Chapter 2

"Solebat [sc. Ruhnkenius] haud exiguam subsecivæ operæ partem tribuere perlegendis catalogis librorum, sive per auctiones divendendorum, sive in bibliothecis publicis servatorum; unde factum est, ut rariorum cognitionem librorum, jam in Bergeri disciplina perceptam, continuo augeret."--_Dan_. WYTTENBACH, 1799.

"Le premier besoin de l'homme de lettres qui entreprend un ouvrage, est de connoître les sources auxquelles il peut puiser, les livres qui ont traité directement ou indirectement le sujet qui l'occupe."--_S_. CHARDON _de la Rochette_, 1812.

"La bibliothèque [savoir, la bibliothèque royale établie à Bruxelles] aura deux catalogues: l'un alphabétique, l'autre systématique. Dans l'intérêt de la science, le catalogue sera imprimé, en tout ou en partie."--LÉOPOLD, _roi des Belges_, 1837.

"Le catalogue est l'inventaire en le véritable palladium d'une bibliothèque. L'impression des catalogues est toujours une chose utile, sinon indispensable.... La publicité est, en outre, le frein des abus, des négligences, et des malversations, l'aiguillon du zèle, et la source de toute amélioration."--_L. A._ CONSTANTIN, 1839.

"La publication d'une nouvelle édition complète du catalogue de la bibliothèque du roi [de France], serait, sans doute, le plus grand service qu'on pût jamais rendre à l'histoire littéraire; et nous ne regardons pas cette entreprise comme impraticable."--_Jacques Charles_ BRUNET, 1842.

"M. Merlin pense avec moi, et c'est quelque chose, que les justes plaintes formées contre l'administration de la bibliothèque royale [de France] cesseront dès l'instant où l'on aura rédigé et publié le catalogue géneral des livres imprimés."--_Paulin_ PARIS, 1847.

* * * * *

Minor Notes.

_The "Winter's Tale."_--As MR. PAYNE COLLIER is making inquiries as to the origin of Shakspeare's _Winter's Tale_, perhaps he will allow me to call his attention to an oversight he has committed in his edition of Greene's _Pandosto_, in the series called _Shakspeare's Library_. In a note to the introduction, p. ii., MR. COLLIER says,

"Some verbal resemblances and trifling obligations have been pointed out by the commentators in their notes to the WINTER'S TALE. One of the principal instances occurs in Act IV. Sc. 3., where Florizel says:

"'The gods themselves, Humbling their deities to love, have taken The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god, Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain, As I seem now. Their transformations Were never for a piece of beauty rarer, Nor in a way so chaste.'

"'This,' says Malone, 'is taken almost literally from the novel'--when, in fact, the resemblance merely consists in the adoption by Shakspeare of part of the mythological knowledge supplied by Greene. 'The gods above disdaine not to love women beneath. Phoebus liked Daphne; Jupiter Io; and why not I then Fawnia?' The resemblance is anything but literal."

It would appear, however, that the passage cited by MR. COLLIER is not the one referred to by Malone. MR. COLLIER's passage is at p. 34. of his edition of the novel; the one Malone evidently had in view is at p. 40., and is as follows:--

"And yet, Dorastus, shame not at thy shepheard's weede: the heavenly godes have sometime earthly thoughtes. Neptune became a ram, Jupiter a bul, Apollo a shepheard: they Gods, and yet in love; and thou a man, appointed to love."

E. L. N.

_Inscribed Alms-dish._--There is an alms-dish (?) {102} in the possession of a clergyman near Rotherham, in this county, with the following inscription:--

"VREEST . GODT . ONDERHOVEDT . SYN . GEBOEDT . ANNO . 1634."

[Fear God (and?) keep his commandments.]

Having so lately been so justly reproved by your correspondent, MR. JANUS DOUSA, for judging of Vondel's _Lucifer_ by an apparently unjust review rather than by perusal,--and his beautiful chorus having so fully "established his case,"--I am rather shy of making any remarks upon this inscription: otherwise I would venture (errors excepted) to observe that there _may_ be a mistake in the position of the last three letters of the third word.

