Part 1
Transcriber's note: A few typographical errors have been corrected: they are listed at the end of the text.
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NOTES AND QUERIES:
A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.
"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.
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Vol. V.--No. 139.] SATURDAY, JUNE 26. 1852 [Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition 5d.
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CONTENTS.
NOTES:-- Page
Popular Stories of the English Peasantry, No. V., by T. Sternberg 601
Dr. Thomas Morell's Copy of H. Stephens' Edition of Æschylus, 1557, with MSS. Notes, by Richard Hooper 604
On a Passage in the "Merchant of Venice," Act III. Sc. 2., by S. W. Singer 605
Episode of the French Revolution, by Philip S. King 605
Milton indebted to Tacitus, by Thomas H. Gill 606
Minor Notes:--Note by Warton on Aristotle's "Poetics"-- Misappropriated Quotation--The God Arciacon--Gat-tothed-- Goujere--The Ten Commandments in Ten Lines--Vellum-bound Books 606
QUERIES:--
Thomas Gill, the Blind Man of St. Edmundsbury 608
Bronze Medals, by John J. A. Boase 608
Acworth Queries 608
Minor Queries:--"Row the boat, Norman"--The Hereditary Standard Bearer--Walton's Angler; Seth's Pillars; May-butter; English Guzman--Radish Feast--What Kind of Drink is Whit?--"Felix natu," &c.--"Gutta cavat lapidem"--Punch and Judy--Sir John Darnall--The Chevalier St. George--Declaration of 2000 Clergymen--MS. "De Humilitate"--MS. Work on Seals--Sir George Carew--Docking Horses' Tails--St. Albans, William, Abbot of--Jeremy Taylor on Friendship--Colonel or Major-General Lee-- "Roses and all that's fair adorn" 609
MINOR QUERIES ANSWERED:--Donne--Dr. Evans 611
REPLIES:--
Carling Sunday; Roman Funeral Pile 611
Hart and Mohun 612
Burial without Religious Service--Burial, by Alfred Gatty 613
"Quod non fecerunt Barbari," &c. 614
Restive 614
Men of Kent and Kentish Men, by George R. Corner 615
Replies to Minor Queries:--Speculum Christianorum, &c.-- Smyth's MSS. relating to Gloucestershire--M. Barrière and the Quarterly Review--"I do not know what the truth may be"--Optical Phenomena--Stoup--Seventh Son of a Seventh Son--The Number Seven--Commentators--Banning or Bayning Family--Tortoiseshell Tom Cat--A Tombstone cut by Baskerville--Shakspeare, Tennyson, &c.--Rhymes on Places--Birthplace of Josephine--The Curse of Scotland--Waller Family--"After me the Deluge"--Sun-Dial Motto--Lines by Lord Palmerston--Indian Jugglers--Sons of the Conqueror--Saint Wilfrid's Needle--Frebord-- Royd--Spy Wednesday--Book of Jasher--Stearne's Confirmation and Discovery of Witchcraft--Lines on Chaucer--Fairlop Oak--Boy Bishop at Eton--Plague Stones; Mr. Mompesson--Raleigh's Ring--Pandecte, an entire Copy of the Bible 616
MISCELLANEOUS:--
Notes on Books, &c. 622
Books and Odd Volumes wanted 622
Notices to Correspondents 623
Advertisements 623
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Notes.
POPULAR STORIES OF THE ENGLISH PEASANTRY,
NO. V.
