Chapter 2

"It is probable," says Dr. Hutton, in his Life of Simpson, prefixed to the _Select Exercises_, 1792, "that this reference to him gave occasion to his turning his thoughts more seriously to this subject, so as to form the design of composing a regular treatise upon it: for his family have often informed me that he laboured hard upon this work for some time before his death, and was very anxious to have completed it, frequently remarking to them that this work, when published, would procure him more credit than any of his former publications. But he lived not to put the finishing hand to it. Whatever he wrote upon this subject probably fell, together with all his other remaining papers, into the hands of Major Henry Watson, of the Engineers, in the service of the India Company, being in all a large chest full of papers. This gentleman had been a pupil of Mr. Simpson's, and had lodged in his house. After Mr. Simpson's death Mr. Watson prevailed upon the widow to let him have the papers, promising either to give her a sum of money for them, or else to print and publish them for her benefit. But nothing of the kind was ever done; this gentleman always declaring, when urged on this point by myself and others, that no use could be made of any of the papers, owing to the very imperfect state in which he said they were left. _And yet he persisted in his refusal to give them up again._"

In 1780 Colonel Watson was recalled to India, and took out with him one of the most remarkable English mathematicians of that day, Reuben Burrow. This gentleman had been assistant to Dr. Maskelyne at the Royal Observatory; and to his care was, in fact, committed the celebrated Schehallien experiments and observations. He died in India, and, I believe, all his papers which reached England, as well as several of his letters, are in my possession. This, however, is no further of consequence in the present matter, than to give authority to a remark I am about to quote from one of his letters to his most intimate friend, Isaac Dalby. In this he says:--"Colonel Watson has out here a work of Simpson's on bridges, very _complete_ and _original_."

It was no doubt by his dread of the sleepless watch of Hutton, that so unscrupulous a person as Colonel Watson is proved to be, was deterred from publishing Simpson's work as his own.

The desideratum here is, of course, to find what became of Colonel Watson's papers; and then to ascertain whether this and what other writings of Simpson's are amongst them. A _really good_ work on the mathematical theory of bridges, if such is ever to exist, has yet to be published. It is, at the same time, very likely that his great originality, and his wonderful sagacity in all his investigations, would not fail him in this; and possibly a better work on the subject was composed ninety years ago than has yet seen the light--involving, perhaps, the germs of a totally new and more effective method of investigation.

I have, I fear, already trespassed too far upon your space for a single letter; and will, therefore, defer my notice of a few other desiderata till a future day.

T.S.D.

Shooter's Hill, Dec. 15. 1849.

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SONG IN THE STYLE OF SUCKLING--THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN.

The song in your second number, furnished by a correspondent, and considered to be in the style {134} of Suckling, is of a class common enough in the time of Charles I. George Wither, rather than Suckling, I consider as the head of a race of poets peculiar to that age, as "Shall I wasting in Despair" may be regarded as the type of this class of poems. The present instance I do not think of very high merit, and certainly not good enough for Suckling. Such as it is, however, with a few unimportant variations, it may be found at page 101. of the 1st vol. of _The Hive, a Collection of the most celebrated Songs_. My copy is the 2nd edit. London, 1724.

I will, with your permission, take this opportunity of setting Mr. Dyce right with regard to a passage in the _Two Noble Kinsmen_, in which he is only less wrong than all his predecessors. It is to be found in the second scene of the fourth act, and is as follows:--

"Here Love himself sits smiling: Just such another wanton Ganymede Set Jove afire with," &c.

