Vol. V.—No. 121.
NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION
FOR
LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

VOL. V.—No. 121.

SATURDAY,
FEBRUARY 21. 1852.

Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition, 5d.

CONTENTS.

NOTES:—

QUERIES:—

REPLIES:—

MISCELLANEOUS:—

Notes.

READINGS IN SHAKSPEARE, NO. II.

I cannot look upon this emendation, although sanctioned by the two
latest editors of Shakspeare, as by any means a happy one. The original
word in the second quarto, “ease,” so nearly resembles “eale” in the
first quarto (especially when printed with the old-fashioned long
“[s]”); and the subsequent transition from ease to base is so
extremely obvious, and at the same time so thoroughly consistent with
the sense, that it is difficult to imagine any plausible ground for the
rejection of base in favour of ill. Dram was formerly used (as
grain is at present) to signify an indefinitely small quantity; so
that “the dram of base” presents as intelligible an expression as can be
desired.

But in addition to its easy deduction from the original, base
possesses other recommendations, in being the natural antagonist of
noble in the line following, and in the capability of being understood
either in a moral or physical sense.

If the whole passage be understood as merely assertive, then base may
have, in common with ill, a moral signification; but if it be
understood as a metaphorical allusion to substantial matter, in
illustration of the moral reflections that have gone before, then base
must be taken (which ill cannot) in the physical sense, as a base
substance, and, as such, in still more direct antagonism to the noble
substance opposed to it.

In a former paper I had occasion to notice the intimate knowledge
possessed by Shakspeare in the arcana of the several arts; and I now
recognise, in this passage, a metaphorical allusion to the degradation
of gold by the admixture of baser metal. Gold and lead have always
been in poetical opposition as types of the noble and the
base;
[170]
and we are assured by metallurgists, that if lead be
added to gold, even in the small proportion of one part in two thousand,
the whole mass is rendered completely brittle.

The question then is, in what way “the dram of base” affects “all the
noble substance?” Shakspeare says it renders it doubtful or suspicious;
his commentators make him say that it douts or extinguishes it
altogether! And this they do without even the excuse of an originally
imperfect word to exercise conjecture upon. The original word is
doubt, the amended one dout; and yet the first has been rejected,
and the latter adopted, in editions whose peculiar boast it is to have
restored, in every practicable instance, the original text.

Now, in my opinion, Shakspeare did not intend doubt in this place, to
be a verb at all, but a noun substantive: and it is the more necessary
that this point should be discussed, because the amended passage has
already crept into our dictionaries as authority for the verb dout;
thus giving to a very questionable emendation the weight of an
acknowledged text. (Vide Todd’s Johnson.)

Any person who takes the amended passage, as quoted at the head of this
article, and restores “dout,” to its original spelling, will find that
the chief hindrance to a perfect meaning consists in the restriction of
doth to the value of a mere expletive. Let this restriction be
removed, by conferring upon doth the value of an effective verb, and
it will be seen that the difficulty no longer remains. The sense then
becomes, “the base doth doubt to the noble,” i.e. imparts doubt to
it, or renders it doubtful. We say, a man’s good actions do him
credit; why not also, his bad ones do him doubt? One phrase may be
less familiar than the other, but they are in strict analogy as well
with themselves as with the following example from the Twelfth Night,
which is exactly in point:

Hence, since the original word is capable of giving a clear and distinct
meaning, there can be no possible excuse for displacing it, even if the
word to be substituted were as faultless as it is certainly the reverse.

For not only is dout an apocryphal word, but it is inelegant when
placed, as it must be in this instance, in connexion with the expletive
doth, being at the same time in itself a verb compounded of do.
Neither is the meaning it confers so clear and unobjectionable as to
render it desirable; for in what way can a very small quantity be said
to dout, or expel, a very large quantity? To justify such an
expression, the entire identity of the larger must be extinguished,
leaving no part of it to which the scandal mentioned in the third line
could apply.

But an examination of the various places wherein scandal is mentioned by
Shakspeare, shows that the meaning attached by him to that word was
false imputation, or loss of character: therefore, in the contact of the
base and the noble, the scandal must apply to the noble substance—a
consideration that must not be lost sight of in any attempt to arrive at
the true meaning of the whole passage.

So far, I have assumed that “often” (the third substitution in the
amended quotation) is the best representative that can be found for the
“of a” of the original; and inasmuch as it is confirmed by general
consent, and is moreover so redundant, in this place, that its absence
or presence scarcely makes any difference in the sense, it is not easily
assailable.

The best way, perhaps, to attempt to supplant it is to suggest a better
word—one that shall still more closely resemble the original letters in
sound and formation, and that shall, in addition, confer upon the sense
not a redundant but an effective assistance. Such a word is offer: it
is almost identical (in sound at least) with the original, and it
materially assists in giving a much clearer application to the last
line.

For these reasons, but especially for the last, I adopt offer, as a
verb in the infinitive ruled by doth, in the sense of causing or
compelling; a sense that must have been in familiar use in Shakspeare’s
time, or it would not have been introduced into the translation of
Scripture.

In this view the meaning of the passage becomes, “The base doth the
noble offer doubt, to his own scandal”—that is, causes the noble to
excite suspicion, to the injury of its own character.

Examples of do in this sense are very numerous in Spenser; of which
one is (F.Q., iii. 2. 34.):

And in Chaucer (Story of Ugolino):

And in Scripture (2 Cor. viii. 1.):

By this reading a very perfect and intelligible meaning is obtained, and
that too by the slightest deviation from the original yet proposed.

By throwing the action of offering doubt upon “the noble substance,”
it becomes the natural reference to “his own scandal” in the third line.

Hamlet is moralising upon the tendency of the “noblest virtues,” “be
they as pure as grace, as infinite as man may undergo,” to take, from
“the stamp of one defect,” “corruption in the general censure” (a very
close definition of scandal); and he illustrates it by the metaphor:

A. E. B.

Leeds. [171]

NATIONAL DEFENCES.

Collet, in his Relics of Literature, has furnished some curious
notices of a work on national defences, which perhaps ought to be
consulted at the present time, now that this matter is again exciting
such general interest among all classes. It was compiled when the
gigantic power of France, under Buonaparte, had enabled him to overrun
and humble every continental state, and even to threaten Great Britain;
and when the spirit of this country was roused to exertion by a sense of
the danger, and by the fervour of patriotism. The government of that day
neglected no means to keep this spirit alive in the nation; and George
III. conceiving the situation of his dominions to resemble, in many
respects, that which terminated so fortunately for England in the days
of Queen Elizabeth, directed proper researches to be made for
ascertaining the principles and preparations adopted at that eventful
period. The records of the Tower were accordingly consulted; and a
selection of papers, apparently of the greatest consequence, was formed
and printed, but not published. This work, which contained 420 pages in
octavo, was entitled, A Report of the Arrangements which were made for
the Internal Defence of these Kingdoms, when Spain, by its Armada,
projected the Invasion and Conquest of England; and Application of the
Wise Proceedings of our Ancestors to the Present Crisis of Public
Safety. The papers in this work are classed in the order of external
alliance, internal defence, military arrangements, and naval equipments.
They are preceded by a statement of facts, in the history of Europe, at
the period of the Spanish Armada; and a sketch of events, showing the
effects of the Queen’s measures at home and abroad. As a collection of
historical documents, narrating an important event in British history,
this work is invaluable; and, as showing the relative strength of this
country in population and other resources in the sixteenth century, it
is curious and interesting.

J. Y.

NOTES ON HOMER, NO. II.
(Continued from Vol. v., p. 100.)

The Wolfian Theory.

The most important consideration concerning Homer is the hypothesis of
Wolf, which has been contested so hotly; but before entering on the
consideration of this revolution, as it may be called, I shall lay
before your readers the following quotation from the introduction of
Fauriel to the old Provençal poem, “Histoire de la Croisade contre les
Albigeois,” in the Collection des Documens Inédits sur l’Histoire de
France. He observes:—

“The romances collectively designated by the title of
Carlovingian, are, it would seem, the most ancient of all in the
Provençal literature. They were not, originally, more than very
short and simple poems, popular songs destined to be recited with
more or less musical intonation, and susceptible, consequently on
their shortness, of preservation without the aid of writing, and
simply by oral tradition among the jongleurs, whose profession
it was to sing them. Almost insensibly these songs developed
themselves, and assumed a complex character; they attained a
fixed length, and their re-composition required more invention
and more design. In another point of view, they had increased in
number in the same ratio as they had acquired greater extent and
complexity; and things naturally attained such a position, that
it became impossible to chant them from beginning to end by the
aid of memory alone, nor could they be preserved any longer
without the assistance of a written medium. They might be still
occasionally sung in detached portions; but there exists scarcely
a doubt, that from that period they began to be read; and it was
only necessary to read them, in order to seize and appreciate
their contents.”[1]

[1] P. xxx., quoted in Thirlwall’s History of Greece
(Appendix I.), vol. i. p. 506., where it is given in French.

These remarks, though applied to another literature, contain the
essentials of the theory developed by Wolf in regard to Homer. Before
the time of Wolf, the popularly accepted opinion on this subject was as
follows: That Homer, a poet of ancient date, wrote the Iliad and
Odyssea in their present form; and that the rhapsodists having
corrupted and interpolated the poems, Peisistratos, and Hipparchos, his
son, corrected, revised, and restored these poems to their original
condition.

Such was the general opinion, when at the end of the seventeenth century
doubts began to be thrown upon it, and the question began to be placed
in a new light. The critics of the time were Casaubon, Perizon, Bentley,
Hédelin, and Perrault, who, more or less, rejected the established
opinion. Giambattista Vico made the first attempt to embody their
speculations into one methodical work. His Principi di Scienza nuova
contain the germ of the theory reproduced by Wolf with so much
scholarship. Wolf, founding his theory on the investigations of Vico and
Wood, extended or modified their views, and assumed that the poems were
never written down at all until the time of Peisistratos, their
arranger. In 1778, the famous Venetian Scholia were discovered by
Villoison, throwing open to the world the investigations of the
Alexandrian critics; and by showing what the ideas of the Chorizontes
were (on whom it were madness to write after Mure), strengthening the
views of Wolf. In 1795, then, were published his famous Prolegomena,
containing the theory—

“That the Iliad and Odyssey were not two complete poems, but
small, separate, independent epic songs, celebrating single
exploits of the heroes; and that [172] these lays were, for the
first time, written down and united as the Iliad and Odyssey
by Peisistratus, tyrant of Athens.”[2]

[2] Smith, ii. p. 501.

The former critics (Hédelin and Perrault) had been overruled, derided,
and quashed by the force of public opinion; but Wolf brought so many
arguments to support his views,—collected so formidable a mass of
authorities, both traditional, internal, and written, that the classical
world was obliged to meet him with fresh arguments, as ridicule would
not again succeed. Thus arose the formidable Wolfian controversy, which
“scotched,” though not “killed,” the belief of the critical world in
Homer. The principal arguments he adduces are from the poems themselves,
in his attempt to establish the non-being of writing at the time of
their composition.

Thus, in the
Odyssea,[3] a master of a vessel has to remember his
cargo, not having a list of his goods; in the
Iliad,[4] Bellerophon
carries a folded tablet containing writing or signs to Prætos in Lycia.
This Wolf interprets to signify conventional marks, like the picture
writing of the otherwise civilised
Mexicans.[5] Again, in the Iliad
(VII. 175.), the chiefs are represented as throwing lots in a helmet,
and the herald afterwards handing the lots round for recognition, as
each of the lots bore a mark known only to the person who made it. From
this Wolf argues that writing was unknown at the time, or the herald
would have immediately read the names aloud. But do we not even now make
use of such marks without confounding them with writing? This is nothing
at all; and it must be remembered, firstly, that this does not apply to
the Homeric time, but to the period of Troy; secondly, that if it had
applied to that time, it would be absurd to expect from illiterate
warrior chiefs, education superior to the mediæval crusaders, their
counterparts at a later period of the world’s progress. These are the
principal arguments that Wolf adduces to prove the non-existence of
writing at the Homeric period; whereas, far from proving anything, they
are self-contradictory and incorrect.

[3] Lib. viii. 163.

[4] Lib. vi. 168.

[5] See Mure, vol. iii., Appendix L., p. 507. foll.; and
Appendix M. vol. iii. p. 512. foll.; and see chap. vii. book III. vol.
iii. p. 397. passim.