By far the larger portion of our tales consist of those connected with the popular mythology of elves, and giants, and bleeding trees; of witches and their wicked doings; of frogs that _would_ go a-wooing, and got turned into princes; and amorous princes who became frogs; of primitive rough chests transformed into coaches; young ladies who go to bed young ladies, and get up owls; much despised younger sons crowned kings of boundless realms; and mediæval tabbies getting inducted into flourishing vizierships by the mere loss of their tails: stories, in short, of the metamorphosis of all conceivable things into all conceivable shapes. Lest this catalogue should frighten your readers, I at once disavow any intention of reflecting more than a specimen. Their puerility renders them scarcely suitable to your columns, and there is moreover such a sameness in those best worth preserving--the fairy legends--that a single example would be amply sufficient for our purpose of pointing out the different varieties of oral romance. Whenever the story relates to the dealings of the fairy-folk with mankind, the elf is almost always represented as the dupe; while, in his transactions with rival supernaturals, he invariably comes off victorious. Giants especially, being always of sleepy and obtuse intellect, afford a fine field for the display of his powers; and we find him baffling their clumsy plans, as well also as the more cunning devices of weird-sisters, in a manner which proves him to be a worthy scion of the warlike _avenger_ of the Sagar. The lovers of folk-lore will probably agree with me in regarding the following tale as a choice bit of elfin history, illustrating the not very amicable relations of the witches and the good people. No sneers, therefore, gentle readers, but listen to the simple strain of "Fairy Jip and Witch One-eye."
Once upon a time, just before the monkey tribe gave up the nauseous custom of chewing tobacco, there lived an old hag, who had conceived an inordinate desire to eat an elf: a circumstance, by the way, which indubitably establishes that elves were {602} of masticable solidity, and not, as some one has it, mere
"_Shadowry_ dancers by the summer streams."
So the old lady went to the place where the fairies dwelt, and knocked at the hill-top:--"Pretty little Jip!" said she; "come and see the sack of cherries I have brought thee, _so_ large, _so_ red, _so_ sweet." Fairies, be it known, are extremely fond of this fruit, and the elf rushed out in eager haste. "Ha! ha!" said One-eye, as she pounced upon him, and put him in her bag (witches always carry bags), "take care the stones don't stick in thy throttle, my little bird." On the way home, she has to visit a place some distance from the road, and left Jip meanwhile in the charge of a man who was cutting faggots. No sooner was her back turned, than Jip begged the man to let him out; and they filled the bag with thorns. One-eye called for her burden, and set off towards home, making sure she had her dinner safe on her back. "Ay, ay! my lad," said she, as she felt the pricking of the thorns; "I'll trounce thee when I get home for stinging me with thy pins and needles." When she reached her house, she belaboured the bag with a huge stick, till she thought she had broken every bone in the elf's body; and when she found that she had been wasting her strength upon a "kit" of thorns, her rage knew no bounds. Next day, she again got possession of Jip in a similar manner, and this time left him in care of a man who was breaking stones by the road-side. The elf makes his escape as before, and they fill the sack with stones. "Thou little rogue!" said the witch, as she perspired under the burden; "I'll soften thy bones nigh-hand." Her appetite was only whetted, not blunted, by these repeated failures, and despairing of again catching her prey in the same way as before, she assumed the shape of a pedlar with a churn on his shoulder, and contrived to meet Jip in a wood. "Ah! Master Redcap," quoth she; "look alive, my little man, the fox is after thee. See! here he comes: hie thee into my churn, and I will shelter thee. Quick! quick!" In jumped the elf. "Pretty bird!" chuckled the old Crocodile; "dost thee scent the fox?" This time she went straight home, and gave Jip to her daughter, with strict orders that she should cut off his noddle and boil it. When the time came for beginning the cooking, Miss One-eye led her captive to the chopping-block, and bade him lay down his head. "How?" quoth Jip; "I don't know how." "Like this, to be sure," said she; and, suiting the action to the word, she put her poll in the right position. Instantly the fairy seizes the hatchet, and serves her in the manner she intended to serve him. Then picking up a huge pebble, he climbs up the chimney to watch the progress of events. As he expected, the witch came to the fire to look after her delicacy; and no sooner does she lift up the lid of the pot, than "plop" came down Jip's pebble right into the centre of her remaining optic, the light of which is extinguished for ever; or, according to some versions, killed her _stone_-dead.[1]
Some of the stories are so extremely like the German ones, that, with very slight alterations, they would serve as translations. These, for obvious reasons, it will not be worth while to trouble you with. Among them, I may particularise the following from the _Kinder und Hausmärchen_:--Hans im Gluck: Der Frieder und das Catherlieschen; Von der Frau Füchsin; and Van den Nachandel-Boom.
