Vol. IV.—No. 103.
NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION
FOR
LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

VOL. IV.—No. 103.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18. 1851.

Price Threepence. Stamped Edition, 4d.

CONTENTS.

NOTES:—

QUERIES:—

REPLIES:—

MISCELLANEOUS:—

Notes.

THE CAXTON MEMORIAL.

Few persons having a common object in view, and equally desirous of its
attainment, fail in carrying it into effect. The object of “The Caxton
Memorial” is obviously to do honour to the first English printer; and if
a man’s best monument be his own works, it will be necessary to
ascertain of what they consist. It is well known that most of the works
printed by Caxton were translated from the French, many doubtless by
himself. The Prefaces were evidently his own, and the continuation of
the Polychronicon was confessedly written by himself. The most
valuable contribution to “The Caxton Coffer” would be a list of the
works which it is proposed to publish as those of Caxton, with some
calculation of their probable extent and cost of production. The
originals being in many cases of extreme rarity, it would be necessary
to transcribe fairly each work, and to collate it with the original in
its progress through the press. The following enumeration of the
Translations alone will give some idea of the work to be undertaken:

The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye. (1471.)

The Game and playe of the Chesse. 1474.

Thymage, or Myrrour of the World. (1481.)

The Historye of Reynart the foxe. 1481.

The laste siege and conqueste of Jherusalem. 1481.

The Golden Legende. 1483.

The Book called Cathon. 1483.

The Book of the techynge of the Knyght of the Toure. (1484.)

The Fables of Esope, Avian, Alfonce, and Poge. 1484.

The Booke of the ordre of Chyvalry or knyghthode. (1484.)

The Lyf of Prince Charles the Grete. 1485.

The Ryal Book, or Book for a kyng. 1485.

Thystorye of the noble knyght Parys. (1485.)

The Doctrinal of Sapience. 1489.

The Book of fayttee of armes and of Chyvalrye. 1489.

A lityl treatise of the arte to knowe well to dye. 1490.

The Boke of Eneydos compyled by Vyrgyle. 1490.

The Curial of Maystre Alain Charretier. n. d.

The Lyf of the holy Vyrgyn Saynt Wenefryde. n. d.; and, lastly,

The Vitas Patrum, which was translated by Caxton in 1486, but printed
by Wynkyn de Worde in 1495.

Such are some of the materials for the “Memorial” suggested by
MR. BOLTON CORNEY; and if the original subscribers to a Monument should
consent to such an appropriation of their funds, it will be necessary to
apportion the number of copies to be distributed to each subscriber,
according to the amount of the original contribution. It is to be
presumed that the work will be strictly limited
[290] to subscribers,
and that no copies will be printed for sale, the object being, to do
honour to Caxton, and produce a lasting Memorial of that industrious
printer. The form of the work is of importance, with reference to the
cost of its production: and if a new life of the first English printer
should perchance be found necessary, “The Caxton Coffer” will require to
be considerably replenished before the literary undertaking can be
carried into effect.

BERIAH BOTFIELD.

LORD STRAFFORD AND ARCHBISHOP USSHER.

In Lord Campbell’s account of the conduct of Archbishop Williams, and
the advice which that prelate gave to Charles I. with respect to the
attainder of Lord Strafford, is a sentence which seems to require a
“Note.” Having observed that “Williams’s conduct with respect to
Strafford cannot be defended,” and having referred particularly to his
speech in parliament, he proceeds in these words:—

“The Bill of Attainder being passed, although he professed to
disapprove of it, he agreed to go with three other prelates to
try to induce the king to assent to it, and thus he stated the
question:—’Since his Majesty refers his own judgment to his
judges, and they are to answer it, if an innocent person
suffers,—why may he not satisfy his conscience in the present
matter, since competent judges in the law have awarded that they
find the Earl guilty of treason, by suffering the judgment to
stand, though in his own mind he is satisfied that the party
convicted was not criminous?’ The other three bishops, trusting
to his learning and experience, joined with him in sanctioning
this distinction, in laying all the blame on the judges, and in
saying that the king, with a good conscience, might agree to
Strafford’s death. Clarendon mainly imputes Strafford’s death to
Williams’s conduct on this occasion, saying that ‘he acted his
part with prodigious boldness and impiety.’ It is stated as
matter of palliation by others, that Ussher, the celebrated
Archbishop of Armagh, was one of this deputation, and that
Strafford, although aware of the advice he had given, was
attended by him on the scaffold, and received from him the last
consolations of religion.”—Lives of the Chancellors, vol. ii.
p. 494., second edition.

The account which Lord Campbell has here given is the same in substance
as that given by Bishop Hackett in his Life of Williams (Part II. p.
161.), and in several particulars is calculated to mislead the reader.
The whole story has been very carefully examined by the late Dr.
Elrington in his Life of Archbishop Ussher. Hackett’s account is very
incorrect. There were five prelates consulted by the king, Ussher,
Williams, Juxon, Morton (Durham) and Potter (Carlisle). The bishops had
two interviews with the king, one in the morning, and the other in the
evening of the same day. At the morning meeting Ussher was not present.
It was Sunday, and he was engaged at the time preaching at Covent
Garden. In the evening, he was in attendance, but so far from giving the
advice suggested by Williams, much less approving his pernicious
distinction between a public and private conscience, Ussher plainly
advised the king, that if he was not satisfied of Strafford being guilty
of treason, he “ought not in conscience to assent to his condemnation.”
Such is the account given by Dr. Parr, Ussher’s chaplain, who declares,
that, when the primate was supposed to be dying, he asked his Grace—

“Whether he had advised the king to pass the bill against the
Earl of Strafford? To which the Primate answered: ‘I know there
is such a thing most wrongfully laid to my charge; for I neither
gave nor approved of any such advice as that the king should
assent to the bill against the Earl; but, on the contrary, told
his Majesty, that if he was satisfied by what he heard at his
trial, that the Earl was not guilty of treason, his Majesty ought
not in conscience to consent to his condemnation. And this the
king knows well enough, and can clear me if he pleases.’ The hope
of the Primate was fulfilled, for, when a report reached Oxford
that the Primate was dead, the king expressed in very strong
terms, to Colonel William Legg and Mr. Kirk, who were then in
waiting, his regret at the event, speaking in high terms of his
piety and learning. Some one present said, ‘he believed he might
be so, were it not for his persuading your Majesty to consent to
the Earl of Strafford’s execution;’ to which the king in a great
passion replied, ‘that it was false, for after the bill was
passed, the Archbishop came to me, saying with tears in his eyes,
Oh Sir, what have you done? I fear that this act may prove a
great trouble to your conscience, and pray God that your Majesty
may never suffer by the signing of this bill.'”—Elrington’s
Life of Ussher, p. 214.

This account Dr. Elrington has taken from the narrative given by Dr.
Parr, who adds, that he had received this account of the testimony borne
by the king from Colonel Legg and Mr. Kirk themselves:—

“This is the substance of two certificates, taken divers times
under the hands of these two gentlemen of unquestionable credit;
both which, since they agree in substance, I thought fit to
contract into one testimony, which I have inserted here, having
the originals by me, to produce if occasion be.”—Parr’s Life of
Ussher, p. 61.

Indeed, considering the great and uninterrupted friendship which
subsisted between Ussher and Strafford, considering that the primate was
his chosen friend during his trial and imprisonment, and attended him to
the scaffold, nothing could be more improbable than that he should have
advised the king to consent to his death. At all events, the story is
contradicted by those most competent to speak to its truth, by the
archbishop and by the king; and therefore, in a work so deservedly
popular as Lord Campbell’s, one cannot but regret that any currency
should be given to a calumny so injurious to a prelate whose character
is as deserving

[291] of our esteem, as his learning is of our
veneration.

PEREGRINUS.

POETICAL COINCIDENCES.
Sheridan.

In the account which Moore has given, in his Life of Sheridan, of the
writings left unfinished by that celebrated orator and dramatist, he
states:

“There also remain among his papers three acts of a drama without
a name, written evidently in haste, and with scarcely any
correction.”

From this production he gives the following verses, to which he has
appended the note I have placed immediately after them:—

“I have taken the liberty here of supplying a few rhymes and
words that are wanting in the original copy of the song. The last
line of all runs thus in the manuscript:—

which not rhyming as it ought, I have ventured to alter as
above.”

