LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 9, 1898. CONTENTS. - No. 28. NOTES:-The Student of St. Bees,' 21-Dantelana, 23Historical English Dictionary'-Ross and Rose-Crucifixion in Yorkshire, 25-Hocktide Customs-Lochwinnoch -"Tit-tat-to"-Caxon: Caxin, 26. Of our great mother cool his sweating brow One day in seven-if the streamlet's flow Lave his worn limbs between its branched banks On God's great day, to God let him give thanks! But had he caught the perfect glory-flame That halos round Dame Nature, were he tame To drive the spinning rings, a watchful slave Of wood and rope and iron, to his grave? QUERIES:-" Horse-Marine"-" Bally," 26-" The drenching of a swan"-Thackeray's Latin-Titles of Pictures To barter that mist-curtain, fold on fold Wanted-The Lieutenancy of Montgomeryshire-"Jack-Up the hill-side majestically roll'd up-the-Orchard"-Chinese Punishments- Quotation in From wooded base to crown, for hissing steam? Emerson-C. Tennyson d'Eyncourt-Eōthen-Tributary The fire that floods the crags, for the pale gleam Poems to Gladstone - The Duke of York's Campaign in From out the furnace-grate? Flanders, 27- Rubens and Raphael-Vincent MeggsColin Tampon-Rev. W. Daunton-Sheridan and Dundas -"Flam" 28-Vanity Fair-Nationality-Dr. G. Lloyd **Jeremiad," 29. NOTES ON BOOKS :-' Dictionary of National Biography' Notes. 'THE STUDENT OF ST. BEES.' Set thoughts like these In judgment on the Student of St. Bees. REPLIES:-Era in Monkish Chronology, 29-Books pub- A disregarded unit in the sum lished early in the Century-St. Thomas à Becket, 31-Of gross humanity, amidst the hum "Harrow"-"Horse-sense"-" Hop-picker," 32-James I. Of the hiv'd city an unheeded voice, and the Preachers-Table de Communion"-Weight of Condemn'd to murky dungeons without choice, Books-Scott on Grimm's Popular Stories-Boswell's With Tare and Tret for jailors to the end, Johnson, 33-Bibliography of the Rye House Plot- Him some proud devil prick'd their hearts to send "Fond"-Cope and Mitre, 34- Hands without Hair Cornwall or England? - Burns and Coleridge Alonzo In a long desert life, a painless place To college; oft, alas! the one green space the Brave'-"Minister of the Word of God -Three Impossible Things-Oldest Parish Register-Autographs, Whose memory years of pain cannot efface; 35 "Nice fellows"-" Cross" vice "Kris," 36-Goethe's A spring-time that can never lose its leaf; Mason-Lodge'-Miserere Carvings-"A chalk on the A summer-noon that knows nor sunset's grief, door," 37-Hongkong: Kiao-Chou, 38. Nor morning's restless hope, content to dwell For aye within that light it loves so well; Ah, cruelty to build the prison gate So fair when all within is desolate! Ah, freedom, falsely free! as some poor bird, Forgetful of its tether, when is heard The far-off sorrow of its mother's song, With joyful heart and memories that throng With pleasant woods and waters, forward springs A little space to-feel its fetter'd wings; So Youth, too often, some short years is free, And takes all life for love and liberty; Is suffer'd to dream sweetly ere he wakes On manhood's threshold, and the morning breaks But gloomily, and the dark day wears on So cold and strange he would that it were done, Those dreams, nor think upon them without pain. And never falls the time to dream again Alas, for the poor student of St. Bees! Enamour'd at first sight with brooks and trees And silver murmur of the moonlit seas; By so much space as makes the meeting sweet' Divorced from scenes the fairest eye can meet, To a true lover; mountain tops as nigh To the pure dwellers in the tender sky As unto us, who spiritually seem Thereat partakers of their bliss supreme; Fair lakes, meet rivals of the blessed land Beyond the sun; and vales whereon the hand Of the Creator might have paused to dwell On that He saw so good and made so well; Leisure for these fair sights, that fitly used More fruitful is than study, but abused, Most hateful sloth; for who indifferent-eyed, And with pall'd senses, not as to a bride Approaches Nature, but to spend an hour In dalliance with his new-found paramour, Sets careless foot upon the crystal source Whence he would drink, and fouls the water course As well might he expect the poet's soul To break on his, who gives his scanty dole Of off and on observance to the page When lighter joys are lacking to engage His roving heart; as well might he who pays Obsequious deference to Sabbath days THE late Mr. James Payn, who attained distinction as a novelist and humourist, made his early bid for fame as a poet. In the volume of 'Poems' which appeared in 1853 he has a metrical narrative of an incident of which he had read the record in the American edition of De Quincey's works. The story of 'The Student of St. Bees' is a very striking one, and is thus told