Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

With hire he yat ful many a pan of bras,
For that Simkin shuld in his blood allie.
She was yfostered in a nonnerie :
For Simkin wolde no wif, as he sayde,
But she were well ynourished, and a mayde,
To saven his estat of yemanrie."

What was the "estat of yemanrie" in Chaucer's time? and how far back can we trace a distinct THOS. BUTLER. class of yeomanry?

"Be it known vnto all men by these psents that I degory Band Prior of the hospitall or Lazer howse of Saynt Leonardes als Gylmartyn with the rest of my Bretheren and Systers doe acknowledg our selues to haue receaued of Mr Arthure Piper Mayor of the Borough of Dunhered als Launceston the whole and Intire some of vli of lawful mony of England due vnto vs at the ffeast of Saynt Michaell tharcaungle now last past being the kings maties ffree gift to wardes the aforesaid hospital of Saynt Leonardes als Gylmartyn wherefore I the sayd degory Band with the rest of my bretheren and Systers do acknowledg our selues to be thereof Satisffied Contented and payd and we haue caused this our acquitance to be made and haue here vnto fixed our Common Seale of the said howse the tenth day of October in the Raigne of our Souereigne Lord James By the grace of god of England ffraunce and Ireland king defender of the ffayth &c. the fiveth and of Scot-representing the death of James I. of Scotland and the murder of Rizzio . . . Peter Pindar is drawn as the assassin." Is this true? If so, do the pictures still exist? CYRIL

land the one and ffortith 1607."

K. P. D. E.

QUOTATIONS.-Can any of your readers tell me where the following passage occurs?

"Scenes which often viewed

Please often, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years."
THOS. L'ESTRANGE.

"Foremost captain of his time,
Rich in saving common sense.'

H. FISHWICK.

ST. OSBERN. - Is there such a saint in the Roman calendar? Closeburn, a parish in Upper Nithsdale, in Dumfriesshire, is supposed to be a corruption of Kil-osbern, the church of Osbern. Chalmers, in his Caledonia (vol. iii. p. 167), says that the "sanctologies do not recognise such a saint." Some of your correspondents may be able to say whether he is correct in this assertion. In a note he refers to an "Osbern, a vassal of Robert de Brus in 1138" (Charleton's Whitby, p. 94), who may have founded the chapel.

C. T. RAMAGE.

OLD TUNES.-I shall feel obliged if any of your readers can furnish me with the names of the composers and the dates of the following tunes, which are played every hour by an old hall clock which I possess. More than 130 years are estimated to have passed since its tuneful career first began; but, as this is a disputed point and warmly contested by some of my friends, I wish to ascertain the true historic facts.

The names of the tunes are engraved on the dial face, changed at pleasure, and are as follows: "Harvest Home," "God save the King," "On a Bank of Flowers," "Minuet by Senesino," "March in Scipio," "Miller of Mansfield."

E. D. SUTER. YEMANRIE.-At the beginning of the Reve's tale, in the Canterbury Tales, a miller called Simkin is introduced, and afterwards his wife is described:

:

"A wif he hadde, comen of noble kin: The person of the toun hire father was.

Queries with Answers.

PETER PINDAR.-It is said (Gent. Mag. lviii. 1044) that, "In two historical pictures by Opie

[The story of the head of Peter Pindar figuring in Opie's two large historical pictures has been differently narrated. The late JAMES ELMES stated in "N. & Q." (2nd S. vii. 382), that whilst Opie was engaged on the picture of "The Murder of James the First," he was greatly irritated by the satirist's malevolence, and painting a portrait of him in one of his most furious rages, substituted it upon the head of the murderer. On the other hand, a writer in the Annual Biography (iv. 303) informs us, that "Dr. Wolcot is depicted as one of the assassins in the picture representing The Death of David Rizzio,' and, by a strange whim, was actually introduced in this horrible character by Opie at his own particular request." The latter statement is confirmed by the following verse in a poem addressed to "Peter Pindar, Esq. on seeing his Portrait in two historical paintings" (Gent. Mag. Iviii. 1044) :

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"Thine, Peter, thine the strong-mark'd portrait there; 'Twas thy own choice to wear the murderer's vest; To slay the Favourite of a Royal Fair,

And point the javelin at a Monarch's breast." These two pictures were presented by Alderman Boydell to the Corporation of London. That of "The Murder of David Rizzio" is in the Council Chamber at Guildhall; and that of "The Murder of James the First" in the waiting-room of the same place.]

