Part 3

_Inscription on Penny of George III._--On an old penny of George III., on the reverse, I find the following inscription:

"STABIT QVOCVNQVE IECERIS."

What does this precisely mean; or why and when was it adopted?

J. M. A.

_"Shob," or "Shub," a Kentish Word._--Your correspondent on the Kentish word _sheets_ (Vol. vi., p. 338.) may possibly be able to give some account of another Kentish word, which I have met with in the country about Horton-Kirby, Dartford, Crayford, &c., and the which I cannot find in Halliwell, or any other dictionary in my possession,--viz. to _shob_ or _shub_. It is applied to the trimming up elm-trees in the hedge-rows, by cutting away all the branches except at the head: "to shob the trees" is the expression. Now, in German we have _schaben_, v. r. to shave; but in the Anglo-Saxon I find nothing nearer than _scaf_, part. _scof_, to shave.

A. C. M.

Exeter.

_Bishop Pursglove (Suffragan) of Hull._--This prelate is buried in Tideswell Church, Devonshire, and a copy of his monumental brass is given in _Illustrations of Monumental Brasses_, published in 1842 by the Cambridge Camden Society. Perhaps some reader of "N. & Q." who has access to that work will send the inscription for insertion in your columns. Any information also as {66} to his consecration, character, and period of decease, would be acceptable. What is the best work on English Suffragan bishops? I believe Wharton's _Suffragans_ (which, however, I do not possess to refer to) is far from being complete or correct. It would be interesting to have a complete list of such bishops, with the names of their sees, and dates of consecration and demise. I find no Suffragan bishop after Bishop John Sterne, consecrated for Colchester 12th November, 1592, and this from the valuable list in Percival's _Apol. for Ap. Suc._

A. S. A.

Punjaub.

_Stewarts of Holland._--In the year 1739 there lived in Holland a Lieutenant Dougal Stewart, of the Dutch service, who was married to Susan, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Fairfowl, of Bracindam. He was descended from the ancient Scottish family of Stewarts of Appin, in Argyleshire; and this Query is to inquire whether anything is known regarding him or his descendants, if he had such? This might find a reply in _De Navorscher_ perhaps.

A. S. A.

Punjaub.

_Robert Wauchope, Archbishop of Armagh, 1543._--Is there any detailed account of this prelate extant? The few particulars I have been able to glean respecting him are merely that he was a native of Scotland, and Doctor in Divinity of the University of Paris, where he probably studied theology, as was common with Scottish ecclesiastics of that day. He arrived in Ireland about the year 1541, and is memorable for the glory, or shame, of being the first who introduced the Jesuit order into that country. Pope Paul III. nominated him to the primatial see of Armagh, after the death of Archbishop Cromer in 1543, and during the lifetime of Archbishop Dowdal, who was a Catholic also, but being appointed Archbishop of Armagh in November 1543, by King Henry VIII., was not acknowledged at Rome as such. _Waucup_, as his name is also spelt, and Latinized "Venantius," never appears, however, to have been able to obtain regular possession of the see of Armagh and primacy of Ireland, being merely titular archbishop. Some accounts state that he was blind from his childhood, but others say, and probably more correctly, that he was only short-sighted. He was present at the Council of Trent in 1545-47, being one of the four Irish prelates who attended there; and, in _Hist. del Concil. Trid._, l. ii. p. 144., he is alluded to as having been esteemed the _best at riding post in the world!_--"Huomo di brevissima vista era commendato di questa, di correr alla posta meglio d'huomo del mondo." I should like much to ascertain the date and place of his birth, consecration, and death.

A. S. A.

_Plum-pudding._--Can any of your readers inform me of the origin of the following custom, and whether the ceremony is still continued? I can find no mention of it in any topographical dictionary or history of Devon, but it was copied from an old newspaper, bearing date June 7, 1809:

"At Paignton Fair, near Exeter, the ancient custom of drawing through the town a plum-pudding of an immense size, and afterwards distributing it to the populace, _was revived_ on Tuesday last. The ingredients which composed this enormous pudding were as follows: 400 lbs. of flour, 170 lbs. of beef suet, 140 lbs. of raisins, and 240 eggs. It was kept constantly boiling in a brewer's copper from Saturday morning to the Tuesday following, when it was placed on a car decorated with ribbons, evergreens, &c., and drawn along the street by eight oxen."

