NOTES AND QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of."—Captain Cuttle.

CONTENTS.

NOTES.

PRESENCE OF STRANGERS IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

In the late debate on Mr. Grantley Berkeley's motion for a fixed duty on corn, Sir Benjamin Hall is reported to have imagined the presence of a stranger to witness the debate, and to have said that he was imagining what every one knew the rules of the House rendered an impossibility. It is strange that so intelligent a member of the House of Commons should be ignorant of the fact that the old sessional orders, which absolutely prohibited the presence of strangers in the House of Commons, were abandoned in 1845, and that a standing order now exists in their place which recognises and regulates their presence. The insertion of this "note" may prevent many "queries" in after times, when the sayings and doings of 1850 have become matters of antiquarian discussion.

The following standing orders were made by the House of Commons on the 5th of February, 1845, on the motion of Mr. Christie, (see Hansard, and Commons' Journals of that day), and superseded the old sessional orders, which purported to exclude strangers entirely from the House of Commons:—

"That the serjeant at arms attending this House do from time to time take into his custody any stranger whom he may see, or who may be reported to him to be, in any part of the House or gallery appropriated to the members of this House; and also any stranger who, having been admitted into any other part of the House or gallery, shall misconduct himself, or shall not withdraw when strangers are directed to withdraw while the House, or any committee of the whole House, is sitting; and that no person so taken into custody be discharged out of custody without the special order of the House.

"That no member of this House do presume to bring any stranger into any part of the House or gallery appropriated to the members of this House while the House, or a committee of the whole House, is sitting."

Now, therefore, strangers are only liable to be taken into custody if in a part of the House appropriated to members, or misconducting themselves, or refusing to withdraw when ordered by the Speaker to do so; and Sir Benjamin Hall imagined no impossibility.

CH.

THE AGAPEMONE.

Like most other things, the "Agapemone" wickedness, which has recently disgusted all decent people, does not appear to be a new thing by any means. The religion-mongers of the nineteenth century have a precedent nearly 300 years old for this house of evil repute.

In the reign of Elizabeth, the following proclamation was issued against "The Sectaries of the Family of Love:"—

"Whereas, by report of sundry of the Bishops of {18} this Realm, and others having care of souls, the Queen's Majesty is informed, that in sundry places of her said Realm, in their several Dioceses there are certain persons which do secretly, in corners, make privy assemblies of divers simple unlearned people, and after they have craftily and hypocritically allured them to esteem them to be more holy and perfect men than other are, they do then teach them damnable heresies, directly contrary to divers of the principal Articles of our Belief and Christian Faith and in some parts so absurd and fanatical, as by feigning to themselves a monstrous new kind of speech, never found in the Scriptures, nor in ancient Father or writer of Christ's Church, by which they do move ignorant and simple people at the first rather to marvel at them, than to understand them but yet to colour their sect withal, they name themselves to be of the Family of Love, and then as many as shall be allowed by them to be of that family to be elect and saved, and all others, of what Church soever they be, to be rejected and damned. And for that upon conventing of some of them before the Bishops and Ordinaries, it is found that the ground of their sect, is maintained by certain lewd, heretical, and seditious books first made in the Dutch tongue, and lately translated into English, and printed beyond the seas, and secretly brought over into the Realm, the author whereof they name H.N., without yielding to him, upon their examination, any other name, in whose name they have certain books set forth, called Evangelium Regni, or, A Joyful Message of the Kingdom; Documental Sentences, The Prophecie of the Spirit of Love; a Publishing of the Peace upon the Earth, and such like.

"And considering also it is found, that these Sectaries hold opinion, that they may before any magistrate, ecclesiastical or temporal, or any other person not being professed to be of their sect (which they term the Family of Love), by oath or otherwise deny any thing for their advantage, so as though many of them are well known to be teachers and spreaders abroad of these dangerous and damnable sects, yet by their own confession they cannot be condemned, whereby they are more dangerous in any Christian Realm: Therefore, her Majesty being very sorry to see so great an evil by the malice of the Devil, first begun and practised in other countries, to be now brought into this her Realm, and that by her Bishops and Ordinaries she understandeth it very requisite, not only to have these dangerous Heretics and Sectaries to be severely punished, but that also all other means be used by her Majesty's Royal authority, which is given her of God to defend Christ's Church, to root them out from further infecting her Realm, she hath thought meet and convenient, and so by this her Proclamation she willeth and commandeth, that all her Officers and Ministers temporal shall, in all their several vocations, assist the Archbishops and Bishops of her Realm, and all other persons ecclesiastical, having care of souls, to search out all persons duly suspected to be either teachers or professors of the foresaid damnable sects, and by all good means to proceed severely against them being found culpable, by order of the Laws either ecclesiastical or temporal: and that, also, search be made in all places suspected, for the books and writings maintaining the said Heresies and Sects, and them to destroy and burn.

"And wheresoever such Books shall be found after the publication hereof, in custody of any person, other than such as the Ordinaries shall permit, to the intent to peruse the same for confutation thereof, the same persons to be attached and committed to close prison, there to remain, or otherwise by Law to be condemned, until the same shall be purged and cleared of the same heresies, or shall recant the same, and be thought meet by the Ordinary of the place to be delivered. And that whoever in this Realm shall either print, or bring, or cause to be brought into this Realm, any of the said Books, the same persons to be attached and committed to prison, and to receive such bodily punishment and other mulct as fautors of damnable heresies. And to the execution hereof, her Majesty chargeth all her Officers and Ministers, both ecclesiastical and temporal, to have special regard, as they will answer not only afore God, whose glory and truth is by these damnable Sects greatly sought to be defaced, but also will avoid her Majesty's indignation, which in such cases as these are, they ought not to escape, if they shall be found negligent and careless in the execution of their authorities.

"Given at our Mannour of Richmond, the third of October, in the two-and-twentieth year of our Reign.

"God Save The Queen."

Richard Greene.

Lichfield, May 28. 1850.

LONDON PARISH REGISTERS.

The interleaving, of a little work in my possession, published by Kearsley in 1787, intitled Account of the several Wards, Precincts, and Parishes in the City of London, contains MS. notes of the commencement of the registers of fifty of the London parishes, and of four of Southwark, the annexed list¹ of which may be of use to some of the readers of "Notes and Queries." The book formerly belonged to Sir George Nayler, whose signature it bears on a fly-leaf.

Rob. Cole.

FOLK LORE.

Divination by Bible and Key seems not merely confined to this country, but to prevail in Asia. The following passage from Pérégrinations en Orient, par Eusèbe de Salle, vol. i. p. 167., Paris, 1840, may throw some additional light on this superstition. The author is speaking of his sojourn at Antioch, in the house of the English consul.

"En rentrant dans le salon, je trouvai Mistriss B. assise sur son divan, près d'un natif Syrien Chrétien. Ils tenaient à eux deux une Bible, suspendue à une grosse clé par un mouchoir fin. Mistriss B. ne se rappelait pas avoir reçu un bijou qu'un Aleppin affirmait lui avoir remis. Le Syrien disait une prière, puis prononçait alternativement les noms de la dame et de l'Aleppin. La Bible pivota au nom de la dame déclarée par-là en erreur. Elle se leva à l'instant, et ayant fait des recherches plus exactes, finit par trouver le bijou."

I hardly think that this would be an English superstition transplanted to the East; it is more probable that it was originally derived frown Syria.

E.C.

Newcastle-on-Tyne, May 19. 1850.

Charm for Warts.—Count most carefully the number of warts; take a corresponding number of nodules or knots from the stalks of any of the cerealia (wheat, oats, barley); wrap these in a cloth, and deposit the packet in the earth; all the steps of the operation being done secretly. As the nodules decay the warts will disappear. Some artists think it necessary that each wart should be touched by a separate nodule.

This practice was very rife in the north of Scotland some fifty years since, and no doubt is so still. It was regarded as very effective, and certainly had plenty of evidence of the post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc order in its favour.

Is this practice prevalent in England?

