{233}

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.

ON PORTRAITS OF DISTINGUISHED ENGLISHMEN.

In submitting to you the following brief observations, it is neither
my wish nor intention to undervalue or disparage the labours of Horace
Walpole, and Granger, and Pennant, and Lodge, and the numerous writers
who have followed in their train, and to whom we are so much indebted for
their notices of a great variety of original portraits of distinguished
Englishmen, which still adorn the mansions of our aristocracy, and are
found in the smaller collections throughout the realm. But I may be
permitted to express my surprise and regret that in this age of inquiry
no general catalogue of these national treasures should ever have been
published. It is true that the portraits, as well as the other objects of
attraction in our royal palaces, have been described in print with
tolerable accuracy, and some good accounts are to be met with of the
pictures at Woburn, and Blenheim, and Althorpe, and many of the
residences of the nobility which can boast their local historian. We are,
however, in most cases obliged to content ourselves with the meagre
information afforded by county topography, or such works as the
Beauties of England, Neale’s Country Seats, and
unsatisfactory guide-books.

No one, then, can doubt that such a compilation as I am advocating
would prove a most welcome addition to our increasing stock of historical
lore, and greatly assist the biographer in those researches upon which,
from no sufficient materials being at hand, too much time is frequently
expended without any adequate result. A catalogue would also tend to the
preservation of ancient portraits, which, by being brought into notice,
would acquire more importance in the estimation of the possessors; and in
the event of any old houses falling into decay, the recorded fact of
certain pictures having existed there, would cause them to be inquired
after, and rescue them from destruction. Opportunities would likewise be
afforded of correcting misnomers, and testing the authenticity of reputed
likenesses of the same individual; further, the printed lists would
survive after all the family traditions had been forgotten, and passed
away with the antiquated housekeeper, and her worn-out inventory. The
practice, too, of inscribing the names of the artist and person
represented on the backs of the frames, would probably be better
observed; and I may mention as a proof of this precaution being
necessary, the instance of a {234}baronet in our day having inherited an old
house full of pictures, which were one and all described, in
laconic and most unsatisfactory terms, as “Portraits of Ladies and
Gentlemen Unknown.” The losses of works of art and interest by the
lamentable fires that have occurred so frequently within the memory of
man, may furnish a further motive for using every endeavour to preserve
those pictures that remain to us; but probably a far greater number have
perished from damp or neglect, and a strange combination of mischief and
ignorance. Let us hope that in this respect the times are improving. For
one, I cannot consent to the wanton destruction of a single portrait,
though Horace Walpole assures us—

“That it is almost as necessary that the representations of men should
perish and quit the scene to their successors, as it is that the human
race should give place to rising generations; and, indeed, the mortality
is almost as rapid. Portraits that cost twenty, thirty, sixty guineas,
and that proudly take possession of the drawing-room, give way in the
next generation to the new married couple, descending into the parlour,
where they are slightly mentioned as my father and mother’s
pictures. When they become my grandfather and grandmother,
they mount to the two pair of stairs, and then, unless dispatched to the
mansion-house in the country, or crowded into the housekeeper’s room,
they perish among the lumber of garrets, or flutter into rags before a
broker’s shop at the Seven Dials.”—Lives of the Painters,
vol. iv. pp. 14, 15.

I am tempted to add, that many years ago I saw a large roll of canvass
produced from under a bed at a furniture shop in “Hockley in the Hole,”
which, when unfolded, displayed a variety of old portraits, that had been
torn out of their frames, and stowed away like worn-out sail-cloth; the
place was so filthy that I was glad to make my escape without further
investigation, but I noticed a whole-length of a judge in scarlet robes,
and I could not help reflecting how much surprised the painter and the
son of the law whom he delineated would have been, could they have
anticipated the fate of the picture.

Having made these remarks, I am not unaware how much easier it is to
point out a grievance than to provide a remedy; but perhaps some of your
readers more conversant with such matters, may form an opinion whether it
would answer to any one to undertake to compile such a catalogue as I
have described. Though much would remain to be done, a great deal of
information is to be gleaned from printed works, and doubtless lists of
portraits might be in many instances procured from the persons who are
fortunate enough to possess them. It should also be remembered that
amongst the MSS. of Sir William Musgrave in the British Museum, there are
many inventories of English portraits, affording a strong presumption
that he may once have meditated such a publication as I have pointed
out.

But, whether we are ever to have a catalogue or not, some advantage
may arise from the discussion of the subject in “Notes
and Queries;” and if it should lead to the rescue of a single
portrait from destruction, we shall have advanced one step in the right
direction.

Braybrooke.

Audley End, March 18.

STORY OF A RELIC.

P. C. S. S. found, some days ago, the following curious story in a
rare little Portuguese book in his possession, and he now ventures to
send a translation of it to the “Notes and
Queries.” The work was printed at Vienna in 1717, and is an
account of the embassy of Fernando Telles da Sylva, Conde de Villa Mayor,
from the court of Lisbon to that of Vienna, to demand in marriage, for
the eldest son of King Pedro II. of Portugal, the hand of the Archduchess
Maria Anna of Austria. It was written by Father Francisco da Fonseca, a
Jesuit priest, who accompanied the ambassador in quality of almoner and
confessor, and is full of amusing matter, particularly in reference to
the strange opinions concerning our laws, government, and religion, which
the worthy padre appears to have picked up during his short stay in
England.

The original of the annexed translation is to be found at pp. 318,
319, 320. § 268. of Fonseca’s Narrative.

“As we are now upon the subject of miracles wrought by Relics in
Vienna, I shall proceed to relate another prodigy which happened in the
said city, and which will greatly serve to confirm in us those feelings
of piety with which we are wont to venerate such sacred objects. The
Count Harrach, who was greatly favoured by the Duke of Saxony, begged of
him, as a present, a few of the many relics which the duke preserved in
his treasury, assuredly less out of devotion than for the sake of their
rarity and value. The duke, with his usual benignity, acceded to this
request, and gave orders that sundry vials should be dispatched to the
count, filled with most indubitable relics of Our Lord, of the Blessed
Virgin, of the Apostles, of the Innocents, and of other holy persons. He
directed two Lutheran ministers to pack these vials securely in a
precious casket, which the duke himself sealed up with his own signet,
and sent off to Vienna. On its arrival there, it was deposited in the
chapel of the count, which is situated in the street called Preiner. The
count immediately informed the bishop of the arrival of this treasure,
and invited him to witness the opening of the casket, and to attend for
the purpose of verifying its contents. Accordingly the bishop came, and
on opening the casket, there proceeded from it such an abominable stench,
that no man could endure it, infecting, as it did, the whole of the
chapel. The bishop thereupon ordered all the vials to be taken out, and
carefully examined one by one, hoping to ascertain the cause of this
strange incident, which did not long remain a mystery, for they soon {235}found
the very vial from which this pestilent odour was issuing. It contained a
small fragment of cloth, which was thus labelled, ‘Ex caligis Divi
Martini Lutheri,’ that is to say, ‘A bit of the Breeches of Saint
Martin Luther,’ which the aforesaid two Lutheran ministers, by way of
mockery of our piety, had slily packed up with the holy relics in the
casket. The bishop instantly gave orders to burn this abominable rag of
the great heresiarch, and forthwith, not only the stench ceased, but
there proceeded from the true relics such a delicious and heavenly odour
as perfumed the entire building.”

ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHAUCER, NO. II.

Complaint of Mars and Venus.

I am not aware that the obvious astronomical allegory, which lurks in
Chaucer’s “Complaint of Mars and Venus,” has been pointed out, or that
any attempt has been made to explain it. In Tyrwhitt’s slight notice of
that poem, prefixed to his glossary, there is not the most remote hint
that he perceived its astronomical significance, or that he looked upon
it in any other light than “that it was intended to describe the
situation of some two lovers under a veil of mystical
allegory.”

But, as I understand it, it plainly describes an astronomical
conjunction of the planets Mars and Venus, in the last degree of Taurus,
and on the 12th of April.

These three conditions are not likely to concur except at very rare
intervals—it is possible they may have been only
theoretical—but it is also possible that they may have really
occurred under Chaucer’s observation; it might therefore well repay the
labour bestowed upon it if some person, possessed of time, patience, and
the requisite tables, would calculate whether any conjunction, conforming
in such particulars, did really take place within the latter half of the
fourteenth century: if it was considered worth while to search out a
described conjunction 2500 years before Christ, in order to test the
credibility of Chinese records, it would surely be not less interesting
to confirm the accuracy of Chaucer’s astronomy, of his fondness for
which, and of his desire to bring it forward on all possible occasions,
he has given so many proofs in his writings.

The data to be gathered from the little poem in question are
unfortunately neither very numerous nor very definite; but I think the
following points are sufficiently plain.

1st. The entrance of Mars into the sign Taurus (domus Veneris),
wherein an assignation has been made between him and Venus:

2nd. The nearly double velocity in apparent ecliptic motion of Venus
as compared with Mars:

3d. The conjunction:

4th. The entrance of the Sun into Taurus, as indicated in the
unceremonious intrusion of Phebus into Venus’ chamber; which, as though
to confirm its identity with Taurus,

whereupon Mars complains:

(It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader of Chaucer, that in the
poet’s time the Sun would enter Taurus on the 12th of April.)

These two lines, so obscure at first sight, afford, when properly
understood, the strongest confirmation of the astronomical meaning of the
whole; while, by indicating the conjunction on the last degree of Taurus,
they furnish a most essential element for its identification.

I confess that this “Ciclinius” gave me a good
deal of trouble; but, taking as a guide the astronomical myth so evident
throughout, I came to the conviction that “Ciclinius” is a corruption,
and that Chaucer wrote, or intended to write, Cyllenius—a well-known epithet of Mercury,
and used too in an astronomical sense by Virgil, “ignis cœli
Cyllenius.”

Now the sign Gemini is also “domus Mercurii;” so that
when Venus fled into the tour of Cyllenius, she simply slipped into the
next door to her own house of Taurus—leaving poor Mars behind to
halt after her as he best might.

6th. Mars is almost stationary:

There still remain one or two baffling points in the description, one
of which is the line—

which I am convinced is corrupt: I have formed a guess as to its true
meaning, but it is not as yet fully confirmed.

The other doubtful points are comprised in the following lines, which
have every appearance of significance; and which, I have not the least
doubt, bear as close application as those already explained: but, as yet,
I must acknowledge an inability to understand the allusions. After Venus
has entered Gemini—

A. E. B.

Leeds, March 17.

{236}

CHARLES THE FIRST AND BARTOLOMEO DELLA
NAVE’S COLLECTION OF PICTURES.

Among some miscellaneous papers in a volume of the Birch MSS. in the
British Museum (Add. 4293. fol. 5.) is preserved a curious document
illustrative of the love of Charles I. for the fine arts, and his anxiety
to increase his collection of paintings, which, as it has escaped the
notice of Walpole and his annotators, I transcribe below.

“Charles R.

“Whereas wee vnderstand that an excellent Collection of paintings are
to be solde in Venice, whiche are knowen by the name of Bartolomeo della
Nave his Collection, Wee are desirous that our beloved servant Mr.
William Pettye, should goe thither to make the bargayne for them, Wee our
selues beinge resolved to goe a fourthe share in the buyinge of them (soe
it exceed not the sōme of Eight hundred powndes sterlinge), but
that our Name be concealed in it. And if it shall please God that the
same Collection be bought and come safelye hither, Then wee doe promise
in the word of a Kinge, that they shall be divyded with all equallitye in
this maner, vid^t. That, they shall be equallie divyded into
fower partes by some men skillfull in paintinge, and then everie one
interested in the shares, or some for them, shall throwe the Dice
severallye, and whoesoever throwes moste, shall chose his share first,
and soe in order everye one shall choose after first, as he castes most,
and shal take their shares freelye to their owne vses, as they shall fall
vnto them. In wittnes whereof wee haue sett our hande, this Eight daye of
July, in the Tenth year of our Reigne, 1634.”

