indeed, I have come to stamp it as a sure mark of impending death, and have said with the dame, "I knew there was but one way, for 'a babbled of green fields;" though I trust with different doctrine than her's, viz. that religion is the business of none but the dying, and thence, that to talk of religion is a sure sign of approaching death.
When Falstaff "babbled of green fields," he was labouring under no "calenture." His heart was far away amid the early fresh pure scenes of childhood, and he was babbling forth snatches of hymns and holy songs, learned on his mother's knee, and now called up, in his hour of need, to cheer, as best they might, his parting spirit. Strange is it that Theobald, when he suggested so happy an emendation, missed half its beauty and its real bearing.
Throughout the whole passage it is evident that Falstaff was ejaculating scraps of long forgotten hymns and Scripture texts, which were utterly incomprehensible to those about him. "'A babbled of green fields,"—"he cried out of sack,"—"and of women,"—"incarnate,"—"whore of Babylon,"—all suggest holy ejaculations, perverted by the ignorance of the godless bystanders.
In all Shakspeare there is hardly to be found a more touching scene, or one more true to nature;{315} it is most graphic and characteristic. The loneliness of the dying sinner, with none to stand by him but the godless companions of his riot and debauchery; the eagerness of the despairing man to catch at anything of the semblance of hope that he could recall from the lessons of his childhood, "He shall feed me in a green pasture," &c.—then—ere he could reach those assuring words, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff comfort me," the miserable consciousness that it is all too late, "So 'a cried out God, God, God;"—then—the utter want of religious sympathy in the bystanders, Nym, Quickly, Bardolph, Boy, in their misinterpretations, and perverse commentaries on his ejaculations, just such as we might expect from hearts gorged to the full with vice and sensuality;—then—the redeeming touch of tenderness in the Dame, beaming through all her benighted efforts to cheer, in her own way (awful to think on, the only way known to her), the last hours of her dear old roysterer, "Now I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God, I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet;" and the undying fondness with which she upholds his memory, and will not brook a word of ribaldry, or what she deems slander, against it, all evidencing that—
"The worst of sin had left her woman still."
Surely a scene more characteristic of all the parties in it, is not to be found in Shakspeare.
Doings of the Calf's Head Club.—In an old newspaper called The Weekly Oracle, of Feb. 1, 1735, is the following curious paragraph:
"Thursday (Jan. 29) in the evening a disorder of a very particular nature happened in Suffolk Street; 'tis said that several young gentlemen of distinction having met at a house there, calling themselves the Calf's Head Club; and about seven o'clock a bonfire being lit up before the door, just when it was in its height, they brought a calf's head to the window dressed in a napkin-cap, and after some huzzas, threw it into the fire. The mob were entertained with strong beer, and for some time hallooed as well as to best; but taking a disgust at some healths which were proposed, grew so outrageous that they broke all the windows, forced themselves into the house, and would probably have pulled it down, had not the guards been sent to prevent further mischief. The damage is computed at some hundred pounds. The guards were posted all night in the street for the security of the neighbourhood."
Epitaph by Wordsworth.—There is a beautiful epitaph by Wordsworth in Sprawley Church, Worcestershire, to the wife of G. C. Vernon, Esq., of Hanbury. Wordsworth has made the following slight alterations to it, in his published poems: I quote from the one-volume 8vo. edition of Moxon (1845). The first two lines are not on the tablet. The words within brackets are those which appear in the original epitaph:—
"By a blest husband guided, Mary came
From nearest kindred, Vernon her new name;
She came, though meek of soul, in seemly pride
Of happiness and hope, a youthful bride.
O dread reverse! if aught be so which proves
That God will chasten whom he dearly loves,
Faith bore her up through pains in mercy given,
And troubles that [which] were each a step to Heaven.
Two babes were laid in earth before she died;
A third now slumbers at the mother's side;
Its sister-twin survives, whose smiles afford [impart]
A trembling solace to her widow'd lord [her father's heart.]
Reader! if to thy bosom cling the pain
Of recent sorrow combated in vain;
Or if thy cherish'd grief have fail'd to thwart
Time, still intent on his insidious part,
Lulling the mourner's best good thoughts asleep,
Pilfering regrets we would, but cannot, keep;
Bear with him [those]—judge him [those] gently who makes [make] known
His [their] bitter loss by this memorial [monumental] stone;
And pray that in his [their] faithful breast the grace
Of resignation find a hallow'd place."
Tailor's "Cabbage."—
"The term cabbage, by which tailors designate the cribbed pieces of cloth, is said to be derived from an old word, 'cablesh,' i. e. wind-fallen wood. And their 'hell,' where they store the cabbage, from 'helan,' to hide."
Misquotations.—1. Sallust's memorable definition of friendship, as put into the mouth of Catiline (cap. 20.), is quoted in the "Translation of Aristotle's Ethics," in Bohn's Classical Library (p. 241. note h), as the saying of Terence.
2. The Critic of September 1st quotes the "Viximus insignes inter utramque facem" of Propertius (lib. iv. 11. 46.) as from Martial.
3. In Fraser's Magazine for October 1852, p. 461., we find "Quem patente portâ," &c. quoted from Terence instead of Catullus, as it is correctly in the number for May, 1853.
The Ducking Stool.—In the Museum at Scarborough, one of these engines is preserved. It is said that there are persons still living in the town, who remember its services being employed when it stood upon the old pier. It is a substantial arm-chair of oak; with an iron bar extending{316} from elbow to elbow, just as the wooden one is placed in child's chair to prevent the occupant from falling forward.
Temple.
Watch-paper Inscription.—Akin to dial inscriptions are inscriptions on watch-papers used in the days of our grandfathers, in the outer case of the corpulent watch now a-days seldom seen. I send you the following one, which I read many years since; but as I did not copy the lines, I cannot vouch for their being strictly accurate:
"Onward perpetually moving,
These faithful hands are ever proving
How quick the hours fly by;
This monitory pulse-like beating,
Seems constantly, methinks, repeating,
Swift! swift! the moments fly.
Reader, be ready—for perhaps before
These hands have made one revolution more
Life's spring is snapt—you die!"
In a clever biographical sketch by M. Guizot, originally published in a French periodical (the Revue Française) under the title of "Monk, Etude Historique," George Monk, first Duke of Albemarle, is said to have been born on the 6th of December, 1608, at the manor-house of Potheridge, the ancient inheritance of his family, in the county of Devon.
This Potheridge (otherwise Pen-the-ridge) is, it appears, a village or hamlet situated "on the ascendant ridge of a small hill," in the parish of Merton, about four miles south-west of Torrington. As M. Guizot's statement, in so far as locality is concerned, seems open to doubt at least, if not positive exception, I wish to elicit, and place on record, through the medium of "N. & Q." if I can, some farther and perhaps more decisive information on the subject. In opposition to M. Guizot's authority (whence derived or whatever it might be), Lysons, in his account of Devonshire in the Magna Britannia, positively lays the venue of Monk's birth in the parish of Lancros or Landcross, near Bideford, confirmatorily alleging that his baptism took place there on the 11th of December in the year above mentioned. In another account, a notice of the Restoration by M. Riordan de Muscry, appended to Monteth's History of the Rebellion, he is said to have been born in Middlesex, an assertion to which (in the absence of all authority) little value can, of course, be given. The slightest local investigation, including a reference to the parochial registers of Landcross and Merton, would, however, probably at once solve the difficulty. But for the known fidelity of Lysons, and the probability of his possessing superior information on the specific point at issue over that of M. Guizot, I should be most reluctant to impeach the accuracy of any statement of fact, however trifling or minute, emanating from that distinguished writer. Few indeed there are, even amongst our own historians, whose claims on our faith, arising from close and accurate research, intimate knowledge, clear perception, and thorough comprehension of the events of that most eventful period of English history, commencing with the Revolution of 1640, can (as manifested in their published works at least) vie with those of M. Guizot. With some few of the opinions, interpretations, constructions, and comments passed or placed by M. Guizot on the life and actions of Monk in this same "Etude Historique," I shall, perhaps (with all deference), be tempted to deal on some future occasion. An able translation of the work, from the pen of the present Lord Wharncliffe, appeared in 1838, the year immediately succeeding its first publication. The prefatory observations and valuable notes there introduced richly illustrate the text of M. Guizot, whose labours, in this instance, are certainly not discreditably reflected through the medium of his English editor. With one expression of Lord Wharncliffe's, however (in the note to which this paper chiefly refers), I take leave to differ, wherein he hints that the question of Monk's birthplace can have little interest beyond the limits of the county of Devon, clearly a palpable error.