It will be remarked that this belongs to the {20} category of Vicarious Charms, which have in all times and in all ages, in great things and in small things, been one of the favourite resources of poor mortals in their difficulties. Such charms (for all analogous practices may be so called) are, in point of fact, sacrifices made on the principle so widely adopted,—qui facit per alium facit per se. The common witch-charm of melting an image of wax stuck full of pins before a slow fire, is a familiar instance. Everybody knows that the party imaged by the wax continues to suffer all the tortures of pin-pricking until he or she finally melts away (colliquescit), or dies in utter emaciation.

Emdee.

Boy or Girl.—The following mode was adopted a few years ago in a branch of my family residing in Denbighshire, with the view of discovering the sex of an infant previous to its birth. As I do not remember to have met with it in other localities, it may, perhaps, be an interesting addition to your "Folk Lore." An old woman of the village, strongly attached to the family, asked permission to use a harmless charm to learn if the expected infant would be male or female. Accordingly she joined the servants at their supper, where she assisted in clearing a shoulder of mutton of every particle of meat. She then held the blade-bone to the fire until it was scorched, so as to permit her to force her thumbs through the thin part. Through the holes thus made she passed a string, and having knotted the ends together, she drove in a nail over the back door and left the house, giving strict injunctions to the servants to hang the bone up in that place the last thing at night. Then they were carefully to observe who should first enter that door on the following morning, exclusive of the members of the household, and the sex of the child would be that of the first comer. This rather vexed some of the servants, who wished for a boy, as two or three women came regularly each morning to the house, and a man was scarcely ever seen there; but to their delight the first comer on this occasion proved to be a man, and in a few weeks the old woman's reputation was established throughout the neighbourhood by the birth of a boy.

M.E.F.

Queries.

POET LAUREATES.

Can any of the contributors to your most useful "NOTES AND QUERIES" favour me with the title of any work which gives an account of the origin, office, emoluments, and privileges of Poet Laureate. Selden, in his Titles of Honour (Works, vol. iii. p. 451.), shows the Counts Palatine had the right of conferring the dignity claimed by the German Emperors. The first payment I am aware of is to Master Henry de Abrinces, the Versifier (I suppose Poet Laureate), who received 6d. a day,—4l. 7s., as will be seen in the Issue Roll of Thomas de Brantingham, edited by Frederick Devon.

Warton (History of English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 129.) gives no further information, and is the author generally quoted; but the particular matter sought for is wanting.

The first patent, according to the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, article "Laureate," is stated, as regards the existing office, to date from 5th Charles I., 1630; and assigns as the annual gratuity 100l., and a tierce of Spanish Canary wine out of the royal cellars.

Prior to this, the emoluments appear uncertain, as will be seen by Gifford's statement relative to the amount paid to B. Jonson, vol. i. cxi.:—

"Hitherto the Laureateship appears to have been a mere trifle, adopted at pleasure by those who were employed to write for the court, but conveying no privileges, and establishing no claim to a salary."

I am inclined to doubt the accuracy of the phrase "employed to write for the court." Certain it is, the question I now raise was pressed then, as it was to satisfy Ben Jonson's want of information Selden wrote on the subject in his Titles of Honour.

These emoluments, rights, and privileges have been matters of Laureate dispute, even to the days of Southey. In volume iv. of his correspondence, many hints of this will be found; e.g., at page 310., with reference to Gifford's statement, and "my proper rights."

The Abbé Resnel says,—"L'illustre Dryden l'a porté comme Poète du Roy," which rather reduces its academic dignity; and adds, "Le Sieur Cyber, comédien de profession, est actuellement en possession du titre de Poète Lauréate, et qu'il jouit en même tems de deux cens livres sterling de pension, à la charge de présenter tous les ans, deux pièces de vers à la famille royale."

I am afraid, however, the Abbé drew upon his imagination for the amount of the salary; and that he would find the people were never so hostile to the court as to sanction so heavy an infliction upon the royal family, as they would have met with from the quit-rent ode, the peppercorn of praise paid by Elkanah Settle, Cibber, or H.J. Pye.

The Abbé, however, is not so amusing in his mistake (if mistaken) relative to this point, as I find another foreign author has been upon two Poet Laureates, Dryden and Settle. Vincenzo Lancetti, in his Pseudonimia Milano, 1836, tells us:—

"Anche la durezza di alcuni cognomi ha più volte consigliato un raddolcimento, che li rendesse più facili a pronunziarsi. Percio Macloughlin divenne Macklin; Machloch, Mallet; ed Elkana Settle fu poi —— John Dryden!"

—a metamorphose greater, I suspect, than any to be found in Ovid, and a transmigration of soul far beyond those imagined by the philosophers of the East.

S.H.

Athenæum.

Minor Queries.

Wood Paper.—The reprint of the Works of Bishop Wilkins, London, 1802, 2 vols. 8vo., is said to be on paper made from wood pulp. It has all the appearance of it in roughness, thickness, and very unequal opacity. Any sheet looked at with a candle behind it is like a firmament scattered with luminous nebulæ. I can find mention of straw paper, as patented about the time; but I should think it almost impossible (knowing how light the Indian rice paper is) that the heavy fabric above mentioned should be of straw. Is it from wood? If so, what is the history of the invention, and what other works were printed in it?

M.

Latin Line.—I should be very much obliged to anybody who can tell where this line comes from:—

which was engraved on a present from a distinguished person to a relation of mine, who tried in several quarters to learn where it came from.

C.B.

Milton, New Edition of.—I observe in Mr. Mayor's communication (Vol. i. p. 427.), that some one is engaged in editing Milton. May I ask who, and whether the contemplated edition includes prose and poetry?

CH.

Barum and Sarum.—By what theory, rule, or analogy, if any, can the contractions be accounted for of two names so dissimilar, into words terminating so much alike, as those of Salisbury into Sarum—Barnstaple into Barum?

S.S.S.

Roman Roads.—Can you inform me in whose possession is the MS. essay on "Roman Roads," written by the late Dr. Charles Mason, to which I find allusion in a MS. letter of Mr. North's?

Buriensis.

John Dutton, of Dutton.—In the Vagrant Act, 17 George II., c. 5., the heir and assigns of John Dutton, of Dutton, co. Chester, deceased, Esq., are exempt from the pains and penalties of vagrancy. Query—Who was the said John Dutton, and why was such a boon conferred on his heirs for ever?

B.

Rome, Ancient and Modern.—I observed, in a shop in Rome, in 1847, a large plan of that city, in which, on the same surface, both ancient and modern Rome were represented; the shading of the streets and buildings being such as to distinguish the one from the other. Thus, in looking at the modern Forum, you saw, as it were underneath it, the ancient Forum; and so in the other parts of the city. Can any of your readers inform me as to the name of the designer, and where, if at all, in England, a copy of this plan may be obtained?

If I remember rightly, the border to the plan was composed of the Pianta Capitolina, or fragments of the ancient plan preserved in the Capitol. In the event of the map above referred to not being accessible, can I obtain a copy of this latter plan by itself, and how?

A.B.M.

Prolocutor of Convocation.—W.D.M. inquires who was Prolocutor of the Lower House of Convocation during its session in 1717-18?

Language of Queen Mary's Days.—In the first vol. of Evelyn's Diary (the last edition) I find the following notice:—

"18th, Went to Beverley, a large town with two churches, St. John's and St. Mary's, not much inferior to the best of our cathedrals. Here a very old woman showed us the monuments, and being above 100 years of age, spake the language of Queen Mary's days, in whose time she was born; she was widow of a sexton, who had belonged to the church a hundred years."

Will any of your readers inform me what was the language spoken in Queen Mary's days, and what peculiarity distinguished it from the language used in Evelyn's days?

A learned author has suggested, that the difference arose from the slow progress in social improvement in the North of England, caused by the difficulty of communication with the court and its refinements. I am still anxious to ascertain what the difference was.

Fra. Mewburn.

Darlington.

Vault Interments.—I shall be very glad of any information as to the origin and date of the practice of depositing coffins in vaults, and whether this custom obtains in any other country than our own.

Walter Lewis.

Edward Street, Portman Square.

