Produced by Charlene Taylor, Jonathan Ingram, Keith Edkins and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they are indicated by footnotes to the relevant item. * * * * * {1} NOTES AND QUERIES: A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC. "When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE. * * * * * No. 166.] SATURDAY, JANUARY 1. 1853 [Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition 5d. * * * * * CONTENTS. Page Our Seventh Volume 1 NOTES:-- Proclamations of the Society of Antiquaries, and their Value as Historical Evidences, by John Bruce 3 Curiosities of Advertising Literature, by Cuthbert Bede 4 On a Passage in "King Henry VIII.," Act III. Sc. 2., by S. W. Singer 5 Notes on Bacon's Essays, by P. J. F. Gantillon, B.A. 6 Latin Poems in connexion with Waterloo, by Lord Braybrooke 6 Sir Henry Wotton and Milton, by Bolton Corney 7 FOLK LORE:--Unlucky to sell Eggs after Sunset-- Old Song--Nursery Tale--Legend of Change 7 Passage in Hamlet 8 Volcanic Influence on the Weather, by Rev. Wm. S. Hesledon 9 MINOR NOTES:--Value of MSS.--Robert Hill--English Orthography--Bookselling in Glasgow in 1735--Epitaph on a Sexton 9 QUERIES:-- Eustache de Saint Pierre, by Philip S. King 10 Devizes, Origin of: a Question for the Heralds, by J. Waylen 11 MINOR QUERIES:--Gold Signet Ring--Ecclesia Anglicana--Tangiers: English Army in 1684--Smith-- Termination "-itis"--Loak Hen--Etymological Traces of the Social Position of our Ancestors--Locke's Writings-- Passage in Göthe's "Faust"--Schomberg's Epitaph by Swift--The Burial Service said by Heart--Shaw's Staffordshire MSS.--"Ne'er to these chambers," &c.-- County History Societies--Hugh Oldham, Bishop of Exeter--The English Domestic Novel--Dr. Young--Bishop Hall's Meditations--Chatterton--Passage in Job--Turner's View of Lambeth Palace--Clarke's Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning--"The General Pardon" 12 MINOR QUERIES WITH ANSWERS:--Edward the Confessor's Ring--The Bourbons 15 REPLIES:-- Emblems 15 Marriages en Chemise--Mantelkinder--Legitimation, by E. Smirke, &c. 17 Editions of the Prayer-Book prior to 1662, by Archdeacon Cotton 18 Etymology of Pearl, by Sir J. Emerson Tennant, &c. 18 "Martin Drunk," by Dr. E. F. Rimbault 19 Göthe's Reply to Nicolai 19 PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE:--Processes upon Paper--Exhibition of Photography at the Society of Arts 20 REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES:--Quotation in Locke--Pic-nic-- Discovery at Nuneham Regis--Door-head Inscriptions--Cross and Pile--Rhymes upon Places--[Greek: Arnion]--Who was the greatest General?--Beech-trees struck by Lightning-- Passage in Tennyson--Inscriptions in Churches-- Dutensiana--Early Phonography--Kentish Local Names; Dray--Monument at Modstena--Book-plates--"World without end," &c. 23 MISCELLANEOUS:-- Books and Odd Volumes wanted 28 Notices to Correspondents 28 Advertisements 28 * * * * * OUR SEVENTH VOLUME. We might, without any offence against truth or modesty, begin our Seventh Volume by congratulating ourselves and our Readers on the continued success and increasing circulation of our work. As to Truth, our Readers can only judge in part, and must take our word for the rest; but they may see enough in our pages to lead them to do so. Let them but look at the signatures which from time to time appear in our columns, and they will see enough to prove that we have the sanction of a list of names, high in literary reputation, such as it might seem ostentatious to parade in our columns on an occasion like the present. We abstain the more readily, because we have felt it our duty to do the thing so frequently and fully in our prospectuses. And as to Modesty, can there be any want of it in saying that with such--or perhaps we should say by such--contributors we have produced a work which the public has found acceptable? With such contributors, and others whom we should be proud to name with them, if they had given names which we cannot but know, but do not feel authorised to decypher--with such help, what sort of animal must an editor be who could fail to make a work worth reading? In fact, if not our highest praise, it is the plainest proof of the value of our publication, that we have done little or nothing except to give the reader the greatest possible quantity of matter in a legible form, wholly unassisted by graphic ornament or artistic decoration of any kind--without even the attraction of politics, scandal, or polemics. Our pride is that we are useful; and that fact is proved by another to which it has given rise, namely, that we are favoured with many more contributions than we can possibly find room for; and therefore, instead of employing the occasion which offers for a few words with our Readers, by way of introduction to a new Volume, in any protracted remarks on what we have done, we would rather confer with them on the ways and means of doing more. In the first place, let us say explicitly that we do not mean by the most obvious method of increasing the bulk of our publication. It is quite clear that we {2} could print twice as much on twice as many pages; but this is not what we mean. Those who refer to our earliest Numbers will see "how we are grown," and we are perfectly convinced that we are now quite grown up--that our quantity (to change the figure) is quite as much as our company wish to see set on the table at once, and our price quite as agreeable as if it were larger; for to enlarge the work without enlarging the price would be quite out of the question. But, in the course of what we may now call considerable experience, during which we have seen the work grow up into the form which it now wears, we have been led to think, that if our friends will allow us to offer a few suggestions (on which some of them may perhaps improve), we may be able, with the same space and cost, to oblige more Correspondents; and not only by that means, but by rendering our information