Harmony of the Four Gospels.—Can any of your correspondents furnish me with the date of the earliest Harmony, or the titles of any early ones? Any information on the subject will much oblige
The Noel Family.-Will any of your readers be kind enough to give me information on the following point? About the commencement of the last century, a Rev. Wm. Noel lived at Ridlington, county of Rutland: he was rector of that parish about the year 1745. What relation was he to the Earl of Gainsborough then living? Was it not one of the daughters of this clergyman who married a Capt. Furye?
Council of Trent.—References are requested to any worlds illustrative of the extent of knowledge attainable by the Romish clergy at the sittings of this council, in (1.) ecclesiastical antiquities, (2.) historical traditions, (3.) biblical hermeneutics.
Birmingham.
Roman Catholic Patriarchs.—Has any bishop in the Western Church held the title of patriarch besides the Patriarch of Venice? And what peculiar authority or privileges has he?
Tor-Mohun.
The "Temple Lands" in Scotland.—I am anxious to learn some particulars of these lands. I recollect of reading, some time ago, that the superiorities of them had been acquired by John B. Gracie, Esq., W. S. Edinburgh; but whether by purchase or otherwise, I did not ascertain. Mr. Gracie died some four or five years ago. Perhaps some correspondent will favour me with some information on the subject. In the Justice Street of Aberdeen, there is a tenement of houses called Mauchlan or Mauchline Tower Court, which is said to have belonged to the order. In the charters of this property, themselves very ancient, reference is made to another, of about the earliest date at which the order began to acquire property in Scotland.
Cottons of Fowey.—A family of "Cotton" was settled at Fowey, in Cornwall, in the seventeenth century. The first name of which I have any notice is that of Abraham Cotton, who married at Fowey in 1597. They bore for their arms, Sable, a chevron between three cotton-hanks, Or a crescent for difference: crest, a Cornish chough holding in the beak a cotton-hank proper. William Cotton, mayor of Plymouth in 1671, was probably one of this family. The name is not Cornish; and these Cottons had without doubt migrated at no distant period from some other part of the kingdom. Any information relating to the family or its antecedents will be very gratefully received by
Draught or Draft of Air.—Will some of your contributors inform a reader what term or word may be correctly used to signify the phrase "current of air" up the flue of a chimney, or through a room, &c.? The word draught or draft is generally or universally used; but that signification is not to be found attached to the word draught or draft in any dictionary accessible to the inquirer. The word is used by many English scientific writers, and was undoubtedly used by Dr. Franklin to signify a current of air in the flue of a chimney (see also Ure's Dict.). Yet the word cannot be found in Johnson or Ogilvie's Imp. Dict. with this signification. The word "tirage" is also used by French writers with the above signification; and though in French dictionaries its meaning is nearly the same, and nearly as extended as the English word draught or draft, yet it cannot be found in the Dict. de l'Acad. to signify as above.
New York.
Admiral Sir Thomas Tyddeman commanded the squadron sent during the war with the Dutch in the reign of Charles II. to assist in the capture of certain richly laden merchant vessels which had put into Bremen, but (owing to the treachery of the Danish governor, who instead of acting in concert with the English, as had been agreed, opened fire upon them from the town) was unable to effect his purpose.
After the admiral's return to England, a question was raised as to his conduct during the engagement; and some persons went so far as to accuse him of cowardice; but the Duke of York, who was then in command of the fleet, entirely freed him from such charges, and declared that he had acted with the greatest discretion and bravery in the whole affair.
He died soon after this, in 1668, according to Pepys's account, of a broken heart occasioned by the scandal that had been circulated about him, and the slight he felt he was suffering from the Parliament. Perhaps some of your readers can inform me where I may meet with farther particulars relating to Admiral Tyddeman. I am particularly desirous to gain information as to his family and his descendants; also to learn upon what occasion he was created a baronet or knight.
Pedigree Indices.—Is there any published table of kin to Sir Thomas White, the founder of St. John's College, Oxford, or of William of Wykeham, after the plan of Stemmata Chicheliana?
Is there any Index to the Welsh and Irish pedigrees in the British Museum? Sims' valuable book is confined to England.
Are there Indices to the pedigrees in the Lambeth Library, or the Bodleian Library at Oxford?
The proper mode of making a search in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge wanted?
Apparition of the White Lady.—I observe in two works lately published, an allusion made to an apparition of the "White Lady," as announcing the death of a prince; in the one case of the throne of Brandenburgh[3], the other that of France.[4] Can any of your readers point out the origin of this popular tradition?
Rundlestone.—Can any information be given of the origin of the term "Rundlestone," as applied to a rock off the Land's End; and also to a remarkable stone near Hessory Tor? (Vide Mr. Bray's Journal, Sept. 1802, in Mrs. Bray's work on the Tamar and Tavy: and see also in the Ordnance Maps.)
Garrison Library, Malta.
Tottenham.—What is the derivation of Tottenham Park, Wilts, and of Tottenham Court Road? The ancestor of the Irish family of that name was from Cambridgeshire.
Duval Family.—Is or was there a French family of the name of Duval, gentilhommes; and if so, can any relationship be traced between such family and the "Walls of Coolnamuck," an ancient Anglo-Norman family of the south of Ireland, who are considered to have been originally named "Duval?"
Noses of the Descendants of John of Gaunt (Vol. vii., p. 96.).—What peculiarity have they? I am one, and I know many others; but I am at a loss to know the meaning of E. D.'s remark.
General Wall.—Can any of your Irish correspondents give me any information respecting the parentage and descent of General Richard Wall, who was Prime Minister at the Court of Spain in the year 1750 or 1753 (vide Lord Mahon); also whether the General belonged to that branch of the Walls of Coolnamuck, whose property fell into the hands of certain English persons named Ruddall, in whose family some Irish property still remains?
Did the general have any sisters? Is there any monograph life of the general?
John Daniel and Sir Ambrose Nicholas Salter.—Can any of the readers of "N. & Q." give any information respecting one John Danyel or Daniel, of Clement's Inn, who translated from the Spanish, Jehovah, A free Pardon with many Graces therein contained, granted to all Christians by our most Holy and Reuerent Father God Almightie, the principal High Priest and Bishoppe in Heaven and Earth, 1576; and An excellent Comfort to all Christians against all kinde of Calamities, 1576?
Also any information respecting Sir Ambrose Nicholas Salter, son of John Nicholas of Redingworth, in Huntingdonshire, to whom the first tract is dedicated; or of his mayoralty of the city of London, 1575-6.
Edward Bysshe.—I shall feel particularly obliged to any of your correspondents who will favour me with a biographical notice of Edward Bysshe, author of The Art of English Poetry, The British Parnassus, &c., especially the dates and places of his birth and death.
President Bradshaw and John Milton.—In a pamphlet by T. W. Barlow, Esq., of the Honorable Society of Gray's Inn, entitled Cheshire, its Historical and Literary Associations, published in 1852, it is stated that among the memorials of friends which President Bradshaw's will contains, is a bequest of ten pounds to his kinsman, John Milton, which cannot be said to be an insignificant legacy two centuries ago.
Can any of your numerous correspondents afford a clue to the family connexion between these distinguished individuals?
Manchester.
Ket the Tanner.—Can you or any of your correspondents give me any information about "Ket the Tanner;" or refer me to any book or books containing a history or biography of that remarkable person? As I want the information for a historical purpose, I hope you will give me as lengthy an account as possible.
Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire.
[A long account of Ket, and his insurrection, is given in Blomefield's Norfolk, vol. iii. pp. 222-260., edit. 1806. Incidental notices of him will be also found in Alexander Nevyllus' Norfolke Furies and their Folye, under Ket, their accursed Captaine, 4to., 1623; Strype's Ecclesiastical Memorials, vol. i.; Heylin's History of the Reformation; Stow's Chronicle; Godwin's Annales of England; and Sharon Turner's Modern History of England, under Edward VI. A Fragment of the Requests and Demands of Ket and his Accomplices is preserved in the Harleian MS. 304. art. 44.]
"Namby-pamby."—What is the derivation of namby-pamby?
[Sir John Stoddart, in his article "Grammar" (Ency. Metropolitana, vol.i. p. 118.), remarks, that the word "Namby-pamby seems to be of modern fabrication, and is particularly intended to describe that style of poetry which affects the infantine simplicity of the nursery. It would perhaps be difficult to trace any part of it to a significant origin."]
(Vol. vii., pp. 18. 91. 321.)