To prove that the Peisistratidæ first wrote down the poems of Homer, he
cites Josephus (Orat. contr. Apion., I. 2.), who observes that—

“No writing, the authenticity of which is acknowledged, is found
among the Greeks earlier than the poetry of Homer; and, it is
said, that even he did not commit his works to writing, but
that, having been preserved in the memory of men, the songs were
afterwards connected.”

Josephus had merely heard this reported, as is evident from his use of
the words “it is said.” Pausanias, in the Tour in Greece (vii. 26.
6.), has the following observation:—

“A village called Donussa, between Ægira and Pellene, belonging
to the Sicyonians, was destroyed by that people. Homer, say
they, remembered this town in his epic, in the enumeration of
the people of Agamemnon, ‘Hyperesia then, and Donoessa, rocky
town’ (Ιλ. β. 573.); but when Peisistratos collected the
torn and widely scattered songs of Homer, either he himself, or
one of his friends, altered the name through ignorance.”

Wolf also makes use of this report, liable to the same objections as the
above, as one of his proofs. It is even doubtful whether Peisistratos
did edit Homer at all; but, under any circumstances, it was not the
first edition;[6] for is not Solon represented as the reviser of the
Homeric poems?

[6] Granville Penn, On the primary Arrangement of the Iliad;
and Appendix B to Mure, vol. i.

Cicero (de Oratore, III. 34.) says:

“Who is traditionally reported to have had more learning at
that time, or whose eloquence received greater ornaments from
polite literature than that of Peisistratos? who is said to have
been the first that arranged the books of Homer, from their
confused state, into that order in which we at present enjoy
them.”

This also is produced as a proof by Wolf, though, for the same reason,
it is doubtful. But see Wolf’s principal inaccuracies ably enumerated
and exposed by Clinton (F.H., i. p. 370.).

Such is the far-famed theory of Wolf, which, as most modern scholars
agree, is only calculated “to conduct us to most preposterous
conclusions.”[7] And this last dictum of Othello’s, Mr. Editor, reminds
me, that here it would not be preposterous to come to a conclusion for
the present, and to close my observations in another paper, where I
shall a theory “unfold,” which, after the most patient consideration and
reconsideration, I am inclined to think the most approximative to the
truth.

[7] Othello, Act I. Sc. 3.

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

Feb. 16. 1852.

FOLK LORE.

Fernseed.

—I find in Dr. Jackson’s works allusions to a superstition
which may interest some of your readers:

“It was my hap,” he writes, “since I undertook the ministery, to
question an ignorant soul (whom by undoubted report I had known
to have been seduced by a teacher of unhallowed arts, to make a
dangerous experiment) what he saw or heard, when he watcht the
falling of the Fernseed at an unseasonable and suspicious hour.
Why (quoth he), fearing (as his brief reply occasioned me to
conjecture) lest I should press him to tell before company, what
he had voluntarily confessed unto a friend in secret some
fourteen years before, do you think that the devil hath aught to
do [173] with that good seed? No; it is in the keeping of the
king of Fayries, and he, I know, will do me no harm, although
I should watch it again; yet had he utterly forgotten this king’s
name, upon whose kindness he so presumed, until I remembered it
unto him out of my reading in Huon of Burdeaux.

“And having made this answer, he began to pose me thus; Sr, you
are a scholar, abut I am none: Tell me what said the angel to our
Lady? or what conference had our Lady with her cousin Elizabeth
concerning the birth of St. John the Baptist?

“As if his intention had been to make bystanders believe that he
knew somewhat more on this point than was written in such books
as I use to read.

“Howbeit the meaning of his riddle I quickly conceived, and he
confessed to be this; that the angel did foretell John Baptist
should be born at that very instant, in which the Fernseed, at
other times invisible, did fall: intimating further (as far as I
could then perceive) that this saint of God had some
extraordinary vertue from the time or circumstance of his
birth.”

Jackson’s Works, book v. cap. xix. 8. vol. i. p. 916.
Lond. 1673, fol.

In the sixth and seventh sections of the same chapter and book I find
allusions to a maiden over whom Satan had no power “so long as she had
vervine and St. John’s grass about her;” to the danger of “robbing a
swallow’s nest built in a fire-house;” and to the virtues of
“south-running water.” Delrius also is referred to as having collected
many similar instances.

I have not access to Delrius, nor yet to Huon of Burdeaux, and so am
compelled deeply to regret that the good doctor did not leave on record
the name of the “king of the Fayries.”[8]

[8] [Oberon is his name, which Mr. Keightley shows to be
identical with Elberich. See Fairy Mythology, p. 208. (ed.
1850).—ED.] [174]

RT.

Cornish Folk Lore.

—A recent old cottage tenant at Poliphant, near
Launceston, when asked why he allowed a hole in the wall of his house to
remain unrepaired, answered that he would not have it stopped up on any
account, as he left it on purpose for the piskies (Cornish for
pixies) to come in and out as they had done for many years. This is
only a sample of the current belief and action.

S. R. P.

DICTIONARY OF ARCHAIC AND PROVINCIAL WORDS.

Will you allow me to suggest that, under the above, or some such
heading, “N. & Q.” should receive any words not to be found in any
well-known dictionary; such, for instance, as Halliwell’s or Webster’s,
which do not by any means contain all the words belonging to the class
of which they profess to be the repositories. You may also invite
barristers, reporters, professional men generally, and others, to send
such waifs of this description as they meet with. “N. & Q.” will then
soon become in this department of literature, as it is already in many
others, a rich mine from which future authors will draw precious store
of knowledge. I will begin by giving one or two examples.

Earth-burn. An intermittent land-spring, which may not show itself for
several years. There is such a spring, and so named, near to Epsom.

Lavant. A land-spring, according to Halliwell. But this also is an
intermittent spring. The word is probably from lava, to flow.

Pick. (Lancashire.) To push with the hand. “I gen her a pick;” that
is, “I pushed her from me;” or, “I gave her a violent push forward.”

Pick is also the instrument colliers get coals with; or an excavator
gets earth with; or a stonemason uses to take the “rough” off a stone.
He may also finish the face of ashlar by “fine-picking” it.

Gen. (Lancashire.) A contraction of the word gave.

ROBERT RAWLINSON.

P.S.—I have seen, in a court of justice in Lancashire, judge and
counsel fairly set fast with a broad spoken county person; and many of
the words in common use are not to be found in any dictionary or
glossary. Again, I have spoken to reporters as to technical words used
at such meetings, for instance, as those of the mechanical engineers in
Birmingham, and I have been informed that they are frequently bewildered
and surprised at the numbers of words in use having the same meaning,
but which are not to be found in any dictionary. It would be of the
utmost value to seize and fix these words.

R. R.

[The proposal of our correspondent jumps so completely with the
object of “N. & Q.,” as announced in our original Prospectus,
that we not only insert it, but hope that his invitation will be
responded to by all who meet with archaisms either in their
reading or in their intercourse with natives of those various
districts of England which are richest in provincialisms.—ED.]

THE LAST OF THE PALÆOLOGI.

In Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, vol. xvii. p. 24., there is a very
interesting article, bearing the above heading, in which it is shown
that Theodore Palæologus, the fourth in direct descent from Thomas, the
younger brother of Constantine, the last Christian Emperor of Greece,
lies buried in the church of Landulph in Cornwall. This Theodore married
Mary, the daughter of William Balls, of Hadley in Suffolk, gentleman; by
whom he had issue five children, Theodore, John, Ferdinando, Maria, and
Dorothy. Theodore, the first son, died in or about 1693, without issue.
Of John and Ferdinando there is no trace in this country. Maria died
unmarried; and Dorothy was married at Landulph to William Arundell in
1636, and died in 1681.

Ferdinando Palæologus appears to have died in the island of Barbadoes in
1678, and was buried in the church of St. John.

These researches are extremely interesting, and it is only to be
regretted that they are not more frequently made and left on record.
Allow me to suggest that such of your readers as have time, inclination,
and opportunity for making inquiries of this nature, should, through the
medium of “N. & Q.,” place on record any striking illustrations similar
to the above. Your own publication, Vol. iii., p. 350., contains a list
of names of the poor of St. Albans, several of which are borne still by
noble families. Possibly there may be still existing descendants of the
Dorothy Palæologus who married William Arundell at Landulph.

To mention another instance: I believe there now lives at Rugby a member
of the legal profession, who is directly descended from one of the most
renowned Polish families. Particulars of this case, if furnished by or
with the consent of the head of the family, would, I have no doubt,
prove exceedingly interesting.

L. L. L.

THE LAST LAY OF PETRARCH’S CAT.

In the year 1820 I saw the following Latin verse inscribed under the
skeleton of a cat in one of the rooms of Petrarch’s favourite villa at
Arqua, near Padua. If you choose to print them, with or without the
accompanying English version, they are at your service:—

J. O. B.

Minor Notes.

Sobriquet.

—As this word is now pretty generally adopted in our
language, I send you this Note to say that the word is not soubriquet,
as some of your correspondents write it, but sobriquet; the former
being what the French term a locution vicieuse, and only used by the
illiterate. Ménage derives the word from rubridiculum.

PHILIP S. KING.

Origin of Paper.

—Whether a product is indigenous or foreign may
generally be determined by the rule in linguistics, that similarity of
name in different languages denotes foreign extraction, and variety of
name indigenous production. The dog, whose name is different in most
languages, shows that he is indigenous to most countries. The cat, on
the contrary, having almost the same name in many languages, is
therefore of foreign extraction in nearly all countries. The word
paper is common to many tongues, the moderns having adopted it from
the Greek; in which language, however, the root of the word is not
significant. In Coptic (ai GUPTIC) the word bavir means a plant
suitable for weaving: and is derived from the Egyptian roots ba, fit,
proper; and vir, to weave. The art of paper-making may therefore be
inferred to be the invention of the Egyptians; and further, that paper
was made by them as by us, from materials previously woven. This
inference would be either confirmatory or corrective of history, in case
the history were doubtful, which it is not.

T. J. B.

Lichfield.

Persistency of Proper Names.

—The village of Boscastle, originally
founded by the Norman Botreaux, still contains, amongst other French
names, the following:—Moise, Amy, Benoke, Gard, Avery (Query,
Yvery),—all old family names; and places still called Palais, Jardin,
and a brook called Valency.

S. R. P.

Launceston.

Cheap Maps.

—This is the age of cheap maps and atlases, yet the public
is miserably supplied. We have maps advertised from 1d. to 5s., and
atlases from 10s. 6d. to 10 guineas. Yet they are generally
impressions from old plates, or copies of old plates, with a few places
of later notoriety marked, without taking the entire chart from the
latest books of voyages and travels. Look at [175] the maps of
Affghanistan, Scinde, Indian Isles, American Isthmus, &c.

On inquiry at all our shops here for a moderately priced map of the new
railway across South America to Panama, and for maps of California
and Borneo, not one could be got.

Have any of your chart-wrights in London got up such maps for youth and
emigrants? If not, let them take the hint now given by

PATERFAMILIÆ.

Edinburgh.

Queries.

DID ST. PAUL QUOTE ARISTOTLE?

Throughout the writings of St. Paul, his exactly cultivated mind is
scarcely less visible than his divinely inspired soul. Notwithstanding
his magnificent rebukes of human learning and philosophy, and his
sublime exaltation of the foolishness of God above the wisdom of men,
the Apostle of the Gentiles was no mean master of Gentile learning. His
three well-known quotations from Greek poets furnish direct evidence of
his acquaintance with Greek literature. He proclaimed the fatherhood of
God to the Athenians in the words of his countryman the poet Aratus
(Acts, xvii. 28.). He warns the Corinthians by a moral common-place
borrowed from the dramatist Menander (1 Cor. xv. 33.). He brings an
hexameter verse of a Cretan poet as a testimony to the bad character of
the Cretan people (Titus, i. 12.). I do not positively assert that I
have discovered a fourth quotation; I would merely inquire whether the
appearance in a Pauline epistle of a sentence which occurs in a treatise
of Aristotle, is to be regarded as a quotation, or as an accidental and
most singular identity of expression. In the Politics
(lib. III. cap.
8.), Aristotle, in speaking of very powerful members of a community,
says, “κατα δε των τοιουτων ουκ εστι νομος” (“but against such
there is no law”). In the Epistle to the Galatians (v. 23.), Paul, after
enumerating the fruits of the Spirit, adds, “against such there is no
law” (“κατα των τοιουτων ουκ εστι νομος“). The very same words
which the philosopher uses to express the exceptional character of
certain over-powerful citizens, the apostle borrows, or, at least,
employs, to signify the transcendent nature of divine graces. According
to Aristotle, mighty individuals are above legal restraint, against such
the general laws of a state do not avail: according to Paul, the fruits
of the Spirit are too glorious and divine for legal restraint; they
dwell in a region far above the regulation of the moral law.