by Mr. Payn in pp. 149-55 of his now rare 'Poems' (Cambridge, Macmillan & Co., 1853, 8vo. pp. 192): THE STUDENT OF ST. BEES. He knows not grief, the grief that sheds no tear, Without their spirit, keeps religion here rives Its icy fetters-custom, creedless form, next door We never knew this famous man before." mark The epochs of all time; ah, cold and dark end. In fact, it was just at hand; and he was sternly required to take a long farewell of the poets and geometricians, for whose sublime contemplations he hungered and thirsted. One week was to have transferred him to some huxtering concern, which not in any spirit of pride he ever affected to despise, but which in utter alienation of heart he loathed; as one whom nature, and his own diligent cultivation of the opportunities recently opened to him for a brief season, had dedicated to a far different service. He mused-revolved his situation in his own mind-computed his power to liberate himself from the bondage of dependency-calculated the chances of his ever obtaining this liberation, from change in the position of his family, or revolution in his own fortunes-and, finally, attempted conjecturally to determine the amount of effect which his new and illiberal employments might have upon his own mind in weaning him from his present elevated tasks, and unfitting him for their enjoyment in distant years, when circumstances might again place it in his power to indulge them. These meditations were in part communicated to a friend, and in part, also, the result to which they brought him. That this result was gloomy, his friend knew; but not, as in the end it appeared, that it was despairing. Such, however, it was; and, accordingly, having satisfied himself that the chances of a happier destiny were for him slight or none, and having, by a last fruitless effort, ascertained that there was no hope whatever of mollifying his relatives, or of obtaining a year's delay of his sentence, he walked quietly up to the cloudy wildernesses within Blencathara; read his Eschyknit-lus (read, perhaps, those very scenes of the 'Prometheus' that pass amidst the wild valleys of the Caucasus, and below the awful summits, untrod by man, of the ancient Elborus); read him for the last time; for the last time fathomed the abyss-like subtleties of his favourite geometrician, the mighty Apollonius; for the last time retraced some parts of the narrative, so simple in its natural grandeur, composed by that imperial captain, the most majestic man of ancient history If close those fountains must and nature's too! And watch the chariots' whirl (that men say raise But now trade hungers for my life again, These erring thoughts-the falser for their truth, "Sometimes, also, the mountainous solitudes have been made the scenes of remarkable suicides. In particular, there was a case, a little before I came into the country, of a studious and meditative young boy, who found no pleasure but in books and the search after knowledge. He languished with a sort of despairing nympholepsy after intellectual pleasures for which he felt too well assured that his term of allotted time, the short period of years through which his relatives had been willing to support him at St. Bees, was rapidly drawing to an The foremost man of all this worldJulius the dictator, the eldest of the Cæsars. These three authors-Eschylus, Apollonius, and Cæsarhe studied until the daylight waned, and the stars began to appear. Then he made a little pile of the three volumes, that served him for a pillow; took a dose, such as he had heard would be sufficient, of which he himself seemed in fancy to have raised laudanum; laid his head upon the monuments to the three mighty spirits; and with his face upturned to the heavens and the stars, slipped quietly away into a sleep upon which no morning ever dawned. The laudanum-whether it were from the effect of the open air, or from some peculiarity of temperament-had not produced sickness in the first stage of its action, nor convulsions in the last. But from the serenity of his countenance, and from the tranquil maintenance of his original supine position-for his head was still pillowed upon the three intellectual Titans, Greek and Roman, and his eyes were still directed towards the stars-it would appear that he had died placidly, and without a struggle. In this way the imprudent boy, who, like Chatterton, would not wait for the change that a day might bring, obtained the liberty he sought. I describe him as doing whatsoever he had described himself in his last conversations as wishing to do; for whatsoever, in his last scene of life, was not explained by the objects and the arrangement of the objects about him, found a sufficient solution in the confidential explanations of his purposes which he had communicated, as far as he felt it safe, to his only friend."Early Memorials of Grasmere.' The reader has here the story as told in the verse by Payn, and in his "impassioned prose" by De Quincey. One would like to have the unimpassioned prose in which the fate of the unhappy youth was first made known to the public. But though a suicide so extraordinary in its details and so unusual in its motive must have made a great sensation, no reference to it has been traced in the Annual Register' or the Gentleman's Magazine, whose volumes are record-houses of the remarkable incidents of the period. WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Moss Side, Manchester. DANTEIANA. 