As you have printed various lists of Prayer-Books, I send you the following of such books as are in my own possession. Other persons may, perhaps, send lists of copies in private libraries:
I have excluded from my list all those thin editions of the Prayer Book, which were usually bound up with Bibles, except in three instances. The exceptions are these:—The folio, 1578; Young's edition, 1633; and that of 1715. Generally these thin books, which have only references to the Epistles and Gospels, are of no value whatever. The exceptions in this list, however, are important books. The book of 1578 was prepared by the Puritans, and is so altered that the word priest does not occur in a single rubric. Young's book of 1633 is the first Prayer Book printed in Scotland; and the edition of 1715 is remarkable for "The Healing," though George I. never attempted to touch for the king's evil.
Should you deem this list worth printing, I will send another of occasional forms, now in my possession, from the reign of Elizabeth to the accession of the House of Hanover. It may lead others to do the same, and thus bring to light some forms not generally known. The Prayer Books and occasional forms in our public libraries are known to most persons; but it is important to ascertain the existence of others in private collections.
Bristol.
I possess a copy of the Prayer Book of an edition I do not see mentioned in any of the lists published in "N. & Q." It is small octavo, imprinted by Bonham, Norton, and John Bill, 1627.
(Vol. viii., p. 196.)
Your correspondent W. Robson, in asking to have pointed out "the period at which the crescent became the standard of Mahometanism," appears to assume, what is more than doubtful, that it has been, and still is so. For although "modern poets and even historians have named it as the antagonistic standard to the cross," the crescent cannot be considered as "the standard" of Mahometanism—emphatically, much less exclusively—except in a poetical and figurative sense. That it is one among several standards, I admit; it is used by{320} the Turks as an ornament, and probably as a symbol, of their dominion, or in connexion with their religion. This may have originated in the following fact:—Mahomet, at the introduction of his religion, said to his followers, who were ignorant of astronomy, "When you see the new moon, begin the fast; when you see the moon, celebrate the Bairam." And at this day, although the precise time of the lunar changes may be ascertained from their ephemerides, yet they never begin either the Ramazan, or the Bairam, till some have testified that they have seen the new moon. (Cantemir's History of the Othman Empire, pref. pp. iv, v.) But the ancient Israelites had precisely the same custom in commencing their "new moons and appointed feasts." (See Calmet, art. "Month.") That which may properly be called the standard of the Turks, is the Sanjak Cherif, or Standard of the Prophet. It is of green silk[5], preserved in the treasury with the utmost care, and never brought out of the seraglio but to be carried to the army. This banner is supposed by the Turks to ensure victory, and is the sacred signal to which they rally. (De Tott's Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 2, 3.)
The military ensigns which the grand seignior bestows on the governors of provinces and other great men, include the following: 1. The sanjak, or standard, only distinguished from that of Mahomet by the colour, one being red and the other green. 2. The tug, or standard consisting of one, two, or three horse-tails, according to the dignity of the office borne by him who receives it. Pachas of the highest rank are distinguished by three tails, and the title beglerbeg, or prince of princes. Those next in rank are the pachas of two tails, and the beys are honoured but with one. These tails are not worn by the pachas, but fastened at the end of a lance, having a gilt handle, and carried before the pacha, or fixed at the side of his tent. 3. The alem is a large broad standard, which instead of a spear-head has a silver plate in the middle, bored in the shape of a crescent or half-moon. (Cantemir, Hist. Oth. Emp., p. 10.)
The sultan's barge, with canopy of purple silk, supported throne-like by four gilt pillars, is adorned with three gilt candlesticks; and only the capudan pacha, when going to sea, is allowed to have similar ornaments, as he is then considered as deriyá padishahi, emperor of the sea. Even the vizier is only permitted to display a canopy of green silk on ivory pillars, but without candlesticks. (Ib., p. 424.)
Thus it appears that the crescent holds but a subordinate position among the ensigns at present in use among the Turks. As to its history, I have found no trace of it in connexion with that of the Crusades. Tasso, in La Gerusalemme Liberata, mentions "the spread standards" of the soldan's army "waving to the wind" ("Sparse al vento ondeggiando ir le bandiere," canto xx. st. 28.), but he makes no allusion to the crescent. I have not access to Michaud's Histoire des Croisades, and shall be glad if your correspondent will quote the passage to which he has referred. Does Michaud speak of it as existing at that time? This does not clearly appear from the reference. There were several sultans named Mahomet who reigned in or near the age of the Crusades, two of the Seljak dynasty; the first the conqueror of Bagdad, the second cotemporary with Baldwin III., king of Jerusalem. In the Carizmian dynasty, Mahomet I. was cotemporary with Godfrey, Baldwin I., and Baldwin II.; and Mahomet II. commenced his reign about A.D. 1206. But the conqueror of Constantinople, Mahomet II., was of the Othman dynasty, and lived some centuries later, the fall of that city having taken place A.D. 1453. To which of these eras does Michaud ascribe the use of the crescent for the first time?
After all, perhaps, the Turkish crescent, like the modern crown of Western Europe, may be but a variation of the horn, the ancient symbol of authority, so often alluded to in the Old Testament. The two cusps or horns of the crescent, and the circle of diverging rays in the diadem, suggest that the variation is simply one of number; and the derivation is strongly corroborated by etymology. The Hebrew word קרן (keren) is connected with, and possibly the original source of, our two words horn and crown. Its dual (karnaim) signifies horns or rays, as in Habak. iii. 4.
A fact mentioned by D'Herbelot may have some connexion with the Turkish crescent. When the celebrated warrior, Tamugin, whose conquests preceded those of the Othman dynasty, assumed in a general assembly of the Moguls and Tartars the title of Ghenghis Khan, or king of kings, "Il y ordonna qu'une cornette blanche seroit dorénavant l'étendart général de ses troupes" (Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 379.). Thus did the Mogul conqueror (to use the words of the Psalmist) "lift up the horn on high." (Psalm lxxv. 5.) About half a century after the death of Ghengis Khan, Aladin, Sultan of Iconium, conferred on Othman, who afterwards founded the Turkish empire, the tabl alem—the drum, standards, and other ornaments of a general. (Cantemir, Hist. Oth. Emp., p. 10.) The explanation of the alem by the historian in his annotations, I have already quoted. This is the only allusion to the crescent as an ensign that I have met with in Cantemir.
The painters of Christendom (no high authorities in this matter) often represent the crescent as a part of Turkish costume, worn in front of the turban. But in the portraits of the Turkish emperors, "taken from originals in the grand seignior's palace," there appears no such ornament. (See the plates in Cantemir's History.) Many of them are represented as wearing the sorgus, a crest of feathers adorned with precious stones. Like the horn, it is an emblem of authority. Many of them have two fastened to the turban.
Your correspondent states that "the crescent is common upon the reverses of coins of the Eastern empire long before the Turkish conquest." I think this highly probable, but would be glad to see the authorities for the fact. I cannot admit, however, that the crescent was in any degree "peculiar to Sclave nations" for, first, the Sclave nations reached no farther south than Moravia, Bohemia, and their vicinity, they did not occupy the seat of the Eastern empire, which was partly Greek and partly Roman. Secondly, though I have no work on numismatics to consult, I have casually met with instances in which the heavenly bodies are represented on Persian, Phœnician, and Roman coins. As instances, in Calmet's Dictionary, art. "Moloch," is represented a Persian coin with the figures of a star and crescent; in the Pictorial Bible, 2 Chron. xv. 16., a Phœnician coin bearing a crescent; and in Matt. xx. 1., on a Roman coin of Augustus, there is the figure of a star. The Turks, however, stamp nothing on their coins but the emperor's name and the date of coinage.
Again, in European heraldry, Frank, German, Gothic, and not Sclave, the crescent appears; in "common charges," for example, as one of the emblems of power, glory, &c. and among "differences," to distinguish a second son.
Should the above facts tend to throw any light on the subject of your correspondent's inquiry, I shall be gratified; and if any of my views can be shown to be erroneous, it will afford me equal pleasure to correct them.
Dewsbury.
Footnote 5:(return)
So says De Tott; Cantemir says it is red. But this discrepancy in the authorities is easily accounted for, since the Sanjak Cherif is so sacred that it must be looked upon by none but the Muslimans, the true believers. If seen by the eyes of giaours (unbelievers), it would be profaned. (De Tott, Memoirs, p. 3.)
(Vol. viii., p. 269.)
I fear that the result of my researches will be but of little service; but your Querist is heartily welcome to the mite I offer.
