Chapter 3

I regret that no further notice has been taken of the very curious matter suggested by "Mr. Jebb" (No 14. p. 213.), one of the many forgeries of which Shakspeare has been the object, which ought to be cleared up, but which I have neither leisure nor materials to attempt; but I can afford a hint or two for other inquirers.

1. This strange intermixture of some _John_ Shakspeare's confession of the Romish faith with _William_ Shakspeare's will, is, as Mr. Jebb states to be found in the _Dublin_ edition of Malone's _Shakspeare_, 1794, v. i. p. 154. It is generally supposed that this Dublin edition is a copy (I believe a piracy) of the London one of 1790; but by what means the _three_ introductory paragraphs of John Shakspeare's popish confession were foisted into the real will of William is a complete mystery.

2. Malone, in a subsequent part of his prolegomena to both of those editions (Lond. v. i. part II. 162., and Dublin, v. ii. p. 139.), printed a pretended will or confession of the faith of _John_ Shakspeare, found in a strange, incredible way, and evidently a forgery. This consisted of fourteen articles, of which the first _three_ were missing. Now the _three_ paragraphs foisted into _William's_ will would be the kind of paragraphs that would complete _John's_ confession; but they are not in confession. Who, then, forged _them_? and foisted _them_--_which Malone had never seen_--into so prominent a place in the Dublin reprint of Malone's work?

3. Malone, in his inquiry into the _Ireland_ forgeries, alludes to this confession of faith, admits that he was mistaken about it, and intimates that he had been imposed on, which he evidently was; but he does not seem to know any thing of the second forgery of the three introductory paragraphs, or of their bold introduction into William Shakspeare's will in the Dublin edition of his own work.

It is therefore clear that Mr. Jebb is mistaken in thinking that it was "a blunder of _Malone's_." It seems, as far as we can see, to have been, not a blunder, but an audacious fabrication; and how it came into the Irish edition, seems to me incomprehensible. The printer of the Dublin edition, Exshaw, was a respectable man, an alderman and a Protestant, and _he_ could have no design to make William Shakspeare pass for a papist; nor indeed does the author of the fraud, whoever he was, attempt _that_; for the three paragraphs profess to be the confession of _John_. So that, on the whole, the matter is to me quite inexplicable; it is certain that it must have been a premeditated forgery and fraud, but by whom or for what possible purpose, I cannot conceive.

C.

* * * * *

HINTS TO INTENDING EDITORS.

_Beaumont and Fletcher; Gray; Seward; Milton._--By way of carrying out the suggestion which you thought fit to print at page 316, as to the advantages likely to arise from intimations in your pages of the existence of the MS. annotations, and other materials suitable to the purposes of intending editors of standard works, I beg to mention the following books in my possession, which are much at the service of any editor who may apply to you for my address, viz.:--

1. A copy of Tonson's 10 vol. edit. of Beaumont and Fletcher (8vo. 1750), interleaved and copiously annotated, to the extent of about half the plays, by Dr. Hoadly.

2. Mr. Haslewood's collection of materials for an edit. of Gray, consisting of several works and parts of works, MS. notes, newspaper cuttings, &c., bound in 6 vols.

3. A collection of works of Miss Anne Seward, Mr. Park's copy, with his MS. notes, newspaper cuttings, &c.

As a first instalment of my promised notes on Milton's _Minor Poems_, I have transcribed the following from my two copies, premising that "G." stands for the name of Mr. Gilchrist, and "D." for that of Mr. Dunster, whose name is misprinted in your 316th page, as "Duns_ton_."

_Notes on Lycidas._

On l. 2. (G.):--

"O'er head sat a raven, on a _sere_ bough."

_Jonson's Sad Shepherd_, Act. I. Sc. 6.

On l. 26. (D.):--

"Whose so early lay Prevents _the eyelids of the blushing day_."

_Crashaw's Music's Duel._

On l. 27. (D.):--

"Each sheapherd's daughter, with her cleanly peale, was come _afield_ to milke the morning's meale."

_Brown's Britannia's Pastorals_, B. iv. Sc. 4. p. 75. ed. 1616.

On l. 29. (G.):--

"And in the _deep fog batten_ all the day."

_Drayton_, vol. ii. p. 512. ed. 1753.

On l. 40. (G.):--

"The _gadding_ winde."

_Phineas Fletcher's_ 1st _Piscatorie Eclogue_, st. 21.

On l. 40. (D.):--

"This black den, which rocks emboss, _Overgrown_ with eldest moss."

_Wither's Shepherd's Hunting_, Eclogue 4.

