Chapter 2

André des Freux, better known by his Latin name, Frusius, was born at Chartres, in the beginning of the sixteenth century. He embraced the life of an ecclesiastic, and obtained the cure of Thiverval, which he held many years with great credit to himself. The high reputation of Ignatius Loyola, who was then at Rome, with authority from the Holy See to found the Society of the Jesuits, led Frusius to that city, where he was admitted a member of the new order in 1541, and shortly after became secretary to Loyola. He contributed to the establishment of the Society at Parma, Venice, and many towns of Italy and Sicily. He was the first Jesuit who taught the Greek language at Messina; he also gave public lectures on the Holy Scriptures in Rome. He was appointed Rector of the German College at Rome, shortly before his death, which occurred on the 25th of October, 1556, three months and six days after the death of Loyola. Frusius had studied, with equal success, theology, medicine, and law: he was a good mathematician, an excellent musician, and made Latin verses with such facility, that he composed them, on the instant, on all sorts of subjects. But these verses were neither so elegant nor so harmonious, as Alegambe asserts[1], since he adds, that it requires close attention to distinguish them from prose. Frusius translated, from Spanish into Latin, the _Spiritual Exercises_ of Loyola. He was the author of the following works:--Two small pieces, in verse, _De Verborum et Rerum Copia_, and _Summa Latinæ Syntaxeos_: these were published in several different places; _Theses Collectæ ex Interpretatione Geneseos; Assertiones Theologicæ_, Rome, 1554; _Poemata_, Cologne, 1558--this collection often reprinted at Lyons, Antwerp and Tournon, contains 255[2] epigrams against the heretics, amongst whom he places Erasmus;--a poem _De Agno Dei_; and, lastly, another poem, entitled _Echo de Presenti Christianæ Religionis Calamitate_, which has been sometimes cited as an example of a great _difficulté vaincue_. The edition of Tournon contains also a poem, _De Simplicitate_, of which Alegambe speaks with praise. To Frusius was also owing an edition of Martial's _Epigrams_, divested of their obscenities.

EDW. VENTRIS. Cambridge, Jan. 10. 1850.

[Our valued correspondent, MR. MACCABE, has also informed us that the "_Epigrams_ of Frusius were published at Antwerp, 1582, in 8vo., and at Cologne, 1641, in 12mo. See Feller's _Biographie_."]

[1] I presume in his _Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Jesu_.

[2] Duthilloeul, according to Mr. Bruce, says 251.

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OPINIONS RESPECTING BURNET

A small _catena patrum_ has been given respecting Burnet, as a historian, in No. 3. pp. 40, 41., to which two more _scriptorum judicia_ have been appended in No. 8. p. 120., by "I.H.M.". As a sadly disparaging opinion had been quoted, at p. 40., from Lord Dartmouth, I hope you will allow the following remarks on the testimony of that nobleman to appear in your columns:--

"No person has contradicted Burnet more frequently, or with more asperity, than Dartmouth. Yet Dartmouth wrote, 'I do not think he designedly published anything he believed to be false.' At a later period, Dartmouth, provoked by some remarks on himself in the second volume of the Bishop's history, retracted this praise; but to such a retraction little importance can be attached. Even Swift has the justice to say, 'After all he was a man of generosity and good nature.'"--_Short Remarks on Bishop Burnet's History_.

"It is usual to censure Burnet as a singularly inaccurate historian; but I believe the charge to be altogether unjust. He appears to be singularly inaccurate only because his narrative has been subjected to a scrutiny singularly severe and unfriendly. If any Whig thought it worth while to subject Reresby's _Memoirs_, North's _Examen_, Mulgrave's _Account of the Revolution_, or the _Life of James the Second_, edited by Clarke, to a similar scrutiny, it would soon appear that Burnet was far indeed from being the most inexact writer of his time."--Macaulay, _Hist. England_, vol. ii. p.177, 3rd. Ed.

T. Bath.

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QUERIES

SAINT THOMAS OF LANCASTER.