The individual employed by Charles in this negotiation is the same who
collected antiquities in Greece for the Earl of Arundel. He was Vicar of
Thorley, in the Isle of Wight, and is believed to have been the uncle of
the celebrated Sir William Petty, ancestor of the Marquis of Lansdowne.
It would be curious to learn the particulars of the “bargayne” made by
him, and how the pictures were disposed of after their arrival in
England. Were the Warrant and Privy Seal books of the period (still
remaining among the Exchequer records) easily accessible, no doubt some
information on these points might be gained. That this collection of
Bartolomeo della Nave was a celebrated one, we have the testimony of
Simon Vouet, in a letter to Ferrante Carlo, written from Venice, August
14, 1627, in which he speaks of it as a “studio di bellissime pitture”
(Bottari, Lettere Pittoriche, vol. i. p. 335.: Milano, 1822): and
that it came over to England, is asserted repeatedly by Ridolfi, in his
Vite degli illustri Pittori Veneti, the first edition of which
appeared at Venice in 1648. He mentions in this work several paintings
which were in Della Nave’s collection, and which it may be interesting to
refer to here, in case they are still to be traced in England. In vol. i.
p. 107. (I quote the Padua edition of 1835) is noticed a painting by
Vincenzio Catena, representing Judith carrying the head of Holofernes in
one hand, and a sword in the other. In the same volume, p. 182., a
portrait of Zattina by Palma il Vecchio, holding in her hand “una zampina
dorata;” and at p. 263. several sacred subjects by Titian among which is
specified one of the Virgin surrounded by Saints, and another of the
woman taken in adultery, with “multi ritratti” by the same. Again, at p.
288., a head of a lady, supposed to be the mother of the artist Nadelino
da Murano, one of the most talented pupils of Titian; and at p. 328. a
painting by Andrea Schiavone, and some designs of Parmigiano. In vol. ii.
p. 123. are mentioned two paintings by Battista Zelotti from Ovid’s
Fables; and at p. 141. a picture of the good Samaritan, by Jacopo da
Ponte of Bassano. For these references to Bottari and Ridolfi, I own
myself indebted to Mr. William Carpenter, the keeper of the department of
engravings in the British Museum; and, probably, some of your readers may
contribute further illustrations of Bartolomeo della Nave’s collection of
pictures, and of the purchase of them by Charles I. I do not find this
purchase noticed in Vanderdort’s list of Charles’s pictures, published by
Walpole in 1757.

F. Madden.

Minor Notes.

Nonsuch Palace.—Our antiquarian friends may not be aware
that traces of this old residence of Elizabeth are still to be seen near
Ewell. Traditions of it exist in the neighbourhood and Hansetown, and
Elizabethan coins are frequently dug up near the foundations of the
“Banquetting House,” now inclosed in a cherry orchard not far from the
avenue that joins Ewell to Cheam. In a field at some distance is an old
elm, which the villagers say once stood in the court-yard of the kitchen.
Near this is a deep trench, now filled with water, and hedged by bushes,
which is called “Diana’s Dyke,” now in the midst of a broad ploughed
field, but formerly the site of a statue of the Grecian goddess, which
served as a fountain in an age when water-works were found in every
palace-garden, evincing in their subjects proofs of the revival of
classical learning. The elm above-mentioned measures thirty feet in the
girth, immediately below the parting of the branches. Its age is “frosty
but kindly;” some two or three hundred summers have passed over its old
head, which, as yet, is unscathed by heavens fire, and unriven by its
bolt. The ground here swells unequally and artificially, and in an
adjoining field, long called, no one knew why, “the Conduit Field,” pipes
that brought the water to the palace have lately been found, and may be
seen intersected by the embankments of the Epsom railway.

The avenue itself is one of the old approaches to the palace, and was
the scene of a skirmish during the civil wars. {237}

Your readers may, perhaps, forget that this palace was the scene of
the fatal disgrace of young Essex.

George W. Thornbury.

Ferrar and Benlowes.—The preface to that very singular
poem, Theophila: Love’s Sacrifice. Lond. 1652, by Edw. Benlowes,
contains a passage so closely resembling the inscription “in the great
parlour” at Little Gidding (Peckard’s Life of Nic. Ferrar, p.
234), that the coincidence cannot have been accidental, and, if it has
not been elsewhere pointed out, may be worth record. As the inscription,
thought not dated, was set up during the life of Ferrar, who died in
1637, the imitation was evidently not his. Only so much of the
inscription is here given as is requisite to show the parallel.

“He who (by reproof of our errors, and remonstrance of that which is
more perfect) seeks to make us better, is welcome as an Angel of God: and
he who (by a cheerful participation of that which is good) confirms us in
the same, is welcome as a Christian friend. But he who faults us in
absence, for that which in presence he made show to approve of, doth by a
double guilt of flattery and slander violate the bands both of friendship
and charity.”

Thus writes Benlowes:

“He who shall contribute to the improvement of the author, either by a
prudent detection of an errour, or a sober communication of an
irrefragable truth, deserves the venerable esteem and welcome of a good
Angel. And he who by a candid adherence unto, and a fruitful
participation of, what is good and pious, confirms him therein, merits
the honourable entertainment of a faithful friend: but he who shall
traduce him in absence for what in presence he would seem to applaud,
incurres the double guilt of flattery and slander: and he who wounds him
with ill reading and misprision, does execution on him before
judgement.”

G. A. S.

Traditions from remote Periods through few Links (Vol. iii., p.
206.).—The communication of H. J. B., showing how a subject of our
beloved Queen Victoria can, with the intervention, as a lawyer would say,
of “three lives,” connect herself with one who was a liegeman of that
very dissimilar monarch, Richard III., reminds me of a fact which I have
long determined in some way to commit to record. It is this: My father,
who is only sixty-eight years old, is connected in a similar mode with a
person who had the plague during the prevalence of that awful scourge in
the metropolis in the year 1665, with the intervention of one life
only. My grandfather, John Lower of Alfriston, co. Sussex, distinctly
remembered an aged woman, who died at the adjacent village of Berwick at
about ninety, and who had, in her fourth year, recovered from that
frightful disease. Should it please Providence to spare my father’s life
to see his eighty-third birthday, the recollections of three persons will
thus connect events separated by a period of two centuries.

I may take this opportunity of mentioning a fact which may interest
such of the readers of “Notes and Queries” as are
students of natural history. My grandfather, who was born in the year
1735 (being the son of Henry Lower, born on the night of the memorable
storm of November, 1703), was among the very last of those who engaged in
the sport of bustard-hunting in the South Downs. This bird has
been extinct, on at least the eastern portion of that range, for upwards
of a century. The sport was carried on by means of dogs which hunted down
the poor birds, and the sticks of the human (or inhuman?) pursuers
did the rest. My ancestor was “in at the death” of the last of the
bustards, somewhere about 1747, being then twelve years old.

Mark Antony Lower.

Lewes.

Longevity.—Some few years since I had occasion to search
the parish registers of Evercreech in Somersetshire, in one of which I
met with the following astounding entry:—

“1588. 20th Dec., Jane Britton of Evercriche, a Maidden, as she
afirmed of the age of 200 years, was buried.”

I can scarcely believe my own note, made however, with the register
before me.

C. W. B.

The Thirty-nine Articles.—The following MS. note is in a
copy which I have (4to. 1683):

“Sept. 13. 1702.

“Memor. That Mr. Thomas King did then Read publickly and distinctly,
in a full Congregation during the Time of Divine Service, the nine and
thirty Articles of Religion, and Declare his Assent and Consent, &c.,
according as is Required in the Act of Uniformity, In the Parish Church
of Ellesmere, In the Presence of Us, who had the said Articles printed
before Us.

E. Kynaston.

Tho. Eyton.

Ar. Langford.

Will. Swanwick.”

J. O. M.

Emendation of a Passage in Virgil.—Allow me to send you
an emendation of the usual readings of the 513th line of the first
Georgic, which occurred to me many years ago, and which still appears to
me more satisfactory than any which have hitherto been suggested.

The usual readings are “addunt in spatio,” or “addunt in spatia,”
which are difficult to be {238}explained or understood. The emendation
which I suggest is, I think, simple, easy, and intelligible; and I can
imagine how the word “addunt” arose from the mistake of a transcriber, by
supposing that the MS. was written thus:—acvnt, with a long closely following the c, so as to
resemble a d.

Scriblerus.

Poems discovered among the Papers of Sir K. Digby.—In
page 18. of your current volume is a poem of which I am anxious to know
the author: it is entitled the “Houre-Glasse.” Among the poems of
Amaltheus I have discovered one so like it, that it appears to be almost
a translation. It is curious, and but little known, so that I trust you
can find it a place in “Notes and Queries.”

H. A. B.

Matter-of-fact Epitaph.—May I venture to ask a place for
the following very matter-of-fact epitaph in the English cemetery at
Leghorn?

which may be thus freely rendered:

C. W. B.

Queries.

ANCIENT DANISH ITINERARY: PROL IN ANGLIAM.

An ancient scholiast on Adam of Bremen, “paululum Adamo ratione ætatis
inferior,” according to his editor, Joachim Maderus, supplies us with a
curious list of the stations in the voyages from Ripa, in Denmark, to
Acre, in the Holy Land. Adam of Bremen’s Ecclesiastical History
dates toward the end of the eleventh century, about 1070. His text is as
follows:—

“Alterum (episcopatum) in Ripa; quæ civitas alio tangitur alveo, qui
ab oceano influit, et per quem vela torquentur in Fresiam, vel in nostram
Saxoniam, vel certe in Angliam.”

The scholiast has this note:—

“De Ripa in Flandriam ad Cuicfal velificari potest duobus
diebus, et totidem noctibus; de Cuicfal ad Prol in Angliam duobus
diebus et una nocte. Illud est ultimum caput Angliæ versus
Austrum, et est processus illuc de Ripa angulosus inter Austrum et
Occidentem. De Prol in Britanniam ad Sanctum Matthiam, uno
die,—inde ad Far, juxta Sanctum Jacobum tribus noctibus. Inde
Leskebone duobus diebus inter Austrum et Occidentem. De Leskebone ad
Narvese tribus diebus et tribus noctibus, angulariter inter Orientem et
Austrum. De Narvese ad Arruguen quatuor diebus et quatuor noctibus,
angulariter inter Aquilonem et Orientem. De Arruguen ad Barzalun uno die,
similiter inter Aquilonem et Orientem. De Barzalun ad Marsiliam uno die
et una nocte, fere versus Orientem, declinando tamen parum ad plagam
Australem. De Marsilia ad Mezein in Siciliam quatuor diebus et quatuor
noctibus, angulariter inter Orientem et Austrum. De Mezein ad Accharon
xiiii diebus et totidem noctibus, inter Orientem et Austrum, magis
appropiando ad Austrum.”

We may fairly consider that the stations marked in this itinerary are
of great antiquity. “Prol in Angliam” is, no doubt, Prawle Point, in
Devonshire; a headland which must have been well known to the Veneti long
before the days of Adam of Bremen. Its mention here is one among the many
proofs of the early importance of this coast, the ancient “Littus
Totonesium,” the scene of one of Marie’s fabliaux, and of some curious
passages in Layamon’s Brut, which are not to be found in the poem
of Wace. I wish to ask,—

1. Is the word “Prol” Saxon or British, and what is its probable
etymology?

2. Where was “Cuicfal in Flandriam,” from whence the voyage was made
to Prol?

Richard John King.

CHIMING, TOLLING, AND PEAL-RINGING OF BELLS.

Some of your clerical readers, as well as myself, would probably be
glad to have determined, what are the proper times and measures in which
the bells of a church ought to be rung. There seems to be no uniformity
of practice in this matter, nor any authoritative directions, by which
the customs that obtain may be either improved or regulated. The terms
chiming, tolling, and peal-ringing, though now generally understood, do
not intelligibly apply to the few regulations about bells which occur in
the canons.

I believe that chiming is the proper method of summoning the
congregation to the services of the church: and tolling certainly
appears to be the most appropriate use of the bell at funerals. But
chiming the bells is an art that is not recognised in the older rules
respecting their use. For instance, the Fifteenth Canon orders that on
Wednesdays and Fridays weekly, warning shall be given to the people that
litany will be said, by tolling of a bell. And, on the other hand,
though we toll at a funeral, the Sixty-seventh Canon enjoins
that—

“After the party’s death, there shall be rung no {239}more but one
short peal, and one other before the burial, and one other after the
burial.

