{401}

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.

AUTHORSHIP OF "HENRY VIII."

In returning to the question of the authorship of Henry VIII., I am anxious to remove a misconception under which MR. SPEDDING appears to labour relative to the purport of a remark I made in my last communication to you (Vol. ii., p. 198.) on this subject. As we appear to be perfectly agreed as to the reasons for assigning a considerable portion of this play to Fletcher, and as upon this basis we have each worked out a result that so exactly coincides with the other, I conclude that MR. SPEDDING, as well as myself, has rested his theory solely on positive grounds; that is, that he imagines there is strong internal evidence in favour of all that he ascribes to this writer. It follows, therefore that the "third hand" which he thought he detected must be sought rather in what remained to Shakspeare, than in that which had been already taken from him. I never for an instant doubted that this was MR. SPEDDING's view; but the inequality which I supposed he had observed and accounted for in this way, I was disposed to refer to a mode of composition that must needs have been troublesome to Shakspeare. The fact is, that, with one or two exceptions, the scenes contributed by the latter are more tamely written than any but the earliest among his works; and these, different as they are, they recalled to my mind. But I have no doubt whatever that these scenes were all written about the same time; my feeling being, that after the opening Shakspeare ceased to feel any great interest in the work. Fletcher, on the other hand, would appear to have made a very great effort; and though some portions of the work I ascribe to him are tedious and overlaboured, no censure would weigh very strongly against the fact, that for more than two centuries they have been applauded as the work of Shakspeare.

As to the circumstances under which Henry VIII. was composed, it is an exceedingly difficult question; and if I venture, on the present occasion, to give the impression upon my mind, I do so, reserving to myself the full right to change my opinion whenever I shall have acquired more knowledge of the subject, or, from any other motive, shall see fit to do it. I consider this case, then, as one of joint authorship; in point of time not much later than the Two Noble Kinsmen, and in other respects similar to that play. If the conclusions of the article in the Westminster Review, to which MR. SPEDDING alludes, be accepted, the writer of the introductory notice to Henry VIII. in the Illustrated Shakspeare, published by Tyas, will recognise the "reverent disciple" whom he hints at, but does not name. In short, I think that {402} Fletcher was the pupil of Shakspeare; and this view, it appears to me, demands the serious attention of the biographer who next may study or speculate upon the great poet's life.

I don't know that I can add anything to MR. SPEDDING'S able analysis of Henry VIII. There are certain tricks of expression he, no doubt, has observed that characterise Fletcher's style, and which abound in the play. It might be useful to make notes of these; and, at some future time, I may send you a selection. I now beg to send you the following extracts, made some time ago, showing the doubts entertained by previous writers on the subject:—

"Though it is very difficult to decide whether short pieces be genuine or spurious, yet I cannot restrain myself from expressing my suspicion that neither the prologue nor epilogue to this play is the work of Shakspeare. It appears to me very likely that they were supplied by the friendship or officiousness of Jonson, whose manner they will be perhaps found exactly to resemble."—Johnson.

"Play revived in 1613." "Prologue and epilogue added by Jonson or some other person."—Malone.

"I entirely agree with Dr. Johnson, that Ben Jonson wrote the prologue and epilogue to this play. Shakspeare had a little before assisted him in his Sejanus.... I think I now and then perceive his hand in the dialogue."—Farmer.

"That Jonson was the author of the prologue and epilogue to this play has been controverted by Mr. Gifford. That they were not the composition of Shakspeare himself is, I think, clear from internal evidence."—Boswell.

"I entirely agree with Dr. Johnson with respect to the time when these additional lines were inserted.... I suspect they were added in 1613, after Shakspeare had quitted the stage, by that hand which tampered with the other parts of the play so much as to have rendered the versification of it of a different colour from all the other plays of Shakspeare."—Malone.

"If the reviver of this play (or tamperer with it, as he is called by Mr. Malone) had so much influence over its numbers as to have entirely changed their texture, he must be supposed to have new-woven the substance of the whole piece; a fact almost incredible."—Steevens.

The double character of Wolsey drawn by Queen Katherine and her attendant, is a piece of vigorous writing of which any other author but Shakspeare might have been proud; and the celebrated farewell of the Cardinal, with his exhortation to Cromwell, only wants that quickening, that vital something which the poet could have breathed into it, to be truly and almost incomparably great.

"Our own conviction is that Shakspeare wrote a portion only of this play.

"It cannot for a moment be supposed that any alteration of Shakspeare's text would be necessary, or would be allowed; as little is it to be supposed that Shakspeare would commence a play in his old-accustomed, various, and unequalled verse, and finish it in the easy, but somewhat lax and familiar, though not inharmonious numbers of a reverent disciple."—Tyas's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 441.

At the same time I made the following notes from Coleridge:—

"It (the historical drama) must likewise be poetical; that only, I mean, must be taken which is the permanent in our nature, which is common, and therefore deeply interesting to all ages."—Lit. Rem., vol. ii. p.160.

What is said in this last extract might be applied (as Coleridge, I feel no doubt, had he gone one step farther into the subject, would have applied it) to the Shakspearian drama generally; and tried by this test Henry VIII. must certainly be found wanting.

Before I conclude I am anxious to make an observation with regard to the extract from Mr. Emerson's Representative Men (vol. ii. p. 307.). The essay from which this is taken, I presume to be the same, in a printed form, as a lecture which I heard that gentleman deliver. With abundant powers to form a judgment for himself, I should say that his mind had never been directed to questions of this nature. Accident, perhaps, had drawn his attention to the style of Henry VIII.; but, with reference to the general subject, he had received implicitly and unquestioned the conclusions of authorities who have represented Shakspeare as the greatest borrower, plagiarist, and imitator that all time has brought forth. This, however, did not shake his faith in the poet's greatness; and to reconcile what to some would appear contradictory positions, he proposes the fact, I might say the truism, that the greatest man is not the most original, but the "most indebted" man. This, in the sense in which it is true, is saying no more than that the educated man is better than the savage; but, in the apologetic sense intended, it is equivalent to affirming that the greatest thief is the most respectable man. Confident in this morality, he assumes a previous play to Shakspeare's; but it appears to me that he relies too much upon the "cadence" of the lines: otherwise I could not account for his selecting as an "autograph" a scene that, to my mind, bears "unmistakeable traits" of Fletcher's hand, and that, by whomsoever written, is about the weakest in the whole play.

It is a branch of the subject which I have not yet fully considered; but MR. SPEDDING will observe that the view I take does not interfere with the supposition that Fletcher revised the play, {403} with additions for its revival in 1613; a task for the performance of which he would probably have the consent of his early master.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

ON AUTHORS AND BOOKS, NO. IX.

Eustache Deschamps. Except in the two centuries next after the conquest, contemporaneous French notices of early English writers seem to be of rather infrequent occurrence.

On this account, and on other accounts, the ballad addressed to Geoffrey Chaucer by Eustache Deschamps deserves repetition. Its text requires to be established, in order that we may be aware of its real obscurities—for no future memoir of Chaucer can be considered as complete, without some reference to it.