"COLLECTION UNIVERSELLE DES MÉMOIRES PARTICULIERS RELATIFS À L'HISTOIRE DE FRANCE."I find a book with the above title in upwards of sixty octavo volumes, dated from 1785 to 1790. The book is well printed, and on good paper; and bears on the title-page "A Londres, et se trouve à Paris." Besides the Mémoires, there are "Notices des Editeurs, Observations," etc. The title of the book is the same with that of the great collation by Petitot of later date. I shall be pleased to learn whether the book (that is, the editor's portion thereof) bears any and what character among historical students. L. H. C.

[This Collection Universelle des Mémoires particuliers relatifs à l'Histoire de France, which was compiled by

Perrin, extended to seventy-two volumes-the last of which was published in 1806, but it is rarely found complete. It was held in considerable estimation, but has been in a great measure superseded by the two series of Mémoires, edited by Petitot and Monmerqué-the first of which consists of fifty-two volumes in fifty-three, and the second of seventy-nine volumes.]

AN OLD GEOGRAPHY.- A friend writes to ask me the value of an old geography which was lately bought at a sale in Buenos Ayres. I have not seen the work, and can only give his description of it. It is in six large folio volumes; the size about three feet by fourteen inches. It is in Latin, and was published at Amsterdam in 1654. It contains numerous plates and maps. In the maps of England every church is marked, and the coats of arms in colours of the old families in each county are given, as well as views of some of the principal places: in Somersetshire, for instance, of Glastonbury, Tor, Woodspring, Cheddar, &c. The volumes are bound in vellum. My correspondent wishes to know whether the work is rare or valuable. Perhaps the editor of "N. & Q." or some one of his learned correspondents can give

him an answer.

C. T. B.

[There can be little doubt that this is an early edition of Jan Blaeu's Grand Atlas, ou Cosmographie Blariana, of which the last edition is in 12 vols., Amsterdam, 1663. The book is not very frequently met with; we can, how

ever, give no estimate of its value in a mercantile sense, but we have been assured that the maps of English counties which it contains are both very interesting and valuable.]

ANATOMICAL STATUE IN MILAN CATHEDRAL.— Could any of your numerous correspondents give me any information respecting the celebrated anatomical statue in Milan Cathedral?

"Non me Praxiteles sed Mari finxit Agrat."

E. H. H. [The much celebrated statue of St. Bartholomew was formerly on the outside of the cathedral. The inscription, "Non me Praxiteles, sed Marcus finxit Agrates," is adapted from an epigram in the Greek Anthology. "The sculptor Agrati," says Eustace, "may have just reason to compare himself, as the inscription implies, to Praxiteles; but his master-piece is better calculated for the decoration of a school of anatomy than for the embellishment of a church.”—Classical Tour, iii. 148.]

PADUA.-Patavium is the Latin name of this city; Padova, Padua, the Italian. Padus is the name of the river Po. Arrowsmith says that one of its ancient names was Bodincus. Altogether this is curious. Whilst the river was called Padus, the town was called Patavium. Now it is called Po, the town is called Padua, and the first syllable Bo of the old name revives in Po and in Padova or Padoba by transposition. Are the

[blocks in formation]

Your correspondent has one of a large family— "The Separate Pieces of Jerome Drexeleus, the Monk of Augsburgh, translated by R. S., and published by Daniel, at Cambridge, in 1640, with frontispiece by Marshall."

Drexeleus seems to have been a great favourite in England at the period, and there are probably upwards of a dozen of his popular treatises turned out of Latin into English to meet the demand. Of these interesting little books I have the bulk; and as I know not where a list of this "great spiritualist's" works, made English, is to be found, perhaps you will indulge me by recording in "N. & Q." those which have come under my notice :

1. "Considerations upon Eternity." The earliest and most popular. Originally printed in 1632; again, Cambridge, 1641, of the translation of Ralph Winterton, often printed thereafter (12th edit. Edin. 1752); retranslated by S. Dunster, 1710; and again as lately as 1856.

2. "The Angel Guardian's Clock." Translated [by E. H.?] At Roven, n. d. With a finely engraved title. 3. "The Fore-runner of Eternity, or Messenger_of Death sent to Healthy, Sick, and Dying Men." Engraved title by Marshall, and three cuts; Dedication signed "W. Croyden." 1643.