The peal here alluded to does not of course mean what Mr. Ellacombe has so clearly described to be a modern
peal, in Vol. i., p. 154., of “Notes and
Queries;” but it would at least amount, I suppose, to
consonantia campanarum, a ringing together of bells, as
distinguished from the toll or single stroke on a bell. Horne
Tooke says:

“The toll of a bell is its being lifted up (tollere, to
raise), which causes that sound we call its toll.”

The poet does not clear the ambiguity and confusion of terms, when he
sings—

Peals are not heard in London on Sunday mornings, I believe; but in
the country, at least hereabouts, they are commonly rung as the summons
to church, ending with a few strokes on one bell; and then a smaller bell
than any in the peal (the sanctus bell of old, perhaps, and now
sometimes vulgarly called “Tom Tinkler”) announces that divine service is
about to begin.

The object of these remarks is to elicit clearly what is the right way
of ringing the bells of a church on the several occasions of their being
used.

Alfred Gatty.

Ecclesfield.

MAZER WOOD: GUTTA PERCHA.

In the Musæum Tradescantianum, or a Collection of Rarities
preserved at South Lambeth, near London, by John Tradescant, 1656, I
find, amongst “other variety of rarities,” “the plyable Mazer wood,
which, being warmed in water, will work to any form;” and a little
farther on, in the list of “utensils and household stuffe,” I also find
“Mazer dishes.” In my opinion, it is more than a coincidence that Doctor
Montgomery, who, in 1843, received the gold medal of the Society of Arts
for bringing gutta percha and its useful properties under the notice of
that body, describes it in almost the same words that Tradescant uses
when speaking of the pliable Mazer wood: the Doctor says, “it could be
moulded into any form by merely dipping it into boiling water.” It is
worthy of remark that Tradescant, who was the first botanist of his day,
seems to have been uncertain of the true nature of the “Mazer wood,” for
he does not class it with his “gums, rootes, woods;” but, as before
observed, in a heterogeneous collection which he styles “other variety of
rarities.” Presuming, as I do, that this Mazer wood was what we now term
gutta percha, the question may be propounded, how could Tradescant have
procured it from its remote locale? The answer is easy. In another
part of the Musæum Tradescantianum may be found a list of the
“benefactors” to the collection; and amongst their names occurs that of
William Curteen, Esq. Now this William Curteen and his father Sir
William, of Flemish Descent, were the most extensive British merchants of
the time, and had not only ships trading to, but also possessed forts and
factories on, some of the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, the native
habitat of the sapotaceous tree that yields the gutta percha.
Curteen was a collector of curiosities himself, and no doubt his captains
and agents were instructed to procure such: in short, a specimen of gutta
percha was just as likely to attract the attention of an intelligent
Englishman at Amboyna in the fifteenth century, as it did at Singapore in
the nineteenth.

If there are still any remains of Tradescant’s collection in the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, the question, whether the Mazer wood was
gutta percha or not, might be soon set at rest; but it is highly probable
that the men who ordered the relics of the Dodo to be thrown out, showed
but little ceremony to the Mazer wood or dishes.

A curious instance of a word, not very dissimilar to Mazer, may be
found in Eric Red’s Saga, part of the Flatö Annals, supposed to be
written in the tenth century, and one of the authorities for the
pre-Columbian discovery of America by the Icelanders. Karlsefne, one of
the heroes of the Saga, while his ship was detained by a contrary wind in
a Norwegian port, was accosted by a German, who wished to purchase his,
Karlsefne’s, broom.

“‘I will not sell it,’ said Karlsefne. ‘I will give you half a mark in
gold for it,’ said the German man. Karlsefne thought this a good offer,
and thereupon concluded the bargain. The German man went away with the
broom. Karlsefne did not know what wood it was; but it was Mæsur,
which had come from Wineland!”

Perhaps some reader may give an instance of Mazer wood being mentioned
by other writers; or inform me if the word Mazer, in itself, had any
peculiar signification.

W. Pinkerton.

Minor Queries.

Paul Pitcher Night.—Can any of the contributors to “Notes and Queries” throw light upon a curious custom,
prevalent in some parts of Cornwall, of throwing broken pitchers, and
other earthen vessels, against the doors of dwelling-houses, on the eve
of the Conversion of St. Paul, thence locally called “Paul pitcher
night?” On that evening parties of young people perambulate the parishes
in which the custom is retained, exclaiming as they throw the
sherds,—

According to the received notions, the first “heave” cannot be
objected to; but, upon its being repeated, the inhabitants of the house
whose {240}door is thus attacked may, if they can,
seize the offenders, and inflict summary justice upon them; but, as they
usually effect their escape before the door can be opened, this is not
easily managed.

Query, Can this apparently unintelligible custom have any reference to
the 21st verse of the IXth chap. of St. Paul’s
Epistle to the Romans: “Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the
same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto
dishonour?”—the earthen fragments thus turned to dishonour being
called “Paul’s pitchers.”

Any more probable conjecture as to the origin or meaning of this
custom, or any account of its occurring elsewhere, will greatly
oblige

F. M. (a Subscriber).

Disinterment for Heresy.—A remarkable instance of
disinterment on account of heresy is stated to have occurred a little
before the Reformation, in the case of one Tracy, who was publicly
accused in convocation of having expressed heretical tenets in his will;
and, having been found guilty, a commission was issued to dig up his
body, which was accordingly done. I shall be much obliged to any of your
readers who will favour me with the date and particulars of this
case.

Arun.

“Just Notions,” &c.—At the end of the Introduction of
The Christian Instructed in the Principles of Religion, by W.
Reading, Lond. 1717, occur the following lines: (Query, whether original,
or, if not, from whence quoted?)—

U. Q.

Pursuits of Literature.—How came the author of the
Pursuits of Literature to be known? I have before me the 11th
edition (1801); and in the Preface to the fourth and last dialogue, the
author declares that “neither my name nor situation in life will ever
be revealed.” He does not pretend to be the sole depository of his
own secret; but he says again:

“My secret will be for ever preserved, I know, under every
change of fortune or of political tenets, while honour, and virtue, and
religion, and friendly affection, and erudition, and the principles of a
gentleman have binding force and authority upon minds so cultivated and
dignified. When they fall, I am contented to fall with them.”

Nevertheless, the author of the Pursuits of Literature is
known. How is this?

S. T. D.

Satirical Medal.—I possess a medal whose history I should
be glad to know. It is apparently of silver, though not ringing as such,
and about an inch and a quarter in diameter. On the obverse are two
figures in the long-waisted, full-skirted coats, cavalier hats, and
full-bottomed wigs of, I presume, Louis XIV.’s time. Both wear swords;
one, exhibiting the most developed wig of the two, offers a snuff-box,
from which the other has accepted a pinch, and fillips it into his
companion’s eyes. The legend is “Faites-vous cela pour m’affronter?”

The mitigated heroism of this query seems to be noted on
the reverse, which presents a man digging in the ground, an operation in
which he must be somewhat hampered by a lantern in his left hand;
superfluous one would deem (but for the authority of Diogenes), as the
sun is shining above his head in full splendour. The digger’s opinion,
that the two combined are not more than the case requires, is conveyed in
the legend,—

“Je cherche du courage pour mon maistre.”

The finding was curious. On cutting down an ash-tree in the
neighbourhood of Linton, Cambridgeshire, in 1818, a knob on its trunk was
lopped off, and this medal discovered in its core! It was probably the
cause of the excrescence, having been, perhaps, thrust under the bark to
escape the danger of its apparently political allusion. The Linton
carrier purchased it for half-a-crown, and from him it passed in 1820
into hands whence it devolved to me.

Is anything known of this medal, or are any other specimens of it
extant? I pretend to no numismatic skill, but to an unlearned mind it
would seem to contain allusion to the insult which Charles II. and his
government were supposed to submit to from Louis XIV.; to be, in fact, a
sort of metallic HB.

Some friend, I forget who, pronounced the workmanship Dutch, which
would, I think, favour the above theory. The figures are in bold and
prominent relief, but to a certain degree rounded by wear, having been
evidently carried in the pocket for a considerable time.

G. W. W.

Matthew’s Mediterranean Passage.—I should be thankful for
any information as to where the following work could be seen, and also
respecting the nature of its contents.

“Somerset.—Matthew’s Mediterranean Passage by water from London
to Bristol, &c., and from Lynne to Yarmouthe. Very rare, 4to.
1670.”

The above is quoted from Thos. Thorpe’s Cat., part iii., 1832, p.
169., no. 7473.

Mercurii.

Inscription on an Oak Board.—I have an old oak board, on
which are carved the following lines in raised capital letters of an
antique form, with lozenges between the words:—

{241}

The letters are two inches long, and a quarter of an inch high from
the sunken face of the board, which is four feet long by ten inches wide.
It has a raised rim or border round the inscription; which proves that it
had not contained more lines than as above. It was found at Hereford, in
a county which still abounds in timbered houses, and it had been lately
used as a weather-board. The legend was submitted to the late Sir Samuel
Meyrick of Goderich Court; who was of opinion, that it had formerly been
over the chimney-piece or porch of some dwelling-house, and is a riddle
involving the builder’s or founder’s name. If any of your readers can
suggest the age and original use of this board, or explain the name
concealed in the lines, it will oblige

P. H. F.

Expressions in Milton.—Allow me to ask some correspondent
to give the meaning of the following expressions from the prose works of
Milton:—

“A toothless satire is as improper as a toothed sleck stone, and as
bullish.”

“A toothed sleck stone,” I take to mean a “jagged whetstone,” very
unfit for its purpose; but what is the force of the term “as
bullish?”

Again:

“I do not intend this hot seasons to bid you the base, through
the wide and dusty champaign of the councils.”

The meaning I receive from this is, “I don’t mean to carry you through
the maze of the ancient councils of the church;” but I wish to know the
exact force of the expression “to bid you the base?”

R. (a Reader).

Saints’ Days.—The chorea invita is not a very
satisfactory explanation of St. Vitus’s dance; and though St. Vitus is
not in the Roman martyrology of our day, yet he is in the almanacs of the
fifteenth century, and probably earlier. The martyr Vitus makes the 15th
of June a red letter-day in the first almanac ever printed. Who was St.
Vitus, and how did he give his name to the play of the features which is
called his dance? Again, the day before St. Patrick is celebrated in
Ireland, St. Patricius is celebrated in Auvergne. Can any identity be
established?

M.

Chepstow Castle.—In Carlyle’s Life of Cromwell,
vol. i. pp. 349, 350., there is a letter from Cromwell, dated before
Pembroke, wherein he directs a Major Saunders, then quartered at or near
Brecon, to go to Monmouthshire and seize Sir Trevor Williams of
Llangevie, and Mr. Morgan, High Sheriff of Monmouth, “as,” he writes,
“they were very deep in the plot of betraying Chepstow Castle.” Carlyle
has the following foot-note to the letter:

“Saunders by his manner of indorsing this letter seems to intimate
that he took his two men; that he keeps the letter by way of voucher. Sir
Trevor Williams by and bye compounds as a delinquent, retires then into
Llangevie House, and disappears from history. Of Sheriff Morgan, except
that a new sheriff is soon appointed, we have no farther notice
whatever.”

Can any of your correspondents give me information in what work I can
find a tolerably full account of this “betraying of Chepstow Castle?” and
also of what place in the county was this Morgan, Sheriff of
Monmouth?

Danydd Gam.

The Wilkes MSS. and “North Briton.”—I inquired long since
what had become of these MSS., which Miss Wilkes bequeathed to Peter
Elmsley, of Sloane Street, “to whose judgement and delicacy” she confided
them,—meaning, I presume, that she should be content to abide by
his judgement as to the propriety of publishing them, or a selection; but
certainly to be preserved for the vindication of her father’s memory;
otherwise she would have destroyed them, or directed them to be
destroyed. In 1811 these MSS. were, I presume, in the possession of Peter
Elmsley, Principal of St. Alban’s Hall, as he submitted the Junius
Correspondence, through Mr. Hallam, to Serjeant Rough, who returned the
letters to Mr. Hallam. Where now are the original Junius Letters, and
where the other MSS.? The Athenæum has announced that the Stowe
MSS., including the Diaries and Correspondence of George Grenville, are
about to be published, and will throw a “new light” on the character of
John Wilkes. I suspect any light obtained from George Grenville will be
very like the old light, and only help to blacken what is already too
dark. I therefore venture to ask once again, Where are the Wilkes MSS.?
and can they be consulted? Further, are any of your readers able and
willing to inform us who were the writers of the different papers in the
North Briton, either first or second series? Through “Notes and Queries” we got much curious information on
this point with reference to the Rolliad.