Archbishop Williams' Persecutor, R.K.—Any information will be thankfully received of the ancestors, collaterals, or descendants, of the notorious R.K.—the unprincipled persecutor of Archbp. Williams, mentioned in Fuller's Church Hist., B. xi. cent. 17.; and in Hacket's Life of the Archbishop (abridgment), p. 190.

F.K.

The Sun feminine in English.—It has been often remarked, that the northern nations made the sun to be feminine.³ Do any of your readers {22} know any instances of the English using this gender of the sun? I have found the following:—

"So it will be at that time with the sun; for though she be the brightest and clearest creature, above all others, yet, for all that Christ with His glory and majesty will obscure her."—Latimer's Works, Parker Soc. edit. vol. ii. p. 54.

"Not that the sun itself, of her substance, shall be darkened; no, not so; for she shall give her light, but it shall not be seen for this great light and clearness wherein our Saviour shall appear."—(Ib. p. 98.)

Thos. Cox.

Construe and translate.—In my school-days, verbal rendering from Latin or Greek into English was construing; the same on paper was translating. Whence this difference of phrase?

M.

Men but Children of a larger growth.—Can you give one the author of the following line?

R.G.

Clerical Costume.—In the Diary of the Rev. Giles Moore, rector of Hosted Keynes, in Sussex, published in the first volume of the Sussex Archæological Collections, there is the following account of his dress:—

"I went to Lewis and bought 4 yards of broad black cloth at 16s. the yard, and two yards and 1/2 of scarlet serge for a waistcoat, 11s. 1d., and 1/4 of an ounce of scarlet silke, 1s."

and this appears to have been his regular dress. Will any of your correspondents inform me whether this scarlet serge waistcoat was commonly worn by the clergy in those times, namely, in 1671?

R.W.B.

Ergh, Er, or Argh.—In Dr. Whitaker's History of Whalley, p. 37., ed. 1818, are the following observations on the above word:—

"This is a singular word, which occurs, however both to the north and south of the Ribble, though much more frequently to the north. To the south, I know not that it occurs, but in Angles-ark and Brettargh. To the north are Battarghes, Ergh-holme, Stras-ergh, Sir-ergh, Feiz-er, Goosen-ergh. In all the Teutonic dialects I meet with nothing resembling this word, excepting the Swedish Arf, terra (vide Ihre in voce), which, if the last letter be pronounced gutturally, is precisely the same with argh."

Can any of your readers give a more satisfactory explanation of this local term?

T.W.

Burnley, May 4. 1850.

Burial Service.—During a conversation on the various sanitary measures now projecting in the metropolis, and particularly on the idea lately started of re-introducing the ancient practice of burning the bodies of the deceased, one of our company remarked that the words "ashes to ashes," used in our present form of burial, would in such a case be literally applicable; and a question arose why the word "ashes" should have been introduced at all, and whether its introduction might not have been owing to the actual cremation of the funeral pyre at the burial of Gentile Christians? We were none of us profound enough to quote or produce any facts from the monuments and records of the early converts to account for the expression; but I conceive it probable that a solution could be readily given by some of your learned correspondents. The burning of the dead does not appear to be in itself an anti-christian ceremony, nor necessarily connected with Pagan idolatries, and therefore might have been tolerated in the case of Gentile believers like any other indifferent usage.

Cinis.

Gaol Chaplains.—When were they first appointed? Did the following advice of Latimer, in a sermon before King Edward, in 1549, take any effect?

"Oh, I would ye would resort to prisons! A commendable thing in a Christian realm: I would wish there were curates of prisons, that we might say, the 'curate of Newgate, the curate of the Fleet,' and I would have them waged for their labour. It is a holiday work to visit the prisoners, for they be kept from sermons."—Vol. i. p. 180.

Thos. Cox.

Hanging out the Broom (Vol. i., p. 385.).—This custom exists in the West of England, but is oftener talked of than practised. It is jocularly understood to indicate that the deserted inmate is in want of a companion, and is really to receive the visits of his friends. Can it be in any way analogous to the custom of hoisting broom at the mast-head of a vessel which is to be disposed of?

S.S.S.

George Lord Goring, well known in history as Colonel Goring and General Goring, until the elevation of his father to the earldom of Norwich, in Nov. 1644, is said by Lodge to have left England in November, 1645, and after passing some time in France, to have gone into the Netherlands, where he obtained a commission as Lieutenant-General in the Spanish army. Lodge adds, upon the authority of Dugdale, that he closed his singular life in that country, in the character of a Dominican friar, and his father surviving him, he never became Earl of Norwich. A recent publication, speaking of Lord Goring, says he carried his genius, his courage, and his villainy to market on the Continent, served under Spain, and finally assumed the garb of a Dominican friar, and died in a convent cell.

Can any of your readers inform me when and where he died, and whether any particulars are known respecting him after his retirement abroad, {23} and when his marriage took place with his wife Lady Lettice Boyle, daughter of the Earl of Cork, who died in 1643? The confusion that is made between the father and son is very great.

G.

Bands.—What is the origin of the clerical and academical custom of wearing bands? Were they not originally used for the purpose of preserving the cassock from being soiled by the beard? This is the only solution that presents itself to my mind.

Oxoniensis Nondum-Graduatus.

Replies.

DERIVATION OF "NEWS" AND "NOISE."

I hasten to repudiate a title to which I have no claim; a compliment towards the close of the letter of your correspondent "CH." (Vol. i., p. 487.) being evidently intended for a gentleman whose christian name, only, differs from mine. The compliment in his case is well-deserved; and it will not lower him in your correspondent's opinion, to know that he is not answerable for the sins laid to my charge. And now for a word in my own behalf.

Indeed, CH. is rather hard upon me, I must confess. In using the simple form of assertion as more convenient,—although I intended thereby merely to express that such was my opinion, and not dreaming of myself as an authority,—I have undoubtedly erred. In the single instance in which I used it, instead of saying "it is," I should have said "I think it is." Throughout the rest of my argument I think the terms made use of are perfectly allowable as expressions of opinion. Your correspondent has been good enough to give "the whole" of my "argument" in recapitulating my "assertions." Singular dogmatism that in laying down the law should condescend to give reasons for it! On the other hand, when I turn to the letter of my friendly censor, I find assertion without argument, which, to my simple apprehension, is of much nearer kin to dogmatism than is the sin with which I am charged.

I cannot help thinking that your correspondent, from his dislike "to be puzzled on so plain a subject," has a misapprehension as to the uses of etymology. I, too, am no etymologist; I am a simple inquirer, anxious for information; frequently, without doubt, "most ignorant" of what I am "most assured;" yet I feel that to treat the subject scientifically it is not enough to guess at the origin of a word, not enough even to know it; that it is important to know not only whence it came, but how it came, what were its relations, by what road it travelled; and treated thus, etymology is of importance, as a branch of a larger science, to the history of the progress of the human race.

Descending now to particulars, let your correspondent show me how "news" was made out of "new." I have shown him how I think it was made; but I am open to conviction.

I repeat my opinion that "news is a noun singular, and as such must have been adopted bodily into the language;" and if it were a "noun of plural form and plural meaning," I still think that the singular form must have preceded it. The two instances CH. gives, "goods" and "riches," are more in point than he appears to suppose, although in support of my argument, and not his. The first is from the Gothic, and is substantially a word implying "possessions," older than the oldest European living languages. "Riches" is most unquestionably in its original acceptation in our language a noun singular, being identically the French "richesse," in which manner it is spelt in our early writers. From the form coinciding with that of our plural, it has acquired also a plural signification. But both words "have been adopted bodily into the language," and thus strengthen my argument that the process of manufacture is with us unknown.

Your correspondent is not quite correct in describing me as putting forward as instances of the early communication between the English and the German languages the derivation of "news" from "Neues," and the similarity between two poems. The first I adduced as an instance of the importance of the inquiry: with regard to the second, I admitted all that your correspondent now says; but with the remark, that the mode of treatment and the measure approaching so near to each other in England and Germany within one half century (and, I may add, at no other period in either of the two nations is the same mode or measure to be found), there was reasonable ground for suspicion of direct or indirect communication. On this subject I asked for information.