The second seal appears to have been the seal of assay; probably used for certifying the correctness of the king's beam, or for sealing documents authorising exports, of which there were formerly many and various from this port. Yarmouth was held by the kings until 9 John, when a charter was granted to his burgesses, inhabitants of Gernemue, that they should henceforth hold the town in "fee-farm," paying yearly the sum of 55l. in lieu of all rents, tolls, &c. Probably on this occasion a seal of arms was granted. About the year 1306 a dispute fell out between Great Yarmouth and the men of Little Yarmouth and Gorleston adjoining, the latter insisting on the right to load and unload fish in their harbours; but the former prevailed as being free burgh, which the others were not. In 1332 a charter was granted (6 Ed. III.) for adjusting these disputes, wherein it was directed—
"That ships laden with wool, leather, and skins upon which the great custom is due, shall clear out from that port where our beam and the seal called coket remain, and nowhere else (ubi thronus noster et sigillum nostrum, quod dicitur coket, existunt, et non alibi carcentur)."
What coket is, I am unable to say: but the king's beam for weighing merchandise, called thronus or tronus, stood usually in the most public place of the town or port. The legend on this seal appears to be old French, and is evidently the "seal of assay of Great Yarmouth."
The third seal has probably belonged to Little Yarmouth. The arms of Great Yarmouth were "azure three herrings in pale argent." It is not unlikely that during disputes between the two ports the Little Yarmouthites might assume a seal of arms; but as such thing were more carefully looked after then than in these degenerate days, they would not venture on the three herrings, but content themselves with one; and they might desire to dignify their town as "New" instead of "Little" Yarmouth.
With regard to the first seal, I should judge from its oval shape, the cross, and legend, that it is ecclesiastic, and has no connexion with Yarmouth.
Bury, Lancashire.
(Vol. viii., pp. 79. 145.)
Notwithstanding the authority upon which Mr. Ingleby founds the assertion, that there is not the "slightest observable dependence" between the moon and the weather, the dictum is open to something more than doubt. That the popular belief of a full moon bringing fine weather is not strictly correct, is undoubted; and the majority of the popular ideas entertained on the influence of the moon on the weather are equally fallacious; but that the moon exerts no influence whatever on the changes of the weather, is a statement involving grave errors.
The action of the moon on meteorological processes is a highly complex problem; but the principal{322} conclusions to which scientific observations tend, on this matter, may be pointed out without perhaps encroaching too much on the space of "N. & Q."
Luke Howard, of Ackworth, several years ago, concluded, from a series of elaborate observations, extending over many years, that the moon exerted a distinct influence on atmospheric pressure: and Col. Sabine has more recently shown, from observations made at the British Magnetical and Meteorological Observatory at St. Helena since 1842—
"That the attraction of the moon causes the mercury in the barometer to stand, on the average, .004 of an English inch higher when the moon is on the meridian above or below the pole, than when she is six hours distant from the meridian."—Cosmos, vol. i. note 381, (author. trans.); Phil. Trans., 1847, art. v.
Luke Howard farther gives cogent reasons, from his tabulated observations, for the conclusion that the moon has an appreciable effect upon the weather, exerted through the influence of its attraction on the course and direction of the winds, upon which it acts as a marked disturbing cause; and through them it affects the local distribution of temperature, and the density of the atmosphere. There is no constant agreement between the phases of the moon and certain states of the weather; but an apparent connexion is not unfrequently observed, due to the prevalence of certain winds, which would satisfactorily account for the origin and persistence of the popular belief: for, "it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than negatives" (Nov. Org., Aph. 46.). For example, in 1807, "not a twentieth part of the rain of the year fell in that quarter of the whole space, which occurred under the influence of the moon at full" (Lectures on Meteorology, by L. Howard, 1837, p. 81.). In 1808, however, this phase lost this character completely.
A more marked relation is found between the state of the weather and the declination of the moon: for—
"It would appear, that while the moon is far south of the equator, there falls but a moderate quantity of rain with us; that while she is crossing the equator towards these latitudes, our rain increases; that the greatest depth of rain falls, with us, in the week in which she is in the full north declination, or most nearly vertical to these latitudes; and that during her return over the equator to the south, the rain is reduced to its minimum quantity. And this distribution obtains in very nearly the same proportions both in an extremely dry and in an extremely wet season."—Climate of London, by L. Howard, vol. ii. p. 251., 1820.
Still more recently, Luke Howard has summed up the labours of his life on this subject, and he writes:
"We have, I think, evidence of a great tidal wave, or swell in the atmosphere, caused by the moon's attraction, preceding her in her approach to us, and following slowly as she departs from these latitudes. Were the atmosphere a calm fluid ocean of air of uniform temperature, this tide would be manifested with as great regularity as those of the ocean of waters. But the currents uniformly kept up by the sun's varying influence effectually prevent this, and so complicate the problem.
"There is also manifest in the lunar influence a gradation of effects, which is here shown, as it is found to operate through a cycle of eighteen years. In these the mean weight of our atmosphere increases through the forepart of the period; and having kept for a year at the maximum it has attained, decreases again through the remaining years to a minimum; about which there seems to be a fluctuation, before the mean begins to rise again."—"On a Cycle of Eighteen Years in the Height of the Barometer" (Papers on Meteorology, Part II.; Phil. Trans., 1841, Part II.).
It is satisfactory to all interested in this matter to know that "the incontestable action of our satellite on atmospheric pressure, aqueous precipitations, and the dispersion of clouds, will be treated in the latter and purely telluric portion of the Cosmos" (vol. iii. p. 368., and note 596, where an interesting illustration is given of the effects of the radiation of heat from the moon in the upper strata of our atmosphere).
Dewsbury.
Not being quite satisfied with Mr. Ingleby's answer to W. W.'s Query, I beg to refer inquirers to the Nautical Magazine for July, 1850, and three subsequent months, in which will be found a translation by Commander L. G. Heath, R.N., of a paper published by M. Arago in the Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes for the year 1833, entitled "Does the Moon exercise any appreciable Influence on our Atmosphere?" This treatise enters fully into the subject, and gives the results of several courses of experiments extending over many years; which go to prove that in Germany, at all events, there is more rain during the waxing than during the waning moon. Several popular errors are shown to have arisen in the belief that certain appearances in the moon, really the effect of peculiar states of the atmosphere, were the cause of such atmospheric peculiarities; but we are allowed some ground for supposing that this "vulgar error" may have some foundation in "vulgar truth."
(Vol. viii., p. 243.)
The enigma of Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticæ, lib. xii. cap. vi.), though transmitted to us in a corrupt form, is solved at once by the story mentioned by Livy (lib. i. cap. lv.). When Tarquinius{323} Superbus was about to build the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, it was found necessary to "exaugurate" or dispossess the other deities whose shrines had previously occupied the ground. All readily gave way to Father Jupiter with the exception of Terminus; and the point of the riddle lies in the analogy between "Semel minus," "Bis minus," and "Ter minus."
I extract a note from the copy of Aulus Gellius before me:
Barthius (Adv., lib. xvi. cap. xxii.) hos versus ita legebat:
'Semel minus? Non. Bisminus? Non. Sat scio.
An utrumque? Verum; ut quondam audivi dicier,
Jovi ipsi regi noluit concedere.'
"Ita et trimetri sua sibi constant lege, et acumen repetitis interrogatiunculis. Alioquin frigidum responsum. Potest tamen ita intelligi, ut semel, bis, imo ter Jove minus sit, et noluerit tamen Jovi cedere."—Page 560. N.: Lugd. Batav., 1706, 4to.
Lactantius, "the Christian Cicero," thus tells the story:
"Nam cum Tarquinius Capitolium facere vellet, eoque in loco multorum deorum sacella essent: consuluit eos per augurium; utrum Jovi cederent, et cedentibus cæteris, solus Terminus mansit. Unde illum Poeta 'Capitoli immobile Saxum' vocat (Virg., Æn. ix. 441.). Facto itaque Capitolio, supra ipsum Terminum foramen est in tecto relictum: ut quia non cesserat, libero cœlo frueretur."—De Falsa Relig., lib. i. cap. xx. ad fin.