EVERARD HORNE COLEMAN.

"_Whene'er I asked._"--I shall be very glad to know the author and the exact whereabouts of the following lines, which I find quoted in a MS. letter written from London to America, and dated 22nd October, 1767:

"Whene'er I ask'd for blessings on your head, Nothing was cold or formal that I said; My warmest vows to Heaven were made for thee, And love still mingled with my piety."

W. B. R.

Philadelphia, U. S.

_Immoral Works._--What ought to be done with works of this class? It is easy to answer, "destroy them:" but you and I know, and Mr. Macaulay has acknowledged, that it is often necessary to rake into the filthiest channels for historical and biographical evidence. I, personally, doubt whether we are justified in destroying _any_ evidence, however loathsome and offensive it may be. What, then, are we to do with it? It is impossible to keep such works in a private library, even under lock and key, for death opens locks more certainly than Mr. Hobbs himself. I think such ought to be preserved in the British Museum, entered in its catalogue, but only permitted to be seen on good reasons formally assigned in writing, and not then allowed to pass into the reading-room. What is the rule at the Museum?

I ask these questions because I have, by accident, become possessed of a poem (about 1500 lines) which professes to be written by Lord Byron, is addressed to Thomas Moore, and was printed abroad many years since. It begins,--

"Thou ermin'd judge, pull off that sable cap."

More specific reference will not be necessary for those who have seen the work. Is the writer known? I am somewhat surprised that not one of Byron's friends has, so far as I know, hinted a denial of the authorship; for, scarce as {67} the work may be, I suppose some of them must have seen it; and, under existing circumstances, it is possible that a copy might get into the hands of a desperate creature who would hope to make a profit, by republishing it with Byron's and Moore's names in the title-page.

I. W.

_Arms at Bristol._--In a window now repairing in Bristol Cathedral is this coat:--Arg. on a chevron or (_false heraldry_), three stags' heads caboshed. Whose coat is this? It is engraved in Lysons' _Gloucestershire Antiquities_ without name.

E. D.

_Passage in Thomson._--In Thomson's "Hymn to the Seasons," line 28, occurs the following passage:

"But wandering oft, with brute, unconscious gaze, Man marks not Thee; marks not the mighty hand That, ever busy, wheels the silent spheres; Works in the secret deep; shoots, _steaming_, thence The fair profusion that o'erspreads the spring," &c.

Can any of your readers oblige by saying whether the word _steaming_, in the fourth line of the quotation, is the correct reading? If so, in what sense it can be understood? if not, whether _teeming_ is not probably the correct word?

W. M. P.

"_For God will be your King to-day._"--

"For God will be your King to-day, And I'll be general under."

My grandmother, who was a native of Somersetshire, and born in 1750, used to recite a ballad to my mother, when a child, of which the above lines are the only ones remembered.

Do they refer to the rising under the Duke of Monmouth? And where can the whole of the ballad be found?

M. A. S.

35. Dover Road.

"_See where the startled wild fowl._"--Where are the following lines to be found? I copy them from the print of Landseer's, called "The Sanctuary."

"See where the startled wild fowl screaming rise, And seek in martial flight those golden skies. Yon wearied swimmer scarce can win the land, His limbs yet falter on the wat'ry strand. Poor hunted hart! the painful struggle o'er, How blest the shelter of that island shore! There, while he sobs his panting heart to rest, Nor hound nor hunter shall his lair molest."

G. B. W.

_Ascension-day._--Was "Ascension-day" ever kept a close holiday the same as Good Friday and Christmas-day? And, if so, when was such custom disused?

H. A. HAMMOND.

_The Grogog of a Castle._--It appears by a record of the Irish Exchequer of 3 Edw. II., that one Walter Haket, constable of Maginnegan's Castle in the co. of Dublin, confined one of the King's officers in the _Grogog_ thereof. Will you permit me to inquire, whether this term has been applied to the prison of castles in England?