Sir,--I am desirous of information respecting the religious veneration paid to the memory of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, cousin-german to King Edward the Second. He was taken in open rebellion against the King on the 16th of March, 1322, condemned by a court-martial, and executed, with circumstances of great indignity, on the rising ground above the castle of Pomfret, which at the time was in his possession. His body was probably given to the monks of the adjacent priory; and soon after his death miracles were said to be performed at his tomb, and at the place of {182} execution; a curious record of which is preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, at Cambridge, and introduced by Brady into his history of the period. About the same time, a picture or image of him seems to have been exhibited in St. Paul's Church, in London, and to have been the object of many offerings. A special proclamation was issued, denouncing this veneration of the memory of a traitor, and threatening punishment on those who encouraged it; and a statement is given by Brady of the opinions of an ecclesiastic, who thought it very doubtful how far this devotion should be encouraged by the Church, the Earl of Lancaster, besides his political offences, having been a notorious evil-liver.

As soon, however, as the King's party was subdued, and the unhappy sovereign, whose acts and habits had excited so much animosity, cruelly put to death, we find not only the political character of the Earl of Lancaster vindicated, his attainder reversed, his estates restored to his family, and his adherents re-established in all their rights and liberties, but within five weeks of the accession of Edward the Third, a special mission was sent to the Pope from the King, imploring the appointment of a commission to institute the proper canonical investigation for his admission into the family of saints. His character and his cause are described, in florid language, as having been those of a Christian hero; and the numberless miracles wrought in his name, and the confluence of pilgrims to his tomb, are presumed to justify his invocation.

In June of the same year (1327), a "king's letter" is given to Robert de Weryngton, authorising him and his agents to collect alms throughout the kingdom for the purpose of building a chapel on the hill where the Earl was beheaded, and praying all prelates and authorities to give him aid and heed. This sanction gave rise to imposture; and in December a proclamation appeared, ordering the arrest and punishment of unauthorised persons collecting money under this pretence, and taking it for their own use.

In 1330, the same clerical personages were sent again to the Pope, to advance the affair of the canonization of the Earl, and were bearers of letters on the same subject from the King to five of the cardinals, all urging the attention of the Papal court to a subject that so much interested the Church and people of England.

It would seem, however, that some powerful opposition to this request was at work at the Roman see. For in the April of the following year another commission, composed of a professor of theology, a military personage, and a magistrate of the name of John de Newton, was sent with letters to the Pope, to nine cardinals, to the referendary of the Papal court, and to three nephews of his Holiness, entreating them not to give ear to the invectives of malignant men ("commenta fictitia maliloquorum"), who here asserted that the Earl of Lancaster consented to, or connived at, some injury or insult offered to certain cardinals at Durham in the late king's reign. So far from this being true, the letters assert that the earl defended these prelates to the utmost of his power, protected them from enemies who had designs on their lives, and placed them in security at his own great peril. The main point of the canonization is again urged, and allusion made to former repeated supplications, and the sacred promise, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you," appealed to. The vindication of the Earl from the malicious charge against him is omitted in the letters to two of the cardinals and the lay personages. Were these the two cardinals who fancied themselves injured?

This, then, is all I can discover in the ordinary historical channels respecting this object of ancient public reverence in England. The chapel was constructed and officiated in till the dissolution of the monasteries; the image in St. Paul's was always regarded with special affection; and the cognomen of _Saint_ Thomas of Lancaster was generally accepted and understood.

Five hundred years after the execution of the Earl of Lancaster, a large stone coffin, massive and roughly hewn, was found in a field that belonged of old to the Priory of Pomfret, but at least a quarter of a mile distant from the hill where the chapel stood. Within was the skeleton of a full-grown man, partially preserved; the skull lay between the thighs. There is no record of the decapitation of any person at Pomfret of sufficient dignity to have been interred in a manner showing so much care for the preservation of the body, except the Earl of Lancaster. The coffin may have been removed here at the time the opposite party forbade its veneration, from motives of precaution for its safety.

