Part 3
_Denmark and Slavery._--Dr. Madden, in _A Twelve Months' Residence in the West Indies_, 1834, says, in allusion to a remark of Mr. Brydges, to the effect that England was the last European power to enter into the slave trade, and the first to abandon it, "This is inaccurate: to the honour of Denmark be it spoken, the slave trade was abolished by her five years before England performed that act of tardy justice to humanity" (vol. ii. p. 128.). The object of the present communication is neither to question nor disparage the merit here claimed for Denmark, in reference to "the slave _trade_:" it concerns the abolition of _slavery_ itself by that power. I shall therefore be obliged to any reader of "N. & Q." who will inform me when freedom was granted to the negroes in the Danish island of St. Thomas, in the same manner as to those of the British West Indian colonies in 1838? And also in what work I can find any detailed account of such act of manumission?
L. L.
_Spontaneous Combustion._--Is there such a thing as spontaneous combustion?
H. A. B.
_Bucks, most ancient and honourable Society of._--A candid inquiry into the principles and practices of this society, with its history, rules, and songs, was published in 1770. It appeared that there were at that time thirteen lodges of the society in London, and a few in other places. Do any lodges of this society still exist? Did they issue any medals? Do they, or did they, wear any badges? Who wore them, officers only, or all members? How many varieties were there, and of what sizes? The book I have, and two varieties of what I suppose may have been worn as badges.
EDW. HAWKINS.
_Lines quoted by Charles Lamb._--There are some lines quoted by Charles Lamb in one of the _Essays of Elia_: I am very anxious to know whose they are:
"Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines, Curl me about, ye gadding vines, And oh! so close your circles lace That I may never leave this place. But, lest your fetters prove too weak, Ere I their silken bondage break, Do you, oh briars! chain me too, And courteous brambles nail me through!"
L. M. M. R.
_Descendants of Dr. Bill._--Are there any records extant of the family or descendants of Dr. Bill, whose name is first on the list of those who drew up the Prayer-Book, tempus Edward VI.? He was also Lord Almoner to Queen Elizabeth. Dr. Bill's only daughter and heiress, Mary Bill, was married to Sir Francis Samwell: had she any family, and did they assume the name of Bill?
Did a branch of the family settle in Staffordshire, and where?
A. R. M.
"_The Rebellious Prayer._"--Can any of your readers inform me whether some stanzas entitled "The Rebellious Prayer" have ever yet appeared in print, and, if so, in what collection of poems they are to be met with? The opening lines are as follows:
"It was a darken'd chamber, where was heard The whisper'd voice, hush'd step, and stifled sounds Which herald the deep quietness of death," &c.
They describe the anxious watchings of a wife at the sick couch of her husband. In her agony she prays that his life may be spared, at whatever cost: her prayer is granted, and her husband is restored, but bereft of reason.
J. A.
_Ravenshaw and his Works._--Can any of your readers give me information, or refer me to any works, of John Ravenshaw, who was ejected from Holme-Chapel[2] under the Act of Uniformity? He is described by Calamy as having been a good scholar, and possessing a taste for poetry.
B.
[Footnote 2: Or Church-Holm, in Cheshire.]
* * * * *
Minor Queries with Answers.
_Yolante de Dreux_ (Vol. vi., pp. 150. 209.)--J. Y. has given this queen's second marriage, but not the date or the names of her issue. I am aware that her husband Arthur II. (not I.) was Duke of Bretagne, 1305-12, and that her only son John III., born 1293, succeeded; but the names and marriages of her five daughters still remain unnoticed, as also any notices of her father the _Count of Dreux_, or of her mother.
A. S. A.
Wuzzeerabad.
[The names of the five daughters of this lady and their alliances are as follow:--1. Johanna, born 1294, married to Robert of Flanders, Lord of Cassel. 2. Beatrix, born 1295, married Guido X., Baron of Laval, in 1315, died 1384. 3. Alisa, born 1297, married, 1320, Burchard VI., Count of Vendosme, died 1377. 4. Bianca, died an infant. 5. Mary, born 1302, became a nun, and died 1371. The father of Yolante de Dreux was Robert IV., Count of Dreux, Braine, Montfort, and l'Amaury, and died November 14, 1282. Her mother was Beatrix, daughter and heiress of John Count of Montfort, l'Amaury, and Lord of Rochefort, married in 1260. This is given on the authority of Anderson's _Royal Genealogies_, table 378, p. 620.]
