Chapter 3

"The Jews having departed out of the realm in the year 1290, or being expelled by the authority of parliament (it matters not which), made no efforts to return till the Protectorship of Oliver Cromwell; but this negotiation is known to have proved unsuccessful. However, the affair was not dropped, for the next application was to King Charles himself, then in his exile at Bruges, as appears by a copy of a commission dated the 24th of September, 1656, granted to Lt.-Gen. Middleton, to treat with the Jews of Amsterdam:--'That whereas the Lt.-Gen. had represented to his Majesty their good affection to him, and disowned the application lately made to Cromwell in their behalf by some persons of their nation, as absolutely without their consent, the king empowers the Lt.-Gen. to treat with them. That if in that conjunction they shall assist his Majesty by any money, arms, or ammunition, they shall find, when God should restore him, that he would extend that protection to them which they could reasonably expect, and abate that rigour of the law which was against them in his several dominions, and repay them."

This paper, Dean Tucker says, was found among the original papers of Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State to King Charles I. and II., and was communicated to him by a learned and worthy friend. The Dean goes on to remark, that the restoration of the royal family of the Stuarts was attended with the return of the Jews into Great Britain; and that Lord Chancellor Clarendon granted to many of them letters of denization under the great seal.

From another pamphlet in the same collection, entitled, _An Answer to a Pamphlet entitled Considerations on the Bill to permit Persons professing the Jewish Religion to be naturalized_, the following, is an extract:--

"There is a curious anecdote of this affair," (about the Jews thinking Oliver Cromwell to be the Messiah,) "in Raguenet's _Histoire d'Oliver Cromwell_, which I will give the reader at length. About the time Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel came to England to solicit the Jews' admission, the Asiatic Jews sent hither the noted Rabbi Jacob Ben Azahel, with several others of his nation, to make private inquiry whether Cromwell was not that Messiah, whom they had so long expected. (Page 33.--I leave the reader to judge what an accomplished villain he will then be.) Which deputies upon their arrival pretending other business, were several times indulging the favour of a private audience from him, and at one of them proposed buying Hebrew books and MSS. belonging to the University of _Cambridge_[4], in order to have an opportunity, under pretence of viewing them, to inquire amongst his relations, in Huntingdonshire, where he was born, whether any of his ancestors could be proved of Jewish extract. This project of theirs was very readily agreed to (the University at that time being under a cloud, on account of their former loyalty to the King), and accordingly the ambassadors set forwards upon their journey. But discovering by their much longer continuance at Huntingdon than at Cambridge, that their business at the last place was not such as was pretended, and by not making their enquiries into Oliver's pedigree with that caution and secresy which was necessary in such an affair, the true purpose of their errand into England became quickly known at London, and was very much talked of, which causing great scandal among the _Saints_, he was forced suddenly to pack them out of the kingdom, without granting any of their requests."

J.M.

[Footnote 4: Query: May not this be another version of the same story, quoted by your correspondent, B.A., of Christ Church, Oxford, from Monteith, (in Vol. i. p. 475.), of the Jews desiring to buy the Library of _Oxford_?]

* * * * *

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.

_Wellington, Wyrwast, and Cokam_ (Vol. i., p. 401.).--The garrison in Wellington was, no doubt, at the large house built by Sir John Topham in that town, where the rebels, who had gained possession of it by stratagem, held out for some time against the king's forces under Sir Richard Grenville. The house, though of great strength, was much damaged on that occasion, and shortly fell into ruin. Cokam probably designates Colcombe Castle, a mansion of the Courtenays, near Colyton, in Devonshire, which was occupied by a detachment of the king's troops under Prince Maurice in 1644, but soon after fell into the hands of the rebels. It is now in a state of ruin, but is in part occupied as a farm-house. I am at a loss for _Wyrwast_, and should doubt the reading of the MS.

S.S.S.

_Sir William Skipwyth_ (Vol. i., p. 23.).--Mr. Foss will find some notices of Will. Skipwyth in pp. 83, 84, 85, of _Rotulorum Pat. & Claus. Cancellariæ Hib. Calendarium_, printed in 1828.

R.B.

Trim, May 13. 1850.

_Dr. Johnson and Dr. Warton_ (Vol. i., p. 481.).--Mr. Markland is probably right in his conjecture that Johnson had Warton's lines in his memory; but the original source of the allusion to _Peru_ is Boileau:

"De tous les animaux De Paris au _Pérou_, du Japon jusqu'à Rome, Le plus sot animal, à mon avis, c'est l'homme."