Now, I shall be much obliged for information on the following points:--

Is any thing known, beyond what I have stated, as to the communications with Rome on the subject of his canonization, or as to the means by which he was permitted by the English church to become a fit object for invocation and veneration?

What are the chief historical grounds that endeared his memory to the Church or the people? The compassion for his signal fall can hardly account for this, although a similar motive was sufficient to bring to the tomb of Edward II., in Gloucester Cathedral, an amount of offerings that added considerably to the splendour of the edifice.

Are any anecdotes or circumstances recorded, respecting the worship of this saint in later times, than I have referred to?

{183} What is the historic probability that the stone coffin, discovered in 1822, contained the remains of this remarkable man?

I have no doubt that much curious and valuable matter might be discovered, by pursuing into the remote receptacles of historical knowledge the lives and characters of persons who have become, in Catholic times, the unauthorised objects of popular religious reverence after death.

RICH. MONCKTON MILNES. 26. Pall Mall, Jan. 12th.

[To this interesting communication we may add that "_The Office of St. Thomas of Lancaster_," which begins,

"Gaude Thoma, ducum decus, lucerna Lancastriæ,"

is printed in the volume of "_Political Songs_" edited by Mr. Wright for the Camden Society, from a Royal MS. in the British Museum.--MS. Reg. 12.]

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SHIELD OF THE BLACK PRINCE--SWORD OF CHARLES I.

In Bolton's _Elements of Armories_, 1610, p. 67., is an engraving of a very interesting shield, of the kind called "Pavoise," which at that period hung over the tomb of Edward the Black Prince, at Canterbury, in addition to the shield still remaining there. Bolton says, "The sayd victorious Princes tombe is in the goodly Cathedral Church erected to the honour of Christ, in Canterburie; there (beside his quilted coat-armour, with half-sleeves, Taberd fashion, and his triangular shield, both of them painted with the royall armories of our kings, and differenced with silver labels) hangs this kind of Pavis or Target, curiously (for those times) embost and painted, and the Scutcheon in the bosse being worne out, and the Armes (which, it seemes, were the same with his coate armour, and not any particular devise) defaced, and is altogether of the same kinde with that upon which (Froissard reports) the dead body of the Lord Robert of Dvras, and nephew to the Cardinall of Pierregoort, was laid, and sent unto that Cardinale, from the Battell of Poictiers, where the Blacke Prince obtained a Victorie, the renowne whereof is immortale."

Can any of your correspondents inform me when this most interesting relic disappeared? Sandford, whose _Genealogical History_ was published some sixty or seventy years later, says, "On an iron barr over the Tombe are placed the Healme and Crest, Coat of Maile, and Gantlets, and, on a pillar near thereunto, his shield of Armes, richly diapred with gold, all which he is said to have used in Battel;" but he neither mentions the missing "Pavoise," engraved in Bolton, or the scabbard of the sword which yet remains, the sword itself having been taken away, according to report, by Oliver Cromwell. Did that unscrupulous Protector(?) take away the "Pavoise" at the same time, or order his Ironsides to "remove that bauble?"--and how came he to spare the helmet, jupon, gauntlets, shield, and _scabbard_? I have strong doubts of his being the purloiner of the sword. The late Mr. Stothard, who mentions the report, does not quote his authority. I will add another query, on a similar subject:--When did the _real_ sword of Charles the First's time, which, but a few years back, hung at the side of that monarch's equestrian figure at Charing Cross, disappear?--and what has become of it? The question was put, at my suggestion, to the official authorities, by the secretary of the British Archæological Association; but no information could be obtained on the subject. That the sword _was_ a real one of that period, I state upon the authority of my lamented friend, the late Sir Samuel Meyrick, who had ascertained the fact, and pointed out to me its loss.

J.R. PLANCHÉ.

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FRATENRNITYE OF VAGABONDES--REV. MR. GENESSE--RED MAIDS.

[We have for some time past been obliged, by want of space, to omit all the kind expressions towards ourselves, in which friendly correspondents are apt to indulge; but there is something so unusual in the way in which the following letter begins, that we have done violence to our modesty, in order to admit the comments of our kind-hearted correspondent. We have no doubt that all his questions will be answered in due course.]

