Chapter 3

"To our equal surprise and vexation at times, we find the ancients possessed of degrees of physical knowledge with which we were mostly or entirely unacquainted ourselves. I need not appeal in proof of this to that extraordinary operation of chemistry, by which Moses reduced the golden calf to powder, and then give it mingled with water as a drink to the Israelites; an operation the most difficult in all the processes of chemistry, and concerning which it is a sufficient honour for the moderns to say, that they have once or twice practised it. I need not appeal to the mummies of Egypt, in which the art of embalming bodies is so eminently displayed, that all attempts at imitation have only showed the infinite superiority of the original to the copy. I need not appeal to the gilding upon those mummies so fresh in its lustre; to the stained silk of them, so vivid in its colours after a lapse of 3000 years; to the ductility and malleability of glass, discovered by an artist of Rome in the days of Tiberius, but instantly lost by the immediate murder of the man under the orders of the emperor, and just now boasted vainly to be re-discovered by the wildly eccentric, yet vividly vigorous, genius of that earl who professes to teach law to my lord chancellor, and divinity to my lords the {10} bishops, who proposes to send ship, by the force of steam, with all the velocity of a ball from the mouth of a cannon, and who pretends by the power of his steam-impelled oars to beat the waters of the ocean into the hardness of adamant; or to the burning-glasses of Archimedes, recorded in their effects by credible writers, actually imitated by Proclus at the siege of Constantinople with Archimedes' own success, yet boldly pronounced by some of our best judges, demonstrably impracticable in themselves, and lately demonstrated by some faint experiments to be very practicable, the skill of the moderns only going so far as to render credible the practices of the ancients."--_The Course of Hannibal___, by John Whitaker, B.D., 1794, vol. ii. p. 142.

Who was the earl whose universality of genius is described above by this "laudator temporis acti?"

H. J.

[Charles Earl Stanhope, whose versatility of talent succeeded in abolishing the old wooden printing-press, with its double pulls, and substituting in its place the beautiful iron one, called after him the "Stanhope Press." His lordship's inventive genius, however, failed in the composing-room; for his transmogrified letter-cases, with his eight logotypes, once attempted at _The Times'_ office, were soon abandoned, and the old process of single letters preferred.]

_Dissimulate._--Where is the earliest use of this word to be found? It is to be met with in Bernard Mandeville's _Fable of the Bees_, 1723; but is not to be found, I think, in any dictionary. I was once heavily censured at school for using it in my theme; but I have more than once of late seen it used in a leading article of _The Times_.

H. T. RILEY.

[_Dissimulate_ occurs in Richardson's Dictionary, with the two following examples:

"Under smiling she was _dissimulate_, Prouocatiue with blinkes amorous." Chaucer, _The Testament of Creseide_.

"We commaunde as kynges, and pray as men, that al thyng be forgiuen to theim that be olde and broken, and to theim that be yonge and lusty, to _dissimulate_ for a time, and nothyng to be forgiuen to very yong children."--_Golden Boke_, c. ix.

* * * * *

Replies.

BISHOP KEN.

(Vol. vii., p. 526.)

By converting a noun into a surname, Dodsley has led J. J. J. into a natural, but somewhat amusing mistake. The lines quoted are in Horace Walpole's well-known epistle, from Florence, addressed to his college friend T[homas] A[shton,] tutor of the Earl of P[lymouth].

In Walpole's _Fugitive Pieces_, printed at Strawberry Hill, 1758 (the copy of which, now before me, was given by Walpole to Cole in 1762, and contains several notes by the latter), the passage stands correctly thus:

"Or, with wise ken, judiciously define, When Pius marks the honorary coin, Of Carnealla, or of Antonine."

Your correspondent refers to an edition of the _Collection of Poems_ of 1758. In a much later edition of that work, viz. 1782, the line is again printed--

"Or with wise KEN," &c.

It is strange that the mistake was not corrected, at the instance of Walpole himself, during this long interval.

