Chapter 1

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+----------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | Transcriber's Note: Italicized words, phrases, etc. are | | surrounded by _underline characters_. Greek transliterations | | are surrounded by ~tildes~. Overlines indicating abbreviations | | are shown like this, D[=n]e, meaning a line over the letter n. | | Archaic spellings and hyphenation inconsistencies have been | | left as originally printed. | +----------------------------------------------------------------+

{397} NOTES AND QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

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"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

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No. 182.] SATURDAY, APRIL 23. 1853. [Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition 5d.

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CONTENTS.

NOTES:-- Page Poetical Epithets of the Nightingale, by Cuthbert Bede, B.A. 397 On a Passage in Orosius, by E. Thomson 399 Notes on several Misunderstood Words, by Rev. W. R. Arrowsmith 400 A Work on the Macrocosm 402 Dr. South's Latin Tract against Sherlock, by James Crossley 402 Shakspeare Correspondence, by C. Mansfield Ingleby, S. Singleton, &c. 403

MINOR NOTES:--Robert Weston--Sonnet on the Rev. Joseph Blanco White--English and American Booksellers --Odd Mistake--Thomas Shakspeare--Early Winters 404

QUERIES:-- Satirical Playing Cards, by T. J. Pettigrew 405 Movable Metal Types anno 1435, by George Stephens 405 Portraits at Brickwall House 406

MINOR QUERIES:--Christian Names--Lake of Geneva --Clerical Portrait--Arms: Battle-axe--Bullinger's Sermons--Gibbon's Library--Dr. Timothy Bright --Townley MSS.--Order of St. John of Jerusalem --Consecrated Roses, Swords, &c.--West, Kipling, and Millbourne--Font Inscriptions--Welsh Genealogical Queries--The Butler and his Man William--Longhi's Portraits of Guidiccioni--Sir George Carr--Dean Pratt--Portrait of Franklin--"Enquiry into the State of the Union" 406

MINOR QUERIES WITH ANSWERS:--Bishop of Oxford in 1164--Roman Inscription found at Battle Bridge-- Blow-shoppes--Bishop Hesketh--Form of Prayer for Prisoners 409

REPLIES:-- Edmund Spenser, and Spensers, or Spencers, of Hurstwood, by J. B. Spencer, &c. 410 Throwing old Shoes for Luck, by John Thrupp 411 Orkneys in Pawn 412 Hogarth's Pictures, by E. G. Ballard and W. D. Haggard 412 Phantom Bells and Lost Churches 413

PHOTOGRAPHIC NOTES AND QUERIES:--Photographic Collodion--Filtering Collodion--Photographic Notes --Colouring Collodion Pictures--Gutta Percha Baths 414

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES:--Pilgrimages to the Holy Land--"A Letter to a Convocation Man"--King Robert Bruce's Coffin-plate--Eulenspiegel or Howleglas --Sir Edwin Sadleir--Belfry Towers separate from the Body of the Church--God's Marks--"The Whippiad" --The Axe that beheaded Anne Boleyn, &c. 415

MISCELLANEOUS:-- Books and Odd Volumes wanted 417 Notices to Correspondents 418 Advertisements 418

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NOTES.

POETICAL EPITHETS OF THE NIGHTINGALE.

Having lately been making some research among our British poets, as to the character of the nightingale's song, I was much struck with the great quantity and diversity of epithets that I found applied to the bird. The difference of opinion that has existed with regard to the quality of its song, has of course led the poetical adherents of either side to couple the nightingale's name with that very great variety of adjectives which I shall presently set down in a tabular form, with the names of the poetical sponsors attached thereto. And, in making this the subject of a Note, I am only opening up an old Query; for the character of the nightingale's song has often been a matter for discussion, not only for poets and scribblers, but even for great statesmen like Fox, who, amid all the anxieties of a political life, could yet find time to defend the nightingale from being a "most musical, most melancholy" bird.

Coleridge's onslaught upon this line, in his poem of "The Nightingale," must be well known to all lovers of poetry; and his re-christening of the bird by that epithet which Chaucer had before given it:

"'Tis the _merry_ nightingale, That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates, With fast thick warble, his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music!"

The fable of the nightingale's origin would, of course, in classical times, give the character of melancholy to its song; and it is rather remarkable that Æschylus makes Cassandra speak of the _happy_ chirp of the nightingale, and the Chorus to remark upon this as a further proof of her insanity. (Shakspeare makes Edgar say, "The _foul fiend_ haunted poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale."--_King Lear_, Act III. Sc. 6.)