While there is no possibility of demonstrating that this identity of
expression is a quotation, there is nothing to forbid the idea of this
sentence being a loan from the philosopher to the apostle. Paul was as
likely to be at home in the great philosophers, as in the second and
third-rate poets of Greece. The circumstance of Aratus being of his own
birth-place, Tarsus, might specially commend the Phænomena to his
perusal; but the great luminary of Grecian science was much more likely
to fall within his perusal than an obscure versifier of Crete; and if he
thought it not unseemly to quote frown a comic writer, he surely would
not disdain to borrow a sentence from the mighty master of Stagira. The
very different employment which he and Aristotle find for the same words
makes nothing against the probability of quotation. The sentence is
remarkable, not in form, but in meaning. There is nothing in the mere
expression peculiarly to commend it to the memory, or give it proverbial
currency. I cannot say that it is a quotation; I cannot say that it is
not.

I am not aware that this quotation or identity of expression has been
pointed out before. Wetstein, who above all editors of the Greek
Testament abounds in illustrations and parallel passages from the
classics, takes no notice of this identical one. It is surely worth
the noting; and should anything occur to any of your correspondents
either to confirm or demolish the idea of quotation, I would gladly be
delivered out of my doubt. I should not think less reverently of St.
Paul in believing him indebted to Aristotle; I should rather rejoice in
being assured that one of the greatest spiritual benefactors of mankind
was acquainted with one of its chief intellectual benefactors.

THOMAS H. GILL.

Minor Queries.

Silver Royal Font.

—I remember having read of a very ancient silver
font, long preserved among the treasures of the British crown, in which
the infants of our royal families were commonly baptized. Is this relic
still in existence? where may it be seen? what is its history? have any
cuts or engravings of it been published? where may any particulars
respecting it be found?

NOCAB.

L’Homme de 1400 Ans.

—In that very extraordinary part of a very
extraordinary transaction, the statement of Cagliostro, in the matter of
the Collier (Paris, 1786, pp. 20. 36.), mention is twice made of an
imaginary personage called l’homme de 1400 ans. Cagliostro complains
that he was said to be that personage, or the Wandering Jew, or
Antichrist. He is not, therefore, the same as the Wandering Jew. I
should be very curious to learn where this notion is derived from.

C. B.

Llandudno, on the Great Orme’s Head.

—Having occasion to visit the
above interesting place last summer, among other objects of curiosity, I
was induced to visit a “cavern,” which the inhabitants said had been
lately discovered, and which they [176] said had been used by the
“Romans” (Roman Catholics) as a place of worship. A party of five hired
a boat for the purpose of visiting the place, which is about two miles
from the little bay of Llandudno; for it is quite inaccessible by land.
We arrived in about an hour; and were quite surprised at the appearance
of the “cavern,” which seems to have been made as private as possible,
and as inaccessible, by large stones being piled carelessly upon each
other, so as to hide the entrance, and which we could not have found
without the assistance of the sailors. The “cavern” is about ten feet
high, lined with smooth and well-jointed stone work, with a plain but
nicely executed cornice at the height of seven or eight feet. The shape
is heptagonal, and the fronts on each side are faced with smooth stone;
the space from front to back, and from side to side, is equal, about six
feet six inches. On the right, close to the entrance, is a font, sixteen
inches across inside, twenty-two outside, and eight or nine inches deep.
There is a seat round, except at the entrance; and there has been a
stone table or altar in the centre, but a small portion of it and the
pillar only remain. The floor has been flagged, but it is in a very
dilapidated state. That it was used for worship, there is little doubt;
but how and when it was fitted up, seems marvellous. It is not mentioned
by Pennant, or any Welsh tourist.

Will any of your correspondents oblige me and the public with the
history of this “cavern,” as it is called, at Llandudno?

L. G. T.

Johnson’s House, Bolt Court.

—Can any of your readers inform me
whether the house in which Dr. Johnson resided, and in which he died,
situate in Bolt Court, Fleet Street, is yet in existence? You are
probably aware that an engraving of it appeared in the Graphic
Illustrations edited by Mr. Croker, and prefixed to this engraving was
an announcement that it was destroyed by fire.

There is reason, however, to believe that this is a mistake, and that
the house so destroyed by fire belonged not to Johnson, but to Johnson’s
friend, Allen the printer.

You are probably aware that the house which stands opposite the
Johnson’s Head Tavern, is shown as the residence of the great moralist;
and on comparing another engraving by Smith of the Doctor’s study with
the room now claimed to have been occupied by Johnson, the likeness is
exact. Cobbett, too, who afterwards lived here, boasted in one of his
publications that he was writing in the same room where Johnson compiled
his Dictionary. At any rate it is an interesting question, and
probably can be set at rest by some of your literary friends, especially
as I have reason to believe that there is one gentleman still living who
visited the Doctor in Bolt Court. Madame D’Arblay, I think, once said,
that the author of the Pleasures of Memory arrived at the door at the
same moment with herself during Johnson’s last illness.

EDWIN LECHLADE.

Bishop Mossom.

—Robert Mossom, D.D., was prebendary of Knaresboro’ in
Yorkshire, 1662, and Bishop of Derry, 1666. In dedicating his Zion’s
Prospect (1651) to Henry (Pierrepont) Marquess of Dorchester and Earl
of Kingston, towards the end he says, “Besides this, mine relation to
your late deceased uncle;” then referring to the margin he has “Ds. T.
G., Eques felicis memoriæ.”

Zion’s Prospect (a copy of which, with several of his other works, is
in the library of the British Museum) has on the title-page, “By R. M.,
quondam è collo S. P. C.”

His grandson, Robert Mossom, D.D. (son of Robert Mossom, LL.D., Master
in the French Court of Chancery), was Senior Fellow of Trinity College,
Dublin, and subsequently Dean of Ossory from 1701 to 1747; he married
Rebecca, daughter and coheir of Robert Mason of Dublin, and
granddaughter, I believe, of Jonathan Alaud of Waterford. Dean Mossom
was one of the oldest friends of Dean Swift; Sir Walter Scott has but
one letter to him in Swift’s Correspondence (2nd ed. Edin. 1824, vol.
XIX. p. 275.). Are there any other letters that passed between them in
existence?

Can any of your readers refer me to a pedigree of the Masons of
Dublin, and also any pedigree that connects the Mossom with the Elaud
family of Yorkshire?

What college was that of S. P. C.? and who was Sir T. G——, Knt.; and
how was he related to Bishop Mossom?

T. C. M. M.

Inner Temple.

Orlando Gibbons.

—Hawkins, in his History of Music, gives “a head”
of this musician. Is there any other engraved portrait?

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

Portraits.

—What is the most correct catalogue of all the engraved
portraits which are known to exist?

S. S.

Barnard’s Church Music.

—Can any of your readers point out where John
Barnard’s first book of selected church music, folio, ten parts, 1641,
is to be found? The writer knows of the imperfect set at Hereford
Cathedral, a tenor part at Canterbury, and a bass part in private hands.
Dr. Burney makes mention, in his History of Music, of having sought
diligently throughout the kingdom, but could not find an entire copy.
Perhaps some of your correspondents may kindly favour the writer with a
list of its contents.

AMANUENSIS.

The Nelson Family.

—In Burke’s Commoners, under the head of “Nelson
of Chuddleworth,” it appears that William Nelson of Chuddleworth, born
in 1611, had by his second wife, the daughter [177] of John Pococke,
gentleman, of Woolley, among other children, a son named William; but
of whom no further mention is made.

Can any of your Norfolk or Berkshire friends state whether this son
William ever settled at Dunham Parva, in Norfolk?—as, by so doing, an
obligation will be conferred on your occasional correspondent

FRANCISCUS.

Letters to the Clergy.

—In the Diary of Walter Yonge (published by
the Camden Society), p. 24., is the following:

“16 Dec. 1614. This day the Ministers of this Diocese (Exon) were
called before the Bishop of Exon, who read letters from the
Archbishop, the effects of which were, that every minister should
exhort his parishioners to continue together the Sabbath Day, and
not to wander to other preachers who have better gifts than their
own pastors, but should content themselves with the Word of God
read and Homilies. 2. That all should kneel at the receiving of
the Sacrament. 3. To declare unto their parishioners that it is
not necessary to have the Word preached at the Sacraments.—Dictu
Magistri Knowles, Vicarii de Axminster, at that time present.”

Query, Can any of your readers say to what letter, and on what occasion
such orders were issued by the archbishop, and also whether they have
been published in any volume on ecclesiastical matters?

H. T. E.

Margaret Burr.

—It is related in Allan Cunningham’s Life of
Gainsborough, that he married a young lady named Margaret Burr, of
Scottish extraction; and that

“On an occasion of household festivity, when her husband was high
in fame, she vindicated some little ostentation in her dress by
whispering to her niece, now Mrs. Lane, ‘I have some right to
this, for you know, my love, I am a prince’s daughter.'”

The biographer of the British Painters prefaces this by saying,

“Nor must I omit to tell that rumour conferred other attractions
(besides an annuity) upon her; she was said to be the natural
daughter of one of our exiled princes, nor was she, when a wife
and a mother, desirous of having this circumstance forgotten.”

As I just now read in Vol. iv., p. 244., some account of Berwick, and
other natural children of James II., I was put in mind of the above
anecdote, and should be glad of any information respecting the Miss
Burr’s parentage in question. Myself a collateral descendant of her
husband, I know from other sources that the tradition is worthy of
credit; and to the genealogist and antiquary it may be a historically
interesting enquiry.

H. W. G. R.

Northern Ballads.

—Is any gentleman in possession of any old printed
copies of Danish or Swedish popular ballads, or of any manuscript
collection of similar remains? Are any such known to exist in any
public library in Great Britain? By printed, of course I mean old
fly-sheets, from the sixteenth century downward; they are generally of
four, sometimes of eight, leaves small octavo. Any information, either
personally, or through “N. & Q.,” will much oblige

GEORGE STEPHENS.

Copenhagen.

“Blamed be the man,” &c.

—Where is the following couplet to be found?

N. O. K.

“Quid est Episcopus.“

—Can any correspondent furnish me with the
reference to a passage supposed to exist in one of the early fathers (I
think Irenæus):—

X. G. X.

Henry Isaac.

—I shall feel obliged to any person who can give any
account (for genealogical purposes) of Henry Isaac, who lived at
Roehampton about the middle of last century. He was a diamond merchant
from Holland. He had a collection of pictures, one of which was the Lord
of the Vineyard paying his Labourers, by Rembrandt.

H. T. E.

German Poet quoted by Camden.

—Britannia, sive regnorum Angliæ,
Scotiæ, et Hiberniæ chorographica descriptio: Gulielmo Camdeno: Lond.
1607, folio, p. 302., Middlesex.

“Nec magno hinc intervallo Tamisim duplici ostiolo Colus
postquam insulas sparserit, illabitur. Ad quem ut nostræ ætatis
Poeta Germanus lusit:

Camden, speaking of the Colne falling with a double mouth into the
Thames, quotes a German poet of his day; and I should be much obliged by
any reader of the “N. & Q.” favouring me with the name, and reference to
the author from whence the preceding quotation is taken.

☞ F.

American Degrees.

—Several members of the Brougham Institute here, and
constant readers of “N. & Q.,” would feel obliged if some of your
learned correspondents would give them some information about the
obtaining of American degrees, as recently a large cargo of diplomas had
arrived in this quarter, such as D.D. and LL.D., and conferred on men of
third-rate talent. What we want is, to be informed how such degrees are
obtained; if it is the president, or president and professors, of the
American academies who confer them. This subject is so frequently
agitated here, that you would greatly oblige many inquirers by making a
question of it in “N. & Q.,” so that we [178] may obtain full reply
explanatory of how these degrees are obtained, and of the bestowers of
them.

J. W.

Liverpool.

Derivation of News.