One editor proposed to amend this by inserting the normative "he" after "Ganymede;" and another by omitting "with" after "afire." Mr. Dyce saw that both these must be wrong, as a comparison between two wanton Ganymedes, one of which sat in the coutenance of Arcite, could never have been intended;--another, something, if not Ganymede, was wanted, and he, therefore, has this note:--"The construction and meaning are, 'With just such another _smile_ (which is understood from the preceding 'smiling') wanton Ganymede set Jove afire." When there is a choice of nouns to make intelligible sense, how can that one be understood which is not expressed? It _might_ be "with just such another _Love_;" but, as I shall shortly show, no conjecture on the subject is needed. The older editors were so fond of mending passages, that they did not take ordinary pains to understand them; and in this instance they have been so successful in sticking the epithet "wanton" to Ganymede, that even Mr. Dyce, with his clear sight, did not see that the very word he wanted was the next word before him. It puts one in mind of a man looking for his spectacles who has them already across his nose. "Wanton" is a noun as well as an adjective; and, to prevent it from being mistaken for an epithet applied to Ganymede, it will in future be necessary to place after it a _comma_, when the passage will read thus:--

"Here Love himself sits smiling. Just such another wanton," (as the aforesaid smiling Love) "Ganymede Set Jove afire with," &c.

The third act of the same play commences thus:--

"The duke has lost Hippolita; each took A several land."

Mr. Dyce suspects that for "land" we should read "laund," an old form of lawn. "Land" being either wrong, or having a sense not understood now, we must fall back on the general sense of the passage. When people go a hunting, and don't keep together, it is very probable that they may take a several "direction." Now _hand_ means "direction," as we say "to the right" or "left hand." It is not, therefore, probable, that we should read "a several hand?"

SAMUEL HICKSON

* * * * *

"GOTHIC" ARCHITECTURE

It would require more space than you could allot to the subject, to explain, at much length, "the origin, as well as the date, of the introduction of the term '_Gothic_,' as applied to pointed styles of ecclesiastical architecture," required by R. Vincent, of Winchester, in your Fourth Number. There can be no doubt that the term was used at first contemptuously, and in derision, by those who were ambitious to imitate and revive the Grecian orders of architecture, after the revival of classical literature. But, without citing many authorities, such as Christopher Wren, and others, who lent their aid in depreciating the old mediæval style, which they termed Gothic, as synonymous with every thing that was barbarous and rude, it may be sufficient to refer to the celebrated Treatise of Sir Henry Wotton, entitled _The Elements of Architecture_, 4to., printed in London so early as 1624. This work was so popular, that it was translated into Latin, and annexed to the works of Vitruvius, as well as to Freart's _Parallel of the Ancient Architecture with the Modern_. Dufresnoy, also, who divided his time between poetry and painting, and whose work on the latter art was rendered popular in this country by Dryden's translation, uses the term "_Gothique_" in a bad sense. But it was a strange misapplication of the term to use it for the pointed style, in contradistinction to the circular, formerly called Saxon, now Norman, Romanesque, &c. These latter styles, like Lombardic, Italian, and the Byzantine, of course belong more to the Gothic period than the light and elegant structures of the pointed order which succeeded them. Felibien, the French author of the _Lives of Architects_, divides Gothic architecture into two distinct kinds--the _massive_ and the _light_; and as the latter superseded the former, the term Gothic, which had been originally applied to both kinds, seems to have been restricted improperly to the latter only. As there is now, happily, no fear of the word being understood in a bad sense, there seems to be no longer any objection to the use of it in a good one, whatever terms may be used to discriminate all the varieties of the style observable either at home or abroad.

J.I.

Trinity College, Oxford.

* * * * * {135}

DR. BURNEY'S MUSICAL WORKS.

Mr. Editor,--On pp. 63. and 78. of your columns inquiry is made for Burney's _Treatise on Music_ (not his _History_). Before correspondents trouble you with their wants, I think they should be certain that the books they inquire for have existence. Dr. Burney never published, or wrote, a _Treatise on Music_. His only works on the subject (the _General History of Music_ excepted) are the following:--

"The Present State of Music in France and Italy. 8vo. 1771.

"The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces. 2 vols. 8vo. 1775.

"An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster Abbey, and the Pantheon, &c. in Commemoration of Handel. 4to. 1785.

"A Plan for the Formation of a Musical Academy, 8vo. n. d."

As your "NOTES AND QUERIES" will become a standard book of reference, strict accuracy on all points is the grand desideratum.

EDW. F. RIMBAULT.

P.S. I might, perhaps, have included in the above list the _Life of Metastasio_, which, although not generally classed among musical works, forms an admirable supplement to the _General History of Music_.