W. M. S.

“O wearisome Condition of Humanity!“—Can any of your
readers inform me in what “noble poet of our own” the following verses
are to be found. They are quoted by Tillotson in vol. ii. p. 255. of his
Works, in 3 vols. fo.

Q.

Bloomsbury.

Places called “Purgatory.”—The Rev. Wm. Thornber, in his
History of Blackpool in the Fylde District of Lancashire, gives
the following explanation of the name as applied to particular fields,
houses, &c.:—

“The last evening in October (or vigil of All Souls) {242}was called the
Teanlay night; at the close of that day, till within late years, the
hills which encircle the Fylde shone brightly with many a bonfire, the
mosses rivalling them with their fires kindled for the object of
succouring their friends in purgatory. A field near Poulton, in which
this ceremony of the Teanlays was celebrated (a circle of men standing
with bundles of straw raised high on pitchforks), is named Purgatory; and
will hand down to posterity the farce of lighting souls to endless
happiness from the confines of their prison-house: the custom was not
confined to one village or town, but was generally practised by the
Romanists.”

It is certain that places may be found here and there in the county
still going by the name of Purgatory. Can any of your correspondents
throw further light on the matter, or tell us if the custom extended to
other counties?

P. P.

Epitaph in Hall’s “Discovery.”—The following epitaph
occurs in Bishop Hall’s Discovery of a New World, by an English
Mercury, an extremely rare little volume, unknown to Ames or Herbert;
and is, I should imagine, a satire on some statesman of the time. Query,
on whom?

“Passenger.,

“Stay, reade, walke, Here lieth Andrew Turnecoate, who was neither
Slave, nor Soldier, nor Phisitian, nor Fencer, nor Cobler, nor Filtcher,
nor Lawier, nor Usurer, but all; who lived neither in citty, nor
countrie, nor at home, nor abroade, nor at sea, nor at land, nor here,
nor elsewhere, but everywhere. Who died neither of hunger, nor poyson,
nor hatchet, nor halter, nor dogge, nor disease, but altogether. I.,
I. H., being neither his debtour, nor heire, nor kinsman, nor friend, nor
neighbour, but all: in his memory have erected this, neither monument,
nor tombe, nor sepulcher, but all; wishing neither evill nor well,
neither to thee, nor mee, nor him, but all unto all.”—P. 140.

C. J. Francis.

Minor Queries Answered.

Canon and Prebendary.—What is the difference between a
canon and a prebend or prebendary in a cathedral, or
a collegiate church establishment?

W. J.

What Amount of Property constitutes an Esquire?—The
practice of subjoining “Esquire” to the names of persons has become so
universal, that the real significance of the title is quite lost sight
of. Will some one of your correspondents inform me what amount of
property really constitutes an Esquire?

W. L.

Cromwell Family.—Will some of your correspondents be so
good as to inform me, to whom the children (sons and daughters) of Oliver
Cromwell’s daughter Bridget were married, those by her first marriage
with Ireton as well as those by her second marriage with Fleetwood. I can
learn but the marriage of one: Ireton’s daughter Bridget married a Mr.
Bendyshe.

M. A. C.

Daughters of the Sixth Earl of Lennox.—J. W. wishes for
information as to who married, or what became of the daughters and
granddaughters of Charles Stuart, the sixth Earl of Lennox, and brother
of Darnley?

Wife of Joseph Nicholson.—Any information as to who was
the wife of Joseph Nicholson, who resided in London the latter part of
the seventeenth century, would much oblige one of his descendants.

He was second son of the Rev. Joseph Nicholson, rector of Plumland,
Cumberland, who was married to Mary Miser, of Crofton.

His eldest brother was Dr. Wm. Nicholson, Bishop of Carlisle,
afterwards Bishop of Derry, and died there 1727. The bishop’s nephew,
Rev. James Nicholson, son of the above Joseph, came to Ireland as
chaplain to his uncle, and became rector of Ardrahan, co. Galway, and
died there about 1776.

Andrew Nicholson.

Six Abeiles.—In Mrs. Barrett Browning’s beautiful poem,
Rhyme of the Duchess May, the following lines occur:

Will you or some of your readers kindly inform me what abeiles
are. From the context, they would seem to be some kind of tree, but what
tree I cannot discover.

M. A. H.

Monkstown, co. Cork, Feb. 18. 1851.

Southey.—There is a jeu d’esprit attributed to
Southey, on the expedition of Napoleon into Russia, beginning,—

and ending,—

I know this was printed, for I saw it when a boy. Where can it be
found?

M.

Epigram against Burke.—Can any reader supply me with some
lines of great asperity against Edmund Burke, excited (I believe) by the
unrelenting hostility exhibited by Burke against Warren Hastings?

The sting of the epigram is contained in the last line, which,
alluding to the exemption of Ireland from all poisonous reptiles, runs as
follows:—

And if the said lines shall be forthcoming, I should be glad also to
be informed of their reputed author.

A Borderer.

Knights Hospitallers.—Where may a correct list be found
of the names of the several persons who held the appointment of Master of
the Knights Hospitallers in England, from the period of their first
coming until the dissolution of their houses?

S. P. O. R.

Replies.

MESMERISM.

(Vol. iii., p. 220.)

I am much obliged to your correspondent A. L. R. for his kind notice
of my pamphlet on Mesmerism, and equally so to yourself for inserting it;
because it gives me an opportunity of explaining to him, and others to
whom I am personally unknown, and who are therefore not aware of my
circumstances and movements, why the work was not continued without
delay. In doing this I will try to avoid trespassing on your goodness by
one word of needless egotism. In my Preface I described my materials as a
“number of fragments belonging to various ages and places,” as “scattered
facts and hints” which I had met with in books which were not suspected
of containing such matter; and some of them books not likely to fall into
the hands of anybody but a librarian, or at least a person having access
to a public library. It may be easily understood that rough materials
thus gathered were not fit for {244}publication; and that, without the books
from which they had been “noted” and “queried,” they could not be made
so: and if I had anticipated the course of events (notwithstanding an
inducement which I will mention presently), I should not have thought of
publishing a Part I. But when I sent it to the press, I had no idea that
I should ever return here, or be at an inconvenient distance from the
libraries which were then within my reach, and open to my use. As it was,
I regretted that I had done so, and felt obliged to hurry the pamphlet
through the press, that I might pack up these papers, and many other
things more likely to be hurt by carriage, for a residence an hundred
miles off; and here they are in statu quo. I have not attempted to
do any thing with them, not only because I have been very much occupied
in other ways, but because I do not know that I could fit them for
publication without referring to some books to which I have not access.
At the same time I feel bound to add, that while I still think that some
of the things to which I refer might be worth printing, yet I do not
consider them so important as the matter which formed the subject of the
Part already published. I did think (and that was the inducement to which
I have already referred) that it was high time to call the attention of
disinterested and reflecting persons to the facts alleged by
mesmerists, and to the names by which they are attested. I have
the satisfaction of knowing that I have in some degree succeeded in this
design. I may perhaps some day find a channel for publishing the
fragments alluded to; but in the mean time, I shall be very glad if I can
supply anything which your correspondent may think wanting, or explain
anything unintelligible in what is published, if he will let me hear from
him either with or without his name. I am sorry to ask for so much space,
knowing how little you have to spare; but I cannot resist the temptation
to offer an explanation, which will be so widely circulated, and among
such readers as I know this will be, if you can find room for it.

J. R. Maitland.

Gloucester, March 24.

LORD HOWARD OF EFFINGHAM.

(Vol. iii., p. 185.)

The following observations, though slight in themselves, may tend to
show that Charles Lord Howard of Effingham, afterwards Earl of
Nottingham, was, or professed to be, a Protestant.

1st. On his embassy to Spain, Carte says (I quote from Collins’s
Peerage, vol. iv. p. 272.)—

“On Friday the last of this Month His Catholick Majesty ratified the
peace upon Oath in a great chamber of the palace…. It was pretended
that the Clergy would not suffer this to be done in a Church or Chapel
where the neglect of reverence of the Holy Sacrament would give
scandal.”

I presume the “neglect of reverence” was apprehended in the case of
the English ambassador.

2nd. In Fuller’s Worthies (Surrey), speaking of Lord
Nottingham, it is said—

“He lived to be very aged, who wrote ‘man,’ (if not married) in the
first of Queen Elizabeth, being an invited guest at the solemn
consecration of Matthew Parker at Lambeth; and many years after, by his
testimony, confuted those lewd and loud lies which the papists tell of
the Nag’s Head in Cheapside.”

3rd. He was one of the commissioners on the trial of Garnet and
others; and told him, as he stood in a box made like a pulpit—

“Sir, you have this day done more good in that pulpit wherein you now
stand, than you have done in any other pulpit all the days of your
life.”—Archæologia, vol. xv.

His coffin-plate has been engraved somewhere, and, if his will exists,
it might probably settle the question.

Q. D.

Lord Howard of Effingham (Vol. iii., p. 185.).—There is
some proof that he was a Protestant in the letter of instructions to him
from King James (Biog. Brit., p. 2679.):

“Only we forewarn you, that in the performance of that ceremony, which
is likely to be done in the King’s (of Spain) chapel, you have especial
care that it be not done in the forenoon, in the time of mass, to the
scandal of our religion; but rather in the afternoon, at what time
their service is more free from note of superstition.”

May Lord Effingham have changed his religion between the Armada and
his mission to Spain?

C. B.

IOVANNI VOLPE.

(Vol. iii., p. 188.)

The Volpes were an ancient, noble Florentine family of the second
class, some branches of which according to the usage of Florence, changed
their name, and adopted that of Bigliotti. The object of the change was
to remove the disqualification which attached to them, as nobles, of
holding offices under the republic. In illustration of this singular
practice, the following extracts may be cited:

“Le peuple nomma une commission pour corriger les statuts de la
république, et réprimer par les lois l’insolence des nobles. Une
ordonnance fameuse, connue sous le nom d’Ordinamenti della
Giustizia, fut l’ouvrage de cette commission. Pour le maintien de la
liberté et de la justice, elle sanctionna la jurisprudence la plus
tyrannique, et la plus injuste. Trente-sept familles, les plus nobles et
les plus respectables de Florence, furent exclus à jamais du priorat,
sans qu’il leur fùt permis de recouvrer les droits de cité, en se {245}faisant matriculer dans quelque corps de
métier, ou en exerçant quelque profession…. Les membres de ces
trente-sept familles furent désignés, même dans les lois, par les noms de
grands et de magnats; et pour la première fois, on vit un titre d’honneur
devenir nonseulement un fardeau onéreux, mais une
punition.”—Sismondi, Histoire des Républiques Italiennes,
tom. iv. pp. 63-4.: Paris, 1826.

“The people, now sure of their triumph, relaxed the Ordinances of
Justice, and, to make some distinction in favour of merit or innocence,
effaced certain families from the list of the nobility. Five hundred and
thirty persons were thus elevated, as we may call it, to the rank of
commoners. As it was beyond the competence of the Republic of Florence to
change a man’s ancestors, this nominal alteration left all the real
advantage of birth as they were, and was undoubtedly an enhancenent of
dignity, though, in appearance, a very singular one. Conversely, several
unpopular commoners were ennobled in order to disfranchise them. Nothing
was more usual, in subsequent times, than such an arbitrary change of
rank, as a penalty or a benefit. (Messer Antonio de Baldinaccio degli
Adimari, tutto che fosse de più grandi e nobili, per grazia era misso tra
‘l popolo.—Villani, xii. c. 108.) Those nobles who were
rendered plebeian by favour, were obliged to change their name and
arms.”—Hallam’s Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 435-6.: London,
1834.