Livy, in a subsequent book (v. 45.), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Antiqu. Rom., lib. iii. cap. lxix.) and Florus assert that Juventas also refused to move; and St. Augustine tells the same story of Mars. I may as well quote his words:
"Cum Rex Tarquinius Capitolium fabricare vellet, eumque locum qui ei dignior aptiorque videbatur, ab Diis aliis cerneret præoccupatum, non audens aliquid contra eorum facere arbitrium, et credens eos tanto numini suoque principi voluntate cessuros; quia multi erant illic ubi Capitolium constitutum est, per augurium quæsivit, utrum concedere locum vellent Jovi: atque ipsi inde cedere omnes voluerunt, præter illos, quos commemoravi, Martem, Terminum, Juventatem: atque ideo Capitolium ita constitutum est, ut etiam iste tres intus essent tam obscuris signis, ut hoc vix homines doctissimi scirent."—De Civit. Dei, lib. iv. cap. xxiii. 3.
Nor must I omit the following from Ovid:
"Quid, nova quum fierent Capitolia? Nempe Deorum
Cuncta Jovi cessit turba, locumque dedit,
Terminus ut memorant veteres, inventus in æde,
Restitit, et magno cum Jove templa tenet.
Nunc quoque, se supra ne quid nisi sidera cernat,
Exiguum templi tecta foramen habent."
Fast., lib. ii. 667., &c.
Much more information may be found in Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, &c., sub voc. Terminus. Servius, ad Aen. ix. 448. Politiani, Miscell. c. 36. Histoire Romaine, par Catrou et Rouille, vol. i. p. 343. &c., N.: à Paris, 1725, 4to. Grævii, Thesaur. Antiqu. Rom., vol. ix. 218. N., and vol. x. 783. Traject. ad Rhen., 1699, fol. Plutarch, in Vit. Numæ.
(Vol. viii., p. 20. &c.)
In two previous Numbers (Vol. vi., p. 54.; Vol. vii., p. 594.) Queries have been inserted as to the derivation of the exclamations Hurrah! and Hip, hip, hurrah! These have elicited much learned remark (Vol. vii., p. 633.; Vol. viii., pp. 20. 277.), but still I think the real originals have not yet been reached by your correspondents.
As to hip, hip! I fear it must remain questionable, whether it be not a mere fanciful conjecture to resolve it into the initials of the war-cry of the Crusaders, "Hierosolyma est perdita!" The authorities, however, seem to establish that it should be written "hep" instead of hip. I would only remark, en passant, that there is an error in the passage cited by Mr. Brent (Vol. viii., p. 88.) in opposition to this mediæval solution, which entirely destroys the authority of the quotation. He refers to a note on the ballad of "Old Sir Simon the King," in which, on the couplet—
"Hang up all the poor hep drinkers,
Cries Old Sir Sim, the king of skinkers."
the author says that "hep was a term of derision applied to those who drank a weak infusion of the hep (or hip) berry or sloe: and that the exclamation 'hip, hip, hurrah!' is merely a corruption of 'hip, hip, away!'" But, unfortunately for this theory, the hip is not the sloe, as the annotator seems to suppose; nor is it capable of being used in the preparation of any infusion that could be substituted for wine, or drunk "with all the honours." It is merely the hard and tasteless buckey of the wild dog-rose, to the flower of which Chaucer likens the gentle knight Sir Thopas:
"As swete as is the bramble flour,
That beareth, the red hepe."
This demurrer, therefore, does not affect the validity of the claim which has been set up in favour of an oriental origin for this convivial refrain.
As to hurrah! if I be correct in my idea of its parentage, there are few words still in use which can boast such a remote and widely extended prevalence. It is one of those interjections in which sound so echoes sense, that men seem to have adopted it almost instinctively. In India and Ceylon, the Mahouts and attendants of the baggage-elephants cheer them on by perpetual repetitions of ur-ré, ur-ré! The Arabs and camel-drivers{324} in Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt encourage their animals to speed by shouting ar-ré, ar-ré! The Moors seem to have carried the custom with them into Spain, where the mules and horses are still driven with cries of arré (whence the muleteers derive their Spanish appellation of arrieros). In France, the sportsman excites the hound by shouts of hare, hare! and the waggoner turns his horses by his voice, and the use of the word hurhaut! In Germany, according to Johnson (in verbo Hurry), "Hurs was a word used by the old Germans in urging their horses to speed." And to the present day, the herdsmen in Ireland, and parts of Scotland, drive their cattle with shouts of hurrish, hurrish! In the latter country, in fact, to hurry, or to harry, is the popular term descriptive of the predatory habits of the border reivers in plundering and "driving the cattle" of the lowlanders.
The sound is so expressive of excitement and energy, that it seems to have been adopted in all nations as a stimulant in times of commotion; and eventually as a war-cry by the Russians, the English, and almost every people of Europe. Sir Francis Palgrave, in the passage quoted from his History of Normandy ("N. & Q.," Vol. viii., p. 20.), has described the custom of the Normans in raising the country by "the cry of haro," or haron, upon which all the lieges were bound to join in pursuit of the offender. This clameur de haron is the origin of the English "hue and cry;" and the word hue itself seems to retain some trace of the prevailing pedigree.
This stimulating interjection appears, in fact, to have enriched the French language as well as our own with some of the most expressive etymologies. It is the parent of the obsolete French verb harer, "to hound on, or excite clamour against any one." And it is to be traced in the epithet for a worn-out horse, a haridelle, or haridan.
In like manner, our English expressions, to hurry, to harry, and harass a flying enemy, are all instinct with the same impulse, and all traceable to the same root.
The following extract frown Mr. Thos. Dicey's Hist. of Guernsey (edit. Lond. 1751), pp. 8, 9, 10., may be worth adding to the foregoing notes on this subject:
"One thing more relating to Rollo Mr. Falle, in his account of Jersey, introduces in the following manner, not only for the singularity of it, but the particular concern which that island has still in it, viz.—
"Whether it began through Rollo's own appointment, or took its rise among the people from an awful reverence of him for his justice, it matters not; but so it is, that a custom obtained in his time, that in case of incroachment and invasion of property, or of any other oppression and violence requiring immediate remedy, the party aggrieved need do no more than call upon the name of the Duke, though at never so great a distance, thrice repeating aloud Ha-Ro, &c., and instantly the aggressor was at his peril to forbear attempting anything further.—Aa! or Ha! is the exclamation of a person suffering; Ro is the Duke's name abbreviated; so that Ha-Ro is as much as to say, O! Rollo, my Prince, succour me. Accordingly (says Mr. Falle) with us, in Jersey, the cry is, Ha-Ro, à l'aide, mon Prince! And this is that famous Clameur de Haro, subsisting in practice even when Rollo was no more, so much praised and commented upon by all who have wrote on the Norman laws. A notable example of its virtue and power was seen about one hundred and seventy years after Rollo's death, at William the Conqueror's funeral, when, in confidence thereof, a private man and a subject dared to oppose the burying of his body, in the following manner:
"It seems that, in order to build the great Abbey of St. Stephen at Caen, where he intended to lie after his decease, the Conqueror had caused several houses to be pulled down for enlarging the area, and amongst them one whose owner had received no satisfaction for his loss. The son of that person (others say the person himself) observing the grave to be dug on that very spot of ground which had been the site of his father's house, went boldly into the assembly, and forbid them, not in the name of God, as some have it, but in the name of Rollo, to bury the body there.
"Paulus Æmylius, who relates the story, says that he addressed himself to the company in these words:—'He who oppressed kingdoms by his arms has been my oppressor also, and has kept me under a continual fear of death. Since I have outlived him who injured me, I mean not to acquit him now he is dead. The ground whereon you are going to lay this man is mine; and I affirm that none may in justice bury their dead in ground which belongs to another. If, after he is gone, force and violence are still used to detain my right from me, I appeal to Rollo, the founder and father of our nation, who, though dead, lives in his laws. I take refuge in those laws, owning no authority above them.'
"This uncommonly brave speech, spoken in presence of the deceased king's own son, Prince Henry, afterwards our King Henry I., wrought its effect: the Ha-Ro was respected, the man had compensation made him for his wrongs, and, all opposition ceasing, the dead king was laid in his grave."
Process for Printing on Albumenized Paper.—The power of obtaining agreeable and well-printed positives from their negatives being the great object with all photographers, induces me to communicate the following mode of preparing albumenized paper; a mode which, although it does not possess any remarkable novelty, seems to me deserving of being made generally known, from its giving a uniformity of results which may at all times be depended upon.
Independently of the very rich and agreeable tones which may be produced by the process which I am about to describe, it has the property of affording permanent pictures, not liable to that change by time to which pictures produced by the use of the ammonio-nitrate solution are certainly liable. I have upon all occasions advocated the economical practice of photography, and the present process will be found of that character; but at the same time I can assure your readers that a rapidity of action and intensity are hereby obtained with a 40-grain solution of nitrate of silver, fully equal to those gained from solutions of 120, or even 200, grains to the ounce, as is frequently practised.