The best authorities on Eustache Deschamps are MM. Crapelet, Raynouard, and Paulin Paris. To M. Crapelet we are indebted for the publication of Poésies morales et historiques d'Eustache Deschamps; to M. Raynouard, for an able review of the volume in the Journal des Savants; and to M. Paulin Paris, for an account of the manuscript in which the numerous productions of the author are preserved. Of the author himself, the learned M. Paris thus writes:—

"On pourroit surnommer Eustache Deschamps le Rutebeuf du XIV^e siècle.—Ses oeuvres comprennent des épitres, des discours en prose, des jeux dramatiques, des ouvrages latins, des apologues, un grand poème moral, et un infinité de ballades et rondeaux pieux, bouffons, satiriques," &c.

Two impressions of the ballad in question are before me; one, in the Life of Geoffrey Chaucer by sir Harris Nicholas, dated 1843—and the other in a volume entitled Geoffrey Chaucer, poète anglais du XIV^e siècle. Analyses et Fragments par H. Gomont, Paris, 1847.—I transcribe the ballad from the latter volume, as less accessible to English students:—

The new readings are in Italics, and I shall now repeat them with the corresponding words as printed by sir Harris Nicolas:—

"Anglais=angles; Ouï des grans=Ovides grans; Virgiles=Aigles; d'Angela=dangels; sont=font; A ja=N'a pas; buvraige=ouvrage; rafrener=rafrecir; soif=soix; Qui men=Qu'en ma; En=Et."

After such an exhibition of various readings, arising out of only two copies of the same manuscript, it is evident that a re-collation of it is very desirable, and I am sure the result would be thankfully received by the numerous admirers of Chaucer.

BOLTON CORNEY.

Eustache Deschamps (Vol. ii., p. 376.).—J.M.B. is desirous of learning some particulars of this French poet, contemporaneous with Chaucer. He will find a brief notice of him in the Recueil de Chants Historiques Français, depuis le XIIème jusqu'au XVIIIème Siècle, by Le Roux de Lincy (2 vols. Paris, 1841, Libraire de Charles Espelin). He is there described as,

"Ecuyer et huissier d'armes des rois Charles V. et Charles VI., qui resta toujours fidèle à la maison de France;"

And the editor adds:

"Les œuvres d'Eustache Deschamps contiennent pour l'histoire du XIVème siècle des renseignemens précieux; on peut y recueillir des faits politiques qui ne sont pas sans importance, mais on y trouve en plus grand nombre des détails précieux sur les mœurs, les usages, et les coutumes de cette époque."

His poems were published for the first time in one vol. 8vo., in 1832, by M. Crapelet, with this title: {404}

"Poésies morales et historiques d'Eustache Deschamps, écuyer, huissier d'armes des rois Charles V. et Charles VI., chatelain de Fismes et bailli de Senlis."

As regards the "genuineness" of the poem cited, I am inclined, with J.M.B., to think that it admits of question, the orthography savouring more of the end of the fifteenth than of the close of the fourteenth century. I am sorry not to be able to explain the meaning of "la langue Pandras."

D.C.

NOTES ON THE SECOND EDITION OF MR. CUNNINGHAM'S HANDBOOK OF LONDON.

21. New Tunbridge Wells, at Islington.—This fashionable morning lounge of the nobility and gentry during the early part of the eighteenth century, is omitted by Mr. Cunningham. There is a capital view of it in Bickham's Musical Entertainer, 1737:

"These once beautiful tea-gardens (we remember them as such) were formerly in high repute. In 1733 their Royal Highnesses the Princesses Amelia and Caroline frequented them in the summer time for the purpose of drinking the waters. They have furnished a subject for pamphlets, poems, plays, songs, and medical treatises, by Ned Ward, George Colman the older, Bickham, Dr. Hugh Smith, &c. Nothing now remains of them but the original chalybeate spring, which is still preserved in an obscure nook, amidst a poverty-stricken and squalid rookery of misery and vice."—George Daniel's Merrie England in the Olden Time, vol. i. p. 31.

22. London Spa (from which Spa Fields derives its name) dates as far back as 1206. In the eighteenth century, it was a celebrated place of amusement. There is a curious view of "London Spaw" in a rare pamphlet entitled May-Day, or, The Original of Garlands. Printed for J. Roberts, 1720, 8vo.

23. Spring Gardens.—Cox's Museum is described in the printed catalogue of 1774, as being in "Spring Gardens." In the same year a small volume was published containing A Collection of various Extracts in Prose and Verse relative to Cox's Museum.

24. The Pantheon in Spa Fields.—This place of amusement was opened in 1770 for the sale of tea, coffee, wine, punch, &c. It had an organ, and a spacious promenade and galleries. In 1780 it was converted into a lay-chapel by the Countess of Huntingdon, and is now known as Northampton or Spa Fields Chapel. Mr. Cunningham speaks of the burying-ground (originally the garden), but singularly enough omits to notice the chapel.

25. Baldwin's Gardens, running between Leather Lane and Gray's Inn Lane, were, according to a stone which till lately was to have been seen against a corner house, bearing the arms of Queen Elizabeth, named after Richard Baldwin, one of the royal gardeners, who began building here in 1589.

26. Rathbone Place.—In an old print (now before me) dated 1722, this street is called "Rawbone Place." The Percy coffee-house is still in existence.

27. Surrey Institution, Blackfriars Road.—This building was originally erected, and for some years appropriated to the Leverian Museum. This magnificent museum of natural history was founded by Sir Ashton Lever, who died in 1788. It was afterwards disposed of by way of lottery, and won by Mr. James Parkinson, who transferred it from Leicester Place to the Surrey side of Blackfriars bridge.

28. Schomberg House, Pall Mall, (now, I believe, about to be pulled down), was once the residence of that celebrated "quack" Dr. Graham. Here, in 1783, he erected his Temple of Health. He afterwards removed to Panton Street, Haymarket, where he first exhibited his Earth Bath. I do not find any mention of Graham in Mr. Cunningham's book.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

FOLK LORE.

Laying a Ghost.—Frequent mention is made of the laying of ghosts, and in many localities the tradition of such an event is extant. At Cumnor, Lady Dudley (Amy Robsart's) ghost is said to have been laid by nine Oxford parsons, and the tradition is still preserved by the villagers; but nowhere have I been able to ascertain what was the ceremony on such an occasion.

Is anything known on the subject?

A.D.B.

Abingdon, Nov. 1850.

A Test of Witchcraft.—Among the many tests applied for the discovery of witchcraft was the following. It is, I believe, a singular instance, and but little known to the public. It was resorted to as recently as 1759, and may be found in the Gentleman's Magazine of that year.

"One Susannah Hannokes, an elderly woman of Wingrove, near Ayleshbury, was accused by a neighbour for bewitching her spinning-wheel, so that she could not make it go round, and offered to make oath of it before a majistrate; on which the husband, to justify his wife, insisted upon her being tried by the Church Bible, and that the accuser should be present: accordingly she was conducted to the parish church, where she was stript of all her cloathes to her shift and undercoat, and weighed against the Bible; when, to the no small mortification of her accuser, she outweighed it, and was honorably acquitted of the charge."

A.D.N.

Abingdon, Nov. 1850.

{405}

MINOR NOTES.

Quin's incoherent Story.—The comic story of Sir Gammer Vans (Vol. ii., p. 280.) reminds me of an anecdote related of Quin, who is said to have betted Foote a wager that he would speak some nonsense which Foote could not repeat off-hand after him. Quin then produced the following string of incoherences:—

"So she went into the garden to pick a cabbage leaf, to make an apple-pie of; and a she-bear, coming up the street, put her head into the shop, and said 'Do you sell any soap?' So she died, and he very imprudently married the barber; and the powder fell out of the counsellor's wig, and poor Mrs. Mackay's puddings were quite entirely spoilt; and there were present the Garnelies, and the Goblilies, and the Picninnies, and the Great Pangendrum himself, with the little round button at top, and they played at the ancient game of 'Catch who catch can,' till the gunpowder ran out of the heels of their boots."