Warton's Poems appeared in March, 1748. Johnson's _Vanity of Human Wishes_ was published the 9th January, 1749, and was written probably in December or November preceding.

C.

_Worm of Lambton_ (Vol. i., p. 453.).--See its history and legend in Surtees' _History of Durham_, vol. ii. p. 173., and a quarto tract printed by Sir Cuthbert Sharp.

G.

"A.C." is informed that there is an account of this "Worme" in _The Bishoprick Garland_, published by the late Sir Cuthbert Sharpe in 1834; it is illustrated with a view of the Worm Hill, and a woodcut of the knight thrusting his sword with great _nonchalance_ down the throat of the Worme. Only 150 copies of the _Garland_ were printed.

W.N.

_Shakspeare's Will_ (Vol. i., pp. 213, 386, 403, 461, and 469.).--I fear if I were to adopt Mr. Bolton Corney's _tone_, we should degenerate into polemics. I will therefore only reply to his question, "_Have_ I wholly mistaken the whole _affair_?" by one word, "_Undoubtedly_." The question raised was on an Irish edition of Malone's _Shakspeare_. Mr. Bolton Corney reproved the querists for not consulting original sources. It appears that Mr. Bolton Corney had not himself consulted _the edition_ in question; and by his last letter I am satisfied that he has not _even yet_ seen it: and it is not surprising if, in these circumstances, he should have "_mistaken the whole affair_." But as my last communication (Vol. i., p. 461.) explains (as I am now satisfied) the blunder and its cause, I may take my leave of the matter, only requesting Mr. Bolton Corney, if he still doubts, to follow his own good precept, and look at _the original edition_.

C.

_Josias Ibach Stada_ (Vol. i., p. 452.).--In reply to G.E.N., I would ask, is Mr. Hewitt correct in calling him Stada, an Italian artist? I have no hesitation in saying that Stada here is no personal appellation at all, but the name of a town. The inscription "_Fudit Josias Ibach Stada Bremensis_" is to be read, Cast by Josias Ibach, _of the town of Stada, in the duchy of Bremen_. All your readers, particularly mercantile, will know the place well enough from the discussions raised by Mr. Hutt, member for Gateshead, in the House of Commons, on the oppressive duties levied there on all vessels and their cargoes sailing past it up the Elbe; and to the year 1150 it was the capital of an independent graffschaft, when it lapsed to Henry the Lion.

WILLIAM BELL.

_The Temple, or A Temple._--I have had an opportunity of seeing the edition of Chaucer referred to by your correspondent P.H.F. (Vol. i., p. 420.), and likewise several other black-letter editions (1523, 1561, 1587, 1598, 1602), and find that they all agree in reading "the temple," which Caxton's edition also adopts. The general reading of "temple" in the _modern_ editions, naturally induced me to suspect that Tyrwhitt had made the alteration on the authority of the manuscripts of the poem. Of these there are no less than ten in the British Museum, all of which have been kindly examined for me. One of these wants the prologue, and another that part of it in which the line occurs; but in _seven_ of the remaining eight, the reading is--

"A gentil maunciple was ther of _a_ temple;"

while _one_ only reads "the temple." The question, therefore, is involved in the same doubt which I at first stated; for the subsequent lines quoted by P.H.F. prove nothing more than that the person described was a manciple in _some_ place of legal resort, which was not disputed.

EDWARD FOSS.

_Bawn_ (Vol. i., p. 440.).--If your Querist regarding a "Bawn" will look into Macnevin's _Confiscation of Ulster_ (Duffy: Dublin, 1846, p. 171. &c.), he will find that a Bawn must have been a sort of court-yard, which might be used on emergency as a fortification for defence. They were constructed either of _lime_ and _stone_, of _stone_ and _clay_, or of _sods_, and twelve to fourteen feet high, and sometimes inclosing a dwelling-house, and with the addition of "flankers."

W.C. TREVELYAN.

"_Heigh ho! says Rowley_" (Vol. i., p. 458.).--The burden of "_Heigh ho! says Rowley_" is certainly _older_ than R.S.S. conjectures; I will not say how much, but it occurs in a _jeu d'esprit_ of 1809, on the installation of Lord Grenville, as Chancellor, at Oxford, as will be shown by a stanza cited from memory:--

"Mr. Chinnery then, an M.A. of great parts, Sang the praises of Chancellor Grenville. Oh! he pleased all the ladies and tickled their hearts; But, then, we all know he's a Master of Arts, With his rowly powly, Gammon and spinach, Heigh ho! says Rowley."