Modern tales of diablerie are not so uncommon as might be expected. In the time of Chaucer, the popular belief ascribed the departure of the elves to the great number of wandering friars who mercilessly pursued them with bell, book, and candle; and at the present day, in the opinion of our uneducated peasantry, the itinerant sectarian preachers are endowed with similar attributes. The stories told of these men, and their encounters with the powers of darkness, would fill a new Golden Legend. There is one tale in particular which comes within our designation of "popular stories," as is well known in almost all parts of England,--How a godly minister falls over the company of wicked scoffing elves, and how he gets out.[2] The last time I heard it, it was related of a preacher of the Ranting persuasion, well known some dozen years ago in a certain district of Warwickshire; and I prefer to give it in this localised form, as it enables me to present your readers with "Positively the last from Fairyland."
Providence B---- was a well-known man throughout that whole country-side. He had made more converts than all his brethren put together, and, in the matter of spirits and demons, would stand a comparison with Godred or Gutlac, or, by'r Lady, St. Anthony himself. Now it fell out one day, that Providence was sent for to the house of a wealthy yeoman to aid in expelling an evil spirit which had long infested his daughter. I must here remark, _en parenthèse_, that scenes of this fearfully ludicrous nature are far from unfrequent in our country districts. The besotted state of ignorance in which a great portion of our rural population are still enwrapt, renders them peculiarly open to the fleecing of these fanatics, who, marvellous to relate, are almost everywhere {603} looked upon with respect, and treated with the greatest consideration, proving incontestably that,
"Mad as Christians used to be About the seventeenth century, There's others to be had In this the nineteenth just as bad."
On this occasion the job proved a tough one, and it was not till a late hour that Prov. set off on his road home. It was a pitchy dark night, and somehow or other the preacher and his nag contrived to lose their way among the green lanes, and it was not till they had floundered about for some time that our hero discerned (as is usual in such cases) a light gleaming through the thick foliage before him, which he incontinently discovers to proceed from a solitary dwelling in the middle of the woods. _Of course_ he dismounts, and knocks at the door; and _of course_ it was opened by a suspicious-looking old woman in toggery which it would do Mr. James's heart good to depict. To his request for a night's lodging, she yielded a ready assent--too ready, Prov. thought; for it seemed from her manner as though he had been expected. He was shown into a bed-room, and was proceeding to divest himself of his garments, when he hears a knock at the door, and a voice asked him to come down to supper. Prov. made answer that he didn't want any, that he was in bed, and that moreover he was engaged at his devotions; but presently the messenger returned, and declared that if he did not join the company downstairs, they would come and sup with him. Poor Prov. quaked with fright, but thought it politic to cloak his fears, so followed the servant to the house-room, where there were a number of people sitting round a table plentifully laden with good things. All of them were little "shrivelled up" old men; and, as the chairman motioned Prov. to a vacant seat, they all regarded him with a stare that made him feel the reverse of jolly. Although he is well acquainted with the neighbourhood, he recognises none of them. The meal proceeded in solemn silence: look which way he would, he encounters the gaze of his companions, who appear to scowl at him with an expression of fiendish hate. Dreadful surmises flit across his brain. Suddenly his attention becomes directed to the posterior portion of the gentleman next him. "By Jove! he has a tail. Yes, he has; and so has his neighbour, and so have they all." He fancies too he can trace a resemblance between the individual who sits at the head of the table and the fiend of the morning's exorcism. All is now clear as a pike-staff. It is a decided case of trepan. That dark fellow on the right has to complain of a forcible ejection from a comfortable dwelling in the portly corpus of Master Muggins the miller; and he on the left is the identical demon who got into Farmer Nelson's cow, and gave our hero a world of trouble to get him out. He is in the power of the incubi, whom he has been so long warring against. Not a moment is to be lost, for already they are whispering together, and the scowls get fiercer and fiercer. What is to be done? A monk would have had recourse to his breviary; Prov. thought of his hymn-book. "Brethren," says he, "it is usual wi' us at the heend of a feast to ax a blessing."