In conclusion, I think I observe something of a sarcastic tone in reference to my "novelty." I shall advocate nothing that I do not believe to be true, "whether it be old or new;" but I have found that our authorities are sometimes careless, sometimes unfaithful, and are so given to run in a groove, that when I am in quest of truth I generally discard them altogether, and explore, however laboriously, by myself.

Samuel Hickson.

St. John's Wood, May 27. 1850.

I do not know the reason for the rule your correspondent Mr. S. HICKSON lays down, that such a noun as "news" could not be formed according to English analogy. Why not as well as "goods, the shallows, blacks, for mourning, greens?" There is no singular to any of these as nouns.

Noise is a French word, upon which Menage has an article. There can be no doubt that he and others whom he quotes are right, that it is {24} derived from noxa or noxia in Latin, meaning "strife." They quote:—

It is a great pity that we have no book of reference for English analogy of language.

C.B.

Why should Mr. Hickson (Vol. i., p. 428.) attempt to derive "news" indirectly from a German adjective, when it is so directly attributable to an English one; and that too without departing from a practice almost indigenous in the language?

Have we not in English many similar adjective substantives? Are we not continually slipping into our shorts, or sporting our tights, or parading our heavies, or counter-marching our lights, or commiserating blacks, or leaving whites to starve; or calculating the odds, or making expositions for goods?

Oh! but, says Mr. Hickson, "in that case the 's' would be the sign of the plural." Not necessarily so, no more than an "s" to "mean" furnishes a "means" of proving the same thing. But granting that it were so, what then? The word "news" is undoubtedly plural, and has been so used from the earliest times; as (in the example I sent for publication last week, of so early a date as the commencement of Henry VIII.'s reign) may be seen in "thies newes."

But a flight still more eccentric would be the identification of "noise" with "news!" "There is no process," Mr. Hickson says, "by which noise could be manufactured without making a plural noun of it!"

Is not Mr. Hickson aware that la noise is a French noun-singular signifying a contention or dispute? and that the same word exists in the Latin nisus, a struggle?

If mere plausibility be sufficient ground to justify a derivation, where is there a more plausible one than that "news," intelligence, ought to be derived from νους, understanding or common sense?

A.E.B.

Leeds, May 5th.

Further evidence (see Vol. i., p. 369.) of the existence and common use of the word "newes" in its present signification but ancient orthography anterior to the introduction of newspapers.

In a letter from the Cardinal of York (Bainbridge) to Henry VIII. (Rymer's Fœdera, vol. vi. p. 50.),

"After that thies Newes afforesaide ware dyvulgate in the Citie here."

Dated from Rome, September, 1513.

The Newes was of the victory just gained by Henry over the French, commonly known as "The Battle of the Spurs."

A.E.B.

THE DODO QUERIES.

I beg to thank Mr. S.W. Singer for the further notices he has given (Vol. i., p. 485.) in connection with this subject. I was well acquainted with the passage which he quotes from Osorio, a passage which some writers have very inconsiderately connected with the Dodo history. In reply to Mr. Singer's Queries, I need only make the following extract from the Dodo and its Kindred, p. 8.:—

"The statement that Vasco de Gama, in 1497, discovered, sixty leagues beyond the Cape of Good Hope, a bay called after San Blaz, near an island full of birds with wings like bats, which the sailors called solitaries (De Blainville, Nouv. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat., and Penny Cyclopædia, DODO, p. 47.), is wholly irrelevant. The birds are evidently penguins, and their wings were compared to those of bats, from being without developed feathers. De Gama never went near Mauritius, but hugged the African coast as far as Melinda, and then crossed to India, returning by the same route. This small island inhabited by penguins, near the Cape of Good Hope, has been gratuitously confounded with Mauritius. Dr. Hamel, in a memoir in the Bulletin de la Classe Physico-Mathématique de l'Académie de St. Petersbourg, vol. iv. p. 53., has devoted an unnecessary amount of erudition to the refutation of this obvious mistake. He shows that the name solitaires, as applied to penguins by De Gama's companions, [I should have said, 'by later compilers,'] is corrupted from sotilicairos, which appears to be a Hottentot word."

I may add, that Dr. Hamel shows Osorio's statement to be taken from Castanheda, who is the earliest authority for the account of De Gama's voyage.

H.E. Strickland.

BOHN'S EDITION OF MILTON.

Mr. Editor,—I have just seen an article in your "Notes and Queries" referring to my edition of Milton's prose works. It is stated that, in my latest catalogue, the book is announced as complete in 3 vols., although the contrary appears to be the case, judging by the way in which the third volume ends, the absence of an index, &c.

In reply, I beg to say that the insertion of the word "complete," in some of my catalogues, has taken place without my privity, and is now expunged. The fourth volume has long been in preparation, but the time of its appearance depends on the health and leisure of a prelate, whose name I have no right to announce. Those gentlemen who have taken the trouble to make direct {25} inquiries on the subject, have always, I believe, received an explicit answer.

Henry George Bohn.

May 30. 1850.

UMBRELLAS.

Although Dr. Rimbault's Query (Vol. i., p. 415.) as to the first introduction of umbrellas into England, is to a certain extent answered in the following number (p. 436.) by a quotation from Mr. Cunningham's Handbook, a few additional remarks may, perhaps, be deemed admissible. Hanway is there stated to have been "the first man who ventured to walk the streets of London with one over his head," and that after continuing its use nearly thirty years, he saw them come into general use. As Hanway died in 1786, we may thus infer that the introduction of umbrellas may be placed at about 1750. But it is, I think, probable that their use must have been at least partially known in London long before that period, judging from the following extract from Gay's Trivia, or Art of Walking the Streets of London, published 1712:—

That it was, perhaps, an article of curiosity rather than use in the middle of the seventeenth century, is evident in the fact of its being mentioned in the "Musæum Tradescantianum, or Collection of Rarities, preserved at South Lambeth near London, by John Tradescant." 12mo. 1656. It occurs under the head of "Utensils," and is simply mentioned as "An Umbrella."

E.B. Price.

[Mr. St. Croix has also referred Dr. Rimbault to Gay's Trivia.]

Jonas Hanway the philanthropist is reputed first to have used an "umbrella" in England. I am the more inclined to think it may be so, as my own father, who was born in 1744, and lived to ninety-two years of age, has told me the same thing, and he lived in the same parish as Mr. Hanway, who resided in Red Lion Square.

Mr. Hanway was born in 1712.

J.W.

The introduction of this article of general convenience is attributed, and I believe accurately so, to Jonas Hanway, the Eastern traveller, who on his return to his native land rendered himself justly celebrated by his practical benevolence. In a little book with a long title, published in 1787, written by "John Pugh," I find many curious anecdotes related of Hanway, and apropos of umbrellas, in describing his dress Mr. Pugh says,—"When it rained, a small parapluie defended his face and wig; thus he was always prepared to enter into any company without impropriety, or the appearance of neglect. And he (Hanway) was the first man who ventured to walk the streets of London with an umbrella over his head: after carrying one near thirty years, he saw them come into general use." Hanway died 1786.

J.F.

As far as I remember, there is a portrait of Hanway with an umbrella as a frontispiece to the book of Travels published by him about 1753, in four vols. 4to.; and I have no doubt that he had used one in his travels through Greece, Turkey, &c.

T.G.L.

In the hall of my father's house, at Stamford in Lincolnshire, there was, when I was a child, the wreck of a very large green silk umbrella, apparently of Chinese manufacture, brought by my father from Holland, somewhere between 1770 and 1780, and as I have often heard, the first umbrella seen at Stamford. I well remember also an amusing description given by the late Mr. Warry, so many years consul at Smyrna, of the astonishment and envy of his mother's neighbours at Sawbridgeworth, in Herts, where his father had a country-house, when he ran home and came back with an umbrella, which he had just brought from Leghorn, to shelter them from a pelting shower which detained them in the church-porch, after the service, on one summer Sunday. From Mr. Warry's age at the time he mentioned this, and other circumstances in his history, I conjecture that it occurred not later than 1775 or 1776. As Sawbridgeworth is so near London, it is evident that even there umbrellas were at that time almost unknown.

If I have "spun too long a yarn," the dates, at least, will not be unacceptable to others like myself.

