Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 by Various
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Various >> Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851
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NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES,
GENEALOGISTS, ETC.
* * * * *
"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.
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No. 64.]
SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1851.
[Price, with Index to Vol. II., 9d. Stamped Edition, 10d.
* * * * *
CONTENTS.
NOTES:-- Page
Authorship of Henry VIII., by Samuel Hickson 33
The Cavalier's Farewell, by F.H. 34
Gray's Elegy, by Henry H. Breen 35
The "Nineveh" Monuments and Milton's Nativity Ode
illustrated from Lucian 35
Minor Notes:--Gaudentia di Lucca--George Wither
the Poet, a Printer--"Preached as a dying man to dying
Men"--Authors of Anonymous Works--Umbrellas 36
QUERIES:--
Sonnet (query, by Milton) on the Library at Cambridge,
by C. Howard Kenyon 37
Burying in Church Walls 37
Minor Queries:--Meaning of Venwell or Venville--
Erasmus and Farel--Early Culture of the Imagination--
Sir Thomas Bullen's Drinking Horn--Peter
Sterry--"Words are Men's Daughters," &c.--Robert
Henryson--Gawyn Douglas--Darby and Joan--
William Chilcot--Benj. Wheeler's Theological Lectures--
Sir Alexander Cumming--Cross between a
Wolf and Hound--Landwade Church, and Moated
Grange--Dr. Bolton, Archbishop of Cashel--Genealogy
of the Talbots, &c. &c. 38
REPLIES:--
Dragons 40
Origin of the Family Name of Bacon, by ProBa ConScientia 41
Replies to Minor Queries:--Cockade--Form of Prayer
for King's Evil--"Aver," Hogs not Pigs--Pilgarlic
--Collar of Esses--Filthy Gingram--The Life and
Death of Clancie--"Rab. Surdam"--"Fronte Capillata"
--Taylor's Holy Living--Portrait of Bishop
Henchman--Lines attributed to Charles Yorke--
Rodolph Gualter--"Annoy" used as a Noun--Culprit,
Origin of the Word--Passage in Bishop Butler
--Wat the Hare--The Letter Yogh--Did Elizabeth
visit Bacon in Twickenham Park--Mock-Beggar--
Cardinal Chalmers--Binsey, God help me!--Midwives
Licensed--Dr. Timothy Thristcross--History
of the Bohemian persecution--"Earth has no Rage"
--Couplet in De Foe--Private Memoirs of Queen
Elizabeth--Abbot's House at Bucksden--Bab in the
Bowster--Sir Cloudesley Shovel--Noli me tangere
--Cad 42
MISCELLANEOUS:--
Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 46
Notices to Correspondents 46
Advertisements 47
* * * * *
NOTES.
AUTHORSHIP OF HENRY VIII.
In my last communication on the subject of _Henry VIII._, I referred to
certain characteristic _tricks_ of Fletcher's style of frequent occurrence
in that play, and I now beg leave to furnish you with a few instances. I
wish it, however, to be understood, that I advance these merely as
illustrative specimens selected at random; as there is scarcely a line of
the portions of the play I assume to be Fletcher's but would furnish some
evidence to a diligent student of this writer's style: and that, although I
think each separate instance as strongly characteristic of Fletcher as it
is unlike Shakspeare, it is only in their aggregate number that I insist
upon their importance.
The first instance to which I call attention is the use of the substantive
"one" in a manner which, though not very uncommon, is used by no writer so
frequently as Fletcher. Take the following:--
"_So_ great ones."--_Woman's Prize_, II. 2.
"And yet his songs are sad ones."--_Two Noble Kinsmen_, II. 4.
and the title of the play, _The False One_.
Compare with these from _Henry VIII._:--
"This night he make a supper, and a great one."--Act I. 3.
"Shrewd ones."--"Lame ones."--"_so_ great ones."--_Ibid._
"I had my trial,
And must needs say a noble one."--Act II. 1.
"A wife--a true one."--Act III. 1.
"They are a sweet society of fair ones."--Act I. 4.
Fletcher habitually uses "thousand" without the indefinite article, as in
the following instances:
"Carried before 'em thousand desolations."--_False One_, II. 9.
"Offers herself in thousand safeties to you."--_Rollo_, II. 1.
"This sword shall cut thee into thousand pieces."--_Knight of Malta_, IV.
2.
In _Henry VIII._ we have in the prologue:
"Of thousand friends."
"Cast thousand beams upon me."--Act IV. 2.
The use of the word "else" is peculiar in its position in Fletcher:--
"'Twere fit I were hang'd else."--_Rule a Wife_, II.
