Chapter 2

"Now to begin with Fortitude, they say it is the meane between Cowardise and rash Audacitie; of which twaine the one is a defect, the other an excesse of the yrefull passion: Liberalitie, betweene Nigardise and Prodigalitie: Clemencie and Mildnesse, betweene senselesse Indolence and Crueltie: Justice, the meane of giving more or lesse than due: Temperance, a mediocritie betweene the blockish stupiditie of the minde, moved with _no touch of pleasure_, and all unbrideled loosenes, whereby it is abandoned to all sensualitie."-- _The Philosophie of Plutarch_, fol. 1603.

It really does appear to me that there could not be a happier or more appropriate designation, for a philosophy made up in this way of "meanes" and adjustments, so as to steer between the _plus_ and _minus_, than a system of _checks_--not fixed, or rigid rules, as they are sometimes interpreted to be, but nice allowances of excess or defect, to be discovered, weighed, and determined by individual reason, in the audit of each man's conscience, according to the strength or weakness of the passions he may have to regulate.

I therefore oppose the substitution of _ethics_--

1. Because we have the _primâ facie_ evidence of the text itself, that _checks_ was Shakspeare's word.

2. Because we have internal evidence, in the significance and excellence of the phrase, that it was Shakspeare's word.

_Ethics_ was the patent title by which Aristotle's moral philosophy was universally known; therefore any ignoramus, who never dipped beyond the title, might, _and would_, have used it. But no person, except one well read in the philosophy itself, would think of giving it such a designation as _checks_; which word, nevertheless, is most happily characteristic of it.

3. Because, as before stated, Aristotle's _checks_, being the restrictive and regulating portion of Aristotle's _Ethics_, is necessarily a more diametrical antithesis to Ovid (and his _laxities_).

4. Because I look upon the use of this phrase as one of those nice and scarcely perceptible touches by which Shakspeare was content rather to hint at, than to disclose his knowledge,--one of those effects whereby he makes a single word supply the place of a treatise.

With these opinions, I cannot but look upon this threatened change of _checks_ into _ethics_, as wholly unwarrantable, and I now protest against it as earnestly as, upon a former occasion, I did against the alteration of _sickles_ into _shekels_, or, still worse, into _cycles_ or into _circles_. It is with great satisfaction I compare four different views taken of this word by MR. COLLIER, viz.--in the note to the text of his octavo edition of Shakspeare;--in an additional note in vol. i., page cclxxxiv. of that edition;--in the first announcement of his annotated folio in the _Athenæum_ newspaper, Jan. 31st, 1852,--and finally (after my remarks upon the word in "N. & Q."), his virtual reinstatement of the original _sickle_ (till then supposed a palpable and undeniable misprint) at page 46. of _Notes and Emendations_, together with the production, _suo motu_, of an independent reference in support of my position.

To return to this present substitution of _ethics_ for _checks_, a very singular circumstance connected with it is the ignoring, by both MR. COLLIER and by the critic in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, of Sir William Blackstone's original claim to the suggestion, by prior publication of upwards of half a century. At that time, notwithstanding the great learning and acuteness of the proposer, the alteration was rejected! And shall we now be less wise than our fathers? Shall we--misled by the prestige of a few drops of rusty ink fashioned into letters of formal cut--place implicit credence in emendations whose only claim to faith, like that of the Mormon scriptures, is that nobody knows whence they came? {498}

In the passage I have quoted from Philemon Holland, there may be observed two peculiarities which are generally supposed to be exclusively Shakspearian: one is the beautiful application of the word "touch"--the other the phrase "discourse of reason." Where this last expression occurs in _Hamlet_, it narrowly escaped _emendation_ at the hands of Gifford! (See Mr. Knight's note, in his illustrated edition of _Shakspeare_.) It is the true Aristotelian [Greek: dianoia].

There is also a third peculiarity of expression in the same quotation, in the use of the word _delay_ in the sense of _diluere_, to dilute, temper, allay. There are at least two passages in Shakspeare's plays where the word is used in this sense, but which appear to have been overlooked by his glossarists. The first is in _All's Well that Ends Well_, Act IV. Sc. 3., where the French locals are moralising upon Bertram's profligate pursuit of Diana:

"Now God _delay_ our rebellion--as we are ourselves, what are we?"