Now the following sonnet, which occurs in the third book of Sir Philip
Sidney’s Arcadia, is evidently the source from whence Sheridan drew
his inspiration, the concluding line in both poems being the same. Had
Moore given Sheridan’s without alteration, the resemblance would in all
probability be found much closer:—

The edition I quote from is that “Printed by W. S. for Simon Waterson,
London, 1627.” I may add, that I wrote to Moore as far back as 1824 to
point out this singular coincidence; but although the communication was
courteously acknowledged, I do not believe the circumstance has been
noticed in any subsequent edition of Sheridan’s memoirs.

T. C. SMITH.

FOLK LORE.

Medical Use of Pigeons (Vol. iv., p. 228.).

—In my copy of Mr.
Alford’s very unsatisfactory edition of Donne, I find noted (in addition
to R. T.’s quotation from The Life of Mrs. Godolphin) references to
Pepys’s Diary, October 19, 1663, and January 21, 1667-8, and the
following from Jer. Taylor, ed. Heber, vol. xii. p. 290.: “We cut living
pigeons in halves, and apply them to the feet of men in fevers.”

J. C. R.

Michaelmas Goose—St. Martin’s Cock.

—In the county of Kilkenny, and
indeed all through the S.E. counties of Ireland, the “Michaelmas Goose”
is still had in honour. “St. Martin’s Bird” (see p. 230. antè) is,
however, the cock, whose blood is shed in honour of that saint at
Martinmas, Nov. 11. The same superstition does not apply, that I am
aware of, to the Michaelmas Goose, which is merely looked on as a dish
customary on that day, with such as can afford it, and always
accompanied by a mélange of vegetables (potatos, parsnips, cabbage,
and onions) mashed together, with butter, and forming a dish termed
Kailcannon. The idea is far different as to St. Martin’s Cock, the
blood of which is always shed sacrificially in honour of the Saint.
Query, 1. The territorial extent of the latter custom? And, 2. What
pagan deity has transferred his honours to St. Martin of Tours.

JAMES GRAVES.

Kilkenny.

Surrey Folk Lore.

—A “wise woman” has lately made her appearance not
far from Reigate in Surrey. One of the farmers’ wives there, on being
scalded the other day, sent to the old dame, who sent back a curious
doggrel, which the good woman was to repeat at stated times. At the end
of a week the scald got well, and the good woman told us that she knew
there was no harm in the charm, for “she had heard say as how it was
some verse from the Bible.”

When in a little shop the other day, in the same part of the country,
one village dame was speaking of the death of some neighbour, when
another said, that she hoped “they had been and told the bees.”

In the same neighbourhood I was told a sovereign cure for the goitre was
to form the sign of the cross on the neck with the hand of a corpse.

M. M. P.

[292]

THE CAXTON COFFER.

The devices of our early English printers are often void of significancy
early, or else mere quibbles. In that particular, Caxton set a
commendable example.

His device is “W.4.7C.” The two figures, however, are interlaced, and
seem to admit of two interpretations. I must cite, on this question, the
famous triumvirate—Ames, Herbert, and Dibdin:

“The following mark [above described] I find put at the end of
many of his books, perhaps for the date 1474, when he began
printing in England, or his sign.”—Joseph AMES, 1749.

“The following mark [above described] I find put at the end of
many of his books, perhaps for the date 1474, when he began
printing in England, or his sign.”—William HERBERT, 1785.

“The figures in the large device [above described] form the
reverse impression of 74; meaning, as it has been stated,
that our printer commenced business in England, in the year 1474:
but not much weight can be attached to this remark, as no copy of
the Chess book, printed in 1474, has yet been discovered which
presents us with this device.”—T. F. DIBDIN, 1810.

In lieu of baseless conjectures, I have here to complain of timidity.
There is scarcely room for a doubt on the date. As dom de Vaines
observes, with regard to dates, “dans le bas âge on supprimoit le
millième et les centaines, commençant aux dixaines.” There can be no
objection to the interpretation on that score. The main question
therefore is, in what order should we read the interlaced figures? Now,
the position of the point proves that we should read 74—which is the
date of The game and playe of the chesse. The figures indicate 1474 as
clearly as the letters W. C. indicate William Caxton. What is the just
inference, must ever remain a matter of opinion.

In the woodcut of Arsmetrique, published in the Myrrour of the
worlde, A.D. 1481, I observe the figures 74 rather conspicuously
placed, and perhaps the device was then first adopted.

BOLTON CORNEY.

Minor Notes.

“They that touch pitch,” &c.

—A few Sundays since the clergyman that I
“sit under,” quoting in his discourse the words “they that touch pitch
will be defiled,” ascribed them to “the wisest of men.” A lady of his
congregation (who was, I fear, more critical than devout) pounced upon
her pastor’s mistake, and asked me on the following Monday if I also had
noticed it. I denied that it was one; but she laughed at my ignorance,
produced a Shakspeare, and showed me the words in the mouth of Dogberry
(Much Ado about Nothing, Act III. Sc. 3.). However, by the help of a
“Cruden,” I was able to find the same expression, not indeed in Solomon,
but in the son of Sirach (ch. xiii. v. 1.).

If Shakspeare’s appropriation of this passage has not been noticed
before, may I request the insertion of this note? It may possibly
prevent other learned divines from falling into the common (?) mistake
of thus quoting Dogberry as “the wisest of men.”

E. J. G.

Preston.

Pasquinade.

—In May last was placed on Pasquin’s statue in Rome the
following triglot epigram, of which the original Latin was borrowed from
“NOTES AND QUERIES.” As it is not probable that the Papal police allowed
it to remain long before the eyes of the lieges of his Holiness, allow
me to lay up in your pages this memorial of a visit to Rome during the
“Aggression” summer.

The Italian version will of course be put down as English-Italian, and
therefore worse than mediocre; but I wished to perpetuate, along with
the sense of the Latin couplet, a little jeu d’esprit which I saw half
obliterated on a wall at Rovigo, in the Lombardo-Venetian territory;
being a play on the family name and character of Pius IX.:

which may be read,

A. B. R.

Two Attempts to show the Sound of “ough” final.—

W. J. T.
[293]

Queries.

CAN BISHOPS VACATE THEIR SEES?

In Lord Dover’s note on one of Walpole’s Letters to Sir H. Mann (1st
series, vol. iii. p 424.), I find it stated that Dr. Pearce, the
well-known Bishop of Rochester, was not allowed to vacate his see, when
in consequence of age and infirmity he wished to do so, on the plea that
a bishopric as being a peerage is inalienable. The Deanery of
Westminster, which he also held, he was allowed to resign, and did so.

Now my impression has always been, that a bishop, as far as his peerage
is concerned, is much on the same footing as a representative peer of
Scotland or Ireland; I mean that his peerage is resignable at will. Of
course the representative peers are peers of Scotland or Ireland
respectively; but by being elected representative peers they acquire a
pro-tempore peerage of the realm coincident with the duration of the
parliament, and at a dissolution require re-election, when of course any
such peer need not be reappointed.

Now the clergy, says your correspondent CANONICUS EBORACENSIS (Vol. iv.,
p. 197.), are represented by the bishops. Although, therefore, whilst
they are so representative, they are peers of the realm just as much as
the lay members of the Upper House, I can see no reason why any bishop,
who, like Dr. Pearce, feels old age and infirmity coming on, should not
resign this representation, i.e. his peerage, or the temporal
station which in England, owing to the existing connexion between church
and state, attaches to the spiritual office of a bishop.

Of course, ecclesiastically speaking, there is no doubt at all that a
bishop may resign his spiritual functions, i.e. the overlooking of his
diocese, for any meet cause. Our colonial bishops, for instance, do so.
The late warden of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, Bishop Coleridge, had
been Bishop of Barbadoes. So that if Lord Dover’s theory be correct, a
purely secular reason, arising from the peculiar position of the English
church, would prevent any conscientious bishop from resigning duties, to
the discharge of which, from old age, bodily infirmity, or impaired
mental organs, he felt himself unfit.

Perhaps some of your correspondents will give me some information on
this matter.

K. S.

SANDERSON AND TAYLOR.

