Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 by Various

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This fragment is, perhaps, rather too long; but I think your readers will
consider it too beautiful to abridge. The late G. Higgins, in his
_Anacalepsis_ (ii. 100.), has some observations to the same purport, and
points out the resemblance of some of the old Italian paintings of the
Virgin and Child to Egyptian representations of Isis and the infant Horus.

Many of these ideas have been taken up by the free-masons, and are typified
and symbolised in their initiatory ceremonies.

J.B. DITCHFIELD.

* * * * *

OUTLINE IN PAINTING.

A correspondent (J.O.W.H.) at p. 318. of Vol. i. asks a question on the
subject of outline in painting; instancing the works of Albert Durer and
Raffaelle as examples of defined, and those of Titian, Murillo, &c., of
indefined outline. He wishes to know whether there is "a right and a wrong
in the matter, apart from anything which men call taste?"

The subject generally is a curious one, and has interested me for some
time; as experiments exhibit several singular phenomena resulting from the
interference and diffraction of rays of light in passing by the outline of
a material body. As a matter of fact, I believe I may say, that there is no
such thing in nature as a perfectly defined outline; since the diffraction
of the rays, in passing it, causes them to be projected upon it more or
less, according to the nature of the particular body, and the intensity of
the light. And I may remark, by the way, that I believe this circumstance
of the projection of a star upon the moon's disc at the time of an
occultation, is to be accounted for on this principle (though with all due
deference to higher authority); a phenomenon which is to this day
unexplained.

Of course every outline is rendered less defined by any motion of the eye
of the observer, however slight. Hence, perhaps, the comparative
indistinctness of outline commonly seen in pictures, compared with those in
nature; as the artist {64} would be apt to take advantage of this
circumstance, and give to his painting the same kind of effect the reality
would have to an eye wandering over it; thereby taking away the attention
from individual parts, and, as it were, forcing it to judge of the general
effect, which general effect is, perhaps, the main object in painting.

Hence it follows that wherever, in any design, separate portions are
intended to arrest attention, the outline should be more defined and,
accordingly, we may remark that Albert Durer, and others like him, who were
very careful of minutiae, are also distinct and hard in their outlines,
which is also the case, for the most part, in the Dutch school, and in
architectural paintings, fruit-pieces, &c.; and we find that in proportion
as the artist discards the comparatively unworthy minute accompaniments of
his subject, and aims at unity of effect, so does he neglect sharpness of
outline. Which is the _correct_ practice--distinctness, or indistinctness
of outline--will be differently judged by those who hold different opinions
on painting in general. While one person will maintain that a picture, to
be perfect, must be an exact copy of nature, in short an artistic
daguerreotype; another will hold almost the contrary; so that the subject
of outline must be matter of opinion still. However, the lover of general
effect has this rational ground of argument on his side, viz., there is no
such thing as a strictly defined outline in nature, even to an eye at rest;
while to one in motion, which is perhaps the normal state, that outline is
rendered still more indistinct.

H.C.K.

---- Rectory, Hereford, Dec. 28. 1850.

* * * * *

TEN CHILDREN AT A BIRTH.

(Vol. ii., p. 459.)

The curiosity excited by the perusal of my previous communication under the
foregoing head, and the interesting editorial note appended in "NOTES AND
QUERIES," induce me to continue the attempt to verify one of the most
remarkable instances of abnormal fecundity in an individual of the human
species recorded in modern times. The reader must judge of the following
"circumstantial evidence:"--

1. I have just seen widow Platts (formerly Sarah Birch), a poor, fat,
decent woman, who keeps a small greengrocer's shop, in West Bar, Sheffield.
She says she was born in Spring Street in the same town, on the 29th Sept.
1781; well remembers wondering why she was so much looked at when a girl:
and her surprise, when afterwards told by her mother, that she was one of
ten children born at the same time. Had often been told that she was so
small at birth, that she was readily put into a quart measure; and for some
time, lay in a basket before the fire "wrapped in a flannel like a newly
hatched chicken."

2. The improbability of finding any living gossip who was present at the
birth, must be obvious: but I have conversed with old women who had heard
their mothers describe the occurrence from personal knowledge.

3. One ancient dame had no more doubt of the fact than the cause of it.
Having apparently heard and believed a monstrous tradition of a
multitudinous gestation extant in common "folklore." "It was," said she,
with all gravity, "the effect of a wish," intended to spite the father;
who, having had two children by his wife, and an interval of _nine years_
elapsing before the portentous pregnancy in question, did not desire, it
seems, any further increase to his family.