Turning to Bishop Ken, I would observe that in his excellent Life of this prelate, Mr. Anderdon has given the three well-known hymns "word for word," as first penned. These, Mr. A. tells us, are found, for the first time, in a copy of the _Manual of Prayers For the Use of the Winchester Scholars_, printed in 1700. The bishop's versions vary so very materially from those to which we have been accustomed from childhood, that these original copies are very interesting. Indeed, within five years after their first appearance, and during the author's life, material changes were made, several of which are retained to the present hour. It must be admitted that some of the stanzas, as they first came from the bishop's pen, are singularly rugged and inharmonious, almost justifying the request made by the lady to Byrom (as I have stated elsewhere[1]), "to revise and polish the bishop's poems." How came these hymns, so far the most popular of his poetical works, to be omitted by Hawkins in the collected edition of the poems, printed in 4 vols., 1721?

My present object is, to call your attention to a "Midnight Hymn," by Sir Thomas Browne, which will be found in his works (vol. ii. p. 113., edit. Wilkin). Can there be question that to it Ken is indebted for some of the thoughts and expressions in two of his own hymns?

The good bishop's fame will not be lessened by his adopting what was good in the works of the learned physician. He doubtless thought far more of the benefit which he could render to the youthful Wykehamists, than of either the originality or smoothness of his own verses.

_Sir Thomas Browne._ "While I do rest, my soul advance; Make my sleep a holy trance: That I may, my rest being wrought, Awake into some holy thought, And with as active vigour run My course as doth the nimble sun.

"Sleep is a death: O make me try, By sleeping, what it is to die! {11} And as gently lay my head On my grave, as now my bed.

"These are my drowsy days; in vain I do now wake to sleep again. O come that hour when I shall never Sleep again, but wake for ever!

"Guard me 'gainst those watchful foes, Whose eyes are open while mine close; Let no dreams my head infest, But such as Jacob's temples blest."

_Bishop Ken._ "Awake, my soul, and with the sun Thy daily stage of duty run.

"Teach me to live that I may dread The grave as little as my bed.

"O when shall I in endless day For ever chase dark sleep away, And endless praise with th' Heavenly choir, Incessant sing and never tire.

"You, my blest Guardian, whilst I sleep, Close to my bed your vigils keep; Divine love into me instil, Stop all the avenues of ill.

"Thought to thought, with my soul converse Celestial joys to me rehearse; And in my stead, all the night long, Sing to my God a grateful song."

In the work referred to--one of the most valuable and best edited of modern days--Mr. Wilkin, when speaking of a fine passage on music in the _Religio Medici_ (vol. ii. p. 106.), asks whether it may not have suggested to Addison the beautiful conclusion of his Hymn on the Glories of Creation:

"What tho' in solemn silence, all," &c.

This passage in Sir Thomas Browne appears forcibly to have struck the gifted author of _Confessions of an English Opium-eater_ (see p. 106. of that work).

J. H. MARKLAND.

[Footnote 1: _Sketch of Bishop Ken's Life_, p. 107.]

* * * * *

BOHN'S EDITION OF HOVEDEN.

(Vol. vii., p. 579.)

MR. RILEY mistakes my purpose if he thinks that my object was to make a personal attack on him; and for anything in my last communication which may have appeared to possess that tendency, I hereby freely express my regret. Still I cannot allow that he has explained away the mistakes of which I complained, and of which I still have to complain. The kingdom of Cork _never_ "extended to within a short distance of Waterford;" and the territory of Desmond was _never_ co-extensive with Cork, having been always confined to the county of Kerry. MR. RILEY, therefore, is in error when he uses "Cork" and "Desmond" as synonymous. Again, he falls into the same mistake by assuming "Crook, Hook Point, or The Crook," to be synonyms. I never heard that Henry II. landed at Hook Point, which is in the county of Wexford, and from which a land journey to Waterford would be very circuitous. At Crook, however, on the opposite side of Waterford Harbour, and within the shelter of Creden Head, he is said to have done so; and as that point answers pretty exactly to the _Crock_ of Hoveden, why assume some indefinite point of the "Kingdom of Cork" as the locality, even supposing that its boundary _did_ approach Waterford city? Really MR. RILEY's explanations but make matters worse.

With regard to "Erupolensis" being an _alias_ of Ossoriensis, I may quote the authority of the learned De Burgo, who, speaking of the diocese of Ossory, observes:

"Quandoque tamen nuncupata erat _Eyrupolensis_ ab _Eyro_ Flumine, vulgo _Neoro_, quod _Kilkenniam_ alluit."--_Hibernia Dominicana_, p. 205. note _i_.

