Vol. IV.—No. 97.
NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION
FOR
LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

VOL. IV.—No. 97.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. 1851.

Price Threepence. Stamped Edition, 4d.

CONTENTS.

NOTES:—

QUERIES:—

REPLIES:—

MISCELLANEOUS:—

Notes.

NOTES ON BOOKS, NO. II.—GABRIEL HARVEY.

This learned friend of Spenser and Sir Philip Sydney (though better
known from his quarrel with Tom Nashe) was in the habit of writing
copious memoranda in his books, several of which were in the library of
Mr. Lloyd, of Wygfair. Among them some miscellaneous volumes, which I
believe afterwards passed into the collection of Mr. Heber, contained
remarkable specimens of his calligraphic skill. His name was written
four or five times: “Gabriel Harveins, 1579,” and with variation,
“Gabrielis Harveij” and “di Gabriello Haveio.” The volumes contained the
Medea and Giocasta of Lodovico Dolce, in Italian; the Hecuba and
Iphigenia of Euripides in Latin, by Erasmus, the Comedies of Terence,
&c.; and the first Italian and English Grammar, by Henry Grantham, 1575.
On the blank pages and spaces what follows was inscribed:—

“La Giocasta d’ Euripide, Dolce, et Gascoigno. Senecæ et Statii
Thebais. Item Senecæ Œdipus. Quasi Synopsis
Tragœdiarum omnium.—NON GIOCO, MA GIOCASTA.“

“Omne genus scripti, gravitate Tragœdia vincit.”

“Hæ quatuor Tragœdiæ, instar omnium Tragœdiarum pro
tempore: præsertim cum reliquarum non suppetit copia. Duæ
Euripidis placent in primis, et propter auctoris prudentissimam
veram, et propter interpretis singularem delectum. Eadem in
Sophoclis Antigonem affectio, ab Episcopo Vatsono tralatam: cum
propter interpretis accuratum judicium. Qui tanti fecit optimo
Tragicos, ut eosdem soleret cum Checo et Aschamo, omnibus aliis
poetis anteferre; etiam Homero et Virgilio.”

“Questa Medea di Dolce non è Medea di Seneca. Ma Thieste di Dolce
è Thieste medesimo di Seneca. Solo coro nel fin è soperchievole.”

“Gascoigni Jocasta, magnifice acta solemne ritu, et vere tragico
apparatu. Ut etiam Vatsoni Antigone; cuive pompæ seriæ, et
exquisita. Usque adeo quidem utraque ut nihil in hoc tragico
genere vel illustrius vel accuratius.”

“Jam floruerant prudentissimi Attici, Pericles, Thucydides,
Sophocles; jam florent Plato, Xenophon, Demosthenes, cum
Euripides pangit Tragœdias. Nec excellentissimorum Atticorum,
ullus vel prudentior Euripides, vel argutior, vel etiam
elegantior. Nihil in eo nugarum, nihil affectationis, et tamen
singula ubique cultissima.”

“Erasmus talis Euripidis interpres, qualis Pindari Melancthon.
Fœlix utriusque ad interpretandum dexteritas et fluens
elocutionis facilitas. Plus in Erasmo diligentiæ; in Melancthone
perspicuitas. Quam persequebatur, Camerarius, nec tamen
assequebatur.”

“Erasmi ferè jadicium acre, et serium nec dubium est, quin
delectum adhibucrit in sapientissimis Tragœdiis eligendis
exquisitum.”

“Ut ferè fœminas; sic Comœdias et Tragœdias; qui unam
omnimodo novit, omnes novit quodam modo. Saltem ex ungue, Leonem;
ex clave, Herculem.”

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“Quattro Comedie del divino Pietro Aretino. Cioè Il
Marescalco ò Pedante.—La Cortigiana.—La Talanta.—Lo
Hippocrito.

“Habeo et legi: sed nondum comprare potui Il Filosofo: quæ tamen
ipsius, Comœdia dicitur etiam exstare.

“Memorantur etiam duæ illius Tragœdiæ,
L’Hortensia.—Tragœdia di Christo.

“Comedie, Dialoghi capricciosi, Le Lettere, e Capitoli dell’
Unico: Historie del suo tempo. La quinta essenza del suo unico
ingegno; e lo specchio di tutte l’arti Cortegiane.

“Due Comedie argutissime et facetissime di Macchiavelli Politico:
La Mandragola.—La Clitia.”

“IL
LEGGERE
NUTRISCA LO
INGEGNO.”

“Suppositi d’Ariosto: Comœdiam singulariter laudate à P. Jovio
in Elogiis; cum Plautinis facilè contendens Inventionis, atque
successus amenitate; si utriusque sæculi mores non inepte
comparentur. Syncrisis ætatum necessaria, ad Comœdiarum,
Historiarum, aliorumque Scriptorum excellentia in examinandam,
atque judicandam solerti censura.”

“Arciprologo quasi di tutte le Comedie, il primo dell’ Aretino;
et il terzo e quarto dello’ stesso.”

“Ut Comœdias, sic Tragœdias; qui tres aut quatuor intimè
novit, novit ferè omnes. Tanti valet hic aureus libellus. Meo
tandem judicio, Poetarum sapientissimus, Euripides: vel ipse
Sophocle magis Attice nervosus et profundus, ut Seneca Latine.”

“Ecce reliquiæ et fragmenta Menandri, Epicharmi, Alexidis,
reliquiorumque Græcorum Comicorum. Cum toto Aristophane. Et
fortasse senties nova veteribus non esse potiora. Nec usquam
prudentiores Gnomas invenies, ne apud Theognidem quidem aut
Isocratem.

“Placent etiam Comœdiæ quæ non sunt Comœdiæ; et Tragœdiæ
quæ non sunt Tragœdiæ: Ut utriusque generis multæ egregiæ apud
Homerum, et Virgilium in Heroicis; Frontinum et Polyænum in
Strategematis; Stephanum in Apologia Herodoti: Rabelesium in
Heroicis Gargantuæ: Sidneium in novissima Arcadiæ: Domenichum in
Facetiis. Quomodo antiquorum unus Græcorum dixit:—Delicatissimos
esse Pisces quæ non sunt Pisces, et carnes lautissimas quæ non
sunt carnes. Da mihi Fabulas non Fabulas, Apologos non Apologos.
Et sensi optima Apophthegmata quæ non sunt Apophthegmata: Optima
Adagia quæ non Adagia.

“Inutiliter Tragœdias legit qui nescit philosophicas
sententias a Tyrannicis distinguere. Alia scholarum doctrina,
alia regnorum disciplina. Politico opus est judicio ad
distinguendum prudentissimas sententias à reliquis. Nec semper
Tyrannus barbarus: nec semper poeta, aut philosophus sapiens:
solertis judiciis fuerit, non quis dicat, set quia dicatur
respicere, et undique optima seligere.”

“Euripidis Jocastæ apud Gascoignum summa ferè Tragœdiarum
omnium.”

“No finer or pithier Examples than in ye excellent Comedies and
Tragedies following, full of sweet and wise discourse. A notable
Dictionarie for the Grammer.”

“Ut de hac Terentii tralatione sentirem honorificentius; fecit
Aldus exquisita editio.”

I thought these notes worth transcribing, not only as showing the
attention paid by the learned students of this time to the drama, as
well ancient as modern, but more especially for the mention made of the
Jocasta of George Gascoigne, and the Antigone of Sophocles,
translated, as he says, by Watson, Bishop of Worcester, and not by
Thomas Watson, as Warton supposed. It may be doubted whether this
translation was into English; but Harvey seems to imply that it was
acted, as well as the Jocasta. Bishop Watson was celebrated for his
dramatic skill, in his Latin tragedy of Absalon, by Roger Ascham, who
says,—

“When M. Watson, in St. John’s College at Cambridge, wrote his
excellent Tragedie of Absalon, M. Cheke, he, and I, had many
pleasant talkes togither, in comparing the preceptes of Aristotle
and Horace with the examples of Euripides, Sophocles, and
Seneca…. M. Watson had another maner of care of perfection,
with a feare and reverence of the judgement of the best learned:
who to this day would neuer suffer yet his Absalon to go abroad,
and that onelie bicause (in locis paribus) Anapæstus is twise
or thrise used instead of Iambus.”

In a volume in the Bodleian Library marked Z. 3., Art. “Selden,” is “The
Life of Howleglas,” printed by Copland: at the bottom of the last page
is the following MS. note:

“This Howleglasse, with Scoggin, Skelton, and (L——zario——?)
given me at London of M. Spenser, xx Decembris, 1578, on
condition yt I shoold bestowe ye readinge on them, on or before
ye first day of January immediately ensuinge: otherwise to
forfeit unto him my Lucian in fower volumes. Whereupon I was ye
rather induced to trifle away so many howers as were idely
overpassed in running through ye aforesaid foolish bookes;
wherein methought yt not all fower together seemed comparable
for fine and crafty feates with Jon Miller, whose witty shiftes
and practises are reported among Skelton’s Tales.”