more select and valuable, increase the gratification of our Readers. Our name suggests the idea of a work consisting of two parts; and, with regard to the first, we can only offer such obvious remarks as, that the more a writer condenses what he has to say, the less room his communication will occupy in print--and the less room he occupies, the more he will leave for others, &c. These are weighty and important truths, but such as we need not insist on. But when we look at the other part, passing under the single name of "QUERIES," it becomes obvious that our work, instead of having, as its title would import, what Sir Thomas Browne calls a "bicapitous conformation," does in fact consist of three parts, which must be ranged under three different heads, and dealt with in three different ways. A little, modest, demure-looking QUERY slips into print, and by the time it has been in print a fortnight, we find that it has a large family of REPLIES, who all come about it, and claim a settlement on the ground of their parentage. Now, it is on this matter that we think some improvement may be made. We would not on any account diminish our number of QUERIES, and would wish even our NOTES to be notes of interrogation as well as information. But between QUERIES and REPLIES, notwithstanding their family connexion, there is an essential difference. In every case the QUERY, in order to its answering the end for which it is proposed, must be public; but in a great many cases the REPLY need not be so. The QUERY may be a very proper and curious one, and interesting in a high degree to the proposer and several other persons, but the REPLY to it may involve details not generally interesting.[1] We shall not be thought to discourage such inquiries (while we consider the opportunity which we afford for making them one of the most valuable features of our work) if we illustrate this by suggesting that A. wishes for genealogical or family history; B. wants to know what the author of such or such a book which he is editing means by such or such a reference; C., who is editing another, wants a collation of this or that edition; D., who is writing a third book, in order to correct and enrich it, wants as many things (and heartily glad should we be to help him to get them) as would occupy half-a-dozen of our Numbers; and so we might go on, were it not quite unnecessary to pursue in detail the illustration of what is so plain. Now it has occurred to us, that if Correspondents who wish to make inquiries, the answers to which would obviously be of no general interest, would, with their Query, enclose a stamped envelope, directed in any way which they may think proper, it would often be in our power not only to transmit to them answers to their inquiries, but to put them in direct communication with those who could give them further information; and who would in many cases communicate with individuals of whose respectability and capacity they were satisfied, more freely than they would through a public channel. We shall be glad to know how far such a plan would be approved of. We must add, that it would enable us to make use of many REPLIES which it is impossible, under present circumstances, to insert; and we believe that many Answerers would not only be as well pleased to learn that their REPLIES had been transmitted to the Querist, but that, with a knowledge that they would be so transmitted, they would write with more freedom and fulness than if they expected the REPLY to be published. One thing only we should bargain for--and, having cut ourselves off from all hope of gain by desiring to have the envelopes directed, we think we have a right to ask it--it is, that if in this correspondence, of which we are the medium, they come to any curious and generally interesting results, they will send them to us, _pro bono publico_. [Footnote 1: A valued Correspondent, who has strongly urged the adoption of the course which we are now recommending to our Readers, thus illustrates his position:-- "It seems to be a very good thing to have a medium of genealogical inquiry; but why should all the world be troubled with the answers to a man who writes,-- 'Sir,--I shall be obliged to anybody who can give me a full account of my family. JOHN SMITH.' "Again, supposing X. Y. wants to borrow some not very common book which one happens to have, I am not going to write (and if I did so write you would not print it), 'If X. Y., as soon as he sees this, will call on the Pump at Aldgate, he will find my copy of the book tied to the spout, if the charity boys have not cribbed it; and he can return it or not, according to his conscience, if he has any."] {3} * * * * * Notes. PROCLAMATIONS OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES, AND THEIR VALUE AS HISTORICAL EVIDENCES. The work that is now going on at the Society of Antiquaries in reference to the collection of royal proclamations in their library, is one in which not merely the Fellows of that Society, but all historical students, are deeply interested. The Society possesses one of the three known largest collections of these public documents. They were formerly bound up in volumes of several different sizes, intermixed with a variety of fugitive publications, such as ballads and broadsides, which formed altogether a very incongruous collection. A short time since it was found that the binding of many of the volumes was very much worn, and that some of the documents themselves had been considerably torn and damaged. Under these circumstances, Mr. Lemon, of the State Paper Office, offered his services to the Council to superintend an entire new arrangement, mounting, binding, and calendaring, of the whole series of proclamations. His offer was of course gratefully accepted, and the work is now in active progress. The collection is certainly the most important that is known, and is especially so in the reign of Elizabeth; in reference to which there is no collection at all