I shall be much obliged if any of your readers can explain the following
coincidence between Sanderson and Jeremy Taylor. Taylor, in the
beginning of the Ductor Dubitantium, says:

“It was well said of St. Bernard, ‘Conscientia candor est lucis
æternæ, et speculum sine macula Dei majestatis, et imago
bonitatis illius;’ ‘Conscience is the brightness and splendour of
the eternal light, a spotless mirror of the Divine Majesty, and
the image of the goodness of God.’ It is higher which Tatianus
said of conscience, Μόνον εἶναι συνείδησιν Θεὸν,
‘Conscience is God unto us,’ which saying he had from Menander,

“God is in our hearts by his laws; he rules in us by his
substitute, our conscience; God sits there and gives us laws; and
as God said unto Moses, ‘I have made thee a God to Pharaoh,’ that
is, to give him laws, and to minister in the execution of those
laws, and to inflict angry sentences upon him, so hath God done
to us.”

In the beginning of Sanderson’s second lecture, De Obligatione
Conscientiæ, he says:

“Hine illud ejusdem Menandri.
Βροτοῖς ἅπασιν ἡ συνείδησις Θεὸς; Mortalibus sum cuique Conscientia Deus est, Quo nimirum
sensu dixit Dominus se constituisse Mosen Deum Pharaoni; quod
seis Pharaoni voluntatem Dei subinde inculcaret, ad cum
faciendam Pharaonem instigaret, non obsequentem contentibus
plagis insectaretur; eodem fere sensu dici potest, eundem quoque
constituisse in Deum unicuique hominum singularium propriam
Conscientiam.”

Sanderson’s Lectures were delivered at Oxford in 1647, but not
published till 1660. The Dedication to Robert Boyle is dated November,
1659. The Ductor Dubitantium is dedicated to Charles II. after the
Restoration, but has a preface dated October, 1659. It is not likely,
therefore, that, Taylor borrowed from the printed work of Sanderson.
Perhaps the quotations and illustrations which they have in common were
borrowed from some older common source, where they occur associated as
they do in these two writers. I should be glad to have any such source
pointed out.

W. W.

Cambridge.

Minor Queries.

220. “Vox verè Anglorum.“—”Sacro-Sancta Regum
Majestas.“—Translator of Horrebow’s “Iceland.”

—Perhaps some of your
readers may be able to tell me the names of the writers of the two
following works, which were published anonymously.

1. Vox verè Anglorum: or England’s loud Cry for their King. 4to. 1659.
Pp. 15. In this the place where it was published or printed is not
given.

2. Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas: or, the Sacred and Royall Prerogative
of Christian Kings. 4to. Printed at Oxford, 1644. The Dedication is
signed “J. A.”

I should also wish to find out, if possible, the name of the translator
of Horrebow’s Natural History of Iceland, published in folio, in
London, in 1758.

Βορέας.
[294]

221. “Kings have their Conquests.“

—I have met with a passage
commencing thus:

followed by two more lines expressive of the infinity of Divine power,
as compared with human, which I have forgotten. Where is the passage to
be found?

JAMES F. ABSALON.

Portsea.

222. Dryden—Illustrations by T. Holt White.

—The late T. Holt White,
Esq. (who edited and published in 1819 the Areopagitica of Milton,
adding a very ably composed preface, erudite notes, and interesting
illustrations), had compiled in many interleaved volumes of the works
of Dryden, such a mass of information, that Sir Walter Scott, when he
had turned over the leaves of a few volumes, closed them, and is
reported to have said, “It would be unjust to meddle with such a
compilation; I see that I have not even straw to make my bricks with.”
Can any one of your correspondents inform me if that compilation has
been preserved, and where it is?

ÆGROTUS.

223. Pauper’s Badge, Meaning of.

—In the Churchwarden’s Accounts for
the parish of Eye for the year 1716, is the following entry:

“22 July, 1716.

“It is agreed that, forasmuch as Frances Gibbons hath refused to
weare the badge, that she should not be allowed the collection
[i.e. the weekly parish allowance] now due, nor for the future
wh shall be due.”

Can any correspondent inform me what this badge was, and also if it
was of general use in other places?

J. B. COLMAN.

224. The Landing of William Prince of Orange in Torbay. Painted by J. Northcote, R. A.

—Can any of the readers of “NOTES AND QUERIES” inform
me who is the owner of the above-named painting, which was in the
Exhibition of the Royal Academy at the end of the last century, and
afterwards engraved by J. Parker?

A. H. W.

225. The Lowy of Tunbridge.

—Lambarde (Perambulation of Kent, 1596,
p. 425.) says, that round about the town of Tunbridge lieth a territory
commonly called the Lowy, but in the ancient records written Leucata or
Leuga, which was a French league of ground, and which was allotted at
first to one Gislebert, son of Godfrey (who was natural brother to
Richard, second Duke of Normandy of that name), in lieu of a town and
land called Bryonnie in Normandy, which belonged to him, and which
Robert, eldest son to King William the Conqueror, seized and bestowed on
Robert Earle Mellent. I should be glad to know if there is at present
any trace of such a territory remaining.

E. N. W.

Southwark, Sept. 28, 1851.

226. Bones of Birds.

—Some naturalists speak of the hollowness of the
bones of birds as giving them buoyancy, because they are filled with
air. It strikes me that this reason is inconclusive, for I should
suppose that in the atmosphere, hollow bones, quite empty, would be
more buoyant than if filled with air. Perhaps one of your correspondents
will kindly enlighten my ignorance, and explain whether the air with
which the bones are filled is not used by the bird in respiration in the
more rarefied altitudes, and the place supplied by a more gaseous
expiration of less specific gravity than the rarefied atmosphere?

Although of a different class from the queries you usually insert, I
hope you will not think this foreign to the purpose of your useful
miscellany.

AN AERONAUT.

227. “Malvina, a Tragedy.”

—Can any of your readers afford any
information about (1.) Malvina, a Tragedy, Glasgow, printed by Andrew
Foules, 1786, 8vo., pp. 68? A MS. note on the copy in my library states
it to be written by Mr. John Riddel, surgeon, Glasgow. (2.) Iphigenia,
a Tragedy in four acts. In Rege tamen Pater est.—Ovid. MDCCLXXXVII. My
copy has this MS. note: “By John Yorke, of Gouthwait, Esq., Yorkshire,”
in the handwriting of Francis, seventh Baron Napier. Neither of these
tragedies in noticed in the Biographia Dramatica.

J. MT.

228. Rinuccini Gallery.

—I see by a late number of the Athenæum
newspaper, that the splendid collection of pictures preserved in the
Rinuccini Palace at Florence will be brought to the hammer in the month
of May 1852. It has been stated, that amongst the works of art at one
period extant in the Rinuccini Palace, were a number of paintings made
by Italian artists for Cardinal Rinuccini, when on his Legatine mission
to Ireland in the middle of the seventeenth century, and representing
his triumphal entry into Kilkenny in November 1645. It has also been
asserted that these interesting historical paintings were wilfully
destroyed from a very discreditable motive. The importance of these
cartoons, as illustrating a period when Ireland became the final
battle-field of the contending parties which then divided the British
dominions, will at once be acknowledged; and at this period, when so
many foreigners are assembled in London, perhaps some reader of
“NOTES AND QUERIES” may be able to set the question of the existence or
destruction of these cartoons at rest. Or, at all events, some person
about to seek the genial air of Italy during the winter may bear this
“Query” in mind, and forward to your valuable paper a “Note” of the
contents of the Rinuccini Gallery. I need hardly say that the person so
doing will confer a favour on every student of Irish History.

JAMES GRAVES.

Kilkenny, Oct. 11.
[295]

Minor Queries Answered.

Meaning of Aneroid.

—What is the derivation of the word aneroid, as
applied to a new description of barometer lately introduced?

AGRICOLA.

[From a note in Mr. Dent’s interesting pamphlet, A Treatise on
the Aneroid, a newly invented Portable Barometer; with a short
Historical Notice of Barometers in general, their Construction
and Use, it appears that the word aneroid has been the subject
of some philological discussion. “It is said to be derived from
three Greek words,
ἀ, νηρὸς,
and εἶδος,
and to signify a form without fluid. If so, it does not
appear very happily chosen, since it indicates merely what the
instrument is not, without at all explaining what it is.”]

Fox’s Cunning.

—Can any of your correspondents or readers give any
authentic information as to the fact having been witnessed by any one,
of the old story of the fox relieving itself of fleas by taking a
feather in its mouth, and gradually, though slowly enough, retrograding
itself into the water, first by legs and tail, then body, shoulders, and
head to the nose, and thus compelling the fleas, to escape from the
drowning element, to pass over the nose on to the bridge of the feather,
which is then committed to the stream.