I maintain that the reading public has just cause to complain, not (as I said on a former occasion) because the editor of such a book as Hoveden's _Annals_ does not know everything necessary to elucidate his author, but because baseless conjectures are put forward as elucidations of the text.

JAMES GRAVES.

Kilkenny.

* * * * *

COLERIDGE'S CHRISTABEL.

(Vol. vii., pp. 206. 292.)

It is difficult to believe that the third part of _Christabel_, published in Blackwood for June, 1819, vol. v. p. 286., could have either "perplexed the public," or "pleased Coleridge." In the first place, it was avowedly written by "Morgan Odoherty;" and in the next, it is too palpable a parody to have pleased the original author, who could hardly have been satisfied with the raving rhapsodies put into his mouth, or with the treatment of his innocent and virtuous heroine. This will readily be supposed when it is known that the Lady Geraldine is made out to have been a man in woman's attire, and that "the mark of Christabel's shame, the seal of her sorrow," is neither more nor less than the natural consequence of her having shared her chamber with such a visitor.

Is your correspondent A. B. R. correct in stating this parody to have been the composition of Dr. Maginn? In the biography of this brilliant writer in the twenty-third volume of the _Dublin University Magazine_, Dr. Moir, who had undoubtedly good opportunities of knowing, mentions that his first contribution to _Blackwood_ was the Latin translation of "Chevy Chase," in the number for November 1819; if this be correct, many of the cleverest papers that appeared under the name of Odoherty, and which are all popularly attributed {12} to Maginn, must have been the work of other authors, a circumstance which I had been already led to suspect from the frequent local allusions to Scotland in general, and to Edinburgh in particular, which could have scarcely proceeded from the pen of a native of Cork, who had then never visited Scotland. Since Dr. Moir's own death, it appears that the _Eve of St. Jerry_, and the _Rhyme of the Auncient Waggonere_, have been claimed for him, as well as some other similar pieces; and I believe that the series of _Boxiana_, which also appeared under the name of the renowned ensign and adjutant, was written by Professor Wilson. Maginn's contributions were at first under various signatures, and some time elapsed before he made use of the _nom de guerre_ of Morgan Odoherty, which eventually became so identified with him.

J. S. WARDEN.

Paternoster Row.

* * * * *

ITS.

(Vol. vii., p. 578.)

I am sorry to intrude upon your valuable space again in reference to this little word, but the inquiry of MR. RYE (p. 578.), and other reasons, render it desirable. The truth is that MR. KEIGHTLEY, MR. RYE and myself, are more or less mistaken. 1. MR. KEIGHTLEY, in his quotation from Fairfax's _Tasso_ (MR. SINGER's accurate reprint, 1817), has _his_ in both lines. 2. MR. RYE, in understanding me to refer to any translation proper; unless Sternhold and Hopkins are to be considered as having produced one. 3. Myself, in supposing the old metrical version in the Book of Common Prayer originally had the word _its_. I copied from the Oxford edition in fol. of 1770; but a 4to. edition, "printed by Iohn Daye, dwelling over Aldersgate, anno 1574," does not exhibit the word in the places specified; we have instead _her_ in both places.

Hitherto, then, the oldest examples of the use of this word have been adduced from Shakspeare. These are to be found in the first folio, but are in each case printed with the apostrophe after the _t_,--_it's_. This method of writing the word, however, soon disappeared, for in a treatise of Pemble's, printed 1635 (the author died in 1623), it appears as we write it now:

"If faith alone by _its_ own virtue and force."--_Works_, fol. p. 171.

I have not observed the fact remarked, that besides the use of _his, her, hereof, thereof, of it_, and _the_, it was customary to employ the unchanged word _it_ for the possessive case. I will give an example or two. In the Genevan version, at Rom. viii. 20., we read "Not of _it_ owne wille." This passage is thus quoted in 1611 and in 1622, but in a later edition of the same work, 1656, _its_ is substituted for _it_. I have a note of one other instance from Perkins on Rev. ii. 28. (ed. 1606): "For as the sunne in the spring time quickeneth by _it_ warme beames."

In conclusion, may I request that if any genuine instance of the use of this word _its_, is observed by any of your many contributors, they will communicate the fact to you? At present we can only go back to Shakspeare, in his _Winter's Tale_ and _Henry VIII_.