If MR. DOUSA would kindly inform a _very_ imperfect Dutch scholar whether this sentence is intended as a quotation from Ecclesiastes xii., 13th verse,--

"Vreest Godt ende hout sÿne geboden;"

or whether the third word is from the verb "_onder houden_,"--as _looks_ probable, I shall be greatly obliged to him. The Bible to which I refer is dated 1644.

Being neither a scholar nor a critic, but only a lover of books and languages, I hope MR. DOUSA will accept my apology for the affront offered to his countryman, Vondel. Your publication has been a great temptation to people with a few curious books around them to set sail their little boats of inquiry or observation for the mere pleasure of seeing them float down the stream in company with others of more importance and interest. I confess myself to have been one of the injudicious number; and having made shipwreck of my credit against M. Brellet's _Dictionnaire de la Langue Celtique_, and also on Vondel's _Lucifer_, I must here apologise and promise to offend no more. If MR. DOUSA will not be appeased, I have only to add that I "send him my card." As Mrs. Malaprop said to Sir Lucius O'Trigger--

"Spare my blushes--_I_ am Delia."

HERMES.

P. S. Can MR. DOUSA fix a positive date to my undated _History of Dr. John Faustus_?

_Landwade Church._--It appears to me that an important service would be rendered to posterity, if a full account were taken of all the monuments and inscriptions in such deserted churches as Landwade appears to be. Such records may ere long become invaluable, and every day is hastening them to oblivion. Already hundreds of such churches, with the several monuments and inscriptions they contained, have entirely passed away. I have been making some investigation into the demolished and desecrated churches of Buckinghamshire, and am astonished at the number of monumental records which have thus perished. Thirty-one churches at least have been lost to the county, and some of them were rich in monumental memorials.

Other counties, doubtless, have equally suffered. Would it not, therefore, be well to collect accounts of the memorials they contained, so far as they can be obtained, and have them recorded in some publication, that they may be available to future historians, genealogists, and antiquaries? Is there any existing periodical suitable for the purpose?

W. HASTINGS KELKE.

_The First Edition of the Second Book of Homilies, by Queen Elizabeth in_ 1563.--In the edition of the _Homilies_ at the Oxford University press in 1822, and which from inspection, in the portion concerned, appear to be the same in the last, I find in the Advertisement, page iv. note d., that there exist _four editions_ of the date 1563. Of these, I presume, are two in my possession, and I conclude one of them to be the _first edition_ on the following grounds:--_That_ one, printed by Richard Jugge and John Cawood, 1563, has in the last page and a half, "Faultes escaped in the printyng," which appear to have been _corrected_ in all the subsequent editions, and are as they stand in the subsequent and modern editions, I presume, up to the present time. But the principal proof arises from a cancelled leaf in the Homily, "Of Common Prayer and Sacraments," as it stands in the Oxford edition of 1822, p. 329-331. The passage in question, as it there stands, and stands likewise in another edition of 1563, which I have, begins within three lines of the end of the paragraph, p. 329.,--"eth, that common or public prayer," &c., and ends at p. 331. line 13.,--"ment of baptism and the Lord's supper," &c. In my presumed first edition the original passage has been dismissed, and the substituted passage, being one leaf, _in a smaller type_, in order plainly to contain more matter, and it is that which appears, as I suppose, in all subsequent and the present copies. It would have been a matter of some curiosity, and perhaps of some importance, to have the original cancelled passage. But every intelligent reader will perceive that the subject was one which required both delicacy and judgment. Is any copy existing which has the original passage? My copy unfortunately is imperfect, wanting three leaves; and I apprehend this is an additional instance in which the first edition of an important work has been in a manner thrown aside for its imperfection; as was the case with the real first edition of the _Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent_, and the _Execution of Justice_ given to Burghley. As the Oxford editor wished for information upon this subject, it is hoped that the present communication may not be unacceptable to him.

J. M.

Jan. 23. 1851.

* * * * *

{103}

Queries.

DUTCH TRANSLATION OF A TRACT BY ROBERT GREENE.

I was thinking of sending you a note or two on an early Dutch translation of a very celebrated English tract when your last number came to hand, by which I find that so much interest has been produced by "NOTES AND QUERIES" in Holland, that certain _literati_ are about to establish a similar work in that country. If I mistake not, what I now transmit will be acceptable to your Batavian friends, and not unwelcome to those who approve of your undertaking on this side of the water.