L.

Touchstone's Dial.—Mr. Knight, in a note on As You Like It, gives us the description of a dial presented to him by a friend who had picked it "out of a deal of old iron," and which he supposes to be such a one as the "fool i' the forest" drew from his poke, and looked on with lacklustre eye. It is very probable that this species of chronometer is still in common use in the sister kingdom; for my brother mentions to me that, when at school in Ireland some fifteen or sixteen years since, he had seen one of those "ring-dials" in the possession of one of his schoolfellows: and Mr. Carleton, in his amusing Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry, thus describes them:—

"The ring-dial was the hedge-schoolmaster's next best substitute for a watch. As it is possible that a great number of our readers may never have heard of—much less seen one, we shall in a word or two describe it—nothing indeed could be more simple. It was a bright brass ring, about three quarters of an inch broad, and two inches and a half in diameter. There was a small hole in it, which, when held opposite the sun, admitted the light against the inside of the ring behind. On this were marked the hours and the quarters, and the time was known by observing the hour or the quarter on which the slender ray, that came in from the hole in front, fell."

J.M.B.

America and Tartary.—

"Un jésuite rencontra en Tartarie une femme huronne qu'il avoit connue au Canada: il conclut de cette étrange aventure, que le continent de l'Amérique se rapproche au nord-ouest du continent de l'Asie, et il devina ainsi l'existence du détroit qui, longtemps après, a fait la gloire de Bering et de Cook."—Chateaubriand, Génie du Christianisme, Partie 4., Livre 4., Chap. 1.

Yet, with all deference to the edifying letters of this missionary jesuit, it is difficult to make such distant ends meet. It almost requires a copula like that of the fool, who, to reconcile his lord's assertion that he had with a single bullet shot a deer in the ear and the hind foot, explained that the deer was scratching his ear at the time with his foot.

Subjoined is one more proof of the communication which once existed between America and the Old World:

Colomb disoit même avoir vu les restes des fourneaux de Salomon dans les mines de Cibao."—Chateaubriand, Génie, Notes, &c.

MANLEIUS.

Deck of Cards.—

It is well known, and properly noted, that a pack of cards was formerly called a deck; but it should be added that the term is still commonly used in Ireland, and from being made use of in the famed song of "De Night before Larry was stretched,"

it seems likely to be preserved. I may add, that many words and many forms of expression which have gone out of vogue in England, or have become provincial, are still in daily use in Ireland.

J.M.B.

Time when Herodotus wrote.—The following passage appears to me to afford strong evidence, not only that Herodotus did not complete his history till an advanced age, but that he did not begin it. For in lib. i. 5. he writes: "τα δε επ' εμου ην μεγαλα, προτερον ην σμικρα," "those cities, which in my time were great, were of old small." This is certainly such an expression as none but a man advanced in years could have used. It is perhaps worth observing, that this passage occurring in the Introduction does not diminish its weight, as the events recorded in it, leading naturally into the history, could not well have been written afterwards. As I have never seen this passage noticed with this view. I shall be glad to see whether the argument which I have deduced from it appears a reasonable one to your classical readers.

A.W.H.

"Dat veniam corvis," &c.—There were two headmasters of the school of Merchant Taylors, of the respective names of Du Guard and Stevens: the former having printed Salmasius' Defensio Regia, was ejected by Lord President Bradshaw; and the latter held the vacant post in the interim, from February to September, 1650. He wrote during his tenure of office in the School Probation Book."— {406}

On his restoration Du Gard pleasantly retorted,—

M.W.

QUERIES.

DRYDEN'S "ABSALOM AND ACHITOPHEL."

In my small library I have neither Malone's Life of Dryden, nor that of more recent date by Sir Walter Scott; and, possibly, either of those works would render my present Query needless. It relates to a copy of Absalom and Achitophel now lying before me, which is a mere chap-book, printed on bad paper, in the most economical manner, and obviously intended to be sold at a very reasonable rate: indeed, at the bottom of the title-page, which is dated "1708," we are told that it was "Printed and sold by H. Hills, in Black-fryars, near the Water-side, for the Benefit of the Poor." It consists of twenty-four pages, small 8vo., and, in order that the poem should not occupy too much space, one of the pages (p. 22.) is in a smaller type, and in double columns. At the end is the following singular

"ADVERTISEMENT.

"To prevent the publicks being impos'd on, this is to give notice that the book lately published in 4to. is very imperfect and uncorrect, in so much that above thirty lines are omitted in several places, and many gross errors committed, which pervert the sense."

The above is in Italic type, and the body of the tract consists of only the first part of Absalom and Achitophel, as ordinarily printed: allowing for misprints (which are tolerably numerous), the poem stands very much the same as in several common editions I have at hand. My Query is, Is the work known to have been so published "for the benefit of the poor," and in order to give it greater circulation, and what is the explanation of the "Advertisement?"

THE HERMIT OF HOLYPORT.

N.B. A short "Key" follows the usual address "To the Reader."

MINOR QUERIES.

Edward the Confessor's Crucifix and Gold Chain.—In 1688 Ch. Taylour published A Narrative of the Finding St. Edward the King and Confessor's Crucifix and Gold Chain in the Abbey Church of St. Peter's, Westminster. Are the circumstances attending this discovery well known? And where now is the crucifix and chain?

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

The Widow of the Wood.—Benjamin Victor published in 1755 a "narrative" entitled The Widow of the Wood. It is said to be very rare, having been "bought up" by the Wolseleys of Staffordshire. What is the history of the publication?

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

Cardinal Erskine.—I am anxious to obtain some information respecting Cardinal Erskine, a Scotchman, as his name would impart, but called Cardinal of England? I suppose he was elevated to the sacred college between Cardinal Howard, the last mentioned by Dodd in his Church History, and the Cardinal of York, the last scion of the house of Stuart.

And is the following a correct list of English Cardinals since Wolsey, who died in 1530?

Both the latter were born abroad, the former at Naples, the latter at Seville; but they were born of British subjects, and were brought to England at an early age to be educated. The Cardinal of York was born in Rome; but being of the royal family of England, was always styled the Cardinal of England.

G.W.

October 26. 1850.

Thomas Regiolapidensis.—Where can I find any information as to the saint who figures in the following curious story? Regiolapidensis may probably mean of Königstein, in Saxony; but Albon Butler takes no notice of this Thomas.

"Incipit narratiuncula e libro vingto, cui titular Vita atq. Gesta B. Thomæ Regiolapidensis, ex ordine FF. Prædicatorum, excerpta.