On l. 68. (D.) the names of Amaryllis and Neæra are combined together with other classical names of beautiful nymphs by Ariosto (_Orl. Fur._ xi. st. 12.)

On l. 78. (D.) The reference intended by Warton is to _Pindar, Nem._ Ode vii. l. 46.

On l. 122. (G.):--

"Of night or loneliness _it recks me_ not."

_Comus_, l. 404.

On l. 142. (G.):--

"So _rathe_ a song."

_Wither's Shepherd's Hunting_, p. 430. ed. 1633.

On l. 165. (G.):--

"Sigh no more, ladies; ladies, sigh no more."

_Shakspeare's Much Ado_, ii. 3.

On l. 171. (G.):--

"Whatever makes _Heaven's forehead_ fine."

_Crashaw's Weeper_, st. 2.

J.F.M.

* * * * *

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.

_Depinges_ (No. 18. p. 277., and No. 20. p. 326.).--I have received the following information upon this subject from Yarmouth. Herring nets are usually made in four parts or widths,--one width, when they are in actual use, being fastened above another. The whole is shot overboard in very great lengths, and forms, as it were, a wall in the sea, by which the boat rides as by an anchor. These widths are technically called "_lints_" (Sax. lind?); the uppermost of them (connected by short ropes with a row of corks) being also called the "_hoddy_" (Sax. hod?), and the lowest, for an obvious reason, the "_deepying_" or "_depynges_," and sometimes "_angles_."

At other parts of the coast than Yarmouth, it seems that the uppermost width of net bears exclusively the name of _hoddy_, the second width being called the first _lint_, the third width the second lint, and the fourth the third lint, or, as before, "depynges."

W.R.F.

_Lærig_.--Without contraverting Mr. Singer's learned and interesting paper on this word (No. 19. p. 292.), I hope I shall not be thought presumptuous in remarking that there must have been some other root in the Teutonic language for the two following nouns, leer (Dutch) and lear (Flemish), which both signify leather (lorum, Lat.), and their diminutives or derivatives leer-ig and lear-ig, both used in the sense of _tough_.

Supposing the Ang.-Sax. "lærig" to be derived from the same root, it would denote in "ofer linde lærig," the leather covering of the shields, or their capability to resist a blow.

I will thank you to correct two misprints in my last communication, p. 299.; pisan for pison, and [Greek: 'Ioannaes [o=omicron]] for [Greek: 'Ioannaes [o=omega]].

By the by, the word "pison" is oddly suggestive of a covering for the breast (_pys_, Nor. Fr.). See _Foulques Fitzwarin_, &c.

B.W.

March 16th.

_Lærig_ (No. 19. p. 292.).--The able elucidation given by Mr. Singer of the meaning of this word, renders, perhaps, any futher communication on the point unnecessary. Still I send the following notes in case they should be deemed worthy of notice.

"Ler, leer--vacuus. Berini Fabulæ, v. 1219. A.-S. ge-lær."

_Junii Etymol. Anglicanum._

"Lar, lær--vacuus."

_Schilteri Glossarium Teutonicum._

Respecting "Lind," I find in the version by Thorkelin of _De Danorum Rebus Gestis Poema Danicum Dialecto Anglo-Saxonica_ (Havniæ, 1815), that "Lind hæbbendra" is rendered "Vesilla habens;" but then, on the other hand, in Biorn Haldorsen's _Islandske Lexicon_ (Havniæ, 1814), "Lind" (v. ii. p. 33) is translated "Scutum tiligneum."

C.I.R.

_Vox et præterea nihil_ (No. 16. p. 247.).--The allusion to this proverb, quoted as if from the _Anatomy of Melancholy_, by "C.W.G." (No. 16. p. 247.), may be found in Addison's _Spectator_, No. 61, where it is as follows:--

"In short, one may say of the pun as the countryman described his nightingale--that it is '_vox et præterea nihil_.'"

The origin of the proverb is still a desideratum.

Nathan.

_Vox et præterea nihil_ (No. 16. p 247.).--In a work entitled _Proverbiorum et Sententiarum Persicarum Centuria_, a Levino Warnero, published at Amsterdam, 1644, the XCVII. proverb, which is given in the Persian character, is thus rendered in Latin,--

"Tympanum magnum edit clangorem, sed intus vacuum est."

And the note upon it is as follows:--

"Dicitur de iis, qui pleno ore vanas suas laudes ebuccinant. Eleganter Lacon quidam de luscinia dixit,--

[Greek: Ph_ona tu tis essi kai ouden allo,] Vox tu quidem es et aliud nihil."

This must be the phrase quoted by Burton.

HERMES.