"I were to blame else."--_Ibid._
"I've lost me end else."--Act IV.
"I am wide else."--_Pilgrim_, IV. 1.
In _Henry VIII._, the word occurs in precisely the same position:--
"Pray God he do! He'll never know himself, else."--Act II. 2.
"I were malicious, else."--Act IV. 2.
{34} The peculiarly idiomatic expression "I take it" is of frequent
occurrence in Fletcher, as witness the following:--
"This is no lining for a trench, I take it."--_Rule a Wife_, III.
"And you have land i' th' Indies, as I take it."--_Ibid._ IV.
"A fault without forgiveness, as I take it."--_Pilgrim_, IV. 1.
"In noble emulation (so I take it)."--_Ibid._ IV. 2.
In one scene of _Henry VIII._, Act I. 3., the expression occurs twice: "One
would take it;" "There, I take it."
Of a peculiar manner of introducing a negative condition, one instance from
Fletcher, and one from _Henry VIII._ in reference to the same substantive,
though used in different senses, will suffice:
"All noble battles,
Maintain'd in thirst of honour, not of blood."--_Bonduca_, V. 1.
"And those about her
From her shall read the perfect ways of honour,
And by those claim their greatness, not by blood."--_Henry VIII._, V. 4.
Of a kind of parenthetical asseveration, a single instance, also, from each
will suffice:
"My innocent life (I dare maintain it, Sir)."--_Wife for a Month, IV. 1._
"A woman (I dare say, without vain glory)
Never yet branded with suspicion."--_Henry VIII., III. 1._
"A great patience," in _Henry VIII._, may be paralleled by "a brave
patience," in _The Two Noble Kinsmen_: and the expression "aim at,"
_occurring at the close of the verse_ (as, by the bye, almost all
Fletcher's peculiarities do) as seen in Act III. 1.,
"Madam, you wander from the good we aim at,"
is so frequently to be met with in Fletcher, that, having noted four
instances in the _Pilgrim_, three in the _Custom of the Country_, and four
in the _Elder Brother_, I thought I had found more than enough.
Now, Sir, on reading _Henry VIII._, and meeting with each of these
instances, I felt that I remembered "the trick of that voice;" and, without
having at present by me any means for reference, I feel confident that of
the commonest examples not so many can be found among all the rest of the
reputed plays of Shakspeare, as in _Henry VIII._ alone, or rather in those
parts of _Henry VIII._ which I reject as Shakspeare's; while of the more
remarkable, I think I might challenge the production of a single instance.
My original intention in the present paper was merely to call attention to
a few such expressions as the foregoing; but I cannot resist the impulse to
quote one or two parallels of a different character:--
_Henry VIII._:
"The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her!"--Act IV. 2.
Fletcher:
"The dew of sleep fall gently on you, sweet one!"--_Elder Brother_, IV.
3.
"Blessings from heaven in thousand showers fall on ye!"--_Rollo_, II. 3.
"And all the plagues they can inflict, I wish it,
Fall thick upon me!"--_Knight of Malta_, III. 2.
_Henry VIII._:
"To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms."--Act III. 2.
Fletcher:
"My long-since-blasted hopes shoot out in blossoms."--_Rollo_, II. 3.
These instances, of course, prove nothing; yet they are worth the noting.
If, however, I were called upon to produce two passages from the whole of
Fletcher's writings most strikingly characteristic of his style, and not
more in expression than in thought, I should fix upon the third scene of
the first act of _Henry VIII._, and the soliloquy of Wolsey, Beginning--
"Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness!"
In conclusion, allow me to remark, that I am quite content to have been
anticipated by MR. SPEDDING in this discovery (if discovery you and your
readers will allow it to be), for the satisfaction I am thereby assured of
in the concurrence of so acute a critic as himself, and of a poet so true
as the poet-laureate.
SAMUEL HICKSON.
Dec. 10. 1850.
* * * * *
THE CAVALIER'S FAREWELL.
The following song is extracted from the MS. Diary of the Rev. John Adamson
(afterwards Rector of Burton Coggles, Lincolnshire) commencing in 1658. Can
any of your readers point out who was the author?--
"THE CAVALIER'S FAREWELL TO HIS MISTRESS BEING CALLED TO THE WARRS."
1.
"Ffair Ffidelia tempt no more,
I may no more thy deity adore
Nor offer to thy shrine,
I serve one more divine
And farr more great y{^n} you:
I must goe,
Lest the foe
Gaine the cause and win the day.
Let's march bravely on
Charge ym in the Van
Our Cause God's is,
Though their odds is
Ten to one.
{35}
2.