The second is in _Cymbeline_, Act V. Sc. 4., where Jupiter tempers his love with crosses, in order to make his gifts--

"The more _delayed_, delighted."

A. E. B.

* * * * *

Minor Notes.

_Portrait of Luther._--A portrait of Luther, perhaps original, certainly nearly cotemporary with the Reformer, possessing many excellent qualities, was some time since shown me. It is in the possession of Mr. Horne, of Morton in Marsh, Gloucestershire: it was received by him from an elderly gentleman still living in London, who purchased it many years since at a sale of pictures. The picture is very dark, on canvass, with a black frame having a narrow gilt moulding. As the existence of this portrait is perhaps not known, mention of the fact might interest some of your readers. The picture, including frame, is perhaps in size thirty inches by twenty-four; and the age of the sitter, whose features are delineated with remarkable effects is probably under fifty years.

B. H. C.

_Randle Wilbraham._--Randle Wilbraham, Esq., the grandfather of Lord Skelmersdale, who died upon the 3rd of April last, was a lawyer of great eminence, and held the office of treasurer of Lincoln's Inn. The university of Oxford conferred, by diploma, the degree of D.C.L. upon him in these notable terms:

"Placuit nobis in Convocatione die 14 mensis Aprilis 1761, solenniter convocatis spectatissimum Ranulphum Wilbraham, Arm. Coll. Ænæi Nasi quondam commensalem, in agendis causis pro diversis Tribunalibus per multos retro annos hodieque versatissimum, Subsenescallum nostrum et Consiliarium fidissimum, Gradu Doctoris in Jure Civili insignire. Cujus quidem hæc præcipua ac prope singularis et est, et semper fuit, quod propriis ingenii et industriæ suæ viribus innixus Aulici favoris nec appetens, nec particeps, sine ullo magnatum patrocinio, sine turpi Adulantium aucupio, ad summam tamen in Foro, in Academia, in Senatu, tum gloriam, tum etiam authoritatem facilem sibi et stabilem munivit viam, Fortunæ suæ si quis alius Deo Favente vere Faber", &c.

The above is copied from the original diploma, which Mr. Randle Wilbraham gave to his nephew, the late Dr. William Falconer of Bath. On the death of Mr. R. Wilbraham, Chief Justice Wilmot wrote "I have lost my old friend Mr. Wilbraham: he died in the seventy-seventh year of his age, and has not left a better lawyer, or an honester man behind him."

ANON.

_Unpublished Epigram by Sir W. Scott._--

"Earth walks on Earth, Glittering in gold: Earth goes to Earth, Sooner than it wold: Earth builds on Earth, Palaces and towers: Earth says to Earth: Soon, all shall be ours."

The above, by Sir W. Scott, I _believe_, has never appeared in print to my knowledge. It was recited to me by a friend of Sir W. Scott.

R. VINCENT.

_Crassus' Saying._--I find in the Diary of the poet Moore (in Lord John Russell's edition), vol. ii. p. 148., a conversation recorded with Dr. Parr, in which the Doctor quotes "the witticism that made Crassus laugh (the only time in his life): 'Similes habent labra lactucas.'"

It appears (see the quotations in Facciolati) that this sage and laughter-moving remark of Crassus was made on seeing an ass eating a thistle; whereon he exclaimed, "Similes habent labra lactucas."

In Bailey's edition of Facciolati it is said, "Proverbium habet locum ubi similia similibus contingunt,... quo sensu Angli dicimus, 'Like lips like lettuce: like priest like people.'"

Out of this explanation it is difficult to elicit any sense, much less any "witticism."

I suggest that Crassus' saying meant, "His (the ass's) lips hold thistles and lettuces to be both alike;" wanting the discrimination to distinguish between them. Or, if I may put it into a doggerel rhyme:

"About a donkeys taste why need we fret us? To lips like his a thistle is a lettuce."

WM. EWART.

University Club.

* * * * * {499}

Queries.

BEES AND THE SPHYNX ATROPOS.