In eight ounces of water (distilled or not) dissolve forty grains of common salt, and the same quantity of muriate of ammonia.[6] Mix this solution with eight ounces of albumen; beat[7] the whole well together, allow it to stand in tall vessel from twenty-four to forty hours, when the clear liquor may be poured off into a porcelain dish rather larger than the paper intended to be albumenized.
Undoubtedly the best paper for this process, and relative quantity of chemicals, is the thin Canson Frères' but a much cheaper, and perhaps equally suitable paper, is that made by Towgood of St. Neots. Neither with Whatman's nor Turner's papers, excellent as they are for some processes, have I obtained such satisfactory results. If the photographer should unfortunately possess some of the thick paper of any inferior makers, he had far better throw it away than waste his chemicals, time, and temper upon the vain endeavour to turn it to any good account.
The paper, having first been marked on the right-hand upper corner of the smooth side, is then to be floated with that marked side on the albumen. This operation, which is very easy to perform, is somewhat difficult to describe. I will however try. Take the marked corner of the sheet in the right-hand, the opposite corner of the lower side of the paper in the left; and bellying out the sheet, let the lower end fall gently on to the albumen. Then gradually let the whole sheet fall, so as to press out before it any adherent particles of air. If this has been carefully done, no air-bubbles will have been formed. The presence of an air-bubble may however soon be detected by the puckered appearance, which the back of the paper assumes in consequence. When this is the case, the paper must be carefully raised, the bubble dispersed, and the paper replaced. A thin paper requires to float for three minutes on the albumen, but a thicker one proportionably longer. At the end of that time raise the marked corner with the point of a blanket pin; then take hold of it with the finger and thumb, and so raise the sheet steadily and very slowly, that the albumen may drain off at the lower left corner. I urge this raising it very slowly, because air-bubbles are very apt to form on the albumen by the sudden snatching up of the paper.
Each sheet, as it is removed from the albumen, is to be pinned up by the marked corner on a long slip of wood, which must be provided for the purpose. In pinning it up, be careful that the albumenized side takes an inward curl, otherwise, from there being two angles of incidence, streaks will form from the middle of the paper. During the drying, remove from time to time, with a piece of blotting-paper, the drop of fluid which collects at the lower corner of the paper.
In order to fix the albumen, it is necessary that the paper should be ironed with an iron as hot as can be used without singeing the paper. It should be first ironed between blotting-paper, and when the iron begins to cool, it may be applied directly to the surface of each sheet.
To excite this paper it is only needful to float it carefully from three to five minutes, in the same way as it was floated on the albumen, upon a solution of nitrate of silver of forty grains to the ounce. Each sheet is then to be pinned up and dried as before. It is scarcely necessary to add, that this exciting process must be carried on by the light of a lamp or candle.
This paper has the property of keeping good for several days, if kept in a portfolio. It has also the advantage of being very little affected by the ordinary light of a room, so that it may be used and handled in any apartment where the direct light is not shining upon it; yet in a tolerably intense light it prints much more rapidly than that prepared with the ammonio-nitrate.
The picture should be fixed in a bath of saturated solution of hypo. The hypo. never gets discoloured, and should always be carefully preserved. When a new bath is formed, it is well to add forty grains of chloride of silver to every eight ounces of the solution.
A beautiful violet or puce tint, with great whiteness of the high lights, may be obtained by using the following bath as a fixing solution:
Hyposulphite of soda | 8 | ounces. |
Sel d'or | 7 | grains. |
Iodide of silver | 10 | grains. |
Water | 8 | ounces. |
It may be as well to add, that although the nitrate of silver solution used for exciting becomes{326} discoloured, it acts equally well, even when of a dark brown colour; but it may always be deprived of its colour, and rendered sufficiently pure again, by filtering it through a little animal charcoal.
Footnote 6:(return)
The addition of one drachm of acetic acid much facilitates the easy application of the albumen to the paper; but it is apt to produce the unpleasant redness so often noticeable in photographs. The addition of forty grains of chloride of barium to the two muriates, yields a bistre tint, which is admired by some photographers.
Footnote 7:(return)
Nothing answers so well for this purpose as a small box-wood salad spoon.
Anderson's Royal Genealogies (Vol. viii, p. 198.).—In reply to your correspondent G., I may be permitted to remark that it is generally understood that no "memoir or biographical account" is extant of Dr. James Anderson; but short notices of him and his works will be found on reference to the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. liii. p. 41.; Chalmers' General Biographical Dictionary, 1812; Chambers' Lives of Illustrious Scotsmen, 1833; Biographical Dictionary of the Society of Useful Knowledge, 1843; and also in Rose's New Biographical Dictionary, 1848.
Edinburgh.
Thomas Wright of Durham (Vol. viii., p. 218.).—It may interest Mr. De Morgan to be referred to a manuscript in the British Museum, marked "Additional, 15,627.," which he will find to be one of the original "note-books," if not the very note-book itself, from which the notice of the life of Thomas Wright was compiled for the Gentleman's Magazine. It is, in fact, an autobiography by Wright, written in the form of a journal; and although containing entries as late as the year 1780, it ceases to be continuous with the year 1748, and has no entries at all between that year and 1756. This break in the journal sufficiently accounts for the deficiency in the biography given by the Gentleman's Magazine.
I may mention, also, that the Additional MS. 15,628. contains Wright's unpublished collections relative to British, Roman, and Saxon antiquities in England.
Weather Predictions (Vol. viii., p. 218. &c.).—The following is a Worcestershire saying:
"When Bredon Hill puts on his hat,
Ye men of the vale, beware of that."
Similar to this is a saying I have heard in the northern part of Northumberland:
"When Cheevyut (i. e. the Cheviot Hills) ye see put on his cap,
Of rain ye'll have a wee bit drap."
There is a saying very common in many parts of Huntingdonshire, that when the woodpeckers are much heard, rain is sure to follow.
Bacon's Essays: Bullaces (Vol. viii., pp. 167. 223.).—"Bullace" (I never heard Bacon's plural used) are known in Kent as small white tartish plums, which do not come to perfection without the help of a frost, and so are eaten when their fellows are no more found. They have only been cultivated of late years, I believe, but how long I cannot tell.
Somerset House.
"Bullaces" are a small white or yellow plum, about the size of a cherry, like very poor kind of greengage, which, in ordinary seasons, when I was a boy, were the common display of the fruit-stalls at the corners of the streets, so common and well known that I can only imagine Mr. Halliwell to have misdescribed them by a slip of the pen writing black for white.
"Gennitings" are early apples (quasi June-eatings, as "gilliflowers," said to be corrupted from July flowers). For the derivation suggested to me while I write, I cannot answer; but for the fact I can, having, while at school in Needham Market, Suffolk, plucked and eaten many a "striped genniting," while "codlins" were on a tree close by. And many a time have I been rallied as a Cockney for saying I had gathered "enough" instead of "enow," which one of your Suffolk correspondents has justly recorded as the county expression applied to number as distinguished from quantity.
Nixon the Prophet (Vol. viii., p. 257.).—Mr. T. Hughes mentions Nixon "to have lived and prophesied in the reign of James I., at whose court, we are farther told, he was, in conformity with his own prediction, starved to death." I have an old and ragged edition, entitled The Life and Prophecies of the celebrated Robert Nixon, the Cheshire Prophet. The "life" professes to be prepared from materials collected in the neighbourhood of Vale Royal, on a farm near which, and rented by his father, Nixon was born—
"on Whitsunday, and was christened by the name of Robert in the year 1467, about the seventh year of Edward IV."
Among various matters it is mentioned,—
"What rendered Nixon the most noticed was, that the time when the battle of Bosworth Field was fought between King Richard III. and King Henry VII., he stopped his team on a sudden, and with his whip pointing from one land to the other, cried 'Now Richard! now Henry!' several times, till at last he said, 'Now Harry, get over that ditch and you gain the day!'"
This the plough-holder related; it afterwards proved to be true, and in consequence Robert was required to attend Henry VII.'s court, where he was "starved to death," owing to having been locked in a room and forgotten. The Bosworth Field prophecy, which has often been repeated,{327} carries the time of Nixon's existence much before the period named by T. Hughes, namely, James I.'s reign.