E.F.R.

* * * * *

ANCIENT INSCRIBED DISHES.

Judging from the various notices in your Nos. 3, 5, and 6, the dishes and inscriptions mentioned therein by CLERICUS, L.S.B., &c., pp. 44. 73. 87., are likely to cause as much speculation here as they have some time experienced on the continent. They were there principally figured and discussed in the _Curiositãten_, a miscellaneous periodical, conducted from about 1818 to 1825, by Vulpius, brother-in-law of Göthe, librarian to the Grand Duke of Saxe Weimar. Herr v. Strombeck, Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal at Wolfenbüttel, first noticed them from a specimen belonging to the church of a suppressed convent at Sterterheim near Brunswick, and they were subsequently pounced upon by Joseph v. Hammer (now v. Purgstall), the learned orientalist of Vienna, as one of the principal proofs which he adduced in his _Mysterium Baphometis Revelatum_ in one of the numbers of the _Fundgruben (Mines) des Orients_, for the monstrous impieties and impurities which he, Nicolai, and others, falsely attributed to the Templars. Comments upon these dishes occur in other works of a recent period, but having left my portfolio, concerning them, with other papers, on the continent, I give these hasty notices entirely from memory. They are by no means uncommon now in England, as the notices of your correspondents prove. A paper on three varieties of them at Hull was read in 1829, to the Hull Literary and Philosophical Society. In Nash's _Worcestershire_ one is depicted full size, and a reduced copy given about this period in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and Nash first calls them "Offertory Dishes." The Germans call them Taufbecken, or baptismal basins; but I believe the English denomination more correct, as I have a distinct recollection of seeing, in a Catholic convent at Danzig, a similar one placed on Good Friday before the tomb of the interred image of the Saviour, for the oblations for which it was not too large. Another of them is kept upon the altar of Boroughbridge Church (N. Riding of Yorkshire), but sadly worn down by scrubbing to keep it bright, and the attempt at a copy of the Inscription in a Harrowgate Guide is felicitously ludicrous: it is there taken as a relic of the Roman Isurium on the same spot. Three others were observed some years ago in a neglected nook of the sacristy of York Cathedral. At the last meeting of the Institute at Salisbury, a number of these were exhibited in St. John's House there, but I believe without any notice taken of them in its Proceedings; and another was shown to the Archæological Society, at their last Chester Congress, by Colonel Biddulph, at Chirk Castle; when more were mentioned by the visitors as in their possession, anxious as your correspondents to know the import of the inscriptions. They are sometimes seen exposed in the shops of Wardour Street, and in other curiosity shops of the metropolis.

On their sunken centres all have religious types: the most common is the temptation of Eve; the next in frequency, the Annunciation; the Spies sent by Joshua returning with an immense bunch of grapes suspended betwixt them, is not unfrequent; but non-scriptural subjects, as the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, mentioned by L.S.B., is a variety I have not before observed.

The inscriptions vary, and are sometimes double in two concentral rings. The most usual is that alluded to by your correspondents, and though obviously German, neither old nor obsolete; having been viewed even by native decipherers, through the mist of a preconceived hypothesis, have never yet been by them satisfactorily accounted for. It is always repeated four times, evidently from the same slightly curved die; when, however, the enlarged circumference of the circle required more than this fourfold repetition to go round it, the die was set on again for as much of a fifth impression as was necessary: this was seldom more than four or five letters, which, as pleonastic or intercalary, are to be carefully rejected in reading the rest; their introduction has confused many expositors.

The readings of some of your correspondents who understand German is pretty near the truth. {136} I have before said that the centre type of Eve's Temptation is the most common, and to it the words especially refer, and seem at the place of their manufacture (most probably Nuremburg) to have been used for other centres without any regard to its fitness. The letters, as I can safely aver from some very perfect specimens, are

DER SELEN INFRID WART;

in modern German "_der Seelen Infried wort_." To the German scholar the two latter words only require explanation. _Infrid_ for Unfried, discord, disturbance, any thing in opposition to Frieden or peace. The Frid-stools at Beverley, Ripon, and Hexham, still bear the old theotise stamp. _Wart_, or _ward_, may be either the past tense of _werden_, to be (our was), or an old form of _währen_, to endure, to last: our English _wear_ is the same word. The sense is pretty much the same in both readings alluding to Eve. In the first:

(By her) the soul's disturbance came (was).