A good deal has been advanced lately regarding the interest taken by the inhabitants of Holland, Belgium, and Germany, in our ancient drama; and in consistency with what was said by Thomas Heywood more than 200 years ago, some new information has been supplied respecting the encouragement given to English players abroad. The fact itself was well-known, and the author last cited (Shakspeare Society's reprint of the _Apology for Actors_, 1841, p. 58.) furnishes the name of the very play performed on one occasion at Amsterdam. The popularity of our drama there perhaps contributed to the popularity of our lighter literature, (especially of such as came from the pens of our most notorious playwrights,) in the same part of Europe, and may account for the circumstance I am about to mention.

At this time of day I need hardly allude to the reputation the celebrated Robert Greene obtained in England, both as a dramatist and a pamphleteer; and although we have no distinct evidence on the point, we need hardly doubt that some of his plays had been represented with applause in Holland. _The Four Sons of Aymon_, which Heywood tells us was acted with such strange effect at Amsterdam, must have been a piece of precisely the same kind as Greene's _Orlando Furioso_, which we know was extraordinarily popular in this kingdom, and may have been equally so abroad. We may thus suppose that Greene's fame had spread to the Netherlands, and that anything written by him would be well received by Batavian readers.

His _Quip for an Upstart Courtier, or, a Quaint Dispute between Velvet-breeches and Cloth-breeches_, was published in London in 1592, and went through two, if not three, impressions in its first year. It was often reprinted, and editions in 1606, 1615, 1620, 1625, and 1635, have come down to us, besides others that, no doubt, have entirely disappeared. That the fame of this production extended to Holland, I have the proof before me: it is a copy of the tract in Dutch, with the following imprint--"_Tot Leyden. By Thomas Basson_. M.D.CI." A friend of mine writes me from Rotterdam, that he has a copy, without date, but printed about twenty or five-and-twenty years after mine of 1601, which shows how long the popularity of the tract was maintained; and I have little doubt that mine is not by any means the earliest Dutch impression, if only because the wood-cut of the Courtier and the Countryman (copied with the greatest precision from the London impression of 1592) is much worn and blurred. The title-page runs as follows, and the name of Robert Greene is rendered obvious upon it for the sake of its attraction:--

"Een Seer vermakelick Proces tusschen Fluweele-Broeck ende Laken-Broeck. Waer in verhaldt werdt het misbruyck van de meeste deel der Menschen. Gheshreven int Engelsch door Robert Greene, ende nu int Neder-landtsch overgheset. Wederom oversien."

At the back of this title is printed a short address from the translator to the _Edele ende welghesinde Leser_, which states little more than that the original had been received from England, and concludes with the subsequent quatrain:--

"Ghemerckt dit Dal vol van ydelheyt Soo lachet vrij als Democritus dede: Doch zy gheraeckt met vvat Barmherticheyt: Als Heraclyt, bevveen ons qualen mede."

The spelling and punctuation are the same as in the original, and the body of the tract follows immediately:

"Staende eens smorghens op van eene onrustige nacht rust, ende vindende mijn ghemoet noch wat onstelt, gingh ick wandelen nae de vermacklyche velden, om mijn Gheest wat te vermacken, dan wesende noch in een Melancholijcke humeur, seer eensaem sonder eenighe gheselschap, worde ick seer slaperich: alsoo dat ick droomde. Dat iek een Dal sach wel verceirt, &c."

As few of your readers will have the means of referring to the original English, I quote Greene's opening words from an edition of 1592:--

"It was just at that time when the Cuckoulds quirister began to bewray Aprill, Gentlemen, with his never-changed notes, that I, damped with a melancholy humor, went into the fields to cheere up my wits with the fresh aire: where solitarie seeking to solace my selfe, I fell in a dreame, and in that drowsie slumber I wandered into a vale, &c."

The Dutch version fills thirty-two closely printed pages, and ends with the succeeding literal translation of Greene's last sentence:--

"Tot dese Sententie (aldus by de Ridder ghepronuncieert) alle de omstaende Stemde daer toe, ende klapten in haere handen, ende maeckte een groot geluyde, waer door eck waeker worde, ende schoot uyt mynen Droom, soo stout ick op, ende met een vrolijck ghemoet, gingh ick schryven, al her gene, dat ghy hier ghehoort hebt."