Parochial Libraries (Vol. viii., p. 62.).—There is an extensive, and rather valuable, library attached to St. Mary's Church, Bridgenorth, presented to and for the use of the parishioners, by Dean Stackhouse in 1750. It comprises some eight hundred volumes, chiefly divinity. There are two or three fine MSS. in the collection, one especially worthy of notice. A splendidly illuminated Latin MS., dated about 1460, engrossed upon vellum, and extending to three hundred leaves (C. 62. in the Catalogue). I noticed many fragments of early MSS. bound up with Hebrew and Latin editions of the Bible; and a portion of a remarkably fine missal, forming the dexter cover of a copy of Laertius de Vita Philosophica (4to. 1524). Surely a society may be formed, having for its object the rescuing, transcribing, and printing of those scarcely noticed fragments. Mr. Hales' plan appears perfectly feasible. I am convinced much interesting matter would be brought to light, if a little interest was excited on the subject.
Kidderminster.
Over the porch of Nantwich Church is a small room, once the repository of the ecclesiastical records; but latterly (in consequence of the sacrilegious abstraction of those documents by an unknown hand) used for a library of theological works, placed there for the special behoof of the neighbouring clergy. The collection is but a small one; and is, I fear, not often troubled by those for whose use it was designed.
Chester.
"Ampers and," &c. (Vol. viii., p. 173.).—Mr. C. Mansfield Ingleby having revived this Query without apparently being aware of the previous discussion and of Mr. Nicholl's solution, "and per se and," may I be permitted to enter a protest against the latter mixture of English and Latin, though fully concurring in the statement of Mr. Nicholl, that it is a rapidly formed et (&). To the variety of pronunciations already appearing in "N. & Q.," let me add what I believe will be found to be the most general, empesand, which I believe to be a corruption from emm, ess, and (MS. and) by the introduction of a labial, as in many other instances. But has any one ever seen it spelt till the Query appeared in "N. & Q.," and where?
The Arms of De Sissonne (Vol. viii., p. 243.).—There is a copy of Histoire Généalogique et Chronologique de la Maison Royale de France, par le Père Anselme, nine vols. folio, Paris, 1726-33, in the library of Sir R. Taylor's Institution, Oxford. The arms of the Seigneurs de Sissonne are not blazoned in it. It is stated by Anselme, that
"Louis, Bâtard de Sarrebruche-Roucy, fils naturel de Jean de Sarrebruche, Comte de Roucy, fut Seigneur de Sissonne, servit sous Jean d'Humières, et est nommé dans plusieurs actes des années 1510, 1515, 1517, et 1518. Il fit un accord devant le prevôt de Paris avec Robert de Sarrebruche, Comte de Roucy, le 28 Mars, 1498, touchant la terre et châtellenie de Sissonne."—Tome viii. p. 537.
The arms of the "Comte de Sarrebruche, Sire de Commercy en Lorraine, Conseiller et Chambellan du Roi, Bouteiller de France," &c., are represented—
"D'azur semé de croix recroisetées au pied fiché d'or, au lion d'argent couronné d'or sur le tout."
The following are also extracts from the Histoire Généalogique:
"Louis de Roucy, Comte de Sissonne, élection de Laon, portoit d'or au lion d'azur."...
"Le Nobiliaire de Picardie, in 4º. p. 46., donne à Louis de Roucy, Comte de Sissonne, deux neveux, Charles et Louis de Roucy, Seigneurs d'Origny et de Ste Preuve."—Tome viii. p. 538.
St. Patrick's Purgatory (Vol. vii., p. 552.).—Some degree of doubt appearing to exist, by the statement in p. 178. of the present volume, as to the position of the real St. Patrick's Purgatory, I send the following from Camden:
"The Liffey," says he, "near unto his spring head, enlarges his stream and spreads abroad into a lake, wherein appears above the water an island, and in it, hard by a little monastery, a very narrow vault within the ground, much spoken of by reason of its religious horrors. Which cave some say was dug by Ulysses when he went down to parley with those in hell.
"The inhabitants," he continues, "term it in these days Ellan n' Frugadory, that is, The Isle of Purgatory, or St. Patrick's Purgatory. For some persons devoutly credulous affirm that St. Patrick, the Irishmen's apostle, or else some abbot of the same name, obtained by most earnest prayer at the hands of God, that the punishments and torments which the wicked are to suffer after this life, might here be presented to the eye; that so he might the more easily root out the sins and heathenish errors which stuck so fast to his countrymen the Irish."
Stansted, Montfichet.
Sir George Carr (Vol. vii., pp. 512. 558.).—Since W. St. and Gulielmus replied to my Query, I have discovered more particular information regarding him. In a MS. in Trinity College, Dublin, I find the following:
"Sir George Carr of Southerhall, Yorkshire, married, on Jan. 15, 1637, Grissell, daughter of Sir Robert Meredith, Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland; their son, William Carr, born Jan. 11, 1639, married{328} on August 29, 1665, Elizabeth, daughter of Francis (Edward) Synge, Bishop of Cork. There were two children of this marriage: Edward, born Oct. 7, 1671 (who died unmarried); and Barbara, born May 12, 1672; she married John Cliffe, Esq., of Mulrankin, co. Wexford, and had several children, of whom the eldest, John, was grandfather of the present Anthony Cliffe of Bellevue, co. Wexford, Esq."
Edward Synge was Bishop of Cork from Dec. 1663 to his death in 1678.
Sir George Carr appears to be the son of William Carr, the eldest son of James Carr of Yorkshire: see Harl. MS. 1487, 451.
Sir Robert Meredith, father of Lady Carr, married Anne, daughter of Sir William Upton, Clerk of the Council in Ireland.
Could any of your correspondents give any account of the family of either of them?
Gravestone Inscription (Vol. viii., p. 268.).—The gravestone inscription communicated by Julia R. Bockett consists of the last four lines of the ballad of "Death and the Lady" (see Dixon's Ballads, by the Percy Society). They should be:
"The grave's the market-place where all men meet,
Both rich and poor, as well as small and great:
If life were merchandise that gold could buy,
The rich would live, the poor alone would die."
In the introduction to Smith's edition of Holbein's Dance of Death, the editor says:
"The concluding lines have been converted into an epitaph, to be found in most of our village churchyards."
Of the truth of which assertion the churchyard of Milton-next-Gravesend, in Kent, furnishes an illustration, as I copied the lines from a stone there some years ago. Being generally, I imagine, quoted from memory, they do not appear to be exactly similar in any two instances.
Greenwich.
"A Tub to the Whale" (Vol. viii., pp. 220. 304.).—I observe that a Querist, Pimlico, asks the origin of the phrase to "throw a tub to the whale." I think an explanation of this will be found in the introduction to Swift's Tale of the Tub. I cannot lay my hand on the passage, but it is to the effect that sailors engaged in the Greenland fisheries make it a practice to throw over-board a tub to a wounded whale, to divert his attention from the boat which contains his assailants.
Hour-glasses in Pulpits (Vol. vii., p. 489.; Vol. viii., pp. 82. 209.).—Whilst turning over the pages of Macaulay's History, I accidentally stumbled upon the following passage, which forms an interesting addition to the Notes already collected in your pages. Speaking of Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, he says:
"He was often interrupted by the deep hum of his audience; and when, after preaching out the hour-glass, which in those days was part of the furniture of the pulpit, he held it in his hand, the congregation clamorously encouraged him to go on till the sand had run off once more."—Macaulay's History, vol. ii. p. 177. edit. 8., with a reference in a foot-note to Speaker Onslow's Note on Burnet, i. 596.; Johnson's Life of Sprat.
The hour-glass stand at St. Alban's, Wood Street, appears to be a remarkable example: see Sperling's Church Walks in Middlesex, p. 155., and Allen's Lambeth. And in the report of the meeting of the Archæological Association at Rochester, in the Illustrated London News of the 6th August, 1853, it is noted that in the church at Cliff, "the pulpit has an hour-glass stand dated 1636:" the date gives an additional interest to this example.
Slow-worm Superstition (Vol. viii., p. 33.).—The slow-worm superstition, about which Tower inquires, and to whom I believe no answer has been returned, is quite common in the North of England. One of the many uses of "N. & Q." is the abundant proof that supposed localisms are in fact common to all England. I learn from the same Number, p. 44., that in Devonshire a slater is called a hellier. To hill, that is to cover, "hill me up," i. e. cover me up, is as common in Lancashire as in Wicliff's Bible. We have not, however, hellier or hillier for one whose business it is to cover in a house.