"Tempt no more, I may not yeeld
Although thine eyes
A Kingdome may surprize:
Leave off thy wanton toiles
The high borne Prince of Wales
Is mounted in the field,
Where the Royall Gentry flocke.
Though alone
Nobly borne
Of a ne're decaying Stocke,
Cavaleers be bold
Bravely hold your hold,
He that loyters
Is by Traytors
Bought and sold.
3.
"One Kisse more and yn farewell
Oh no, no more,
I prethee giue me ore.
Why cloudest thou thy beames,
I see by these extreames,
A Woman's Heaven or Hell.
Pray the King may haue his owne,
And the Queen
May be seen
With her babes on England's Throne.
Rally up your Men,
One shall vanquish ten,
Victory we
Come to try thee
Once agen.
Query: Who was the author of the above?
F.H.
* * * * *
GRAY'S ELEGY.
J.F.M. (Vol. i., p. 101.) remarks, "I would venture to throw out a hint,
that an edition of this _Elegy_, exhibiting all the known translations,
arranged in double columns, might be made a noble monument to the memory of
Gray." It has been asserted that there is scarcely a thought in this
_Elegy_ that Gray has not borrowed from some writer, ancient or modern and
if this be true, I would take the liberty of adding a hint to that of
J.F.M., namely, that the proposed edition should contain a _third_ column,
exhibiting all the known plagiarisms in this famous _Elegy_. To begin with
the first line--
"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day."
Lord Byron, in his notes to the third canto of _Don Juan_, says that this
was adopted from the following passage in Dante's _Purgatory_, canto viii.:
---- "si ode squilla di lontano
Che paja 'l giorno pianger che si muore."
And it is worthy of notice that this passage corresponds with the first
line of Giannini's translation of the Elegy, as quoted by J.F.M.:--
"Piange la squilla 'l giorno, che si muore."
I must add, however, that long before Lord Byron thought of writing _Don
Juan_, Mr. Cary, in his excellent translation of the Italian poet, had
noticed this plagiarism in Gray; and what is more, had shown that the
principal thought, the "giorno che si muore," was borrowed by Dante from
Statius's
"Jam moriente die."
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia, West Indies, Nov. 1850.
[The preceding communication was accompanied by several others, and by
the following gratifying letter, which we print as a fresh proof that
our paper is fulfilling the object for which it was instituted, namely,
that of promoting literary intercourse between men of letters
throughout the world and that it is as favourably received by our
fellow countrymen abroad, as it has been by those who are enabled to
receive it wet from the press:--
"Owing to the difficulty of procuring the early numbers of 'NOTES AND
QUERIES,' especially at this distance from Britain, I have been
compelled to wait for its publication in a collected form. I am now in
possession of the first volume, and beg leave to offer you a few Notes
which have occurred to me on perusing its contents. I am fully sensible
of the disadvantage of corresponding with you from so remote a corner
of the globe, and am prepared to find some of my remarks anticipated by
other correspondents nearer home; but having deeply suffered from the
literary isolation consequent upon a residence of twenty-one years in
this country, I shall gladly submit to any disadvantage which shall not
involve a total exclusion from the means of inter-communication so
opportunely afforded by your excellent periodical.
"HENRY H. BREEN."]
* * * * *
THE NINEVEH MONUMENTS AND MILTON'S NATIVITY ODE ILLUSTRATED FROM LUCIAN.
Layard in his _Nineveh_, vol. ii., p. 471., in his description of "the
sacred emblems carried by the priests," says, they are principally the
fruit or cone of the pine.
"... and the square utensil which, as I have already remarked, appears
to have been of embossed or engraved metal, or of metal carved to
represent wicker work, or sometimes actually of wicker work."
He adds, that M. Lajard "has shown the connection between the cone of the
cypress and the worship of Venus in the religious systems of the East;"
that it has been suggested that "the square vessel held the holy water,"
that, "however this may be, it is evident from their constant occurrence on
Assyrian monuments, that they were very important objects in religious
ceremonies. Any attempt to explain their use and their typical {36}
meaning, can at present be little better than ingenious speculation."
There is a passage in Lucian _De Dea Syria_, Sec. 13., which may serve to
elucidate this feature in the Nineveh marbles. He is referring to the
temple of Hierapolis and a ceremony which Deucalion was said to have
introduced, as a memorial of the great flood and the escaping of the
waters:
[Greek: "Dis ekastou eteos ek thalasses ydor es ton neon apikneetai;
pherousi de ouk irees mounon alla pasa Syrie kai Arabie, kai perethen
tou Euphreteo, polloi anthropoi es thalassan erchontai, kai pantes ydor
pherousai, ta, prota men en toi neoi ekchrousi,"] &c.