4. The parents died, the daughter married, and the "story of her birth" was
forgotten: until the publication of White's _Sheffield Directory_ in 1833,
when, among other local memorabilia, the strange announcement of "ten
children at birth," was reproduced on the contemporary authority of the
_Leeds Mercury_. From that time Mrs. Platts has been more or less an object
of curiosity.

5. The _Directory_ paragraph is as follows:--

"An instance of _extraordinary fecundity_ is recorded in the _Leeds
Mercury_ of 1781, which says that _Ann_ [Sarah] _Birch_, of Sheffield,
was, in that year, _delivered of ten children!!!_ We, in our time, have
heard of Sheffield ladies having three children at birth; but we know
no other case, but that of the aforesaid Mrs. Birch, which countenances
the fructiferous fame which they have obtained in some circles."

I have been unsuccessful in an effort to collate the foregoing with the
original newspaper paragraph: but Mr. White, while he personally assured me
of the veracity of the transcript, also pointed out to me an earlier
version of the same fact from the same source in the _Annals of the
Clothing Districts_, published about thirty years since.

6. In conformity with the suggestion (NOTES AND QUERIES, Vol. ii., p. 459),
I have examined the Parish Register of Baptisms, but the entry is as curt
and formal as possible, viz.:--

"Sarah, Dr. of Thos. and Sarah Birch, Cutler,"

under the date, Dec. 12.1781.

Taking all the foregoing circumstances into account, there seems to me
little ground for the erection of any strong objection to the alleged
fact--extraordinary as it is--of ten children having been brought forth at
one time; or, to the hardly less interesting coincidence, that one of them
is still living. I cannot but add, that if the contemporary notice of this
extraordinary birth in the _Leeds Mercury_ of 1781 should not be admitted
as good evidence for the fact, it does, at least, negative the presumptive
value of any objection {65} derived from the silence of the writer in the
_Philosophical Transactions_ six years afterwards; strange as such silence
assuredly appears. After all, the question occurs: What has become of the
bodies said to have been preserved? As all parties concur in naming "old
Mr. Staniforth" as the accoucheur in attendance on Mrs. Birch; and as that
gentleman has been dead many years, I called upon his eldest surviving
pupil, Mr. Nicholson, surgeon, to ask him whether, in conversation, or
among the preparations in the surgery of his worthy master, he had ever met
with any illustration of the parturition in question? He replied that he
had not. It may not, perhaps, be out of place here to mention that the
above-named Mr. Nicholson, surgeon, himself delivered a poor woman of five
children, on the 10th of February, 1829, at Handsworth Woodhouse, near
Sheffield. This case was even more remarkable than that which gave occasion
to the paper which was read before the Royal Society in 1787, inasmuch as
not only were four of the children born alive, but three of them lived to
be baptized.

N.D.

Sheffield, Jan. 13. 1851.

* * * * *

SHAKSPEARE'S USE OF "CAPTIOUS."

(Vol. ii., p. 354.)

In _All's Well that Ends Well_, Act I. Sc. 3., Helena says to the Countess,
speaking of her love for Bertram,--

"I know I love in vain; strive against hope;
Yet, in this captious and intenible sieve,
I still pour in the waters of my love,
And lack not to lose still."

It is not without hesitation that I venture to oppose MR. SINGER on a point
on which he is so well entitled to give an opinion. But I cannot help
thinking that MR. SINGER'S explanation, besides being somewhat too refined
and recondite, is less applicable to the general sense and drift of the
passage than that of Steevens, which Malone and Mr. Collier have adopted.

What I think wanting to Steevens' interpretation, is an increase, if I may
so express myself, of intensity. He takes the word, I conceive, in its
right bearing, but does not give it all the requisite force. I should
suggest that it means not merely "_recipient_, capable of receiving," but,
to coin a word, _captatious_, eager or greedy to receive, absorbing; as we
say _avidum mare_, or a _greedy gulf_. The Latin analogous to it in this
sense would be, not _capax_, or MR. SINGER'S _captiosus_, but _captax_, or
_captabundus_; neither of which words, however, occurs.

The sense of the word, like that of many others in the same author, must be
determined by the scope and object of the passage in which it is used. The
object of Helena, in declaring her love to the Countess, is to show the
all-absorbing nature of it; to prove that she is _tota in illo_; and that,
however she may strive to stop the cravings of it, her endeavours are of no
more use than the attempt to fill up a bottomless abyss.