Mr. Malone, from whose memoranda I copy this, says, “I suspect it is
Gabriel Harvey’s handwriting.”

I have a copy of the Organon of Aristotle in Greek, which bears marks of
Gabriel Harvey’s diligent scholarship. It is copiously annotated and
analysed by him when a student at Cambridge, and he has registered the
periods at which he completed the study of each part.

S. W. SINGER.

Mickleham, Aug. 15. 1851.

THE ANTIQUITY OF KILTS.

This has been the subject of many discussions, and has recently found a
place in the columns of “NOTES AND QUERIES.” I do not propose to take
any part in the present discussion, but it may be of some service to
historical students for me to

[171]
introduce to public notice a much
older authority than any that has yet been cited.

It is known to but few antiquaries out of the principality, that the
ancient poetry of Wales throws more light on the immediate post-Roman
history of Britain than any documents in existence. These poems vividly
pourtray the social condition of the period, and contain almost the only
records of the great contest between the natives and the Saxon invaders;
they prove beyond a doubt that the Romans had left the province in an
advanced stage of civilisation, and they supply us with the means of
affirming decisively, that the vine was cultivated here to a very
considerable extent.

The antiquity of these poems admits of no reasonable doubt; on that
point the Vindication of Turner enables the antiquaries of Wales to
make this assertion with confidence: and having recently translated most
of our old poems, with a view to future publication, I feel myself
warranted in assuming them to belong to the sixth and seventh centuries
of our era. One of these bards, Aneurin by name, belonged to the British
tribe, described by the Romans as Ottadini, and by themselves as the
people of Gododin. This people were situated at the junction of England
and Scotland, and the poems of this bard chiefly refer to that district;
but as the bards were a rambling class, and as the bulk of the people
from Chester to Dumbarton were the same race as the people of the
principality, we are not surprised when we find this bard sometimes
among “the banks and braes of bonny Doon,” and sometimes in North and
South Wales. In one of his verses he thus describes the kilt of a
British chief:—

These lines may be found in the Myvyrian Archæology, vol. i. p. 13.
col. 1.; and a most unwarrantable translation of dinogat may be found
in Davies’ Mythology of the Druids; but the literal rendering would be
this:

Peis or pais is the word now used for the article of female attire
known as a petti-coat, which in form bears a sufficiently close
resemblance to the male kilt to justify me in using that word here. It
also occurs in pais-arfau, a coat of arms, and pais-ddur, a coat of
mail. The words vreith vreith have been translated word for word; in
the Kymric language it is a very common form of emphatic expression to
repeat the word on which the emphasis falls, as yn dda da for very
good; but a more idiomatic translation would have been, very stripy.
Vraith with us also stands for plaid, and in the Welsh Bible Joseph’s
“coat of many colours” is named siacced vraith.

Now I will not attempt to determine what relation this kilt stands in to
the kilts of the Highlands, whether the Gael borrowed it from the
Briton, or the Briton from the Gael, or whether the dress was common to
both at the time in which Dinogad lived; but thus much appears to be
clear, that we here have a kilt, and that that kilt was striped, if
not a plaid; and it only remains for us to determine the period at
which Dinogad lived. Most persons are acquainted with the name of
Brochmael, Prince of Powys, the British commander at the battle of
Bangor in 613, on the occasion of the dispute between Augustine and the
primitive British church; Dinogad stood to him in the following
relation:

Of Dinogad himself there is but one fact on record, and that took place
in 577. His brother Selyf fell at the battle of Bangor or Chester in
613. If we take these facts together, we may form a pretty accurate idea
respecting the period at which he lived.

Viewing this matter from a Cambrian standpoint, I feel myself warranted
in hazarding the following remarks. In the lines of Aneurin, the thing
selected for special notice is the excess of stripe; and therefore,
whether it was the invention of Dinogad, or whether he borrowed the idea
from the Scots or Picts when he was at Dumbarton in 577, it is quite
clear, from the repetition of the word vreith, that his kilt had the
attribute of stripyness to a greater extent than was usually the case;
while it is also equally clear, that amongst the Britons of that period,
kilts of a stripy character were so common as to excite no surprise. We
may therefore affirm,

1. That in the beginning of the seventh century the British chiefs were
in the habit of wearing skin kilts.

2. That striped kilts were common.

3. That a chief named Dinogad was distinguished by an excess of this
kind of ornament. And

4. That as the Kymry of North Britain were on intimate terms with their
neighbours, it is highly probable that the Scottish kilt is much older
than 1597.

T. STEPHENS.

Merthyr Tydfil.

NOTES ON JULIN, NO. 1.
(Vol. ii., pp. 230. 282. 379. 443.)

In approaching a subject set at rest so long since, I feel some apology
due to you; and that apology I will make by giving you the results of my
recent investigation of the question of Vineta

[172]
v. Julin alias
Wollin, made in Pomerania, and noted from personal testimony and
Pomeranian chronicles.

But, first, to correct an erreur de plume of DR. BELL’S. He says, in
stating the position of Vineta (Vol. ii., p. 283.), “opposite the small
town of Demmin, in Pomerania.” DR. BELL has mis-written the name:
there is no such place on the Baltic. The real name is Damerow, on the
Isle of Usedom. A little lower he remarks, speaking of Wollin, “No
rudera, no vestiges of ancient grandeur, now mark the spot; not even a
tradition of former greatness.” In this I think DR. BELL will find (and,
I am sure, will readily allow, in the same spirit of good faith in which
I make my observations) that he is in error, from the following
narrative.

The gentleman who has kindly given me, by word of mouth, the following
particulars, is a native of Wollin, and of one of the most ancient and
noble families in that island, a relative of that Baron Kaiserling who
was the Cicero of Frederick the Great, but of an elder branch of that
family, the Counts of Kaiserling. M. de Kaiserling states that, when a
young man, in his native town, he took a delight in reading the records
of its bygone glory, and in tracing out the ruins in the neighbourhood
of the town, extending to the distance of about one English mile from
its outskirts. The foundations of houses and tracks of streets[1] are
still exposed in the operations of agriculture, and any informant has in
his possession several Byzantine and Wendish coins which he at that time
picked up. He has likewise seen a Persian coin, which was found in the
same neighbourhood by a friend. Having been led by circumstances to
examine the evidence pro and con. in this question, he has come to
the conclusion that Wollin and Julin or Jumne are identical. He treats
the story of Vineta as a nursery tale and a myth.

[1] Particularly the Salmarks (Wendish for Fishmarkets), as
they were called.

From the recently-published work on Wollin (Die Insel Wollin und das
Seebad Misdroy. Historische Skizze von Georg Wilhelm von Raumer:
Berlin, 1851) I extract the following account of Wollin in 1070, as I
think it important to have all the best evidence attainable:[2] —

“Adam of Bremen, a contemporaneous historian, has left us a
curious description of Wollin as it appeared at the time of its
merchant greatness; yet he was himself, most probably, never
there, but compiled his account from the narratives of sailors,
from whose mouth he, as he says, heard almost incredibilities
about the splendour of the town. He describes the famous city as
the chief staple place of the trade of the surrounding Slavonians
and Russians: also as the largest of all towns at this end of
Europe, and inhabited by Slavonians, Russians, and various pagan
nations. Also many Germans from Lower Saxony had come to the
town, yet it was not permitted them to appear openly as
Christians; though the political interests of a trading place,
then as now, caused all nations to be allowed the liberty of
incolation (Niederlassungsrecht) and toleration. The peculiar
inhabitants of the place, particularly those who held the
government, were mostly pagans, but of great hospitality, of
liberal and humane customs, and great justice. The town had
become very rich, by means of the trade of Northern Europe, of
which they had almost the monopoly: every comfort and rarity of
distant regions was to be found there. The most remarkable thing
in Wollin was a pot of Vulcan, which the inhabitants called Greek
fire.[3] Probably we should understand by this, a great beacon
fire, which the Wolliners sustained by night on account of
navigation, and of which a report was among the sailors that it
was Greek fire; but it is also possible that in the trade with
the Orient, which the discovered Arabic coins prove, real Greek
fire was brought to Wollin in pots. A tricaputed idol of a
sea-god, or Neptune, stood in Wollin, to denote that the island
Wollin was surrounded by three different seas: that is to say, a
green one, the Ostsee; a white one, under which we should
probably understand the Dievenow; and one which was retained in
raging motion by continual storms, the Haff. The navigation from
Wollin to Demmin, a trading place of the Peene, is short; also
from Wollin to Samland, in Prussia, eight days only were
necessary to go by land from Hamburgh to Wollin, or by sea,
across Schleswig; and forty-three days was the time of sailing
from Wollin to Ostragard in Russia. These notices point to the
chief trade of Wollin by sea, that is, with Demmin, Hamburgh,
Schleswig, and Holstein, Prussia, and Russia.