Tennyson seems to be almost the only poet who has thoroughly recognised the great variety of epithets that may be applied to the nightingale's song, through the very opposite feelings which it {398} seems to possess the power to awaken. In his _Recollections of the Arabian Nights_, he says,--

"The living airs of middle night Died round the Bulbul as he sung; Not he; but something which possess'd The darkness of the world, _delight_, _Life_, _anguish_, _death_, _immortal love_, Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd, Apart from place, withholding time."

Again, in the _In Memoriam_:

"Wild bird! whose warble, liquid, sweet, Rings Eden through the budded quicks, Oh, tell me where the senses mix, Oh, tell me where the passions meet,

"Whence radiate? _Fierce extremes_ employ Thy spirit in the dusking leaf, And _in the midmost heart of grief Thy passion clasps a secret joy_."

With which compare these lines in _The Gardener's Daughter_:

"Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells,-- Of that which came between, more sweet than each, In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves That tremble round a nightingale--_in sighs Which perfect Joy, perplexed for utterance, Stole from her sister Sorrow_."

But the most singular proof that, I think, I have met with, concerning the diversity of opinion touching the song of the nightingale, is to be found in the following example. When Shelley (_Prometheus Unbound_) is describing the luxurious pleasures of the Grove of Daphne, he mentions (in some of the finest lines he has ever written) "the _voluptuous_ nightingales, sick with sweet love," to be among the great attractions of the place: while Dean Milman (_Martyrs of Antioch_), in describing the very same "dim, licentious Daphne," is particular in mention that everything there

"Ministers _Voluptuous_ to man's transgressions"

(even including the "winds, and flowers, and waters"); everything, in short,

"_Save thou_, sweet _nightingale!_"

The question is indeed a case of "fierce extremes," as we may see by the following table of epithets, which are taken from the British poets only:

_Amorous._ Milton. _Artless._ Drummond of Hawthornden. _Attick_ ("Attica aedon"). Gray. _Beautiful._ Mackay. _Charmer._ Michael Drayton, Philip Ayres. _Charming._ Sir Roger L'Estrange. _Cheerful._ Philip Ayres. _Complaining._ Shakspeare. _Conqueror._ Ford _Dainty._ Carshaw, Giles Fletcher. _Darkling._ Milton. _Dear._ Ben Jonson, Drummond of Hawthornden. _Deep._ Mrs. Hemans. _Delicious._ Crashaw, Coleridge. _Doleful._ Shakspeare. _Dusk._ Barry Cornwall. _Enchanting._ Mrs. T. Welsh. _Enthusiast._ Crashaw. _Evening._ Chaucer. _Ever-varying._ Wordsworth. _Fervent._ Mrs. Hemans. _Fond._ Moore. _Forlorn._ Shakspeare, Darwin, Hood. _Full-hearted._ Author of _The Naiad_ (1816). _Full-throated._ Keats. _Gentle._ _The Spanish Tragedy_, Dunbar (Laureate to James IV. Scot.), Mrs Charlotte Smith. _Good._ Chaucer, Ben Jonson. _Gushing._ Campbell. _Hapless._ Milton. _Happy._ Keats, Mackay. _Harmless._ Crashaw, Browne. _Harmonious._ Browne. _Heavenly._[1] Chaucer, Dryden, Wordsworth. _Holy._ Campbell. _Hopeful._ Crashaw. _Immortal._ Keats. _Joyful._ Moore. _Joyous._ Keble. _Lamenting._ Shakspeare, Michael Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden. _Light-foot._ Crashaw. _Light-winged._ Keats. _Liquid._ Milton, Bishop Heber, Tennyson. _Listening._ Crashaw, Thomson. _Little._ James I. Scot., Philip Ayres, Crashaw. _Lone._ Beattie, Mrs. Hemans, Miss London, Mrs. Fanny Kemble, Milman. _Lonely._ Countess of Winchilsea (1715), Barry Cornwall. _Loud._ Shelley. _Loved._ Mason. _Lovely._ Bloomfield. _Love-lorn._ Milton, Scott, Collins. _Lowly._ Mrs. Thompson. {399} _Lusty._ Chaucer. _Melancholy._ Milton, Milman. _Melodious._ Chris. Smart, Ld. Lyttelton, Southey. _Merry._ _Red Book of Ossory_, fourteenth century (quoted in "N. & Q.," Vol. ii., No. 54.), Chaucer, Dunbar, Coleridge. _Minstrel._ Mrs. Charlotte Smith. _Modest._ Keble. _Mournful._ Shakspeare, Theo. Lee, Pope, Lord Thurlow, Byron. _Musical._ Milton. _Music-panting._ Shelley. _New-abashed._[2]Chaucer. _Night-warbling._ Milton, Milman. _Pale._ Author of _Raffaelle and Fornarina_ (1826). _Panting._ Crashaw. _Passionate._ Lady E. S. Wortley. _Pensive._ Mrs. Charlotte Smith. _Piteous._ Ambrose Philips. _Pity-pleading_ (used ironically). Coleridge. _Plaintive._ Lord Lyttelton, Thomson, Keats, Hood. _Pleasant._ An old but unknown author, quoted in Todd's _Illustrations to Gower and Chaucer_, p. 291., ed. 1810. _Poor._ Shakspeare, Ford. _Rapt._ Hon. Julian Fane (1852). _Ravished._ Lilly. _Responsive._ Darwin. _Restless._ T. Lovell Beddoes (in _The Bride's Tragedy_, 1822). _Richly-toned._ Southey. _Sad._ Milton, Giles Fletcher, Drummond of Hawthornden, Graves, Darwin, Collins, Beattie, Byron, Mrs. Hemans, Mrs Fanny Kemble, Hood, T. L. Beddoes. _Shrill._ Chaucer, Crashaw. _Silver-sounding._ Richard Barnfield. _Single._[3] Southey. _Skilled._ Ford. _Sleepless._[4] Atherstone. _Sober-suited._ Thomson. _Soft._ Milton, James I. Scot., Crashaw, Mrs. Charlotte Smith, Byron. _Solemn._ Milton, Otway, Graingle. _Sole-sitting._ Thomson. _Sorrowing._ Shakspeare. _Soul-entrancing._ Bishop Heber. _Supple._ Crashaw. _Sweet._ Chaucer, James I. Scot., Milton, Spenser, Crashaw, Drummond, Richard Barnfield, Ambrose Philips, Shelley, Cowper, Thomson, Young, Darwin, Lord Lyttelton, Mrs. Charlotte Smith, Moore, Coleridge, Wordsworth, L. E. L., Milman, Hood, Tennyson, P. J. Bailey, Kenny, Hon. J. Fane. _Sweetest._ Milton, Browne, Thomson, Turnbull, Beattie. _Sweet-voiced._ Wither. _Syren._ Crashaw. _Tawny._ Cary. _Tender._ Crashaw, Turnbull. _Thrilling._ Hon. Mrs. Wrottesley (1847). _Tuneful._ Dyer, Grainger. _Unseen._ Byron. _Vaunting._ Bloomfield. _Voluptuous._ Shelley. _Wakeful._ Milton, Coleridge. _Wailing._ Miss Landon. _Wandering._ Mrs. Charlotte Smith, Hon. Mrs. Wrottesley. _Wanton._ Coleridge. _Warbling._ Milton, Ford, Chris. Smart, Pope, Smollett, Lord Lyttelton, Jos. Warton, Gray, Cowper. _Welcome._ Wordsworth. _Wild._ Moore, Tennyson, J. Westwood (1840). _Wise._ Waller. _Wondrous_. Mrs. Fanny Kemble.

In addition to these 109 epithets, others might be added of a fuller character; such as "Queen of all the quire" (Chaucer), "Night-music's king" (Richard Barnfield, 1549), "Angel of the spring" (Ben Jonson), "_Music's best seed-plot_" (Crashaw), "Best poet of the grove" (Thomson), "Sweet poet of the woods" (Mrs. Charlotte Smith), "Dryad of the trees" (Keats), "Sappho of the dell" (Hood); but the foregoing list of simple adjectives (which doubtless could be greatly increased by a more extended poetical reading) sufficiently demonstrates the popularity of the nightingale as a poetical embellishment, and would, perhaps, tend to prove that a greater diversity of epithets have been bestowed upon the nightingale than have been given to any other song-bird.

CUTHBERT BEDE, B.A.

[Footnote 1: The epithets "heavenly," "holy," "solemn," &c., represent the nightingale's song, as spoken of by Keats, as the bird's "plaintive _anthem_;" by Mackay, as its

"_Hymn_ of gratitude and love;"

and by Moore also, in his account of the Vale of Cashmere, as

"The nightingale's _hymn_ from the Isle of Chenars."