approaching to it, either in completeness or value. Still there are many proclamations wanting: several of the Fellows of the Society have come forward most liberally to fill up gaps. MR. PAYNE COLLIER led the way in a contribution of great value; MR. SALT followed MR. COLLIER with a munificent donation of a whole collection relating to Charles II. and James II.; and upon Mr. Lemon's suggestion, and with the joint concurrence of Mr. Secretary Walpole and the Keeper of the State Paper Office, an interchange of duplicates has been effected between that office and the Society of Antiquaries, which has added forty proclamations to the Society's collection. My principal reason for addressing you upon this subject is to ask you to suggest to your readers that a similar interchange of duplicates might be effected between the Society and any persons who chance to have duplicate proclamations in their possession. It is of the very highest literary and historical importance that we should get together, in some accessible place, a collection of proclamations, which if not actually complete (a consummation hardly to be expected), shall yet approach to completeness. The collection at Somerset House offers the best opportunity for forming such a collection. It is by far the most nearly complete in existence, and is strong in that particular part of the series in which other collections are most defective, and in which missing proclamations are the most difficult to be supplied. At the Society of Antiquaries the collection will be accessible to all literary inquirers, and no doubt the Society will publish a proper catalogue, which is already in preparation by Mr. Lemon. It is obvious that any person who chooses to contribute such stray proclamations, or copies of proclamations, as he may chance to have in his possession, will be helping forward a really good work, and the possessor of duplicates may not only do the same, but may benefit his own collection by an interchange. The value of proclamations as historical authorities, and especially as authorities for the history of manners, and of our national progress, is indisputable. As I write, I have before me the _Booke of Proclamations_ of James I. from 1603 to 1609; and the page lying open affords a striking illustration of what I assert. It gives us A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF OUR POST-OFFICE. Immediately on the accession of James I., the high north road from London to Edinburgh was thronged with multitudes of pilgrims hastening to the worship of the newly risen sun. Robert Carey became, in the words of Cowper's enigma, "the parent of numbers that cannot be told." Scotland has never poured into the south more active or more anxious suppliants than then traversed the northward road through Berwick. All ordinary accommodation soon fell short of the demand. Messengers riding post from the council to the king were stayed on the road for want of the ordinary supply of post-horses, all which were taken up by lords and gentry--rushing northward in the fury of their new-born loyalty. As a remedy for these inconveniences, the lords of the council issued a proclamation, calling upon all magistrates to aid the postmasters "in this time so full of business," by seeing that they are supplied with "fresh and able horses as necessitie shall require." Of course the supply was merely of horses. Travellers could not in those days obtain carriages of any kind. The horses were directed to be "able and sufficient horses, and well furnished of saddles, bridles, girts and stirropes, with good guides to looke to them; who for their said horses shall demand and receive of such as shall ride on them, the prices accustomed." The new state of things became permanent. London, after James's removal from Edinburgh, being really the seat of government for the whole island, the intercourse both ways was continuous, and further general orders for its management were published by proclamation. There were at that time, on all the high roads through the country, two sorts of posts:--1. Special messengers or couriers who rode "thorough post," that is, themselves rode through the whole distance, "with horn and guide." Such persons carried with them an authentication of their employment in the {4} public service. In 1603, they were charged "two-pence halfe-peny the mile" (raised in 1609 to threepence) for the hire of each horse, "besides the guide's groats." The hire was to be paid beforehand. They were not to ride the horses more than one stage, except with the consent of "the post of the stage" at which they did not change. Nor were they to charge the horse "with any male or burden (besides his rider) that exceedeth the weight of thirtye pounds." Nor to ride more than seven miles an hour in summer or six in winter. 2. The other sort of post was what was termed the "post for the packet." For this service every postmaster was bound to keep horses ready; and on receipt of a "packet" or parcel containing letters, he was to send it on towards the next stage within a quarter of an hour after its arrival, entering the transaction in "a large and faire ledger paper book." Two horses were to be kept constantly ready for this service, "with furniture convenient," and messengers "at hand in areadinesse." The postmaster was also to have ready "two bags of leather, at the least, well lined with bayes or cotton, to carry the packet in." He was also to have ready "hornes to sound and blow, as oft as the post meets company, or foure times in every mile." The "post for the packet" was at first used only for the carriage of despatches for the government or for ambassadors, but a similar mode of conveyance soon began to be taken advantage of by merchants and private persons. Difficulty in obtaining posts and horses for the conveyance of private packets, led to the interference of "certain persons called hackney-men, tapsters, hostlers, and others, in hiring out their horses, to