Chapter 3

"When Ogden his prosaic verse In Latin numbers drest, The Roman language prov'd too weak To stand the Critic's test.

"To English Rhyme he next essay'd, To show he'd some pretence; But ah! Rhyme only would not do-- They still expected Sense.

"Enrag'd, the Doctor said he'd place In Critics no reliance, So wrapt his thoughts in Arabic, And bad them all defiance."

J.H. MARKLAND.

* * * * * {106}

_Ogden Family_ (Vol. ii., p. 73.).--Perhaps the representatives of the late Thomas Ogden, Esq., and who was a private banker at Salisbury previous to 1810 (presuming he was a member of the family mentioned by your correspondent TWYFORD), might be able to furnish him with the information he seeks.

J.R. FOX.

* * * * *

Replies to Minor Queries.

_Porson's Imposition_ (Vol. i., p. 71.) is indeed, I believe, an _imposition_. The last line quoted (and I suppose all the rest) can hardly be Porson's, for Mr. Langton amused Johnson, Boswell, and a dinner party at General Oglethorpe's, on the 14th of April, 1778, with some macaronic Greek "by _Joshua Barnes_, in which are to be found such comical Anglo-hellenisms as [Greek: klubboisin ebagchthae] they were banged with clubs." Boswell's _Johnson_, last ed. p. 591.

C.

_The Three Dukes_ (Vol. ii., pp. 9, 46, 91.).--Andrew Marvel thus makes mention of the outrage on the beadle in his letter to the Mayor of Hull, Feb. 28, 1671 (_Works_, i. 195.):--

"On Saturday night last, or rather Sunday morning, at two o'clock, some persons reported to be of great quality, together with other gentlemen, set upon the watch and killed a poor beadle, praying for his life upon his knees, with many wounds; warrants are out for apprehending some of them, but they are fled."

I am not aware of any contemporary authority for the names of the three dukes; and a difficulty in the way of assigning them by conjecture is, that in the poem they are called "three bastard dukes." Your correspondent C. has rightly said (p. 46.) that none of Charles II.'s bastard sons besides Monmouth would have been old enough in 1671 to be actors in such a fray. Sir Walter Scott, in his notes on _Absalom and Achitophel_, referring to the poem, gives the assault to Monmouth and some of his brothers; but he did so, probably, without considering dates, and on the strength of the words "three bastard dukes."

Mr. Lister, in the passage in his _Life of Clarendon_ referred to by Mr. Cooper (p. 91.), gives no authority for his mention of Albemarle. I should like to know if Mr. Wade has any other authority than Mr. Lister for this statement in his useful compilation.

Were it certain that three dukes were engaged in this fray, and were we not restricted to "bastards," I should say that Monmouth, Albemarle, and Richmond (who married the beautiful Miss Stuart, and killed himself by drinking) would probably be the three culprits. As regards Albemarle, he might perhaps have been called bastard without immoderate use of libeller's licence.

If three dukes did murder the beadle, it is strange that their names have not been gibbeted in many of the diaries and letters which we have of that period. And this is the more strange, as this assault took place just after the attack on Sir John Coventry, which Monmouth instigated, and which had created so much excitement.

The question is not in itself of much importance; but I can suggest a mode in which it may possibly be settled. Let the royal pardons of 1671 be searched in the Rolls' Chapel, Chancery Lane. If the malefactors were pardoned by name, the three dukes may there turn up. Or if any of your readers is able to look through the Domestic Papers for February and March, 1671, in the State Paper Office, he would be likely to find there come information upon the subject.

Query. Is the doggerel poem in the _State Poems_ Marvel's? Several poems which are ascribed to him are as bad in versification, and, I need not say, in coarseness.

Query 2. Is there any other authority for Queen Catharine's fondness for dancing than the following lines of the poem?

"See what mishaps dare e'en invade Whitehall, This silly fellow's death puts off the ball, And disappoints the Queen's foot, little Chuck; I warrant 'twould have danced it like a duck."

CH.

_Kant's Sämmtliche Werke._--Under the head of "Books and Odd Volumes" (Vol. ii., p. 59.), there is a Query respecting the XIth part of Kant's _Sämmtliche Werke_, to which I beg to reply that it was published at Leipzig, in two portions, in 1842. It consists of Kant's Letters, Posthumous Fragments, and Biography. The work was completed by a 12th vol., containing a history of the Kantian Philosophy, by Carl Rosenkranz, one of the editors of this edition of Kant.