"Quum verò prædicator indefensus, missionum ecclesiasticarum causâ, in borealibus versaretur partibus, miraculum ibi stupendum sanè patravit. Conspexit enim taurum ingentem, vaccarum (sicut poëta quidam ex ethnicis ait) 'magnâ comitante catervâ,' in prato quodam graminoso ferocientem, maceriâ tantum bassâ inter se et belluam istam horrendam interpositâ. Constitit Thomas, constitit et bos, horribiliter rugiens, caudâ erectâ, cornibus immaniter sæviens, ore spumam, naribus vaporem, oculis fulgur emittens, maceriam transsilire, in virum sanctum irruere, corpusque ejus venerabile in aëra jactitare, visibiliter nimis paratus. {407} Thomas autem, eaptâ occasione, oculos in monstrum obfirmat, signumque crucis magneticum in modum indesinenter ducere aggreditur, En portentum inauditum! geminis belluae luminibus illico palpebrae obducuntur, titubat taurus, cadit, ac, signo magnetico sopitus, primò raucum stertens, mox infantiliter placidum trahens halitum, humi pronus recumbit. Nec moratus donec hostis iste cornutus somnum excuteret, viv sanctus ad hospitium se propinquum laetus inde incolumisque recepit."

RUSTICUS.

"Her Brow was fair."—Can any of your many readers inform me of the author of the following lines, which I copy as I found them quoted in Dr. Armstrong's Lectures:

J.M.B.

Hoods warn by Doctors of Divinity of Aberdeen.—Will you allow me to inquire, through the pages of your publication, of what colour and material the exterior and lining of hoods were composed which Doctors in Divinity, who had graduated at Aberdeen, Glasgow, and St. Andrew's, prior to the Reformation, were accustomed to wear? I imagine, the same as those worn by Doctors who had graduated at Paris: but what hoods they wore I know not. I trust that some of your correspondents will enlighten me upon this subject.

LL.D.

Irish Brigade.—Where can I find any account of the institution and history of the Irish brigade, a part of the army of France under the Bourbons?

J.D.

Bath.

Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.—In the charge delivered by the Bishop of London to his clergy, on the 2nd instant, the following passage occurs:

"It is not easy to say what the members of that Church [the Church of Rome] are required to believe now; it is impossible for men to foresee what they may be called upon to admit as an article of faith next year, or in any future year: for instance, till of late it was open to a Roman Catholic to believe or not, as he might see reason, the fanciful notion of the immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin; but the present Bishop of Rome has seen fit to make it an article of their faith; and no member of his church can henceforth question it without denying the infallibility of his spiritual sovereign, and so hazarding, as it is asserted, his own salvation."

Can any of your correspondents inform me where the papal decision on this point is to be found?

L.

Gospel Oak Tree at Kentish Town.—Can you inform me why an ancient oak tree, in a field at Kentish Town, is called the "Gospel Oak Tree." It is situated and grows in the field called the "Gospel Oak Field," Kentish Town, St. Pancras, Middlesex. Tradition says Saint Augustine, or one of the ancient Fathers of the Church, preached under its branches.

STEPHEN.

Arminian Nunnery in Huntingdonshire.—Where can I find an account of a religious academy called the Arminian Nunnery, founded by the family of the FERRARS, at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire? I have seen some MS. collections of Francis Peck on the subject, but they are formed in a bad spirit. Has not Thomas Hearne left us something about this institution?

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

Ruding's Annotated Langbaine.—Can any of your readers inform me who possesses the copy of Langbaine's Account of the English Dramatic Poets with MS. additions, and copious continuations, by the REV. ROGERS RUDING? In one of his notes, speaking of the Garrick collection of old plays, that industrious antiquary observes:

"This noble collection has lately (1784) been mutilated by tearing out such single plays as were duplicates to others in the Sloane Library. The folio editions of Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Jonson, have likewise been taken from it for the same reason."

This is a sad complaint against the Museum authorities of former times.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

Mrs. Tempest.—Can any of your correspondents give me any account of Mrs. (or, in our present style, Miss) Tempest, a young lady who died the day of the great storm in Nov., 1703, in honour of whom Pope's early friend Walshe wrote an elegiac pastoral, and invited Pope to give his "winter" pastoral "a turn to her memory." In the note on Pope's pastoral it is said that "she was of an ancient family in Yorkshire, and admired by Walshe." I have elsewhere read of her as "the celebrated Mrs. Tempest;" but I know of no other celebrity than that conferred by Walshe's pastoral; for Pope's has no special allusion to her.

C.

Sitting cross-legged.—In an alliterative poem on Fortune (Reliquiæ Antiquæ, ii. p. 9.), written early in the fifteenth century, are the following lines:—

The third line seems to illustrate those early illuminations in which kings and great personages are represented as sitting cross-legged. There are numerous examples of the A.-S. period. Was it {408} merely assumption of dignity, or was it not rather intended to ward off any evil influence which might affect the king whilst sitting, in his state? That this was a consideration of weight we learn from the passage in Bede, in which Ethelbert is described as receiving Augustine in the open air:

"Post dies ergo venit ad insulam rex, et residens sub divo jussit Augustinum cum sociis ad suum ibidem adveire colloquium; caverat enim ne in aliquam domum ad se introirent, vetere usus augurio, ne superventu suo, si quid maleficæ artis habuissent, eum superando deciperent."—Hist. Eccles., l. i. c. 25.

It was cross-legged that Lucina was sitting before the floor of Alemena when she was deceived by Galanthes. In Devonshire there is still a saying which recommends "sitting cross-legged to help persons on a journey;" and it is employed as a charm by schoolboys in order to avert punishment. (Ellis's Brand, iii. 258.) Were not the cross-legged effigies, formerly considered to be those of Crusaders, so arranged with an idea of the mysterious virtue of the position?

RICHARD J. KING.

Twickenham—Did Elizabeth visit Bacon there?—I believe all the authors who within the last sixty years have written on the history of Twickenham, Middlesex (and among the most known of these I may mention Lysons, Ironside, and John Norris Brewer), have, when mentioning Twickenham Park, formerly the seat of Lord Bacon, stated that he there entertained Queen Elizabeth. Of this circumstance I find no account in the works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His lordship entertained her at Gorhambury in one of her progresses; and I would ask if it be possible that Twickenham may have been mistaken for his other seat of Gorhambury? It is well known Queen Elizabeth passed much of the latter part of her life at Richmond, and ended her days there; and in Mr. Nares' Memoirs of Lord Burghley there is an account of her visit to Barn-Elms; and there is also a curious description of her visit to Kew (in that neighbourhood) in the Sydney Papers, published by Arthur Collins, in two vols. folio, vol. i. p. 376., in a letter from Rowland Whyte, Esq. Had Lord Bacon received her majesty, it must most probably have been in 1595. But perhaps some of your readers may be able to supply me with information on this subject.

D.N.

Burial towards the West.—The usual posture of the dead is with the feet eastward, and the head towards the west: the fitting attitude of men who look for their Lord, "whose name is The East," and who will come to judgement in the regions of the dawn suddenly. But it was the ancient usage of the Church that the martyr, the bishop, the saint, and even the priest, should occupy in their sepulture a position the reverse of the secular dead, and lie down with their feet westward, and their heads to the rising sun. The position of the crozier and the cross on ancient sepulchres of the clergy record and reveal this fact. The doctrine suggested by such a burial was, that these mighty men which were of old would be honoured with a first resurrection, and as their Master came on from the east, they were to arise and to follow the Lamb as He went; insomuch that they, with Him, would advance to the Judgement of the general multitudes,—the ancients and the saints which were worthy to judge and reign. Now, Sir, my purpose in this statement is to elicit, if I may, from your learned readers illustrations of this distinctive interment.

R.S. HAWKER.

Morwenstow.