J. F. F.

Dublin.

* * * * *

Replies.

CANONGATE MARRIAGES.

(Vol. v., p. 320.)

I had hoped that the inquiry of R. S. F. would have drawn out some of your Edinburgh correspondents; but, as they are silent upon a subject they might have invested with interest, allow me to say a word upon these Canongate marriages. I need not, I think, tell R. S. F. how loosely our countrymen, at the period alluded to, and long subsequent thereto, looked upon the marriage tie; as almost every one who has had occasion to touch upon our _domestic_ manners and customs has pointed at, what appeared to them, and what really was, an anomaly in the character of a nation somewhat boastful of their better order and greater sense of propriety and decorum.

Besides the incidental notices of travellers, the legal records of Scotland are rife with examples of litigation arising out of these irregular marriages; and upon a review of the whole history of such in the north, it cannot be denied that, among our staid forefathers, "matrimony was more a matter of merriment"[2] than a solemn and religious engagement.

The Courts in Scotland usually _frowned_ upon cases submitted to them where there was a strong presumption that either party had been victimised by the other; but, unfortunately, the requirements were so simple, and the facility of procuring witnesses so great, that many a poor frolicksome fellow paid dearly for his joke by finding himself suddenly transformed, from a bachelor, to a spick and span Benedict; and that too upon evidences which would not in these days have sent a fortune-telling impostor to the tread-mill: the lords of the justiciary being content that some one had heard him use the endearing term of wife to the pursuer, or had witnessed a mock form at an obscure public-house, or that the parties were by habit and repute man and wife. How truly then may it have been said, that a man in the Northern Capital, so open to imposition, scarcely knew whether he was married or not.

In cases where the ceremony was performed, it {68} did not follow that the priest of Hymen should be of the clerical profession:

"To tie the knot," says John Hope, "there needed none; He'd find a clown, in brown, or gray, Booted and spurr'd, should preach and pray; And, without stir, grimace, or docket, Lug out a pray'r-book from his pocket; And tho' he blest in wond'rous haste, Should tie them most securely fast." _Thoughts_, 1780.

In Chambers's _Traditions of Edinburgh_, there is a slight allusion to these Canongate marriages:

"The White Horse Inn," says he, "in a close in the Canongate, is an exceedingly interesting old house of entertainment. It was also remarkable for the runaway couples from England, who were married in its large room."

The White Hart, in the Grass-market, appears to have been another of these Gretna Green houses.

A curious fellow, well known in Edinburgh at the period referred to, was the high priest of the Canongate hymeneal altar. I need hardly say this was the famous "Claudero, the son of Nimrod the Mighty Hunter," as he grandiloquently styled himself: otherwise James Wilson, a disgraced schoolmaster, and poet-laureate to the Edinburgh _canaille_. In the large rooms of the above inns, this comical fellow usually presided, and administered relief to gallant swains and love-sick damsels, and a most lucrative trade he is said to have made of it:--

"Claudero's skull is ever dull, Without the sterling shilling:"

in allusion to their being called half-merk or shilling marriages.

Chambers gives an illustrative anecdote of our subjects' matrimonial practices in that of a soldier and a countryman seeking from Wilson a cast of his office: from the first Claudero took his shilling, but demanded from the last a fee of five, observing--

"I'll hae this sodger ance a week a' the times he's in Edinburgh, and you (the countryman) I winna see again."

The Scottish poetical antiquary is familiar with this eccentric character; but it may not be uninteresting to your general readers to add, that when public excitement in Edinburgh ran high against the Kirk, the lawyers, meal-mongers, or other _rogues_ in _grain_, Claudero was the vehicle through which the democratic voice found vent in squibs and broadsides fired at the offending party or obnoxious measure from his lair in the Canongate.