J.M.

_Becket's Mother_ (Vol. i., pp. 415. 490.; vol. ii., p. 78.).--Although the absence of any contemporaneous relation of this lady's romantic history may raise a reasonable doubt of its authenticity, it seems to derive indirect confirmation from the fact, that the hospital founded by Becket's sister shortly after his death, on the spot where he was born, part of which is now the Mercers' chapel in Cheapside, was called "The Hospital of St. Thomas the Martyr _of Acon_." Erasmus, also, in his _Pilgrimages to Walsingham and Canterbury_ (see J.G. Nichol's excellent translation and notes, pp. 47. 120.), says that the archbishop was called "Thomas _Acrensis_."

Edward Foss.

_"Imprest" and "Debenture."_--Perhaps the following may be of some use to D.V.S. (Vol. ii., p. 40.) in his search for the verbal raw material out of which these words were manufactured.

Their origin may, I think, be found in the Latin terms used in the ancient accounts of persons {107} officially employed by the crown to express transactions somewhat similar to those for which they appear to be now used. Persons conversant with those records must frequently have met with cases where money advanced, paid on account, or as earnest, was described as "de prestito" or "in prestitis." Ducange gives "præstare" and its derivatives as meaning "mutuo dare" with but little variation; but I think that too limited a sense. The practice of describing a document itself by the use of the material or operative parts expressing or defining the transaction for which it was employed, is very common. In legal and documentary proceedings, it is indeed the only one that is followed. Let D.V.S. run over and compare any of the well-known descriptions of writs, as _habeas corpus_, _mandamus_, _fi. fa._: or look into Cowell's _Interpreter_, or a law dictionary, and he will see numerous cases where terms now known as the names of certain documents are merely the operative parts of Latin _formulæ_. "Imprest" seems to be a slightly corrupted translation of "in prestito;" that part of the instrument being thus made to give its name to the whole. Of "debenture" I think there is little doubt that it may be similarly explained. Those Record Offices which possess the ancient accounts and vouchers of officers of the royal household contain numerous "debentures" of the thirteenth, but far more of the fourteenth, century. In this case the _initial_ is the chief operative word: those relating to the royal wardrobe, commencing "Debentur in garderoba domini regis," being in fact merely memorandums expressing or acknowledging that certain sums of money "are owing" for articles supplied for the use of that department. It is well known that the royal exchequer was, at the time these documents were executed, often in great straits; and it seems to me scarcely doubtful that these early "debentures" were actually delivered over to tradesmen, &c., as security for the amount due to them, and given in to be cancelled when the debts were discharged by the Exchequer officers.

There is a remarkable feature about these ancient "debentures" which I may perhaps be permitted to notice here, viz., the very beautiful seals of the officers of the royal household and wardrobe which are impressed upon them. They are of the somewhat rare description known as "appliqué;" and at a time when personal seals were at the highest state of artistic developement, those few seals of the clerks of the household which have escaped injury (to which they are particularly exposed) are unrivalled for their clearness of outline, design, delicacy, and beauty of execution.

Allowing for the changes produced by time, I think sufficient analogy may be found between the ancient and modern uses of the words "imprest" and "debenture."

J. BT.

"_Imprest_" (Vol. ii., p. 40).--D.V.S. will find an illustration of the early application of this word to advances made by the Treasury in the "Rotulus de _Prestito_" of 12 John, printed by the Record Commission under the careful editorship of Mr. T. Duffus Hardy, whose preface contains a clear definition of its object, and an account of other existing rolls of the same character.

EDWARD FOSS.

_Derivation of News._--P.C.S.S. has read with great interest the various observations on the derivation of the word "News" which have appeared in the "NOTES AND QUERIES," and especially those of the learned and ingenious Mr. Hickson. He ventures, however, with all respect, to differ from the opinion expressed by that gentleman in Vol. i., p. 81., to the effect that--

"In English, there is no process known by which a noun plural can be formed from an adjective, without the previous formation of the singular in the same sense."