Medal struck by Charles II.—Voltaire, in his Histoire de Charles XII., liv. 4., states that a medal was struck in commemoration of a victory which Charles XII. gained over the Russians, at a place named Hollosin, near the Boresthenes, in the year 1708. He adds that on one side of this medal was the epigraph, "Sylvæ, paludes, aggeres, hostes victi;" on the other the verse of Lucan:—

The verse of Lucan referred to is in lib. v. l.238.:

Query, Is the medal referred to by Voltaire known to exist? and if so, is the substitution of the unmetrical and prosaic word copias due to the author of the medal, or to Voltaire himself?

L.

National Debt.—What volumes, pamphlets, or paragraphs can be pointed out to the writer, in poetry or prose, alluding to the bribery, corruption, and abuses connected with the formation of the National Debt from 1698 to 1815?

F.H.B.

Midwives licensed.—In the articles to be inquired into in the province of Canterbury, anno 1571 (Grindal Rem., Park. Soc. 174-58), inquiry to be made

"Whether any use charms, or unlawful prayers, or invocations, in Latin or otherwise, and namely, midwives in the time of women's travail of child."

In the oath taken by Eleanor Pead before being licensed by the Archbishop to be a midwife a similar clause occurs; the words, "Also, I will not use any kind of sorcery or incantations in the time of the travail of any woman." Can any of your readers inform me what charms or prayers are here referred to, and at what period midwives ceased to be licensed by the Archbishop, or if any traces of such license are still found in Roman Catholic countries?

S.P.H.T.

{409}

REPLIES.

THE BLACK ROOD OF SCOTLAND.

(Vol. ii., p. 308.)

I am not aware of any record in which mention of this relique occurs before the time of St. Margaret. It seems very probable that the venerated crucifix which was so termed was one of the treasures which descended with the crown of the Anglo-Saxon kings. When the princess Margaret, with her brother Edgar, the lawful heir to the throne of St. Edward the Confessor, fled into Scotland, after the victory of William, she carried this cross with her amongst her other treasures. Aelred of Rievaulx (ap. Twysd. 350.) gives a reason why it was so highly valued, and some description of the rood itself:

"Est autem crux illa longitudinem habens palmæ de auro purissimo mirabili opere fabricats, quæ in modum techæ clauditur et aperitur. Cernitur in ea quædarn Dominicæ crucis portio, (sicut sæpe multorum miraculorum argumento probatum est). Salvatoris nostri ymaginem habens de ebore densissime sculptam et aureis distinctionibus mirabiliter decoratam."

St. Margaret appears to have destined it for the abbey which she and her royal husband, Malcolm III., founded at Dunfermline in honour of the Holy Trinity: and this cross seems to have engaged her last thoughts for her confessor relates that, when dying, she caused it to be brought to her, and that she embraced, and gazed steadfastly upon it, until her soul passed from time to eternity. Upon her death (16th Nov., 1093), the Black Rood was deposited upon the altar of Dunfermline Abbey, where St. Margaret was interred.

The next mention of it that I have been enabled to make note of, occurs in 1292, in the Catalogue of Scottish Muniments which were received within the Castle of Edinburgh, in the presence of the Abbots of Dunfermline and Holy Rood, and the Commissioners of Edward I., on the 23rd August in that year, and were conveyed to Berwick-upon-Tweed. Under the head

"Omnia ista inventa fuerunt in quadam cista in Dormitorio S. Crucis, et ibidem reposita prædictos Abbates et altos, sub ecrum sigillis."

we find

"Unum scrinium argenteum deauratum, in quo reponitur crux quo vocatur la blake rode."—Robertson's Index, Introd. xiii.

It does not appear that any such fatality was ascribed to this relique as that which the Scots attributed to the possession of the famous stone on which their kings were crowned, or it might be conjectured that when Edward I. brought "the fatal seat" from Scone to Westminster, he brought the Black Rood of Scotland too. That amiable and pleasing historian, Miss Strickland, has stated that the English viewed the possession of this relique by the Scottish kings with jealousy; that it was seized upon by Edward I., but restored on the treaty of peace in 1327. This statement is erroneous; the rood having been mistaken for the stone, which, by the way, as your readers know, was never restored.

We next find it in the possession of King David Bruce, who lost this treasured relique, with his own liberty, at the battle of Durham (18th Oct., 1346), and from that time the monks of Durham became its possessors. In the Description of the Ancient Monuments, Rites, and Customs of the Abbey Church of Durham, as they existed at the dissolution, which was written in 1593, and was published by Davies in 1672, and subsequently by the Surtees Society, we find it described as

"A most faire roode or picture of our Saviour, in silver, called the Black Roode of Scotland, brought out of Holy Rood House, by King David Bruce ... with the picture of Our Lady on the one side of our Saviour, and St. John's on the other side, very richly wrought in silver, all three having crownes of pure beaten gold of goldsmith's work, with a device or rest to take them off or on."

The writer then describes the "fine wainscote work" to which this costly "rood and pictures" were fastened on a pillar at the east end of the southern aisle of the quire. And in a subsequent chapter (p. 21. of Surtees Soc. volume) we have an account of the cross miraculously received by David I. (whom the writer confounds with the King David Bruce captured at the battle of Durham, notwithstanding that his Auntient Memorial professes to be "collected forthe of the best antiquaries"), and in honour of which he founded Holy Rood Abbey in 1128 from which account it clearly appears that this cross was distinct from the Black Rood of Scotland. For the writer, after stating that this miraculous cross had been brought from Holy Rood House by the king, as a "most fortunate relique," says:

"He lost the said crosse, which was taiken upon him, and many other most wourthie and excellent jewells ... which all weare offred up at the shryne of Saint Cuthbert, together with the Blacke Rude of Scotland (so termed), with Mary and John, maid of silver, being, as yt were, smoked all over, which was placed and sett up most exactlie in the pillar next St. Cuthbert's shrine," &c.

In the description written in 1593, as printed, the size of the Black Rood is not mentioned; but in Sanderson's Antiquities of Durham, in which he follows that description, but with many variations and omissions, he says (p. 22.), in mentioning the Black Rood of Scotland, with the images, as above described,—

"Which rood and pictures were all three very richly wrought in silver, and were all smoked blacke over, {410} being large pictures of a yard or five quarters long, and on every one of their leads a crown of pure beaten gold," &c.

I have one more (too brief) notice of this famous rood. It occurs in the list of reliques preserved in the Feretory of St. Cuthhert, under the care of the shrine-keeper, which was drawn up in 1383 by Richard de Sedbrok, and is as follows:

"A black crosse, called the Black Rode of Scotland."—MS. Dunelm., B. ii. 35.

Strange to say, Mr. Raine, in his St. Cuthbert, p. 108., appears to confound the cross brought from Holy Rood House, and in honour of which it was founded, with the Black Rood of Scotland. He was misled, no doubt, by the statement in the passage above extracted from the Ancient Monuments, that this cross was brought out of Holy Rood House.

I fear that the fact that it was formed of silver and gold, gives little reason to hope that this historical relique escaped destruction when it came into the hands of King Henry's church robbers. Its sanctity may, indeed, have induced the monks to send it with some other reliques to a place of refuge on the Continent, until the tyranny should be overpast; but there is not any tradition at Durham, that I am aware of, to throw light on the concluding Query of your correspondent P.A.F., as to "what became of the 'Holy Cross,' or 'Black Rood,' at the dissolution of Durham Priory?"