_Supposed Etymology of Havior_ (No. 15. p. 230., and No. 17. p. 269.).--The following etymology of "heaviers" will probably be considered as not satisfactory, but this extract will show that the term itself is in use amongst the Scotch deerstalkers in the neighbourhood of Loch Lomond.

"Ox-deer, or 'heaviers,' as the foresters call them (most likely a corruption from the French 'hiver'), are wilder than either hart or hind. They often take post upon a height, that gives a look-out all round, which makes them very difficult to stalk. Although not so good when December is past, still they are in season all the winter; hence their French designation."--_Colquhoun's Rocks and Rivers_, p. 137. (London, 8vo. 1849.)

C.I.R.

_Havior_.--Without offering an opinion as to the relative probability of the etymology of this word, offered by your various correspondents (No. 17. p. 269.), I think it right that the use of the word in Scotland should not be overlooked.

In Jamieson's admirable _Dictionary_, the following varieties of spelling and meaning (all evidently of the same word) occur:--

"_Aver_ or _Aiver_, a horse used for labour; commonly an old horse; as in Burns--

"'Yet aft a ragged cowte's been kenn'd To mak a noble _aiver_.'

"'This man wyl not obey.... Nochtheles I sall gar hym draw lik an _avir_ in ane cart'--_Bellend. Chron._

"'_Aiver_, a he-goat after he has been gelded: till then he is denominated a _buck_.

"_Haiver_, _haivrel_, _haverel_, a gelded goat (East Lothian, Lanarkshire, Sotherland).

"_Hebrun_, _heburn_, are also synonymes.

"_Averie_, live-stock, as including horses, cattle, &c.

"'Calculation of what money, &c. will sustain their Majesties' house and _averie_'--_Keith's Hist._

"'_Averia_, _averii_, 'equi, boves, jumenta, oves, ceteraque animalia quæ agriculturæ inserviunt.'"--Ducange.

Skene traces this word to the low Latin, _averia_, "quhilk signifies ane beast." According to Spelman, the Northumbrians call a horse _aver_ or _afer_.

See much more learned disquisition on the origin of these evidently congenerous words under the term _Arage_, in Jamieson.

EMDEE.

_Mowbray Coheirs_ (No. 14. p. 213.).--Your correspondent "G." may obtain a clue to his researches on reference to the _private_ act of parliament of the 19th Henry VII., No. 7., intituled, "An Act for Confirmation of a Partition of Lands made between _William_ Marquis Barkley and Thomas Earl of Surrey."--Vide _Statutes at Large_.

W.H. LAMMIN.

_Spurious Letter of Sir R. Walpole_ (No. 19. p. 304.)--"P.C.S.S." (No. 20. p. 321.) and "LORD BRAYBROOKE" (No. 21. p. 336.) will find their opinion of the letter being spurious confirmed by the appendix to _Lord Hervey's Memoirs_, (vol. ii. p. 582.), and the editor's note, which proves the inaccuracy of the circumstances on which the inventor of the letter founded his fabrication. In addition to Lord Braybrooke's proofs that Sir Robert was not disabled by the stone, for some days previous to the 24th, from waiting on the king, let me add also, from Horace Walpole's authority, two conclusive facts; the first is, that it was not till _Sunday night_, the 31st _January_ (_a week after_ the date of the letter) that Sir Robert made up his mind to resign; and, secondly, that he had at least two personal interviews with the king on that subject.

C.

_Line quoted by De Quincey_.--"S.P.S." (No. 22. p. 351.) is informed that

"With battlements that on their restless fronts Bore stars"...

is a passage taken from a gorgeous description of "Cloudland" by Wordsworth, which occurs near the end of the second book of the Excursion. The opium-eater gives a long extract, as "S.P.S." probably remembers.

A.G.

Ecclesfield, March 31. 1850.

_Quem Jupiter vult perdere priùs dementat_.--Malone, in a note in _Boswell's Johnson_ (p. 718., Croker's last edition), says, that a gentleman of Cambridge found this apophthegm in an edition of Euripides (not named) as a translation of an iambic.

"[Greek: On Theos Delei hapolesai, pr_ot' hapophrenoi.]"

The Latin translation the Cambridge gentleman might have found in Barnes; but where is the _Greek_, so different from that of Barnes, to be found? It is much nearer to the Latin.

C.