The reader may, if he pleases, compare her case with that of other heroines
in like predicaments. Thus Medaea, in _Apollonius Rhodius_:

[Greek: "Pante moi phrenes eisin amechanoi, oude tis alke Pematos."]

And the same lady in _Ovid_:

"---- Luctata diu, postquam ratione furorem,
Vincere non poterat. Frustra, Medea, repugnas.
----
Excute virgineo conceptas pectore flammas,
Si potes, infelix. Si possem sanior essem:
Sed trahit invitam nova vis."

Or Dido, in _Virgil_ or _Ovid_:

"Ille quidem male gratus, et ad munera surdus;
Et quo si non sim stulta carere velim:
Non tamen AEneam, quamvis male cogitat, odi;
Sed queror infidum, questaque pejus amo."

Or Phaedra, in _Seneca_:

----"Furor cogit sequi
Pejora: vadit animus in praeceps sciens,
Remeatque, frustra sana consilia appetens.
Sic cum gravatam navita adversa ratem
Propellit unda, cedit in vanum labor,
Et victa prono puppis aufertur vado."

The complaints of all are alike; they lament that they make attempts to
resist their passion, but find it not to be resisted; that they are obliged
at last to yield themselves entirely to it, and to feel their whole
thoughts, as it were, swallowed up by it.

Such being the way in which Shakspeare represents Helena, and such the
sentiments which he puts into her mouth, it seems evident that the
interpretation of _captious_ in the sense of _absorbent_ is better adapted
to the passage than the explanation of it in the sense of _fallacious_.

"I know I love in vain, and strive against hope; yet into this
_insatiable_ and _unretaining_ sieve I still pour in the waters of my
love, and fail not to lose still."

I said that the sense of _fallacious_ seemed to be too refined and
recondite. To believe that Shakspeare borrowed his _captious_ in this
sense, from the Latin _captiosus_, we must suppose that he was well
acquainted with the exact sense of the Latin word; a supposition which, in
regard to a man who had _small Latin_, we can scarcely be justified in
entertaining. This interpretation is, therefore, too recondite: and to
imagine Helena as applying the word to Bertram as being "_incapable of
receiving_ her love," and "truly _captious_" (or deceitful and ensnaring)
"in that respect," is surely to indulge in too much refinement of
exposition.

That Shakspeare had in his mind, as MR. SINGER {66} suggests, the
punishment of the Danaides, is extremely probable; but this only makes the
explanation of _captious_ in the sense of _absorbent_ more applicable to
the passage, with which that of Seneca, quoted above, may be aptly
compared.

I am sorry that Johnson was so unfortunate as to propose _carious_ as an
emendation; but even in doing this, he had, according to my notion of the
lines, the right sense in view, viz., that of _letting through_ or
_swallowing up_, like a rotten tub or a quicksand.

I hope that MR. SINGER will take these remarks in good part, as being
offered, not from a wish to oppose his opinion, but from a conviction that
the interpretation now given is right, and from a desire that to every word
in Shakspeare should be assigned its true signification.

J.S.W.

Stockwell.

* * * * *

SWORD OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

(Vol. iii., p. 24.)

There can be little doubt that the sword respecting which P. inquires is in
the armoury at Goodrich Court. It was presented by Lord Viscount Gage to
the late Sir Samuel Meyrick, and exhibited by Dr. Meyrick to the Society of
Antiquaries, Nov. 23. 1826. The Doctor's letter is to be found in the
Appendix to the _Archaeologia_ of that date, with an engraving of the sword.
He states that the arms on the pommel are those of Battle Abbey, that its
date is about A.D. 1430, and that it was the symbol of the criminal
jurisdiction of the abbot. At the dissolution of the abbey it fell into the
hands of Sir John Gage, who was one of the commissioners for taking the
surrender of religious houses.

Its entire length is 3 feet 5 inches, and the breadth of the blade at the
guard 2 inches. The Doctor considers it to be "the oldest perfect sword in
England." The arms are a cross, with a crown in the first and last
quarters, and a sword in the second and third. There are also the letters
T.L., the initials of the Abbot, Thomas de Lodelow, who held that office
from 1417 to 1437. This fixes its date in the reign of Henry V., though the
fact of the first William having been the founder of Battle Abbey has given
colour to the tradition of its having been his property.

W.J. BERNHARD SMITH.

Temple.