That the Black Rood of Scotland, and the Cross of Holy Rood House were distinct, there can, I think, be no doubt. The cross mentioned by Aelred is not mentioned as the "Black Rood:" probably it acquired this designation after his time. But Fordoun, in the Scoti-Chronicon, Lord Hailes in his Annals, and other historians, have taken Aelred's account as referring to the Black Rood of Scotland. Whether it had been brought from Dunfermline to Edinburgh before Edward's campaign, and remained thenceforth deposited in Holy Rood Abbey, does not appear: but it is probable that a relique to which the sovereigns of Scotland attached so much veneration was kept at the latter place.

W.S.G.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Nov. 2. 1850.

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.

Hæmony (Vol. ii., p. 88.).—MR. BASHAM will find some account of this plant under the slightly different type of "Hēmionion" in Pliny, xxv. 20., xvi. 25., xxvii. 17.:

"Invenit et Teucer eadem ætate Teucrion, quam quidam 'Hemionion' vocant, spargentem juncos tenues, folia parva, asperis locis nascentem, austero sapore, nunquam florentem: neque semen gignit. Medetur lienibus ... Narrantque sues qui radicem ejus ederint sine splene inveniri.

"Singultus hemionium sedat.

"'Asplenon' sunt qui hemionion vocant foliis trientalibus multis, radice limosa, cavernosa, sicut filicis, candida, hirsuta: nec caulem, nec florem, nec semen habet. Nascitur in petris parietibusque opacis, humidis."

According to Hardouin's note, p. 3777., it is the Ceterach of the shops, or rather Citrach; a great favourite of the mules, ‛ημιονοι, witness Theophrastus, Hist., ix. 19.

Ray found it "on the walls about Bristol, and the stones at St. Vincent's rock." He calls it "Spleenwort" and "Miltwaste." Catalog. Plant. p. 31. Lond. 1677.

I have a copy of Henri du Puy's "original" Comus, but do not recollect his noticing the plant.

G.M.

Guernsey.

Byron's Birthplace.—Can any of your correspondents give any information relative to the house in which Lord Byron was born? His biographers state that it was in Holles Street, but do not mention the number.

C.B.W.

Edgbaston.

Ancient Tiles (Vol. i., p. 173.).—The device of two birds perched back to back on the twigs of a branch that rises between them, is found, not on tiles only, but in wood carving; as at Exeter Cathedral, on two of the Misereres in the choir, and on the gates which separate the choir from the aisles, and these again from the nave.

J.W.H.

Modena Family (Vol. ii., p. 266.).—Victor Amadeus III., King of Sardinia, died in October, 1796. Mary Beatrice, Duchess of Modena, mother of the present Duke of Modena, was the daughter of Victor Emmanuel V., King of Sardinia, who abdicated his throne in 1821, and died 10th January, 1824. The present Duke of Modena is the direct heir of the house of Stuart in the following line:—

All the legitimate issue of Charles II. and James II. being extinct, we fall back upon Henrietta Maria, youngest child of Charles I. She married her cousin Philip, Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV., and by him had three children. Two died without issue: the youngest, Anna Maria, b. Aug. 1669, mar. Victor Amadeus II., Duke of Savoy, and had by him three children, one son and two daughters.

The son, Charles Emmanuel III., Duke of {411} Savoy, married and had Victor Amadeus III., who married Maria Antoinette of Spain, and had:—1. Charles Emmanuel IV., who died without issue, and 2. Victor Emmanuel V., who married an Austrian Archduchess; his eldest daughter married Francis IV. Duke of Modena. She died between A.D. 1841-1846, I believe, and left four children:—1. Francis V., Duke of Modena. 2. The wife of Henri, Comte de Chambord. 3. Ferdinand. 4. Marie, wife of Don Juan, brother of the present de jure King of Spain, Carlos VI.

J.K.

Nicholas Breton's Fantasticks (Vol. ii., p. 375.).—In reply to the second Bibliographical Query of J. MT., Edinburgh, respecting Nicholas Breton's Fantasticks, I beg to inform him that my copy is perfect, and contains twenty-two leaves. The title is Fantasticks: seruing for a perpetuall Prognostication, with the subjects of the twenty-four Descants, as they are called, in prose, contained in the volume. 4to. bl. lett. London: Printed for Francis Williams, 1626. After this is a dedication "To the worshipfull and worthy knight Sir Marke Ive, of Rivers Hall, in Essex;" and a short address "To the Reader," one leaf. It is an entertaining work, and contains some curious and useful remarks on our ancient manners, customs, and habits. My copy had successively belonged to Garrick, Fillingham, and Heber; the latter of whom has written in it, "Who has ever seen another copy?"

T.C.

Strand.

Gaudentio di Lucca (Vol. ii., pp. 247. 298. 327.).—The Rev. Simon Berington, the author of The Memoirs of Gaudentio di Lucca, "of whom" MR. CROSSLEY (Vol. ii., p. 328.) "regrets that so little is known," was the fourth son of John Berington, of Winesley, co. Hereford, Esquire, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Wolrich, of Dudmaston, co. Salop, Bart. He was born 1679. He studied and took holy orders at Douay College.

W.L.

Nov. 3. 1850.

Weights for weighing Coins(Vol. ii., p. 326.).—I am able to supply H.E. with a reference to this subject of an earlier date than those he quotes. In the MS. Compotus or Accounts of Sibton Abbey, in Suffolk, in my possession, occurs the following item, under the year 1363-4:

"Et de ix d. pro ij paribus Balaunces pro aure ponderand'."

The following extract, although of later date than H.E. requires, may yet be not without its use to him in illustration of the subject. It occurs in the Compotus of a collegiate establishment at Mettingam, Suffolk, from an earlier volume of which some extracts were furnished to the Archæological Journal (vol. vi. p. 62.). It is as follows, under the year 1464:—

"Item in ponderibus pro novo aura ponderant' s' nobili xs. di. nobyl et quadrant' ejusdem cunagii et pro nobili de vjs. viijd. di. nobil et quadrant' et minoribus ponderibus utriusque cunagii cum le Scolys et Cophino pro eisdem. ijs. jd."

The new gold is of course the reduced coinage of Edward IV. I conclude that the nobles of 6s. 8d. were the same as the angels.

C.R.M.

Mrs. Partington (Vol. ii., p. 377.).—IGNORANS no doubt refers to the oft-repeated allusion to "Dame Partington and her mop;" and taking it for granted that he does so, I will enlighten him a little on the subject. The "original Mrs. Partington" was a respectable old lady, living, at Sidmouth in Devonshire; her cottage was on the beach, and during an awful storm (that, I think, of Nov. 1824, when some fifty or sixty ships were wrecked at Plymouth) the sea rose to such a height as every now and then to invade the old lady's place of domicile: in fact, almost every wave dashed in at the door. Mrs. Partington, with such help as she could command, with mops and brooms, as fast as the water entered the house, mopped it out again; until at length the waves had the mastery, and the dame was compelled to retire to an upper story of the house. I well recollect reading in the Devonshire newspapers of the time an account similar to the above: but the first allusion to the circumstance was, I think, made by Lord Brougham in his celebrated speech in the house of Commons on the Reform Bill, in which he compared the Conservative opposition to the bill to be like the opposition of "Dame Partington and her mop, who endeavoured to mop out the waves of the Atlantic."

ROBERT COLE.