“So magnificent was ancient Wollin, according to the narrative of
the seamen; yet it must not be considered exactly a northern
Venice, but a wide-circuited place, chiefly, however, of wooden
houses, and surrounded by walls and palisades, in which (in
comparison with the then rudeness and poverty of the countries on
the Ostsee) riches and merchandise were heaped up.

“And now it is time to mention the fable of the drowned city
Vineta. While an old chronicler, Helmold, follows Adam of Bremen
in the description of the city Wollin, he puts, through an error
of transcription,[4] in place of Julinum or Jumne, which name
Adam of Bremen has, Vineta; such a place could not be found, and
it was concluded, therefore, that the sea had engulfed it. The
celebrated Buggenhagen[5] first discovered, in the beginning of
the sixteenth century, a great rock formation in the sea, at the
foot of the Streckelberg, on the island of Usedom,[6] and then
the

[173]
city Vineta was soon transplanted thither; and it was
absurdly considered that a rock reef (which has lately been used
for the harbour of Swinemünde, and has disappeared) was the ruins
of a city destroyed by the waves a thousand years ago: indeed,
people are not wanting at the present day, who hold fast to this
fable, caused by the error of a transcriber. In the mean time it
has become a folk tale, and as such retains its value. A Wolliner
booth-keeper recounted me the interesting story, which may be
read in Barthold’s History of Pomerania (vol. i. p. 419.),—a
rough sterling Pomeranian (ächt-pommerschis) fantastical
picture of the overbearing of the trade-enriched inhabitants of
Vineta, which God had so punished by sending the waves of the
ocean over the city. The town of Wollin, to which alone this
legend was applicable, is certainly not destroyed by the sea, nor
wholly desert: but if they deserved punishment for their pride in
their greatness, they had received it in that they had quite
fallen from their former glory.”—Pp. 22-25.

[2] Likewise, repetition must be excused, as it is here
scarcely avoidable.

[3] “Olla Vulcani quæ incolæ Græcam vocant ignem de quo etiam
meminit Solinus,” adds Adam of Bremen. Solinus speaks of oil, or rather
naphtha, from Mœsia; and it is not improbable that the Wolliners
imported it for their beacons in pots.

[4] The oldest MSS. are said not to have this error.

[5] A native of Wollin, by the bye.

[6] Close by Damerow.

As I wish thoroughly to dispose of the question, I shall divide my
communication on Julin into two parts, of which the above is the first.
I reserve my own remarks till all the evidence has been heard.

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

Minor Notes.

Anecdote of Curran.

—During one of the circuits, Curran was dining
with a brother advocate at a small inn kept by a respectable woman, who,
to the well ordering of her establishment, added a reputation for that
species of apt and keen reply, which sometimes supplies the place of
wit. The dinner had been well served, the wine was pronounced excellent,
and it was proposed that the hostess should be summoned to receive their
compliments on her good fare. The Christian name of this purveyor was
Honoria, a name of common occurrence in Ireland, but which is generally
abbreviated to that of Honor. Her attendance was prompt, and Curran,
after a brief eulogium on the dinner, but especially the wine, filled a
bumper, and, handing it, proposed as a toast, “Honor and Honesty.” His
auditor took the glass, and with a peculiarly arch smile, said, “Our
absent friends,” and having drank off her amended toast, she curtseyed
and withdrew.

M. W. B.

Difficulty of getting rid of a Name.

—The institution founded in Gower
Street under the name of the University of London, lived for ten years
under that name, and, since, for fifteen years, under the name of
University College, a new institution receiving the name of the
University of London. A few years after the change of name, a donor
left reversionary property to the London University in Gower Street,
which made it necessary to obtain the assistance of the Court of
Chancery in securing the reversion to its intended owners. A professor
of the College in Gower Street received a letter, dated from Somerset
House (where the University is), written by the Vice-Chancellor of the
University himself, and addressed, not to the University College, but
to the University of London. And in a public decision, by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, as Visitor of Dulwich College, which appears
in The Times of July 21, it is directed that certain scholars are to
proceed for instruction to some such place as “King’s College or the
London University.” This is all worthy of note, because we often appeal
to old changes of name in the settlement of dates. When this decision
becomes very old, it may happen that its date will be brought into doubt
by appeal to the fact that the place of instruction (what is now the
University giving no instruction but only granting degrees, and to
students of King’s College among others) ceased to have the title of
University in 1837. What so natural as to argue that the Archbishop,
himself a visitor of King’s College, cannot have failed to remember
this. A reflected doubt may be thrown upon some arguments relating to
dates in former times.

M.

House of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

—The Note on his mother, in Vol.
iii., p. 492., reminds me of making the following one on himself, which
may be worth a place in your columns. When lately passing through the
village of Harold’s Cross, near Dublin, a friend pointed out to me a
high antiquated-looking house in the village, which he said had been
occupied by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and in which he had planned many of
his designs. The house appears to be in good preservation, and is still
occupied.

R. H.

Fairy Dances.

—It might perhaps throw some light on this fanciful
subject, were we to view it in connexion with the operation of the
phenomenon termed the “odylic light,” emitted from magnetic substances.
The Baron von Riechenbach, in his Researches on Magnetism, &c.,
explains the cause of somewhat similar extraordinary appearances in the
following manner:—

“High on the Brocken there are rocky summits which are strongly
magnetic, and cause the needle to deviate: these rocks contain
disseminated magnetic iron ore; … the necessary consequence is
that they send up odylic flames…. Who could blame persons
imbued with the superstitious feelings of their age, if they saw,
under these circumstances, the devil dancing with his whole train
of ghosts, demons, and witches? The revels of the Walpurgisnacht
must now, alas! vanish, and give place to the sobrieties of
science—science, which with her touch dissipates one by one all
the beautiful but dim forms evoked by phantasy.”

Should such a thing as the odylic light satisfactorily explain the
phenomenon of ghosts, fairies, &c., we should happily be relieved from
the awkward necessity of continuing to treat their

[174]
existence as
“old wives’ fables,” or the production of a disordered imagination.

J. H. KERSHAW.

Æsop.

—It may be said, at first sight, “Why, every body knows all
about him.” I answer, Perhaps about as much as modern painters and
artists know about Bacchus, whom they always represent as a gross,
vulgar, fat person: all the ancient poets, however (and surely they
ought to know best), depict him an exquisitely beautiful youth. A
similar vulgar error exists with regard to Æsop, who in the
Encyclopædia Britannica is pronounced a strikingly deformed personage.
The exact opposite seems to have been the truth. Philostratus has left a
description of a picture of Æsop, who was represented with a chorus of
animals about him: he was painted smiling, and looking thoughtfully on
the ground, but not a word is said of any deformity. Again, the
Athenians erected a statue to his honour, “and,” says Bentley, “a statue
of him, if he were deformed, would only have been a monument of his
ugliness: it would have been an indignity, rather than an honour to his
memory, to have perpetuated his deformity.”

And, lastly, he was sold into Samos by a slave-dealer, and it is a
well-known fact that these people bought up the handsomest youths they
could procure.

A. C. W.

Brompton.

Nelson’s Coat at Trafalgar (Vol. iv. p. 114.).

—Besides the loss of
bullion from one of the epaulettes of Lord Nelson’s coat occasioned by
the circumstance related by ÆGROTUS, there was a similar defacement
caused by the fatal bullet itself, which might render the identification
suggested by ÆGROTUS a little difficult. Sir W. Beatty says, in his
Authentic Narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson, p. 70.:

“The ball struck the fore part of his lordship’s epaulette, and
entered the left shoulder…. On removing the ball, a portion of
the gold lace and pad of the epaulette, together with a small
piece of his lordship’s coat, was found firmly attached to it.”

The ball, with the adhering gold lace, &c., was set in a crystal locket,
and worn by Sir W. Beatty. It is now, I believe, in the possession of
Prince Albert.

The intention of my note (Vol. iii., p. 517.) was to refute a common
impression, probably derived from Harrison’s work, that Lord Nelson had
rashly adorned his admiral’s uniform with extra insignia on the day of
the battle, and thereby rendered himself a conspicuous object for the
French riflemen.

ALFRED GATTY.

Queries.

JOHN KNOX.

In completing the proposed series of Knox’s writings, I should feel
greatly indebted to DR. MAITLAND or any of your readers for answering
the following Queries:—

1. In the Catalogue of writers on the Old and New Testament, p. 107.:
London, 1663, a sermon on Ezechiel ix. 4., attributed to Knox, is said
to have been printed anno 1580. Where is there a copy of this sermon
preserved?