—It is just two years since the word News was
stated to be derived from the initial letters of the cardinal points of
the compass, as prefixed to early newspapers. I well remember the
impression which the statement made on me: if written seriously, as a
mark of credulity; if sportively, as rather out of place. Moreover, it
was both stated as a fact, and as an ingenious etymology—a manifest
inconsistency.

In the fierce and tiresome discussion which arose out of that
announcement, the main points in support of the asserted derivation were
never once introduced. Do such early newspapers exist? Is the derivation
itself of early date? As to the first question, I must declare that no
such newspapers ever came under my observation; but as to the second,
it must be admitted that the derivation has been in print, with all the
weight of evidence which belongs to it, above two centuries.

I shall assume, if not better informed, that it has no other authority
than the subjoined epigram in Wits recreations, first published in
1640, and said to contain the finest fancies of the muses of those
times. In default of the original edition of that rare work, I
transcribe from the re-publication of it in 1817.

BOLTON CORNEY.

Passage in Troilus and Cressida.

—Would MR. J. PAYNE COLLIER, whose
name I have often seen among your contributors, have the kindness to
inform me whether any light is thrown, in the emendations inserted in
his folio edition of Shakspeare, 1628, on a line which has always
puzzled me in Ulysses’ speech in council, in Scene 3. of Act I. of
Troilus and Cressida? The passage runs thus:

It will be seen that the third line, according to the usual
pronunciation of the last word, is defective in scanning; that, if
derived from divido, the vowel in the penultimate syllable would be
i and not a; and that, even if intended to express the word
divided, as suggested by one of our commentators, would be too vague
and inexpressive.

Might I suggest that the derivation is not from the word divido, but
rather from a compound of the words divitiæ and do; the expression
“riches-giving shores” not only completing the sense of the passage, but
forming a compound not uncommon with our immortal bard.

W. S. D.

Bachelor’s Buttons.

—That should be their name if they exist; but, if
so, where are they to be got? I never heard of them. I should think a
clever fellow might make a fortune by inventing some kind of substitute
which a man without the time, skill, or materials necessary for sewing
on a button, might put in the place of a deserter. If you do not insert
this Query, may your brace buttons fly off next time you are dressing in
a hurry to dine with the grandest people you know!

YOUR WELLWISHER.

Princes of Wales and Earls of Chester, eldest Sons of the Kings of
England.

—In the New Memoirs of Literature, vol. iv., July, 1726, it
was announced that Mr. Bush, one of the Clerks of the Record Office in
the Tower, and late Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, designed to
print a Collection of Charters, Letters Patent, and other instruments
concerning the creation and investiture of the eldest sons of the Kings
of England as Princes of Wales, Dukes of Cornwall, Earls of Chester and
Flint, &c. &c., from the time of Edward, the first Prince of Wales
(afterwards King Edward II.), to the time of Edward IV.

Can any of your correspondents inform me whether such a work ever was
published? and who was the editor of the monthly review entitled New
Memoirs of Literature, which extended to six volumes 8vo.? It contains
notices of many old and now rare works, and stopped in December, 1727.

G.

Authenticated Instances of Longevity.

—Your correspondent A. B. R.
(antè, p. 145.) and others argue their question of the old Countess of
Desmond very ably;—will any one of them be pleased to argue my
question? Is there one word of truth in the story, or any other story
that rests, as a preliminary condition, on the assumption that people
have lived to one hundred and fifty years of age? Of course the proof is
to rest on dates and facts, parish registers—on clear legal evidence.
It is admitted by actuaries and others, learned in such matters, that
the average duration of life is greater now than it was; so, we might
fairly assume, would be the exceptional life. Can these gentlemen refer
us to a single instance of an insured person who lived to one hundred
and fifty? to one hundred and forty, thirty, twenty, ten? aye, to one
hundred and ten? There is a nonsensical inscription to this effect on
the portrait of a man of the name of Gibson, hung up in Greenwich
Hospital, but its untruth has been proved. I also [179] remember
another case made out to the entire satisfaction of some benevolent
ladies, by, as afterwards appeared, the baptismal register of John the
father being made to do duty as the register of John the son. I mention
these things as a warning; I protest, too, at starting against flooding
“N. & Q.” with evidence brought from Russia or America, or any of the
back settlements of the world, and against all evidence of people with
impossible memories. What I want is good legal evidence; the greatest
age of the oldest members of the Equitable, Amicable, and other
Insurance offices—lives certainly beyond the average; the greatest age
of a member of the House of Peers coming within the eye of proof. When
these preliminary questions, and reasonable inferences, shall have been
determined, it will, I think, be quite time enough to raise questions
about the old Countess, old Parr, old Jenkins, and other like
ante-register longevities.

O. C. D.

Minor Queries Answered.

Laud’s Letters and Papers.

—Can any of your correspondents inform one
where any unpublished letters or papers of Archbishop Laud are to be met
with, besides those at Lambeth or in the British Museum?

Anthony à Wood mentions his speech against Nathanael Fiennes; and
Wanley, in his Catalogue of English and Irish MSS., states that many
of his writings, both political and theological, were extant at that
time in private libraries.

B. J.

[Archbishop Laud’s Works are now in the course of publication
in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, and from the editor’s
valuable bibliographical prefaces to vols. i. and ii., we think
it probable that some notices of these MSS. will be given in the
subsequent volumes. Our correspondent may also consult Catalogi
Librorum Manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ, Oxon. 1697.]

Scot’s Philomythie.

—Philomythie, or Philomythologie, wherein
Outlandish Birds, Beasts, and Fishes are taught to speak true English
plainlie, &c.

The same volume, a small quarto unpaged, contains “The Merrie American
Philosopher, or Wise Man of the New World,” and “Certaine Pieces of this
Age Parabolized, viz. Duellum Britannicum; Regalis Justitia Jacobi;
Aquignispicium; Antidotum Cecillianum; by Thomas Scot, Gentleman, 1616,
with illustrative woodcuts.”

Query: Is the book rare, and who was Thomas Scot?

L. S.

[But little appears to be known of the personal history of Thomas
Scot. Sir S. Egerton Brydges, in his Censura Literaria, vol.
iii. pp. 381-386., and vol. iv. p. 32., has given some account of
his works, but no biographical notice of the author. The
dedications to his poems being principally to the Norfolk and
Suffolk gentry, it is probable he belonged to one of those
counties. The first edition of Philomythie was published in
1610; the second in 1616; but some copies of the second edition,
according to Lowndes, are dated 1622, others 1640. There is a
third portion which our correspondent does not appear to possess,
entitled The Second Part of Philomythie, or Philomythologie,
containing Certaine Tales of true libertie, false friendship,
power united, faction and ambition. By Thomas Scot, Gent. London,
1616, 1625. Thomas Park thought that, from the great disparity of
merit between this and the preceding part, there is little reason
to suppose them to be by the same author, though they bear the
same name. Scot’s works are considered rare, especially his
first, entitled Four Paradoxes of Arte, of Lawe, of Warre, of
Seruice: London, 1602, consisting of twenty-four leaves, in
verse, dedicated to Ladie Helena, Marquesse of Northampton, which
is marked in Bibl. Anglo. Poet. at 25l., and resold for 7l.
12s. (Hibbert, 7243.)]

Robin of Doncaster.

—Give me leave to ask for an explanation of the
following enigmatical epitaph, which will be found in the History of
Doncaster, by Dr. Edward Miller, p. 74.:

Dr. Johnson latinized a part of it thus:

In Magna Britannia et Hibernia, antiqua et nova, vol. vi. p. 429., it
is stated that Robin of Doncaster gave Rossington Wood to that
corporation. Perhaps some reader may be able to supply more of his
biography.

☞ F.

[A similar epitaph to the above will be found on the tomb of
William Lambe, in the church of St. Faith under Paul: see
Strype’s Stow, book iii. p. 146. Dr. Miller does not appear to
have given any biographical notices of Robert Byrkes, except that
he was Mayor of Doncaster during the years 1569, 1573, and 1577.
The following explanation of this inscription is given by Bland
in his Proverbs, vol. i. p. 23.:—”By prudence in the
distribution of his benevolence, by giving only to good and
deserving persons, he procured to himself friends, on whose
advice and assistance he might depend whenever occasion should
desire it; and by expending only what he could conveniently
spare, and laying it out on such things as administered to his
comfort, he enjoyed, and therefore had what he expended; but what
he left, not being enjoyed by himself, nor going perhaps to
persons of his choice, or being used in the manner he would have
preferred, that portion might be truly said to be lost.”] [180]

Horæ Belgicæ.

—In what language is the second part of Hoffman von
Fallersleben’s Horæ Belgicæ written? This, from its title being
written in Latin, may seem a foolish question, but it is also called (N.
& Q., Vol. v., p. 7.) Holländische Volkslieder: and where can it be
procured or seen?

W. S. S.

[Hoffman’s work consists of six parts, of which the first—a
bibliographical essay on old Flemish literature—is written in
Latin. The second, to which our correspondent refers, is in
German. Part III. contains the Flemish Floris ende Blancefloer,
with a German Introduction; Part IV., the old Flemish Caerl ende
Elegast, has a Latin preface; while Part V., containing
Lantsloof ende die scone Sandrijn and Renout van Montalbaen,
and Part VI., Altniederländische Schaubühne, a collection of
early Flemish dramatic pieces, have German introductions. We
believe the work may be procured of Williams and Norgate. If not,
or our correspondent only wishes to refer to it, we shall be very
happy to place our copy at his service for a few weeks.]

Dulcarnon.

—”I am at Dulcarnon.” What is the origin of the above
saying? I heard it used the other day by a person who, declaring he was
at his wit’s end, exclaimed, “Yes, indeed I am at Dulcarnon.” Since that
I have seen it in Boyer’s French Dictionary, but in no English book.

H. CORVILLE WARDE.

Kidderminster.

[In addition to the note in our first Vol. p. 254, we may remark
that Mr. Halliwell, in his Dictionary, says this word has set
all editors of Chaucer at defiance. A clue to its meaning may be
found in Stanihurst’s Description of Ireland, p. 28.: “These
sealie soules were (as all dulcarnanes for the most part are)
more to be terrified from infidelitie through the paines of hell,
than allured to Christianitie by the joies of heaven.”]

Replies.

NUMBER OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.
(Vol. v., p. 11.)

Your correspondent ÆGROTUS sees a difficulty in the rapid increase of
the Israelites in Egypt, and proposes to lessen it by doubling the time
of their stay there, and including women in their census. His
criticisms, however, seem to be as inadmissible as his difficulty is
unreal.

For, first, in the place he quotes (Ex. xii. 37.), the number is said to
be “nearly 600,000 that were men,” where the Italics are intended to
throw emphasis on men; because the Heb. גְּבָריִם means men
as opposed to women, strong men, even soldiers. Also, from Numb. i.
2. 46. we see that the number 603,550 included only “every male … from
20 years old and upward, all that were able to go forth to war,” thus
excluding the tribe of Levi (v. 47.). Josephus, indeed, says (Antiq.
III. viii. 2. and xii. 4.) that it included only the men between 20 and
50 years of age.

Then, as to the time that they were in Egypt: it is evident from Gal.
iii. 17. that, going back 430 years from the Exode, we must come into
the time of Abraham: so that the 430 years in Ex. xii. 40. must begin
when Abraham first went into Egypt. And this is confirmed by the reading
of the LXX there: κατῴκησαν ἐν γῇ Αἰγύπτῳ καὶ ἐν γῇ Χαναὰν, ἔτη
τετρακόσια τριάκοντα. That they remained only 215 years in Egypt, is
not merely the opinion of Professor Lee, as ÆGROTUS seems to think: it
is given by Josephus (Antiq. II. xv. 2.), was received by the Jews and
early Christians generally, and is now (at least almost) universally
adopted.

Now, to come to the supposed difficulty itself: none such really exists,
even if we take the higher number and the shorter time, as I think
indeed we ought. The men being taken at about 600,000, we must reckon
the whole people, at least, at 2,000,000. A calculation of no difficulty
shows that if 70 persons increase in 215 years to 2,000,000, the number
of the people must double itself every 14-1/2 years: or, if they
increase to 3,000,000, the number must double every 14 years. Now,
compare this with what we know about some other nations. Humboldt, in
his Essai Politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne (tom. i. p.
339.) says:

“The information which I have collected proves that, if the order
of nature were not interrupted from time to time by some
extraordinary and disturbing cause” [e.g. famine, pestilence],
“the population of New Spain ought to double itself every
nineteen years. […] In the United States, since 1774, we have
seen the population double itself in 22 years. The curious tables
which M. Samuel Blodget has published in his Statistical Manual
of the United States of America (1806, p. 73.), show that, for
certain States, this cycle is only thirteen or fourteen
years.”