CHETHAMENSIS.

Wimpole Street, May 11. 1850.

_Arabic Numerals_.--As your correspondent E.V. (Vol. i., p. 230.) is desirous of obtaining any instance of Arabic numerals of early occurrence, I would refer him, for one at least, to _Notices of the Castle and Priory of Castleacre_, by the Rev. J.H. Bloom: London; Richardson, 23. Cornhill, 1843. In this work it appears that by the acumen of Dr. Murray, Bishop of Rochester, the date 1084 was found impressed in the plaster of the wall of the priory in the following, form:--

1 4 × 8 0

The writer then goes on to show, that this was the regular order of the letters to one crossing himself after the Romish fashion.

E.S.T.

_Pusan_ (Vol. i., p. 440.)--May not the meaning be a collar in the form of a serpent? In the old Roman de Blanchardin is this line:--

"Cy guer _pison_ tuit Apolin."

Can _Iklynton_ again be the place where such an ornament was made? Ickleton, in Cambridgeshire, appears to have been of some note in former days, as, according to Lewis's _Topog. Hist._, a nunnery was founded there by Henry II., and a market together with a fair granted by Henry III. As it is only five miles from Linton, it may have formerly borne the name of Ick-linton.

C.I.R.

"_I'd preach as though_" (Vol. i., p. 415.).--The lines quoted by Henry Martyn are said by Dr. Jenkyn (Introduction to a little vol. of selections from Baxter--Nelson's _Puritan Divines_) to be Baxter's "own immortal lines." Dr. J. quotes them thus:--

"I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men."

ED. S. JACKSON.

May 18.

"_Fools rush in_" (Vol. i., p. 348.).--The line in Pope,

"For fools rush in where angels fear to tread,"

it has been long ago pointed out, is founded upon that of Shakspeare,

"For wrens make wing where eagles dare not perch."

I know not why that line of Pope is in your correspondent's list. It is not a proverb.

C.B.

_Allusion in Friar Brackley's Sermon_ (Vol. i., p. 351.)--It seems vain to inquire who the persons were of whom stories were told in medieval books, as if they were really historical. See the _Gesta Romanorum_, for instance: or consider who the Greek king Aulix was, having dealings with the king of Syria, in the 7th Story of the _Novelle Antiche_. The passage in the sermon about a Greek king, seems plainly to be still part of the extract from the _Liber Decalogorum_, being in Latin. This book was perhaps the _Dialogi decem_, put into print at Cologne in 1472: Brunet.

C.B.

_Earwig_ (Vol. i., p. 383.).--This insect is very destructive to the petals of some kinds of delicate flowers. May it not have acquired the title of "couchbell" from its habit of couching or concealing itself for rest at night and security from small birds, of which it is a favourite food, in the pendent blossoms of bell-shaped flowers? This habit is often fatal to it in the gardens of cottagers, who entrap it by means of a lobster's claw suspended on an upright stick.

S.S.S.

_Earwig_ (Vol. i., p. 383.).--In the north of England the earwig is called _twitchbell_. I know not whether your correspondent is in error as to its being called in Scotland the "coach-bell." I cannot afford any explanation to either of these names.

G. BOUCHIER RICHARDSON.

_Sir R. Haigh's Letter-book_ (Vol. i, p. 463.).--This is incorrect; no such person is known. The baronet intended is _Sir Roger Bradshaigh, of Haigh_; a very well-known person, whose funeral sermon was preached by Wroe, the warden of Manchester Collegiate Church, locally remembered as "silver-mouthed Wroe."

This name is correctly given in Puttick and Simpson's Catalogue of a Miscellaneous Sale on April 15, and it is to be _hoped_ that Sir Roger's collection of letters, ranging from 1662 to 1676, _may have_ fallen into the hands of the noble earl who represents him, the present proprietor of Haigh.

CHETHAMENSIS.

_Marescautia_ (Vol. i., p. 94.).--Your correspondent requests some information as to the meaning of the word "marescautia." _Mareschaucie_, in old French, means a stable. Pasquier (_Recherches de la France_, l. viii. ch. 2.) says,--

"Pausanias disoit que Mark apud Celtas signifioit un cheual ... je vous diray qu'en ancien langage allemant Mark se prenoit pour un cheual."