P.C.S.S. would take the liberty of reminding Mr. H. of the following passage in the _Tempest_:--

"When that is gone, He shall drink nought but brine, for I'll not show him Where the quick freshes lie."

Surely, in this instance, the plural noun "freshes" is not formed from any such singular noun as "_fresh_," but directly from the adjective, which latter does not seem to have been ever used as a singular _noun_.

While on the subject of "News," P.C.S.S. finds in Pepys' _Diary_ (vol. iii. p. 59.) another application of the word, in the sense of a noun singular, which he does not remember to have seen noticed by others.

"Anon, the coach comes--in the meantime, there coming a _news_ thither, with his horse to come over."

In other parts of the _Diary_, the word _News-book_ is occasionally employed to signify what is now termed a newspaper, or, more properly, a bulletin. For instance (vol. iii. p. 29.), we find that--

"This _News-book_, upon Mr. Moore's showing L'Estrange Captain Ferrers's letter, did do my Lord Sandwich great right as to the late victory."

And again (at p. 51.):

"I met this noon with Dr. Barnett, who told me, and I find in the _News-book_ this week, that he posted upon the 'Change,'" &c. &c.

Much has been lately written in the "NOTES AND QUERIES" respecting the "Family of Love." A sect of a similar name existed here in 1641, and a full and not very decent description of their rites and orgies is to be found in a small pamphlet of that date, reprinted in the fourth volume (8vo. ed.) of the _Harleian Miscellany_.

P.C.S.S. {108}

_Origin of Adur_ (Vol. ii., p. 71.).--A, derived from the same root as Aqua and the French _Eau_, is a frequent component of the names of rivers: "A-dur, A-run, A-von, A-mon," the adjunct being supposed to express the individual characteristic of the stream. _A-dur_ would then mean the _river of oaks_, which its course from Horsham Forest through the Weald of Sussex, of which "oak is the weed," would sufficiently justify. It is called in ancient geography _Adurnus_, and is probably from the same root as the French _Adour_.

C.

The river Adur, which passes by Shoreham, is the same name as the Adour, a great river in the Western Pyrenees.

This coincidence seems to show that it is neither a Basque word, nor a Saxon. Whether it is a mere expansion of _ydwr_, the water, in Welch, I cannot pretend to say, but probably it includes it.

We have the Douro in Spain; and the Doire, or Doria, in Piedmont. Pompadour is clearly derived from the above French river, or some other of the same name.

C.B.

_Meaning of Steyne_ (Vol. ii., P. 71.).--Steyne is no doubt _stone_, and may have reference to the original name of Brighthelm-_stone_: but what the _stone_ or "steyne" was, I do not conjecture; but it lay or stood probably on that little flat valley now called the "Steyne." It is said that, so late as the time of Elizabeth, the town was encompassed by a high and strong _stone wall_; but that could have no influence on the name, which, whether derived from Bishop _Brighthelm_ or not, is assuredly of Saxon times. There is a small town not far distant called _Steyning, i.e._ the meadow of the stone. In my early days, the name was invariably pronounced Brighthamstone.

C.

_Sarum and Barum_ (Vol. ii., p. 21.).--As a conjecture, I would suggest the derivation of _Sarum_ may have been this. Salisbury was as frequently written Sarisbury. The contracted form of this was Sap., the ordinary import of which is the termination of the Latin genitive plural _rum_. Thus an imperfectly educated clerk would be apt to read _Sarum_ instead of Sarisburia; and the error would pass current, until one reading was accepted for right as much as the other. In other instances we adopt the Law Latin or Law French of mediæval times; as the county of _Oxon_ for Oxfordshire, _Salop_ for Shropshire, &c., and _Durham_ is generally supposed to be French (_Duresmm_), substituted for the Anglo-Saxon Dunholm, in Latin _Dunelmum_. I shall perhaps be adding a circumstance of which few readers will be aware, in remarking that the Bishops of Durham, down to the present day, take alternately the Latin and French signatures, _Duresm_ and _Dunelm_.

J.G.N.

"_Epigrams on the Universities_" (Vol. ii., p. 88.).--The following extract frown Hartshorne's _Book-rarities in the University of Cambridge_ will fully answer the Query of your Norwich correspondent.