Again, Malthus, in his Essay on the Principles of Population, p. 6.,
says:

“According to a table of Euler, calculated on a mortality of 1 in
36, if the births be to the deaths in the proportion of 3 to 1,
the period of doubling will be over 12 years and 4-5ths. And this
supposition is not only a possible supposition, but has actually
occurred for short periods in more countries than one. Sir
William Petty (Polit. Arith., p. 14.) supposes a doubling,
possible in so short a time as ten years.”

What difficulty, then, can there be (knowing the promise in Gen. xvii.
6.) in believing that the number of the Israelites in Egypt doubled
itself every fourteen years?

F. A.

P.S. Assuming what Malthus considers an ordinary rate of increase, when
population is unchecked, viz. a doubling in 25 years, 70 persons in 430
years would increase to 10,539,000: which is what ÆGROTUS wishes to
know.

At Vol. v., p. 11., ÆGROTUS suggests that the “600,000 men” of Ex. xii.
37. mean “men and [181] women.” He will find some valuable “Notes” on
Hebrew statistics in the 1st and 2d chapters of Numbers, that appear to
militate against his theory! (Numb. i. 1, 2, 3., ii. 32.)

A. A. D.

SERJEANTS’ RINGS AND MOTTOES.
(Vol. v., pp. 59. 92. 110.)

The following will, I believe, be found to be a correct list of the
Serjeants’ mottoes during the last twenty years. The Law Reports not
being probably accessible to all your readers to whom the subject may be
one of interest, I have compiled this list with the view of preserving
(in as brief a form as possible) in your pages, what is now scattered
through many volumes.

Serjeants

N.B. The subsequent titles of those of the above learned Serjeants who
have received promotion are omitted for brevity sake.

J. B. COLMAN.

Eye.

MR. FOSS is, I believe, mistaken in supposing that all the serjeants
called at the same time have the same motto. That is the usual practice,
but it has not been invariably observed. Sir John Walter, Sir Henry
Yelverton, and Sir Thomas Trevor, were all called on the same day (May
10, 1 Car. I.). Sir John Walter and Sir Thomas Trevor gave the same
motto on their rings, and Sir Henry Yelverton gave rings with a
different motto. There are other instances of the like kind; that above
referred to I take from the only old law-book I have now at hand
(Croke’s Reports).

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge.

The following is probably the case referred to at p. 92. It is contained
in 1 Modern Reports, case 30.:

“Seventeen serjeants being made the 14th day of November, a daye
or two after, Serjeant Powis, the junior of them all, coming to
the King’s Bench bar, Lord Chief Justice Kelynge told him that he
had something to say to him, viz., that the rings which he and
the rest of the serjeants had given weighed but eighteen
shillings apiece; whereas Fortescue, in his book De Laudibus
Legum Angliæ, says, ‘The rings given to the Chief Justices and
to the Chief Baron ought to weigh twenty shillings apiece;’ and
that he spoke not this expecting a recompense, but that it might
not be drawn into a precedent, and that the young gentlemen there
might take notice of it.”

W. H. LAMMIN.

Fulham.

MR. FOSS quotes what he considers the happiest of these mottoes. I
think the following at least as happy, and certainly more classical. I
believe (but am not sure) it was adopted by Mr. Serjeant Bosanquet. I
need not point out its application:

F. R.

LEARNED MEN OF THE NAME OF BACON.
(Vol. iii., pp. 41. 151.)

As no one appears inclined to follow up the suggestion of your
correspondent with regard to the learned men of the name of Bacon, I
have drawn up the following list, which I have met in the course of my
reading, according to their dates.

1st. Robert Bacon, an eminent divine, born 1168, and died 1248. He
studied at Oxford, and perfected his education at Paris; his principal
work was the life of his friend and patron, Edmund, Archbishop of
Canterbury, which was highly esteemed; he also wrote many other learned
works.

2nd. Roger Bacon, the learned monk; of him it will suffice for me to
mention the date of his birth and death, as none will dispute his
right to a place in the list. He was born near Ilchester, in
Somersetshire, 1214, and died at Oxford 1294.

3rd. John Bacon (surnamed the Resolute Doctor) was born at the latter
end of the thirteenth century, in the little village of Baconthorpe, in
Norfolk; [182] from thence he is often called Baconthorpe. After some
years spent in the Convent of Blackney, five miles from Walsingham, he
removed to Oxford, and thence to Paris, where he was honoured by degrees
both in law and divinity, and was considered the head of the Averroïsts.
In 1333 he was invited by letters to Rome; and Paulus Pansa, writing of
him from thence, says, “This one resolute doctor has furnished the
Christian religion with armour against the Jews, stronger than any of
Vulcan’s,” &c. He was held in great esteem all throughout Italy. He died
in London, 1346.

4th. Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the great seal to Queen
Elizabeth, was born at Chislehurst, in Kent, 1510, and educated at
Cambridge. “As a statesman,” says his historian, “he was remarkable for a
clear head and deep counsels; he had much of that penetrating genius,
solidity, and judgment, persuasive eloquence, and comprehensive
knowledge of law and equity, which afterwards shone with so great a
lustre in his son” (Francis Lord Verulam). He died Feb. 26th, 1578,
equally lamented by the queen and her subjects; a monument was erected
to him in St. Paul’s, which was destroyed by the Great Fire, 1666. Sir
Nicholas left several MSS., which have never been published.

5th. Anthony Bacon, the eldest son of Sir Nicholas by his first wife,
born 1558, and educated at Cambridge. He was personally acquainted with
most of the literati of that age. At Geneva he lodged in the house of
the celebrated Theodore Beza. In 1585, he visited Henry of Navarre, then
at Berne; here he became acquainted with the learned Lambert Danæus,
who, as a mark of esteem, dedicated several of his works to him. In
1586, he formed an intimacy with the famous Philip Plessis de Mornay at
Montaubon; 1591, he returned to England; from this time he carried on an
extensive correspondence with the literati, and in 1596 he began a
correspondence with Henry of Navarre, then Henry IV. of France. The time
of his death is uncertain.

6th. Sir Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, second son of Sir Nicholas,
born 1560, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; died April 9th, 1621.
What can be a more concise and expressive notice of this great man than
that of Walpole!—

“The Prophet of Arts which Newton was sent to reveal…. It
would be impertinent to enter into an account of this amazing
genius or his works; both will be universally admired so long as
science exists.”

7th. Sir Nathaniel Bacon, K.B., a younger son by his second wife of Sir
Nicholas, was an excellent painter. He studied his art in Italy, but his
style and colouring approach nearer to the Flemish school. I can find no
date of his birth, &c.

8th. Phanuel Bacon, D.D., an admirable wit and poet. He died at Balden,
Jan. 2nd, 1733.

9th. John Bacon, the celebrated sculptor, and possessed also of
respectable literary talents; born in Southwark 1740, died 1799.

I hope you will not consider this list too long for insertion; but I
thought it useless to give a long string of names without a short notice
of each.

MYFANWY.

COLLAR OF SS.
(Vol. v., p. 81.)

Having only commenced subscribing to “N. & Q.” at the beginning of the
present year, I am not aware what has been said prior to this date, with
reference to the Collar of SS.; but should not Mr. Boutell’s remarks
about this collar have been published, I beg to send them for the
information of those interested:

“Next to the Garter itself, the most celebrated knightly
decoration of this class is the Collar of SS. introduced by King
Henry IV., apparently as a memorial of the success with which his
aspiring ambition had been crowned: this letter S, repeated
either in links of gold, or in gold embroidery, worked upon a
fillet of blue, is the initial of the word ‘Souveraine,’ Henry’s
motto, which he bore while Earl of Derby, and which, as he
afterwards became sovereign, appeared auspicious.”

I dare say this idea of Mr. Boutell’s may have been very ably refuted,
by having pointed out the existence of the collar on a knight who is
known for certain to have died prior to the reign of Henry IV.; but I
must say that I have seen nothing in the Numbers of the current year
which alters my opinion.

With reference to what MR. LEWIS EVANS says, at page 38., I beg to
remark that he only assumes their dates from current report, for the
dates are not on either of the tombs he mentions; and I think
MR. EVANS
is not a great studier of monumental effigies, otherwise he would not
talk of a knight being dressed in “a coif de mailles and pointed
helmet.” I assume he means “a camail and pointed bascinet.”

LLEWELLYN, at p. 81., makes mention of several, but of the only two upon
which he ventures to fix a date, prior to Henry IV., one is “commonly
ascribed,” &c., and the other is “vulgarly called,” &c., so that I place
no reliance upon the truth of his deductions. Edwardus de la Hale, whom
he mentions as No. 7., died, I think he will find, in 1431, and not
1421.

As regards the brass of Sir Thomas Peryent and lady, at Digswell, Herts,
I may mention that although he wears a collar, yet I do not think it
ought to be fixed as certain that it is that of the SS., for no letter,
or portion of a letter, remains to prove it, although the collar which
Lady Peryent wears is perfectly distinct. [183]

I send you a list of a few more knights and ladies who wear this collar:

As regards the brass of Sir Thomas Burton, although the date affixed to
it is 1382, yet it is quite evident, from the style of armour worn by
him, and the execution of the brass itself, that it was not executed
till 1410, and that he died about that time, and his wife at the date
mentioned.

H. L.

To MR. FOSS’S list of effigies bearing the Collar of SS. allow me to add
the brass of Sir Thomas Peryent and his lady, at Digswell, Herts, both
of whom wear this collar. Sir Thomas was a squire at arms to Henry IV.,
and died A.D. 1415.

At Arundel Church, also in Sussex, is a brass to Thomas Salmon and his
lady. The figure of the knight is destroyed, but that of his lady bears
the collar. Perhaps some of your readers can give some account of this
knight.

Query, What persons are now entitled to wear it?

NEDLAM.

THE KÖNIGSMARKS.
(Vol. v., pp. 78. 115.)

A tragic destiny was that of most of the posterity of that John
Christopher Königsmark, who commanded at the storm of the suburbs of
Prague, the last deed of arms of the Thirty Years’ War. John Christopher
himself was born at Kotzlin in the Mark on Feb. 25, 1600, and from his
brother descended the Königsmarks of the Mark. He fought first in the
imperial service and in Italy, but afterwards joined the Swedes, and
after the peace was Stadtholder of Bremen and Vredun, became Count and
Royal Councillor (Reichsrath), and left behind him at his death in 1663
property worth 130,000 thalers yearly. He had three sons; the second,
John Christopher, died in 1653 at Rottemburg, in Swabia, by a fall from
his horse. The youngest, Count Otto Wilhelm, was born at Minden on June
3, 1639; studied under Esaias Pufendorf, and in 1654 was Rector
Magnificus at Jena; served different powers as soldier and diplomatist;
distinguished himself as general of the Venetians in the Morea; and died
on September 16, 1688, of fever, when before Negropont. He was married
to a Countess de la Gardie, of the well-known Swedish family. He
probably was that Count Königsmark to whose protection John Leyser
(Theophilus Alethaus) fled when he forfeited his offices of preacher and
inspector at Pforta, which he had held since 1664, on account of,
although himself chaste and virtuous, having defended polygamy; was
pursued, taken, placed in prison, and died at Amsterdam in extreme
poverty in 1684. The eldest son, Konrad, was first in the Swedish, then
in the Dutch service, and fell a lieutenant-general at the siege of Bonn
in 1673. He had married Marie Christine, daughter of Marshal Hermann
Wrangel, and the Pfalzgravine Amalie Magdalene of Sulzbach, who bore him
three sons and two daughters; one son died young. Which of the two
others was the elder is doubtful. Certain it is that the one, Karl
Johann, who is generally, though on no sufficient grounds, held to be
the elder, was born in 1659, at Nieuburg on Fuhnen; studied till 1674 at
Hamburg and Stade; then travelled in Holland, England, France, and
Italy; fought so bravely on board the Maltese galleys, that on his
departure in 1678 he, although a protestant, received the grand cross of
the order. He then visited Rome, Florence, Genoa, Venice, Madrid, Paris,
Holland, Hamburg, Stockholm, Windsor; set out in all haste when Tangiers
was attacked, to take share in the battle; and, as the fleet was delayed
by contrary winds, made his journey to Tangiers through France and
Spain; from thence back again to Madrid and Paris; then again to
Gibraltar, and three times to Africa; was with the English before
Algiers; wandered round in Holland, England, and Germany; was with the
French before Courtrai; and in Catalonia fought bravely under his uncle
at Argos, and died in Greece on August 26, 1686.