Never, during my life (more than half a century), do I remember hailing the appearance of any new publication with such unfeigned delight. I had hugged myself on having the friendship of a certain "BOOKWORM," possessing a curious library, of some three or four thousand volumes; how much must I have rejoiced, therefore, at finding that, through the medium of your invaluable journal, my literary friends were likely to be increased one hundred-fold; and that, for the small sum of three pence weekly, I could command the cordial co-operation, when at a loss, of all the first scholars, antiquaries, and literary men of the country; that without the trouble of attending meetings, &c., I could freely become a member of the "Society of Societies;" that the four thousand volumes, to which I had, previously, access, were increased more than ten thousand-fold. It is one of the peculiar advantages of literary accumulation, that it is only by diffusing the knowledge of the materials amassed, and the information gained, that their value is felt. Unlike the miser, the scholar and antiquary, by expending, add to the value of their riches.

Permit me to avail myself of the "good the bounteous gods have sent me," and make one or two inquiries through the medium of your columns. {184} In the first place, can any of your readers inform me by whom a pamphlet, of the Elizabethan period, noticed in the _Censura Literaria_, and entitled _The Fraternitye of Vagabondes_, was reprinted, some years since?--Was it by Machelle Stace, of Scotland Yard, who died a brother of the Charter-House?

In the second place, can any of your clerical readers tell me where I can find any account of the late Rev. Mr. Genesse, of Bath, author of a _History of the Stage_, in ten volumes, one of the most elaborate and entertaining works ever published, which must have been a labour of love, and the labour of a life?

And, in the third and last place, I find, in the _Bristol Gazette_ of the early part of last month, the following paragraph:--"THE RED MAIDS, 120 in number, enjoyed their annual dinner in honour of the birthday of their great benefactor, Alderman Whitson. The dinner consisted of joints of _veal_ (which they only have on this occasion), and some dozens of plum puddings. The mayor and Mayoress attended, and were much pleased to witness the happy faces of the girls, to whom the Mayoress distributed one shilling each."

Can any of your curious contributors give me any account of these _Red Maids_?--why they are so called, &c., &c.?--and, in fact, of the charity in general?

It will not be one of the least of many benefits of your publication, that, in noticing from time to time the real intention of many ancient charitable bequests, the purposes of the original benevolent founder may be restored to their integrity, and the charity devoted to the use of those for whom it was intended, and who will receive it as a charity, and not, as is too often the case, be swallowed up as a mere place,--or worse, a sinecure.

ARTHUR GRIFFINHOOF, JUN.

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THE NAME OF SHYLOCK.

Dr. Farmer has stated that Shakspere took the name which he has given to one of the leading characters in the _Merchant of Venice_ from a pamphlet entitled _Caleb Shilloche, or the Jew's Prediction_. The date of the pamphlet, however, being some years posterior to that of the play, renders this origin impossible. Mr. C. Knight, who points out this error, adds--"_Scialac_ was the name of a Marionite of Mount Libanus."

But "query," Was not _Shylock_ a proper name among the Jews, derived from the designation employed by the patriarch Jacob in predicting the advent of the Messiah--"until _Shiloh_ come"? (Gen. xlix. 10.) The objection, which might be urged, that so sacred a name would not have been applied by an ancient Jew to his child, has not much weight, when we recollect that some Christians have not shrunk from the blasphemous imposition of the name _Emanuel_ ("God with us") upon their offspring. St. Jerome manifestly reads SHILOACH, for he translates it by _Qui mittendus est. (Lond. Encyc_. in voc. "Shiloh.") Now the difference between _Shiloach_ and _Shylock_ is very trivial indeed. I shall be very glad to have the opinion of some of your numerous and able contributors on this point.