4. "The Considerations of Drexeleus upon Death. Done into English by a Fellow of the Royal Society [N. Bailey]." Three cuts by Van Hove. 1699.

[These two last the same, under different titles.]

5. "The Christian Zodiake, or Twelve Signes of Predestination unto Life Everlasting." This has twelve fine cuts by Hollar, Lowndes says. Printed for W. Wilson. 1647.

6. "The Hive of Devotion, or the Saint's Evidence for Heaven; containing XII Signes of our Election to Eternal Happiness. Written in Lat. by H. D. & translated by R. B., Fellow of Trinity C., Camb.: who hath annexed a Cordiall for afflicted Consciences. P. for R. Best at Graise In Gate." 1647.

[These two are also identical under varied titles. The first is an anon. version; but I think we may call it R. B.'s first edition, for he offers this last as his enlarged trated by a rival artist (for the engraved title bears translation. The same year from a different press, illus"Cross, Sculp."), would suggest another translator; but not having both, I cannot test this.]

7. "Nicetas, or the Triumph over Incontinence." Translated by R. S. 1633.

[This is an engraved title, no place, but evidently foreign.]

8. "A Pleasant and Profitable Treatise of Hell."

Printed 1633.

[My copy of this has no original title; but the engraved one, belonging most likely to a foreign original or translation, has been imported into it with the centre part cut out, and the above reprinted title fitted into its place. In like manner my book is enriched, from the same source, with nine very extraordinary cuts, most vividly representing the torments of the damned, by P. Sadeler: these are reproduced, but in a very inferior style, by Drapentier, in an edition of this book bearing

the title-]

[blocks in formation]

represent this by a hyphen, unless, professing to give a facsimile of the MS., he discards hyphens altogether, as in Sir F. Madden's excellent edition of William and the Werwolf. Hence, the mere fact of to or alto being written apart from the word it belongs to, is not at all surprising: it is only what we expect.

I think it is not quite safe, for the purpose of argument, to assert that "there is no instance, I I believe, of the use of the word to-troblid." found two, in less than two minutes, in the very first book I laid my hands on. I quote from the Wicliffite Glossary, where I find "to-truble, to greatly trouble, Ecclus. xxxv. 22, 23; r. al-totrublist, extremely afflictest, Ps. Ixxiii. 13; pl. trublist." This second reference gives: "al-toal-to-trubleden, Dan. v. 6; v. to-truble." I have only to repeat that

"All-to, as equivalent to all to pieces, and as separable from the verb, is comparatively modern. As the force of to as an intensive prefix was less understood, and as leaning upon and eking out the meaning of all, whereas verbs beginning with it became rarer, it was regarded as in older times it was all that added force to the meaning of to."

Halliwell, I now find (for I had not noticed it before), says much the same thing:

"In earlier writers, the to would of course be a prefix to the verb, but the phrase all-to, in Elizabethan writers, can scarcely be always so explained."

later writers. Some one of them took to spelling It is not the only blunder perpetrated by these rime with an h, and produced the word rhymeword; and this was thought so happy and clasthus giving a Greek commencement to a Saxon sical an emendation, that nearly everyone has

[Dedication to Mrs. Stuart, signed "Robert Samber."] It will be seen that several of these books are translated by "R. S.": at the British Museum this is conjecturally extended to "R. S[amber.]" I have already in "N. & Q." spotted a person of this name living in London at the last date; and I apprehend the occurrence of the name in No. 12 has led to the inadvertence of assigning books bearing date from 1633 and 1716 to the same person. To collectors of emblems, Drexeleus' books have great attraction: the cuts being all of that character, and, in these English translations, reproduced by our best artists. A remarkable one is that in Eternity, where a Scripture text hardly requiring ocular demonstration is thus treated:A somewhat wider search through English Towards a needle, pendent from a cloud-en-literature would disclose the not recondite fact, shrouded arm, a royal personage with uplifted Thus (1.) it is used before a (I write as it stands that all is used before other prefixes besides to. sceptre, and other parties, are goading on the inhabitants of the desert! Jeremy Taylor is said in the MS., omitting hyphens,) in the lineto have made much use of Drexeleus; but I do not see him named in The Holy Dying. A. G.

THE WORD "ALL-TO."

(3rd S. xii. 372.)