2. Bale, and Melchior Adam, copying Verheiden, include in the list of
Knox’s writings, In Genesim Conciones. Is such a book known to exist?

3. Bishop Tanner also ascribes to him Exposition on Daniel: Malburg,
1529. This date is unquestionably erroneous, and probably the book also.

4. Knox’s elaborate treatise Against the Adversaries of God’s
Predestination was first published at Geneva, 1560, by John Crespin.
Toby Cooke, in 1580, had a license to print Knoxes Answere to the
Cauillations of ane Anabaptist. (Herbert’s Ames, p. 1263.) Is there
any evidence that the work was reprinted earlier than 1591?

5. The work itself professes to be in answer to a book entitled The
Confutation of the Errors of the Careles by Necessitie; “which book,”
it is added, “written in the English tongue, doeth contain as well the
lies and blasphemies imagined by Sebastian Castalio, … as also the
vane reasons of Pighius, Sadoletus, and Georgius Siculus, pestilent
Papistes, and expressed enemies of God’s free mercies.” When was this
Confutation printed, and where is there a copy to be seen?

DAVID LAING.

Edinburgh.

Minor Queries.

116. “Fœda ministeria, atque minis absistite acerbis“
(Vol. iii., p. 494.).

—Will any of your readers who may be metrical scholars, inform
me whether there is any classical example of such an accent and cæsura
as in this verse of Vida?

C. B.

117. Cornish Arms and Cornish Motto.

—The Cornish arms are a field
sable with fifteen bezants, not balls as they are commonly called,
5. 4. 3. 2. 1. in pale or. These arms were borne by Condurus, the last
Earl of Cornwall of British blood, in the time of William I., and were
so borne until Richard, Earl of Cornwall, on being created Earl of
Poictou, took the arms of such. According to the custom of the French,
these were a rampant lion gules crowned or, in a field argent; but
to show forth Cornwall, he threw the fifteen bezants into a bordour
sable, round the bearing of the Earl of Poictou; but the Cornish arms,
those of Condurus, are unaltered, though the coins are often mistaken
for balls, and painted on a field coloured to the painter’s fancy. Can
you tell me when the Cornish motto “one and all” was adopted, and why?

[175]

S. H. (2)

118. Gloucester saved from the King’s Mines.

—In Sir Kenelm Digby’s
Treatise of Bodies, ch. xxviii. sec. 4., is this passage:

“The trampling of men and horses in a quiet night, will be heard
some miles off…. Most of all if one set a drum smooth upon the
ground, and lay one’s ear to the upper edge of it,” &c.

On which the copy in my possession (ed. 1669) has the following marginal
note in a cotemporary hand:

“Thus Gloucester was saved from the King’s mines by ye drum of a
drunken dru̅mer.”

To what event does this refer, and where shall I find an account of it?
It evidently happened during the civil wars, but Clarendon has no
mention of it.

T. H. KERSLEY, A.B.

119. Milesian.

—What is the origin of the term Milesian as applied
to certain races among the Irish?

W. FRASER.

120. Horology.

—Can any of your numerous correspondents kindly inform
me what is the best scientific work on Horology? I do not want one
containing mere mathematical work, but entering into all the details
of the various movements, escapements, &c. &c. of astronomical clocks,
chronometers, pocket watches, with the latest improvements down to the
present time.

H. C. K.

121. Laurentius Müller.

—Can any of your readers mention a library
which contains a copy of the Historia Septentrionalis, or History of
Poland, of Laurentius Müller, published about 1580?

A. TR.

122. Lines on a Bed.

—Can you tell me where I can find the antecedents
of the following couplets? They are a portion of some exquisite poetical
“Lines on a Bed:”

I once thought they were Prior’s, but I cannot find them. Can you assist
me?

R. W. B.

123. Pirog.

—A custom, I believe, still exists in Russia for the
mistress of a family to distribute on certain occasions bread or cake to
her guests. Some particulars of this custom appeared either in the
Globe or the Standard newspaper in 1837 or 1838, during the months
of October, November, or December. Having lost the reference to the
precise date, and only recollecting that the custom is known by the name
of Pirog, I shall feel much obliged to any correspondent of the
“NOTES AND QUERIES” if he can supply me with further information on the
subject.

R. M. W.

124. Lists of Plants with their Provincial Names.

—In a biography that
appeared of Dr. P. Brown in the Anthologia Hibernica for Jan. 7, 1793,
we are informed that he prepared for the press a “Fasciculus Plantarum
Hibernicarum,” enumerating chiefly those growing in the counties of Mayo
and Galway, written in Latin, with the English and Irish names of each
plant. See also Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science, i.—xxx.
Where is this MS.?

Can any of your readers refer me to similar lists of plants indigenous
to either England or Ireland, in which the provincial names are
preserved, with any notes on their use in medicine, or their connexion
with the superstitions of the district to which the list refers? Any
information on this subject, however slight, will particularly oblige

S. P. H. T.

P.S. I should not be much surprised if the MS. of Dr. P. Brown existed
in some of the collectanea in the Library of Trin. Coll. Dub.

125. Print cleaning.

—How should prints be cleaned, so as not to
injure the paper?

A. G.

126. Italian Writer on Political Economy—Carli the Economist.

—What
was the first work by an Italian writer on any element of political
economy? and in what year did Carli, the celebrated economist, die?

ALPHA.

127. Nightingale and Thorn.

—Where is the earliest notice of the fable
of the nightingale and the thorn? that she sings because she has a thorn
in her breast? For obvious reasons, the fiction cannot be classical.

It is noticed by Byron:

But an earlier mention is found in Browne’s poem on the death of Mr.
Thomas Manwood:—

He seems to interpret the fable to the same effect as Homer makes
Achilles’ women lament Patroclus—Πατρόκλου
πρόφασιν, σφῶν δ’
αὐτῶν κήδε’ ἑκάστη. It has been suggested that it rather implies that
the spirit of music, like that of poetry and prophecy, visits chiefly
the afflicted,—a comfortable doctrine to prosaic and unmusical people.

A. W. H.

128. Coleridge’s Essays on Beauty.

—At pp. 300, 301, of this writer’s
Table Talk (3rd edition) there is the following paragraph:—

“I exceedingly regret the loss of those essays on beauty, which I
wrote in a Bristol newspaper. I would give much to recover them.”

Can any of your readers afford information on this point? The
publication of the essays in question (supposing that they have not yet
been

[176]
published) would be a most welcome addition to the works of
so eminent and original an author as S. T. Coleridge.

J. H. KERSHAW.

129. Henryson and Kinaston.

—MR. SINGER (Vol. iii., p. 297.) refers to
Sir Francis Kinaston’s Latin version of Chaucer’s Troilus and
Cresseid, and of Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid. The first two
books of the former are well known as having been printed at Oxford,
1635, 4to.; and the entire version was announced for publication by F.
G. Waldron, in a pamphlet printed as a specimen, in 1796. Query, Who is
now the possessor of Kinaston’s manuscript, which MR. SINGER recommends
as worthy of the attention of the Camden Society?

In the original table of contents of a manuscript collection, written
about the year 1515, one article in that portion of the volume now lost
is “Mr. Robert Henderson’s dreme, On fut by Forth.” Can any of your
readers point out where a copy of this, or any other unpublished poems
by Henryson, are preserved?

D. L.

Edinburgh.

130. Oldys’ Account of London Libraries.

—In “A Catalogue of the
Libraries of the late William Oldys, Esq., Norroy King at Arms (author
of the Life of Sir Walter Raleigh), the Reverend Mr. Emms, of
Yarmouth, and Mr. William Rush, which will begin to be sold on
Monday, April 12, by Thomas Davies;” published without date, but
supposed to be in 1764, I find amongst Mr. Oldys’s manuscripts, lot
3613.: “Of London Libraries: with Anecdotes of Collectors of Books,
Remarks on Booksellers, and on the first Publishers of Catalogues.” Can
any of your readers inform me if the same is still in existence, and in
whose possession it is?

WILLIAM BROWN, Jun.

Old Street.

131. A Sword-blade Note.

—I find in an account-book of a public
company an entry dated Oct. 1720, directing the disposal of “A
Sword-blade Note for One hundred ninety-two pounds ten shillings seven
pence.” Can any of your numerous readers, especially those cognisant of
monetary transactions, favour me with an explanation of the nature of
this note, and the origin of its peculiar appellation?

R. J.

Threadneedle Street, Aug. 28. 1851.