Huber, in his _Observations on the Natural History of Bees_, avers that the moth called the _Sphynx atropos_ invades and plunders with impunity a hive containing thousands of bees, notwithstanding the watchfulness, pugnacity, and formidable weapons of those insects. To account for this phenomenon, he states that the queen bee has the faculty of emitting a certain sound which instantly strikes the bees motionless; and he conjectures that this burglarious moth, being endowed with the same property, uses it to produce a similar effect, first on the sentinels at the entrance of the hive, and then on the bees within.

In another part of his book (2nd edit. 1808, p. 202.) he relates what he himself witnessed on introducing a strange queen into a hive. The bees, greatly irritated, pulled her, bit her, and chased her away; but on her emitting the sound and assuming an extraordinary attitude, "the bees all hung down their heads and remained motionless." On the following day he repeated the experiment, and the intrusive queen was similarly maltreated; but when she emitted her sound, and assumed the attitude, from that moment the bees again became motionless.

Have more modern observers verified this curious fact? Is it not a case of mesmerism?

SYDNEY SMIRKE.

* * * * *

"THE CRAFTSMAN'S APOLOGY."

When Bolingbroke published his _Final Answer to the Remarks on the Craftsman's Vindication, and to all the Libels which have come, or may come from the same quarter against the Person last mentioned in the Craftsman of the 22nd May, 1731_, he was answered in five Poetical Letters to the King, which in keenness of wit, polished satire, and flowing ease of versification, have not been since surpassed. The title of the tract in which they are contained is _The Craftsman's Apology, being a Vindication of his Conduct and Writings in several Letters to the King_, printed for T. Cooper, 1732, 8vo. pages 32. By whom were these very clever and amusing letters written? Lord Hervey or Sir Charles Hanbury Williams are the parties one would think most likely to have written them; but they do not appear in the list of Lord Hervey's works given by Walpole, or amongst those noticed by Mr. Croker, or in Sir C. H. Williams's _Collected Works_, in three volumes. Independently of which, I question whether the versification is not, in point of harmony, too equal for either of them. If they be included in the collected works of any other writer of the time, which I have no immediate recollection of, some of your correspondents will no doubt be able to point him out. Should it appear that they have not been reprinted, I shall be disposed to recur again to the subject, and to give an extract from them, as, of all the attacks ever made upon Bolingbroke, they seem to me the most pleasant, witty, and effective.

JAS. CROSSLEY.

* * * * *

PALISSY AND CARDINAL WISEMAN.

On April 28, Cardinal Wiseman, at the Manchester Corn Exchange, delivered a lecture "On the Relation of the Arts of Design to the Arts of Production." It occupies thirteen columns of _The Tablet_ of May 7, which professes to give it "from _The Manchester Examiner_, with corrections and additions." I have read it with pleasure, and shall preserve it as one of the best discourses on Art ever delivered; but there is a matter of fact, on which I am not so well satisfied. In noticing Bernard Palissy, the cardinal is reported to have said:

"For sixteen years he persevered in this way; and then was crowned with success, and produced the first specimens of coloured and beautiful pottery, such as are to this day sought by the curious; and _he received a situation in the king's household, and ended his days in comfort and respectability_."

In the review of "Morley's Life of Palissy the Potter," _Spectator_, Oct. 9, 1852, it is said:

"The period of the great potter's birth is uncertain. Mr. Morley fixes it, on probable data, at 1509; but with a latitude of six years on either side. _Palissy died in 1589 in the Bastile, where he had been confined four years as a Hugenot; the king and his other friends could defer his trial, but dared not grant him liberty._"

All the accounts which I have read agree with Mr. Morley and the _Spectator_. Are they or the cardinal right, supposing him to be correctly reported?

H. B. C.

U. U. Club.

* * * * *

Minor Queries.

_Polidus._--Can you tell me where the scene of the following play is laid, and the names of the _dramatis personæ_?--_Polidus, a Tragedy_, by Moses Browne, 8vo. 1723. The author of this play, who was born in 1703, and died in 1787, was for some time the curate of the Rev. James Harvey, author of _Meditations_, and other works. Mr. Browne was afterwards presented to the vicarage of Olney, in Bucks, where the Rev. John Newton was his curate for several years.

A. Z.

Glasgow.