G.C. Renouard.

Swanscombe Rectory, May 1.

Dr. Jamieson was the first who introduced umbrellas to Glasgow in the year 1782; he bought his in Paris. I remember very well when this took place. At this time the umbrella was made of heavy wax cloth, with cane ribs, and was a ponderous article.

R.R.

EMANCIPATION OF THE JEWS.

(Vol. i, pp. 474, 475.)

From a scarce collection of pamphlets concerning the naturalisation of the Jews in England, {26} published in 1753, by Dean Tucker and others, I beg to send the following extracts, which may be of some use in replying to the inquiry (Vol. i., p. 401.) respecting the Jews during the Commonwealth.

Dean Tucker, in his Second Letter to a Friend concerning Naturalisation, says (p. 29.):—

"The Jews having departed out of the realm in the year 1290, or being expelled by the authority of parliament (it matters not which), made no efforts to return till the Protectorship of Oliver Cromwell; but this negotiation is known to have proved unsuccessful. However, the affair was not dropped, for the next application was to King Charles himself, then in his exile at Bruges, as appears by a copy of a commission dated the 24th of September, 1656, granted to Lt.-Gen. Middleton, to treat with the Jews of Amsterdam:—'That whereas the Lt.-Gen. had represented to his Majesty their good affection to him, and disowned the application lately made to Cromwell in their behalf by some persons of their nation, as absolutely without their consent, the king empowers the Lt.-Gen. to treat with them. That if in that conjunction they shall assist his Majesty by any money, arms, or ammunition, they shall find, when God should restore him, that he would extend that protection to them which they could reasonably expect, and abate that rigour of the law which was against them in his several dominions, and repay them."

This paper, Dean Tucker says, was found among the original papers of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State to King Charles I. and II., and was communicated to him by a learned and worthy friend. The Dean goes on to remark, that the restoration of the royal family of the Stuarts was attended with the return of the Jews into Great Britain; and that Lord Chancellor Clarendon granted to many of them letters of denization under the great seal.

From another pamphlet in the same collection, entitled, An Answer to a Pamphlet entitled Considerations on the Bill to permit Persons professing the Jewish Religion to be naturalized, the following, is an extract:—

"There is a curious anecdote of this affair," (about the Jews thinking Oliver Cromwell to be the Messiah,) "in Raguenet's Histoire d'Oliver Cromwell, which I will give the reader at length. About the time Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel came to England to solicit the Jews' admission, the Asiatic Jews sent hither the noted Rabbi Jacob Ben Azahel, with several others of his nation, to make private inquiry whether Cromwell was not that Messiah, whom they had so long expected. (Page 33.—I leave the reader to judge what an accomplished villain he will then be.) Which deputies upon their arrival pretending other business, were several times indulging the favour of a private audience from him, and at one of them proposed buying Hebrew books and MSS. belonging to the University of Cambridge⁴, in order to have an opportunity, under pretence of viewing them, to inquire amongst his relations, in Huntingdonshire, where he was born, whether any of his ancestors could be proved of Jewish extract. This project of theirs was very readily agreed to (the University at that time being under a cloud, on account of their former loyalty to the King), and accordingly the ambassadors set forwards upon their journey. But discovering by their much longer continuance at Huntingdon than at Cambridge, that their business at the last place was not such as was pretended, and by not making their enquiries into Oliver's pedigree with that caution and secresy which was necessary in such an affair, the true purpose of their errand into England became quickly known at London, and was very much talked of, which causing great scandal among the Saints, he was forced suddenly to pack them out of the kingdom, without granting any of their requests."

J.M.

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.

Wellington, Wyrwast, and Cokam (Vol. i., p. 401.).—The garrison in Wellington was, no doubt, at the large house built by Sir John Topham in that town, where the rebels, who had gained possession of it by stratagem, held out for some time against the king's forces under Sir Richard Grenville. The house, though of great strength, was much damaged on that occasion, and shortly fell into ruin. Cokam probably designates Colcombe Castle, a mansion of the Courtenays, near Colyton, in Devonshire, which was occupied by a detachment of the king's troops under Prince Maurice in 1644, but soon after fell into the hands of the rebels. It is now in a state of ruin, but is in part occupied as a farm-house. I am at a loss for Wyrwast, and should doubt the reading of the MS.

S.S.S.

Sir William Skipwyth (Vol. i., p. 23.).—Mr. Foss will find some notices of Will. Skipwyth in pp. 83, 84, 85, of Rotulorum Pat. & Claus. Cancellariæ Hib. Calendarium, printed in 1828.

R.B.

Trim, May 13. 1850.

Dr. Johnson and Dr. Warton (Vol. i., p. 481.).—Mr. Markland is probably right in his conjecture that Johnson had Warton's lines in his memory; but the original source of the allusion to Peru is Boileau:

Warton's Poems appeared in March, 1748. Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes was published the 9th January, 1749, and was written probably in December or November preceding.

C.

Worm of Lambton (Vol. i., p. 453.).—See its history and legend in Surtees' History of Durham, vol. ii. p. 173., and a quarto tract printed by Sir Cuthbert Sharp.

G.

"A.C." is informed that there is an account of this "Worme" in The Bishoprick Garland, published by the late Sir Cuthbert Sharpe in 1834; it is illustrated with a view of the Worm Hill, and a woodcut of the knight thrusting his sword with great nonchalance down the throat of the Worme. Only 150 copies of the Garland were printed.

W.N.

Shakspeare's Will (Vol. i., pp. 213, 386, 403, 461, and 469.).—I fear if I were to adopt Mr. Bolton Corney's tone, we should degenerate into polemics. I will therefore only reply to his question, "Have I wholly mistaken the whole affair?" by one word, "Undoubtedly." The question raised was on an Irish edition of Malone's Shakspeare. Mr. Bolton Corney reproved the querists for not consulting original sources. It appears that Mr. Bolton Corney had not himself consulted the edition in question; and by his last letter I am satisfied that he has not even yet seen it: and it is not surprising if, in these circumstances, he should have "mistaken the whole affair." But as my last communication (Vol. i., p. 461.) explains (as I am now satisfied) the blunder and its cause, I may take my leave of the matter, only requesting Mr. Bolton Corney, if he still doubts, to follow his own good precept, and look at the original edition.

C.

Josias Ibach Stada (Vol. i., p. 452.).—In reply to G.E.N., I would ask, is Mr. Hewitt correct in calling him Stada, an Italian artist? I have no hesitation in saying that Stada here is no personal appellation at all, but the name of a town. The inscription "Fudit Josias Ibach Stada Bremensis" is to be read, Cast by Josias Ibach, of the town of Stada, in the duchy of Bremen. All your readers, particularly mercantile, will know the place well enough from the discussions raised by Mr. Hutt, member for Gateshead, in the House of Commons, on the oppressive duties levied there on all vessels and their cargoes sailing past it up the Elbe; and to the year 1150 it was the capital of an independent graffschaft, when it lapsed to Henry the Lion.

William Bell.

The Temple, or A Temple.—I have had an opportunity of seeing the edition of Chaucer referred to by your correspondent P.H.F. (Vol. i., p. 420.), and likewise several other black-letter editions (1523, 1561, 1587, 1598, 1602), and find that they all agree in reading "the temple," which Caxton's edition also adopts. The general reading of "temple" in the modern editions, naturally induced me to suspect that Tyrwhitt had made the alteration on the authority of the manuscripts of the poem. Of these there are no less than ten in the British Museum, all of which have been kindly examined for me. One of these wants the prologue, and another that part of it in which the line occurs; but in seven of the remaining eight, the reading is—

while one only reads "the temple." The question, therefore, is involved in the same doubt which I at first stated; for the subsequent lines quoted by P.H.F. prove nothing more than that the person described was a manciple in some place of legal resort, which was not disputed.

Edward Foss.

Bawn (Vol. i., p. 440.).—If your Querist regarding a "Bawn" will look into Macnevin's Confiscation of Ulster (Duffy: Dublin, 1846, p. 171. &c.), he will find that a Bawn must have been a sort of court-yard, which might be used on emergency as a fortification for defence. They were constructed either of lime and stone, of stone and clay, or of sods, and twelve to fourteen feet high, and sometimes inclosing a dwelling-house, and with the addition of "flankers."