1. 'Inferno,' ix. 61 : O voi che avete gl' intelletti sani, Mirate la dottrina che s' asconde Sotto il velame degli versi strani ! Though there is not any notable difficulty in this tercet, it deserves a passing reference as a sample of the poet's method. Prof. Tomlinson's version and comment run thus :"O ye in whom the intelligence is sane, Do ye behold the doctrine hidden here, Which mystic verses 'neath their veil contain? These three parenthetical lines do not seem to belong especially to the matter in hand, or to the canto, but rather to the whole poem. A less original writer than Dante would probably have placed them at the beginning of canto i. by way of exordium." The lines would form an appropriate proem to the whole poem, but, in my view, they are equally well adapted to the previous as to the subsequent stanzas of the context in which they lie embedded, and so do not appear to me to be in any sense "parenthetical," but to belong very much to the "matter in hand." There is sufficient "dottrina che s'asconde" in the three furies and Medusa, and in the "del cielo messo" and inhabitants of Dis, to justify, without any special claim to originality, the insertion of the tercet in its actual setting.. Cary is likeminded, and quotes Landino in support of his contention : perance, reason, which is figured under the person of Virgil, with the ordinary grace of God, may be a sufficient safeguard; but that in the instance of more heinous crimes, such as those we shall hereafter see punished, a special grace, represented by the angel, is requisite for our defence.' Scartazzini's note coincides with my own : "I più riferiscono questa terzina ai versi antecedenti, cioè all' allegoria di Medusa e delle tre furie. Dante suole però richiamare in tal modo l'attenzione del lettore a ciò che star per dire; cf. Purg' viii. 19 e seg.; ix. 70 e seg. ; 'Par.' ii. le seg., il &c. Se la terzina si riferisce a quello che segue, senso potrebbe essere: Mirate quanto è piccolo e folle il più orgoglioso potere quando vuol resistere al principio d'ogni vero potere che è l' Essere eterno!" Lombardi's text differs from Scartazzini's in the elision of the e and i in che (first line) and il (third line): a minor variance, but more in obedience to scansion; while their comments agree in substance. But Bianchi favours the opinions of both Prof. Tomlinson and Venturi, though his text follows Lombardi's in the omission of the i. The position, then, this tercet occupies in this canto is more admonitory than parenthetical, called for, in Dante's judgment, by its allegorical character, a character closely allied to the "noble grotesque" which, as Ruskin acknowledges, "in Dante-the central man of all the world, as representing in perfect balance the imaginative, moral, and intellectual faculties all at their highest -reaches at once the most distinct and the most noble development to which it was ever brought in the human mind" ('Stones of Venice,' ii. 207). 2. Ibid., 98, 99: Cerbero vostro, se ben vi ricorda, Ne porta ancor pelato il mento e'l gozzo. The altogether unnecessary fuss over this passage alone tempts me to advert to it, though in so doing the clamour may be unduly emphasized. Thus Cary has a fling at Lombardi : "Your Cerberus, if ye remember, hence Bears still, peel'd of their hair, his throat and maw. Cerberus is feigned to have been drugged by Hercules, bound with a threefold chain, of which, says the angel, he still bears the mark. Lombardi blames the other interpreters for having supposed that the angel attributes this exploit to Hercules, a fabulous hero, rather than to our Saviour. It would seem as if the good father had forgotten that Cerberus is himself no less a creature of the imagination than the hero who encountered him." The Anglican vicar certainly scores a point with the Italian Franciscan, but cui bono? Though a ravenous three-headed watchdog "The poet probably intends to call the reader's the "Hound of Hell"-at the gates of Dis attention to the allegorical and mystic sense of the (Képßepos=devourer of flesh), he was as