The most mysterious episode of his life was brought on by his sueing for
England’s richest and highest heiress, Elizabeth, daughter of Josceline,
second Earl of Northumberland.

The other brother, Count Philip Christopher, was involved in the
well-known tale of the unfortunate wife of George I., the unhappy Sophia
Dorothea of Zelle, afterwards Duchess of Ahlden, and met his death under
circumstances of much mystery. According to the Duchess’s assertion, he
was the elder brother, as she states he was born in 1656.

The sisters were—Amalie Wilhelmina, and the well-known mistress of
Augustus II., Maria Aurora, the mother of Marshal Saxe. Amalie married
the Count Charles Gustavus of Löwenhaupt.

Extract from Von Bulau’s Geheime Geschichten, vol. iii., article on
“Count Löwenhaupt.”

J. R. J. [184]

BOILING CRIMINALS TO DEATH.
(Vol. v., pp. 32. 112.)

MR. JOHN GOUGH NICHOLS’S observations upon the reply you favoured me by
publishing upon this subject, require from me some few observations in
further support of it. When I wrote the article in question, I had not
had an opportunity of consulting the statute of 22 Hen. VIII. itself. In
making the assertion that, prior to the case of Roose, “there was no
peculiarity in the mode of punishment,” I did so principally on the
authority of Blackstone, who says—

“Of all species of deaths the most detestable is that of poison,
because it can of all others be the least prevented either by
manhood or forethought, and therefore by the statute of 22 Hen.
VIII. c. 9. it was made treason, and a more grievous and
lingering kind of death was inflicted on it than the common law
allowed, namely, boiling to death.”

Upon a perusal of the statute (as published by you at p. 33.), I am
confirmed in my opinion that the statute was “retrospective in its
enactments as against” Roose, and was more extensive in its operation
than (as MR. NICHOLS appears to consider) merely depriving the culprit
of the “advantage of his clargie.” The Act, after reciting the facts of
the case, enacted that the particular act of poisoning should be deemed
high treason; and that the said “Richard” should be attainted of high
treason: and because that offence, then “newly practised,” required
condign punishment, it was further enacted, that the said Richard
Roose should be boiled to death without benefit of clergy.

If this particular punishment already existed for the crime stated in
the Act to be “new,” why the necessity for thus particularising the mode
of punishment? The conclusion of the Act (differing much in the verbiage
from that part relating to Roose) confirms me in my opinion, for it
enacts that all future poisoners should not only be adjudged guilty of
high treason, and not be admitted to the benefit of clergy, but also
provides for the punishment in the mode in question.

With regard to the case instanced by MR. NICHOLS, in the 13th Hen., I
merely observe that it appears to have escaped the attention of
Blackstone, and others who have written upon the subject. Assuming that
case to have happened, a reference to the statutes of Henry of that
period might probably show that an Act was passed for the punishment of
that particular offence; but not extending further, it became necessary
to pass another, both specific and general, upon the occurrence of
Roose’s case.

In support of my view as to the discontinuance of the punishment, vide
Blackstone, vol. iv. p. 96.

N.B. The date “1524” (third line from the bottom of second column, p.
112.) appears a misprint for “1542”.

J. B. COLMAN.

Eye.

The punishment of boiling criminals to death was not inflicted solely
for such a crime as poisoning. It was a common punishment for coining.
See Annales Dominicanarum Colmariensium in Urstisius, Ger. Illust.
Script., vol. ii. p. 12.; and Ducange, in verb. Caldariis decoquere.
I believe instances of it will also be found in Döpler, Theatrum
Pœnarum; and it will be seen by a reference to Ayala, Cronica del
Rey Don Pedro, that this was the favourite mode of putting to death all
persons who had offended him, employed by that monarch, who is best,
and, as I think, most truly, known in history as “Peter the Cruel.”

W. B. MACCABE.

As the punishment of boiling has been a matter of investigation lately
in your columns, perhaps the following contribution on the same subject
may not be uninteresting to some of your readers. It appears that in the
year 1392, when Florentius Wewelinghofen, or Wewelkofen, was Bishop of
Utrecht, a certain Jacobus von Jülich, by means of forged credentials
from the Pope, contrived to pass himself off, for a time, as suffragan
to the same see. Upon the discovery of the cheat, however, Florentius
summoned a synod of six bishops to Utrecht, who condemned the
unfortunate pretender to be sodden to death in boiling water! Zedler, in
his Universal Lexicon, tom. ix. col. 1282., alludes to the fact. Wilh.
Heda, in his Hist. Episc. Ultraject. pp. 259, 260., gives the story
thus:

“Circa hæc tempora, scilicet anno 1392 … quidam ex professione
Divi Francisci, sese pro Sacerdote et Episcopo gerens, et in
Suffraganeum Episcopi Florentii assumptus, cum aliquandiu sacra
omnia peregisset, inventus falso charactere atque literis usus,
destituitur, et ferventibus aquis immergendus adjudicatur;
impositus vero aquis (quia clamore suo Episcopum ad pietatem
commovit) statim extrahitur et capite truncatus obtinuit
sepulturam.”

Perhaps the Cardinal, should this meet his eye, or any one of your
readers equally skilled in Roman ecclesiastical archæology, can inform
the public whether this may not be the origin of the phrases, “getting
oneself into hot water,” and “being sent to pot.”

J. B. MCC.

British Museum.

“ADMONITION TO THE PARLIAMENT.”
(Vol. v., p. 4.)

This is not at all an uncommon book. There are at least three copies in
the University Library, Cambridge; one at Trinity College; besides
others in other college libraries. There is also one at Lambeth; two in
the Bodleian, Oxford; and copies are from time to time occurring at
booksellers’ for sale. There is not, however, one in the British Museum;
and the first edition is exceedingly scarce.
MR. PAYNE COLLIER is,
I [185] think, mistaken in the dates which he assigns to the
Admonition and to Whitgift’s Answer. He follows indeed Herbert’s
Ames, in which reference is made to Strype; but Strype would have
furnished materials for a more accurate statement. Whitgift’s Answer
was first published towards the end of 1572; for the edition of that
year does not contain “Certayne notes and properties of Anabaptistes,”
which Whitgift himself (Defense of the Aunswere, p. 33., and
elsewhere) tells us he had introduced into the second edition. But
these “notes” do appear in the edition dated 1573, which must therefore
be only the second. Moreover, Thomas Norton wrote to Whitgift dissuading
him from publishing his Answer. This letter was dated Oct. 20, 1572.
In a subsequent letter to Archbishop Parker, dated Jan. 16, 1572 (1573),
Norton speaks of his former epistle as having been written “before Mr.
Whitgift’s book came out.” (See Strype; Whitgift, book I. chap. vi.;
Parker, book IV. chap. xii.) The date of the Answer thus
ascertained, we may the better conjecture the dates of the editions of
the Admonition, which MR. COLLIER says he gathers “had been printed
four times anterior to” 1572. Whitgift, it would seem, had written, if
not published, his reply before more than a single edition of the
Admonition was abroad; for he says (Answer, 1573, p. 189.), “After I
had ended this confutation of the Admonition, there comes to my hand a
new edition of the same, wherein some things be added,” &c. He also says
(Defense, p. 34.), “the Admonition was published after the
Parliament, to the which it was dedicated, was ended … it was not
exhibited in Parliament, as it ought to have been,” &c. Further, the
Admonition itself, fol. A. viii., says, “immediately after the last
Parliament holden at Westminster, begun in Anno 1570, and ended in Anno
1571,” &c. This could hardly have been said earlier than 1572. For these
reasons (I will not occupy space by alleging more) the Admonition
could not, we may gather, have “been printed four times anterior to that
year.”

A. J. H.

“SIR EDWARD SEAWARD’S NARRATIVE.”
(Vol. v., p. 10.)

The following is a copy of a letter addressed by Miss Porter to a
relative of mine:—

“Esher, Jan. 30, 1832.

“Madam,—I hasten to express the pleasure with which I answer
your favour on the subject of Sir Edward Seaward’s Narrative,
to the best indeed of my power, but, I regret to say, not as
explicitly as I wish. However, with respect to the authenticity
of the events, I have no reason to doubt them; the manner of the
original MSS. coming into my hands having been precisely what my
Preface to the work described.

“The same query that you have made has been put to me from
various quarters; and I have communicated most of them to the
owner of the MSS., but he invariably declines allowing me to give
his name, or other proofs of the facts in the Narrative,
saying, that ‘since the public has done him the honour of putting
his old heir-loom into mystery, even in the face of the editor’s
simply told Preface, he will not deprive himself of the amusement
such unexpected doubts afford him.’

“Thus far his whimsical decision; nevertheless, as editor of the
work, I cannot deny myself adding the sincere satisfaction I feel
in the sympathy so universally expressed with the virtues of the
truly amiable Seaward and his family; and the more so, as his
lessons of piety and domestic concord in the most trying
situations may well be considered his richest bequeathment.

“I have the honour to subscribe myself, Madam,

“Very much yours,

“JANE PORTER.”

This corroborates the account given by W. W. E. J., and may be thought
worthy of a place in “N. & Q.”

W. H. LAMMIN.

Fulham.

If we may credit the inscription on the monument erected to the memory
of the Porter family in Bristol Cathedral, the real author of Sir E.
Seaward’s Narrative was none other than Miss Porter’s own brother, Dr.
Wm. Ogilvie Porter, who within three months followed his sister to the
grave, being the last survivor of that talented and distinguished
family. Dr. Porter commenced his medical career as a surgeon in the
navy, and was probably acquainted with the Caribbean Sea and its
islands; for his first wife, who died in 1807, and was buried at St.
Oswald, in the city of Durham, was a native of Jamaica. Whether he
avowed himself the writer, when he entrusted the work to his sister for
publication, seems doubtful. It is possible she may have been led to
regard it as a genuine account of real transactions, whereas it is said
to be an entirely fictitious and imaginary story, written solely for
amusement.

May I take this opportunity of asking for information respecting the
origin of the Porter family? Their father, who was a surgeon in the
army, and died in early life, is said to have been of Irish extraction.
Their mother was a Miss Blenkinsop, of the city of Durham. Any
information respecting the families of Porter and Blenkinsop would be
interesting. What is the name of the Russian nobleman or gentleman to
whom the daughter of Sir R. K. Porter is married? If she is still alive,
she is the sole representative of the Porters, it is believed.

E. H. A.

GENERAL WOLFE.
(Vol. v., pp. 34. 136.)

As a sequel to the inquiries suggested in your pages respecting General
Wolfe, permit me to contribute the inscription on the obelisk
erected [186] by Lord Dalhousie, in 1827, in a conspicuous part of
Quebec, in honour of the General and of his brave opponent Montcalm.[9]
I give it in the precise form in which it was obligingly communicated to
me by the present Bishop of Quebec, in reply to my suggestions, a year
or two ago, of another inscription, which I also send:

Suggested Inscription.

[9] [An account of laying the first stone of the obelisk to
Wolfe and Montcalm, on Nov. 20, 1827, will be found in Quebec and its
Environs, 8vo. 1837.—ED.] [187]

P.S.—I would add, in connexion with this subject, that an elegant and
classical epitaph on Montcalm, printed in Popham’s Illustrium Virorum
Elogia Sepulchralia, ends as follows:

Query, Where is this epitaph inscribed; and is the fact recorded in it
noticed in any cotemporary history?

F. K.

Bath.

Under the impression that the following Note, with reference to the
gallant General James Wolfe, may tend to illustrate some other fact
connected with the later period of the life of that generally lamented
individual, I send it at a venture.