By the second:

(Through her) the soul's disturbance continues.

I may here observe that the words ICH WART are particularly distinct on a helmet, pictured in the Journal of the British Archæological Association, which the Secretary, Mr. Planche, in such matters the highest authority, regards as a tilting helmet. It may there have been in the original ICH WARTE, meaning I bide (my time).

But the centres and this inscription are the least difficulty. A second, frequently met with, is by far more puzzling. I could not give your readers any idea of it without a drawing: however it is found imperfectly depicted on the plates I have before mentioned in Nash's _Worcestershire_, and the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and I think I recollect also a very rude copy in a volume of Hearne's _Miscellaneous Works_, which I examined in the Gottingen Library, but whether belonging to the work or a MS. addition I cannot now call to mind. The fanciful and flowery form of its letters gives great scope to the imagination in assigning them their particular position in the alphabet, and the difficulty of reading them is enhanced by the doubts of German archæologists whether they are initials or component parts of a sentence. Herr Joseph v. Hammer Purgstall, however, in his version RECORD DE SCI GNSI, or in full _Recordamini de sancta Gnosi_, deduces thence his principal proof of Gnostic heresy amongst the calumniated Templars, in which I am sorry to say he has been too servilely followed in England: e.g. by Mr. Godfrey Higgins, in his posthumous _Anaclypsis_ (p. 830 note), as well as by E.G. Addison, _The Temple Church_ (p. 57), and by Mr. R.W. Billings more especially, who tacks to his account of this building an "Essay on the symbolical Evidences of the Temple Church, where the Templars are proved Gnostic Idolators, as alleged by Edward Clarkson, Esq." Had the learnedly hypothetic Austrian seen the engravings of the Crypt at Canterbury Cathedral (_Archæologia_, viii. p. 74.), and Ledwick's remarks on it in conjunction with the carvings at Glendalloch (_History of Ireland_, p. 174.), or those of Grymbald's Crypt at Oxford, he might have been expected to have attributed their monstrosities to his order, with as little hesitation and as thorough a contempt of chronology, or proved connection, as he has the curious and innocent sculptures of the church at Schöngrabern in Bohemia (vide _Curiositäten_, vol. viii. p. 501.).

WILLIAM BELL, Phil. Dr.

* * * * *

MINOR NOTES.

_Prince Modoc._--At p. 57., "ANGLO-CAMBRIAN" refers to the report of the Proceedings of the British Association at Swansea, in Aug. 1848, extracted from the _Athenæum_ newspaper. In the course of a discussion which took place on Prof. Elton's address, it was observed (if I recollect rightly) by the learned Dr. Latham, that a vocabulary of the so-called Welsh-Indian dialect has been formed, and that it contains _no trace_ of any Celtic root.

J.M.T. December 10. 1849.

_St. Barnabas._--About the time of the Reformation, it was strongly debated whether the festival days of St. Paul and St. Barnabas should be admitted into the calendar; and, in the 2d Book of K. Edward, the conversion of St. Paul is put down in _black_, and St. Barnabas is _omitted altogether_! No wonder, therefore, if, in Suffolk, liberties were taken with the name of St. Barnabas, and it was transferred to doggerel rhyme, to be repeated by children.

J.I.

_Register of Cromwell's Baptism._--The communication of your correspondent C.W.G. at p. 103. of your last number, induces me to offer you the inclosed copy from the _Register_ of All Saints' Church, Huntingdon, of the birth and baptism of Oliver Cromwell:--

"Anno Domini 1599 Oliverus filius Roberti Cromwell generosi et Elisabethæ huxoris ejus Natus vicesimo quinto die Aprilis et Baptisatus vicesimo nono ejusdem mensis."

Then follow the words "England's plague for many years," written in a different hand.

R.O.