132. Abacot.

—The word ABACOT, now inserted in foreign as well as
English dictionaries, was adopted by Spelman in his Glossary: the
authority which he gives seems to be the passage (stating that King
Henry VI.’s “high cap of estate, called Abacot, garnished with two
rich crowns,” was presented to King Edward IV. after the battle of
Hexham) which is in Holinshed, (the third volume of Chronicles, fol.
Lond. 1577, p. 666. col. 2. line 28.): but this appears to be copied
from Grafton (A Chronicle, &c., fol. Lond. 1569), where the word
stands Abococket. If this author took it from Hall (The Union, &c.,
fol. Lond. 1549) I think it there stands the same: but in Fabyan’s
Chronicle, as edited by Ellis, it is printed Bycoket; and in one
black-letter copy in the British Museum, it may be seen Bicoket,
corrected in the margin by a hand of the sixteenth century, Brioket.

Can any reader point out the right word, and give its derivation?

J. W. P.

133. Princesses of Wales (Vol. iv., p. 24.).

—C. C. R. has clearly
shown what is Hume’s authority for the passage quoted by Mr. Christian
in his edition of Blackstone, and referred to by me in my former
communication, Vol. iii., p. 477. Can he point out where the passage in
Hume is found? Mr. Christian refers to Hume, iv. p. 113.; but I have not
been able to find it at the place referred to in any edition of Hume
which I have had the opportunity of consulting.

G.

Minor Queries Answered.

A Kelso Convoy.

—What is the origin of a Kelso convoy,—a Scotch
phrase, used to express going a little way with a person?

B.

[Jamieson, in his Dictionary of the Scottish Language,
Johnstone’s Abridgment, thus explains the phrase:—

“KELSO CONVOY, an escort scarcely deserving the name south of
Scotland. ‘A step and a half ower the door stane.’ (Antiquary.)
This is rather farther than a Scotch Convoy, which, according
to some, is only to the door. It is, however, explained by others
as signifying that one goes as far as the friend whom he
accompanies has to go, although to his own door.”]

Cardinal Wolsey.

—In the life of Wolsey in the Penny Cyclopædia is
the following:

“It is said that while he lived at Lymington, he got drunk at a
neighbouring fair. For some such cause it is certain that Sir
Amias Paulett put him into the stocks,—a punishment for which we
find that he subsequently revenged himself.”

I have been unable to find what was his revenge.

B.

[Collins, in his Peerage of England, vol. iv. p. 3., says,
“that in the reign of Henry VII., when Cardinal Wolsey was only a
schoolmaster at Lymington, in Somersetshire, Sir Amias Paulett,
for some misdemeanor committed by him, clapped him in the stocks;
which the Cardinal, when he grew into favour with Henry VIII., so
far resented, that he sought all manner of ways to give him
trouble, and obliged him (as Godwin in his Annals, p. 28.,
observes) to dance attendance at London for some years, and by
all manner of obsequiousness to curry favour with him. During the
time of his attendance, being commanded by the Cardinal not to
depart London without licence, he took up his lodging in the
great gate of the Temple towards Fleet Street.”]

[177]

Brunswick Mum.

—Why was the beer called Brunswick Mum so named? When
I was young it used to be drunk in this country, and was, I am told,
extensively exported to India, &c. Is it still manufactured?

G. CREED.

[Skinner calls Mum a strong kind of beer, introduced by us from
Brunswick, and derived either from German mummeln, to mumble,
or from mum (silentii index), i.e. either drink that will (ut
nos dicimus) make a cat speak, or drink that will take away the
power of speech.

Brunswick Mum is now advertised for sale by many publicans in the
metropolis.]

Meaning of “Rasher.”

—What is the derivation of the word rasher, “a
rasher of bacon?”

J. H. C.

Adelaide, South Australia.

[Surely from the French raser, to shave—a shaving of bacon.
Our correspondent will probably recollect that vessels that have
been cut down are commonly known as razees.]

Replies.

PENDULUM DEMONSTRATION OF THE EARTH’S ROTATION.
(Vol. iv., p. 129.)

I beg to send you a few remarks on the note of A. E. B., concerning the
“Pendulum Demonstration of the Earth’s Rotation.”

Your correspondent appears to consider that the only fact asserted by
the propounders of the theory, is a variation in the plane of
oscillation, caused by “the difference of rotation due to the excess of
velocity with which one extremity of the line of oscillation may be
affected more than the other;” the probable existence of which he proves
by imagining a pendulum suspended over a point half-way between London
and Edinburgh, and set in motion by being drawn towards and retained
over London, and thence dismissed on its course. It is clear that in
such a case the pendulum would at starting be impressed with the same
velocity of motion in an eastern direction which the retaining power in
London had, and that its path would be the result of this force
compounded with that given by gravity in its line of suspension, i.e.
towards the north, and its course would therefore be one subject to easy
calculation. I should imagine that this disturbing force arising from
the excess of eastern velocity possessed by the starting point over that
of suspension, would be inappreciable after a few oscillations; but at
all events it is evident that it might readily be avoided by setting the
pendulum in motion by an impulse given beneath the point of suspension,
by giving to it a direction east and west as suggested by A. E. B., or
by several other expedients which must occur to a mathematician.

Your correspondent proceeds by requiring that there should be shown
“reasonable ground to induce the belief that the ball is really free
from the attraction of each successive point of the earth’s surface,”
and is not as “effectually a partaker in the rotation of any given
point” as if it were fixed there; or that “the duration of residence”
necessary to cause such effect should be stated. Now I certainly am
aware of no force by which a body unconnected with the earth would have
any tendency to rotate with it; gravity can only act in a direct line
from the body affected to the centre of the attracting body, and the
motion in the direction of the earth’s rotation can only be gained by
contact or connexion, however momentary, with it. The onus of proving
the existence of such a force as A. E. B. alludes to, must surely rest
with him, not that of disproving it with me. What the propounders of
this theory claim to show is, I humbly conceive, this,—that the
direction in which a pendulum oscillates is constant, and not affected
by the rotation of the earth beneath it: that as when suspended above
the pole (where the point of suspension would remain fixed) the plane of
each oscillation would make a different angle with any given meridian
of longitude, returning to its original angle when the diurnal rotation
of the earth was completed; and as when suspended above the equator,
where the point of suspension would be moved in a right line, or, to
define more accurately, where the plane made by the motion of a line
joining the point of suspension and the point directly under it (over
which the ball would remain if at rest) would be a flat or right plane,
the angle made by each successive oscillation with any one meridian
would be the same, so, at all the intermediate stations between the
pole and the equator, where the point of suspension would move in a
line, commencing near the pole with an infinitely small curve, and
ending near the equator with one infinitely large (i.e. where the
plane as described above would be thus curved), the angle of the plane
of oscillation with a given meridian would, at each station, vary in a
ratio diminishing from the variation at the pole until it became extinct
at the equator, which variation they believe to be capable both of
mathematical proof and of ocular demonstration.

I do not profess to be one of the propounders of this theory, and it is
very probable that you may have received from some other source a more
lucid, and perhaps a more correct, explanation of it; but in case you
have not done so, I send you the foregoing rough “Note” of what are my
opinions of it.

[178]

E. H. Y.

A SAXON BELL-HOUSE.
(Vol. iv., p. 102.)

Your correspondent MR. GATTY, in a late number, has quoted a passage of
the historian Hume, which treats a certain Anglo-Saxon document as a
statute of Athelstan. As your correspondent cites his author without a
comment, he would appear to give his own sanction to the date which Hume
has imposed upon that document. In point of fact, it bears no express
date, and therefore presents a good subject for a Query, whether that or
any other era is by construction applicable to it. It is an extremely
interesting Anglo-Saxon remain; and as it bears for title, “be
leodgethincthum and lage,” it purports to give legal information upon
the secular dignities and ranks of the Anglo-Saxon period. This promises
well to the archæologist, but unfortunately, on a nearer inspection, the
document loses much of its worth; for, independently of its lacking a
date, its jurisprudence partakes more of theory than that dry law which
we might imagine would proceed from the Anglo-Saxon bench.
Notwithstanding this, however, its archæological interest is great. The
language is pure and incorrupt West Saxon.

It has been published by all its editors (except Professor Leo) as
prose, when it is clearly not only rythmical but alliterative—an
obvious characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry. And it is this mistake
which has involved the further consequence of giving to the document a
legal and historical value which it would never have had if its real
garb had been seen through. This has led the critics into a belief of
its veracity, when a knowledge of its real character would have inspired
doubts. I believe that its accidental position in the first printed
edition at the end of the “Judicia” (whether it be so placed in the MS.
I know not) has assisted in the delusion, and has supplied a date to the
minds of those who prefer faith to disquisition. The internal evidence
of the document also shows that it is not jurisprudence, but only a
vision spun from the writer’s own brains, of what he dreamed to be
constitutional and legal characteristics of an anterior age, when there
were greater liberty of action and expansion of mind. The opening words
of themselves contain the character of the document:—”Hit wæs hwilum.”
It is not a narrative of the present, but a record of the past.