But, after all, Shylock may have been a _family name_ familiar to the great dramatist. In all my researches on the subject of _English surnames,_ however, I have but once met with it as a generic distinction. In the _Battel Abbey Deeds_ (penes Sir T. Phillipps, Bart.) occurs a power of attorney from John Pesemershe, Esq., to _Richard Shylok_, of Hoo, co. Sussex, and others, to deliver seizin of all his lands in Sussex to certain persons therein named. The date of this document is July 4, 1435.

MARK ANTONY LOWER.

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TRANSPOSITION OF LETTERS.

I should be obliged if any of your readers would give me the reason for the transposition of certain letters, chiefly, but not exclusively, in proper names, which has been effected in the course of time.

The name of our Queen Bertha was, in the seventh century, written Beorhte.

The Duke Brythnoth's name was frequently written Byrthnoth, in the tenth century.

In Eardweard, we have dropped the _a_; in Ealdredesgate, the _e_. In Aedwini, we have dropped the first letter (or have sometimes transposed it), although, I think, we are wrong; for the given name Adwin has existed in my own family for several centuries.

John was always written Jhon till about the end of the sixteenth century; and in Chaucer's time, the word _third_, as every body knows, was written _thridde_, or _thrydde_. I believe that the _h_ in Jhon was introduced, as it was in other words in German, to give force to the following vowel. Certain letters were formerly used in old French in like manner, which were dropped upon the introduction of the accents.

B. WILLIAMS. Hillingdon, Jan. 5.

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PICTURES OF QUEEN ELIZABETH AND CHARLES I. IN CHURCHES.

Your correspondent "R.O." will find two pictures of Charles I. of the same allegorical character as that described by him in his note (_antè_, p. 137.), one on the wall of the stairs leading to the north gallery of the church of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, and the other in the hall of the law courts in Guildhall Yard. I know nothing of the history of the first-mentioned picture; the latter, until within a few years, hung on the wall, above the {185} gallery, in the church of St. Olave, Jewry, when, upon the church undergoing repair, it was taken down, and, by the parishioners, presented to the corporation of London, who placed it in its present position. In the church of St. Olave there were two other pictures hung in the gallery, one representing the tomb of Queen Elizabeth, copied from the original at Westminster, the other of Time on the Wing, inscribed with various texts from Scripture. Both these pictures were presented at the same time with the picture of Charles I. to the corporation, and are now in the hall in Guildhall Yard. The representation of Queen Elizabeth's tomb is to be met with, I believe, in some other of the London churches. The picture in Bishopsgate Church is fully described in the 1st vol. of Malcolm's _Londinium Redivivum_, p. 243., and the St. Olave's pictures are mentioned in the 4th vol. of the same work, p. 563. Malcolm states he was not able to find any account of the Bishopsgate painting in the parish books. Hitherto I have not been able to discover anything connected with the history of the St. Olave's pictures, which, as the old church was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, were doubtless placed there subsequently to that year. I shall be glad if any of your readers can throw any light as to the time when, and the circumstances under which, such pictures as I have mentioned, referring to Queen Elizabeth and Charles I., were placed in our churches.

JAMES CROSBY.

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FLAYING IN PUNISHMENT OF SACRILEGE.

In the _Journal of the Archæological Institute_, for September, 1848, there are some most interesting notes on the subject of "Flaying in Punishment of Sacrilege," by Mr. Way. Since then I have felt peculiar interest in the facts and traditions recorded by Mr. Way. Can any of your correspondents, or Mr. Way himself, give any further references to authors by whom the subject is mentioned, besides those named in the paper to which I allude? A few weeks ago I received a piece of skin, stated to be human, and taken from the door of the parish church of Hadstock, in Essex. Together with this I received a short written paper, apparently written some fifty years ago, which ascribes the fact of human skin being found on the door of that church, to the punishment, _not_ of _sacrilege_, but of a somewhat different crime. The piece of skin has been pronounced to be human by the highest authority. As the above query might lead to some lengthy "notes," I desire only to be informed of the titles of any works, ancient or modern, in which distinct mention, or allusion, is made of the punishment of flaying.

R.V. Winchester.

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MINOR QUERIES.