In ch. 54. he refers to another etymolygy of "maréchal," from "maire," or "maistre," and "cheval," "comme si on les eust voulu dire maistre de la cheualerie." "Maréchal" still signifies "a farrier." _Maréchaussée_ was the term applied down to the Revolution to the jurisdiction of Nosseigneurs les Maréchaux de France, whose orders were enforced by a company of horse that patrolled the _high_ways, la _chaussée_, generally raised above the level of the surrounding country. Froissart applies the term to the Marshalsea prison in London. In D.S.'s first entry there may, perhaps, be some allusion to another meaning of the word, namely, that of "_march_, limit, boundary."

What the nature of the tenure per serjentiam marescautiæ may be I am not prepared to say. May it not have had some reference to the support of the royal stud?

J.B.D.

_Memoirs of an American Lady_ (Vol. i., p. 335.).--If this work cannot now be got it is a great pity,--it ought to go down to posterity; a more valuable or interesting account of a particular state of society now quite extinct, can hardly be found. Instead of saying that "it is the work of Mrs. Grant, the author of this and that," I should say of her other books that they were written by the author of the _Memoirs of an American Lady_. The character of the individual lady, her way of keeping house on a large scale, the state of the domestic slaves, threatened, as the only known punishment and most terrible to them, with being sold to Jamaica; the customs of the young men at Albany, their adventurous outset in life, their practice of robbing one another in joke (like a curious story at Venice, in the story-book called _Il Peccarone_, and having some connection with the stories of the Spartan and Circassian youth), with much of natural scenery, are told without pretension of style; but unluckily there is too much interspersed relating to the author herself, then quite young.

C.B.

_Poem by Sir E. Dyer_ (Vol. i., p. 355.).--"My mind to me," &c. Neither the births of Breton nor Sir Edward Dyer seem to be known; nor, consequently, how much older the one was than the other. Mr. S., I conclude, could not mean much older than Breton's tract, mentioned in Vol. i., p. 302. The poem is not in England's _Helicon_. The ballad, as in Percy, has four stanzas more than the present copy, and one stanza less. Some of the readings in Percy are better, that is, more probable than the new ones.

"I see how plenty _surfeits_ oft."--_P._ suffers.--_Var._

"I grudge not at another's _gain_".--_P._ pain.--_Var._

"No worldly _wave_ my mind can toss."--_P._ wants.--_Var._

These seem to me to be stupid mistranscriptions.

"I brook that is another's pain."--_P._ "My state at one doth still remain."--_Var._

Probably altered on account of the slight obscurity; and possibly a different edition by the author himself.

"They beg, I give, They lack, I _lend_."--_P._ leave.--_Var._

In this verse,

"I fear no foe, I _scorn_ no friend."--_P._ fawn.--_Var._

I think the new copy better.

"To none of these I yield as thrall, For why my mind _despiseth_ all."--_P._ doth serve for.--_Var._

The var. much better.

In this--

"I never seek by bribes to please, Nor by _dessert_ to give offence."--_P._ deceit.--_Var._

I cannot understand either.

So very beautiful and popular a song it would be well worth getting in the true version.

C.B.

_Monumental Brasses_.--In reply to S.S.S. (Vol. i., p. 405.), I beg to inform him that the "small dog with a collar and bells" is a device of very common occurrence on brasses of the fifteenth and latter part of the fourteenth centuries. The Rev. C. Boutell's _Monumental Brasses of England_ contains engravings of no less than twenty-three on which it is to be found; as well as two examples without the usual appendages of collar, &c. In addition to these, the same work contains etchings of the following brasses:--Gunby, Lincoln., two dogs with plain collars at the bottom of the lady's mantle, 1405. Dartmouth, Devon., 1403. Each of the ladies here depicted has two dogs with collars and bells at her feet.

The same peculiarities are exemplified on brasses at Harpham, York., 1420; and Spilsby, Lincoln., 1391. I will not further multiply instances, as my own collection of rubbings would enable me to do. I should, however, observe, that the hypothesis of S.S.S. (as to "these figures" being "the private mark of the artist") is untenable: since the twenty-three examples above alluded to are scattered over sixteen different counties, as distant from each other as Yorkshire and Sussex. Two examples are well known, in which the dog so represented was a favourite animal:--Deerhurst, Gloc., 1400, with the name, "Terri," inscribed; and Ingham, Norfolk, 1438, with the name "Jakke." This latter brass is now lost, but an impression is preserved in the British Museum. The customary explanation seems to me sufficient: that the dog was intended to symbolise the fidelity and attachment of the lady to her lord and master, as the lion at _his_ feet represented his courage and noble qualities.