Has any one actually seen this? Has any one heard it related by one who
has seen the ejectment performed?

J. D.

Torquay, May 12.

[Lord Brougham, in his Dialogues on Instinct (ed. 1844, p.
110.), does not allude to this proverbial instance, but says: “I
know not if it (the Fox’s cunning) was ever more remarkably
displayed than in the Duke of Beaufort’s country; where Reynard,
being hard pressed, disappeared suddenly, and was, after strict
search, found immersed in a water pool up to the very snout, by
which he held a willow bough hanging over the pond.”]

Replies.

ARCHBISHOP OF SPALATRO.
(Vol. iv., p. 257.)

Audi alteram partem is too excellent and equitable a rule, not to find
ample scope given for its exercise in “NOTES AND QUERIES,” especially
where the memory of a foreigner is concerned, who, after dwelling awhile
among us under the protection of our hospitality, and in the communion
of our Church, was content eventually to sacrifice his life, rather than
forsake the truth, or repudiate the Church of England.

I am led to this remark by observing the tone of depreciation in which
Chalmers speaks of Antonius de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro, in the
extract produced at p. 257. out of the Biographical Dictionary, for
the satisfaction of MR. W. FRAZER.

The words of Chalmers, which I conceive to be objectionable, alike
ungenerous and inaccurate—such as Fuller might rejoice in (conf.
Church History, book x.)—are:

“He returned to Rome in 1622, where he abjured his errors; but
on the discovery of a correspondence which he held with some
Protestants, he was thrown into prison, where he died in 1625. He
was a man of great abilities and learning, although remarkable
for a fickleness in religious matters.”

This reproach against the good archbishop, of having renounced the
English communion (for that is doubtless what is meant), is clearly an
unjust accusation, and appears to be based upon no better authority than
a spurious book, published in the Low Countries under Spalatro’s name,
but without his knowledge or sanction, and bearing the following title:
Marc. Ant. de Dominis sui reditus ex Angliâ concilium exponit, 4to.
Dilingæ, 1623. This book at the time of its publication deceived Bishop
Hall, and gave occasion to the Alter Ecebolius M. Ant. de Dominis,
pluribus dominis inservire doctus: 4to. Lond. 1624.

It is only fair, certainly, to Spalatro’s memory, that the calumnies
thus raised against him in his lifetime should not now be perpetuated by
the inadvertency of modern writers, for so far at least the means are at
hand to refute them. Now there is one writer especially who has done
much to vindicate the name of Ant. de Dominis from this charge of
“fickleness in religious matters.” That writer is Bishop Cosin, whose
testimony herein is of the more value from the fact of his having been
present (as Bishop Overall’s secretary) at the “Conference between
Spalato and Overall,” which “Conference” the following particulars were
collected by Mr. Gutch, e Schedis MSS. Cosini, and are preserved in
the Collectanea Curiosa, vol. ii. p. 18.:

“A. Spalato came into England in 1616, being desirous to live
under the protection of King James, having before been
recommended by Padre Paolo. By King James’s bounty and care he
was safely conveyed through Germany into England, and lodged in
Lambeth Palace: Abbot thinking fit to retire to Croydon, till
either Bishop Andrewes or Bishop Overall had conferred with him.
The king sent Bishop Overall to him, who took in his company his
secretary, and commanded him to be near him the same morning
Spalato arrived, to hear what passed between them. After dinner,
some other being present, the discourse began about the state of
the Church of England; of which Overall having given a large
account, Spalato received great satisfaction, and made his
protestation that he came into England then to live with us in
the union and profession of that Catholic religion which was so
much obstructed in his own country, that he could not with safety
and peace of conscience live there any longer. Then he added what
satisfaction he had received from the monitory preface of King
James [Vid. Apol. for the Oath of Allegiance, ed. 4to. Lond.
1609] to all the
[296] estates and churches of Christendom;
wherein the true ancient faith and religion of the Catholic
Church is set forth, and no heterodoxies or novelties maintained:
to the defence of which faith, and service of which Church, as he
had already a long time applied his studies, and wrote ten books,
De Republicâ Ecclesiasticâ, so, by the favour of God, and King
James, he was now come into England to review and publish them,
together with the History of the Council of Trent, which he had
brought with him from Padre Paolo of Venice, who delivered it
into his hands; by whom he was chiefly persuaded and encouraged
to have recourse to the king and the Church of England, being the
best founded for the profession of true Catholic doctrine, and
the freest from error and novelties, of any Church in all places
besides. Then they descended to the particular points of
doctrine,” &c.

It is, however, not with the doctrinal question which would, of
course, be inadmissible in “NOTES AND QUERIES,” but with the historical
fact, that we have to do; the question being, whether Antonius
Spalateasis was “fickle” in respect of the Church of England.

There is an interesting sketch of Spalatro’s after history in Cosin’s
Treatise against Transubstantiation, chap. ii. § 7.; from Luke de
Beaulieu’s translation of which (Cosin’s Collected Works, vol. iv. p.
160., Oxford, 1851) I quote the following:

“Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato, (was) a man well
versed in the Sacred Writings, and the records of antiquity; who,
having left Italy (when he could no longer remain in it, either
with quiet or safety) by the advice of his intimate friend,
Paulus Venetus, took sanctuary under the protection of King James
of blessed memory, in the bosom of the Church of England, which
he did faithfully follow in all points and articles of religion.
But, being daily vexed with many affronts and injuries, and
wearied by the unjust persecutions of some sour and over-rigid
men, who bitterly declaimed everywhere against his life and
actions, he at last resolved to return into Italy with a safe
conduct. Before he departed he was, by order from the king,
questioned by some commissionated bishops, what he thought of the
religion and church of England, which for so many years he had
owned and obeyed, and what he would say of it in the Roman court.
To this query he gave in writing this memorable answer, ‘I am
resolved, even with the danger of my life, in profess before the
Pope himself, that the Church of England is a true and orthodox
Church of Christ.’ This he not only promised, but faithfully
performed; for though, soon after his departure, there came a
book out of the Low Countries, falsely bearing his name, by whose
title many were deceived, even among the English, and thereby
moved to tax him with apostacy, and of being another Ecebolius;
yet, when he came to Rome (where he was most kindly entertained
in the palace of Pope Gregory XV., who formerly had been his
fellow-student), he could never be persuaded by the Jesuits and
others, who daily thronged upon him, neither to subscribe the
new-devised tenets of the Council of Trent, or to retract those
orthodox books which he had printed in England and Germany, or
to renounce the communion of the Church of England, in whose
defence he constantly persisted to the very last. But, presently
after the decease of Pope Gregory, he was imprisoned by the
Jesuits and Inquisitors in Castle St. Angelo, where, by being
barbarously used, and almost starved, he soon got a mortal
sickness, and died in a few days, though not without suspicion of
being poisoned. The day following, his corpse was by the sentence
of the Inquisition tied to an infamous stake, and there burnt to
ashes, for no other reason but that he refused to make
abjuration of the religion of the Church of England, and
subscribe some of the lately-made decrees of Trent, which were
pressed upon him as canons of the Catholic faith. I have taken
occasion (Cosin adds) to insert this narration, perhaps not known
to many, to make it appear that this reverend prelate, who did
great service to the Church of God, may justly (as I said before)
be reckoned among the writers of the Church of England.”

In the first collection of Lord Somers’s Tracts, vol. iv. p. 575.,
there is a curious paper bearing the title: A relation sent from Rome,
of the process, sentence, and execution done upon the body, pictures,
and books of Marcus Ant. de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalato, after his
death. There are some notices of De Dominis, also, among the Birch and
other MSS. in the British Museum.

MR. FRAZER might possibly ascertain the other particular about which he
inquires, viz. whether Spalatro “acted as a bishop in England,” by
consulting some of the numerous tracts written at the time, both against
and in vindication of the archbishop; and, more particularly, a tract
entitled: De pace religionis M. Ant. de Dominis Spalateus. Archiepisc.
Epist. ad venerabilem virum Jos. Hallum, Archipresbyterum Vigorn, &c.:
edit. Ves. Sequan. 1666.