[Moses Browne was subsequently Chaplain of Morden College. The piscatory brotherhood are indebted to him for having revived Walton's _Complete Angler_, after it had lain dormant for upwards of eighty years; and this task, he tells us, was undertaken at the request of Dr. Samuel Johnson.--ED.]

{500}

_St. Paul's Epistles to Seneca._--It has frequently been affirmed that Seneca became, in the last year of his life, a convert to Christianity--his canonisation by St. Jerome is undoubted and there was stated to be a MS. of the above epistle in Merton College. May I ask any of your contributors whether this MS. has ever been printed?

J. M. S.

Hull.

_Meaning of "folowed."_--Inside the cover of an old Bible and Prayer-Book, bound in one quarto, Robert Barker, 1611, is the following inscription:

"July eight I was much folowed when I lay in bed alone att Mistris Whitmore's house, wee haveing agreed too bee married nextt daye.

"God, even our own God, shal bless us. This incouriged mee too hope for God's favour and blessing through Christ.

"Christopher Curwen and Hannah Whitmore was married att Lambe's Chapel, near Criplegate, July ninth, 1712."

An entry of his marriage with his first wife, Elizabeth Sutton, 1704, is on the cover at the beginning of the book.

Can any one of your correspondents enlighten me as to the meaning of the word _folowed_? The letters are legibly written, and there can be no mistake about any of them. Is it an expression derived from the Puritans?

H. C. K.

---- Rectory, Hereford.

_Roman Catholic Registers._--Can any of your correspondents inform me where I can find the registers of births, marriages, and burials of Roman Catholic families living in Berks and Oxon in the reigns of Charles I. and II.?

A. PT.

_St. Alban's Day._--At p. 340. of the _Chronicles of London Bridge_, it is stated that Cardinal Fisher was executed on St. Alban's day, June 22, 1535. How is it that in our present calendar St. Alban's day is not June 22, but June 17? On looking back I see SIR W. C. TREVELYAN, in our first volume, inquired the reason of this change, but I do not find any reply to his Query.

E. H. A.

_Meigham, the London Printer._--J. A. S. is desirous of obtaining information regarding a printer in London, of the name of Meigham, about 1745-8, or to be directed where to search for such. Meigham conversed, or corresponded, about Catholicity with Dr. Hay, the then vicar-apostolic of the Eastern District of Scotland.

_Adamsoniana._--Is anything known of the family of Michel Adamson, or Michael Adamson, the eminent naturalist and voyager to Senegal, who, though born in France, is said to have been of Scottish extraction?

Where is the following poem to be met with?

"Ode in Collegium Bengalense, præmio dignata quod alumnis collegiorum Aberdonensium proposuit vir reverendus C. Buchanan, Coll. Bengalensis Præfectus Vicarius. Auctore Alexandro Adamson, A.M., Coll. Marisch. Aberd. alumno."

Allow me to repeat a Query which was inserted in Vol. ii., p. 297., asking for any information respecting J. Adamson, the author of a rare tract on Edward II.'s reign, published in 1732, in defence of the Walpole administration from the attacks of the _Craftsman_.

Who was John Adamson, author of _Fanny of Caernarvon, or the War of the Roses_, an historical romance, of which a French translation was published in 1809 at Paris, in 2 vols. 12mo.?

E. H. A.

_Canker or Brier Rose._--Can any of your correspondents tell me why the brier or dog-rose was anciently called the _canker_? The brier is particularly free from the disease so called, and the name does not appear to have been used in disparagement. In Shakspeare's beautiful Sonnet LIV. are the lines:

"The _canker-blooms_ have full as deep a dye, As the perfumed tincture of the roses."

In _King Henry IV._, Act I. Sc. 3., Hotspur says:

"Shall it for shame be spoken in these days, Or fill up chronicles in times to come, That men of your nobility and power, Did 'gage them both in an unjust behalf, (As both of you, God pardon it! have done) To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose And plant this thorn, this _canker_ Bolingbroke."

And again, Don John, in _Much Ado about Nothing_, Act I. Sc. 3.:

"I had rather be a _canker_ in a hedge, than a rose in the grave."

ANON.