In _A Proper New Boke of the Armony of Byrdes_ (quoted by Dibdin, _Top. Antiq._, iv. 381.), of unknown date, though probably before 1580, the nightingale is represented as singing its Te Deum:

"Tibi Cherubin Et Seraphin Full goodly she dyd chaunt, With notes merely Incessabile Voce Proeclamant."]

[Footnote 2: Chaucer (_Troilus and Creseide_) imagines the nightingale to "stint" at the beginning of its song, and to be frightened at the least noise.]

[Footnote 3: This, and the epithets of "sole-sitting" and "unseen," refer to the nightingale's love of solitary seclusion.]

[Footnote 4:

"He slep no more than doth the nightingale."

Chaucer, _Cant. Pil._]

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ON A PASSAGE IN OROSIUS.

In King Alfred's version of Orosius, book ii. chap. iv. p. 68., Barrington, we have an account of an unsuccessful attempt made by one of Cyrus the Great's officers to swim across a river "mid twam tyncenum," with two _tynkens_. What was a _tyncen_? That was the question nearly a hundred years ago, when Barrington was working out his translation; and the only answer to be found then was contained in the great dictionary published by Lye and Manning, but is not found now in Dr. Bosworth's second edition of his Dictionary: "Tynce, _a tench_."

How the Persian nobleman was to be supported by two little fishes, which were more likely to land their passenger at the bottom of the river than on the opposite bank, we are left to guess. But, before we proceed with the experiment, let us see that we have got the fishes. That tench was in the Gyndis we have no authority for denying; but, if its Anglian or Saxon name was such as the dictionary exhibits, we have no trace of it {400} in the text of Alfred; for under no form of declension, acknowledged in grammar, will _tynce_ ever give _tyncenum_. We have no need, then, to spend time in calculating the chance of success, when we have not the means of making the experiment.

As either _tync_ or _tynce_ would give _tyncum_, not _tyncenum_, the latter must come out of _tyncen_ (query, _tynkin_ or _tunkin_, a little tun, a barrel, or a cask?). Such was the form in which the question presented itself to my mind, upon my first examination of the passage three or four years ago, but which was given up without sufficient investigation, owing to an impression that if such had been the meaning, it was so simple and obvious that nobody could have missed it.

An emergency, which I need not explain here, has within these few days recalled my attention to the subject; and I have no reason to be ashamed, or to make a secret, of the result.

_Tyncen_, the diminutive of _tunne_, is not only a genuine Anglo-Saxon word, but the type of a class, of whose existence in that language no Saxonist, I may say no Teutonist, not even the perspicacious and indefatigable Jacob Grimm himself, seems to be aware. The word is exactly analogous to Ger. _tönnchen_, from _tonne_, and proves three things:--1. That our ancestors formed diminutives in _cen_, as well as their neighbours in _ken_, _kin_, _chen_; 2. That the radical vowel was modified: for _y_ is the _umlaut_ of _u_; 3. That these properties of the dialect were known to Alfred the Great when he added this curious statement to the narrative of Orosius.

E. THOMSON.

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NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS.

(_Continued from_ p. 376.)

_Imperseverant_, undiscerning. This word I have never met with but twice,--in Shakspeare's _Cymbeline_, with the sense above given; and in Bishop Andrewes' Sermon preached before Queen Elizabeth at Hampton Court, A.D. 1594, in the sense of unenduring:

"For the Sodomites are an example of impenitent wilful sinners; and Lot's wife of _imperseverant_ and relapsing righteous persons."--_Library of Ang.-Cath. Theology_, vol. ii. p. 62.

_Perseverant_, discerning, and _persevers_, discerns, occur respectively at pp. 43. and 92. of Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_ (Percy Society's edition). The noun substantive _perseverance_=discernment is as common a word as any of the like length in the English language. To omit the examples that might be cited out of Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_, I will adduce a dozen other instances; and if those should not _be enough_ to justify my assertion, I will undertake to heap together two dozen more. Mr. Dyce, in his _Critique of Knight and Collier's Shakspeare_, rightly explains the meaning of the word in _Cymbeline_; and quotes an example of _perseverance_ from _The Widow_, to which the reader is referred. Mr. Dyce had, however, previously corrupted a passage in his edition of Rob. Greene's _Dramatic Works_, by substituting, "perceivance" for _perseverance_, the word in the original quarto of the _Pinner of Wakefield_, vol. ii. p. 184.:

"Why this is wondrous being blind of sight, His deep _perseuerance_ should be such to know us."