“In the history of Florentine families, a singular feature presents
itself; by a practice peculiar to Italy, nay, it is believed to Florence,
families, under certain circumstances, were compelled to change their
arms and their surnames, the origin of which was as follows. After having
long suffered the insolent factions of the great families to convulse the
state, the middle classes, headed indeed by one of the nobles, by a
determined movement, obtained the mastery. To organize their
newly-acquired power, they instituted an office, the chief at Florence
during the republican era, that of Gonfalonier of Justice; they formed a
species of national guard from the whole body of the citizens, who were
again subdivided into companies, under the command of other officers of
inferior dignity, also styled Gonfaloniers (Bannarets). As soon as any
noble committed violence within the walls of the city, likely to
compromise the public peace, or disturb the quiet of the state, the great
bell at the Palazzo Vecchio raised its alarum, the population flew to
arms, and hastened to the spot, where the Gonfalonier of Justice speedily
found himself in a position, not merely to put an end to the disturbance,
but even to lay siege to the stout massive fortresses which formed the
city residences of the insolent and refractory offenders to which they
then withdrew. But the reforming party did not stop there; by the new
constitution, which was then introduced, the ancient noble families,
termed by cotemporary historians ‘i grandi,’ and explained to include
those only which had ever been illustrated by the order of knighthood,
were all placed under a severe system of civil restrictions, and their
names were entered upon a roll called the Ordinances of Justice; the
immediate effect was that, losing all political rights, they were placed
in a most disadvantageous position before the law.

“By a remarkable species of democratic liberality, a man or a family
might be emancipated from this position and rendered fit for office, born
again as it were into a new political life, by renouncing their
connections (consorteria) and changing their arms and surnames. They were
then said to be made plebeian or popular (fatti di popolo). Niebuhr has
noticed the analogy of such voluntary resignation of nobility to the
‘transitio ad plebem’ of the Romans.

“This practice of changing arms and surnames originated from the
Ordinances of Justice promulgated about that time, which expressly
requires this as a condition to the enjoyment by any of the old families
of popular rights. It gave rise to great varieties of surnames and
armorial bearings in different branches of the same house. But it has
nevertheless been noted that in all these mutations it was still the
endeavour of the parties to retain as much as possible of the ancient
ensigns and appellations, so that traces of descent and connexion might
not in the progress of years be altogether obliterated. Thus the
Cavalcanti took the name of Cavallereschi, the Tornaquinci that of
Tornabuoni. Sometimes they obtained the object by a play upon the name
itself thus; at other times by making a patronymic of the Christian name
of the first or some other favourite ancestor; thus a branch of the Bardi
assumed the name of Gualterotti, and a branch of the Pazzi that of
Accorri. Sometimes they took their new name from a place or circumstance
calculated to preserve the memory of their origin; thus the Agolanti
designated themselves Fiesolani, the Bostichi from the antiquity of their
stock, Buonantichi. In mutation of arms a similar object was borne in
mind. Thus the Buondelmonti simply added to their ancient bearings a
mountain az. and a cross gu. The Baccelli, who were a branch of the
Mazzinghi, replaced the three perpendicular clubs, the ancient ensigns of
the family, by two placed in the form of a cross.

“As the object of these provisions was to discriminate for the future
those of the ancient families who had acceded to the principles of the
popular institutions from their more haughty kindred, who remained true
to the defence of their feudal and aristocratical pretensions, the change
either of arms or surname was not required if the whole family became
converts to the new doctrines; for then there was no need of
discrimination, and the law was not framed out of any dislike merely to
particular ensigns, but only to the principles and opinions which they
had up to a certain time been understood to
represent.”—Mazzinghi.

The identity of the Volpes and Bigliottis is attested by ancient
sepulchral monuments of the family in Santo Spirito at Florence. To mark
the ancient origin, they retained or assumed the fox (volpe) as
their arms. Borghini, in his Discorsi (Florence, 1584-5), mentions
the family as an instance of the name giving rise to the arms, and
mentions Sandro Biglotti, 1339, as the first who assumed the fox as his
ensigns. The distinction and influence enjoyed at Florence by the family
is indicated by its having contributed ten Gonfaloniers of Justice to the
republic; an office corresponding in rank with those of Doge of Venice
{246}and Doge of Genoa. Details of several
branches of the family will be found in Saggi Istorici D’Antichità
Toscane di Lorenzo Cantini: Firenze, 1798.

Among the junta of twenty noblemen of Venice, chosen in 1355, on the
discovery of the conspiracy of Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice, we find
the name of “Ser Niccolò Volpe”:—

“Questi [que’ del Consiglio de’ Dieci] elessero tra loro una Giunta,
nella notte, ridotti quasi sul romper del giorno, di venti nobili di
Vinezia de’ migliori, de’ piu savii, e de’ piu antichi, per consultare,
non pero che mettessero pallottola.”—Vitæ Ducum
Venetorum,—though the title is in Latin, the work is in
Italian,—published in Muratori’s Rerum Italicarum
Scriptores, tom. xii. p. 634.

The following particulars are extracted from the Biographie
Universelle:—

“Ivo. Biliotti, d’une famille patricienne de Florence (qui avoit
fourni dix Gonfaloniers de Justice à cette république, et placé ses armes
sur les monnaies de l’état), fut un des derniers défenseurs de la liberté
de sa patrie, et un des meilleurs capitaines de son temps. En 1529, il
defendit le fort de Spello, en Toscane, contre les troupes liguées du
pape et de l’Empereur Charles Quint. Il obligea le prince d’Orange, qui
les commandait, à se retirer, et se distingua aussi au siége de Florence.
Il passa au service de Francois I^er, roi de France, avec de
Gondi et Pierre de Strozzi, ses parents, et fut tué au siége de Dieppe.
Une partie de la famille Biliotti, proscrite par les Médicis, se refugia
à Avignon et dans le comtat Venaissin, vers la fin du 15^e
siècle. Le 29 juillet, 1794, le chef de cette maison, Joseph Joachim,
Marquis de Biliotti, chevalier de St. Louis, âgé de soixante-dix ans,
aussi distingué par ses vertus que par sa naissance, fut la dernière
victime du tribunal révolutionnaire d’Orange, qui fut suspendu le
lendemain de sa mort.”

The only particulars of Iovanni Volpe furnished by the Gwerclas MSS.
are given in the annexed pedigree. The marriage of his daughter Frances
with my ancestor, Richard Hughes of Gwerclas, arose from the latter
(before his accession to the family estates and representation,
consequent on the decease without issue—February 6, 18 James I.,
1620-1—of his elder brother, Humffrey Hughes, Esq., of Gwerclas,
Baron of Cymmer-yn-Edeirnion, High Sheriff of Merionethshire in 1618)
having been secretary of the princely Cliffords, Earls of Cumberland, to
whom Iovanni Volpe had been physician. There can be little doubt that
Iovanni was descended from a branch of the Italian Volpes which had
retained the ancient name; a supposition confirmed by the tradition of my
family, and by the fact of the fox being assigned to his daughter Frances
as her arms, in an emblazoned genealogy of the house of Gwerclas compiled
in 1650 by the most accurate and eminent of Welsh antiquaries, Robert
Vaughan of Hengwrt, Esq.

I may add, that among the Gwerclas pictures are portraits of Richard
Hughes and Frances; the latter exhibiting in features an complexion the
unmistakeable impress of Italian lineage.

William Hughes.

Twyford, Hants, March 18. 1851.

{247}

Giovanni Volpe or Master Wolfe (Vol. iii., p. 188.).—This
person was certainly never “physician to Queen Elizabeth,” but he may
have received from her Majesty the appointment of apothecary, as he did
from her successor. On New-Year’s day, 1605-6, John Vulp presented to the
king “a box of Indian plums,” receiving in return 7 oz. di. di. qr. of
gilt plate; he is then named the last of five apothecaries who paid their
votive offerings to royalty. (Nichols’s Progresses, &c. of King
James I., vol. i. p. 597.) In 1617 he had risen to be the king’s
principal apothecary, and by the name of John Wolfgango Rumlero received
“for his fee by the year 40 li.,” as appears by the abstract of
his Majesty’s revenue attached to the pamphlet entitled Time brought
to Light by Time. From the name here given him, it may be conjectured
that he was rather from Germany than Italy. However, he also went by the
plain English name of Master Wolfe.

He is thus alluded to in the epilogue to Ben Jonson’s Masque of the
Metamorphosed Gipsies, when it was performed at Windsor in September,
1621:—

As he was a man of such prominence in his profession, probably many
other notices of him might be collected if duly “noted” as they
occur.

J. G. N.

Replies to Minor Queries.

Sir Andrew Chadwick (Vol. iii., p. 141.).—It was stated
in evidence, in a trial at Lancaster assizes, Hilary Term, 1769, between
Law and Taylor, plaintiffs, and Duckworth and Wilkinson, defendants,
respecting the heirs at law of Sir Andrew Chadwick, and their claim to
his estates, that “Ellis Chadwick married in Ireland a lady of fashion,
who had some connexion with her late Majesty Queen Anne, and had issue by
her the late Sir Andrew Chadwick. Ellis, the father, dying in his son’s
infancy, about the year 1693, his widow brought her son Andrew over to
England, where he was very early introduced at court, and being
contemporary with the young Duke of Gloucester, became a great favourite
with him, was knighted, and had divers preferments.”—From the
Attorney-General’s MS. Brief. The latter part of this statement does not
appear to confirm the supposition recorded by Mr. J.N.
Chadwick.

F. R. R.

Manuscript of Bede (Vol. iii., p. 180.).—The volume in
question is entered in the Catalogue of Thoresby’s MSS., No. 10. in the
Ducatus Leodiensis, p. 72. 2d ed. 1816. The greater part of these
MSS. came into the hands of Ralph Thoresby, Jun., and, together with the
coins, were disposed of by public auction in March, 1764, by Whiston
Bristow, sworn broker. The MSS. were sold on the third day, but the
volume containing Bede does not appear among them. The opinion formed by
J. M. of the age of this MS. is certainly erroneous, and being on
paper it is more probably of the fifteenth than the
twelfth century. The period of William Dadyngton, Vicar of Barton,
might decide this.

μ.

MS. of Bede (Vol. iii., p. 180.).—Your correspondent will
find a description of this MS. in the catalogue of Thoresby’s Museum, at
the end of his Ducatus Leodiensis, edit. 1715, fol., p. 515. He
will also, in Thoresby’s Correspondence, 1832, 8vo. vol. ii. p.
39., see a letter from Dr. John Smith, the editor of Bede’s
History, respecting this manuscript, the original of which letter
is in my possession.

After many dismemberments, what remained of Thoresby’s Museum,
including his manuscripts, was sold in London in March, 1764, by auction.
Mr. Lilly, the bookseller of Pall Mall, had a priced catalogue of this
sale; and your correspondent, if anxious to trace the pedigree of his MS.
further, can, I have no doubt, on application, get a reference made to
that catalogue.

I take the present opportunity of mentioning that, as Mr. Upcott’s
sale, when I became the purchaser of the Thoresby papers, including his
MS. diaries, his Album, and upwards of 1000 letters to him, a very small
number of which were printed in the collection, in two volumes, edited by
Mr. Hunter, one of the diaries, from May 14, 1712, to September 26, 1714,
which was sold with the lot, was after the sale found to be missing. It
subsequently came into the hands of a London dealer, by whom it was sold
to a Yorkshire gentleman, as I understand, but whose name I have not yet
been able to trace. Should this meet his eye, I will venture to appeal to
his sense of justice, entirely ignorant as I am sure he has been of the
“pedigree,” to use your correspondent’s expression, of his MS., whether
he will allow it to be longer separated from the series to which it
belongs, and which is incomplete without it. I need hardly say, I can
only expect to receive it on the terms of repaying the price paid for it,
and which I should embrace with many thanks.

Jas. Crossley.

Manchester, March 8. 1851.

Closing of Rooms on account of Death (Vol. iii., p.
142.).—I am acquainted with a remarkable instance of this custom. A
respectable farmer who resided in a parish in Bedfordshire, adjoining
that in which I am writing, died in 1844; leaving to his daughter the
fine old manor-house in which he had lived for many years, and in which
he died, together with about 300 acres of land. The lady, with her
husband, was then residing in a neighbouring village, where the latter
rented a farm, which he has since given up, retaining the house; but she
positively refused to remove to the manor-house, “because her father had
died in it;” and as she still persists in her refusal, it is unoccupied
to this day. For Mr. —— is not even permitted to let it,
except a part, now tenanted by a valued friend of mine, which for many
years has been let separately. The rooms and the furniture in them remain
exactly as in the lifetime of the late occupant. The lady’s husband, who
farms the land attached to the house, is put to great inconvenience by
living at a distance from it, but nothing will induce her to alter her
determination. The facts I have related are notorious in the
neighbourhood.