The legal poet then breaks freely into the darling ornament of
Anglo-Saxon song, alliteration: “On Engla lagum thæt leod and lagum,”
and so on to the end. As its contents are so well known and accessible,
I will not quote them, but will merely give a running comment upon
parts. “Gif ceorl getheah,” &c. It may be doubted whether, even in
occasional instances, the ceorl at any time possessed under the
Anglo-Saxon system the power of equalising himself by means of the
acquisition of property, with the class of theguas or gentils-hommes.
But in the broad way in which the poet states it, it may be absolutely
denied, inasmuch as the acquisition of wealth is made of itself to
transform the ceorl into a thegn: a singular coincidence of idea
with the vulgar modern theory, but incompatible with fact in an age when
a dominant caste of gentlemen obtained.

It is not until the reign of Edward III. that any man, not born a
gentleman, can be distinctly traced in possession of the honours and
dignities of the country; an air of improbability is thus given which is
increased by a verbal scrutiny. In the words “gif thegen getheah thæt be
wearth to eorle,” &c., the use of the word eorl is most suspicious.
This is not the eorl of antiquity—the Teutonic nobilis; it is the
official eorl of the Danish and quasi-Danish periods. This
anachronism betrays the real date of the production, and carries us to
the times succeeding the reign of Ethelred II., when the disordered and
transitional state of the country may have excited in the mind of the
disquieted writer a fond aspiration which he clothed in the fanciful
garb of his own wishes, rather than that of the gloomy reality which he
saw before him.

The use of the cræft, for a vessel, like the modern, is to be found in
the Andreas (v. 500.), a composition probably of the eleventh century.

The conclusion points to troubled and late times of the Anglo-Saxon
rule, when the church missed the reverence which had been paid to it in
periods of peace and prosperity.

I have said enough to show that this document cannot rank in accuracy or
truthful value with the Rectitudines or the LL. of Hen. I.

One word more. What is the meaning of burh-geat? Burh I can
understand; authorities abound for its use as expressing the manoir of
the Anglo-Saxon thegn. The “geneates riht” (Rectitudines) is
“bytlian and burh hegegian.” The ceorls of Dyddanham were bound to
dyke the hedge of their lords’ burh (“Consuetudines in Dyddanhamme,”
Kemb, vol. iii. App. p. 450.): “And dicie gyrde burh heges.”

H. C. C.

THE WHALE OF JONAH.

Eichhorn (Einleitung in das Alte Testament, iii. 249.) in a note
refers to a passage of Müller’s translations of Linnæus, narrating the
following remarkable accident:—

“In the year 1758, a seaman, in consequence of stormy weather,
unluckily fell overboard from a frigate into the Mediterranean. A
seal (Seehund, not Hai, a shark) immediately took the man,
swimming and crying for help, into it wide jaws. Other seamen
sprang into a boat to help their swimming comrade; and their
captain, noticing the accident, had the presence

[179]
of mind
to direct a gun to be fired from the deck at the fish, whereby he
was fortunately so far struck (so getroffen wurde) that he
spit out directly the seaman previously seized in his jaws, who
was taken into the boat alive, and apparently little hurt.

“The seal was taken by harpoons and ropes, and hauled into the
frigate, and hung to dry in the cross-trees (quære). The
captain gave the fish to the seaman who, by God’s providence, had
been so wonderfully preserved; and he made the circuit of Europe
with it as an exhibition, and from France it came to Erlangen,
Nuremburg, and other places, where it was openly shown. The fish
was twenty feet long, with fins nine feet broad, and weighed
3,924 lbs., and is illustrated in tab. 9. fig. 5.; from all which
it is very probably concluded, that this kind was the true
Jonas-fish.”

Bochart concurs in this opinion.

Herman de Hardt (Programma de rebus Jonæ, Helmst. 1719) considers that
Jonah stopt at a tavern bearing the sign of the whale.

Lesz (Vermischte Schriften, Th. i. S. 16.) thinks that a ship with a
figure-head (Zeichen) of a whale took Jonah on board, and in three
days put him ashore; from which it was reported that the ship-whale had
vomited (discharged) him.

Eichhorn has noticed the above in his Introduction to the Old Testament
(iii. 250.).

An anonymous writer says that dag means a fish-boat; and that the word
which is translated whale, should have been preserver; a criticism
inconsistent with itself, and void of authority.

The above four instances are the only hypotheses at variance with the
received text and interpretation worthy of notice: if indeed the case of
the shark can be deemed at all at variance, as the term
κῆτος
was used to designate many different fishes.

Jebb (Sacred Literature, p. 178.) says that the whale’s stomach is not
a safe and practicable asylum; but—

“The throat is large, and provided with a bag or intestine so
considerable in size that whales frequently take into it two of
their young, when weak, especially during a tempest. In this
vessel there are two vents, which serve for inspiration and
expiration; there, in all probability, Jonas was preserved.”

John Hunter compares the whale’s tongue to a feather bed; and says that
the baleen (whalebone) and tongue together fill up the whole space of
the jaws.

Josephus describes the fish of Jonah as a
κῆτος, and fixes on
the Euxine for the locality as an on dit
(ὁ λόγος). The same
word in reference to the same event is used by Epiphanius, Cedrenus,
Zanarus, and Nicephorus.

The Arabic version has the word حُوْتا (choono), translated in
Walton’s Polyglott cetus; but the word, according to Castell, means “a
tavern,” or “merchants’ office.” This may have led to Herman de Hardt’s
whim.

The Targum of Jonathan, and the Syriac of Jonah, have both the identical
word which was most probably used by our Lord, Noono, fish, the root
signifying to be prolific, for which fishes are eminently remarkable.
Dag, the Hebrew word, has the same original signification.

The word used by our Lord, in adverting to His descent to Hades, was
most probably that of the Syriac version,

[Syriac](noono), which means
fish in Chaldee and Arabic, as well as in Syriac; and corresponds to
the Hebrew word דַג, (dag), fish, in
Jonah i. 17., ii. 1., 10. The Greek of Matthew xii. 40., instead of
ἰχθὺς, has
κῆτος,
a whale. The Septuagint has the same word
κῆτος
for (1) dag in Jonah, as well as for (2)
leviathan in Job iii. 8., and for (3) tanninim in Genesis i. 21. The
error appears to be in the Septuagint of Jonah, where the particular
fish, the whale, is mentioned instead of the general term fish.
Possibly the disciples of Christ knew that the fish was a
κῆτος,
and the habits of such of them as were fishermen might have
familiarised them with its description or form. It is certain that the
κῆτος
of Aristotle, and cetus of Pliny, was one of the genus
Cetacea, without gills, but with blow-holes communicating with the
lungs. The disciples may also have heard the mythological story of
Hercules being three days in the belly of the
κῆτος,
the word
used by Æneas Gazæus, although Lycophron describes the animal as a
shark,
κάρχαρος κύων.

The remarkable event recorded of Jonah occurred just about 300 years
before Lycophron wrote; who, having doubtless heard the true story,
thought it right to attribute it to Hercules, to whom all other
marvellous feats of power, strength, and dexterity were appropriated by
the mythologists.

T. J. BUCKTON.

Lichfield.

ST. TRUNNIAN.
(Vol. iii., pp. 187. 252.)

Your “NOTES AND QUERIES” form the best specimen of a
Conversations-Lexicon that I have yet met with; and I regret that it was
not in existence some years ago, having long felt the want of some such
special and ready medium of communication.

In the old enclosures to the west of the town of Barton we had a spring
of clear water called St. Trunnian’s Spring; and in our open field we
had an old thorn tree called St. Trunnian’s Tree,—names that imply a
familiar acquaintance with St. Trunnian here; but I have no indication
to

[180]
show who St. Trunnian was. I am happy, however, to find that
your indefatigable correspondent DR. RIMBAULT, like myself, has had his
attention called to the same unsatisfied Query.

Paulinus, the first Bishop of York, was the first who preached
Christianity in Lindsey; yet St. Chad was the patron saint of Barton and
its immediate neighbourhood, and at times I have fancied that St.
Trunnian might have been one of his coadjutors; at other times I have
thought he may have been some sainted person, posted here with the
allied force under Anlaff, previous to the great battle of Brunannburg,
which was fought in the adjoining parish in the time of Athelstan: but I
never could meet with any conclusive notice, of St. Trunnian, or any
particular account of him. Some years ago I was dining with a clerical
friend in London, and then made known my anxiety, when he at once
referred to the quotation made by DR. RIMBAULT from Appius and
Virginia, as in Vol. iii., p. 187.; and my friend has since referred me
to Heywoods’s play of The Four P’s (Collier’s edition of Dodsley’s Old
Plays, vol. i. p. 55.), where the Palmer is introduced narrating his
pilgrimage:

inferring a locality for St. Tronion as well as St. Botulph, in
Lincolnshire: and subsequently my friend notes that—

“Mr. Stephens, in a letter to the printer of the St. James’s
Chronicle, points out the following mention of St. Tronion in
Geoffrey Fenton’s Tragical Discourses, 4to., 1567, fol. 114.
b.:—’He (referring to some one in his narrative not named)
returned in Haste to his Lodgynge, where he attended the approche
of his Hower of appointment wyth no lesse Devocyon than the
papystes in France perform their ydolatrous Pilgrimage to the
ydol Saynt Tronyon upon the Mount Avyon besides Roan.'”