_Bernicia_.--In answer to the inquiry of "GOMER" (No. 21. p. 335.), "P.C.S.S." begs leave to refer him to Camden's _Britannia_ (Philemon Holland's translation, Lond. fol. 1637), where he will find, at p. 797., the following passage:--

"But these ancient names were quite worn out of use in the English Saxon War; and all the countries lying north or the other side of the arme of the sea called Humber, began, by a Saxon name, to be called [Old English: Northan-Humbra-ric] that is, the Kingdome of Northumberland; which name, notwithstanding being now cleane gone in the rest of the shires, remayneth still, as it were, surviving in Northumberland onely; which, when that state of kingdome stood, was known to be a part of the _Kingdome of Bernicia_, which had _peculiar petty kings_, and reached from the River Tees to Edenborough Frith."

At p. 817. Camden traces the etymology of _Berwick_ from _Bernicia_.

P.C.S.S.

_Cæsar's Wife_.--If the object of "NASO'S" Query (No. 18. p. 277.) be merely to ascertain the origin of the proverb, "Cæsar's wife must be above suspicion," he will find in Suetonius (Jul. Cæs. 74.) to the following effect:--

"The name of Pompeia, the wife of Julius Cæsar, having been mixed up with an accusation against P. Clodius, her husband divorced her; not, as he said, because he believed the charge against her, but because he would have those belonging to him as free from suspicion as from crime."

J.E.

[We have received a similar replay, with the addition of a reference to Plutarch (Julius Cæsar, cap. 10.), from several other kind correspondents.]

_Nomade_ (No. 21. p. 342.).--There can be no doubt at all that the word "nomades" is Greek, and means pastoral nations. It is so used in Herodotus more than once, derived from [Greek: nomos], pasture: [Greek: nem_o], to graze, is generally supposed to be the derivation of the name of Numidians.

C.B.

_Gray's Elegy_.--In reply to the Query of your correspondent "J.F.M." (No. 7. p. 101.), as well as in allusion to remarks made by others among your readers in the following numbers on the subject of Gray's _Elegy_, I beg to state that, in addition to the versions in foreign languages of this fine composition therein enumerated, there is one printed among the poem, original and translated, by C.A. Wheelwright, B.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge, published by Longman & Co. 1811. (2d. edition, 1812.) If I mistake not, the three beautiful stanzas, given by Mason in his notes to Gray, viz. those beginning,--

"The thoughtless world to majesty may bow," "Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around," "Him have we seen," &c.

(the last of which is so remarkable for its Doric simplicity, as well as being essential to mark the concluding period of the contemplative man's day) have not been admitted into any edition of the _Elegy_.

With the regard to the last stanza of the epitaph, its meaning is certainly involved in some degree of obscurity, though it is, I think, hardly to be charged with irreverence, according to the opinion of your correspondent "S.W." (No. 10. p. 150.). By the words _trembling hope_, there can be no doubt, that Petrarch's similar expression, _paventosa speme_, quoted in Mason's note, was embodied by the English poet. In the omitted version, mentioned in the beginning of this notice, the epitaph is rendered into Alcaics. The concluding stanza is as follows:--

"Utra sepulti ne meritis fane, Et parce culpas, invide, proloqui, Spe nunc et incerto timore Numinis in gremio quiescunt."

ARCHÆUS.

Wiesbaden, Feb. 16. 1850.

_Cromwell's Estates_ (No. 18. p. 277., and No. 21. p. 339.).--I am much obliged to "SELEUCUS" for his answer to this inquiry, as far as regards the seignory of Gower. It also throws a strong light on the remaining names; by the aid of which, looking in Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire, I have identified _Margore_ with the parish of Magor (St. Mary's), hundred of Caldecott, co. Monmouth: and guess, that for Chepstall we must read _Chepstow_, which is in the same hundred, and the population of which we know was stout in the royal cause, as tenants of the Marquis of Worcester would be.

Then I guess Woolaston may be _Woolston_ (hundred of Dewhurst), co. Gloucester; and Chaulton, one of the _Charltons_ in the same county, perhaps _Charlton Kings_, near Cheltenham; where again we read, that many of the residents were slain in the civil war, _fighting on the king's side_.

This leaves only Sydenham without something like a probable conjecture, at least: unless here, too, we may guess it was miswritten for Siddington, near Cirencester. The names, it is to be observed, are only recorded by Noble; whose inaccuracy as a transcriber has been shown abundantly by Carlyle. The record to which he refers as extant in the House of Commons papers, is not to be found, I am told.

Now, if it could be ascertained, either that the name in question had been Cromwell's, or even that they were a part of the Worcester estates, before the civil war, we should have the whole list cleared,--thanks to the aid so effectually given by "SELEUCUS'S" apposite explanations of one of its items.

Will your correspondents complete the illustrations thus well begun?

V.

Belgravia, March 26.

* * * * *

MISCELLANIES.