J. SANSOM.

Perhaps it may be doubted whether it was the wish of Antonius de Dominis
to reunite the churches of Rome and England: however this may be, as
Dean of Windsor, he accused one of the canons, Richard Mountagu
(afterwards successively Bishop of Chichester and Norwich) of preaching
the Roman doctrine of the invocation of saints and angels. Mountagu
replied in a pamphlet, the title of which is, Immediate Addresse unto
GOD Alone. First delivered in a Sermon before his Majestie at Windsore,
since reuised and inlarged to a just Treatise of Invocation of Saints.
Occasioned by a false imputation of M. Antonius de Dominis upon the
Authour, Richard Mountagu. London, 1624.

Mountagu had evidently no high opinion of his accuser: for he writes in
his Epistle Dedicatory to John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, and Visitor
of the collegiate church of Windsor: “There was present at my sermon
that infamous Ecebolius of these times, Religionis desultor, Archbishop
sometime of Spalata, then Deane of that church, Marcus Antonius de
Dominis;” and he goes on to
[297] abuse him in no measured terms.
Collier (Ecc. Hist., vol. ii. p. 726., ed. 1714) mentions that
Antonius assisted at the consecration of some English bishops in the
chapel at Lambeth Palace. He was afterwards reconciled to the Church of
Rome, but was soon imprisoned on suspicion of heresy. After he was dead,
he passed through the forms of the Inquisition, was pronounced a lapsed
heretic, and his corpse was publicly burnt.

ROVERT.

Withyham.

ANAGRAMS.
(Vol. iv., p. 226.)

I know not whether the art of composing anagrams was much practised in
the days of Swift; the description, however, of one of the employments
at the Academy of Lagado—the “project for improving speculative
knowledge by practical mechanical operations,” which was carried into
operation by covering the superficies of a large frame with wooden
letters, which, by the turning of a handle, were constantly shifted into
new places—so aptly satirises this practice, that it seems likely that
it was to this he alluded, the more so as the one employment would be as
profitable as the other. MR. BREEN, however (Vol. iv., p. 226.) having
challenged the production of half a dozen good specimens of the art,
perhaps you will afford him an opportunity of amending his judgment. The
following twelve, whether new or not, will at least stand the test he
has propounded:—

Who will deny that Old England is a golden land; or that lawyers
are sly ware?

There are many who deem radical reform a rare mad frolic; and when
asked to guess a fearful ruin, would reply universal suffrage.

Every one will admit that astronomers are moon-starers; and that a
telegraph is a great help.

We have long been accustomed to consider that a revolution is to love
ruin; and that nine thumps constitute a punishment.

What answer more fitting in the penitentiary than Nay, I repent it?

Is there a more comical trade than the democratical? and what is
more likely to make bakers fat than a good breakfast.

But, in conclusion, I am compelled to confess that I can see no affinity
between potentates and ten tea pots.

C. A.

That on Daniel R. may be otherwise rendered Erin lad.

D. Q.

Your interesting correspondent MR. BREEN challenges the world to produce
“six good anagrams.” It may help him in his search for them to be
referred to two curious papers on the subject in the Bengal Moofussul
Miscellany, reprinted in London in 1837. Or, as perhaps he may not have
the book within reach, he may not be displeased at my extracting a few
of the best of them. The first is a compliment paid to one of
the Ptolemies: Πτολεμαῖος,
ἀπὸ μέλιτος. Lycophron, in a
similar vein, calls Ἀρσινόη,
ἴον Ἥρας. Out of
William Noy, Charles I.’s Ship-Money Attorney-General, we have, I
moyl in law. Loraine produces alerion, which is assigned as the
reason for that house bearing eaglets in their arms. Sir Edmundbury
Godfrey gives, I fynd murder’d by rogues. The tale about Lady Eleanor
Davies, lately referred to by one of your contributors, occurs in the
first of these papers; as does another of somewhat later date, which
really deserves to be preserved among your “Notes.”

“When young Stanislaus, afterwards king of Poland, returned home
from his travels, all the illustrious family of Leczinki
assembled at Lissa to congratulate him on his arrival. Festivals,
shows, and rejoicings of every kind took place: but the most
ingenious compliment that graced the occasion, was the one paid
by the College of Lissa. There appeared on the stage thirteen
dancers, dressed as youthful warriors; each held in his hand a
shield, on which was engraved in characters of gold, one of the
thirteen letters which compose the two words ‘Domus Lescinia.’
They then commenced their dance, and so arranged it, that at each
turn their row of bucklers formed different anagrams. At the
first pause they presented them in the natural order:

I fear I have already asked for too much of your space, yet must I beg
the least bit more for an anagram which, unless the sacredness of the
subject be accounted a drawback, may well claim a foremost place among
the “six.” It is found in Pilate’s question to our Lord, Quid est
veritas? which contains its own best answer: Est Vir qui adest.

PHILIP HEDGELAND.

DISCOVERING THE BODIES OF THE DROWNED.
(Vol. iv., p. 251.)

The mode of doing this, as shown by S. W. to be practised by the North
American Indians, is very common amongst ourselves. About
five-and-twenty years ago, an Eton boy, named Dean, who had lately come
to the school, imprudently bathed in the river Thames where it flows
with great rapidity under the “playing fields,” and he was soon carried
out of his depth, and disappeared. Efforts were made to save him or
recover the body, but to no purpose; until Mr. Evans, who was then, as
now, the accomplished drawing-master, threw a
[298] cricket bat into
the stream, which floated to a spot where it turned round in an eddy,
and from a deep hole underneath the body was quickly drawn. This
statement is entirely from memory, but I believe it to be substantially
correct.

I heard the following anecdote from the son of an eminent Irish judge.
In a remote district of Ireland a poor man, whose occupation at certain
seasons of the year was to pluck feathers from live geese for beds,
arrived one night at a lonely farmhouse, where he expected to glean a
good stock of these “live feathers,” and he arose early next morning to
look after the flock. The geese had crossed the river which flowed in
front of the house, and were sitting comfortably in the sunshine on the
opposite bank. Their pursuer immediately stripped off the few clothes he
had, deposited them on the shore, and swam across the river. He then
drove the birds into the water, and, boldly following them, he
maintained a long contest to keep then together on their homeward
voyage, until in the deep bed of the river his strength failed him, and
he sank. The farmer and his family became aware of the accident, the
cries of the drowning man, and the cackling of the geese, informed them,
in the swimmer’s extremity, of his fate, and his clothes lay on the
shore in witness of his having last been in their company. They dragged
the river for the body, but in vain; and in apprehension of serious
consequences to themselves should they be unable to produce the corpse,
they applied to the parish priests, who undertook to relieve them, and
to “improve the occasion” by the performance of a miracle. He called
together the few neighbours, and having tied a strip of parchment,
inscribed with cabalistic characters, round a wisp of straw; he dropped
this packet where the man’s head was described to have sunk, and it
glided into still water where the corpse was easily discovered.

ALFRED GATTY.

The discovery of drowned bodies by loading a loaf with mercury, and
putting it afloat on a stream, or by casting into the river, as the
Indians do, “a chip of cedar wood, which will stop and turn round over
the exact spot,” is referrible to natural and simple causes. As there
are in all running streams deep pools formed by eddies, in which drowned
bodies would be likely to be caught and retained, any light substance
thrown into the current would consequently be drawn to that part of the
surface over the centre of the eddy hole.

J. S. C.

MARRIAGE OF ECCLESIASTICS.
(Vol. iv., pp. 57. 125. 193. 196.)

In the early ages, your correspondent H. WALTER assumes that the
primitive Christians knew “that their Scriptures said of marriage that
it was honourable in all” (Vol. iv., p. 193.). H. WALTER is under more
than one mistake with regard to the text of St. Paul (Heb. xiii. 4.) on
which he grounds his assertion. This whole chapter being full of
admonitions, the apostle, all through it, speaks mostly in the
imperative mood. He begins with, “Let brotherly love continue;” “Be not
forgetful,” &c.; “Remember them that are in bonds,” &c. Then he says:
Τίμιος ὁ γάμος ἐν πᾶσι,
καὶ ἡ κοίτη ἀμίαντος, that is: “Let
(the laws of) marriage be revered in all things, and the marriage bed
be undefiled;” and as a warning to those who might not heed such an
admonition, he adds, “whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”
H. WALTER mistakes the adjective
feminine ἐν πᾶσι as meaning “all
men,” whereas it signifies here, “in all things;” according to which
sense St. Paul uses the same form of speech in 2 Corinthians xi. 6. True
it is, the authorised version translates thus: “Marriage is honourable
in all;” but the is is an insertion of the translators, and therefore
printed in Italics. Parkhurst, however, in his Lexicon, at the word
Γάμος, says: “Wolfius has justly remarked, the imperatives
preceding and following show that we should rather
understand ἔστω
than ἐστί. See also Hammond and Macknight; and observe
that the Alexandrian and two other MSS., for δὲ in the
following sentence read γάρ, and the Vulgate translates by
enim, “for.”