W.C. Trevelyan.

"Heigh ho! says Rowley" (Vol. i., p. 458.).—The burden of "Heigh ho! says Rowley" is certainly older than R.S.S. conjectures; I will not say how much, but it occurs in a jeu d'esprit of 1809, on the installation of Lord Grenville, as Chancellor, at Oxford, as will be shown by a stanza cited from memory:—

Chethamensis.

Wimpole Street, May 11. 1850.

Arabic Numerals.—As your correspondent E.V. (Vol. i., p. 230.) is desirous of obtaining any instance of Arabic numerals of early occurrence, I would refer him, for one at least, to Notices of the Castle and Priory of Castleacre, by the Rev. J.H. Bloom: London; Richardson, 23. Cornhill, 1843. In this work it appears that by the acumen of Dr. Murray, Bishop of Rochester, the date 1084 was found impressed in the plaster of the wall of the priory in the following, form:—

The writer then goes on to show, that this was the regular order of the letters to one crossing himself after the Romish fashion.

E.S.T.

Pusan (Vol. i., p. 440.)—May not the meaning {28} be a collar in the form of a serpent? In the old Roman de Blanchardin is this line:—

"Cy guer pison tuit Apolin."

Can Iklynton again be the place where such an ornament was made? Ickleton, in Cambridgeshire, appears to have been of some note in former days, as, according to Lewis's Topog. Hist., a nunnery was founded there by Henry II., and a market together with a fair granted by Henry III. As it is only five miles from Linton, it may have formerly borne the name of Ick-linton.

C.I.R.

"I'd preach as though" (Vol. i., p. 415.).—The lines quoted by Henry Martyn are said by Dr. Jenkyn (Introduction to a little vol. of selections from Baxter—Nelson's Puritan Divines) to be Baxter's "own immortal lines." Dr. J. quotes them thus:—

Ed. S. Jackson.

May 18.

"Fools rush in" (Vol. i., p. 348.).—The line in Pope,

"For fools rush in where angels fear to tread,"

it has been long ago pointed out, is founded upon that of Shakspeare,

"For wrens make wing where eagles dare not perch."

I know not why that line of Pope is in your correspondent's list. It is not a proverb.

C.B.

Allusion in Friar Brackley's Sermon (Vol. i., p. 351.)—It seems vain to inquire who the persons were of whom stories were told in medieval books, as if they were really historical. See the Gesta Romanorum, for instance: or consider who the Greek king Aulix was, having dealings with the king of Syria, in the 7th Story of the Novelle Antiche. The passage in the sermon about a Greek king, seems plainly to be still part of the extract from the Liber Decalogorum, being in Latin. This book was perhaps the Dialogi decem, put into print at Cologne in 1472: Brunet.

C.B.

Earwig (Vol. i., p. 383.).—This insect is very destructive to the petals of some kinds of delicate flowers. May it not have acquired the title of "couchbell" from its habit of couching or concealing itself for rest at night and security from small birds, of which it is a favourite food, in the pendent blossoms of bell-shaped flowers? This habit is often fatal to it in the gardens of cottagers, who entrap it by means of a lobster's claw suspended on an upright stick.

S.S.S.

Earwig (Vol. i., p. 383.).—In the north of England the earwig is called twitchbell. I know not whether your correspondent is in error as to its being called in Scotland the "coach-bell." I cannot afford any explanation to either of these names.

G. Bouchier Richardson.

Sir R. Haigh's Letter-book (Vol. i, p. 463.).—This is incorrect; no such person is known. The baronet intended is Sir Roger Bradshaigh, of Haigh; a very well-known person, whose funeral sermon was preached by Wroe, the warden of Manchester Collegiate Church, locally remembered as "silver-mouthed Wroe."

This name is correctly given in Puttick and Simpson's Catalogue of a Miscellaneous Sale on April 15, and it is to be hoped that Sir Roger's collection of letters, ranging from 1662 to 1676, may have fallen into the hands of the noble earl who represents him, the present proprietor of Haigh.

Chethamensis.

Marescautia (Vol. i., p. 94.).—Your correspondent requests some information as to the meaning of the word "marescautia." Mareschaucie, in old French, means a stable. Pasquier (Recherches de la France, l. viii. ch. 2.) says,—

"Pausanias disoit que Mark apud Celtas signifioit un cheual ... je vous diray qu'en ancien langage allemant Mark se prenoit pour un cheual."

In ch. 54. he refers to another etymolygy of "maréchal," from "maire," or "maistre," and "cheval," "comme si on les eust voulu dire maistre de la cheualerie." "Maréchal" still signifies "a farrier." Maréchaussée was the term applied down to the Revolution to the jurisdiction of Nosseigneurs les Maréchaux de France, whose orders were enforced by a company of horse that patrolled the highways, la chaussée, generally raised above the level of the surrounding country. Froissart applies the term to the Marshalsea prison in London. In D.S.'s first entry there may, perhaps, be some allusion to another meaning of the word, namely, that of "march, limit, boundary."

What the nature of the tenure per serjentiam marescautiæ may be I am not prepared to say. May it not have had some reference to the support of the royal stud?

J.B.D.

Memoirs of an American Lady (Vol. i., p. 335.).—If this work cannot now be got it is a great pity,—it ought to go down to posterity; a more valuable or interesting account of a particular state of society now quite extinct, can hardly be found. Instead of saying that "it is the work of Mrs. Grant, the author of this and that," I should say of her other books that they were written by the author of the Memoirs of an American Lady. The character of the individual lady, her way of keeping house on a large scale, the state of the domestic slaves, threatened, as the only known punishment and most terrible to them, with being {29} sold to Jamaica; the customs of the young men at Albany, their adventurous outset in life, their practice of robbing one another in joke (like a curious story at Venice, in the story-book called Il Peccarone, and having some connection with the stories of the Spartan and Circassian youth), with much of natural scenery, are told without pretension of style; but unluckily there is too much interspersed relating to the author herself, then quite young.

C.B.

Poem by Sir E. Dyer (Vol. i., p. 355.).—"My mind to me," &c. Neither the births of Breton nor Sir Edward Dyer seem to be known; nor, consequently, how much older the one was than the other. Mr. S., I conclude, could not mean much older than Breton's tract, mentioned in Vol. i., p. 302. The poem is not in England's Helicon. The ballad, as in Percy, has four stanzas more than the present copy, and one stanza less. Some of the readings in Percy are better, that is, more probable than the new ones.

These seem to me to be stupid mistranscriptions.

Probably altered on account of the slight obscurity; and possibly a different edition by the author himself.

In this verse,

I think the new copy better.

The var. much better.

In this—

I cannot understand either.

So very beautiful and popular a song it would be well worth getting in the true version.

C.B.

Monumental Brasses.—In reply to S.S.S. (Vol. i., p. 405.), I beg to inform him that the "small dog with a collar and bells" is a device of very common occurrence on brasses of the fifteenth and latter part of the fourteenth centuries. The Rev. C. Boutell's Monumental Brasses of England contains engravings of no less than twenty-three on which it is to be found; as well as two examples without the usual appendages of collar, &c. In addition to these, the same work contains etchings of the following brasses:—Gunby, Lincoln., two dogs with plain collars at the bottom of the lady's mantle, 1405. Dartmouth, Devon., 1403. Each of the ladies here depicted has two dogs with collars and bells at her feet.

The same peculiarities are exemplified on brasses at Harpham, York., 1420; and Spilsby, Lincoln., 1391. I will not further multiply instances, as my own collection of rubbings would enable me to do. I should, however, observe, that the hypothesis of S.S.S. (as to "these figures" being "the private mark of the artist") is untenable: since the twenty-three examples above alluded to are scattered over sixteen different counties, as distant from each other as Yorkshire and Sussex. Two examples are well known, in which the dog so represented was a favourite animal:—Deerhurst, Gloc., 1400, with the name, "Terri," inscribed; and Ingham, Norfolk, 1438, with the name "Jakke." This latter brass is now lost, but an impression is preserved in the British Museum. The customary explanation seems to me sufficient: that the dog was intended to symbolise the fidelity and attachment of the lady to her lord and master, as the lion at his feet represented his courage and noble qualities.