_Franz von Sickingen_.--Your correspondent "S.W.S." (No. 21. p. 336.) speaks of his having had some difficulty in finding a portrait of Franz Von Sickingen; it may not therefore, by uninteresting to him to know (if not already aware of it) that upon the north side of the nave of the cathedral of Treves, is a monument of Richard Von Greifenklan, who defended Treves against the said Franz; and upon the entablature are portraits of the said archbishop on the one side, and his enemy Franz on the other. Why placed there it is difficult to conceive, unless to show that death had made the prelate and the robber equals.

W.C.

* * * * *

BODY AND SOUL.

(_FROM THE LATIN OF OWEN._)

The sacred writers to express the whole, Name but a part, and call the man a _soul_. We frame our speech upon a different plan, And say "some_body_," when we mean a man. No_body_ heeds what every_body_ says, And yet how sad the secret it betrays!

RUFUS.

* * * * *

"_Laissez faire, laissez passer._"--I think your correspondent "A MAN IN A GARRET" (No. 19. p. 308.) is not warranted in stating that M. de Gournay was the author of the above axiom of political economy. Last session Lord J. Russell related an anecdote in the House of Commons which referred the phrase to an earlier date. In the _Times_ of the 2nd of April, 1849, his Lordship is reported to have said, on the preceding day, in a debate on the Rate-in-Aid Bill, that Colbert, with the intention of fostering the manufactures of France, established regulations which limited the webs woven in looms to a particular size. He also prohibited the introduction of foreign manufactures into France. The French vine-growers, finding that under this system they could no longer exchange their wine for foreign goods, began to grumble. "It was then," said his Lordship, "that Colbert, having asked a merchant what he should do, he (the merchant), with great justice and great sagacity, said, 'Laissez faire et laissez passer'--do not interfere as to the size and mode of your manufactures, do not interfere with the entrance of foreign imports, but let them compete with your own manufactures."

Colbert died twenty-nine years before M. de Gournay was born. Lord J. Russell omitted to state whether Colbert followed the merchant's advice.

C. ROSS.

_College Salting and Tucking of Freshmen_ (No. 17. p. 261., No. 19. p. 306.).--A circumstantial account of the tucking of freshmen, as practised in Exeter College, oxford, in 1636, is given in Mr. Martyn's _Life of the First Lord Shaftesbury_, vol. i. p. 42.

"On a particular day, the senior under-graduates, in the evening, called the freshmen to the fire, and made them hold out their chins; whilst one of the seniors, with the nail of his thumb (which was left long for that purpose), grated off all the skin from the lip to the chin, and then obliged him to drink a beer-glass of water and salt."

Lord Shaftesbury was a freshman at Exeter in 1636; and the story told by his biographer is, that he organised a resistance among his fellow freshmen to the practice, and that a row took place in the college hall, which led to the interference of the master, Dr. Prideaux, and to the abolition of the practice in Exeter College. The custom is there said to have been of great antiquity in the college.

The authority cited by Mr. Martyn for the story is a Mr. Stringer, who was a confidential friend of Lord Shaftesbury's, and made collections for a Life of him; and it probably comes from Lord Shaftesbury himself.

C.

_Byron and Tacitus_.--Although Byron is, by our school rules, a forbidden author, I sometimes contrive to indulge myself in reading his works by stealth. Among the passages that have struck my (boyish) fancy is the couplet in "_The Bride of Abydos_" (line 912),--

"Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease! He makes a solitude, and calls it--peace!"

Engaged this morning in a more legitimate study, that of Tacitus, I stumbled upon this passage in the speech of Galgacus (Ag. xxx.),--

"Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem adpellant."

Does not this look very much like what we call "cabbaging?" If you think so, by adding it to the other plagiarisms of the same author, noted in some of your former numbers, you will confer a great honour on

A SCHOOLBOY.

_The Pardonere and Frere_.--If Mr. J.P. Collier would, at some leisure moment, forward, for your pages, a complete list of the variations from the original, in Smeeton's reprint of _The Pardonere and Frere_, he would confer a favour which would be duly appreciated by the possessors of that rare tract, small as their number must be; since, in my copy (once in the library of Thomas Jolley, Esq.), there is an autograph attestation by Mr. Rodd, that "there were no more than twenty copies printed."

G.A.S.

_Mistake in Gibbon_ (No. 21. p. 341.).--The passage in Gibbon has an error more interesting than the mere mistake of the author. That a senator should make a motion to be repeated and chanted by the rest, would be rather a strange thing; but the tumultuous acclamations chanted by the senators as parodies of those in praise of Commodus, which had been usual at the Theatres (Dio), were one thing; the vote or decree itself, which follows, is another.