I cannot but think that the makers of the authorized version advisedly
inserted is instead of let, to forward their own new doctrines, as
this their rendering would seem to countenance the marriage of priests.
Curiously enough, when they had no interest in putting in the indicative
instead of the imperative mood, those same translators have of
themselves inserted, in the verse following, the latter, thus: “Let
your conversation be without covetousness,” &c. Moreover, in
translating ἐν πᾶσι, in another passage of St. Paul, 2 Cor. xi.
6., they render it, “in all things;” in which same sense it is to be
understood in the above place, Heb. xi. 4.

CEPHAS.

In lately reading that very curious book, Whiston’s Autobiography, I
met with some remarks on this subject, which I made a note of, and which
are at the service of A. B. C. Whiston quotes the well-known Dr. Wall as
follows:—

“The Greek Church still observe the rule of allowing their clergy
to marry but once, and before the Council of Nice made a further
rule that none after his orders should marry; and I believe it is
hard to find in church history an instance of any one who married
after he was in priest’s orders for a thousand (in reality for
above a thousand four hundred) years before Martin Luther.”

The interpolation marked by a parenthesis is Whiston’s, who proceeds:—
[299]

“The Church of England allows their very bishops to be
twice—nay thrice—nay even four times married without any
impediment to their episcopal functions, whereas the Greek
Patriarch of Constantinople would not admit the Emperor Leo, a
layman, into the church, because he had married a fourth wife.”

Whiston, though a “fanciful man,” as Burnet calls him, was well read in
Christian antiquity, and his opinion is therefore of some weight. Wall’s
authority no one would willingly undervalue.

I cannot call to mind any English bishop who was four times married; yet
Whiston would hardly have asserted the fact if he had not had some
example in view. I should be obliged to any one who would inform me on
the subject.[1]

[1] We have somewhere read of a Bishop Thomas giving his fourth
wife a ring, with this posy:—

This may give a clue to our correspondent.

When on the subject of Whiston, I should be glad to know if his edition
of our Common Prayer Book published in 1713, and his Primitive New
Testament published in 1745, still exist.[2]

[2] The two works mentioned by K. S., though scarce,
occasionally occur for sale. The “Common Prayer Book” was republished by
the Rev. Peter Hall in his Fragmenta Liturgica, vol. iii.

The former he entitled The Liturgy of the Church of England reduced
nearer to the Primitive Standard. The latter contains, besides the
Canonical Books of the New Testament, the Apostolic Constitutions,
Epistles of Ignatius, the Epistle of Timothy to Diognetus, &c. &c., all
of which he considered as of equal authority with the Canonical Books.
The Apostolic Constitutions indeed he terms “the most sacred of the
Canonical Books of the New Testament.”

K. S.

Replies to Minor Queries.

Robert Douglas (Vol. iv., p. 23.).

—There is no truth in the report
that this person was a grandson of Mary Queen of Scots. His diary during
the march of the Scots troops to England, 1644, is printed in a work
entitled Historical Fragments relative to Scotish Affairs from 1635 to
1664, Edin., 1833, 8vo., published by Stevenson of Edinburgh, and
edited by James Maidment, Esq., of that city, who has enriched the
volume with many notes and illustrations, and has given in addition a
pretty copious account of Douglas. His letters and papers fell into the
hands of Wodrow. (See Analecta Scotica, vol. i. p. 326.) Allow me to
correct an error. The Bannatyne Club did not print Wodrow’s
Analecta. This very amusing collection was a munificent present from
the late Earl of Glasgow to the members of the Maitland Club, of which
his lordship was president; it is in four thick 4to. volumes, and full
of all sorts of out-of-the-way information. It seems very little known
at present south the Tweed. I question whether Mr. Macaulay has gone
through it, although he is no doubt familiar with Wodrow’s one-sided
work on the Sufferings of the Scotish Presbyterian clergy.

J. MT.

The Leman Baronetcy (Vol. iv., pp. 58. 111.).

—The attempt in
Scotland to give a right to an English title of honour is exposed
fully in Mr. Turnbull’s Anglo-Scotia Baronets, Edin. 1846, P. XXXII.
iii. The “certified court proceedings” are worth nothing, and would not
be sustained in a court of law. The party called Sir Edward Godfrey
Leman may or may not be the next heir of the Lord Mayor, but he must
prove his right in England by such evidence as may be required there,
and not by reference to what would not even be looked at in the Scotish
law courts.

J. MT.

Cachecope Bell (Vol. iii., p. 407.).

—Is it possible that this word
may be a corruption of the low Latin “Catascopus”
(Gr. κατάσκοπος), and that it was applied to a bell which a watchman tolled
to give an alarm of fire, &c.? I have seen a bell set apart for this
duty, in churches on the continent.

C. P. PH***.

May not this have been a bell specially rung at funerals, and deriving
its name (as has been suggested to me) from cache corps, “cover the
body” (in the ground)? And why not, since we have got “curfew” out of
couvre feu, “cover the fire?”

A. G.

Ecclesfield.

[E. V. has suggested a similar explanation of this term.]

“Dieu et mon Droit“ (Vol. iii., p. 407.).

—In Bishop Nicolson’s
English Historical Library, part iii. chap. i., under the section
treating of Charters appears the following paragraph:

“The same king (Edward III.), as founder of the most noble order
of Knights of the Garter, had his arms sometimes encircled with
their motto of ‘Honi soit,’ &c., that of ‘Dieu et mon Droit’
having formerly been assumed by Richard the First, intimating
that the Kings of England hold their empire from God alone. But
neither of those ever appeared on the Broad Seal, before the
days of Henry the Eighth.”

FRANCISCUS.

Defoe’s House at Stoke Newington (Vol. iv., p. 256.).

—This house is
the one which was occupied by the late William Frend, M.A., of the Rock
Life Office, and which now belongs to his widow. It is on the south side
of Church Street, a little to the east of Lordship Lane or Road, and has
about four acres of ground attached, bounded on the
[300] west by a
narrow footway, once (if not still) called Cutthroat Lane. Or it may be
identified thus: take the map of Stoke Newington in Robinson’s history
of that place, London, 1820, 8vo., and look directly below the first “e”
in “Church Street.” Among the papers by which the house is held is the
copy of the enrolment of a surrender to the lord of manor, dated
February 26, 1740, in which the house is described as “heretofore in the
tenure or occupation of Daniel Defoe.” The history just mentioned stated
that he was living at Newington in 1709. There appears no reason to
suppose that he built the house. Dr. Price lived for some years in it,
as the domestic chaplain of a subsequent owner.

M.

Study of Geometry in Lancashire (Vol. ii., p. 57.).

—Your
correspondent Mr. T. T. WILKINSON, in his interesting article on this
subject, attributes the first rise of the study of geometry in
Lancashire to the Oldham Mathematical Society. But he is not perhaps
aware, that half a century before a Mathematical Society existed at
Manchester. I have a thin 8vo., entitled—

“Mathematical Lectures; being the first and second that were read
to the Mathematical Society at Manchester. By the late ingenious
Mathematician John Jackson. ‘Who can number the Sands of the
Sea, the Drops of Rain, and the Days of Eternity?‘ Ecclus. i. 2.
‘He that telleth the Number of the Stars, and calleth them all
by their Names.‘ Psalm cxlvii. 4. Manchester, printed by Roger
Adams, in the Parsonage, and sold by William Clayton, Bookseller,
at the Conduit. 1719.”

The book is dedicated to the “Virtuous and Religious Lady Bland.” The
Preface states that

“There having been lately set up in Manchester a Mathematical
Society, which was encouraged by many (and some Honorable)
subscribers, and the composing of the Lectures being undertaken
by the late ingenious Mathematician Mr. John Jackson, and he
having discharged himself well becoming his parts and character
in the reading of several extraordinary ones in Geometry, we
thought it would be great pity, as well as ingratitude, to let
such worthy performances expire with him.”