W. Sparrow Simpson.

Queen's College, Cambridge, April 22. 1850.

Fenkle Street.—A street so called in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, lying in a part of the town formerly much occupied by garden ground, and in the immediate vicinity of the house of the Dominican Friars there. Also, a way or passage inside the town wall, and leading between that fortification and the house of the Carmelites or White Friars, was anciently called by the same name. The name of Fenkle or Finkle Street occurs in several old towns in the North, as Alnwick, Richmond, York, Kendal, &c. Fenol and finugl, as also finul, are Saxon words for fennel; which, it is very probable, has in some way or other given rise to this name. May not the monastic institutions have used fennel extensively in their culinary preparations, and thus planted it in so great quantities as to have induced the naming of localities therefrom? I remember a portion of the ramparts of the town used to be called Wormwood Hill, from a like circumstance. In Hawkesworth's Voyages, ii. 8., I find it stated that the town of Funchala, on the island of Madeira, derives its name from Funcko, the Portuguese name for fennel, which grows in great plenty upon the neighbouring rocks. The priory of Finchale (from Finkel), upon the Wear, probably has a similar origin; sed qu.

G. Bouchier Richardson.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, May 12. 1850.

Christian Captives (Vol. i., p. 441.)—In reply to your correspondent R.W.B., I find in the papers published by the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society, vol. i. p. 98., the following entries extracted from the Parish Registers of Great Dunham, Norfolk:—

Which sum was sent to Mr. Nicholas Browne, Registrar under Dr. Connant, Archdeacon of Norwich, Octr. 2d. 1680."

Probably similar entries will be found in other registers of the same date, as the collections appear to have been made by special mandate, and paid into the hands of the proper authorities.

E.S.T.

Passage in Gibbon (Vol. i., p. 348.).—The passage in Gibbon I should have thought was well known to be taken from what Clarendon says of Hampden, and which Lord Nugent says in his preface to Hampden's Life had before been said of Cinna. Gibbon must either have meant to put inverted commas, or at least to have intended to take nobody in.

C.B.

Borrowed Thoughts (Vol. i., p. 482.)—La fameuse La Galisse is an error. The French pleasantly records the exploits of the celebrated Monsieur de la Galisse. Many of Goldsmith's lighter poems are borrowed from the French.

C.

Sapcote Motto (Vol. i., pp. 366. and 476.).—Taking for granted that solutions of the "Sapcote Motto" are scarce, I send you what seems to me something nearer the truth than the arbitrary and unsatisfactory translation of T.C. (Vol. i, p. 476.).

The motto stands thus:—

Adopting T.C.'s suggestion that the initial and final s are mere flourishes (though that makes little difference), and also his supposition that c may have been used for s, and as I fancy, not unreasonably conjecturing that the × is intended for dis, which is something like the pronunciation of the numeral X, we may then take the entire motto, without garbling it, and have sounds representing que toute disunis dispenses; which, grammatically and orthographically corrected, would read literally "all disunions cost," or "destroy," the equivalent of our "Union is strength." The motto, with the arms, three dove-cotes, is admirably suggestive of family union.

W.C.

Lines attributed to Lord Palmerston (Vol. i., p. 382.).—These lines have also been attributed to Mason.

S.S.S.

Shipster (Vol. i., p. 339.).—That "ster" is a feminine termination is the notion of Tyrwhitt in a note upon Hoppesteris in a passage of Chaucer (Knight's Tale, l. 2019.); but to ignorant persons it seems not very probable. "Maltster," surely, is not feminine, still less "whipster;" "dempster," Scotch, is a judge. Sempstress has another termination on purpose to make it feminine.

I wish we had a dictionary, like that of Hoogeven for Greek, arranging words according to their terminations.

C.B.

Miscellanies.

Blue Boar Inn, Holborn.—The reviewer in the last "Quarterly" of Mr. Cunningham's Handbook for London, makes an error in reference to the extract from Morrice's Life of Lord Orrery, given by Mr. Cunningham under the head of "Blue Boar Inn, Holborn," and transcribed by the reviewer (Qu. Rev. vol. lxxxvi., p. 474.). Morrice, Lord Orrery's biographer, relates a story which he says Lord Orrery had told him, that he had been told by Cromwell and Ireton of their intercepting a letter from Charles I. to his wife, which was sewn up in the skirt of a saddle. The story may or may not be true; this authority for it is not first-rate. The Quarterly reviewer, in transcribing from Mr. Cunningham's book the passage in Morrice's Life of Lord Orrery, introduces it by saying,—"Cromwell, in a letter to Lord Broghill, narrates circumstantially how he and Ireton intercept, &c." This is a mistake; there is no letter from Cromwell to Lord Broghill on the subject. (Lord Broghill was Earl of Orrery after the Restoration.) Such a letter would be excellent authority for the story. The mistake, which is the Quarterly reviewer's, and not Mr. Cunningham's, is of some importance.

C.H.

Lady Morgan and Curry.—An anecdote in the last number of the Quarterly Review, p. 477., "this is the first set down you have given me to-day," reminds me of an incident in Dublin society some quarter of a century ago or more. The good-humoured and accomplished—Curry (shame to me to have forgotten his christened name for the moment!) had been engaged in a contest of wit with Lady Morgan and another female célébrité, in which Curry had rather the worst of it. It was the fashion then for ladies to wear very short sleeves; and Lady Morgan, albeit not a young woman, with true provincial exaggeration, wore none, a mere strap over her shoulders. Curry was walking away from her little coterie, {31} when she called out, "Ah! come back Mr. Curry, and acknowledge that you are fairly beaten." "At any rate," said he, turning round, "I have this consolation, you can't laugh at me in your sleeve!"

Scotus.

Sir Walter Scott and Erasmus.—Has it yet been noticed that the picture of German manners in the middle ages given by Sir W. Scott, in his Anne of Geierstein (chap. xix.), is taken (in some parts almost verbally) from Erasmus' dialogue, Diversoria? Although Sir Walter mentions Erasmus at the beginning of the chapter, he is totally silent as to any hints he may have got from him; neither do the notes to my copy of his works at all allude to this circumstance.

W.G.S.

Parallel Passages.—A correspondent in Vol. i., p. 330, quoted some parallels to a passage in Shakspeare's Julius Cæsar. Will you allow me to add another, I think even more striking than those he cited. The full passage in Shakspeare is,

In Bacon's Advancement of Learning, book 2, occurs the following:—

"In the third place, I set down reputation because of the peremptory tides and currents it hath, which, if they be not taken in due time, are seldom recovered, it being extreme hard to play an after game of reputation."

E.L.N.

Gray's Ode.—In return for the information about Gray's Ode, I send an entertaining and very characteristic circumstance told in Mrs. Bigg's (anonymous) Residence in France (edited by Gifford):—

"She had a copy of Gray when she was arrested in the Reign of Terror. The Jacobins who searched her goods lighted on the line—

and said, 'Apparemment ce livre est quelque chose de fanatique.'"

My informant tells me that the monk he saw was the same as the one mentioned by your correspondent, and that he had a motto from Lord Bacon over his cell.

C.B.

The Grand Style.—Is it not extremely probable that Bonaparte plagiarised the idea of the centuries observing the French army from the pyramids from these lines of Lucan?—

"Sæcula Romanos nunquam tacitura labore, Attendunt, oevumque sequens speculatur ab omni Orbe ratem."—Phars. viii. 622.

One of the recent French revolutionists (I think Rollin) compared himself with the victim of Calvary. Even this profane rant is a plagiarism. Gracchus Baboeuf, who headed the extreme republican party against the Directory, exclaimed, on his trial, that his wife, and those of his fellow-conspirators, "should accompany them even to Calvary, because the cause of their punishment should not bring them to shame."—Mignet's French Revolution, chap. xii.

J.F. Boyes.

Hoppesteris.—The "shippis hoppesteris," in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, 2019., is explained by Tyrwhitt to mean dancing, and that in the feminine—a very odd epithet. He tells us that the corresponding epithet in Boccaccio is bellatrici. I have no doubt that Chaucer mistook it for ballatrici.