In his _Miscellanies_, Edin. 1766, now before me, Claudero's cotemporary, Geordie Boick, in a poetical welcome to London, thus compliments Wilson, and bewails the condition of the modern Athens under its bereavement of the poet:

"The ballad-singers and the printers, Must surely now have starving winters; Their press they may break a' in splinters, I'm told they swear, Claudero's Muse, alas! we've tint her For ever mair."

For want of Claudero's _lash_, his eulogist goes on to say:

"Now Vice may rear her hydra head, And strike defenceless Virtue dead; Religion's heart may melt and bleed, With grief and sorrow, Since Satire from your streets is fled, Poor Edenburrow!"

Claudero was, notwithstanding, a sorry poet, a lax moralist, and a sordid parson; but peace to the manes of the man, or his successor in the latter office, who gave me in that same long room of the White Horse in the Canongate of Edinburgh the best parents son was ever blest with!

J. O.

[Footnote 2: _Letters from Edinburgh_, London, 1776. See also, _Letters from a Gentleman in Scotland to his Friend in England_ (commonly called _Burt's Letters_): London, 1754.]

* * * * *

LADY KATHERINE GREY.

(Vol. vi., p. 578.)

There appears to be some doubt if the alleged marriage ever did take place, for I find, in Baker's _Chronicles_, p. 334., that in 1563 "divers great persons were questioned and condemned, but had their lives spared," and among them--

"Lady Katherine Grey, daughter to Henry Grey Duke of Suffolk, by the eldest daughter of Charles Brandon, having formerly been married to the Earl of Pembroke's eldest son, and from him soon after lawfully divorced, was some years after found to be with child by Edward Seymour Earl of Hartford, who, being at that time in France, was presently sent for: and being examined before the Archbishop of Canterbury, and affirming they were lawfully married, but not being able within a limited time to produce witnesses of their marriage, they were both committed to the Tower."

After some further particulars of the birth of a second child in the Tower, the discharge of the Lieutenant, Sir Edward Warner, and the fining of the Earl by the Star Chamber, to the extent of 5000l., the narrative proceeds:

"Though in pleading of his case, one John Hales argued they were lawful man and wife _by virtue of their own bare consent, without any ecclesiastical ceremony_."

Collins, in his _Peerage_ (1735), states:

"The validity of this marriage being afterwards tried at Common Law, the minister who married them being present, and other circumstances agreeing, the jury (whereof John Digby, Esq., was foreman) found it a good marriage."

{69}

Sharpe, in his _Peerage_ (1833), under the title "Stamford," says:

"'The manner of her departing' _in the Tower_, which Mr. Ellis has printed from a MS. so entitled in the Harleian Collection, although less terrible, is scarcely less affecting than that of her heroic sister," &c.

Perhaps your correspondent A. S. A. may be enabled to consult this work, and so ascertain further particulars.

BROCTUNA.

Bury, Lancashire.

* * * * *

HOWLETT THE ENGRAVER.

(Vol. i., p. 321.)

In your first Volume, an inquiry is made for information respecting the above person. As I find on referring to the subsequent volumes of "N. & Q." that the Query never received any reply, I beg to forward a cutting from the Obituary of the _New Monthly Magazine_ for June, 1828, referring to Howlett; concerning whom, however, I cannot give any further information.

"MR. BARTHOLOMEW HOWLETT.