Then follow the two Lectures, which terminate at p. 41. The first was
read Aug. 12, 1718; the second, Aug. 19, 1718. The Manchester
Mathematical Society would be one of the earliest in the kingdom.
Perhaps the Oldham Society might be a branch of the Manchester.

JAMES CROSSLEY.

Coke, how pronounced (Vol. iv., pp. 24. 74. 93. 138. 244.).

—I think
that the pronunciation of Cook for Coke is not a “modern
affectation,” as in a MS. journal of the proceedings in parliament of
the session of 1621, now in my possession, there is, amongst other
amusing things, an account of a quarrel between Mr. Clement Coke, son of
Sir Edward, and Sir Charles Moryson, in which Mr. Coke’s name is
frequently spelt Cooke. I should judge that the pronunciation was by
no means settled at that time; for, as the journal was evidently written
whilst the debates were going on, it appears to me that the
pronunciation of each speaker was followed, and the name is spelt
differently in speeches that succeed each other. I send you an exact
copy of one example of this:

“Mr Whittbye.—That Mr Coke will submitt and satisfy in
acknowg his wrong don, if Sr Chars will say he ment it
not a disgrace.

“Sr Ro. Philps.—I would any way mitigate ye censure: I
should need no other inducet but to remembr he is ye
soun of such a father. But I must say, I thinke Sr Chars
hath not given ye least occasn to Mr Cooke,” &c. &c.

C. DE D.

Quistourne (Vol. iv., p. 116.).

—Here is a word so very like the
Devonshire one which has puzzled a correspondent, that it may be the
same one in sense as well in sound. In one of the Low-Norman insular
dialects, it denotes a slap with the back of the hand; in
French-British,[3] KIS DOÛRN, revers de main.

[3] I was asked by a great and true scholar, now no more, What
do you mean by British? My answer was, “The nation that you have
nicknamed Welsh or Strangers, which they are not. With me the
English are still English, the Scotch Scots, the Britons in France the
British there.”

G. M.

Seneca’s Medea (Vol. i., p. 107.; Vol. iii., p. 464.).

—I cannot feel
much doubt that the prophecy ascribed to Medea was a mere allusion to
events actually past. It was a compliment to Claudius upon the recent
reduction of Britannia under the Roman arms, with nothing future, unless
it were an encouragement to bring Caledonia, Ireland, and the small
islands, into similar subjection. The Oceanus was supposed to extend
indefinitely westward, beyond the world, into the regions of Night and
Chaos, and was not only dreaded for its stormy navigation, but from
feelings of religious awe. The expedition to Britain was peculiar from
being ultra-mundane, and an invasion of the ocean, so that

For that reason only they called the Britons “penitus toto divisos
orbe.” “Britain (said the pseudo-Hegesippus) lying out of the world, was
by the power of the Roman empire reduced into the world,” cit. Camden.
And the same is implied in another place of Seneca himself—

But the “Poemata Pithæana,” reprinted in Camden, form the most lively
commentary on the chorus of the Medea. They are likewise of the Claudian
age, they relate to the conquest of Britain, and they are nothing but an
expansion of that one idea, the trans-oceanic voyage and ultra-mundane
conquest—

“Oceanus…. Qui finis mundo, non erit imperio. Oceanus mêdium
venit imperium. At nunc Oceanus geminos interluit orbes, Pars est
imperii, terminus ante fuit. Et jam Romano cingimur Oceano.
Oceanus jam terga dedit, etc. Conjunctum est, quod adhuc (i.e.
nunc) orbis, et orbis erat,” &c.

The Chorus of Seneca has no more of prophecy, or sagacious conjecture,
or other anticipation of the future, than Gray’s “Bard,” or the prophecy
of Medea in Pindar’s “Pythians,” both of them fulfilled before the
poet’s time. Whatever may seem of a larger import, in Seneca’s language,
than events had fully justified, belongs to the obscure and lofty strain
of remote vaticinations, or to the exaggerations of flattery.

A. N.

The Editor of Jewel’s Works in Folio (Vol. iv., p. 225.).

—Colet
speaks of the editions of Jewel published in 1609 and 1611 as “edited by
Fuller.” On meeting with the statement elsewhere, I supposed it to be a
mistake, as Fuller was born in 1608; but when I found it apparently
countenanced by the notice of Jewel in Fuller’s Abel Redivivus (Camb.
1651, p. 313.), I was much puzzled, until, on turning to the
Introduction, § 11., I discovered that the writer of that notice, and
editor of the folios, was not Fuller, but Featley.

J. C. R.

Poetaster (Vol. iv., p. 59.).

—In reply to A BORDERER, I do not think
poetaster to be a genuine Latin word, though where first used I do not
know. The French equivalent is poëtereau; the Italian poëterio; both
formed according to the analogies of the respective languages.
Poetaster seems to me to be formed upon the model of oleaster,
pinaster, &c., as though to indicate that the person to whom the name
is applied is as unlike a true poet as the wild olive to the true olive,
or the wild pine to the true pine. What then is the derivation of
aster as a termination? Some punster will say, respecting oleaster,
that it is olea sterilis. Is it not
ἄγριος? or is it rather a
form cognate to the Greek termination
-αζω, which generally
means the performance of some energy, or the exhibiting of some state,
implied in the substantive; as though the wild olive affected the
characteristics and condition of the genuine olive? I am fully aware of
many difficulties in the admission of these derivations. I would suggest
another. Does aster signify that which affects or approaches the
characteristics of the substantive to which it is added, as the
terminations -estis or -estris, whereby adjectives are formed; as
agrestis, sylvestris, campestris, at the same time that the forms
are allied, -aster, -estris, -estis?

THEOPHYLACT.

Post Pascha (Vol. iv., p. 151.).

—A parallel to the “hypertautology”
noticed by M. may be found in the determination of the University of
Orleans on the question of Henry VIII.’s divorce, which is dated “die
quinto mensis Aprilis, ante pascha,” from which it has been argued,
that that document must have been drawn up in 1530, not (as stated in
the printed copies) in 1529, when Easter fell on March 28.

J. C. R.

Linteamina and Surplices (Vol. iv., p. 192.).

—It seems probable that
the surplice became an ecclesiastical vestment at an early date, though
the exact period of its introduction into the Christian church it is
difficult to ascertain; it may not unlikely have been taken from the
white linen ephod of the Jewish priests. Wheatly (c. ii. § 4.) quotes a
passage from Jerome to the following effect: “What offence can it be to
God for a bishop or priest to proceed to communion in a white garment;”
and he considers it not improbable that it was in use in Cyprian’s days.
Bingham (French Churches’ Apology, book iii. chap. vii.) cites a
letter of Peter Martyr to Bishop Hooper on the vestment controversy, in
which he states that a distinction of habits may be proved by many
passages of Eusebius, Cyprian, Tertullian, and Chrysostom. By the
twelfth canon of the Council of Narbonne, A.D. 589, the clergy were
forbidden to take the albe off until after mass was ended. In ancient
times, as Mr. Palmer observes (Orig. Lit. ii. 409.), the surplice
probably differed not from the albe; it differs now only in having
wider sleeves.

N. E. R. (a Subscriber.)

Climate (Vol. iv., p. 231.).

—A climate was a zone contained between
two parallels of latitude. The climates were made to contain various
arcs of latitude, in different systems. See Hutton’s
Mathematical Dictionary at Climate, or any
work which efficiently explains old
astronomical terms. Thus a climate originally meant a certain range of
latitude; and as we now speak of warm and cold latitudes, so it became
customary to speak of climates, until the last word became wholly
meteorological.

M.

“Climate or Clime in geography is a part of the surface of
the earth, bounded by two circles parallel to the equator, and of
such a breadth as that the longest day in the parallel nearer the
pole exceeds the longest day in that next the equator by some
certain spaces, viz. half an hour.

“The ancients, who confined the climates to what they imagined
the habitable parts of the earth, only allowed of seven. The
first they made to pass through Meroë; the second, through
Sienna; the third, through Alexandria; the fourth, through
Rhodes; the fifth, through Rome; the sixth, through Pontus; and
the seventh,
[302] through the mouth the
Borysthenes.”—Encyclopædia Britannica, art. “CLIMATE.”

S. C. C.

Corfe Castle.

Ancient Language of Egypt (Vol. iv., pp. 152. 240.).