After mentioning, the donation to that University, by George I., of the valuable library of Dr. Moore, Bishop of Ely, which his Majesty had purchased for 6,000 guineas, the author adds,--

"When George I. sent these books to the University, he sent at the time a troop of horse to Oxford, which gave occasion to the following well-known epigram from Dr. Trapp, smart in its way, but not so clever as the answer from Sir William Browne:--

"The King, observing, with judicious eyes, The state of both his Universities, To one he sent a regiment; for why? That learned body wanted loyalty: To th' other he sent books, as well discerning How much that loyal body wanted learning."

_The Answer._

"The King to Oxford sent his troop of horse, For Tories hold no argument but force: With equal care to Cambridge books he sent, For Whigs allow no force but argument.

"The books were received Nov. 19, 20, &c., 1715."

G.A.S.

[J.J. DREDGE, V. (Belgravia), and many other correspondents, have also kindly replied to this Query.]

_Dulcarnon_ (Vol. i., p. 254.)--_Urry_ says nothing, but quotes _Speght_, and _Skene_, and _Selden_.

"_Dulcarnon_," says Speght, "is a proposition in _Euclid_ (lib. i. theor. 33. prop. 47.), which was found out by Pythagoras after a whole years' study, and much beating of his brain; in thankfulness whereof he sacrificed an ox to the gods, which sacrifice he called Dulcarnon."

_Neckam_ derived it from _Dulia quasi sacrificium_ and _carnis_.

_Skene_ justly observes that the triumph itself cannot be the point; but the word might get associated with the problem, either considered before its solution, puzzling to _Pythagoras_, or the demonstration, still difficult to us,--a Pons Asinorum, like the 5th proposition.

Mr. _Selden_, in his preface to _Drayton's Polyolbion_, says,--

"I cannot but digresse to admonition of abuse which this learned allusion, in his _Troilus_, by ignorance hath indured.

"'I am till God mee better mind send, At _Dulcarnon_, right at my wit's end.'

It's not _Neckam_, or any else, that can make mee entertaine the least thought of the signification of _Dulcarnon_ to be _Pythagorus_ his sacrifice after his geometricall theorem in finding the square of an orthogonall triangle's sides, or that it is a word of _Latine_ deduction: but, indeed, by easier pronunciation it was made of D'hulkarnyan[5], i.e. _two-horned_ which the _Mahometan Arabians_ {109} vie for a root in calculation, meaning _Alexander_, as that great dictator of knowledge, _Joseph Scaliger_ (with some ancients) wills, but, by warranted opinion of my learned friend Mr. _Lydyat_, in his _Emendatio Temporum_, it began in _Seleucus Nicanor_, XII yeares after _Alexander's_ death. The name was applyed, either because after time that _Alexander_ had persuaded himself to be _Jupiter Hammon's_ sonne, whose statue was with _Ram's_ hornes, both his owne and his successors' coins were stampt with horned images: or else in respect of his II pillars erected in the East as a _Nihil ultra_[6] of his conquest, and some say because hee had in power the Easterne and Westerne World, signified in the two hornes. But howsoever, it well fits the passage, either, as if hee had personated _Creseide_ at the entrance of two wayes, not knowing which to take; in like sense as that of _Prodicus_ his _Hercules_, _Pythagoras_ his _Y._, or the Logicians _Dilemma_ expresse; or else, which is the truth of his conceit, that hee was at a _nonplus_, as the interpretation in his next staffe makes plaine. How many of noble _Chaucer's_ readers never so much as suspect this his short essay of knowledge, transcending the common Rode? And by his treatise of the _Astrolabe_ (which, I dare sweare, was chiefly learned out of _Messahalah_) it is plaine hee was much acquainted with the mathematiques, and amongst their authors had it."

_D'Herbelot_ says:

"_Dhoul_ (or _Dhu_) _carnun_, _with the two horns_, is the surname of _Alexander_, that is, of an ancient and fabulous Alexander of the first dynasty of the Persians. 795. Article Sedd, Tagioug and Magioug. 993. Article Khedher. 395. b. 335. b. Fael.

"But 317. Escander, he says, Alexander the Great has the same title secondarily. The truth probably is the reverse, that the fabulous personage was taken from the real conqueror.