"Twice every year water is brought from the sea to the temple. Not only the
priests, but" all Syria and Arabia, "and many from the country beyond the
Euphrates come to the sea, and all bring away water, which they first pour
out in the temple," and then into a chasm which Lucian had previously
explained had suddenly opened and swallowed up the flood of waters which
had threatened to destroy the world. Tyndale, in his recent book on
Sardinia, refers to this passage in support of a similar utensil appearing
in the Sarde paganism.
It may be interesting to refer to another passage in the _Dea Syria_, in
which Lucian is describing the splendour of the temple of Hierapolis; he
says that the deities themselves are really present:--
[Greek: "Kai Theoi de karta autoisi emphanees; idroei gar de on para
sphisi ta xoata,"]
When the very images sweat, and he adds, are moved and utter oracles. It is
probable Milton had this in recollection when, in his noble _Nativity Ode_,
he sings of the approach of the true Deity, at whose coming
"... the chill marble seems to sweat,
While each peculiar power foregoes his wonted seat."
L.I.M.
* * * * *
MINOR NOTES.
_Gaudentio di Lucca._--Sir James Mackinstosh, in his _Dissertation on the
Progress of Ethical Philosophy_, adverts to the belief that Bishop Berkeley
was the author of _Gaudentio di Lucca_, but without adopting it.
"A romance," he says, "of which a journey to an Utopia, in the centre
of Africa, forms the chief part, called _The Adventures of Signor
Gaudentio di Lucca_, has been commonly ascribed to him; probably on no
other ground than its union of pleasing invention with benevolence and
elegance."--_Works_, vol. i. p. 132. ed. 1846.
Sir J. Mackintosh, like most other modern writers who mention the book,
seems not to have been aware of the decisive denial of this report, by
Bishop Berkeley's son, inserted in the third volume of Kippis's _Biographia
Britannica_.
L.
_George Wither, the Poet, a Printer_ (Vol. ii., p. 390.).--In addition to
DR. RIMBAULT'S extract from Wither's _Britain's Remembrancer_, showing that
he printed (or rather composed) every sheet thereof with his own hand, I
find, in a note to Mr. R.A. Willmott's volume of the _Lives of the English
Sacred Poets_, in that interesting one of George Wither, the following
corroboration of this singular labour of his: the poem, independent of the
address to the King and the praemonition, consisting of between nine and ten
thousand lines, many of which, I doubt not, were the production of his
brain while he stood at the printing-case. A MS. note of Mr. Park's, in one
of the many volumes of Wither which I possess, confirms me in this opinion.
"Ben Jonson, in _Time Vindicated_, has satirized the custom, then very
prevalent among the pamphleteers of the day, of providing themselves
with a portable press, which they moved from one hiding-place to
another with great facility. He insinuates that Chronomastix, under
whom he intended to represent Wither, employed one of these presses.
Thus, upon the entrance of the Mutes,--
"_Fame._ What are this pair?
_Eyes._ The ragged rascals?
_Fame._ Yes.
_Eyes._ These rogues; you'd think them rogues,
But they are friends;
One is his printer in disguise, and keeps
His press in a hollow tree."
From this extract it should seem that Wither not only composed the poem at
case (the printer's phrase), but worked it off at press with his own hands.
J.M.G.
Worcester.
"_Preached as a dying Man to dying Men_" (Vol. i., p. 415.; Vol. ii., p.
28.).--Some time ago there appeared in this series (Vol. i., p. 415.) a
question respecting a pulpit-phrase which has occasionally been used by
preachers, delivering their messages as "dying men to dying men." This was
rightly traced (Vol. ii., p. 28.) to a couplet of the celebrated Richard
Baxter, who, in one of his latest works, speaking of his ministerial
exercises, says,--
"I preach'd as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men."
The passage occurs in one of his "Poetical Fragments," entitled "Love
breathing Thanks and Praise."
This small volume of devotional verse is further entitled, _Heart
Imployment with _GOD_ and Itself; the concordant Discord of a Broken-healed
Heart; Sorrowing, Rejoicing, Fearing, Hoping, Dying, Living: published for
the Use of the Afflicted_. The Introduction is dated "London: at the Door
of Eternity, Aug. 7. 1681."
He yet survived ten years, in the course of which he was twice imprisoned
and fined under {37} the profligate and persecuting reigns of Charles II.
and James II. for his zeal and piety.
J.M.G.
Hallamshire.