I much doubt the fact of the Conqueror's sword ever having been in the
possession of the monks of Battle. Nor am I aware of any writer
contemporary with the dissolution of that famous abbey who asserts it.
William's royal robe, adorned with precious gems, and a feretory in the
form of an altar, inclosing 300 relics of the saints, were bequeathed by
him to the monastery; and Rufus transmitted them to Battle, where they were
duly received on the 8th of the calends of November, 1088. This information
is furnished by the _Chronicle of Battel Abbey_, which I have just
translated for the press; but not one word is said of the sword.

Though I have always lived within a few miles of Firle Place, the seat of
the Gages, and though I am tolerably well acquainted with the history and
traditions of that noble family, I never heard of the sword mentioned by P.
Had that relic really been preserved at Battle till the time of Henry
VIII., it is not improbable that it might have come into Sir John Gage's
hands with the manor of Aleiston, of which he was grantee, while his
son-in-law, Sir Anthony Browne, became possessor of the abbey itself.

Will P. have the goodness to mention the source from which he obtained his
statement?

MARK ANTONY LOWER.

Lewes.

In reply to the Query respecting the sword of William the Conqueror (Vol.
iii., p. 24.), I am enabled to inform you that the sword, and also the
coronation robes, of William the Conqueror, were, together with the
original "Roll of Battel," kept in the church or chapel of Battel Abbey
until it was dismantled at the Reformation; when they were transferred to
the part of the abbey which remained, and which became the possession and
habitation of Sir Anthony Browne, Master of the Horse to Henry VIII. These
precious relics continued in the possession of his descendants, who were
created Lords Mountacute; and when Battel Abbey was sold by them to the
ancestor of the present owner, they conveyed them to Cowdray Park, Sussex,
where they remained until they were destroyed in the lamentable fire which
burned down that mansion; and which, by a singular coincidence, took place
on the same day that its owner, the last male representative of the Brownes
Lords Mountacute, was drowned in a rash attempt to descend the falls of
Schaffhausen in a boat.

E.H.Y.

* * * * *

MEANING OF EISELL.

(Vol. ii., pp. 241. 286. 315. 329)

After all that has been written on this subject in "NOTES AND QUERIES,"
from MR. SINGER'S proposition of wormwood in No. 46., to MR. HICKSON'S
approval of it in No. 51., the question remains substantially where
Steevens and Malone had left it so many years agone.

It is not necessary to discuss whether vinegar, verjuice, or wormwood be
the preferable translation of the Shakspearian word; for before either of
them can be received, the advocate is bound to {67} accommodate his
exposition to Shakspeare's sentence, and to "get over the _drink up_,"
which still stands in his way as it did in that of Malone.

MR. SINGER get over the difficulty by simply saying "to _drink up_ was
commonly used for simply to _drink_." The example he quotes, however,--

"I will drink
Potions of eysell,"--

is not to his purpose; it is only an equivalent by the addition of the
words "_potions of_" to give it the same definite character. Omit those
words, and the question remains as before.

MR. HICKSON (Vol. ii., p. 329.) has laid down "a canon of criticism for the
guidance of commentators in questions of this nature," so appropriate and
valuable, that I cannot except to be bound by it in these remarks; and if
in the sequel his own argument (and his friend's proposition to boot) shall
be blown up by his own petard, it will show the instability of the cause he
has espoused.

"Master the _grammatical construction_ of the passage in question (if
from a drama, in it dramatic and scenic application), deducing
therefrom the general sense, before you attempt to amend or fix the
meaning of a doubtful word."

Such is the canon; and Mr. HICKSON proceeds to observe, in language that
must meet the approval of every student of the immortal bard, that--

"Of all writers, none exceed Shakspeare in _logical correctness_ and
nicety of expression. With a vigour of though and command of language
attained by no man besides, it is fair to conclude, that _he would not
be guilty of faults of construction such as would disgrace a
schoolboy's composition_."

With this canon so ably laid down, and these remarks so apposite, MR.
HICKSON, taking up the weak point which Mr. SINGER had slurred over,
observes--

"_Drink up_ is synonymous with _drink off_, _drink to the dregs_. A
child taking medicine is urged to 'drink it up.'"

Ay, exactly so; drink up what? _the_ medicine; again a defined quantity;
dregs and all,--still a _definite_ quantity.

MR. HICKSON proceeds:

"The idea of the passage appears to be that each of the acts should go
beyond the last preceding in extravagance.

'Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisell?'

and then comes the climax--'eat a crocodile?' Here is a regular
succession of feats, the last but one of which is sufficiently wild,
though not unheard of, and leading to the crowning extravagance. The
notion of drinking up a river would be both unmeaning and out of
place."

From this argument two conclusions are the natural consequences: first,
that from _drinking up_ wormwood,--a feat "sufficiently wild but not
unheard of," to eating a crocodile, is only a "regular succession of
events;" and, secondly, that the "crowning extravagance," to eat a
crocodile, is, after all, neither "unmeaning" nor "out of place;" but, on
the contrary, quite in keeping and in orderly succession to a "drink up" of
the bitter infusion.

MR. SINGER (vol. ii., p. 241.) says:

"Numerous passages of our old dramatic writers show that it was a
fashion with the gallants of the time to do some extravagant feat as
proof of their love."

I quite agree with him, if he mean to say that the early dramatists ascribe
to their gallants a fashion which in reality belongs to the age of Du
Gueslin and the Troubadours. But Hamlet himself, in the context of the
passage in question, gives the key to his whole purport, when, after some
further extravagance, he says:

"Nay, an thoul't mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou."

That being so, why are we to conclude that each feat of daring is to be a
tame possibility, save only the last--the crowning extravagance? Why not
also the one preceding? Why not a feat equally of mere verbiage and rant?
Why not a river?

Adopting MR. HICKSON'S canon of criticism, the grammatical construction of
the passage requires that a definite substantive shall be employed to
explain the definite something that is to be done. Shakspeare says--

"Woul't drink up esile?"[9]

--a totality in itself, without the expression of quantity to make it
definite. If we read "drink up wormwood," what does it imply? It may be the
smallest possible quantity,--an ordinary dose of bitters; or a pailful,
which would perhaps meet the "madness" of Hamlet's daring. Thus the little
monosyllable "up" must be disposed of, or a quantity must be expressed to
reconcile MR. SINGER'S proposition with Mr. HICKSON'S canon and the
grammatical sense of Shakspeare's line.

If with Steevens we understand _esile_ to be a river, "the Danish river
_Oesil_, which empties itself into the Baltic," the _Yssel_, _Wessel_, or
any other river, real or fictitious, the sense is clear. Rather let
Shakspeare have committed a geographical blunder on the information of his
day, than break {68} Priscian's head by modern interpretation of his words.
If we read "_drink up esile_" as one should say, "_woul't drink up
Thames?_"--a task as reasonably impossible as setting it on fire
(nevertheless a proverbial expression of a thirsty soul, "He'll drink the
Thames dry"),--the task is quite in keeping with the whole tenor of
Hamlet's extravagant rant.

H.K.S.C.

Brixton.

[Footnote 6: So the folio, according to my copy. It would be advantageous,
perhaps, to note the spelling in the earliest edition of the sonnet whence
MR. SINGER quotes "_potions of eysell_:" a difference, if there be any,
would mark the distinction between Hamlet's river and the Saxon
derivative.]

* * * * *

ALTAR LIGHTS, ETC.

(Vol. ii., p. 495. Vol. iii., p. 30.)

The following passage from the works of a deeply pious and learned Caroline
Divine, which I have never before seen quoted, merits, I think, a place in
"NOTES AND QUERIES:"--

"As our Lord himself, so his Gospel also, is called Light, and was
therefore anciently never read without a burning taper, '_etiam Sole
rutilante_' ('tis Saint Hierome's testimony), though it were lighted in
the sun.... The careful Church, perceiving that God was so much taken
with this outward symbol of the Light, could do no less than go on with
the ceremony. Therefore, the day of Our Lord's nativity was to be
called [Greek: epiphania], or, appearing of the Light; and so many
tapers were to be set up the night before, as might give name to the
vigil, '_Vigilia Luminum_'. And the ancients did well to send lights
one to another, whatsoever some think of the Christmas candle. The
receiving of this Light in Baptism, though called not usually so, but
[Greek: photismos], Illumination, which further to betoken the rites,
were to celebrate this sacrament [Greek: haptomenon panton ton keron],
etc., with all the tapers lighted, etc., as the order in the
Euchologus. The Neophytus, also, or new convert, received a Taper
lighted and delivered by the Mystagogus, which for the space of seven
days after, he was to hold in his hand at Divine service, sitting in
the Baptistery.

"Who perceiveth not that by this right way the Tapers came into the
Church, mysteriously placed with the Gospel upon the altar as an emblem
of the Truer Light?...

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