the hinderance of publique service, danger to our state, and wrong to our standing and settled postes in their several stages." The government of James I. thought, in its blindness, that it could put a stop to the dangerous practice of transmitting unofficial letters, by rendering it penal for private persons to carry them; that of Charles I., wiser, in this respect, in its generation, settled a scheme for their general conveyance through the medium of "a letter office." But the "post for the packet," with his leathern bag and his twanging horn (the origin, of course, of our mail-coach horn), continued down to a late period, and probably still lingers in some parts of the kingdom. Cowper, it will be remembered, describes him admirably. JOHN BRUCE. * * * * * CURIOSITIES OF ADVERTISING LITERATURE. We are all well acquainted with the ingenious artifices by which modern advertisers thrust their wares upon the attention of newspaper readers. We may, perhaps, have been betrayed into the expression of come rude Saxon expletive, when, in the columns devoted to news and general information, we have in our innocence been tempted with a paragraph that commenced with "a clever saying of the illustrious Voltaire's," and dovetailed into a panegyric of Messrs. Aaron and Son's Reversible Paletots; or we may have applauded the clever logician who so clearly demonstrates, that as Napoleon's bilious affection frequently clouded his judgment in times of greatest need, the events of the present century, and the fate of nations, would have been reversed, had that great man only been persuaded to take two boxes of Snooks's Aperient Pill, price 1s. 1½d., with the Government stamp on a red ground (see Advt.). All these things we know very well; but, of the fugitive literature that does not find a place in the advertising columns of _The Times_, but flashes into Fame only in the pages of some local oracle, or in some obscurer broad-sheet, how often must it remain unappreciated, and doomed to "waste its sweetness on the desert air." That this may not be said of the following burst of advertising eloquence, I trust it may be found worthy a niche in the temple of "N. & Q." In its composition the author was probably inspired by the grand scenery of the Cheviots, in a village near to which his shop was situate. It was one of those "generally-useful" shops where the grocer and draper held equal reign, and anything could be got, from silks and satins to butter and Bath bricks. The composition was printed and distributed among the neighbouring families; but shortly after, when the author heard that it had not produced the exact effect he had wished, he, with the irritability that often accompanies genius, resolved to get back and destroy every copy of his production, and deny to the world that which it could not appreciate. Fortunately for the world's welfare, I preserved a copy of his hand-bill, of which this, in its turn, is a faithful transcript: "_To the Inhabitants of G. and its neighbourhood._ "The present age is teeming with advantages which no preceding Era in the history of mankind has afforded to the human family. New schemes are projecting to enlighten and extend civilisation, Railways have been projected and carried out by an enterprising and spirited nation, while Science in its gigantic power (simple yet sublime) affords to the humane mind so many facilities to explore its rich resources, the Seasons roll on in their usual course producing light and heat, the vivifying rays of the Sun, and the fructifying influences of nature producing food and happiness to the Sons of Toil; while to the people of G. and its neighbourhood a rich and extensive variety of Fashionable Goods is to be found in my Warehouse, which have just been selected with the greatest care. The earliest visit is requested to convey to the mind an adequate idea of the great extent of his purchases, comprising as it does all that is elegant and useful, cheap and substantial, to the light-hearted votaries of Matrimony, the Matrons of Reflection, the Man of Industry, and the disconsolate Victims of Bereavement. J-- M--." {5} The peroration certainly exhibits what Mrs. Malaprop calls "a nice derangement of epitaphs:" and, us for the rest, surely "the force of" bathos "could no further go." CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A. * * * * * ON A PASSAGE IN "KING HENRY VIII.," ACT III. SC. 2. One of the most desperately unintelligible passages in Shakspeare occurs in this play, in the scene between the King and the Cardinal, when the latter professes his devoted attachment to his service. It stands thus in the first folio: _Car._ "I do professe That for your Highnesse good, I euer labour'd More then mine owne: that am, haue, and will be (Though all the world should cracke their duty to you, And throw it from their Soule, though perils did Abound, as thicke as thought could make 'em, and Appeare in formes more horrid) yet my Duty, As doth a Rocke against the chiding Flood, Should the approach of this wilde Riuer breake, And stand vnshaken yours." Upon this Mason observes: "I can find no meaning in these words (that am, have, and will be), or see how they are connected with the rest of the sentence; and should therefore strike them out." Malone says: "I suppose the meaning is, '_that_ or _such a man_, I am, have _been_, and will _ever_ be.' Our author has many hard and forced expressions in his plays; but many of the hardnesses in the piece before us appear to me of a different colour from those of Shakspeare. Perhaps however, a line following has been lost; for in the old copy there is no stop at the end of this line; and, indeed, I have some doubt whether a comma ought not to be placed at it, rather than a fullpoint." Mr. Knight, however, places a fullpoint at _will be_, and says: "There is certainly some corruption in this passage; for no ellipsis can have taken this very obscure form. Z. Jackson suggests 'that _aim has_ and will