B. H. C.

* * * * *

FAMILY OF MILTON'S WIDOW.

(Vol. vii., p. 596.)

As your correspondent CRANMORE has long been a deserter from the ranks of "N. & Q.," I may perhaps, without presumption, for once "stand in his shoes," and reply to the challenge addressed to him by V. M.

Much obscurity has all along prevailed among the many biographers of Milton, in reference to the family of Elizabeth Minshull, his third wife, and eventually, for more than fifty years, his widow. Philips, Warton, Todd, and numerous others, state her to have been "the daughter of Mr. Minshull, of Cheshire,"--a very vague assertion when we consider that there were at least three or four different families of that name then existing in the county. Pennant, who delighted in particularities, sometimes even at the expense of historical fact, tells us, for the first time, in 1782, that she was the daughter of Mr. (or Sir) Edward Minshull, of Stoke, near Nantwich, and that she died at the latter town in March, 1726, at an advanced age. Mr. Ormerod, again, whose splendid _History of Cheshire_ will be the standard authority of the county for ages after he himself is carried to his fathers, has unfortunately adopted the same conclusion, and so given a colour, as it were, to this erroneous statement of our Cambrian antiquary. The Rev. Benjamin Mardon's paper, printed in the _Journal of the British Archaeological Association for 1849_, is another and more recent instance of the way in which such errors as this may become perpetuated. Another writer (Palmer) conjectures her to have been the daughter of Minshull of Manchester; but this also has been proved to be entirely destitute of foundation.

The truth of the matter is (and I am indebted to Mr. Fitchett Marsh's clear and succinct dissertation in the _Miscellany_ of the Chetham Society for the information), the poet's widow was daughter of Mr. Randle Minshull, of Wistaston in the county of Chester, whose great-great-grandfather, a younger son of Minshull of Minshull, settled on a small estate there in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and so founded the house of Minshull of Wistaston. Milton was introduced to his Cheshire wife by his friend Dr. Paget; and {13} it was by his advice that the author of _Paradise Lost_ once more entered into the bonds of wedlock. Mr. Marsh, to clear up all doubt upon the subject, and having previously established the identity of the family, examined the parish register at Wistaston, and there found that "Elizabeth, the daughter of Randolph Mynshull, was baptized the 30th day of December, 1638;" so that, if baptized shortly after birth, she must have been about twenty-six years old when united to Milton in 1664, and about eighty-nine at her death, which occurred in 1727.

V. M., and all others who desire farther enlightenment on the subject, will do well to refer to the volume before mentioned, which forms the twenty-fourth of the series published by the Chetham Society.

T. HUGHES.

Chester.

* * * * *

BOOKS OF EMBLEMS--JACOB BEHMEN.

(Vol. vii., pp. 469. 579.)

Perhaps you will allow poor old Jacob Behmen, the inspired cobbler of Gorlitz, a niche in your temple of writers of emblems. I think he is legitimately entitled to that distinction. His works are nearly all couched in emblems; and, besides his own figures, his principles were pictorially illustrated by his disciple William Law (the author of _The Way to Divine Knowledge_, _The Serious Call_, &c.), in some seventeen simple, and four compound emblematic drawings. Of these the most remarkable, and in fact the most intelligible, are three compound emblems representing the Creation, Apostasy, and Redemption of Man. Every phase of each stage in the soul's history is disclosed to view by means of double and single doors. We are now concerned only with such of Behmen's emblematic works as have been translated into English. The following list contains only those in my own library. I am acquainted with no others:

(1.) "The Works of Jacob Behmen, the Teutonic Theosopher, to which is prefixed the Life of the Author, with Figures illustrating his Principles, left by the Rev. William Law, M.A. In four thick Volumes, royal 4to. London: printed for M. Richardson in Paternoster Row, MDCCLXIV." With a fine portrait of Behmen facing the title-page of the first volume. This edition contains the following works:

1. Aurora: the Day-spring, or Dawning of the Day in the East; or Morning-redness in the Rising of the Sun: that is, the Root or Mother of Philosophy, Astrology, and Theology, from the True Ground; or, A Description of Nature.