{287}
_Bishop Francis Turner._--He left a manuscript Life of Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding, which formed the basis of Dr. Peckard's _Life of Ferrar_, reprinted in Wordsworth's _Ecclesiastical Biography_. Where can this manuscript be found? Are there any literary remains of the bishop to be met with anywhere?
J. J. J.
[We believe all that is known of Bishop Turner's MS. Life of Nicholas Ferrar is, that it was in the custody of the editor of _The Christian Magazine_ in 1761. Foster the Essayist (_Lectures_, vol. ii. p. 504. edit. 1848) says, "A long and well-written account of Ferrar was drawn up by a Dr. Turner, Bishop of Ely, and left by him in manuscript. It remained in the hands of the persons to whom his papers descended, till it was communicated to the conductors of a miscellany called _The Christian Magazine_, in a volume of which for the year 1761, this curious memoir was lately pointed out to me." Gough, in his _British Topography_, vol. ii. p. 299.*, furnishes a few other particulars:--"The papers of Bishop Turner, in the year 1761, appear to have been in the hands of Dr. Dodd, who printed some of them in _The Christian Magazine_ for that year. In particular the _Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar_ was abridged, and published at p. 356. In the introduction the editor says, 'As the _Life_ is rather too long for our pamphlet, even divided, we have taken the liberty to abridge some particulars in the Bishop's account, and now and then to alter a phrase or two in his language, which through length of time is in some places rather become obsolete.' From this passage it will appear that it was published in the worst manner it could be." Our correspondent will find much curious matter respecting the biographies of Nicholas Ferrar in our Second Volume, pp. 119. 407. 444. 485. Among the Addit. MSS. (No. 5540., f. 53.) in the British Museum, is a Letter of Bishop Turner's addressed to Mr. Reading, and read at the trial of Lord Preston, 1691.]
_Raleigh's History._--What is the story of Raleigh's burning the second volume of his History?
RECNAC.
[The story is this:--A few days previously to his death, Raleigh sent for Walter Burre, who printed his History; and asking him how the work had sold, received for answer, "so slowly that it had undone him." Upon which Sir Walter brought from his desk a continuation of the work to his own time, and, throwing it into the fire, said to Burre, "the second volume shall undo no more; this ungrateful world is unworthy of it." (Winstanley's _English Worthies_, p. 256.) There is, however, no satisfactory authority for the truth of this anecdote; and it has been rejected by Arthur Cayley, and his other biographers.]
* * * * *
Replies.
EPITAPHS.
(Vol. vii., p. 178.)
The following is a _real_ epitaph. It was written by Dr. Greenwood on his wife, who died in childbed, and it is in all probability still to be seen, where it was originally set up, in Solyhull churchyard, Warwickshire. The most amusing point in it is, that the author seriously intended the lines to rhyme. There is wonderful merit in the couplet where he celebrates her courage and magnanimity in preferring him to a lord or judge:
"Which heroic action, join'd to all the rest, Made her to be esteem'd the Phoenix of her sex!"
"Go, cruel Death, thou hast cut down The fairest Greenwood in all this kingdom! Her virtues and her good qualities were such That surely she deserved a lord or judge: But her piety and great humility Made her prefer me, a Doctor in Divinity; Which heroic action, join'd to all the rest, Made her to be esteem'd the Phoenix of her sex: And like that bird a young she did create, To comfort those her loss had made disconsolate. My grief for her was so sore That I can only utter two lines more. For this and all other good woman's sake, Never let blisters be applied to a lying-in woman's back."
The advice contained in the last couplet is sound.
F. D.
Pershore.
Your correspondent ERICA gives us some quotations and epitaphs, in which the metaphor of an Inn is applied both to life and death. I find the former of these ideas embodied in the following distich, copied from a tombstone at Llangollen in North Wales, a village much frequented not only by tourists, but by holiday-makers from all the surrounding districts; for whose especial benefit I conceive the epitaph to have been written:
"Our life is but a summer's day, Some only breakfast, and away; Others to dinner stay, and are full fed; The oldest man but sups, and goes to bed. Large his account, who lingers out the day: Who goes the soonest, has the least to pay."
GEORGE S. MASTERS.
Welsh Hampton, Salop.