be.' This is very harsh. We might read 'That _aim_ I have and will,' _will_ being a noun." Mr. Collier has the following note: "In this place we can do no more than reprint exactly the old text, with the old punctuation; as if Wolsey, following 'that am, have, and will be' by a long parenthesis, had forgotten how he commenced his sentence. Something may have been lost, which would have completed the meaning and the instances have not been infrequent where lines, necessary to the sense, have been recovered from the quarto impressions. Here we have no quarto impressions to resort to, and the later folios afford us no assistance, as they reprint the passage as it stands in the folio 1628, excepting that the two latest end the parenthesis at 'break.'" I cannot think that the poet would have put a short speech into Wolsey's mouth, making him forget how he commenced it! Nor do I believe that anything has been lost, except the slender letter _I_ preceding _am_. The printer or transcriber made the easy mistake of taking the word _true_ for _haue_, which as written of old would readily occur, and having thus confused the passage, had recourse to the unconscionable long mark of a parenthesis. The passage undoubtedly should stand thus: _Car._ "I do profess That for your highness' good I ever labour'd More than mine own; that _I_ am _true_, and will be Though all the world should _lack_ their duty to you, And throw it from their soul: though perils did Abound, as thick as thought could make them, and Appear in forms more horrid; yet my duty (As doth a rock against the chiding flood,) Should the approach of this wild river break, And stand unshaken yours." Here all is congruous and clear. This slight correction of a palpable printer's error redeems a fine passage hitherto entirely unintelligible. I do not insist upon the correction in the fourth line of _lack_ for _crack_, yet what can be meant by _cracking a duty_? The duke, in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, speaks of his daughter as "_lacking_ duty;" and seeing how very negligently the whole passage has been given in the folio, I think there is good ground for its reception. With regard to the correction in the second line, I feel confident, and doubt not that it will have the approbation of all who, like myself, feel assured that most of the difficulties in the text of our great poet are attributable to careless printer or transcriber. When I proposed (Vol. vi., p. 468.) to read "_rail_ at once," instead of "_all_ at once," in _As You Like It_, Act III. Sc. 5., I thought the conjecture my own, having then only access to the editions of Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight; I consequently said, "It is somewhat singular that the passage should hitherto have passed unquestioned." My surprise was therefore great, on turning to the passage in the _Variorum Shakspeare_, to find the following note by Warburton, which had escaped my notice: "If the speaker intended to accuse the person spoken to only for _insulting_ and exulting, then, instead of '_all_ at once,' it ought to have been _both_ at once. But, examining the crime of the person accused, we shall discover that the line is to be read thus: 'That you insult, exult, and _rail_ at once,' for these three things Phoebe was guilty of. But the Oxford editor improves it, and, for _rail_ at once, reads _domineer_." I have no recollection of having ever read the note before, and certainly was not conscious of it. The coincidence, therefore, may be considered (as Mr. Collier observed in respect to the reading of _palpable_ for _capable_) as much in favour of this conjecture. {6} That the most careful printers can _misread_, and consequently _misprint_, copy, is evident from the following error in my last Note:--Vol. vi., p. 584., col. 1, for "in the edition which I gave of the _part_," read "_poet_." This mistake, like most of those I have indicated in the first folio Shakspeare, might easily occur if the word was indistinctly written. S. W. SINGER. Mickleham. * * * * * NOTES ON BACON'S ESSAYS. As I find that the editor of _Bacon's Essays_ for Bohn's _Standard Library_ has not verified the quotations, I venture to send you a few "N. & Q." on them, which I hope to continue from time to time, if they prove acceptable. In compliance with the recommendation of MR. SYDNEY SMIRKE and the REV. H. T. ELLACOMBE (Vol. vi., p. 558.), I append my name and address. N.B. The paging and notes of Bohn's edition are followed throughout. Preface, p. xiii. note *. "Speech on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings." See Burke's _Works_, vol. viii. p. 15. [ed. 1827.] Speech on the first day of reply. Ditto, p. xv. Letter to Father Fulgentio. See Montagu's _Bacon_, vol. xi. pref., p. vii.; vol. xii. p. 205. Ditto, ditto. _Spenser's Faery Queene, &c._ See preface to Moxon's _Spenser_ (1850), p. xxix., where this story is refuted, and Montagu, xvi., note _x_. Ditto, p. xvi. "It was like another man's fair ground," &c. See Montagu, xvi. p. xxvii. Ditto, ditto. "I shall die," &c. Ditto, xxxiv. and note _ww_. Ditto, p. xvii. note +. Dugald Stewart. Supplement to _Encycl. Brit._, vol. i. p. 54. [ed. 1824.] Ditto, ditto. H_a_tton, not H_u_tton, as in _Eliza Cook's Journal_, vi. 235. Ditto, ditto. Love an ignoble passion. Essay x. _ad init._ Ditto, p. xviii. "Says Macaulay." Review of B. Montagu's _Bacon Essays_, p. 355. [ed. 1851.] Ditto, ditto. A pamphlet. Montagu, vi. 299. Ditto, p. xix. "A place in the Canticles." Cap. ii. 1. Bacon quotes, from memory it would appear, from the Vulgate, which has "Ego flos campi." By whom is the observation? See, for the story, Montagu, xvi. p. xcviii. Ditto, ditto. "Books were announced." What? Ditto, p. xx. "Cæsar's compliment to Cicero." Where recorded? Ditto, p. xxi. "The manufacture of particular articles of trade." Montagu, xvi. 306. Ditto, p. xxii. "Says Macaulay." _Ut supra_, p. 407. Ditto, ditto. Ben Jonson. See Underwood's, lxix. lxxviii. [pp. 711, 713. ed. Moxon, 1851.] Ditto, p. xxv. Marcus Lucius. Who is here alluded to? Ditto, p. xxvii. "Which strangely parodies." The opening alluded to is "Franciscus de Verulam sic cogitavit." Ditto, p. xxviii. "One solitary line." Where is this to be found? Ditto, ditto. "Ben Jonson after sketching." See _Discoveries_, p. 749. _ut sup._ Ditto, p. xxix. "Might have censured with Hume." Where? Ditto, ditto. "Hobbes." Where does he praise Bacon? Ditto, ditto. "Bayle." In Bayle's _Dictionary_ [English edition, 1710], _s. v._, we find but fourteen lines on Bacon. Ditto, ditto. "Tacitus." _Vit. Agric._, cap. 44. Ditto, p. xxxiii. note. Solomon's House. See p. 296. _seqq._ of the vol. of the _Standard Library_. Ditto, p. xxxiv. note. Paterculus, i. 17. 