2. The Three Principles of the Divine Essence of the Eternal: Dark, Light, and Temporary World.

3. Mysterium Magnum: or an Explanation of the First Book of Moses called Genesis.

4. Four Tables of Divine Revelation.

5. The High and Deep-Searching of the Threefold Life of Man, through or according to the Three Principles.

6. Forty Questions concerning the Soul, proposed by Dr. Balthasar Walter, and answered by Jacob Behmen.

7. The Treatise of the Incarnation.

8. The Clavis, or an Explanation of some Principal Points and Expressions.

9. Signatura Rerum.

10. Of the Election of Grace; or of God's Will towards Man, commonly called Predestination.

11. The Way to Christ discovered in the following Treatises:--I. Of True Repentance. II. Of True Resignation. III. Of Regeneration. IV. Of Supernatural Life.

12. A Discourse between a Soul hungry and thirsty after the Fountain of Life, the sweet Love of Jesus Christ, and a Soul enlightened.

13. A Treatise of the Four Complexions, or a Consolatory Instruction for a Sad and Assaulted Heart in the Time of Temptation.

14. A Treatise of Christ's Testament, Baptism, and the Supper.

(2.) "Theosophic Letters, or Epistles of the Man from God enlightened in Grace, Jacob Behmen, of Old Seidenburgh, wherein everywhere [are?] Divine Blessed Exhortations to true Repentance and Amendment, as also Plaine Instructions concerning the highly worthy and precious Knowledge of the Divine and Natural Wisdome; together with a Right Touchstone or Triall of these Times, for an Introduction to the Author's other Writings: published in English for the good of the sincere Lovers of true Christianitie, by I. S.[2]" (I have only a MS. copy of this publication.)

(3.) A beautiful MS. translation of "The Way to Christ." This is hardly so accurate as the one already referred to, though some of the expressions are better chosen. The date of this MS. is about 1730, or earlier.

(4.) A fair MS. translation of Jacob Behmen's treatise called "A Fundamental Instruction concerning the Earthly and concerning the Heavenly Mystery; how they two stand in one another, and how in the Earthly the Heavenly becometh manifested or revealed, wherein then you shall see Babell the great citty upon Earth stand with its Forms and Wonders; and wherefore, or out of what, Babell is generated, and where Antichrist will stand quite naked. Comprised in Nine Texts. Written May 8, 1620, in High Dutch." (I have seen no printed translation of this treatise.)

(5.) MS. translation of the fourth treatise of "The Way to Christ," viz. "of the Supersensual Life." This is a less accurate rendering than either of the others above mentioned.

Perhaps your mystic correspondents will kindly furnish lists of other publications and MSS. of {14} "the Teutonick Theosopher." There are sixteen more of his works, of which fifteen are now extant in High Dutch. As old Behmen is but little known in this country, save by ill-repute, as having led astray William Law in his old age, and, through him, having tinctured the religious philosophy of Coleridge, it way be worth noting, that no less a philosopher than Schelling (to whom, as we know, Coleridge stood so greatly indebted) stole from the Lusatian shoemaker the corner-stones of his _Philosophy of Nature_.

C. MANSFIELD INGLEBY.

Birmingham.

[Footnote 2: J. Sparrow.--ED.]

* * * * *

RAFFAELLE'S SPOSALIZIO.

(Vol. vii., p. 595.)

With regard to your correspondent MR. G. BRINDLEY ACKWORTH's Query respecting _Raffaelle's Sposalizio_, I am induced to think that the _custode_ at the church of the Santa Croce at Florence was right as to his information. In the copy which I have of the "Ordo ad faciendum Sponsalia," _according to the ancient use of Salisbury_, the ring is undoubtedly to be placed on the bride's _right_ hand. Wheatly indeed says, that "when the man espouses his wife with it (_i.e._ the ring), he is to put it _upon the fourth finger of her_ left _hand_;" and then refers, for _the reason_ of this, to the rubric of _Salisbury Manual_, which speaks of the vein going from this finger directly to the heart.

Now, what are the precise words of this rubric? After giving directions for the benediction of the ring, provided it has not previously been blessed, the rubric goes on thus:

"Si autem antea fuerit annulus ille benedictus tunc statim postquam vir posuerit annulum super librum, accipiens sacerdos annulum tradat ipsum viro: quem vir accipiat manu sua dextera cum tribus principalioribus digitis, et manu sua sinistra tenens dexteram sponsae docente sacerdote dicat."