"_Short red, god red._"--In Roger of Wendover's _Chronicle_, Bohn's edition, vol. i. p. 345., is a story how Walchere, Bishop of Durham, was slain in his county court, A.D. 1075, by the suitors on the instigation of one who cried out in his native tongue "Schort red, god red, slea ye the bischop."

Sir Walter Scott, in his _Tales of a Grandfather_ (vol. i. p. 85.), tells the same story of a Bishop of Caithness who was burned for enforcing tithes in the reign of Alexander II. of Scotland (about 1220).

What authority is there for the latter story? Did Sir Walter confound the two bishops, or did he add the circumstance for the amusement of Hugh Littlejohn? Was this the formula usually adopted on such occasions? How came the Caithness people to speak such good Saxon?

G.

_Overseers of Wills._--I have copies of several wills of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in {501} which one set of persons are appointed _executors_ and another _overseers_. What were the rights and duties of these latter?

J. K.

_Lepel's Regiment._--Can your correspondent MR. ARTHUR HAMILTON inform me what is the regiment known in 1707 as _Lepel's Regiment_? It was a cavalry regiment, I believe.

J. K.

_Vincent Family._--Can any of your correspondents give me any information respecting the descendants of Francis Vincent, grandson of Augustine Vincent, Rouge Croix Pursuivant at Arms. His sister Elizabeth has, or had very lately, a representative in the person of Francis Offley Edmunds of Worsborough, Yorkshire; but nowhere have I been able to obtain any information respecting himself. If you could give any information on this subject, you would much oblige

C. WILSON.

_Passage in the First Part of Faust._--

"_Faust._ Es Klopft? Herein! Wer will mich wieder plagen? _Mephistopheles._ Ich bin's. _Faust._ Herein! _Mephis._ Du musst es dreimal sagen. _Faust._ Herein denn! _Mephis._ So gefällst du mir."

Why must he say it _three_ times? Is this a superstition that can be traced in other countries than Germany? In Horace we have Diana thus addressed:

"_Ter_ vocata audis, adimisque letho, Diva triformis."--Lib. iii. Ode 22.

But she is there the benign Diana, not Hecate.

Are we to understand the passage to mean, that the number _three_ has a magical influence in summoning spirits; or to teach that the power of evil is so overruled by a higher Power, that he cannot approach to begin his work of temptation and ruin unless he be, not once merely, or twice, but _three_ times, called by the free will and act of the individual who is surrendering himself to his influence? The subject seems worthy of elucidation.

W. FRASER.

Tor-Mohun.

_Lady Anne Gray._--Who was the "Lady Anne Gray," or "Lady Gray," who was one of the attendants on Queen Elizabeth when princess, and is mentioned first in Sir John Harrington's poem in praise of her ladies?

N. A.

_Continental Brasses._--At a recent meeting of the Archæological Institute, Mr. Nesbitt exhibited rubbings of some fine brasses at Bamberg, Naumberg, Meissen, and Erfurt. Mr. Nesbitt would confer a favour on the readers of "N. & Q." by stating the names and dates of those sepulchral memorials, and the churches from which he obtained the rubbings, and thus aid in carrying out MR. W. SPARROW SIMPSON'S excellent suggestion for obtaining a complete list of monumental brasses on the Continent.

WILLIAM W. KING.

_Peter Beaver._--In the early part of the last century, a gentleman named Peter Beaver, whose daughter was married in 1739 to Latham Blacker, Esq., of Rathescar, lived in the old and fashionable town of Drogheda. Can any one inform me as to the year of his death, and whether he left a son? The name has disappeared in Drogheda. I would likewise be glad to know the origin of the name; and, if it be a corruption of Beauvoir, at what time, and for what reason, was it changed? The crest is the animal of the same name.

ABHBA.

_Cremonas._--Can any of your numerous correspondents kindly supply me with a list of the earliest and the latest of the instruments of each of the famous _cremona_ makers? Such a list would be a valuable contribution to "N. & Q."

Mr. Dubourg's work on the _Violin_, excellent as it is in many respects, contains but a meagre account of the instrument itself, and is sadly deficient on the subject of my Query. May I ask him, and I have reason for so doing, on what authority he gives 1664 as the year of the birth of Antonius Stradivarius, in his last edition?

H. C. K.