W. SPARROW SIMPSON.

Queen's College, Cambridge, April 22. 1850.

_Fenkle Street_.--A street so called in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, lying in a part of the town formerly much occupied by garden ground, and _in the immediate vicinity of the house of the Dominican Friars there_. Also, a way or passage inside the town wall, and leading between that fortification and the _house of the Carmelites or White Friars_, was anciently called by the same name. The name of _Fenkle_ or _Finkle Street_ occurs in several old towns in the North, as Alnwick, Richmond, York, Kendal, &c. _Fenol_ and _finugl_, as also _finul_, are Saxon words for _fennel_; which, it is very probable, has in some way or other given rise to this name. May not the _monastic institutions_ have used fennel extensively in their culinary preparations, and thus planted it in so great quantities as to have induced the naming of localities therefrom? I remember a portion of the ramparts of the town used to be called _Wormwood Hill_, from a like circumstance. In Hawkesworth's _Voyages_, ii. 8., I find it stated that the town of Funchala, on the island of Madeira, derives its name from _Funcko_, the Portuguese name for _fennel_, which grows in great plenty upon the neighbouring rocks. The priory of Finchale (from _Finkel_), upon the Wear, probably has a similar origin; _sed qu._

G. BOUCHIER RICHARDSON.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, May 12. 1850.

_Christian Captives_ (Vol. i., p. 441.)--In reply to your correspondent R.W.B., I find in the papers published by the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society, vol. i. p. 98., the following entries extracted from the Parish Registers of Great Dunham, Norfolk:--

"December, 1670. £ s. d. Collected for the redemption of y'e English Captives out of Turkish bondage 04 05 06

Feb. 13. p'd the same to M'r. Swift, Minister of Milcham, by the Bhps appointm't.

October, 1680. Collected towards the redemption of English Captives out of their slavery and bondage in Algiers 3 16 0

Which sum was sent to Mr. Nicholas Browne, Registrar under Dr. Connant, Archdeacon of Norwich, Octr. 2d. 1680."

Probably similar entries will be found in other registers of the same date, as the collections appear to have been made by special mandate, and paid into the hands of the proper authorities.

E.S.T.

_Passage in Gibbon_ (Vol. i., p. 348.).--The passage in Gibbon I should have thought was well known to be taken from what Clarendon says of Hampden, and which Lord Nugent says in his preface to _Hampden's Life_ had before been said of Cinna. Gibbon must either have meant to put inverted commas, or at least to have intended to take nobody in.

C.B.

_Borrowed Thoughts_ (Vol. i., p. 482.)--_La fameuse_ La Galisse is an error. The French pleasantly records the exploits of the celebrated _Monsieur_ de la Galisse. Many of Goldsmith's lighter poems are borrowed from the French.

C.

_Sapcote Motto_ (Vol. i., pp. 366. and 476.).--Taking for granted that solutions of the "Sapcote Motto" are scarce, I send you what seems to me something nearer the truth than the arbitrary and unsatisfactory translation of T.C. (Vol. i, p. 476.).

The motto stands thus:--

"sco toot × vinic [or umic] × poncs."

Adopting T.C.'s suggestion that the initial and final _s_ are mere flourishes (though that makes little difference), and also his supposition that _c_ may have been used for _s_, and as I fancy, not unreasonably conjecturing that the × is intended for _dis_, which is something like the pronunciation of the numeral X, we may then take the _entire_ motto, without garbling it, and have sounds representing _que toute disunis dispenses_; which, grammatically and orthographically corrected, would read literally "all disunions cost," or "destroy," the equivalent of our "Union is strength." The motto, with the arms, three dove-cotes, is admirably suggestive of family union.

W.C.

_Lines attributed to Lord Palmerston_ (Vol. i., p. 382.).--These lines have also been attributed to Mason.

S.S.S.

_Shipster_ (Vol. i., p. 339.).--That "ster" is a feminine termination is the notion of Tyrwhitt in a note upon Hoppesteris in a passage of Chaucer (_Knight's Tale_, l. 2019.); but to ignorant persons it seems not very probable. "Maltster," surely, is not feminine, still less "whipster;" "dempster," Scotch, is a judge. Sempstress has another termination on purpose to make it feminine.