C.B.

Sheridan's Last Residence (Vol. i., p. 484.).—I wonder at any doubt about poor Sheridan's having died in his own house, 17. Saville Row. His remains, indeed, were removed (I believe for prudential reasons which I need not specify) to Mr. Peter Moore's, in Great George Street; but he was never more than a temporary, though frequent visitor at Mr. Moore's.

C.

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, CATALOGUES, SALES, ETC.

The Devices and Mottoes of the later Middle Ages (Die Devisen und Motto des Späteren Mittelalters, von J.V. Radowitz), just imported by Messrs. Williams and Norgate, is one of those little volumes which such of our readers as are interested in the subject to which it relates should make a note of. They will, in addition to many novel instances of Devices, Mottoes, Emblems, &c., find much curious learning upon the subjects, and many useful bibliographical references.

Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson still sell, on Saturday next, the very beautiful collection of Oriental Manuscripts of the late Dr. Scott; on Monday and Tuesday, his Medical Library; on Wednesday, his valuable Collection of Music; and on Thursday, his Philosophical and Mathematical Instruments, Fire-arms, and other miscellaneous objects of interest.

We have received the following catalogues:—John Petheram's (94. High Holborn) Catalogue, Part CXII., No. 6. for 1850 of Old and New Books; W.S. Lincoln's (Cheltenham House, Westminster Road) Fifty-Seventh Catalogue of Cheap Second-hand Books, English and Foreign; James Sage's (4. Newman's Row, Lincoln's Inn Fields) Miscellaneous List of Valuable and Interesting Books; Edward Stibbs' (331. Strand) Catalogue of Miscellaneous Collection of Books, comprising Voyages, Travels, Biography, History, Poetry, Drama, &c.

Notices to Correspondents.

Index and Title-Page to Volume the First. The Index is preparing as rapidly as can be, consistently with fullness and accuracy, and we hope to have that and the Title page ready by the 15th of the Month.

Covers for the First Volume are preparing, and will be ready for Subscribers with the Title-Page and Index.

NEW WORKS IN GENERAL LITERATURE.

I.

MEMOIRS OF THE DUKES OF URBINO (1440 to 1630). By JAMES DENNISTOUN, of Dennistoun. With numerous Portraits, Plates, Facsimiles, and Woodcuts. 3 vols. square crown 8vo. 2l. 8s.

II.

SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. From "The Spectator". With Notes, &c., by W.H. WILLIS and Twelve fine Woodcuts from drawings by F. TAYLER. Crown 8vo. 15s.; morocco, 27s.

III.

Mrs. JAMESON'S SACRED and LEGENDARY ART or, LEGENDS of the SAINTS and MARTYRS. New Edition, complete in One Volume with Etchings by the Author, and Woodcuts. Square crown 8vo. 28s.

IV.

Mrs. JAMESON'S LEGENDS OF THE SAINTS AND MARTYRS, as represented in the Fine Arts. With Etchings by the Author, and Woodcuts. Square crown 8vo. 28s.

V.

THE CHURCH IN THE CATACOMBS: a Description of the Primitive Church of Rome. BY CHARLES MAITLAND. New Edition, with Woodcuts. 8vo. 14s.

VI.

Mr. MACAULAY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, from the Accession of James II. New Edition. Vols. I. and II. 8vo. 32s.

VII.

JOHN COAD'S MEMORANDUM of the SUFFERINGS of the REBELS sentenced to Transportation by Judge Jeffreys. Square fcap. 8vo. 4s. 6d.

VIII.

AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH ANTIQUITIES. Intended as a Companion to the History of England. BY JAMES ECCLESTON. With many Wood Engravings. 8vo. 12s.

IX.

Mr. A. RICH'S ILLUSTRATED COMPANION to the LATIN DICTIONARY and GREEK LEXICON. With about 2,000 Woodcuts, from the Antique. Post 8vo. 21s.

X.

MAUNDER'S TREASURY OF KNOWLEDGE and LIBRARY of REFERENCE: a Compendium of Universal Knowledge. New Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 10s.; bound 12s.

XI.

MAUNDER'S BIOGRAPHICAL TREASURY; a New Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Biography; comprising about 12,000 Memoirs. New Edition, with Supplement. Fcap. 8vo. 10s. bound, 12s.

XII.

MAUNDER'S SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY TREASURY: a copious portable Encyclopædia of Science and the Belles Lettres. New Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 10s.; bound, 12s.

XIII.

MAUNDER'S HISTORICAL TREASURY: comprising an Outline of General History, and a separate History of every Nation. New Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 10s. bound, 12s.

XIV.

MAUNDER'S TREASURY OF NATURAL HISTORY, or, a Popular Dictionary of Animated Nature. New Edition; with 900 Woodcuts. Fcap. 8vo. 10s.; bound, 12s.

XV.

SOUTHEY'S COMMON-PLACE BOOK. First series—CHOICE PASSAGES, &c. Second edition with Medallion Portrait. Square crown 8vo. 18s.

XVI.

SOUTHEY'S COMMON-PLACE BOOK SECOND SERIES—SPECIAL COLLECTIONS. Edited by the REV. J.W. WARTER, B.D., the Author's Son-in-Law. Square crown 8vo. 18s.

XVII.

SOUTHEY'S COMMON-PLACE BOOK. THIRD SERIES—ANALYTICAL READINGS. Edited by Mr. SOUTHEY's Son-in-Law, the Rev. J.W. WARTER, B.D. Square crown 8vo. 21s.

XVIII.

SOUTHEY'S COMMON-PLACE BOOK. FOURTH AND CONCLUDING SERIES—ORIGINAL MEMORANDA, &c. Edited by the Rev. J.W. WARTER, B.D., Mr. SOUTHEY's Son-in-Law. Square crown 8vo. [Nearly Ready.

XIX.

SOUTHEY'S THE DOCTOR. &c. Complete in One Volume, with Portrait, Bust, Vignette, and coloured Plate. Edited by the Rev. J.W. WARTER, B.D., the Author's Son-in-Law. Square crown 8vo. 21s.

XX.

SOUTHEY'S LIFE and CORRESPONDENCE. Edited by his Son, the Rev. C.C. SOUTHEY, M.A., with Portraits and Landscape Illustrations. 6 vols. post 8vo. 63s.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

Footnote 1: (return)

We have collated the list with the Population Returns (Parish Register abstract) 1831, and noted any difference. In addition to the list given from Sir Geo. Nayler's MS. the following early registers were extant in 1831:—

1538. Allhallows, Bread Street; Allhallows, Honey

Lane; Christ Church; St. Mary-le-bow;

St. Matthew, Friday Street; St. Michael

Bassishaw; St. Pancras, Soper Lane.

1539. St. Martin, Ironmonger Lane; St. Martin Ludgate; St. Michael, Crooked Lane.

1547. St. George, Botolph Lane, at the commencement of which are 22 entries from tombs, 1390-1410.

1558. Allhallows the Less; St. Andrew, Wardrope; St. Bartholomew, Exchange; St. Christopher-le-Stock; St. Mary-at-Hill, St. Michael le Quern; St. Michael, Royal; St. Olave, Jewry; St. Thomas the Apostle; St. Botolph, Bishopsgate.

1559. St. Augustine; St. Margaret, Moses; St. Michael, Wood Street.

1560. St. Magnus.

Footnote 2: (return)

Note in the Book—There are registers before this in the hands of Mr. Pridden.

Footnote 3: (return)

See Latham's English Language, 2nd edition, p. 211

Footnote 4: (return)

Query: May not this be another version of the same story, quoted by your correspondent, B.A., of Christ Church, Oxford, from Monteith, (in Vol. i. p. 475.), of the Jews desiring to buy the Library of Oxford?

Printed by Thomas Clark Shaw, of No. 8. New Street Square, at No. 5. New Street Square, in the Parish of St. Bride, in the City of London; and published by George Bell, of No. 186. Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Dunstan in the West, in the City of London, Publisher, at No. 186. Fleet Street aforesaid.—Saturday, June 8. 1850.