I subjoin the promised dozen:

"For his dyet he was verie temperate, and a great enemie of excesse and surfetting; and so carelesse of delicates, as though he had had no _perseuerance_ in the tast of meates," &c.--"The Life of Ariosto," Sir John Harington's Translation of _Orlando Furioso_, p. 418.

"In regarde whereof they are tyed vnto these duties: First by a prudent, diligent, and faithfull care to obserue by what things the state may be most benefited; and to haue _perseuerance_ where such marchandize that the state most vseth and desireth may be had with greatest ease," &c.--_The Trauailer_, by Thomas Palmer: London, 1606.

"There are certain kinds of frogs in Egypt, about the floud of Nilus, that have this _percewerance_, that when by chance they happen to come where a fish called Varus is, which is great a murtherer and spoiler of frogs, they use to bear in their mouths overthwart a long reed, which groweth about the banks of Nile; and as this fish doth gape, thinking to feed upon the frog, the reed is so long that by no means he can swallow the frog; and so they save their lives."--"The Pilgrimage of Kings and Princes," chap. xliii. p. 294. of Lloyd's _Marrow of History_, corrected and revised by R. C., Master of Arts: London, 1653.

"This fashion of countinge the monthe endured to the ccccl yere of the citie, and was kepte secrete among the byshops of theyr religion tyl the time that C. Flauius, P. Sulpitius Auarrio, and P. Sempronius Sophuilongus, then beinge Consuls, against the mynde of the Senatours disclosed all their solemne feates, published th[=e] in a table that euery man might haue perseuera[=u]ce of them."--_An Abridgemente of the Notable Worke of Polidore Vergile, &c._, by Thomas Langley, fol. xlii.

"And some there be that thinke men toke occasion of God to make ymages, whiche wylling to shewe to the grosse wyttes of men some _perceiueraunce_ of hymselfe, toke on him the shape of man, as Abraham sawe him and Jacob also."--_Id._, fol. lxi.

In this passage, as in others presently to be alleged, "notification" seems to be the drift of the word.

"Of this vnreuerent religi[=o], Mahomete, a noble ma[=n]e, borne in Arabie, or, as some report, in Persie, was authour: and his father was an heathen idolater, and his mother an Ismaelite; wherfore she had more _perceuerance_ of the Hebrues law."--_Id._, fol. cxlii.

"Where all feelyng and _perseuer[=a]ce_ of euill is awaie, nothyng there is euill or found a misse. As if a manne {401} be fallen into a sound slepe, he feleth not the hardenesse or other incommoditie of his cabon or couche."--"The Saiynges of Publius, No. 58.," _The Precepts of Cato, &c., with Erasmus Annotations_: London, 1550.

"Wherfore both Philip and Alexander (if ye dead haue anie _perceuerance_) woulde not that the rootes (rooters) out of them and theyre issue, but rather that the punnishers of those traitors, should enioye the kingdom of Macedone."--"The XVI Booke of Justine," fol. 86., Golding's Translation of the _Abridgement of the Historyes of Trojus Pompeius_: London, 1578.

"And morouer bycause his setting of vs here in this world is to aduaunce vs aloft, that is, to witte to the heauenly life, whereof he giueth vs some _perceyuerance_ and feeling afore hande."--Io. Calvin. "Sermon XLI., on the Tenth Chap. of Job," p. 209., Golding's Translation: London, 1574.

"And so farre are wee off from being able to atteine to such knowledge through our owne power, that we flee it as much as is possible, and blindfold our own eyes, to the intent we might put away all _perceyuerance_ and feeling of God's judgement from vs."--_Id._, "Sermon XLII.," p. 218.

"For (as I haue touched already) God of his goodnesse doth not vtterly barre vs from hauing any _perceyuerance_ at all of his wisdome: but it behoueth vs to keepe measure."--_Id._, "Sermon XLIII.," p. 219.

I shall not cite any more from Golding, but simply observe that the word occurs again and again in his translations. The remaining three examples exhibit the noun in a somewhat different sense, viz. "notification," or "means of discerning:"

"The time most apt in all the yeare, and affoording greatest _perseuerance_ for the finding out of the heads of wells and fountaines, are the moneths of August or September."--_The First Booke of the Countrie Farme_, p. 8., by Stevens and Liebault, translated by Svrflet, and edited by G. Markham: London, 1616.

"He may also gather some _perceiuerance_ by the other markes before specified; that is to say, by the prints of his foote vpon the grasse, by the carriages of his head, his dung, gate," &c.--_Id._, booke vii. p. 685.

"And this lyfe to men is an high _perseveraunce_, Or a lyght of faythe wherby they shall be saved."