General Jones Wolfe was (I am not aware of the military rank he then
filled) at—

“An encampment on Bradford Heath. about two miles from the town
of Dorchester, co. Dorset, in the year 1757. The encampment
consisted of the following regiments, under the command of
Lieut.-Gen. Sir John Mordaunt and Major-Gen. Conway; viz. Bland’s
Dragoons; the Old Buffs, two battalions; Kingsley’s, two
battalions; one company of the Train of Artillery—in all ten
troops, six battalions. Generals Mordaunt and Conway, and a great
part of these forces, being sent on the expedition against
Rochford, the remainder was reinforced and commanded by
Lieut.-Gen. John Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyll, and
Major-Gen. Mostyn.”

The above is extracted from Hutchins’s History of Dorset, 1st edition,
vol. i. p. 375.

That General Wolfe was in the above encampment, I had the information
from a gentlemen who knew him; and many years ago I accidentally met
with a book with the autograph of the General, “James Wolfe,” written on
the fly-leaf, in a bold and gentlemanly style. The volume being on a
military subject, was not taken any care of, and lost: it was left by
the General in the hands of Messrs. Gould and Thorne, booksellers in
Dorchester, from whose successors I had it.

G. F.

Weymouth.

Replies to Minor Queries.

Commemoration of Benefactors
(Vol. v., p. 126.).

—The office for
commemoration of benefactors now used in the several colleges in the
university of Cambridge, is prescribed by the statutes given to the
university by Queen Elizabeth in the 12th year of her reign, cap. 4.
sec. 38.

An earlier office (2 Eliz.) is given in Dr. Cardwell’s Documentary
Annals, vol. i. p. 282.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge.

King Robert Bruce’s Watch
(Vol. v., p. 105.).

—The watch known under
this name is now, I believe, generally admitted to be a forgery. There
is a letter in the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. ii. p. 688., dated
Forfar, August 20, 1785, and signed J. Jamieson, who therein states that
the watch was offered for sale to him by a goldsmith hawker of Glasgow,
who afterwards sold it for two guineas, and it was next sold for five.
The letter does not trace this curiosity further; but I find in a little
work by Adam Thompson, entitled Time and Timekeepers, that it
subsequently found its way into the collection of George III.

W. W. E.

Hornchurch
(Vol. v., p. 106.).

—Permit me to call the attention of
your correspondents to some other peculiarities relating to Hornchurch.
There once, I believe, were (are there now?) a pair of horns over the
east window of the church; thence the name is probably derived. The
great tithes were once the property of the monks of the celebrated
monastery of St. Bernard in Savoy. Are not the horns connected with the
arms of Savoy? New College received the great tithes directly from the
monks, and have in their possession the license from the crown to
alienate.

A. HOLT WHITE.

Buzz
(Vol. v., p. 104.).

—Corruption of bouse or booze, to drink
to excess. In Scotland they say “bouse a’,” drink all.

J. R. J.

“Buzz,” to empty the Bottle
(Vol. v., p. 104.).

—The connexion
between this and the drunken man, “with his head full of bees” (Vol.
iv., p. 308.), must strike every thoughtful reader!

A. A. D.

Melody of the Dying Swan
(Vol. v., p. 107.).

—A reference to Platon’s
Phædon, p. 84. sub fin., with Fischer’s note, forms a tolerable answer
to a Query on this subject. Fischer says—

“De cantu cygnorum, qui jam multis veterum fabulosus, v. Lucian.
de Electro, c. 5.; Ælian. H.A. ii. 32.; xi. 1.; xiv. 13.;
Pausan., i. 30.; Eutecnius Paraphr. Ixeut. Oppian., p. 78.
5.; Eustathius ad Il. βʹ., p. 254., aliosque qui a
Jac. Thomasio laudati sunt in libelli singulari de cantu
cygnorum.”

[Where is this to be heard of?] Add Arist. H.A., viii. 11.; Ovid.
Heroid. vii. 1.; Hesiod. Sc. 316.; Æsch. Ag. 1444.

A. A. D.

“From the Sublime to the Ridiculous is but a Step”
(Vol. v., p. 100.).

—In MR. BREEN’S interesting article entitled “Idées
Napoléoniennes” (p. 100.), is the following passage:

“It will be seen that the original saying has undergone a slight
modification, Longinus making the transition a gradual one, κατ’ ὀλίγον, while Blair, Payne, and Napoleon make it but
‘a step.'”

Now there is nothing in the whole range of scholarship and philology
that requires more tender handling than the Greek preposition, unless it
be the prepositional adverb, which results from the combination of a
preposition with an adjective. I would not be so bold as to assert that κατ’ ὀλίγον does not mean “gradually, by little and little.” I
feel convinced that I have seen it so used before now; but I beg to
submit that in the powerful passage quoted from Longinus it can only
mean “presently, at once, with little” delay or interval. The purport
of the passage seems to be this:—[The instances which I have cited]
“exhibit rather a turbid diction, and a confused imagery, than a
striking and forcible discourse. For, take them one by one, and hold
them up to the light, and what first looked terrible shall presently
take its true colour, and appear contemptible.”

Longinus had quoted certain turgid and empty attempts at a very high
rhetorical strain: he then in the passage before us condemns them for
their confusion both of thought and phrase; and says, that they won’t
bear looking into for a minute (κατ’ ὀλίγον).

If these remarks are correct, I fear they must damage the parallelism so
industriously instituted by your correspondent; but if he will not be
offended, I shall not regret it: for I confess to some feeling of
jealousy in favour of modern forms of thought, and their claims to
originality. The field of thought is finite, and great minds have tilled
it before us; so that scarcely in its remotest corners shall you find a
patch of virgin soil, or a bud till now unseen. But originality is not
excluded for all that. He that culls a flower in the nineteenth century,
and has an eye for its beauty, is as original an admirer as he who did
the same on the day of creation. And he who with quick perceptions
combines the thoughts which have arrested his attention, and with a
lively and apt expression, fresh and free from conventional formalism,
gives them out to another, that man may be called original. The opposite
of originality is not repetition, but imitation. When, therefore,
we would prove that a writer is not original, it is not enough to
produce similar thoughts or phrases in older writers, unless our
instances are so numerous as to afford an appearance of systematic
copyism, or historical evidence of the fact of imitation be forthcoming
from some external source.

J. E.

Oxford.

“Carmen perpetuum,” &c.
(Vol. v., p. 104.).

—The words in Ham’s Bible
are from the Metamorphoses of Ovid (I. 3.):

This book has been called the Heathen Bible. It should be studied with
the Greek translation of Tzetzes (Boisaunade’s edition), to show the
identity of the gods and heroes of Greece and Rome under their different
names in the two languages. Ovid was by profession a learned priest; and
it is probable that the subjects of his verse were the subjects of
scenic representations in the mysteries, to which probably moral and
natural or theological instruction was added, much after the manner of
the Greek choruses. That these mysteries taught something worth the
attention of a philosopher and moralist is manifest from the encomiums
of Cicero:

“Nam mihi cum multa eximia, divinaque videntur Athenæ tuæ
peperisse, atque in vitâ hominum attulisse, tum nihil melius
illis mysteriis, quibus ex agresti immanique vitâ exculti ad
humanitatem et mitigati sumus: initiaque ut appellantur, ita
reverâ principia vitæ cognovimus; neque solùm cum lætitiâ
vivendi rationem accepimus, sed etiam cum spe meliore
moriendi.”—De Leg. lib. ii. c. 14. [188]

“For amongst other excellent and divine things which owed their
origin to your Athens, and in which we participate, nothing is
more admirable than those mysteries which have caused us to pass
from a wild and uncivilised condition to one of amelioration and
humanity: or, to speak more correctly, they first brought us to
life, as indicated by the term initiation (beginning), which
the mysteries have retained; since this new kind of life
(regeneration) is not only attended with happiness, but is
succeeded by the hope of a better destiny after death.”

T. J. BUCKTON.

Lichfield.

Sterne at Paris
(Vol. v., p. 105.).

—In Mémoires d’un Voyageur qui se
repose, by Mons. Dutens, or Duchillon, as he also called himself, is an
amusing account of a scene between Sterne and him, at Lord Tavistock’s
table at Paris, on the 4th June, 1762.

M. S.

The Paper of the present Day
(Vol. iii., p. 181.).

—A. GRAYAN’S note
on the “First Paper Mill” reminds me of a too long neglected remark of
your correspondent LAUDATOR TEMPORIS ACTI on the inferiority of the
paper made in the present days as compared with that of olden times. As
a matron, whose proper business it is to be curious in such matters, I
venture to suggest that the universal use of calicos and printed cottons
in the place of linen articles of dress, is the true cause of the
deterioration of the paper of our books. The careful inspection of the
rags of present days on their arrival at a paper-mill, will, I think,
confirm my statement, if any gentleman who still clings pertinaciously
to the linen shirts of “better times” is disposed to doubt the fact.

MARGARET GATTY.

Cimmerii, Cimbri
(Vol. iv., p. 444.).

—If the belief which derives the
Cimbrians from Gomer, son of Japhet, be on the increase, I fear the
movements of our restless race are not altogether progressive.

But there is good reason to think, that the Cimbri were of the
Brito-Gallic race and tongue. Morimarusa (Pliny, iv. 27.) does not
belong to Indogermanic, or any such high categories as will prove nearly
what you please. It is a piece of exact and determinate Brito-Gallic.

Pompeius Festus and Plutarch agree in stating, that the meaning of the
name was robbers;—not, of course, as applied to individual offenders,
or to any offenders, but as the hereditary boast of predatory tribes.
“Thou shalt want ere I want” is the motto of the Lords Cranstoun, and
was the motto of all Cimbrians.

Cimmerii has certainly every appearance of being the same name as
Cimbri. In like manner, Cymmry becomes Cumbria and (unaccountably)
Cambria; Ambrosius becomes Emmrys, and Humber Hymmyr. What remains of
the old word Cimbr, or Cimmr, as meaning Latro, is the verb cymmeryd
(and its cognate words), to take, or, more etymologically, to apportion:
Dividers of booty. The change of the sharp iota into that short vowel of
which we possess not the long, but of which the long is the French eu,
forms the difficulty; but the savages of Asia, and those of Caius
Marius, may be conceived to have used vowels of shriller pronunciation
than the Gauls and Britons.

The Brigantes of Yorkshire, &c., bore a synonymous appellation, still
used in French and Armorican, and not wholly extinct in Welsh. Of a race
named Cimbri, or Cumbri, in this island, nothing whatever is known from
ancient geography or history. And probably no such name co-existed with
that of the Brigantes. For, if the two synonymes were used together,
neither would express a distinctive peculiarity. The fable of the Brut
probably has a core of general truth, when it refers that name to the
days of the Cambro-Scoto-Saxon tripartition, disguised as
Cambro-Albano-Loegrian.

A. N.

Rents of Assize
(Vol. v., p. 127.).

—Rents of Assize, Redditus assisæ
de assisa vel redditus assisus. The certain and determined rents of
ancient tenants paid in a set quantity of money or provisions; so
called, because it was assised or made certain, and so distinguished
from redditus mobilis, variable rent, that did rise and fall, like the
corn rent now reserved to colleges. (Cowel’s Interpreter.) Ob. q.
mean respectively obolus and quadrans.

The great pipe is a roll in the Exchequer wherein all accounts and
debts due to the king delivered and drawn out of the remembrancer’s
offices, are entered and charged. I presume the Bishop of Winchester’s
great pipe was a roll of all accounts and debts due to him in right of
his bishopric.

J. G.

Exeter.

Lord Coke (2nd Institute, 19.) gives this definition:

“Redditus assisus, or redditus assisæ: vulgarly, rents of
assise, are the certain rents of the freeholders and ancient
copiholders, because they be assised, and certain, and doth
distinguish the same from redditus mobiles, farm rents for
life, years, or at will, which are variable and incertain.”

Ob. q. means three farthings, “ob.” being an abbreviation of obolus,
a halfpenny, and “q.” of quadrans, a farthing.

The great pipe in the document referred to apparently means the pipe
roll of the Bishops of Winchester, of which some account may be seen in
the report of the case of Doe dem. Kinglake v. Beviss, in 7 Common
Bench Reports, 456.

C. H. COOPER.

Cambridge.

Monastic Establishments in Scotland
(Vol. v., p. 104.).

—In
Picturesque Antiquities of Scotland, [189] etched by Adam de
Cardonnel, is a list of the different monastic establishments in
Scotland. If your correspondent has not seen this volume, which I
apprehend to be rather scarce (it was printed for the author in 1788), I
shall be happy to supply him with a transcript of the list that Mr. De
Cardonnel has given in his introduction.