—The only works
on the language of ancient Egypt preserved in the hieroglyphical
inscriptions that possess any authority are the Grammaire Egyptienne
of Champollion,[4] and the appendix to the first volume of the Chevalier
Bunsen’s Egypt’s Place in Universal History. Much, however, is known
to individuals who have studied the language, which has not been
published, or perhaps digested into a system; and the works mentioned
are by no means to be depended on as to matters of detail, especially as
respects the verbs and pronouns, though the general principles of
interpretation may be considered as settled. There was another language
used by the ancient Egyptians, and expressed in what is called the
demotic or enchorial character. Brugsch of Berlin is the highest
authority as to this; his work, De natura et indole linguæ popularis
Ægyptiorum, is, I believe, incomplete, but he has published others in
Latin and German.

[4] This contains the latest views of the author, whose most
important discoveries were made near the close of his life. The Précis
contains much that Champollion afterwards rejected as erroneous. The
Dictionnaire is a compilation, made after his death from what he wrote
at different periods of his life. It is inconsistent with itself, and
abounds in errors, so as to be worse than useless to the student.

The work on Egyptian chronology, from which most seems to be expected,
is that of Lepsius; but he has yet published only the first volume,
which consists of preliminary matter. Le Sueur’s treatise, though
crowned by the French Académie, is a failure. Bunsen’s less palpably
erroneous, but a great part of the second and third volumes, which were
published in German in 1844, would require to be re-written. Those who
wish to study the chronology, as systematised by the Egyptians
themselves, should consult the Turin Book Of Kings, of which an
accurate fac-simile, with explanatory text, has been lithographed, and
is about to be published by subscription, under the superintendence of a
committee, of which Sir Gardner Wilkinson is the most prominent member.

E. H. D. D.

Welwood’s Memoirs (Vol. iv., p. 70.).

—The edition referred to by
MR. ROSS I have not seen, but there is one in my library printed at London
in 1702, and which bears to be “the fourth edition,” with the dedication
to the king, and an address “to the reader” commencing as follows:—

“These sheets were writ some years ago, by the encouragement of
one whose memory will be ever sacred to posterity. It’s
needless to mention the occasion; and they had not been published
now, if a surreptitious copy of a part of the manuscript had not
crept abroad.”

The volume, which is very well got up in 8vo., is printed for “Tim.
Goodwin, and sold by James Round at the Seneca’s Head in Exchange
Alley.”

It may be fairly inferred that this edition came out under the
superintendence of Welwood, and it would be interesting to ascertain
whether there are any alterations in the sixth edition. Welwood was a
Scotchman, and a letter from him to James Anderson, the eminent Scotish
antiquary, will be found amongst the Anderson Papers in the Library of
the Faculty of Advocates. It has been printed in the appendix to the
Catalogues of Scotish Writers, Edinburgh, 1833.

J. MT.

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC.

On Wednesday the curtain fell on the most gorgeous and successful
Pageant ever enacted—a Pageant in which all the nations of the earth
played a part, with the Crystal Palace for their “tyring house.” Honour
then to all who had hand or heart in this Triumph of Peace! Honour to
our Queen for her most judicious patronage! Honour to Prince Albert for
the admirable tact with which he fulfilled the duties of his important
office! Honour to our countrymen for the manner in which they have
maintained the dignity of a free people! Honour to our foreign visitors
for the friendly spirit in which they responded to our invitation and
received our welcome! Honour to that efficient corps the Sappers and
Miners, (and happily we have only to mention the military to recognise
their services as civilians), and to our Police for their good-humoured
firmness! Honour to Paxton, for his design—to Fox and Henderson for
their execution of it! and, though last not least, honour to that band
of zealous and indefatigable spirits, the Digby Wyatts, Dilkes, Coles,
Scott Russells, &c., to whose prevision and supervision, at all times
and in all places, the success of the World’s Fair and the comfort of
its visitors, owe so much! If ever there was a fitting time for
instituting an ORDER OF CIVIL MERIT, it is now; if ever there were men
who deserved to wear such an order, they who planned, and they who
carried out the GREAT EXHIBITION OF THE WORKS OF INDUSTRY OF ALL NATIONS,
they are the men.

We could not allow the Great Exhibition to close without making a Note
of it: we have therefore little room this week for Notes on Books. We
must, however, take notice of six additional volumes of the National
Illustrated Library, which we have received. Of three of these we may
well speak briefly, as they form the Second, Third, and Fourth Volumes
of Boswell’s Life of Johnson, to which we formerly directed the
attention of our readers. The Book of English Songs from the Sixteenth
to the Nineteenth Century is a very well selected volume. The Editor’s
endeavour to present a fair view of this branch of our National
Literature has been attended with success, and the book
[303] will, we
have no doubt, be a popular one. The Orbs of Heaven, by Mr. Mitchel,
the director of the Cincinnati Observatory, is intended to furnish a
popular exposition of the great Discoveries and Theories of Modern
Astronomy, and to exhibit the structure of the universe so far as
revealed by the mind of man. The book is a reprint of a series of
lectures delivered in the hall of Cincinnati College, with such success
as to have led to the establishment of the Cincinnati Observatory—need
we say more? The sixth volume is a very interesting but painful one,
The Mormons, or Latter-Day Saints, with Memoirs of the Life and Death
of Joseph Smith, the American Mahomet. How startling is the contrast in
the subject-matter of these two books—the one rich in a display of the
infinite wisdom of the Creator, the other depicting most vividly the
foolishness of man.

The new volume of Bohn’s Standard Library is the second of Dr.
Neander’s History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church
by the Apostles, with the Author’s Final Additions; and his
Antignostikus, or Spirit of Tertullian, which completes, we believe,
the series of translations from the writing of this learned German
divine. The metamorphoses of Ovid, literally translated into English
Prose, forms the new volume of Bohn’s Classical Library, and the
Translator, Mr. Riley, has endeavoured to render the work more inviting
to the scholar, and more intelligible to those who are unversed in
classical literature, by numerous explanatory notes calculated to throw
considerable light upon the origin and meaning of some of the traditions
of heathen mythology.

It will be seen by our advertising columns that Messrs. Puttick and
Simpson exhibit a numerous List of important Sales of Books,
Manuscripts, Autographs, &c., which they have in preparation for the
ensuing season.

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES
WANTED TO PURCHASE.

JOURNAL OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. Vol. I. Part I. (One
or more copies.)

THE ANTIQUARY. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1816. Vols. I. and II.

HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF TWICKENHAM, being the First Part of
Parochial Collections for the County of Middlesex, begun in 1780
by E. Ironside, Esq., London, 1797. (This work forms 1 vol. of
Miscell. Antiquities in continuation of the Bib. Topographica,
and is usually bound in the 10th Volume.)

RITSON’S ROBIN HOOD. 12mo. London 1795. Vol II. (10s. will be
given for a clean copy in boards, or 7s. 6d. for a clean copy
bound.)

DR. JOHNSON’S PRAYERS AND MEDITATIONS.

ANNUAL OBITUARY AND BIOGRAPHY. Vol. XXXI.

THEOPHILUS AND PHILODOXUS, or Several Conferences, &c., by
Gilbert Giles, D.D., Oxon, 1674; or the same work republished
1679, under the title of a “Dialogue between a Protestant and a
Papist.”

PECK’S COMPLETE CATALOGUE OF ALL THE DISCOURSES WRITTEN BOTH FOR AND AGAINST PAPACY IN THE TIME OF KING JAMES II. 1735. 4to.

*** 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 are this week compelled to request the indulgence of our
correspondents for the omission of our usual acknowledgement of
REPLIES RECEIVED.

J. O. D. M. (Worthing). Mr. Alison the author of
THE NEW REFORMATION, is not Mr. Alison the author of
THE HISTORY OF EUROPE.

F. D. will find the “Sermon against Miracle Plays” in the
RELIQUÆ ANTIQUÆ, vol. ii. p. 42. There are no collective
editions of the dramatic compositions of Nash or Lyllie.

LLAW GYFFES is referred to our Number of the 4th Oct., p. 206.,
where he will find his Davies Queries duly inserted.

ALBION in our next; also DR. HENRY’S “Notes on Virgil.” We owe
an apology to DR. HENRY for having nodded, and so allowed the
word impertinent to pass unerased from a comment upon his Note
on Servius. It is an epithet which certainly ought neither to
have been applied to him, nor admitted into our columns.

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, October
18. 1851.