Arun.

Enigmatical Epitaph on Rev. John Mawer (Vol. iii., p.
184.).—On reading to a lady the article on this subject in a late
Number, she immediately recollected, that about thirty years ago she had
a governess of that name, the daughter of a clergyman in Nottinghamshire,
who often mentioned that they were descended from the Royal Family of
Wales, and that she had a brother who was named Arthur Lewellyn
Tudor Kaye Mawer.

This anecdote will perhaps be of use in directing attention to
Cambrian pedigrees, and leading it from Dr. Whitaker’s “Old King Cole” to
“the noble race of Shenkin.”

J. T. A.

Haybands in Seals (Vol. iii., p. 186.).—The practice
mentioned by Mr. Lower, of inserting haybands, or
rather slips of rush, in the seals of feoffments, was common in all
counties; and it certainly was not confined to the humbler classes.
Hundreds of feoffments of the fifteenth century, and earlier, have passed
through my hands with the seals as described by Mr.
Lower, relating to various counties, and executed by parties of
all degrees. In these instances, a little blade of rush is generally
neatly inserted round the inner rim of the impression, and evidently must
have been so done while the wax was soft. In some instances, these blades
of rush overlay the whole seal; in others, a slip of it is merely tied
round the label. In delivering seisin under a feoffment, the grantor, or
his attorney, handed over to the grantee, together with the deed, a piece
of turf, or a twig, or something plucked from the soil, in token of his
giving full and complete possession. I have generally supposed that these
strips of rush were the tokens of possession so handed over, as part and
parcel of the soil, by the grantor; and that they were attached to the
seal, as it were, “in perpetuam rei memoriam.” In default of better
information, I venture to suggest this explanation, but will not presume
to vouch for its correctness.

L. B. L.

Notes on Newspapers (vol. iii., p. 164.).—John Houghton,
the editor of the periodical noticed by your correspondent, A
Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, was one of
those meritorious men who well deserve commemoration, though his name is
not to be found in any biography that I am acquainted with. He was an
apothecary, and became a dealer in tea, coffee, and chocolate. He was in
politics a loyalist, or Tory, and was admitted a member of the Royal
Society in 1679-80. He began to publish his Letters on Husbandry and
Trade in 1681. No. 1. is dated Thursday, September 8, 1681. The first
collection ended June, 1684, and consists of two vols. 4to. In November,
1691, Houghton determined to resume his old plan of publishing papers on
Husbandry and Trade. His abilities and industry were warmly recommended
by several members of the Royal Society: Sir Peter Pott, John Evelyn, Dr.
Hugh Chamberlain, and others. The recommendation is prefixed to the first
number of this second collection. The first paper is dated Wednesday,
March 30, 1692; and the second Wednesday, April 6, 1692; they were
continued every succeeding Wednesday. The concluding paper was published
September 24, 1703. There were 583 numbers, in 19 vols., of the folio
papers. The last number contains an “Epitome” of the 19 vols. and a
“Farewell,” which gives his reason for discontinuing the paper, and
thanks to his assistants, “wishing that knowledge may cover the earth as
the water covers the sea.” A selection from these papers was published in
1727, by Richard Bradley, F.R.S., in three vols. 8vo., to which a fourth
was afterwards added in 1728, 8vo.

Houghton also published An Account of the Acres and Houses, with
the proportional Tax, &c. of each County in England and Wales.
Lond. 1693, on a broadside. Also, Book of Funds, 1694, 4to.
Alteration of the Coin, with a feasible Method to it 1695.
4to.

James Crossley.

Duncan Campbell (Vol. i., p. 186.).—There seems to be no
doubt that Duncan Campbell, whose life was written by Defoe, was a real
person. See Tatler, vol. i. p. 156. edit. 1786, 8vo.;
Spectator, No. 560.; Wilson’s Life of Defoe, vol. iii. p.
476. His house was “in Buckingham Court, over against Old Man’s Coffee
House, at Charing {249}Cross,” and at another period of his life
in Monmouth Court. He is reported to have amassed a large fortune from
practising upon the credulity of the public, and was the grand answerer
of “Queries” in his day. Defoe’s entertaining pieces relating to him are
evidently novels founded upon fact.

Jas. Crossley.

Christmas Day (Vol. iii., p. 167.).—Julian I. has the
credit of transferring the celebration of Christ’s birth from Jan. 6th to
Dec. 25th; but Mosheim considers the report very questionable (vol. i. p.
370. Soames’s edit.). Bingham, in his Christian Antiq., devotes
ch. iv. of book xx. to the consideration of this festival, and that of
the Epiphany; but does not notice the claim set up on behalf of Julian
I.; neither Neander (vol. iii. pp. 415-22. Eng. Translation). It would
appear that the Eastern Church kept Christmas on Jan. 6th, and the
Western Church on Dec. 25th: at length, about the time of Chrysostom, the
Oriental Christians sided with the Western Church. Bingham also cites
Augustine as saying that it was the current tradition that Christ was
born on the eighth of the kalends of January, that is, on the 25th of
December. Had, therefore, Julian I. dogmatically fixed the 25th of
December as the birthday of our Saviour, it is scarcely possible to
suppose that Augustine, who flourished about half a century later, would
allege current tradition as the reason, without any notice of Julian.

N. E. R. (A Subscriber).

Christmas-day (Vol. iii, p. 167.).—St. John of
Chrysostom, archbishop of Nice (died A.D. 407),
in an epistle upon this subject, relates (tom. v. p. 45. edit. Montf.
Paris, 1718-34) that, at the instance of St. Cyril of Jerusalem (died
A.D. 385), St. Julius (Pope A.D. 337-352) procured a strict inquiry to be made
into the day of our Saviour’s nativity, which being found to be the 25th
Dec., that day was thenceforth set apart for the celebration of this
“Festorum omnium metropolis,” as he styles it. St. Tilesphorus (Pope
A.D. 128-139), however, is supposed by the
generality of ancient authorities to be the first who appointed the 25th
Dec. for that purpose. The point is involved in much uncertainty, but
your correspondent may find all the information he seeks in Baronii
Apparatus ad Annales Ecclesiasticos, fol., Lucæ, 1740, pp. 475. et
seq.; and in a curious tract, entitled The Feast of Feasts; or, the
Celebration of the Sacred Nativity of our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ; grounded upon the Scriptures, and confirmed by the Practice of
the Christian Church in all Ages. 4to. Oxf. 1644. This tract is in
the British Museum. J. C. makes a tremendous leap in chronology when he
asks “Was it not either Julius I. or II.?” Why the one died exactly 1161
years after the other!

Cowgill.

Christmas Day (Vol. iii., p. 167.).—In a note to one of
Bishop Pearson’s sermons (Opera Minora, ed. Churton) occurs the
following passage from St. Chrysostom:—

“Παρὰ τῶν
ἀκριβῶς
ταῦτα
εἰδότων, καὶ
τὴν πόλιν
εκείνην (sc. Romam) οἰκούντων,
παρειληφάμεν
τήν ἡμεραν.
Οἱ γὰρ ἐκεῖ
διατρίβοντες
ἄνωθεν καὶ
ἐκ παλαῖας
παραδόσεως
ταῦτην
ἐπιτελοῦντες,”
&c.—Homil. Di. Nat. ii. 354.

The remainder of the quotation my note does not supply, but it
may be easily found by the reference. The day, therefore, seems fixed by
“tradition,” and received both by the Eastern and Western Church, and not
on any dogmatical decision of the popes.

R. W. F.

MS. Sermons by Jeremy Taylor (Vol. i., p.
125.).—Coleridge’s assertion, “that there is now extant in MS. a
folio of unprinted sermons by Jeremy Taylor,” must have proceeded from
his wishes rather than his knowledge. No such MS. is known to exist; and
such a discovery is, I believe, as little to be expected as a fresh play
of Shakspeare’s. Was it in the “Lands of Vision,” and with “the damsel
and the dulcimer,” that the transcendental philosopher beheld it?

Jas. Crossley.

Dryden’s Absolom and Achitophel (Vol. ii., p. 406.).—The
edition noticed by your correspondent, “printed and sold by H. Hills, in
Blackfriars, near the Water Side, for the benefit of the Poor,” 1708,
8vo., is a mere catch-penny. Hills, the printer, was a great sinner in
this way. I have Roscommon’s translation of Horace’s Art of
Poetry, 1709; his Essay on translated Verse, 1709; Mulgrave’s
Essay on Poetry, 1709; Denham’s Cooper’s Hill, 1709; and
many other poems, all printed by Hills, on bad paper, and very
incorrectly, from 1708 to 1710, for sale at a low price.

Jas. Crossley.

The Rev. W. Adams (Vol. iii., p. 140.).—The age of Mr.
Adams at his death was thirty-three. His tomb is in the churchyard of
Bonchurch—a simple coped coffin; but the cross placed upon it is,
in allusion to his own beautiful allegory, slightly raised, so that its
shadow falls—

I have a pretty engraving of this tomb, purchased at Bonchurch in
1849, and your correspondent may perhaps be glad to adopt the idea for an
illustration of the book he mentions.

E. J. M.

Duchess of Buckingham (Vol. iii., p. 224.).—I am much
surprised at this question; I thought {250}there were few ladies
of the last century better known than Catherine, daughter of James II.
(to whom he gave the name of Darnley) by Miss Ledley, created Countess of
Dorchester. Lady Catherine Darnley was married first to Lord Anglesey,
and secondly to Sheffield Duke of Buckingham, by whom she was mother of
the second duke of that name, who died in his minority, and the title
became extinct. All this, and many more curious particulars of that
extraordinary lady, may be found in the Peerages, in Pope,
in Walpole’s Reminiscences, and in Park’s edition of the Noble
Authors.

C.

“Go the whole Hog” (Vol. iii., p. 224.).—We learn from
Men and Manners in America, vol. i. pp. 18, 19., that going the
whole hog is the American popular phrase for radical reform, or
democratical principle, and that it is derived from the phrase used by
butchers in Virginia, who ask their customer whether he will go the whole
hog, or deal only for joints or portions of it.

C. B.

Lord Bexley’s Descent from Cromwell (Vol. iii., p.
185.).—In answer to Pursuivant’s Query, How
were the families of Morse and Ireton connected? it appears that Jane,
only child of Richard Lloyd (of Norfolk?), Esq., by Jane, second daughter
of Ireton, married, circa 1700, Nicholas or Henry Morse. But what appears
to me most likely to have occasioned the report of Lord Bexley’s
connexion with the Cromwell family is, that the late Oliver Cromwell,
Esq., of Cheshunt, married Miss Mary Morse in 1771, which must have been
not far from the period when Lord Bexley’s mother, also a Miss Morse, was
married to Mr. Vansittart.

Waylen.

Morse and Ireton Families.—I have a small original
portrait of General Ireton by old Stone; on the back of it is a card, on
which is the following:—

“Bequeathed by Jane Morse to her daughter Ann Roberts, this picture of
her grandfather Ireton. Will dated Jan. 15. 1732-33.”

“Anne Roberts, wife of Gaylard Roberts, brother of Christ^r
Roberts, father of J. R.”

In Noble’s Memoirs of the Cromwell Family, vol. ii. p. 302.,
the name is printed Moore, evidently a mistake for
Morse:—

“Jane, third daughter of General Ireton, having married Richard Lloyd,
Esq., the issue of this marriage was Jane, an only child, who married
Nicholas, or Henry Moore [Morse], Esq., by whom she had four sons
and three daughters.”

Spes.

The Countess of Desmond (Vol. ii., pp. 153. 186. 219.
317.).—Touching this venerable lady, the following “Note” may not
be unacceptable.

In the year 1829, when making a tour in Ireland, I saw an engraving at
Lansdowne Lodge, in the county of Kerry, the residence of Mr. Hickson, on
which the following record was inscribed:—

“Catherine Fitzgerald, Countess of Desmond (from the original in the
possession of the Knight of Kerry on Panell).

“She was born in 1464; married in the reign of Edw. IV.; lived during
the reigns of Edw. V., Rich. III., Hen. VII., Hen. VIII., Edw. VI., Mary,
and Elizabeth; and died in the latter end of James’ or the beginning of
Charles I.’s reign, at the great age of 162 years.”