M. S.

History of Brittany
(Vol. v., p. 59.).

—MR. KERSLEY will find much
information of the kind he wishes in the genealogies of the families of
Bretagne by D’Hosier, “Chevalier, Conseiller du roy en ses conseils,
Juge d’Armes de la Noblesse de France,” circiter 1765.

My copy of the Genealogies of Normandy, by d’Hosier, was bought at
Quaritch’s, who also, I remember, a few months ago advertised other sets
of the same herald, and I think Brittany amongst them.

I. J. H. H.

St. Asaph.

Marches of Wales, and Lords Marchers
(Vol. v., pp. 30. 135.).

—In
connexion with this Query, it may be interesting to G. to know that Mr.
Thos. Davies Lloyd, of Bronwydd, Caermarthenshire, is the only “Lord
Marcher now extant in the kingdom” (extract from a letter of Mr. Lloyd
to me). Mr. Lloyd holds the barony of Kemes, in the county of Pembroke,
which was erected into a Lordship Marcher by Martin de Tours, one of the
companions of William I., who exercised the Jura Regalia, and other
peculiar privileges.

I. J. H. H.

St. Asaph.

The Broad Arrow
(Vol. iv., pp. 315. 371. 412.; Vol. v., p. 115.).

—I
can see nothing to connect this symbol with the worship of Mithras, but
I have always fancied it of much earlier date than that commonly
assigned to it. A coin of Carausius with a Greek legend would be an
object of great interest to our English numismatists, but nothing of the
kind has ever been seen! My reason for thinking that the symbol of the
“broad arrow” is one of considerable antiquity is, that the name by
which sailors and “longshore” people designate it, namely, the “Broad
Ar,” is clearly not a vulgarism, but an archaism. In the north of
England “ar” or “arr” is still used for a mark. It occurs on very early
Danish coins, and I entertained a hope that some northern antiquary
would have told me how it originated; but my enquiry has ended in
disappointment. Query, When was the Pheon, which it is supposed to be,
first used as an heraldic device? I have before me a coin of Stralsund,
minted in the fourteenth century, with the Pheon for the principal type.
By German writers this object is called a fishspear, but I cannot help
thinking that its origin may be connected with the broad arrow.

J. Y. AKERMAN.

Miniature of Cromwell
(Vol. iv., p. 368.; Vol. v., pp. 17. 92.).

—In
addition to those already mentioned, I have seen in the possession of a
gentleman connected with a Presbyterian trust, a miniature of Oliver
Cromwell by Cooper. The building connected with the trust, is one of
those built after the passing of the Five Mile Act, and is near
Yarmouth; with which place, as is well known, Cromwell was much
connected.

X. Y. Z.

The Sinaïtic Inscriptions
(Vol. iv., p. 382.)

have been deciphered by
Dr. E. F. Beer. Vide his Studia Asiatica, Leipsic, 1840.

S. W.

Why cold Pudding settles One’s Love
(Vol. v., p. 50.).

—As no one has
replied to the Query of “AN F. S. A. WHO LOVES PUDDING,” may I be
permitted to offer the following conjectural solution? In some parts of
the principality it is customary on the morning of a wedding-day for the
bridegroom, with a party of his friends, to proceed to the lady’s
residence; where he and his companions are regaled with ale, bread and
butter, and cold custard pudding! I hope I have hit the mark! But,
perhaps, it does not become me to speculate upon these dainty matters.

AN OLD BACHELOR.

Hoxton.

Covines
(Vol. iv., p. 208.).

—A. N.’s inquiry for a reference not
having been answered, I beg to name Sir Walter Scott’s Demonology and
Witchcraft, p. 206.; or, if he desires to “sup full of horrors,”
Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials in Scotland, vol. iv. Appendix, p. 602.,
where the confessions of the witches of Aulderne are given at length. It
appears by these confessions that a covine consists of thirteen
witches (“the Deil’s dozen?”), of whom two are officials, the Maiden of
the Covine, who sits next the Deil, and with whom he leads off the
dance (called Gillatrypes), and the officer, who, like the crier in
a court of justice, calls the witches at the door, when the Deil calls
the names from his book.

Covine is conventus. Covent Garden. See Dr. Jamieson on the word
Covine-tree.

W. G.

“Arborei fœtus alibi,” &c.
(Vol. v., p. 58.).

—Had the “head
master” been as well versed in the subject as he undoubtedly was in the
words of the Georgics, he would have explained to the “sixth form”
that, in the lines

the intention of the poet was to contrast an agricultural with a
pastoral district. The alibi which he establishes in the case of
“arborei fœtus” he applies equally to “injussa gramina;” and his
obvious meaning is this:—One district is naturally fitted for the
cultivation of corn; another for that of vines; whilst a third is more
adapted for [190] woodland, or rather, perhaps, orchards, meadows, and
pastures: the sowing down or formation of which, if indeed the hand of
man has had anything to do with them at all—being a thing of the past,
and, perhaps, not within the range of the oldest inhabitant’s memory,
their produce may with propriety be termed “injussa,” or spontaneous.

W. A. C.

Ormsary.

Poniatowski Gems
(Vol. v., p. 140.).

—A.O.O.D. is informed that the
first sale of these gems took place in 1839, by Christie, and they were
bought by a Mr. Tyrrell for 12,000l.

M——N.

Miscellaneous.

NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC.

The Men of the Time in 1852, or Sketches of Living Notables, is
intended, as we are told in the Preface, “to bring together in
one muster-roll the people who take the lead in doing the Work of
the World, in literature, in politics, in art, and in
science,—who are influential in their generation, either in
thought or in action.” The idea is a good one, and the book will
eventually supply a want which all have felt. We say
“eventually,” because both Editor and Publisher must be aware
that no first attempt of a work of this nature can at all
approach perfection. We do not complain that, within the small
compass of the present volume, we find many names we should
scarcely have looked for in such a selection; but we would, for
the purpose of improving the next edition, point out the omission
of many very important ones. In the field of learning,
antiquarian and historical, we miss all mention of Ellis, Hallam,
Mahon, Maitland, Madden, Palgrave, Kemble, Thorpe and Wright. In
other classes again we meet with similar omissions. We find
Robert Owen, but not Professor Owen; Southwood Smith, but not Sir
Harry Smith; Faraday we have, but not Wheatstone; the Bishops of
Exeter, Oxford, and St. David’s, but not the Bishops of London or
Ely. We have Pusey, but neither Hook, Bennett, Close, nor Newman.
We have George Dawson the lecturer, but not Cowden Clarke the
lecturer. Such are some of the instances of omission which have
occurred to us, and which will no doubt be supplied in a new
edition. May we add our hope that in such new edition as ample
justice will be rendered to all “men of learning” as is in the
present one rendered to all “men of the press.”

When we find that the new issue of Bohn’s Illustrated Library
consists of the first volume of a revised and enlarged edition of
The Battles of the British Navy, by Joseph Allen, Esq., R.N.,
we are almost disposed to imagine that this indefatigable
publisher had seen with prophetic eye that in the opening of 1852
Mr. Cobden’s theory of universal peace would lose favour, and
that John Bull would resume his old love for the “blue jackets.”
Be that as it may, such a work as the present, popularly written,
handsomely illustrated, and published at a moderate price, which
would at all times be a boon, is not likely to be less welcome at
a moment when there is a general feeling abroad, that England’s
best securities for that peace which all would preserve, “like
her best bulwarks,” are “her wooden walls.”

Sir Joshua Reynolds was a painter among painters, and a man of
letters among men of letters; and as long as the literature of
this country endures, his name will be held in remembrance and in
honour. In giving, therefore, to the world a new edition of The
Literary Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first President of the
Royal Academy; to which is prefixed a Memoir of the Author, with
Remarks on his Professional Character illustrative of his
Principles and Practice, by Henry Williams Beechey, Mr. Bohn has
conferred a boon, not only upon the professional student, but
upon all who would acquire a knowledge of the presiding principle
which regulates every part of art, and who can appreciate the
eloquent and admirable manner in which the great president
conveyed that knowledge.

When a glimpse of sunshine warns us of the approach of spring,
and that our young friends are bethinking them of the country and
its varied pleasures, when they will again—

we are reminded of a long-delayed wish to call their attention to
Gosse’s Popular British Ornithology, containing a Familiar and
Technical Description of the Birds of the British Isles, as a
means of turning their pleasant rambles to a source of profitable
instruction. With this scientific, though concise and popularly
written volume, profusely illustrated as it is with coloured
figures of the most remarkable British birds, as their guide—and
a little patient observation—an amount of knowledge of birds and
their habits will soon be acquired by them, which will prove a
source of never-ending enjoyment, and give new zest to every
fresh visit to the woods and fields.

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES
WANTED TO PURCHASE.

GREGORY’S (DR.) SECOND MEMORIAL TO THE
MANAGERS OF THE ROYAL
INFIRMARY, EDINBURGH.

HERON’S (SIR ROBERT) NOTES. First Edition. Privately printed.

COBBETT’S STATE TRIALS. 8vo. Vol. VIII. 1810.

ARNOTT’S PHYSICS. 2 Vols.

ISR. CLAUDERI DISPUTATIO DE SALE SUB PRÆSIDIO SAGITTARII. Jenæ,
1650.

CRESCENT AND THE CROSS. Vol. I. Third Edition.

MACKINNON’S HISTORY OF CIVILISATION. Vol. II. 1846.

LITE’S DODOENS‘ HERBAL. First Edition. (An imperfect copy to
complete another.)

TURNER’S A BOOKE OF THE NATURES OF THE BATHES IN ENGLAND. 1568.
(An imperfect copy to complete another.)

A MOST EXCELLENT AND PERFECTE CORNISH APOTHECARY. 1561. (An
imperfect copy to complete another.)

TURNER’S A NEW HERBALL. (An imperfect copy to complete another.)

FIELDING’S WORKS. 14 Vols. 1808. Vol. XI. [Being 2nd of Amelia].

SHADWELL. Vols. II. and IV. 1720.

ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON. Vol. IV. 1819.

BARONETAGE. Vol. I. 1720.
Ditto. Vols. I. and II. 1727.

CHAMBERLAYNE’S PHARONNIDA. (Reprint.) Vols. I. and II. 1820.

HOLCROFT’S LAVATER. Vol. I. 1789.

DRECHSLERUS DE LARVIS. Lipsiæ, 1674.

ELSLEY ON THE GOSPEL AND ACTS. London, 1833. Vol. I.

*** Letters, stating particulars and lowest price,
carriage free, to be sent to MR. BELL, Publisher of “Notes and
Queries,” 186. Fleet Street.
[191]

Notices to Correspondents.

W. M. N. is thanked for the kindly spirit of his communication.
The articles to which he refers shall be attended to.

AMERICA. Our friends who desire to know how “N. & Q.” may be
forwarded to America are informed that all that is required is
to affix a penny stamp to a copy of the stamped edition.

SALOPIAN. There is as little doubt that Friday is considered
unlucky because it is the day of the Crucifixion, as that the
belief of its being unlucky for thirteen to set down to a meal
together owes its origin to the remembrance of the Last Supper.

G.R.E.E.N. is no doubt a wag. But as we do not share his
viridity, we have committed his communication to the fire, and
can assure him for his consolation that, like Sir Andrew
Aguecheek’s leg, it looked “indifferent well in a
flame-coloured stock.”

F. M. W. (Camden Town), who inquires respecting the meaning and
origin of “era,” is referred to our 4th Vol. pp. 383. 454.,
and 5th Vol. p. 106.

K. (of Carlisle). This correspondent has not said what the
communication was to which he refers. We are therefore unable to
reply to his inquiry.

TILLOTSON’S SERMONS, by Parker, Vol. I., may be had on
application to the Publisher.

REPLIES RECEIVED.—Ring Finger—Sanctus Bell—Bastides—Gospel
Oaks—Hyrne—Cibber’s Lives of the Poets—Poniatowski’s
Gems—Stoke—Pendulum Demonstration—Theoloneum—Rent of
Assize—Kissing under the Mistletoe—Cambridge Commemoration
Service—Asters with Trains of Fire—Celebrated
Trees—Hieroglyphics of Vagrants—Pasquinades—Traditions from
remote Periods—Wiggan or Utigan—Derivation of “Era”—Smothering
Hydrophobic Patients—Grimsdyke—Queen of the Isle of Man.

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,
February 21, 1852.