6. [Burmann.] (_To be continued._) P. J. F. GANTILLON, B.A. 26. Hill's Road, Cambridge. * * * * * LATIN POEMS IN CONNEXION WITH WATERLOO. I send you two copies of Latin verses which have not, to my knowledge, appeared in print. They are however interesting, from the coincidence of their both relating to _elm-trees_, and in some measure belonging to the "Story of Waterloo," about which we never can hear too much. The lines themselves possess considerable merit; and, as their authors were respectively distinguished alumni of Eton and Winchester, I hope to see both compositions placed in juxtaposition in the columns of "N. & Q." The first of these productions was written by Marquis Wellesley, as an inscription for a chair carved from the _Wellington Elm_ (which stood near the centre of the British lines on the field of Waterloo), and presented to his Majesty King George IV., to whom the lines were addressed: Ampla inter spolia, et magni decora alta triumphi, _Ulmus_ erit fastis commemoranda tuis, Quam super exoriens faustâ tibi gloria pennâ Palmam oleamque uno detulit alma die; Immortale decus maneat, famâque perenni Felicique geras sceptra paterna manu; Et tua victrices dum cingunt tempora lauri, Materies solio digna sit ista tuo. For the other verses subjoined, we are indebted to the late Rev. William Crowe, Fellow of New College, Oxford, and many years public orator in that university. It seems that he had planted _an elm_ at his parsonage, on the birth of his son, afterwards killed at Waterloo, which sad event was {7} commemorated by his afflicted father in the following touching monody, _affixed to the same tree_: _Hanc_ Ego quam felix annis melioribus _Ulmum_ Ipse manu sevi, tibi dilectissime Fili Consecro in æternum, Gulielme vocabitur Arbos Hæc tua, servabitque tuum per secula nomen. Te generose Puer nil muneris hujus egentem Te jam perfunctum vitæ bellique labore, Adscripsit Deus, et coelestibus intulit oris, Me tamen afflictum, me consolabitur ægrum Hoc tibi quod pono, quanquam leve pignus amoris, Hic Ego de vitâ meditans, de sorte futurâ, Sæpe tuam recolam formam, dulcemque loquelam, Verbaque tam puro et sacrato fonte profecta, Quam festiva quidem, et facili condita lepore. At Te, qui nostris quicunque accesseris hospes Sedibus, unum oro, moesti reverere Parentis, Nec tu sperne preces quas hâc super Arbore fundo. Sit tibi non invisa, sit inviolata securi, Et quantum natura sinet, crescat monumentum Egregii Juvenis, qui sævo est Marte peremptus, Fortiter ob patriam pugnando, sic tibi constans Stet fortuna domûs, sit nulli obnoxia damno, Nec videas unquam dilecti funera nati. BRAYBROOKE. * * * * * SIR HENRY WOTTON AND MILTON. The letter which sir Henry Wotton addressed to Milton, on receiving the _Maske presented at Ludlow-castle_, appears to admit of an interpretation which has escaped the numerous editors of the works of Milton; and I resolve to put this novel conjecture on its trial in the critical court of facts and inferences held at No. 186. Fleet Street. Sir Henry Wotton thus expresses himself on the circumstance which I conceive to have been misinterpreted: "For the work itself [a dainty piece of entertainment, by Milton] I had viewed some good while before with singular delight, having received it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very close of the late R.'s _Poems_, printed at Oxford; whereunto [it] is added (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and to leave the reader _con la bocca dolce_."--_Reliquiæ Wottonianæ_, 1672. In the poems of Milton, as edited by himself in 1645, the date of this letter is "13th April, 1638;" and as the _Poems_ of "Thomas Randolph, master of arts, and late fellow of Trinity colledge in Cambridge," were printed at Oxford in that year, in small quarto, it may be assumed that the gift of _Mr. R._ was a copy of that volume, with the addition of the _Maske_, as printed in the same size in 1637. Such was the conclusion of Warton, and such is mine. The question at issue is, Who was _Mr. R._? Warton says, "I believe _Mr. R._ to be John Rouse," the keeper of the Bodleian library. Is it not more probable that _Mr. R._ means Robert Randolph, master of arts, and student of Christchurch--a younger brother of Thomas Randolph, and the editor of his poems? I must first dispose of the assertion that the friendship between Rouse and Milton "appears to have subsisted in 1637." There is no evidence of their friendship till 1647; and that evidence is the ode to Rouse, to which this address is prefixed: "Jan. 23. 