"Lately in Newington, Surrey, aged sixty, Mr. Bartholomew Howlett, antiquarian, draughtsman, and engraver. This artist was a pupil of Mr. Heath, and for many years devoted his talents to the embellishment of works on topography and antiquities. His principal publication, and which will carry his name down to posterity with respect as an artist, was _A Selection of Views in the County of Lincoln; comprising the Principal Towns and Churches, the Remains of Castles and Religious Houses, and Seats of the Nobility and Gentry; with Topographical and Historical Accounts of each View_. This handsome work was completed in 4to. in 1805. The drawings are chiefly by T. Girtin, Nattes, Nash, Corbould, &c., and the engravings are highly creditable to the burin of Mr. Howlett. Mr. Howlett was much employed by the late Mr. Wilkinson on his _Londina Illustrata_; by Mr. Stevenson in his second edition of Bentham's _Ely_; by Mr. Frost, in his recent _Notices of Hull_; and in numerous other topographical works. He executed six plans and views for Major Anderson's _Account of the Abbey of St. Denis_; and occasionally contributed to the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and engraved several plates for it. In 1817, Mr. Howlett issued proposals for _A Topographical Account of Clapham, in the County of Surrey, illustrated by Engravings_. These were to have been executed from drawings by himself, of which he made several, and also formed considerable collections; but we believe he only published one number, consisting of three plates and no letter-press. We hope the manuscripts he has left may form a groundwork for a future topographer. They form part of the large collections for Surrey, in the hands of Mr. Tytam. In 1826, whilst the Royal Hospital and Collegiate Church of St. Katharine, near the Tower, was pulling down, he made a series of drawings on the spot, which it was his intention to have engraved and published. But the greatest effort of his pencil was in the service of his kind patron and friend, John Caley, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A., keeper of the records in the Augmentation Office. For this gentleman Mr. Howlett made finished drawings from upwards of a thousand original seals of the monastic and religious houses of this kingdom."

B. HUDSON.

Congleton, Cheshire.

* * * * *

CHAUCER.

(Vol. vi., p. 603.)

In reference to the question raised by J. N. B., what authority there is for asserting that Chaucer pursued the study of the law at the Temple, I send you the following extract from a sketch of his life by one of his latest biographers, Sir Harris Nicolas:

"It has been said that Chaucer was originally intended for the law, and that, from some cause which has not reached us, and on which it would be idle to speculate, the design was abandoned. The acquaintance he possessed with the classics, with divinity, with astronomy, with so much as was then known of chemistry, and indeed with every other branch of the scholastic learning of the age, proves that his education had been particularly attended to; and his attainments render it impossible to believe that he quitted college at the early period at which persons destined for a military life usually began their career. It was not then the custom for men to pursue learning for its own sake; and the most rational manner of accounting for the extent of Chaucer's acquirements, is to suppose that he was educated for a learned profession. The knowledge he displays of divinity would make it more likely that he was intended for the church than for the bar, were it not that the writings of the Fathers were generally read by all classes of students. One writer says that Chaucer was a member of the Inner Temple, and that while there he was fined two shillings for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet Street[3]; and another (Leland) observes, that after he had travelled in France, 'collegia leguleiorum frequentavit.' Nothing, however, is positively known of Chaucer until the autumn of 1359, when he himself says he was in the army with which Edward III. invaded France, and that he served for the first time on that occasion."

The following remarks are from the _Life of Chaucer_, by William Godwin, Lond. 1803, vol. i. p. 357.:

"The authority which of late has been principally relied upon with respect to Chaucer's legal education is that of Mr. Speght, who, in his _Life of Chaucer_, says, 'Not many yeeres since, Master Buckley did see a record in the same house [the Inner Temple], where Geoffrey Chaucer was fined two shillings for beating a Franciscane fryar in Fleet-streete.' This certainly {70} would be excellent evidence, were it not for the dark and ambiguous manner in which it is produced. I should have been glad that Mr. Speght had himself seen the record, instead of Master Buckley, of whom I suppose no one knows who he is: why did he not? I should have been better satisfied if the authority had not been introduced with so hesitating and questionable a phrase as 'not many yeeres since;' and I also think that it would have been better if Master Buckley had given us the date annexed to the record; as we should then at least have had the satisfaction of knowing whether it did not belong to some period before our author was born, or after he had been committed to the grave. Much stress, therefore, cannot be laid upon the supposition of Chaucer having belonged to the Society of the Inner Temple."

TYRO.

Dublin.

[Footnote 3: "Speght, who states that a Mr. Buckley had seen a record of the Inner Temple to that effect."--_Note by Sir H. N._]

* * * * *

PHOTOGRAPHIC NOTES AND QUERIES.

_Pyrogallic Acid_ (Vol. vi., p. 612.).--In answer to the Query of your correspondent E. S., I beg to give the following method of preparing pyrogallic acid (first published by Dr. Stenhouse), which I have tried and found perfectly successful.