"_The bathos can no further go_" (Vol. vii., p. 5.).--
Inscription copied, Nov. 21, 1833, from a tombstone to a fisherman in Bathford churchyard.
"He drags no more, his nets reclin'd, And all his tackle left behind, His anchors cast within the veil, No storms tempestious him assail. In peace he rest--_an_ Jesus plain Reader _I_ here lies--an honest man, A husband--father--friend--compeer-- To all--who knew him--truely dear. Search the Great Globe!--How few, alas! Are worthy now to--take his place." B. H. 1805."
Some rural wag had substituted with his pencil {288} three words for the last three, which certainly rhymed better with alas!
E. D.
Allow me to send you one of much merit, founded upon the same metaphor as those inserted at the page above quoted:
"Life's like an inn where travellers stay; Some only breakfast, and away: Others to dinner stay, and are full fed; The oldest man but sups, and goes to bed. Hard is his lot who lingers out the day; Who goes the soonest has the least to pay."
EDW. HAWKINS.
* * * * *
THROWING OLD SHOES FOR LUCK.
(Vol. ii., p. 196.; Vol. v., p. 143.; Vol. vii., p. 182.)
Some light may perhaps be thrown on this mysterious custom by the following quotation from the _Réfutation des Opinions de Jean Wier_, by Bodin, the celebrated French jurisconsult, and author of the _Demonomanie des Sorciers_ (Paris, 1586), to the quarto edition of which the _Réfutation_ is generally found attached. It may be necessary to observe, for the benefit of those unacquainted with demoniacal lore, that Wier, though a pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, and what would be now-a-days termed exceedingly superstitious, was far in advance of his age, and the first to assert that some, at least, of the many persons who were then burned for sorcery were merely hypochondriacs and lunatics,--fitter subjects for the care of the physician than the brand of the executioner. This _heterodox_ opinion brought upon him a crowd of antagonistic replies, and amongst them the _Réfutation_ of Bodin. During a cursory examination of Wier's voluminous demonological works (_De Lamiis Liber_; _Item de Commentatiis Jejuniis_; _De Præstigiis Demonum, et Incantationibus ac Veneficiis_: Basil, 1583), I have not met with the passage underneath referred to by Bodin; but, no doubt, if time permitted, a closer search would discover it:
"Il se mocque aussi d'une Sorciere, à qui Sathan commanda de garder bien ses vieux souliers, pour un preservatif, et contre-charme contre les autre Sorciers. Je dy que ce conseil de Sathan a double sens, les souliers signifient les pechez, comme estas tousiours trainnez par les ordures. Et quand Dieu dist à Moyse et à Josué, oste tes souliers, ce lieu est pur, et sainct: il entendoit, comme dict Philon Hebrieu, qu'il faut bien nettoyer son ame de peches, pour contempler et louer Dieu. Mais pour converser avec Sathan, il faut estre souillé, et plongé en perpetuelle impietez et mechancetez: alors Sathan assistera à ses bons serviteurs. Et quand aux sens literal, nous avons dict que Sathan fait ce qu'il peut, pour destourner les hommes de la fiance de Dieu aux creatures, qui est la vraye definition de l'idolatrie, que les Theologiens ont baillie: tellement que qui croira, que ses vieux souliers, ou les bilets, et autres babioles qu'il porte, le peut garder de mal, il est perpetuelle idolatrie."
W. PINKERTON.
Ham.
It will, I fear, be difficult to discover a satisfactory answer to LORD BRAYBROOKE'S questions on these two points. They cannot certainly be traceable to a Pagan origin, for Cupid is always pourtrayed barefooted; and there is not, I believe, a single statue to be found of a sandaled Venus. I can certainly direct his Lordship to one author, a Christian author, St. Gregory of Tours, who refers to a curious practice, and seemingly one well recognised, of lovers presenting _shoes_, as they now do _bouquets_, to the objects of their affection:
"Cumqu, ut ætate huic convenit, amori se puellari præstaret affabiblem, et cum poculis frequentibus etiam _calceamenta_ deferret."--Gregor. Turon. _Ex Vitis Patrum_, vol. ii. p. 449.: see also same page, note 3.