On my return home I was much surprised and gratified to find in my own
house, framed and glazed, a very clever small-sized portrait in crayon,
which at once struck me a a fac-simile (or nearly so) of the engraving I
had seen at Lansdowne Lodge.

Your correspondent C. in p. 219. appears very sceptical about this
female Methuselah! and speaks of a reputed portrait at Windsor “as a
gross imposition, being really that of an old man”—

but I would remind your correspondent C. that such longevity is not
impossible, and the traditions of the Countess of Desmond are widely
diffused. The portrait in my possession is not unlike an old man; but old
ladies, like old hen pheasants, are apt to put on the semblance of the
male.

A Borderer.

Aristophanes on the Modern Stage (Vol. iii., p. 105.).—In
reply to a Query of our correspondent C. J. R., I beg leave to state,
that, after having made inquiry on the subject, I cannot find that any of
the Comedies of Aristophanes have ever been introduced upon the English
stage, although I agree with him in thinking that some of them might be
advantageously adapted to the modern theatre; and I am more confirmed in
this opinion from having witnessed at the Odéon in Paris, some years
since, a dramatic piece, entitled “Les Nuées d’Aristophane,” which had a
great run there. It was not a literal translation from the Greek author,
but a kind of mélange, drawn from the Clouds and Plutus together. The
characters of Socrates and his equestrian son were very well performed;
but the scenic accessories I considered very meagre, particularly the
choral part, which must have been so striking and beautiful in the
original of the former drama. Upon my return to England I wrote to the
then lessee of Drury Lane Theatre, recommending a similar experiment on
our stage from the free version by Wheelwright, published some time
before by the late D. A. Talboys, of Oxford. The answer I received was,
that the manager had then too much on his hands to admit of his giving
time to such an undertaking, which I still think might be a successful
one (as is the case with the “Antigone” {251}of Sophocles, so often
represented at Berlin), and such as to ensure the favourable attention of
an English audience, particularly as the subject turns so much upon the
danger and uselessness of the meteoric or visionary education, then so
prevalent at Athens.

Archæus.

Dusseldorf, March 6.

Denarius Philosophorum (Vol. iii., p. 168.).—Bishop
Thornborough may have been thus styled from his attachment to alchemy and
chemistry. One of his publications is thus entitled:

“Nihil, Aliquid, Omnia, in Gratiam eorum qui Artem Auriferam
Physico-chymicè et pie, profitentur.” Oxon. 1621.

Another part of his monumental inscription is singular. On the north
side are, or were, these words and figures—”In uno, 2^o
3^a 4^r 10—non spirans spero.”

“He was,” says Wood, “a great encourager of Bushall in his searches
after mines and minerals:”

and Richardson speaks of this prelate as—

“Rerum politicarum potius quam Theologicarum et artis Chemicæ peritia
Clarus.”

J. H. M.

On a Passage in the Tempest (Vol. ii., pp. 259. 299. 337. 429.
499.).—If you will allow me to offer a conjecture on a subject,
which you may think has already been sufficiently discussed in your
pages, I shall be glad to submit the following to the consideration of
your readers.

The passage in the Tempest, Act III. Scene 1., as quoted from
the first folio, stands thus:

This was altered in the second folio to

Instead of which Theobald proposes,—

But “busyless” is not English. All our words ending in less
(forming adjectives), are derived from Anglo-Saxon nouns; as love, joy,
hope, &c., and never from adjectives.

My conjecture is that Shakespeare wrote—

“Most” being used in the sense of “greatest,” as in Henry VI.,
Pt. I., Act IV. Scene 1., (noticed by Steevens):—

Thus the change of a single syllable is sufficient to make good
English, good sense, and good metre of a passage which is otherwise
defective in these three particulars. It retains the s in
“labours,” keeps the comma in its place, and provides that antecedent for
“it,” which was justly considered necessary by Mr.
Singer.

John Taylor.

30. Upper Gower Street.

Meaning of Waste-book (Vol. iii., pp. 118, 195.).—Richard
Dafforne, of Northampton, in his very curious

“Merchant’s Mirrour, or Directions for the Perfect Ordering and
Keeping of his Accounts; framed by way of Debitor and Creditor after the
(so tearmed) Italian Manner, containing 250 rare Questions, with their
Answers in the form of a Dialogue; as likewise a Waste Book, with a
complete Journal and Ledger thereunto appertaining;”

annexed to Malyne’s Consuetudo vel Lex Mercatoria, edit. 1636,
folio, gives rather a different explanation of the origin of the term
“waste-book” to that contained in the answer of your last correspondent.
“Waste-book,” he observes,

“So called, because, when the Matter is written into the Journall,
then is this Book void, and of no esteeme, especially in Holland; where
the buying people firme not the Waste-book, as here our nation doe in
England.”

Jas. Crossley.

Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Craigs (Vol. iii., p.
119.).—L. M. M. R. is informed that there is a tradition of King
Arthur having defeated the Saxons in the neighbourhood of this hill, to
the top of which he ascended for the purpose of viewing the country.

In the Encyclopædia Britannica we have another explanation also
(sub voce), as follows:—

“Arthur’s Seat is said to be derived, or rather corrupted, from A’rd
Seir, a ‘place or field of arrows,’ where people shot at a mark: and this
not improperly; for, among these cliffs is a dell, or recluse valley,
where the wind can scarcely reach, now called the Hunter’s Bog, the
bottom of it being a morass.”

The article concludes thus:

“The adjacent crags are supposed to have taken their name from the
Earl of Salisbury; who, in the reign of Edward III., accompanied that
prince in an expedition against the Scots.”

But query “a height of earth;” “earthes” (an old form of the
genitive), or “airthes height,” not unnaturally corrupted to “Arthur’s
Seat.”

W. T. M.

Edinburgh.

Salisbury Craigs.—Craiglockhart Hill and Craigmillar
Castle, both in the neighbourhood of the Craigs, are all so called from
the Henry de Craigmillar, who built the castle (now in ruins) in the
twelfth century. There is a charter in the reign of Alexander II., in
1212, by William, son of Henry de Craigmillar, to the monastery of
Dunfermline, which is the earliest record of the castle.

Blowen.

Meaning of “Harrisers” (Vol. ii., p. 376.).—I am told
that the practice which Clericus Rusticus {252}speaks of, holds in Yorkshire, but not the
name.

In Devon a corn-field, which has been cut and cleared, is called an
“arrish.” A vacant stubblefield is so called during the whole of the
autumn months.

Your correspondent suggests “arista;” can he support this
historically? If not, it is surely far-fetched. Let me draw attention to
a word in our English Bible, which has been misunderstood before now by
readers who were quite at home in the original languages: “earing nor
harvest” (Genesis). Without some acquaintance with the earlier forms
of our mother tongue, one is liable to take earing to mean the
same as “harvest,” from the association of ears of corn. But it is
the substantive from the Anglo-Saxon verb erian, to plough, to
till: so that “earing nor harvest” = “sowing nor reaping.” From
erian we may pass on to arare, and from that to
arista: in the long pedigree of language they are scarcely
unconnected: but the Anglo-Saxon is not derived from the Latin;
they are, each in its own language, genuine and independent forms. But it
is curious to see what an attraction these distant cousins have for one
another, let them only come within each other’s sphere of
gravitation.

In, Yorkshire the verb to earland is still a living
expression; and a Yorkshireman, who has more Saxon than Latin in him,
will not write “arable land,” but “earable land.” A Yorkshire
clergyman tells me that this orthography has been perpetuated in a local
act of parliament of no very ancient date.

Putting all these facts together, I am inclined to think that “arrish”
must first mean “land for tillage;” and that the connexion of the word
with “gleaning” or “gleaners” is the effect of association, and therefore
of later date.

But it must be observed, there is a difference between “arrish” and
“harrisers.” Can it be shown that Dorset-men are given to aspirating
their words? Besides this, there is a great difference between
“arrissers” and “arrishers” for counties so near as Dorset
and Devon. And again, while I am quite familiar with the word “arrish,” I
never heard “arrishers,” and I believe it is unknown in Devonshire.

J. E.

Oxford.

Harrisers or Arrishers.—Doubtless, by this time, some
dozen Devonshire correspondents will have informed you, for the benefit
of Clericus Rusticus, that arrishers is
the term prevailing in that county for “stubble.” The Dorset harrisers
are therefore, perhaps, the second set of gleaners, who are admitted to
the fields to pick up from the stubble, or arrishes, the little
left behind by the reapers’ families. A third set of gleaners has been
admitted from time immemorial, namely, the Anser stipularis, which
feeds itself into plump condition for Michaelmas by picking up, from
between the stubble, the corns which fell from the ears during reaping
and sheaving. The Devonshire designation for this excellent sort of
poultry—known elsewhere as “stubble geese”—is “arrish
geese.”

The derivation of the word must be left to a better provinial
philologist than

W. H. W.

Chaucer’s “Fifty Wekes” (Vol. iii., p. 202.).—A. E. B.’s
natural and ingeniously-argued conjecture, that Chaucer, by the “fifty
wekes” of the Knightes Tale, “meant to imply the interval of
a solar year,”—whether we shall rest in accepting the poet’s
measure of time loosely and poetically, or (which I would gladly feel
myself authorised to do) find in it, with your correspondent, an
astronomical and historical reason,—is fully secured by the
comparison with Chaucer’s original.

The Theseus of Boccaccio says, appointing the listed fight:

To which the poet subjoins:

See Teseide, v. 98.

A. L. X.

The Almond Tree, &c. (Vol. iii., p. 203.).—The
allusions in Hall’s poem, stanzas iii. & v., refer to the fine
allegorical description of human decrepitude in Ecclesiastes, xii.
5, 6., when

“‘The almond tree shall flourish’ (white hairs), and ‘the
silver cord shall be loosed,’ and ‘the golden bowl broken,’ and ‘the
mourners shall go about the streets.'”

The pertinence of these solemn figures has been sufficiently explained
by biblical commentators. It is to be presumed that the reference to a
source so well known as the Bible would have occurred at once to the
Querist, had not the allusions, in the preceding stanza, to the
heathen fable of Medea, diverted his thoughts from that more
familiar channel.

V.

Belgravia.

St. Thomas’s Onions (Vol. iii., p. 187.).—In reference to
the Query, Why is St. Thomas frequently mentioned in connexion with
onions? I fancy the reason to be this. There is a variety of the onion
tribe commonly called potato or multiplying onion. It is
the rule to plant this onion on St. Thomas’s day. From this
circumstance it appears to me likely that this sort of onion may be so
called, though I never heard of it before. They are fit for use as large
hard onions some time before the other sort.

J. Wodderspoon.

Norwich, March 10. 1851.

{253}

Roman Catholic Peers (Vol. iii., p. 209.).—The proper
comment has been passed on the Duke of Norfolk, but not on the other two
Roman Catholic peers mentioned by Miss Martineau. She names Lord Clifford
and Lord Dormer as “having obtained entrance at last to the
legislative assembly, where their fathers sat and ruled when their faith
was the law of the land.” The term “fathers” is of course figuratively
used, but we may conclude the writer meant to imply their ancestors
possessing the same dignity of peerage, and enjoying, in virtue thereof,
the right of “sitting and ruling” in the senate of their country. If such
was the lady’s meaning, what is her historical accuracy? The first Lord
Dormer was created in the reign of James I., in the year 1615; and, dying
the next year, never sat in parliament: and it has been remarked as a
very singular fact that this barony had existed for upwards of two
centuries before any of its possessors did so. But the first Lord Dormer,
who sat in the House of Lords, was admitted, not by the Roman Catholic
Relief Act, but by the fact of his being willing to take the usual oaths:
this was John, the tenth lord, who succeeded his half-brother in 1819,
and died without issue in 1826. As for Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, that
family was not raised to the peerage until the year 1672, in the reign of
Charles II.

J. G. N.

Election of a Pope (Vol. iii., p. 142.).—Probably T.
refers to the (alleged) custom attendant upon the election of a pope, as
part of the ceremony alluded to in the following lines in
Hudibras:—

In the notes to the above edition (and probably to other of the old
editions) your correspondent will find a detailed explanation of these
two lines: I refer him to the work itself, as the “note” is scarcely fit
to transcribe here.

J. B. Colman.

Comets (Vol. iii., p. 223.).—There is a copious list of
all the comets that have appeared since the creation, and of all
that will appear up to A.D. 2000, in the
Art de vérifier les Dates, vol. i. part i.; and vol. i. part ii.
of the last edition.