_The Times._--A correspondent (NASO) informs us of the following fact in the history of this widely circulated and influential journal; namely, that it is stated in that the paper of the 12th of March, 1788, that it was printed "Logographically!" We wish our correspondent had furnished us with the precise words of this very curious statement. {137}

_Roland Monoux._--I have in my possession a brass monumental plate, said to have been taken from some church in Middlesex, and bearing the following lines, engraved in _black letter_:--

"Behold what droupinge Dethe maye doe, consume y'e corse to duste, What Dethe maie not shall lyue for aye, in spite of Dethe his luste; Thoughe Rouland Monoux shrowdeth here, yet Rouland Monoux lives, His helpynge hand to nedys want, a fame for ever geves; Hys worde and dede was ever one, his credyth never quaylde, His zeall' to Christ was stronge, tyll' dethe w'th latest panges asaylde. Twyse thre and one he Children had, two sones, one kepes his name, And dowghters fyve for home he carde, y't lyve in honest fame. What booteth more, as he be kynde dyd come of Jentyll race, So Rouland Monoux good Desertes this grave can not Deface."

I should be obliged to any of your readers for some account of this Rouland Monoux, and when he died. I may also add; that I should be very willing to restore the brass to its original site, did I know the spot from whence it has been sacrilegiously torn.

M.

_Wessel Cup Hymn._--The following Wassail Song is taken from a little chap-book printed at Manchester, called _A Selection of Christmas Hymns_. it is obviously a corrupted version of a much older song:--

"Here we come a wesseling, Among the leaves so green, Here we come a wandering, So fair to be seen.

"_Cho._--Love and joy come to you, And to your wessel too, And God send you a happy new year, A new year, And God send you a happy new year.

"Our wessel cup is made of the rosemary tree, So is your beer of the best barley.

"We are not daily beggars, That beg from door to door, But we are neighbours' children, Whom you have seen before.

"Call up the butler of this house, Put on his golden ring, Let him bring us up a glass of beer, And the better we shall sing.

"We have got a little purse, Made of stretching leather skin, We want a little of your money, To line it well within.

"Bring us out a table, And spread it with a cloth, Bring us out a mouldy cheese, And some of your Christmas loaf.

"God bless the master of this house, Likewise the mistress too, And all the little children, That round the table go.

"Good master and mistress, While you'r sitting by the fire, Pray think of us poor children, Who are wand'ring in the mire.

"_Cho._--Love and joy come to you, And to your wessel to, And God send you a happy new year, A new year, And God send you a happy new year.

Our wessel cup is made of the rosemary tree, So is your beer of the best barley."

It is a song of the season which well deserves to be preserved. Its insertion will at least have that effect, and may be the means of our discovering an earlier and purer text.

AMBROSE MERTON.

_Portrait of Charles I._--In Sir Henry Ellis's _Original Letters_, 2d series, vol. iii. p. 254., amongst the prefatory matter to the reign of Charles I., there is a notice of a sermon, entitled "The Subject's Sorrow, or Lamentations upon the Death of Britaine's Josiah, King Charles."

Sir Henry Ellis says it is expressly stated, in this Sermon, that the King himself desired "that unto his Golden Manual might be prefixed his representation, kneeling; contemning a temporal crown, holding our blessed Saviour's crown of thorns, and aspiring unto an eternal crown of happiness."

Note _b_. upon this passage is as follows:--

"This very portrait of King Charles the First, engraved by Marshall, adorned the original edition of the [Greek: Eikon Basilikae]. 8vo. 1648. _The same portrait, as large as life, in oil painting, was afterwards put up in many of our churches._"

When I was a boy, such a portrait, in oil painting, hung upon the south wall of the body of St. Michael's Church, Cambridge, between the pulpit and a small door to the west, leading into the south aisle.

Out of the window of the chamber in which the King was kneeling was represented a storm at sea, and the ship being driven by it upon some rocks.

A few years ago, upon visiting Cambridge, I went purposely to St. Michael's Church to see this picture, which had been so familiar to me in my boyhood. The clerk told me it had been taken down, and was in the vestry. In the vestry I found it, on its side, on the floor against the wall. {138}