W. B. MACCABE.
Allow me to inform LORD BRAYBROOKE that the custom of throwing a shoe, taken from the left foot, after persons for good luck, has been practised in Norfolk from time immemorial, not only at weddings, but on all occasions where good luck is required. Some forty years ago a cattle dealer desired his wife to "trull her left shoe arter him," when he started for Norwich to buy a lottery-ticket. As he drove off on his errand, he looked round to see if she performed the charm, and consequently he received the shoe in his face, with such force as to black his eyes. He went and bought his ticket, which turned up a prize of 600l.; and his son has assured me that his father always attributed his luck to the extra dose of shoe which he got.
E. G. R.
The custom of throwing an old shoe after a person departing from home, as a mode of wishing him good luck and prosperity in his undertaking, is not confined to Scotland and the northern counties, nor to weddings. It prevails more or less, I believe, throughout the kingdom. I have seen it in Cheshire, and frequently in towns upon the sea-coast. I once received one upon my shoulder, at Swansea, which was intended for a young sailor leaving his home to embark upon a trading voyage.
EDW. HAWKINS.
* * * * *
OWEN GLYNDWR [OWEN AP GRIFFITH VYCHAN, LORD OF GLYNDWRDWY].
(Vol. vii., p. 205.)
The arms referred to by MR. WOODWARD are those on the great seal and privy seal of "the irregular and wild Glendower," as Prince of Wales, {289} attached to two documents deposited in the Hotel Soubise, at Paris, in the Cartons I. 623. and I. 392., relating, it is supposed, to the furnishing of troops to the Welsh prince by Charles VI., king of France. Casts of these seals were taken by the indefatigable Mr. Doubleday, to whom the Seal department of the British Museum, over which he presides, is so much indebted; and impressions were exhibited by Sir Henry Ellis at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, on the 12th of December, 1833. Engravings of them, accompanied by the following notice, were communicated by Sir Henry to the _Archæologia_, and will be found in that publication, vol. xxv. plate lxx. fig. 2, 3. page 616., and ibid. pp. 619, 620.:
"The great seal has an obverse and reverse. On the obverse Owen is represented, with a bifid beard, very similar to Rich. II., seated under a canopy of Gothic tracery: the half body of a wolf forming the arms of his chair on each side: the background is ornamented with a mantle semée of lions, held up by angels. At his feet are two lions. A sceptre is in his right hand, but he has no crown. The inscription: 'OWENUS ... PRINCEPS WALLIE.' On the reverse of the great seal Owen is represented on horseback, in armour; in his right hand, which is extended, he holds a sword, and with his left his shield, charged with, Quarterly, four lions rampant; a drapery, probably a _kerchief de plesaunce_, or handkerchief won at a tournament, pendant from his right wrist. Lions rampant also appear upon the mantle of the horse. On his helmet, as well as on his horse's head, is the Welsh dragon [passant]. The area of the seal is diapered with roses. The inscription on this side seems to fill the gap upon the obverse 'OWENUS DEI GRATIA ... WALLIE.'
"The privy seal represents the four lions rampant towards the spectator's left, on a shield, surmounted by an open coronet [crown]: the dragon[3] of Wales, as a supporter, on the dexter side; on the sinister, a lion. The inscription seems to have been '_Sigillum Oweni_ PRINCIPIS WALLIE.' No impression of this seal is probably now to be found either in Wales or England. Its workmanship shows that Owen Glyndwr possessed a taste for art beyond the types of the seals of his predecessors."
The dragon is a favourite figure with Cambrian bards; and, not to multiply instances, the following lines may be cited from the poem of the "Hirlas Horn," by Owen Cyfeilioc, Prince of Powys Wenwynwyn,--
"Mathraval's[4] Lord, the Poet and the Prince,"
father of Gwenwynwyn, Prince of Powys Wenwynwyn (the Gwenwen of Sir Walter Scott's _Betrothed_):--
"A dytwc i Rufut waywrutelyn Gwin a gwydyr goleu yn ei gylchyn Dragon Arwystli arwystyl tervyn Dragon Owein hael o hil Kynvyn[5] Dragon iw dechren ac niw dychryn cat Cyvlavan argrat cymyw erlyn." _Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales_: London, 1801, 8vo., vol. i. p. 265.
"And bear to Grufydd, the crimson-lanced foe, Wine with pellucid glass around it; The Dragon of Arwstli, safeguard of the borders, The Dragon of Owen, the generous of the race of Cynvyn, A Dragon from his beginning, and never scared by a conflict Of triumphant slaughter, or afflicting chase."