On the subject of "A Tobroken Word," I beg to refer MR. HODGKIN to my letter in The Athenæum of October 5. The fact is simply that, wherever alto is found as apparently a separate word, it is by a blunder of an editor. It is common enough in MSS. to separate a prefix from its verb. Anyone who has ever seen an AngloSaxon MS. knows that the prefix ge- is far more often written separately from the word it belongs to, than it is joined to it; and an editor ought to

followed suit ever since.

"here of was sche al a wondred & a waked sore." William and the Werwolf, 1. 2912. (2.) It is used with the prefix for

66

as weigh al for waked for wo vpon nightes," Id. 1. 790, which should be compared with a line just above, viz.

"Febul wax he & feynt for waked a nightes." (3.) It is used before the prefix bi; as in "al bi weped for wo wisly him thought."-Id. 1. 661.

Perhaps when alto has been proved, in early English, to be a complete word in itself, distinct from the past participle-which, oddly enough, is always found not far off it-we may hope to have an explanation of the words alfor, ala, and albi! But surely, the simpler explanation is that,

when the later writers looked on the to- as separable, they did so because they knew no better. WALTER W. SKEAT.

Cambridge.

DATE OF CARDINAL POLE'S DEATH.

(3rd S. xii. 409.)

Lingard in his History of England, and Phillips in his Life of Cardinal Pole, both say that he survived Queen Mary twenty-two hours. But the continuator of Fleury's Histoire Ecclésiastique says that he survived her only sixteen hours, and the following are his references: "Ciacon. in Vita Pontif.-De Thou, Hist.-Belcarel-Victorel

Pitseus-Godwin--Camden-Pallav.-Raynald." Our Catholic Church historian Dodd also says that "he expired about four in the morning of November 18, there being only sixteen hours between their deaths." This writer always calls the

cardinal Pool.

F. C. H.

[blocks in formation]

name.

There is no proper spelling of the cardinal's In his time, men spelt surnames according to their humour. De la Pole, Atte Pole, Poole, &c. belong to that minor class of local cognomina which are derived from common objects, such as Wood, Boys, Wall. EDWARD PEACOCK.

The catena of evidence is strongly in favour of the cardinal's death having taken place on the same day as that of Queen Mary,—it being granted that she died about 5 A.M. The following authorities are not noticed by A. S. A.:

"He followed her within sixteen hours."-Burnet, Hist. of the Reformation.

"Cardinal Pole survived the queen but sixteen hours." -Collier, Ecclesiastical Hist. of Great Britain. "He died the same day with the queen, about sixteen hours after her."-Hume, Hist. of England.

"Pole himself died about sixteen hours after her."Penny Cyclopædia (referring to the Life of the Cardinal by Philips, and the Review of the Life by Dr. Gloster Ridley.)

"Death of Queen Mary, which happened about sixteen hours before."-Dr. Hook, Ecclesiastical Biography (referring to Phillips's Life, Dodd's Church History, and Biog. Brit.)

on the following day."-Sharon Turner, Modern Hist. of England.

"Her friend and kinsman, Cardinal Pole, . . . survived her only twenty-two hours."-Lingard, Hist. of England. H. P. D.

Does not Godwin mean by " tertiâ horâ noctis" what would have been understood anciently by that expression, viz. the third hour after sunset, or 9 P.M.? If so, he agrees with the other authorities, quoted by A. S. A., who say that the cardinal died "sixteen hours after Queen Mary," for from 5 A.M. to 9 P.M. is exactly sixteen hours. JOB J. B. WORKARD.

CLASS.

(3rd S. xii. 242, 356.)

I thank C. A. W. and A. H. for their replies to my note on this question. I do not think we differ much in effect, though they challenge some of my statements, and in particular attack one illustration of them. I am not the first who has tration, and I wish I had "overhauled my Cateweakened a forcible argument by an inapt illuschism" before quoting from it.

That I have elicited so earnest and eloquent a protest as that of C. A. W. against the evils of the day, justifies me to my own mind for having raised this question in " N. & Q." Some of them arise from forgetfulness of the principle I have desired to lay down, viz. that our relation to the state, to the law, and to each other is individual and personal, and that in these respects "class" is unknown. To adapt C. A. W.'s maxim, the true private interest is the common good.

The distinction of classes made by C. A. W. is comparatively innocuous. The line between each is so shadowy, so varying, so vague· - each comprehends almost as many different stations as individuals; and between the higher stations in the one, and the lower in that which precedes it, there must be so much in common, that C. A. W. himself does not attach to them the mischievous meaning which I conceive to be sometimes implied in the idea of "class."