"A blessing quotha! and to _us_?" roared the fiends. "Ha! ha! Yea! yea!" said Prov.; and _instanter_ he out with that _spirit-stirring_ stanza of "immortal John:"
"Jesus the name, high over all, In hell, or earth, or sky, Angels and men before Him fall, And devils fear and fly!"
Who shall depict the scene while these words were being uttered? The old men turn all sorts of colours, from green to blue, and blue to green, and back again to their original hue. At the last line, the uproar becomes terrible; and, amidst shouts of fiendish wailing, the whole company resolve themselves into a thin blue smoke, in which state they career up the chimney, taking with them a bran new chimney-pot, and leaving behind a most offensive odour of lucifer matches. Prov. saw no more; he fainted.
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Some scandalous fellows spread abroad a report that the morning's sun discovered our valiant vessel snugly ensconced in a dry ditch; but as he always denounced strong waters, and was moreover a leading member of the Steeple "United Totals," I, for one, do not believe it. From the examples already given, I trust your readers will think with me that these old world relics are worth preserving. I hope they will not be backward in the good work. A few more years, and the scheme of an English work on the plan of Grimm's will be impracticable. The romance-lore, both oral and written, which erewhile delighted the cottager, is growing out of date. The prosy narrative of "How John the serving-man wedded an earl's daughter, and became a squire of high degree;" and the less placid, but still intolerably dull feats of the "Seven Champions," have no charms for him now. He has outgrown the old chap-book literature, and affectionates the highly seasoned atrocities of the Old Bailey school; which, to the disgrace of the legislature, are allowed to poison the minds of our labouring community with their weekly broad-sheets of crime and obscenity. Even those prime old favourites, the _Robin Hood Garland_ and _Shepherd's Kalendar_, with its quaint letter-press and grim woodcuts, are getting out of fashion, and beginning to be missed from their accustomed nook beside the family Bible.
T. STERNBERG.
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P.S. Owing to some unaccountable inadvertence, I have only just seen the number of "N.& Q." containing the highly interesting communications of H. B. C. and MR. STEPHENS. Will MR. STEPHENS allow me to ask him where he procured his tale, for I agree with H. B. C. that it is "desirable to fix the localities as nearly as possible." My version came from the Gloucestershire side of the county.
[Footnote 1: This story is from Northamptonshire, and by some oversight was omitted in my _Dialect and Folk-Lore_.]
[Footnote 2: I use the term _elves_ advisedly; for though, of course, the creed of _rantism_ does not recognise the existence of the mere poetic beings, yet it absolutely inculcates belief in all sorts of _bona fide_ corporeal demons: which, like the club-footed gentry of the saintly hermits, are nothing more than Teutonic _elfen_ in ecclesiastical masquerade.]
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DR. THOMAS MORELL'S COPY OF H. STEPHENS' EDIT. OF ÆSCHYLUS, 1557, WITH MSS. NOTES.