Should these minutes lead to further information, it will give me great
pleasure, as I am anxious to elucidate, as far as I can, the antiquities
of my native place.

Mr. Jaques lives at a place called St. Trinnians, near to Richmond in
Yorkshire; but I have not the History of Richmondshire to refer to, so
as to see whether any notice of our saint is there taken under this
evident variation of the same appellation.

WM. S. HESLEDEN.

Barton-upon-Humber, Aug. 29. 1851.

Replies to Minor Queries.

Lord Mayor not a Privy Councillor
(Vol. iv., pp. 9. 137.).

—L. M. says
that the precedent of Mr. Harley being sworn of the Privy Council does
not prove the argument advanced by C., and “for this simple reason, that
the individual who held the office is not Right Honorable, but the
officer is.” What he means by the office (of privy councillor) is
not clear; but surely he does not mean to say that it is not the rank of
privy councillor which gives the courtesy style of Right Honorable? If
so, can a man be a member of the Council till he is sworn at the
board?

Is the Lord Mayor a member of the Board, not having been sworn? Is he
ever summoned to any Council? When he attends a meeting on the occasion
of the accession, is he summoned? and if so, by whom, and in what
manner? The Lord Mayor is certainly not a privy councillor by reason
of his courtesy style of Lord, any more than the Lord Mayor of York.

The question is, whether the style of Right Honorable was given to the
Lord Mayor from the supposition that he was a privy councillor, or from
the fact that formerly the Lord Mayor was considered as holding the rank
of a Baron; for if he died during his mayoralty, he was buried with
the rank, state, and degree of Baron.

When does it appear that the style of Right Honorable was first given to
the Lord Mayor of London?

E.

Did Bishop Gibson write a life of Cromwell?
(Vol. iv., p. 117.).

—In
the Life of the Rev. Isaac Kimber, prefixed to his Sermons, London,
1756, 8vo., it is stated that—

“One of the first productions he gave to the world was the Life
of Oliver Cromwell in 8vo., printed for Messrs. Brotherton and
Cox. This piece met with a very good reception from the public,
and has passed through several editions, universally esteemed for
its style and its impartiality; and as the author’s name was not
made public, though it was always known to his friends, it was at
first very confidently ascribed to Dr. Gibson, Bishop of
London.”—P. 10.

The Life of Kimber appears to have been written by Edward Kimber, his
son, and therefore the claim of Bishop Gibson to this work may very
fairly be set aside.

The Short Critical Review of the life of Oliver Cromwell, by a
Gentleman of the Middle Temple, has always been attributed to John
Bankes, an account of whom will be found in Chalmers’s Biog. Dict.,
vol. iii. p. 422., where it is confidently stated to be his. It was
first published in 1739, 8vo. I have two copies of a third edition,
Lond. 1747. 12mo. “Carefully revised and greatly enlarged in every
chapter by the author.” In one of the copies the title-page states it to
be “by a gentleman of the Middle Temple;” and in the other “by Mr.
Bankes.” Bishop Gibson did not die till 1748, and there seems little
probability that, if he were the author, another man’s name would be put
to it during his lifetime.

I conclude therefore that neither of these two works are by Bishop
Gibson.

[181]

JAS. CROSSLEY.

Lines on the Temple
(Vol. iii., pp. 450. 505.).

—In the Gentleman’s
Mag. (Suppl. for 1768, p. 621.), the reviewer of a work entitled
“Cobleriana, or the Cobler’s Miscellany, being a choice collection of
the miscellaneous pieces in prose and verse, serious and comic, by
Jobson the Cobler, of Drury Lane, 2 vols.,” gives the following extract;
but does not state whether it belongs to the “new” pieces, or to those
which had been previously “published in the newspapers,” the volume
being avowedly composed of both sorts:—

The Italics, which I have copied, were, I suppose, put in by the
reviewer, who adds, “Q. Whether the Lamb and Horse are mounted upon
Chancery Lane, or two virtues, or happy men?” Poor man! I am afraid his
Query has never been answered; for that age was not adorned and
illustrated by any work like one in which we rejoice,—a work of which,
lest a more unguarded expression of our feelings should be indelicate,
and subject us to the suspicion of flattery, we will be content to say
boldly, that, though less in size and cost, it is cotemporaneous with
the Great Exhibition.

A TEMPLAR.

These lines are printed (probably for the first time) in the sixth
number of The Foundling Hospital for Wit, 8vo.: Printed for W. Webb,
near St. Paul’s, 1749 (p. 73.). The learned author of Heraldic
Anomalies (2nd edit. vol. i. p. 310.) says they were chalked upon one
of the public gates of the Temple; but from the following note,
preceding the lines in question, in The Foundling Hospital for Wit,
this statement is probably erroneous:

“The Inner Temple Gate, London, being lately repaired, and
curiously decorated, the following inscription, in honour of both
the Temples, is intended to be put over it.”

A MS. note, in a cotemporary hand, in my copy of The Foundling Hospital
for Wit, states the author of the original lines to have been the “Rev.
William Dunkin, D.D.” The answer which follows it, is said to be by “Sir
Charles Hanbury Williams.”

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

Henry Headley, B.A.
(Vol. iii., p. 280.).

—E. B. PRICE styles “Henry
Headley, B.A., of Norwich, a now forgotten critic.” He might have
added, “but who deserved to be remembered, as one whose Select Beauties
of Ancient English Poetry, with Remarks, &c., in 2 vols., 1787,
contributed something towards the revival of a taste for that species of
literature which Percy’s Reliques exalted into a fashion, if not a
passion, never to be discountenanced again.” The work of course is
become scarce, and not the less valuable, though that recommendation
constitutes its least value.

J. M. G.

Hallamshire.

Cycle of Cathay
(Vol. iv., p. 37.).

—Without reflecting much on the
matter, I have always supposed the “cycle” in Tennyson’s line—

to be the Platonic cycle, or great year, the space of time in which all
the stars and constellations return to their former places in respect of
the equinoxes; which space of time is calculated by Tycho Brahe at
25,816 years, and by Riccioli at 25,920: and I understood the passage
(whether rightly or wrongly I shall be glad to be informed) to mean,
that fifty years of life in Europe were better than any amount of
existence, however extended, in the Celestial Empire.

W. FRASER.

Proof of Sword Blades
(Vol. iv., pp. 39. 109.).

—Without wishing to
detract from the merits of an invention, which probably is superior in
its effects to old modes of testing sword blades, I object to the term
efficient being applied to machine-proved swords.

Because, after such proof, they frequently break by ordinary cutting;
even those which have been made doubly strong and heavy—and hence unfit
and useless for actual engagement—have so failed. And because
machine-tried swords are liable to, and do, break in the handle.

For many reasons I should condemn the machine in question as
inapplicable to its purposes. By analogous reasoning, it would not be
wrong to call a candle a good thrusting instrument, because a machine
may be made to force it through a deal plank.

The subject of testing sword blades is a very important one, although it
has not received that degree of attention from those whom it more nearly
concerns which it seems to demand.

The writer’s experience has been only en amateur; but it has satisfied
him how much yet remains to be effected before swords proved by a
machine are to be relied upon.

E. M. M.

Thornhill Square, August 16. 1851.

Was Milton an Anglo-Saxon Scholar?
(Vol. iv., p. 100.).

—Is it too
much to suppose that the learned “Secretary for Forreigne Tongues” was
acquainted with the Paraphrasis poetica Genesios ac præcipuarum sacræ
Paginæ Historiarum, abhinc Annos MLXX. Anglo-Saxonicè conscripta, et
nunc primum edita a Francisco Junius, published at Amsterdam in 1655,
at least two years before he

[182]
commenced his immortal poem? Hear
Mr. Turner on the subject:

“Milton could not be wholly unacquainted with Junius; and if he
conversed with him, Junius was very likely to have made Cædmon
the topic of his discourse, and may have read enough in English
to Milton, to have fastened upon his imagination, without his
being a Saxon scholar.”—Turner’s Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii., p.
316.