1646. Ad Joannem Rousium, Oxoniensis academiæ bibliothecarium. De libro poematum amisso, _quem ille sibi denuo mitti postulabat_, ut cum aliis nostris in bibliotheca publica reponeret, ode." It seems that Milton did not send the volume of 1645 till a copy of it had been requested; no evidence, certainly, of old friendship! I admit the probability that Wotton and Rouse were friends; but why should Rouse _officiously stitch up_, as Warton expresses it, the _Mask_ of Milton with the _Poems_ of Thomas Randolph, and present the volume to Wotton? Did he give away that which is still wanting in the Bodleian library? Admit my novel conjecture, and all the difficulties vanish. Thomas Randolph, says Phillips, was "one of the most pregnant young wits of his time;" and Robert, who was also noted as a poet, could scarcely fail to offer the poems of his brother to so eminent a person as sir Henry Wotton. As sir Henry _yearly went to Oxford_, he may have made acquaintance with Robert; and Robert may have been introduced to Milton by Thomas, who was for eight years his cotemporary at Cambridge, and in the enjoyment of much more celebrity. The _Maske_ may have been added as an experiment in criticism. The rev. Thomas Warton was a man of extensive reading, an excellent critic, and a fascinating writer--but too often inattentive to accuracy of statement. He says that Randolph _died_ the 17th March, 1634: Wood says he was _buried_ the 17th March, 1634. He says it is so stated on his monument: the monument has no date. He says the _Poems_ of Randolph contain 114 pages: the volume contains 368 pages! He says the _Maske_ is a slight quarto of 30 pages only; it contains 40 pages! Is it not fit that such carelessness should be exposed? BOLTON CORNEY. * * * * * FOLK LORE. _Unlucky to sell eggs after Sunset._--The following paragraph is extracted from the _Stamford Mercury_ of October 29, 1852: "There exists a species of superstition in north Nottinghamshire against letting eggs go out of a house after sunset. The other day a person in want of some eggs called at a farm-house in East Markham, and inquired of the good woman of the house whether she had any eggs to sell, to which she replied that she had a few scores to dispose of. 'Then I'll take them home {8} with me in the cart,' was his answer; to which she somewhat indignantly replied, 'That you'll not; don't you know the sun has gone down? You are welcome to the eggs at a proper hour of the day; but I would not let them go out of the house after the sun is set on any consideration whatever!'" DRAUFIELD. _Old Song._-- My father gave me an acre of land, Sing ivy, sing ivy. My father gave me an acre of land, Sing green bush, holly, and ivy. I plough'd it with a ram's horn, Sing ivy, &c. I harrow'd it with a bramble, Sing ivy, &c. I sow'd it with a peppercorn, Sing ivy, &c. I reap'd it with my penknife, Sing ivy, &c. I carried it to the mill upon the cat's back, Sing ivy, &c. Then follows some more which I forget, but I think it ends thus: I made a cake for all the king's men, Sing ivy, sing ivy. I made a cake for all the king's men, Sing green bush, holly, and ivy. D. _Nursery Tale._-- I saddled my sow with a sieve full of buttermilk, put my foot into the stirrup, and leaped nine miles beyond the moon into the land of temperance, where there was nothing but hammers and hatchets and candlesticks, and there lay bleeding Old Noles. I let him lie, and sent for Old Hippernoles, and asked him if he could grind green steel nine times finer than wheat flour. He said he could not. Gregory's wife was up in the pear-tree gathering nine corns of buttered peas to pay Saint James' rent. Saint James was in the meadow mowing oat cakes; he heard a noise, hung his scythe at his heels, stumbled at the battledore, tumbled over the barn-door ridge, and broke his shins against a bag of moonshine that stood behind the stairsfoot door, and if that isn't true you know as well as I. D. _Legend of Change._--In one of the Magazines for November, a legend, stated to be of oriental origin, is given, in which an immortal, visiting at distant intervals the same spot, finds it occupied by a city, an ocean, a forest, and a city again: the mortals whom he found there, on each occasion, believing that the present state had existed for ever. I have seen in the newspapers, at different times, a poem (or I rather think two poems) founded on this legend; and I should like to know the author or authors, and whether it, or either of them, is to be found in any collection of poems. D. X. * * * * * PASSAGE IN HAMLET. "Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhousell'd, disappointed, unaneld'd." _Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 5. Boucher, in his _Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words_ (art. ANYEAL), has a note on this passage which seems to me to give so much better an idea of the word _disappointed_ than any I have met with, that I am induced to send it you as a Note:-- "The last two words have occasioned considerable difficulty to the critics. The old copies, it is said, concur in giving _disappointed_, which Dr. Johnson is willing to understand as meaning _unprepared_; a sense that might very well suit the context, but will not be easily confirmed by any other instance of the use of the word _disappointed_. Dissatisfied, therefore, with this interpretation, some have read _unanointed_, and some _unappointed_. Not approving of either of these words, as connected with _unanealed_, Pope, no timid corrector of texts, reads _unaneld_, which he supposes to signify _unknelled_, or the having no knell rung. To these emendations and interpretations Mr. Theobald, whose merit as a commentator of Shakspeare Mr. Pope, with all his wit and all his poetry, could not bring into dispute, urged many strong objections. Skinner rightly explains _anealed_ as meaning _unctus_; from the Teutonic preposition _an_, and _ele_, oil. As correction of the second word is admitted by all the commentators to be necessary, it is suggested that a clear and consistent meaning, consonant with Shakspeare's manner, will be given to the passage, if, instead of _disappointed_, _unassoiled_, which signifies 'without absolution,' be substituted. "The line-- 'Unhousell'd, unassoil'd, unaneal'd,' will then signify 'without receiving the sacrament: without confession and absolution: and without extreme unction.' "The _unassoiled_ was no less proper, will appear from due attention to the word _assoile_, which of course is derived from _absolvo_; and the transition from _absolve_ into _assoyle_ is demonstrated in the following passage from Piers Plowman, Vision, p. 