As your valuable paper is in the hands of scholars of every description in every part of the world, the following communication may meet the eye, and be of no slight interest to some of your classical readers, and, at the same time, give a stimulus to hunters at bookstalls. Some time since, in one of my hunts, I stumbled upon a very fine copy of Pet. Victorine's (Vettori) edition of Æschylus, printed by H. Stephens, 1557. I was much gratified in finding it had belonged to the celebrated Thomas Morell, D.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., the lexicographer, and had his book-plate and autograph. The margins were filled with many conjectures and emendations written in two very ancient hands, and, besides, some MSS. Scholia on the _Prometheus_ and _Poesæ_. In carefully examining them I found many were marked with the letters (A) and (P). I remembered the present very learned Bishop of London, in the preface to his edition of the _Choæphoræ_, mentioned the vast assistance he had received in editing that play from a copy of this very edition of Æschylus (H. Stephens, 1557), lent to him by Mr. Mitford, the margins of which were similarly marked. The bishop observes these emendations were by Auratus and Portus, two learned French scholars; and that Mr. Mitford's volume contained several other emendations without the signatures (A) and (P), which he, for distinction's sake, marked (Q). Now my copy also possessed these readings marked (Q). The bishop further observed, that the writer of the MSS. notes was a cotemporary of Casaubon's from a remark at p. 14. of the volume. The learned bishop's description of the volume will be found in the _Museum Criticum_, vol. ii. p. 488. I at first imagined I had met with this identical volume; but a closer examination proved I was mistaken, as my copy, besides all those carefully noted by Dr. Blomfield, contained many other emendations, but had _not_ the note at p. 14. of the _Prometheus_. Whoever was the copier or writer of the marginal MSS. in my volume, was evidently a Frenchman, as some of the notes are in French. The handwriting is very ancient and contracted, and has the appearance of being of the early portion of the seventeenth century. The most interesting part, however, of the story still remains. Dr. Thomas Morell edited the _Prometheus_, 4to., 1773. The title is as follows: _Æschyli P. V. cum Stanl. Versione et Scholiis, [alpha], [beta], (et [gamma] ineditis), &c._ Now these Scholia [gamma], which he professes to give for the first time, I found to be those in the very ancient hand in the margin of my volume. He frequently also gives the various marginal readings, and styles them "Marg. MS." Moreover he occasionally adopts these notes without any acknowledgment, especially where they throw any light on the text. The volume then is of great curiosity and value. From a curious note at the end of the _Prometheus_, Morell takes nine iambic lines, to which is affixed "Ad Calcem Dramatis MS. Regii." From this it would seem the Scholia were taken from a MS. in the Royal Library at Paris.
We may observe then as a remarkable circumstance, that while Bishop Blomfield was describing the copy belonging to Mr. Mitford, a similar copy, with more notes, and of equal antiquity as to the MSS. emendations, was in existence, and had once been in the possession of, and of much assistance to the great Dr. Morell. Where Morell got this volume, and how he should not have acknowledged the aid he derived from it, is a mystery. As I mentioned before, the handwriting is far prior to Morell's day. The volume is rendered still more interesting by its having many of Stanley's emendations, about which such a controversy arose from the observations made by Blomfield in his preface to the _Agamemnon_. And I am almost induced to think it might originally have belonged to Stanley, who made a similar use of it to what Morell did. Many of the emendations are _still inedited_. This valuable volume, therefore, is of great interest, (1) from the vast number of MSS. readings, and (2) from its having been formerly in the possession of Dr. Morell, and the circumstances above mentioned. It is a very large and clean copy of the now scarce edition of H. Stephens; and your bibliographical readers will be astonished to hear I purchased it for _one shilling_! I may mention I showed it to the Bishop of London and Dr. Wordsworth, Canon of Westminster, who were both interested with it. The latter showed me in return several volumes of MSS. collections for a new edition of Æschylus, made by his lamented brother the late Mr. John Wordsworth, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, perhaps the profoundest Greek scholar next to Porson the University of Cambridge ever possessed, and who so ably reviewed Professor Scholefield's Æschylus in the _Philological Museum_. The classical world can never sufficiently regret that death prevented us from receiving at his hands a first-rate edition of this noble poet, as he had been at much pains in travelling all over the Continent, and examining all the MSS. extant; and from his known partiality to the author, and {605} vast learning, would doubtless have done ample justice to his task.
RICHARD HOOPER.
St. Stephen's, Westminster.
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ON A PASSAGE IN THE "MERCHANT OF VENICE," ACT III. SC. 2.
The passage in which I am about to propose some verbal corrections has already been in part examined by your correspondent A. E. B. in p. 483. of this volume; but the points, except one, to which I advert, have not been touched by that gentleman. The first folio reads thus:
"Thus ornament is but the _guiled_ shore To a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarfe Vailing an Indian _beautie_; In a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on To intrap the wisest. Therefore then, thou gaudie gold, Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee, Nor none of thee, thou _pale_ and common drudge Tweene man and man; but thou, thou meager lead, Which rather threatnest than doth promise ought, Thy palenesse moves me more than eloquence, And here choose I, joy be the consequence."