harmpresent canto, and not, as Venturi supposes, to that of the whole work. Landino supposes this less, in his mythological dignity, as modern hidden meaning to be, that in the case of those "Cerebos salt," and it is really very immatevices which proceed from incontinence and intem.rial by what agency his "throat and maw" were despoiled of hair. To Æneas he was da setta santi Vescovi." Note, however, that only the "canis triceps" and E non fe' motto a noi. Dante strikes an essential difference between the earthly and infernal graves (rest and torment) by Salvo che il modo v' era più amaro, &c. 5. Ibid., 127: Lombardi has a curious note on this which is and the latter, "I nostri antichi traevano il worth reproducing: "Non ci disse parola: non a Virgilio, per esser dannato; non a Dante, perocchè esse pure soggetto odioso all' angelo pe' grevi vizi de' quali supponesi reo, e che per quell' andata, o sia meditazione dell' Inferno, intendeva di purgare. Solo perciò nel Purgatorio incominciano gli angeli a parlar con Dante." This hardly accounts for the silence (at least to Virgil), inasmuch as the angel-if angel it were-did speak to lost souls. The altra cura " of the next line is to me a clearer explanation of the difficulty, if difficulty there be. Scartazzini rightly thinks so too : "Il messo del cielo non fa che eseguire quanto Dio gli ha ordinato, e ciò nel dato caso non è che di aprire le porte di Dite. Onde egli non ha nulla da dire nè a Virgilio, nè a Dante. 'Non fecit verbum nobis, quia nobis serviverat opere' (Benv.)." 4. Ibid., 115:—. Qui son gli eresiarche Co' lor seguaci, d'ogni setta, e, molto Più che non credi, son le tombe carche. The comments of Lombardi and Bianchi on eresiarche are samples of hypercriticism. Says the former, "eresiarche per eresiarchi, antitesi alcuna volta anticamente praticata" plurale in e daí nomi mascolini terminati in a al singolare, imitando la prima declinazione latina." But even if philologically the word might merit a little ink spilt over it, it is the root-thought which is of surpassing interest. The statement is as much the product of contemporary history as of the poet's detestation of heresy. Florence was at the time, somewhat like Ephesus at the period of the Apocalyptic message from Patmos, honeycombed with heresies, chiefly by the sect of the Epicureans, which occasioned frequent contentions amongst its citizens, and Dante gratified alike his historical penchant and abhorrence of theological error by consigning the heresiarchs to the warm region of the Sixth Circle. Cf. G. Vill., iv. 30, quoted by Scartazzini. 6. Though not connected with the above notes, it will be of interest to supplement them by the following cutting from the Manchester Evening News of 4 Jan., which I leave to speak for itself :— Inspirer of the Divine Comedy.'-The Rome cor "Mr. Gladstone on Dante. - An Irishman the Fanno i sepolcri tuttoi 1 loco varo. Many have been puzzled by the "" loco varo of this line. The" di superficie ineguale per la terra qua è là ammucchiata" of Scartazzini explains it sufficiently. It is simply "varo respondent of the Daily Telegraph writes: 'Wa for vario (as in 'Purg.,' viii. 95, "avversaro Dante a plagiarist? Is he indebted to others for for avversario), the having been knocked the ideas of his 'Divine Comedy,' and to what out of it to make it scan with "amaro." extent did he pick the minds of his contemporaries More important are the references either and predecessors? This is the literary problem of suggested by the unequal appearance of the well-known statistician, has undertaken to solve it. the day in Italy, and Mrs. Mulhall, the wife of the place or requisitioned as prototypes. Arles That lady is now in Rome, making researches at the and Pola were, no doubt, familiar to Dante, Vatican Library, and is, it is said, the first lady and their sepulchres seem to have impressed who has ever gone there for the purposes of study. him. The latter was a city of Istria, near receive his inspiration from the legend of the Irish The theory under examination is this: Did Dante the Gulf of Quarnero on the Adriatic, the St. Fursey, which the Venerable Bede had done Sinus Flanaticus of the Romans. As to the into Latin and rendered popular throughout Provençal city, Ariosto was (Orlando Furioso,' Europe? Bede is certainly the only Englishman xxxix. 