Sincere (Vol. viii., p. 195.).—I should be glad if Mr. Ingleby would point out any authority for the practice of the Roman potters to which he refers. The only passage I can call to mind as countenancing his derivation is Hor. Ep. i. 2. 54.:
"Sincerum est nisi vas, quodcumque infundis, acescit."
in which there is no reason why sincerum should not be simply sine cera, sine fuco, i. e. pure as honey, free or freed from the wax, thence anything pure. This derivation is supported also by Donatus, ad Ter. Eun. i. 2. 97., and Noltenius, Lex. Antibar. Cicero also, who chose his expressions with great accuracy, employs sincerus as directly opposed to fucatus in his Dialogus de Amicit. 25.:
"Secernere omnis fucata et simulata a sinceris atque veris."
In the absence of positive proof on the side, I am inclined to think Mr. Trench right.
Books chained to Desks in Churches—Seven Candlesticks (Vol. viii., pp. 94. 206.).—In Mr. Sperling's Church Walks in Middlesex, it is noted{329} in the account of the church at Whitchurch (alias Little Stanmore), that—
"Many of the prayer books, given by the duke [of Chandos], still remain chained to the pues for the use of the poorer parishioners."—P. 104.
At p. 138. a curious ornament of some of the London churches is referred to:
"We find several altar-pieces in which seven wooden candlesticks, with wooden candles, are introduced, viz. St. Mary-at-Hill; St. Ethelburgs, Bishopsgate; Hammersmith, &c.: these are merely typical of the seven golden candlesticks of the Apocalypse."—Rev. i. 20.
This portion of ecclesiastical furniture appears to me sufficiently unusual to be worth noting in your pages: is it to be found elsewhere than in churches in and near London? If not, a list of these churches in which it is now to be seen would be acceptable to ecclesiologists.
Oxford.
D. Ferrand; French Patois (Vol. viii., p. 243.).—The full title of Ferrand's work, referred to by your correspondent Mr. B. Snow of Birmingham, is as follows:
"Inventaire Général de la Muse Normande, divisée en XXVIII parties où sont descrites plusieurs batailles, assauts, prises de villes, guerres etrangères, victoires de la France, histoires comiques, Esmotions populaires, grabuges et choses remarquables arrivées à Rouen depuis quarante années, in 8o. et se vendent à Rouen, chez l'arthevr, rue du Bac, à l'Enseigne de l'imprimerie, M.DC.LV., pages 484."
There is also another publication by Ferrand with the title of—
"Les Adieux de la Muse Normande aux Palinots, et quelques autres pièces, pages 28."
The author was a printer at Rouen, and the patois in which his productions are written is the Norman. The Biographie Universelle says they are the best known of all that are composed in that dialect.
Wood of the Cross (Vol. vii., pp. 177. 334. 437. 488.).—Is it an old belief that the cross was composed of four different kinds of wood? Boys, in a note on Ephesians iii. 18. (Works, p. 495.), says, "Other have discoursed of the foure woods, and dimensions in the materiall crosse of Christ, more subtilly than soundly," and refers in the margin to Anselm and Aquinas, but without giving the reference to the exact passages. Can any of your readers supply this deficiency?
Ladies' Arms in a Lozenge (Vol. viii., pp. 37. 83.).—Broctuna has a theory that ladies bear their arms in a lozenge, because hatchments are of that shape; and it is probably that widows in old time "would vie with each other in these displays of the insignia of mourning." It has, however, escaped his memory, that maids with living fathers also use the lozenge, and that in a man's hatchment it is the frame only, and not the shield at all, which has the lozenge shape. The man's arms in the hatchment not being on a lozenge, it is scarcely possible his widow could thence have adopted it. He suggests that the shape was adopted for hatchments as being the most convenient for admitting the arms of the sixteen ancestors.
I wish to insert a Query, as to whether the sixteen quarters ever were made use of this way in English heraldry? Perhaps your readers will be willing to allow that the lozenge is surely a fitting emblem for the sweeter sex; but is not the routine reason the true one after all? The lozenge has a supposed resemblance to the distaff, the emblem of the woman. We have spinster from the same idea; and, though I cannot now turn to the passage, I am sure I have seen the Salic law described as forbidding "the holder of the distaff to grasp the sceptre."
Burial in unconsecrated Ground (Vol. vi., p. 448.; Vol. viii., p. 43.).—The late elegant and accomplished Sir W. Temple, though he laid not his whole body in his garden, deposited the better part of it (his heart) there; "and if my executors will gratify me in what I have desired, I wish my corpse may be interred as I have bespoke them; not at all out of singularity, or for want of a dormitory (of which there is an ample one annexed to the parish church), but for other reasons not necessary here to trouble the reader with, what I have said in general being sufficient. However, let them order as they think fit, so it be not in the church or chancel." (Evelyn's Sylva, book iv.)
"In the north aisle of the chancel [of Wotton Church] is the burying-place of the Evelyns (within which is lately made, under a decent arched chapel, a vault). In the chancel on the north side is a tomb, about three feet high, of freestone, shaped like a coffin; on the top, on white marble, is this inscription:
'Here lies the Body
of John Evelyn, Esq.'"[8]
This inscription commemorates the author of Sylva, and evinces how unobsequiously obsequies are sometimes solemnised.
Evelyn mentions Sumner On Garden Burial, probably "not circulated."
Footnote 8:(return)
Aubrey's Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey, vol. iv.
Table-turning (Vol. viii., p. 57.).—Without going the length of asserting, with La Bruyère, that "tout est dit," or believing, with Dutens, that there is no modern discovery that was not known, in some shape or other, to the ancients, it seems{330} not unreasonable to suppose that table-turning, the principle of which lies so near the surface of social life, was practised in former ages.
This reminds one of the expression, so familiar among controversialists, of "turning the tables" upon an adversary. What is the origin of the latter phrase? It is time some explanation of it were offered, if only to caution the etymologists of a future age against confounding it with our "table-turning."
St. Lucia.
"Well's a fret" (Vol. viii., p. 197.).—I beg leave to suggest to Devoniensis the following as a probable explanation of the use of this phrase; the rhyme that follows being superadded, for the sake of the jingle and the truism, in the best style of rustic humour.
Well! is often used in conversation as an expletive, even by educated people, a slight pause ensuing after the ejaculation, as if to collect the thoughts before the reply is given. Is it not therefore called a fret, or stop, in the Devon vernacular, figuratively, like the fret or stop in a musical instrument, the cross bars or protuberance in a stringed, and a peg in a wind instrument?
Hamlet says, in taunting Rosencrantz for his treasonable attempts to worm himself into his confidence,—
"Call me what instrument you will; though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me."
Taken in this other sense in which we use the word fret, is it not probable that it has passed into a proverb; and that the lines, as given by Devoniensis, are a corruption of
"Well! don't fret;
He who dies for love will never be hang'd for debt."
—the invention of some Damon to comfort Strephon in his loneliness.
Tenet for Tenent (Vol. viii., p. 258.).—The note of your correspondent Balliolensis does not address itself to the Query put by Y. B. N. J. in Vol. vii., p. 205., When did the use of tenent give way to tenet?
You will find that Burton, in the Anatomy of Melancholy, which was published in 1621, uses uniformly tenent (vide vol. i. pp. 1. 317. 408. 430. 446. &c.)
But Sir Thomas Browne in 1646, twenty-four years later, printed the first edition of his Vulgar Errors under the title of Pseudodoxia epidemica, or Enquiries into very many received Tenets and commonly presumed Truths.
I cannot find that Burton in any passage respects the grammatical distinction suggested by both your correspondents, that tenet should denote the opinion of an individual, and tenent those of a sect. He applies the latter indifferently, both as regards the plural and singular. Thus, "Aponensis thinks it proceeds," but "Laurentius condemns his tenent" (part i. sect. iii. mem. 3.). And again, "they are furious, impatient in discourse, stiff and irrefragable in their tenents" (ib. p. i. s. iv. mem. 1. sub. 3.).
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"The Enquiries are extremely curious, we should indeed say important. That relating to the Witch of Endor is one of the most successful we ever read. We cannot enter into particulars in this brief notice, but we would strongly recommend the pamphlet even to those who care nothing about Mesmerism, or angry (for it has come to this at last) with the subject."—Dublin Evening Post.
"We recommend its general perusal as being really an endeavour, by one whose position gives him the best facilities, to ascertain the genuine character of Mesmerism, which is so much disputed."—Woolmer's Exeter Gazette.
"Dr. Maitland has bestowed a vast deal of attention on the subject for many years past, and the present pamphlet is in part the result of his thoughts and inquiries. There is a good deal in it which we should have been glad to quote ... but we content ourselves with referring our readers to the pamphlet itself."—Brit. Mag.
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