3.: 'There preached a pardoner, as he a priest were, Brought forth a bul, with many a bishop's seales, And saide, that himself might absoyle hem alle, Of falshode, of fasting, and of vowes broken.' As a further confirmation of the propriety of substituting a word signifying _absolution_, which pre-supposes confession, the following sentence from _Prince Arthur_ may be adduced: 'She was confessed and houselled, and then she died,' part ii. p. 108. "It must be allowed that no instance can be given of the word _unassoiled_: but neither does any other instance occur to me of the word _unhouseled_ except the line in _Hamlet_." B. J. S. * * * * * {9} VOLCANIC INFLUENCE ON THE WEATHER. The recent observations of your correspondent MR. NOAKE (Vol. vi., p. 531.) on the superstitions of the people of Worcestershire regarding the weather, have called my attention to the present extraordinary wet season, on which subject I have been asked many questions. Although I do not account myself any more weatherwise than my neighbours, yet I may note that, for many years past, I have remarked that whenever we have had any very serious volcanic disturbance in the Mediterranean or its neighbourhood, or at Mount Hecla, we have always had some corresponding atmospheric agitation in this country, either in excessive heat or moisture, or both, and accompanied with very perceptible vibrations, at times so strong as to answer the name of earthquakes; and these vibrating so generally in the direction from north-west to south-east, I have been convinced that underneath us there is a regular steam passage from Mount Hecla in Iceland to Mount Vesuvius in Italy. I have unfortunately mislaid my memoranda on this subject, and have no regular roster of these occasional visitations to refer to, but I think my attention to this effect was first impressed on me by the season which followed the destruction at Lisbon in 1796. I recollect a friend of mine, the late Mr. Empson, of Bouley, while attending some drainage improvements in his carrs within the Level of Ancholme, was aroused by an extraordinary noise, which he thought was occasioned by some "drunken fools," as he called them, racing with their waggons upon the turnpike road above the hill, which was two miles off from where he then was in the carrs. His uphill shepherd, however, told him, when he got home, that there had been no such occurrence as he supposed on the turnpike, as, had such been the case, he must have heard and seen it. The next day, however, added fresh information, and better observers discovered that the noise heard across the carrs was underground; and further intelligence confirmed the suspicion that it was occasioned by a species of earthquake that had been felt at different places with different intensities, through Yorkshire and Lancashire, and amongst the islands west of Scotland; and afterwards came the same kind of intelligence across France, confirming me in my conclusions before noted. And ever since this period of 1796 we have never had any extraordinary alternation of extreme heat or wet, without its being to me the result of some accompanying volcanic agitation in Mount Hecla, or Mount Vesuvius or its neighbourhood; and the recurrence of the violent ebullition that has this year being going on at Mount Etna may therefore be considered as the electric cause not only of the extraordinary heat of our late summer, but also of the floods that have subsequently poured down upon us. It is only of late years that scientific men have paid due attention to these physical phenomena. Sir Humphrey Davy, I think, was the first who laid down their causes; and if we recollect the account given by Sir Stamford Raffles of the appalling effects of the tremendous explosion of Tombora, in Sambowa, one of the islands east of Java, in the year 1815, described as so violent in its immediate neighbourhood as to cause men, and horses, and trees to be taken up into the air like chaff; and of its effects being perceptible in Sumatra, where, nearly at a thousand miles distance from it, they heard its thundering noisy explosions,--thinking of this, we may well accede the comparatively small vibrations that we occasionally feel, as arising from the interchange of civilities passing between our volcanic neighbours Hecla and Vesuvius, or Etna; and glad we may be that we have them in no more inconvenient shape or degree than we have hitherto experienced them. I have some friends in Lancashire who have been a good deal alarmed by the vibrations they have lately experienced; and I must confess that my good wife and myself were, on the morning of the 10th Dec., not a little startled in our bed by a shock that aroused us early to inquire after the cause of it, but for which we cannot account otherwise than that, from its sudden electric character, the Lancashire vibration had reached us. The chief purport, however, of my present communication is, to make inquiry amongst your readers, whether any of them, like myself, have observed and experienced any recurrence of these concomitant and physical obtrusions. WM. S. HESLEDON. Barton upon Humber. * * * * * Minor Notes. _Value of MSS._--In the cause of Calvert _v._ Sebright, a question arose as to the sale of a collection of manuscript books by the late Sir John Sebright in the year 1807. In aid of the inquiry before the Master, as to the difference in value of the manuscripts in 1807 and the year 1849, Mr. Rodd made an affidavit, from which I have made the following extract, showing the prices at which five lots were sold in 1807, and the prices at which the same lots were sold at the late Mr. Heber's sale in 1836: "No. in Catalogue, 1185. Bracton de (Hen.) Consuetudinibus et Legibus Anglicæ. (In pergamena) literis deauratis. Sold in 1807 for 1l. 13s.: produced at Heber's sale, 1836, 6l. 6s. "Lot 1190. Gul.
{'title': 'Notes and Queries, Number 166, January 1, 1853 by Various', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}