72) similarly struck with the fact :- mentioned in the Divine Comedy,' and Mrs. MulChe presso ad Arli piena di sepolture è la campagna. works. This view would seem to receive support hall conjectures that Dante was familiar with his "These sepulchres," says Cary, "are men- from Mr. Gladstone's theory that Dante visited tioned in the life of Charlemagne which England. The eminent British statesman, in acceptgoes under the name of Archbishop Turpin, ing a copy of Mrs. Mulhall's essay on the subject, cap. xxviii. and xxx., and by Fazio degli article. It is, indeed, of great interest, and the writes as follows: "I feel in debt to you for your Uberti, Dittamondo, 1. iv. cap. xxi." And presumptions you raise appear to be important. Lombardi adds, “Dicelo (Turpino) benedetto | Dante's being acquainted with a remote local saint, such as Bede, is of itself remarkable, and if it was due to his studying in England, as I am inclined to believe he did, then England may have furnished the thread which brought into his view the root idea of his poem.' Would not the "root-idea" have been really furnished by Ireland, if the hypothesis be sustainable? But no one will begrudge England the "thread." Who, by the way is St. Fursey? J. B. S. Manchester. and Rose? It would seem that in the northeast of Scotland there were two distinct families, the one of Scottish, the other of Norman descent. The ancient Earls of Ross were doubtless Scottish, while the Roses of Kilravock and their numerous collaterals traction. It is true that the name in early were assuredly of Norman or English exdeeds was written indifferently by each family Ros or Ross, but there are not wanting indications here and there of the different origin THE HISTORICAL ENGLISH DICTIONARY' of the names, as, for instance, the occasional AND THE DATES OF SHAKSPEARE'S PLAYS.--use of "le Ros" by the Norman family, instead. Whatever may be said in favour of the sub- of the "de Ros" invariably employed by the jective method of determining the chrono- Scottish Rosses. logy of Shakespeare's plays adopted by the Historical English Dictionary,' there should be, at least, consistency in its application. That this has not been observed the follow-bore three lions rampant, while the Norman ing references will show: Hamlet,' under 'Aboard' is dated 1602, under 'A' 1604. '1 Henry IV.,' under 'Afar' is dated 1597, under 'Back' 1596. 'Abode 1603. Henry VIII.,' under 'A' is dated 1613, under 'Abide' 1607. It may be mentioned, though probably known to your readers, that there is not any edition of any of the above plays corresponding to the dates given, except as to the 1604 'Hamlet' (Q.2) and the 1597 'Richard II.' (Q. 1). Doubtless the dates assigned are the result of some well-considered system, but seeing that Shakespeare's literary career was comparatively short, a date corresponding to that of Shakespeare's literary activity, viz., 1588-1613, would have avoided the anomalies observable in the dates given in the 'Historical English Dictionary' to the various plays, and answered the purposes of the 'Dictionary' from an historical point of view equally well. EDWARD B. HARRIS. 5, Sussex Place, N.W. ROSS AND ROSE. In the British Museum 'Catalogue of Seals' (vol. iv. pp. 540-3) are described various seals which are ascribed to the "family of Ros' and Ross." Would it not have been preferable to say families of Ross When dealing with heraldic seals it is, indeed, easy to determine to which family they pertained, for the Scottish Rosses always Roses invariably introduced the water-bougets which had been assumed by the Anglo-Norman family of de Ros on the marriage of one of them with the heiress of Trusbut of Wartre, who bore "trois boutz d'eau "-three butts of water (Planché). It would, therefore, perhaps have been more satisfactory to separate the Ros seals in accordance with these facts. 6 In the Catalogue,' No. 16,798 is ascribed to Hugh Ros, Baron Ros, the legend being "Shugonis ros baronis." Laing (Catalogue,' No. 703) justly regards the legend as singular, "giving the rank, without other designation,' but he does not describe Hugh as Baron Ros, and doubtless was aware of the fact that he was the feudal Baron of Kilravock. The seal of Muriella de Ros (No. 16,802) gives on a shield a water-bouget, and in chief three mullets, "for Ros," says the 'Catalogue'; but probably only the water-bouget was for Ros, the three mullets representing the paternal arms of Doun, and having nothing to do with the lady's spouse, Sir William de Ros of Kilravock. The stars of Moravia, indeed, are ubiquitous in the north-east of Scotland, and very likely Andrew de Doun, Muriella's father, derived both his property and his arms from some well-dowered daughter of the house of Murray. As regards No. 16,803 of the 'Catalogue,' the legend is said to be "uncertain" and the seal "doubtful." Might not this seal, which apparently has "W...... Ross" legible, and for arms a fess between three water-bougets, be that of Walter Ros of Kinstary, who in 1513 certainly sealed with these arms? JAMES DALLAS. CRUCIFIXION IN YORKSHIRE.-In an anonymous work published in 1867, entitled 'Criminal Chronology of York Castle,' mention is made |