C.

Camden and Curwen Families (Vol. iii., pp. 89.
125.).—H. C. will find, in Harl. MS. 1437. fo. 69., a short
pedigree of the family of Nicholas Culwen of Gressiard and Stubbe, in the
county of Lancaster, showing his descent from Gilbert Culwen or Curwen (a
younger brother of Curwen of Workington), who appears to have settled at
Stubbe about the middle of the fifteenth century.

Although this pedigree was recorded by authority of Norroy King of
Arms, in 1613, while Camden held the office of Clarenceux, it does not
show any connexion with Gyles Curwen, who married a daughter and coheir
of Barbara, of Poulton Hall, in the county of Lancaster, and whose
daughter Elizabeth was the wife of Sampson Camden of London, and mother
of Camden. Nevertheless, it may possibly throw some light on the
subject.

If H. C. cannot conveniently refer to the Harl. MSS., I will with much
pleasure send him a copy of this pedigree, and of another, in the same
MS., fo. 29., showing Camden’s descent from Gyles Curwen, if he will
communicate his address to the Editor of “Notes and
Queries.“

Llewellyn.

Auriga (Vol. iii., p. 188.).—That part of the Roman
bridle which went about the horse’s ears (aures), was termed
aurea; which, being by a well-known grammatical figure put for the
whole head-gear of the horse, suggests as a meaning of Auriga,
“is qui AUREAS AGIT, he who manages,
guides, or (as we say) handles, the reins.”

Pelethronius.

Ecclesfield Hall.

Straw Necklaces (Vol. i., p. 4., &c.).—May not these
be possibly only Spenser’s “rings of rushes,” mentioned by him among
other fragile ornaments for the head and neck?

Ache.

The Nine of Diamonds, called the Curse of Scotland (Vol. i.,
pp. 61., 90.).—The following explanation is given in a Classical
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 1785; an ignoble authority, it must
be admitted:—

“Diamonds imply royalty, being ornaments to the imperial crown, and
every ninth King of Scotland has been observed for many ages to be a
tyrant, and a curse to that country.”

J. H. M.

“Cum Grano Salis” (Vol. iii., pp. 88. 153.).—I venture to
suggest, that in this phrase the allusion is to a rich and unctuous
morsel, which, when assisted by a little salt, will be tolerated
by the stomach, otherwise will be rejected. In the same way an
extravagant statement, when taken with a slight qualification (cum
grano salis) will be tolerated by the mind. I should wish to be
informed what writer first uses this phrase in a metaphorical
sense—not, I conceive, any classical author.

X. Z.

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.

Mr. Rees of Llandovery announces for publication by subscription
(under the auspices of the Welsh MSS. Society), a new edition of The
Myvyrian Archæology of Wales, with English translations and notes,
{254}nearly the whole of the historical
portions of which, consisting of revised copies of Achan y Saint,
historical triads, chronicles, &c. are ready for the press, having
been prepared for the late Record Commission, by Aneurin Owen, Esq., and
since placed by the Right Hon. the Master of the Rolls at the disposal of
the Welsh MSS. Society for publication. As the first volume consists of
ancient poetry from the sixth to the fourteenth centuries, much of which,
from its present imperfect state, requires to be collated with ancient
MS. copies of the poems, not accessible to the former editors; in order
to afford more time for that most essential object, it is proposed to
commence with the publication of the historical matter: while the laws of
Howel Dda, having been recently published by the Record Commission, will
not be included; by which means it is expected the original Welsh text
and English translations of the rest of the work can be comprised in four
or five volumes, as the greatest care will be paid to the quantity of
matter and its accuracy, as well as typographical excellence, so as to
ensure the largest amount of information at the least expense. We need
hardly say that this patriotic undertaking has our heartiest wishes for
its success.

The Rev. J. Forshall, one of the editors of the recently published
Wickliffe Bible, has just edited, under the title of
Remonstrance against Romish Corruptions in the Church, addressed to
the People and Parliament of England in 1395, 18 Ric. II., a most
valuable paper drawn up by Purvey, one of Wickliffe’s friends and
disciples, for the king, lords, and commons, then about to assemble in
parliament. As presenting a striking picture of the condition of the
English Church at the time, when combined efforts were first made with
any zealousness of purpose for its amendment and reform; and affording a
tolerably complete sketch of the views and notions of the Wickliffite
party on those points of ecclesiastical polity and doctrine, in which
they were most strongly opposed to the then prevailing opinions; this
publication is an extremely valuable contribution to the history of a
period in our annals, which has scarcely yet received it due share of
attention: while the great question which is agitating the public mind
renders the appearance of Purvey’s tract at this moment peculiarly
well-timed. Mr. Forshall has executed his task in a very able manner; the
introduction is brief and to the purpose, and the short glossary which he
has appended is just what it should be.

The Camden Society has lately added a very important work to its list
of intended publications. It is the St. Paul’s Domesday of the Manors
belonging to the Cathedral in the year 1222, and is to be edited with
an introduction and illustrative notes, by Archdeacon Hale.

Messrs. Puttick and Simpson (191. Piccadilly) will sell, on Monday
next and four following days, a selection of valuable Books, including
old poetry, plays, chap-books, and drolleries, and some important MSS.
connected with English County and Family History.

Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson (3. Wellington Street, Strand) will sell
on Monday the valuable collection of English coins and medals of Abraham
Rhodes, Esq.; on Wednesday and Thursday, a valuable collection of
engravings, drawings, and paintings, including a very fine drawing of
Torento by Turner; and on Friday and two following days, the valuable
assemblage of Greek, &c. coins and medals, including the residue of
the Syrian Regal Tetradrachms, recently found at Tarsus in Cilicia, the
property of F. R. P. Boocke, Esq.

Books Received.—Angels the Ministers
of God’s Providence. A Sermon preached before the University of Dublin on
Quinquagesima Sunday, 1851, by the Rev. Richard Gibbings, M.A.—The
Legend of Saint Peter’s Chair, by Anthony Rich, Jun., B.A. A clever
and caustic reply to Dr. Wiseman’s attack on Lady Morgan, by a very
competent authority—the learned editor of the Illustrated
Companion to the Latin Dictionary and Greek Lexicon. Dr. Wiseman
pronounced Lady Morgan’s statement to be “foolish and wicked.” Mr. Rich
has shown that these strong epithets may more justly be applied to Dr.
Wiseman’s own “Remarks.”—Supplement to Second Edition of
Dr. Herbert Mayo’s Letters on the Truths contained in Popular
Superstitions may be best characterised in the writer’s own words, as
“a notice of some peculiar motions, hitherto unobserved, to the
manifestation of which, an influence unconsciously proceeding from the
living human frame is necessary,” and a very startling notice it is.

Catalogues Received.—Williams and
Norgate’s (14. Henrietta Street) Catalogue No. 2. of Foreign Second-hand
Books, and Books at reduced Prices; W. Nield’s (46. Burlington Arcade)
Catalogue No. 5. of Very Cheap Books; W. Waller and Son’s (188. Fleet
Street) Catalogue, Part 1. for 1851, of Choice Books at remarkably low
prices.

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE.

*** Letters stating particulars and lowest price, carriage
free, to be sent to Mr. Bell, Publisher of
“NOTES AND QUERIES,” 186. Fleet Street.

Notices to Correspondents.

We this week have the pleasure of presenting our readers with an
extra Eight Pages, rendered necessary by our increasing correspondence.
If each one of our readers could procure us one additional subscriber, it
would enable us to make this enlargement permanent, instead of
occasional.

E. N. W. A ring which had belonged to Mary Queen of Scots, very
similar to that which E. N. W. possesses, was exhibited some years
since. A friend, on whose judgment we place great reliance, is of the
opinion that the cutting on E. N. W.’s ring is modern. Could
not E. N. W. exhibit it at the Society of Antiquaries? Mr.
Akerman, the resident Secretary would take charge of it for that
purpose.

Lammer Beads. Justice to Mr. Blowen requires that we should explain that his
article in No. 68. was accidentally inserted after he had
expressed his wish to withdraw it, in consequence of Mr. Way’s most satisfactory paper in No. 67.

E. M. “God tempers the wind,” &c. Much curious illustration of
this proverb, of which the French version occurs in Gruter’s
Florilegium, printed in 1611, will be found in “Notes And Queries,” Vol. I., pp. 211. 236. 325. 357.
418.

E. M. “Vox Populi Vox Dei” were the words chosen by Archbishop
Mepham for his Sermon, when Edw. III. was called to the throne. See
“Notes and Queries,” Vol. I., pp. 370. 419. 492.
for further illustrations. {255}

S. Wmsn. The proposed short and true
account of Zacharie Boyd would be acceptable.

H. N. E. Lord Rochester wrote a poem of seventeen stanzas upon
Nothing. The Latin poem on the same subject,
to which H. N. E. refers, is probably that by Passerat, inserted
by Dr. Johnson in his Life of Rochester.

K. R. H. M. Received.

O. S. St. Thomas à Watering’s was close to the second milestone on
the Old Kent Road. See Cunningham’s Handbook of London,
s.v.

Borrow’s Translations. Norvicensis and
E. D. are thanked for their Replies, which had been anticipated. The
latter also for his courteous offer.

J. M. (Tavy), who is certainly our fourth correspondent under that
signature (will he adopt another, or shall we add (4.) to his
initials?), is thanked. His communications shall appeal in an early
Number.

Replies Received.—St.
Graal—Moths called Souls—Rack—Lines on Woman’s
Will—Odour from the Rainbow—Almond Tree—In
Memoriam—Gig’s Hill—Comets—Language given to
Man—The whole Hog—Monosyllables—Mistletoe—Head of
the Saviour—Snail-eating—Coverdale or Tindal’s
Bible—Dutch
Church—Post-office—Drachmarus—Quebecca’s
Epitaph—Meaning of
“strained”—By-the-bye—Gloves—Tradesmen’s
Signs—Old Hewson—Slums—Morganatic
Marriages—Quinces—Sir John Vaughan—Commoner marrying a
Peeress—Pilgrim’s Road—Herbert’s Memoirs.

Vols. I. and II., each with very
copious Index, may still be had, price 9s. 6d. each.

Notes and Queries may be procured, by
order, of all Booksellers and Newsvendors. It is published at noon on
Friday, so that our country Subscribers ought not to experience any
difficulty in procuring it regularly. Many of the country Booksellers,
&c., are, probably, not yet aware of this arrangement, which will
enable them to receive Notes and Queries
in their Saturday parcels.

All communications for the Editor of Notes and
Queries should be addressed to the care of Mr. Bell, No. 186. Fleet Street.

CHEAP FOREIGN BOOKS.

WILLIAMS AND NORGATE’S CATALOGUES of SECOND-HAND BOOKS, each 1
Stamp:

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C. HAMILTON’S Catalogue No. 42. will be ready April 1, consisting of a
remarkably cheap class of OLD BOOKS and TRACTS, in various languages,
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Valuable Books, County MSS., Cabinet Snuff Boxes, very fine
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PUTTICK AND SIMPSON, Auctioneers of Literary
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MONDAY, March 31, and Four following Days, A COLLECTION of VALUABLE
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Catalogues will be sent on application.

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“Sermons of a high and solid character—earnest and
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London: George Bell, 186. Fleet Street.

{256}

COMMITTEE FOR THE REPAIR OF THE TOMB OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

The Tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer in Westminster Abbey is fast mouldering
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NEW THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL.

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This Journal will embrace Theology in its widest acceptation, and
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Contents:—1. Newman’s Ninth Lecture. 2.
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This day is published, price 1s.

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meant—that which ought to be laughed at.”—Tooke’s
Diversion of Purley.

C. Westerton, Hyde Park Corner, and all Booksellers.

Also the Fourth Edition, price 1s., of

LADY MORGAN’S LETTER TO CARDINAL WISEMAN.

IN ANTICIPATION OF EASTER.

THE SUBSCRIBER has prepared an ample supply of his well-known and
approved SURPLICES, from 20s. to 50s., and various devices
in DAMASK COMMUNION LINEN, well adapted for presentation to Churches.

Illustrated priced Catalogues sent free to the Clergy, Architects, and
Churchwardens by post, on application to

Gilbert J. French, Bolton, Lancashire.

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, March 29, 1851.