Both Mr. Turner and Mr. Todd, however, appear to lean to the opinion
that Milton was not unskilled in Saxon literature, and mention, as an
argument in its favour, the frequent quotations from the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle which occur in the History. It is also worthy of note that
Alexander Gill, his schoolmaster, and whose friendship Milton possessed
in no small degree, had pursued his researches somewhat deep into the
“well of English undefiled,” as appears from that extremely curious,
though little known work, the Logonomia Anglica.

SAXONICUS.

English Sapphics.

—I admired the verses quoted by H. E. H. (Vol. iii.,
p. 525.) so much that I have had them printed, but unfortunately have no
copy by me to send you. I quote them from memory:

O. T. DOBBIN.

Hull College.

The Tradescants
(Vol. iii., p. 469.).

—It is to be hoped that the
discovery by C. C. R. of Dr. Ducarel’s note may yet lead to the
obtaining further information concerning the elder Tradescant. It may go
for something to prove beyond doubt that he was nearly connected with
the county of Kent, which has not been proved yet. Parkinson says that
“he sometimes belonged to … Salisbury…. And then unto the Right
Honorable the Lord Wotton at Canterbury in Kent.” See Parkinson’s
Paradisus Terrestris, p. 152. (This must be the same with
DR. RIMBAULT’S Lord Weston, p. 353., which should have been “Wotton.”) We
may therefore, in the words of Dr. Ducarel’s note, “consult (with
certainty of finding information concerning the Tradescants) the
registers of ——apham, Kent.” I should give the preference to any place
near Canterbury approaching that name.

It is worth noticing that the deed of gift of John Tradescant (2) to
Elias Ashmole was dated in true astrological form, being “December 16,
1657, 5 hor. 30 minutes post merid.” See Ashmole’s Diary, p. 36.

BLOWEN.

Monumental Inscription, English Version
(Vol. iv., p. 88.).

—I have a
Note on this very epitaph, made several years since, from whence
extracted I know not; but there is an English version attached, which
may prove interesting to some readers, as it exactly imitates the style
of the Latin:

E. S. TAYLOR.

Lady Petre’s Monument
(Vol. iv., p. 22.).

—Will the following passage,
from Murray’s Handbook to Southern Germany, throw any light on the
meaning of the initials at the foot of Lady Petre’s monument, as alluded
to in your Number of July 12, 1851?

“At the extremity of the right-hand aisle of the cathedral of St.
Stephen, is the marble monument of the Emperor Frederick III.,
ornamented with 240 figures and 40 coats of arms, carved by a
sculptor of Strasburg, Nicholas Lerch. On a scroll twisted around
the sceptre in the hand of the effigy, is seen Frederick’s device
or motto, the letters A. E. I. O. U., supposed to be the initials
of the words Alles Erdreich Ist Oesterreich Unterthan; or, in
Latin, Austriæ Est Imperare Orbis Universi.”—Murray’s Handbook
to Southern Germany, pp. 135, 136.

C. M. G.

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.

Messrs. Longman have this month given a judicious and agreeable variety
to The Traveller’s Library by substituting for one of Mr. Macaulay’s
brilliant political biographies a volume of travels; and in selecting
Mr. Laing’s Journal of a Residence in Norway during the Years 1834,
1835, and 1836 (which is completed in Two Parts), they have shown
excellent discretion. For, as Mr. Laing well observes, “few readers of
the historical events of the middle ages rise from the perusal without a
wish to visit the country from which issued in the tenth century the men
who conquered the fairest portion of Europe.” But as, even in these
locomotive times, all cannot travel, but many are destined to be not
only home-keeping youths but “house-keeping men” also, all such have
reason to be grateful to pleasant intelligent travellers like Mr. Laing
for giving
 
[183]
them the results of their travels in so pleasant a
form; and especially grateful to Messrs. Longman for giving it to them
at a price which places it within the reach of every one.

The Literature of the Rail; republished, by permission, from The Times
of Saturday, August 9th, 1851, with a Preface, has just been issued by
Mr. Murray, in the shape of a sixpenny pamphlet. This will be a
gratifying announcement to those who read and wished to preserve this
startling article on a subject which must come home to every thinking
mind,—to every one who has witnessed, as we have done, the worse than
worthless, the positively mischievous trash in the shape of literature
too often to be found on the bookstalls of railway stations. But there
is hope. The success which has attended the wholesome change effected on
the North-Western line is sure to lead to an extension of the better
system; and we are glad to see that the endeavours making by Messrs.
Longman to supply, by means of The Traveller’s Library, the growing
want for good and cheap books, are to be seconded by Mr. Murray, who
announces a Series under the title of Literature for the Rail, and the
opening number of which is to be A Popular Account of Mr. Layard’s
Discoveries at Nineveh, abridged by himself from the larger Work, and
illustrated by numerous Woodcuts.

We are glad to see that the Trustees of the British Museum have printed
a List of the Autograph Letters, Original Charters, Great Seals, and
Manuscripts, exhibited to the Public in the Department of Manuscripts.
The selection does great credit to the intelligent Keeper of the
Manuscripts; and the exhibition of these treasures will, we trust, do
something more than merely gratify the curiosity of the thousands of the
people who have visited them, namely, encourage their representatives in
Parliament to a more liberal vote for this important department of the
Museum. Valuable manuscripts are not always in the market; when they
are, the country should never lose them through a mistaken parsimony.

Mr. Lumley, of Chancery Lane, has purchased from the Society of
Antiquaries the remaining stock of the Vetusta Monumenta, and proposes
to dispose of the various plates and papers separately, in the same
manner as he did those of the Archæologia. This arrangement is one
well calculated to answer the purpose of collectors, and therefore we
desire to draw their attention to it.

Messrs. Puttick and Simpson (191. Piccadilly) will sell, on Tuesday and
Wednesday next, some very interesting Autograph Letters of the late John
Davies of Manchester, and of another Collector, comprising many Royal
Autographs; a series of interesting letters addressed to Elizabeth,
Queen of Bohemia; and some rare historical letters from the Southwell
and Blathwayte Papers.

CATALOGUES RECEIVED.—J. Miller’s (43. Chandos Street) Catalogue Number
27. of Books Old and New; J. Russell Smith’s (4. Old Compton Street)
Catalogue Part VI. for 1851 of Choice, Useful, and Curious Books; W.
Heath’s (497. New Oxford Street) Catalogue No. 5. for 1851 of Valuable
Second-Hand Books; J. Petheram’s (94. High Holborn) Catalogue Part 126.
No. 7. for 1851 of Old and New Books; W. S. Lincoln’s (Cheltenham House,
Westminster Road) Catalogue No. 72. of English and Foreign Second-hand
Books.

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES
WANTED TO PURCHASE.

• HISTORY OF VIRGINIA. Folio. London, 1624.
• THE APOLOGETICS OF ATHENAGORAS, Englished by D. Humphreys. London, 1714. 8vo.
• BOVILLUS DE ANIMÆ IMMORTALITATE, ETC. Lugduni, 1522. 4to.
• KUINOEL’S NOV. TEST. Tom. I.
• THE FRIEND, by Coleridge. Vol. III. Pickering.

*** 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.

QUÆSTOR, who writes respecting Campbell’s famous line:

is referred to our 1st Vol. p. 102. for some illustrations of it.

J. B. (Lichfield). His wishes shall be attended to. The notice did not
refer to his communications.

AN OLD BENGAL CIVILIAN. The Query sent shall have insertion as soon as
we can possibly find room for it.

P. T. Will this correspondent kindly favour us with a sight of his
proposed paper on Prince Madoc? Our only fear is as to its extent.

AN OLD CORRESPONDENT is thanked. The articles he refers to
would be very acceptable.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.—The Correspondents who wanted Herbert’s Social
Statics and Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. I., are requested to send
their names to the publisher.

REPLIES RECEIVED.—Yet Forty Days—Erroneous Scripture
Quotations—Glass in Windows—Log Book—The Termination
“-ship”—Borough-English—Day of the Month—Passage in Virgil—Suicides
buried in Cross Roads—Ring Finger—Wray or Ray—Bellman and his
Songs—Three Estates of the Realm—Siege of Londonderry—Broad Halfpenny
Down—Ancient Egypt—John Bodleigh—Horner Family, and many others which
are in type.

Copies of our Prospectus, according to the suggestion of T. E. H.,
will be forwarded to any correspondent willing to assist us by
circulating them.

VOLS. I., II., and III., with very copious Indices, may still
be had, price 9s. 6d. each, neatly bound in cloth.

NOTES AND QUERIES is published at noon on Friday, so that our country
Subscribers may receive it on Saturday. The subscription for the Stamped
Edition is 10s. 2d. for Six Months, which may be paid by
Post-office Order drawn in favour of our Publisher, MR. GEORGE BELL,
186. Fleet Street; to whose care all communications for the Editor
should be addressed.

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, September 6. 1851.