"_Hofmann_, in Seleucus, says that the area of Seleucus is called Terik Dhylkarnain, i.e. Epocha Alexandri Cornigen. Tarik means probably the date of an event."

There can be no doubt that the word in Chaucer is this Arabic word; nor, I think, that Speght's story is really taught by the Arabs, our teachers in mathematics. Whether the application is from Alexander, (they would know nothing of his date with regard to Pythagoras), or merely from two-horned, is doubtful. The latter might possibly mean the ox.

Mr. Halliwell gives a quotation from Stanyhurst, in which it means "dull persons"--an obvious misuse of it for Englishmen, and which Skene fortifies by an A.-S. derivation, but which is clearly not Cressida's meaning, or she would have said, "I _am_ Dulcarnon," not "I _am at_ Dulcarnon;" and so Mrs. Roper.

It may seem difficult what Pandarus can mean:

"Dulcarnon clepid is fleming of wretches, It semith hard, for wretchis wol nought lere For very slouthe, or othir wilfull tetches, This said is by them that ben't worth two fetches, But ye ben wise."

Whether he means that wretches call it _fleming_ or not, his argument is, "You are not a wretch." Speght's derivation seems to mean, "Quod stultos vertit." _Fleamas_, A.-S. (Lye), is _fuga_, _fugacio_, from _flean_, to flee. Pandarus, I think, does not mean to give the derivation of the word, but its application of fools, a stumbling-block, or puzzle.

C.B.

[Footnote 5: Speght gives it in English letters, but Selden in Arabic.]

[Footnote 6: Christman, _Comment. in Alfragan_, cap. ii. _Lysimachi_ Cornuum apud Cael. Rhodigin. _Antiq. lect._ 10. cap. xii., hic genuina interpretatio.]

_Dr. Maginn._--The best account of this most talented but unfortunate man, is given in the _Dublin University Mag._, vol. xxiii. p. 72. A reprint of this article, with such additional particulars of his numerous and dispersed productions as might be supplied, would form a most acceptable volume.

F.R.A.

_America known to the Ancients._--To the list of authorities on this subject given in Vol. i., p. 342., I have the pleasure to add Father Laffiteau; Bossu[7], in his _Travels through Louisiana_; and though last, not least, Acosta, who in his _Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies_, translated by E.G. [Grimestone], 1604, 4to., devotes eighty-one pages to a review of the opinions of the ancients on the new world.

The similarity which has been observed to exist between the manners of several American nations, and those of some of the oldest nations on our continent, which seems to demonstrate that this country was not unknown in ancient times, has been traced by Nicholls, in the first part of his _Conference with a Theist_, in several particulars, viz. burning of the victim in sacrifices, numbering by tens, fighting with bows and arrows, their arts of spinning, weaving, &c. The arguments, multitudinous as they are, adduced by Adair for his hypothesis that the American Indians are descended from the Jews, serve to prove that the known or old world furnished the new one with men. To these may be added the coincidences noticed in "NOTES AND QUERIES;" burning the dead (Vol. i., p. 308.); the art of manufacturing glass (p. 341.); scalping (Vol. ii., p. 78.). Your correspondents will doubtless be able to point out other instances. Besides drinking out of the skulls of their enemies, recorded of the Scythians by Herodotus; and of the savages of Louisiana by Bossu; I beg to mention a remarkable one furnished by Catlin--the sufferings endured by the youths among the Mandans, when admitted into the rank of warriors, {110} reminding us of the probationary exercises which the priests of Mithras forced the candidates for initiation to undergo.

T.J.

[Footnote 7: Forster, the translator of this work, annihilates the argument for the settlement of the Welsh derived from the word "penguin" signifying "white head," by the fact of the bird in question having a _black_, not a _white_ head!]

_Collar of SS._ (Vol. ii., p. 89.).--B. will find a great deal about these collars in some interesting papers in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1842, vols. xvii. and xviii., conmunicated by Mr. J.G. Nicholls; and in the Second Series of the Retrospective Review, vol. i. p. 302., and vol. ii. pp. 156. 514. 518. Allow me to add a Query: Who are the persons now privileged to wear these collars? and under what circumstances, and at what dates, was such privilege reduced to its present limitation?

[Greek: Phi.]