Mrs. Partington.—Mr. Greene, the witty editor of the Boston (N.E.) Post, is believed to be the original of Mrs. Partington: at least he fathers all her sayings. He began to print them about twelve or fifteen years ago.

G.M.B.

The East Anglian Word "Mauther" (Vol. ii., pp. 217. 365.).—Skinner's note on this word is

"Mawther, vox Norfolciensi agro peculiaris: Spelman ipse eodem agro ortus a Dan. Moer, Virgo, Puella, deflectit. Possit tamen et declinari a Belg. Maegd, Teut. Magd, idem signante, addita term. er vel der, ut in proximo agro Lincolniensi in vocibus Heeder et Sheeder quæ Marem et Feminam notant. Author Dict. Angl. scribit Modder, et cum Kiliano deducit a Belg. Modde, Moddeken, Pupa, Puella, Virgincula."—Etymol. sub voce.

Webster merely gives (with strange neglect, having Skinner before him): {412}

"Mauther, a foolish young girl(not used)."—Ben Jonson.

Skinner is, I believe, wrong in assigning the r termination to the Danish word. Such a termination of the word maid is not to be found in any of the Teutonic dialects. The diphthong sound and the th appear frequently; as,

I therefore suppose the r termination in mauther to be a mere corruption, like that pointed out by Skinner in the Lincoln Folk-speech: or is it possible that it may have arisen from a contusion of the words maid and mother in Roman Catholic times? In Holland the Virgin Mary was called Moeder Maagd,—a phrase which may possibly have crossed over to the East Anglian coast, and occasioned the subsequent confusion.

B.H.K.

P.S. Do the words modde, moddeken, quoted by Skinner, exist? and, if so, are they Dutch or Flemish? I have no means of verifying them at hand.

Cheshire Cat (Vol. ii., p. 377.).—A correspondent, T.E.L.P.B.T., asks the explanations of the phrase, "grinning like a Cheshire cat." Some years since Cheshire cheeses were sold in this town moulded into the shape of a cat, bristles being inserted to represent the whiskers. This may possibly have originated the saying.

T.D.

Bath.

"Thompson of Esholt" (Vol. ii., p. 268.).—In an old pedigree of the Calverley family, I find it stated that Henry Thompson of Esholt (whose only daughter Frances William Calverley of Calverley married, and by her acquired that property) was great-grandson to Henry Thompson,

"One of the king's gentlemen-at-arms at the siege of Boulogne (temp. H. 7.), where he notably signalised himself, and for his service was rewarded with the Maison Dieu at Dover, by gift of the king; afterwards, in the reign of Edward VI., exchanged it for the manor and rectory of Bromfield in Cumberland, and the site of the late dissolved nunnery of Esholt."

Further particulars regarding the above grant of Bromefield, and a pedigree of the Thompsons, are published in Archæologia Œliana, vol. ii. (1832), p. 171.

W.C. TREVELYAN.

Wallington.

Minar's Book of Antiquities (Vol. i., p. 277.; ii. p. 344.).—I am much obliged to T.J. for his endeavours to help me to Minar's Book of Antiquities. But there still remains a chasm too wide for me to jump; inasmuch as Christopher Meiners published his treatise De Vero Deo in 1780, and Cardinal Cusa, who refers to Minar, died in 1464, being more than 300 years before.

A.N.

Croziers and Pastoral Staves (Vol. ii., pp. 248, 313.).—The opinion expressed by the REV. MR. WALCOT (in your No. 50.), that by the word crozier is to be understood the crossed staff belonging only to archbishops and legates, while the staff with a crook at its end is to be called the pastoral staff, cannot, I think, be considered satisfactory, for the following, among other reasons.

Crozier is generally (I should formerly have said universally) understood to mean the staff with a crook, the so well-known "ensign of bishops."

In the instances mentioned by MR. WALCOT, croziers are repeatedly spoken of as having been borne at the funerals of bishops, while the crosses borne before Wolsey are called crosses, and not croziers.

The word crozier seems to be derived from the mediæval Latin word crocia. This is explained by Ducange: "Pedum, baculus pastoralis, episcopalis." Crocia seems to be derived from, or closely connected with, "crocha, uncinus, lamus," and "crochum, uncus quo arcubalistæ tenduntur" (Ducange). Hence it appears that crozier does not refer to a cross but to a crook.

In such ancient authorities as I have had the opportunity of referring to at the moment, as brasses, incised slabs, &c., bishops and archbishops are alike represented with the crooked staff; a cross is of more rare occurrence, and at the moment only two instances occur to me, one in the fine brass of Frederic, son of Casimir, king of Poland, and a cardinal, which is in the cathedral of Cracow, and in which he is represented holding a crozier, while crosses are figured on the sides under the cardinal's hat. The other is in the curious brass of Lambert, bishop of Bamberg, in the cathedral of that city: in this the bishop holds a cross in his right and a crozier in his left hand.

The statement that the crook of the bishop's staff was bent outwards, and that of the abbot's inward, is one which is often made in books; I should, however, be very glad to learn whether any difference has been observed to exist either in mediæval representations of croziers on seals, accompanying, effigies, or in paintings, or in the existing examples. So far as I have seen, the crook, in all except a few early instances, is bent in the same manner, i.e. inwards.

N.

Socinian Boast (Vol. ii., p. 375.).—The following lines "De Ruinâ Babylonis" occur in the works of a Socinian writer, one Samuelis Przipcovius, who died in 1670, and evidently have reference to those quoted by Dr. Pusey:— {413}

Przipcovius was a Polish knight, and cotempory the author of Hudibras. In a tract entitled Religio Vindicata a Calumniis Atheismi, he thus alludes to the spiritual Quixotism which induced Butler to "crack the satiric thong:"

"Sæpe audivi quod in Angliâ (quæ regio sicut in multis aliis rebus, sic præcipue in religionibus totius mundi compendium est) de ejusmodi fanaticis perhibetur, quod ita sui suarumque irrationabilium opinionum sint amantes, ut audeant propter eas divinam Providentiam angustis Ecclesiarum suarum (quæ ex angustis cujuslibet Penatibus constant) terminis circumscribere.... Et quemadmodum omnes isti miseri aperte delirant, præcipue ii quos zeli æstus eousque deducit, ut tanquam bacchantes aut cerriti per plateas, domos, templa, absque ullo ordine et respectu cursitantes concionentur, et interdum anseres, equos, vel oves (cujus rei ibi satis frequentia exempla occurrunt) dum eis homines aures præbere nolunt, ad suas opiniones convertere tentent."

R. PRICE.

Cheam.

MSS. of Locke (Vol. i., pp. 401. 462.).—In reply to a question in "NOTES AND QUERIES," I may state, that the address of the son of the late Dr. Hancock, is George H., Park Grove, Birkenhead; and he will furnish information relative to the MSS. of Locke.

AN INTENDED READER.

Sir William Grant (Vol. ii., p. 397.).—Your correspondent R. says that "Sir William Grant" was one of the few Scotchmen who had freed himself from the peculiarities of the speech of his country. Frank Horner is another." If R. means to include the Scottish accent, he is mistaken as to Sir William Grant, who retained a strong Scottish burr. If he means only correctness of diction, then I should say the number was not few. Mackintosh's and Jeffery's English was, I think, quite as pure as Horner's; and Lord Brougham, with much idiosyncrasy, had no Scotch peculiarities, at least—me judice—infinitely less than Sir William Grant. I could name twenty members of the present houses of parliament in whom I have never detected any "Scotch peculiarity."