That mischief is at its highest when "class" claims a kind of corporate existence, and when a man's duty as a citizen is dominated or modified by a supposed class-relationship. This is why I wish those who oppose the thing to avoid the word. Of course, nothing I said was intended to affect questions of social rank.

JOB J. B. WORKARD.

C. A. W., in his note, replete with melancholy truths, says: "The upper [class] consists of the governing and learned class; the middle of bankers, On the other handmerchants, and shopkeepers." Now, although “The queen died 17 November, 1558, and the cardinal Byron has said somewhere, with poetic license

"If commerce fills the purse, she clogs the brain,”as there is no rule without an exception, we can easily find names (taking them merely among English worthies of our day) more illustrious than Amos Cottle, and that certainly belonged to the "learned class": Roscoe, Rogers, Grote, and Hood, who, if I mistake not, began by being a P. A. L. shop-apprentice.

Your columns have recently contained notices of Thomas Love Peacock, the novelist. Surely your May Fair correspondent C. A. W., who thinks the tone of public feeling was never more degenerate in England than now, giving a fearful and dismal list of crimes and sins as disgracing especially this Victorian era, must have in his mind Peacock's Philosopher Escots in Headlong Hall, the deteriorationist—“ quasi ès σkótov (in tenebras) intuens". - who always took the most gloomy view of everything. C. A. W. is clearly a deteriorationist; but as history reproduces itself, I can find a match to his letter in a document of Bishop Chadworth of Lincoln, dated October 2, 1466; who, after enumerating many evils of his own time, declares his conviction that they must perpetually increase, "quia mundus semper ad W. WING. deteriora se declinat."

[blocks in formation]

"The breath of the moist earth is light.'

So far my obliging correspondent, but his communication suggests an observation or two, and I shall begin with the last topic first.

1. "The Question." A living author rightly surmised that a line was needed to complete the second stanza of "The Question," but he as wrongly mistook the place of the omission. Mr. Wilson's appreciation of the perfection of the sense as it stands forbids the notion that a line is wanting after the word "wets," while the structure of the verse shows that it is the first line that is wanting. It is the ottava rima of Tasso and Ariosto, and requires six lines of alternate rhymes, and a rhyming couplet to close with. I shall exhibit a complete and the incomplete verse together:

"I dream'd that, as I wander'd by the way,

Bare winter suddenly was chang'd to spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray
Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring,
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dar'd to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kiss'd it, and then fled as thou might'st in a dream. "Of Flora's painted darlings was no dearth — There grew pied windflowers and violets, Daisies, those pied Arcturi of the earth,

66

The constellated flower that never sets, Faint oxlips, tender bluebells, at whose birth

The sod scarce heav'd; and that tall flower that wets Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears."

What is this "tall flower " foxglove? To prevent the necessity of printing this second stanza over again, I have supplied in italics a line in the proper place to fill up the lacuna, not as Shelley's, but as embodying a sentiment that would fairly introduce the poet's own lines which follow. A reference to the poet's MS., if in existence, would possibly lead to the completion of the verse as Shelley designed it. Our next observation will take the shape of a question.

2. Did Shelley write the fifth line, supplied in Moxon's edition, of the "Stanzas written in Dejection at Naples ?" And this suggests another, From what edition did Benbow pirate his of 1826? The legitimate edition of the poet's widow herself

This reading is adopted in Garnett's Relics of Shelley did not contain the line, but some other trust(1862), and.

"The purple noon's transparent might,'

is suggested as an amendment on light; but this seems far-fetched, though it gets over the difficulty of the two lights, a repetition Shelley never could have been guilty of. "I cannot ascertain when the poem was first printed. It is dated December, 1818.

66

My copy of the Posthumous Poems was given by Mrs. Shelley to a living author ], and has a few MS. notes by him, one of which on the poem called 'The Question' is 'line omitted' after

'The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets.' "The sense is complete without the line, but the other stanzas consist of eight lines each."

worthy edition probably did; and for ourselves we entertain no doubt that the line is Shelley's. It completes the verse; it completes the sense ; and it breathes the Shelley spirit.

To account for these and other hiatus, we have but to remember the poet's method of composition, which was to omit a line or an epithet here or there when it did not readily present itself in the heat of composition, and pass on with the remainder of his work till the muse was in a more indulgent humour, when the omission would This will account for some be happily filled up. misprints or mistakes in the posthumous poem.

« AnteriorContinuar »