Gray, whose "Bard" indicates the inspiration with which he had seized the poetry and traditions of the Cymri, thus refers to the red dragon as the cognizance of the Welsh monarchs, in his _Triumphs of Owen_ [ap Griffith, Prince of North Wales]:
"Dauntless, on his native sands, The _Dragon_, son of Mona, stands; In glittering arms and glory dress'd High he rears his _ruby_ crest."
The dragon and lion have been attributed to the Welsh monarchs, as insignia, from an early period, and the former is ascribed, traditionally, to the great Cadwallader.
In the _Archæologia_, vol. xx. p. 579. plate xxix. p. 578., are descriptions of engravings of the impressions of two seals appendant to charters of Edward, son of Edward IV., and Arthur, son of Henry VII., as Princes of Wales, the obverse of each bearing three lions in pale passant, reguardant, having their tails between their legs, reflected upon their backs, upon a shield {290} surmounted by a cap of maintenance: Prince Edward's shield has on each side a lion as a supporter, holding single feathers, with the motto "Ich dien." On Prince Arthur's seal, the feathers are supported by _dragons_. Thomas William King, Rouge Dragon, in a letter to Sir Samuel Meyrick, dated 4th September, 1841, published in the _Archæologia_, vol. xxix. p. 408., Appendix, regards the lions on these shields as to the ensigns attributed at the period of the seals to certain Welsh princes, and the dragon as the badge of Cadwallader.
In a MS. (for reference to which I am indebted to the courtesy of Sir Frederick Madden), which was recently sold at Sotheby's, containing translations by Johannes Boerius, presented to Henry, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VII., about 1505, there is a beautiful illumination containing the arms of that prince: Quarterly France and England, with the red dragon as the dexter, and the greyhound of the House of York as the sinister, supporter.
"THE RED FIERYE DRAG[=O] BEETEN UP[=O] WHITE AND GREENE SARCENET" was the charge of a standard offered by Henry VII. at St. Paul's, on his entry into London after his victory at Bosworth Field; and this standard was represented on the corner of his tomb, held by an angel (Willement's _Regal Heraldry_, 4to., London, 1821, p. 57.). The red dragon rampant was assumed as a supporter by Henry VII. in indication of his Welsh descent, and was borne as a supporter, either on the dexter or sinister side of the shield, by all the other English monarchs of the House of Tudor, with the exception of Queen Mary, who substituted for it an eagle: and among the badges attributed to our present sovereign is, in respect of Wales, "a dragon passant, wings elevated gu., upon a mount vert."
It may be assumed, with little doubt, that the colour of the dragon borne by Owen Glyndwr was _rouge_; and although the colour of the other supporter of his shield, the lion, is not susceptible of such positive inference, it may be conjectured to have been _sable_, the colour of the lion, the principal charge on his hereditary shield.
To MR. WOODWARD'S immediate Query as to the blazon--colour of the field and charges--of the arms on these seals, I can afford no direct answer, never having met with any trace of these arms in the extensive collections of Welsh MSS. to which I have had access. These ensigns may have been adopted by Owen as arms of _dominion_ (as those of Ireland by the English sovereigns) on his assumption of the principality of Wales, a suggestion countenanced, if not established, by four lions quarterly ("Quarterly gules and or, four lions rampant, counterchanged") being assigned to Griffith ap Llewelyn (killed April, 28 Hen. III., 1244, in attempting to escape from the Tower), eldest son of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, prince of Wales (dead 31st November, 25 Hen. III., 1240), father of the ill-fated and gallant Llewelyn ap Griffith, last sovereign of Wales, slain at Builth, December 10, 8 Ed. I., 1282. Further confirmation is, perhaps, afforded to this suggestion by Owen having, it is understood, vindicated his assumption of the Cambrian throne as heir of the three sovereign dynasties of North Wales, South Wales, and Powys respectively,--of the last, as male representative, through the Lords of Bromfield, of Madoc ap Meredith, the last monarch of that principality; and of the two former as their heir-general, in respect of his mother, Elenor, sister of Owen (ap Thomas ap Llewelyn), Lord, with his paternal uncle, Owen ap Llewelyn ap Owen, of the comot [hundred] of Iscoed, September 20, 1344, Representative paternally of the sovereigns of South Wales, and, by female descent, of those of North Wales[6], through Griffith ap Llewelyn above named.