C.

Tristan d'Acunha (Vol. ii., p. 358.).—The island is noticed, but briefly, in p. 54. of the first volume of Perouse's Voyage round the World, Lond. 1799. It is there stated that a tolerably minute account of it is contained in Le Neptune Oriental, by D'Apres (or Apres de Manvilette). This work was published in Paris, 1775, in two volumes, large folio.

C.I.R.

Arabic Numerals (Vol.ii., pp. 27. 61. 339.).— In a work in Arabic, by Ahmad ben Abubekr bin Wahshih, on Ancient Alphabets, published in the original, and accompanied with an English translation, by Von Hammer, your correspondent on the subject of Arabic numerals will find that these numerals were not invented as arbitrary signs, and borrowed for various alphabets; but that they are actually taken from an Indian alphabet of nine characters, the remaining letters being made up at each decimal by repeating the nine characters, with one or two dots. The English Preface states that this alphabet is still in use in India, not merely as a representative of numbers, but of letters of native language. The book is a neat quarto, printed in London in 1806; and the alphabet occurs in page 7. of the Arabic original.

E.C.H.

Athenæum.

Luther's Hymns (Vol. ii., p. 327.).—If F.Q. will turn to Mr. Palmer's Origines Liturgicæ, vol. ii. p. 238. 4th edit., he will find that the sentence in the Burial Service, "In the midst of life we are in death," &c., is taken from the Salisbury Breviary Psalter. The Salisbury Use was drawn up by Bishop Osmund in the eleventh century.

N.E.R. (a Subscriber.)

Bolton's Ace.—What is the meaning of "Bolton's Ace," in the following passage in the address to the reader prefixed to Henry Hutton's Follies Anatomie, 8vo. Lond. 1618? It is passed over by DR. RIMBAULT in his reprint of the work for the Percy Society in 1842:

J. CT.

Hopkins the Witchfinder (Vol. ii., p. 392.).—If the inquiry of CLERICUS relates to Mathew Hopkins the witchfinder general, my friend W.S. Fitch of Ipswich has some manuscript account of his residence in that town, as a lawyer of but little {414} note, and his removal to Manningtree, in Essex; but whether it gives any further particulars of him I am unable to state, as I have not seen the manuscript.

J. CLARKE.

Sir Richard Steel (Vol. ii., p.375.).—The death and burial-place of Sir Richard Steel is thus noticed in Cibber's Lives of the Poets, vol. iv. p.120.:—

"Some years before his death he grew paralytic, and retired to his seat at Langunnor, near Caermarthen, in Wales, where he died, September 1st, 1729, and was privately interred, according to his own desire, in the church of Caermarthen."

J.V.R.W.

Ale-draper (Vol. ii., p.310.).—A common designation for an ale-house keeper in the sixteenth century. Henry Chettle, in his very curious little publication, Kind-Harts Dreame, 1592 (edited for the Percy Society by your humble servant), has the following passage:

"I came up to London, and fall to be some tapster, hostler, or chamberlaine in an inn. Well, I get mee a wife; with her a little money; when we are married, seeke a house we must; no other occupation have I but to be an ale-draper." (P. 37. of reprint.)

Again, in the same tract, the author speaks of "two milch maydens that had set up a shoppe of "ale-drapery."

In the Discoverie of the Knights of the Poste, 1597, is another notice of the same occupation:

"So that now hee hath left brokery, and is become a draper. A draper, quoth Freeman, what draper—of woollin or linnen? No, qd. he, an ale-draper, wherein he hath more skil then in the other."

Probably these instances of the use of the term may be sufficient for your correspondent.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

P.S. The above was written before J.S.W.'s note appeared (Vol. ii., p. 360.), which does not carry the use of this term further back than Bailey's Dictionary.

George Herbert (Vol. ii., p. 103.) was buried under the communion table at Bemerton, but there is no monument to his memory. The adornment of his little church would be one of the most fitting offerings to his memory. It is painful to contrast the whitewash and unpainted deal of the house of God with the rich furniture and hangings of the adjoining rectory. In the garden of the latter is preserved a medlar-tree, planted by "the sweet singer of the temple."

J.W.H.

Notaries Public (Vol. ii., p. 393.).—Why does your correspondent MANLEIUS think this form of expression "putting the cart before the horse?" Public notary (though that phrase is sometimes erroneously used) is not so exact as "notary public;" for a notary is not, as the first form would imply, a public officer appointed by the public to perform public services, but an individual agent through whose ministry private acts or instruments become publici juris. The same form, and for analogous reasons, prevails in several other legal and technical titles or phrases, as Attorney-General, Solicitor-General, Accountant-General, Receiver-General, Surveyor-General; Advocate Fiscal; Theatre Royal, Chapel Royal; Gazette Extraordinary; and many other phrases in which it is evident that the adjective has a special and restricted meaning.

C.

Tobacconists (Vol. ii, p. 393.).—There was, in the old house of commons, a room called the smoking-room, where members tired of the debate used to retire to smoke, and in later years to drink tea or write letters. These, no doubt, were meant by the Tobacconists, members within call, though not actually within the house.

C.

Vineyards (Vol. ii., p. 392.).—In answer to CLERICUS, I beg to say that there is a piece of land called the Vineyards situated in the warm and sheltered valley of Claverton, about two miles from Bath: it formerly belonged to the Abbey of Bath.

There is also in the suburbs, on the north side of the city of Bath, a street called the Vineyards; but I do not know that this ever belonged to the Abbey.

G. FALKNER.

Devizes.

MISCELLANEOUS.

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.

Those who know Mr. Craik's happy tact for seizing on the more striking points of a character or an incident, his acquaintance with our national history and biography, his love of research, and perseverance in following up a clue, were prepared to expect both instruction and amusement from his Romance of the Peerage. Nor were they doomed to disappointment. Each succeeding volume has added to the interest of the work and there can be little doubt, that the favour with which the first three volumes have been received by the reading world, will be extended to the one now published, and which concludes the first series, or main division of Mr. Craik's projected work.

Our space will permit us to do little more than specify its principal contents; but when we state that in the present volume Mr. Craik treats of the great Earl of Cork and the Boyles; of the founders of the Fermor, Bouverie, Osborne, and Bamfylde families; that he gives us with great completeness the history of Anne Clifford, the most remarkable woman of her time; that he furnishes pleasant gossipping pictures of the rise of the families of Fox, Phips, and Petty; the history of the celebrated claim of the Trunkmaker to the honours of the Percies,—of the story of the heiress of the Percies who married Tom Thynn of Longleat Hall; and lastly, that of Ann of Buccleugh, {415} the widow of the unfortunate Monmouth, we shall have done more than enough to make our readers wish to share the pleasure we have derived from turning over Mr. Craik's amusing pages.

Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson will sell on Monday next, and two following days, a valuable collection of books, chiefly the property of a gentleman deceased, among which we may specify la Vie Saint Germain L'Auxerrois (lettres gothèques), printed on vellum, and quite unique; no other copy even on paper being known.

We have received the following Catalogues:— Williams and Norgate's (14. Henrietta Street, Covent Garden) German Book Circular, a Quarterly List of New Publications, No. 26.; John Russell Smith's (4. Old Compton Street, Soho) Catalogue No. 1. for 1851 of an extensive Collection of Choice, Useful, and Curious Books in most Classes of Literature, English and Foreign.

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