_Authors of Anonymous Works._--On the title-page of the first volume of my
copy of _The Monthly Intelligencer_ for 1728 and 1729, which was published
anonymously, is written in MS., "By the Rev. Mr. Kimber."
This book belonged to, and is marked with the autograph of D. Hughes, 1730;
but the MS. note was written by another hand.
P.H.F.
_Umbrellas_ (Vol. ii., pp. 491. 523., &c.).--I have talked with an old lady
who remembered the first umbrella used in Oxford, and with another who
described the surprise elicited by the first in Birmingham. An aunt of
mine, born 1754, could not remember when the house was without one, though
in her youth they were little used. May not the word umbrella have been
applied to various sorts of _impluvia_? Swift, in his "Description of a
City Shower," says:--
"Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the dangled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The Templar spruce, while every spout's abroach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.
The tuck'd-up sempstress walks with hasty strides,
While _streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides_."
_Tatler_, No. 238. Oct. 17. 1710.
This might be applied to an oiled cape, but I think the passage quoted by
MR. CORNEY (Vol. ii., p. 523.) signifies something carried over the head.
By the way, the "Description of a City Shower" contains one of the latest
examples of _ache_ as a dissyllable:--
"A coming shower your shooting corns presage,
Old _aches_ throb, your hollow tooth will rage."
H.B.C.
U.U. Club, Jan.
* * * * *
QUERIES.
SONNET (QUERY, BY MILTON) ON THE LIBRARY AT CAMBRIDGE.
In a _Collection of Recente and Witty Pieces by several eminente hands_,
London, printed by W.S. for Simon Waterfou, 1628, p. 109., is the following
sonnet, far the best thing in the book:--
"ON THE LIBRARIE AT CAMBRIDGE.
"In that great maze of books I sighed and said,--
It is a grave-yard, and each tome a tombe;
Shrouded in hempen rags, behold the dead,
Coffined and ranged in crypts of dismal gloom,
Food for the worm and redolent of mold,
Traced with brief epitaph in tarnished gold--
Ah, golden lettered hope!--ah, dolorous doom!
Yet mid the common death, where all is cold,
And mildewed pride in desolation dwells,
A few great immortalities of old
Stand brightly forth--not tombes but living shrines,
Where from high sainte or martyr virtue wells,
Which on the living yet work miracles,
Spreading a relic wealth richer than golden mines.
"J.M. 1627."
Attached to it, it will be seen, are the initials J.M. and the date 1627.
Is it possible that this may be an early and neglected sonnet of Milton?
and yet, could Milton have seriously perpetrated the pun in the second
line?
C. HOWARD KENYON.
* * * * *
BURYING IN CHURCH WALLS.
(Vol. ii., p. 513.)
MR. W. DURRANT COOPER has mentioned some instances of burials in the walls
of churches; it is not however clear whether in these the monument, or
coffin lid, is in the inside or the outside of the wall.
Stone coffin lids, with and without effigies, are very frequently found
placed under low arches hollowed in the wall in the _interior_ of the
church: tombs placed in the _exterior_ of the wall are much less common;
and the singularity of their position, leads one to look for some peculiar
reason for it. Tradition often accounts for it by such stories as those
mentioned by MR. COOPER. Such is the case with a handsome canopied tomb (I
think with an effigy) on the south side of the choir of the cathedral of
Lichfield, where we are told that the person interred died under censure of
the church. Other instances which I have noticed, are, at--
Little Casterton, Rutland.--Tomb, with an effigy, apparently of an
ecclesiastic, but much decayed, of the 13th century, in the south wall of
the nave.
Warbleton, Sussex.--Circular arch over a sort of altar tomb, no effigy
remains. Probably of the earlier half of the 13th century. In the south
wall of chancel.
Basildon, Berks.--A very elegant canopy. There was once an effigy, now
destroyed, with the tomb, and a door made under the canopy! About 1300. In
the south wall of the chancel.
Bridewater, Somerset.--Two arches, with foliations, over effigies between
them, a door leading, down to a crypt. The effigies are too much decayed to
enable a decided opinion to be formed as to sex or station. In the north
wall of north transept. Date probably between 1270 and 1300.
St. Stephen's, Vienna.--A fine tomb, with canopy and effigy, by the side of
the south door of the nave. Probably of the 14th century.
I have been disposed to think that the most {38} probable motive which may
have led to tombs and effigies, sometimes of an elaborate and costly
character, being placed in such exposed positions, was the desire of
obtaining the prayers of the passers-by for the soul of the deceased. It is
worth notice, that the usage seems in England to have been very much
limited to the 13th, or early part of the 14th century. I should, however,
be very glad if any one who may possess information bearing on the subject
would communicate it.