The above is one of the few books I purchased when I was in Holland some thirty years ago; and as I have quoted enough for the purpose of {104} identification, I may conclude with asking some of your Dutch correspondents, whether the tract, in this or in any other edition, is of considerable rarity with them? In England I never saw a copy of it but that in my possession. I may add that every paragraph is separately numbered from 1 to 110, as if the production were one of importance to which more particular reference might be made than even by the pagination.

THE HERMIT OF HOLYPORT.

* * * * *

THE BLACK ROOD OF SCOTLAND.

(Vol. ii., pp. 308. 409.)

I am not satisfied with what W. S. G. has written on this subject; and as I feel interested in it, perhaps I cannot bring out my doubts better than in the following Queries.

1. Instead of this famous cross being destined by St. Margaret for Dunfermline, was it not transmitted by her as an heir-loom to her sons? _Fordun_, lib. v. cap. lv. "_Quasi munus hæreditarium transmisit ad filios._" Hailes (_Annals_, sub anno 1093) distinguishes the cross which Margaret gifted to Dunfermline from the Black Rood of Scotland; and it is found in the possession of her son David I., in his last illness. He died at Carlisle, 24th May, 1153. (_Fordun_, ut supra.)

2. Is not W. S. G. mistaken when, in speaking of this cross being seized by Edward I. in the Castle of Edinburgh in 1292, he says it is in a list of muniments, &c., found "_in quadam cista in dormitorio S. Crucis._" instead of in a list following, "_et in thesauria castri de Edinburgh inventa fuerunt ornamenta subscripta?_" (Ayloffe's _Calendars_, p. 827.; Robertson's _Index_, Introd. xiii.)

3. When W. S. G. says that this cross was not held in the same superstitious reverence as the Black Stone of Scone, and that Miss Strickland is mistaken when she says that it was seized by King Edward, and restored at the peace of 1327, what does he make of the following authorities?--

(1.) _Fordun_, lib. v, cap. xvii:

"Illa sancta crux quam nigram vocant omni genti Scotorum non minus terribilem quam amabilem pro suæ reverentia sanctitatis."

(2.) _Letters to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Carlisle, occassioned by some Passages in his late Book of the Scotch Library, &c._, ascribed to the historian Rymer: London, 1702. From a "notable piece of Church history," appended to the second Letter, it appears that the Black Rood accompanied King Edward in his progresses, along with a famous English cross--the Cross Nigth,--and that he received on these two crosses the homage of several of the Scottish magnates. (The same thing, I have no doubt, will appear from the _Foedera_ of the same historian, which I have it not in my power to refer to.)

(3.) _Chronicon de Lanercost_, printed by the Maitland Club, Edinburgh, 1839, p. 283. Alluding to the pacification of 1327:

"Reddidit etiam eis partem crucis Christi _quam vocant Scotti Blakerode_, et similiter unam instrumentum.... Ragman vocabatur. Lapidem tamen de Scone, in quo solent regis Scotiæ apud Scone in creatione sua collocari, Londonensis noluerunt a se demittere quoquomodo. Omnia autem hæc asportari fecerat de Scotia inclytus rex Edwardus filius Henrici, dum Scottos suæ subjiceret ditioni."

Fabian and Holinshed report the same thing.

4. Is not Fordun _quoting_ from Turgot and Aelred (whom he names Baldredus) when he speaks of "illa sancta crux _quam nigram_ vocant?" And how does the description of the Durham cross,--

"Which rood and pictures were all three very richly wrought in silver, and were all smoked black over, being large pictures of a yard or five quarters long," &c. &c.,--

agree with the description of the Black Rood of St. Margaret which, as Lord Hailes says, "was of _gold_, about the length of _a palm_; the figure of ebony, studded and inlaid with gold. A piece of the true cross was enclosed in it"?

5. As to the cross "miraculously received by David I., and in honour of which he founded Holyrood Abbey in 1128," and which some antiquaries (see _A Brief Account of Durham Cathedral_; Newcastle, 1833, p. 46.) gravely assert was to be seen "in the south aisle of _the choir_ of Durham Cathedral at its eastern termination, in front of a wooden screen richly gilt and decorated with stars and other ornaments," are not all agreed that the story is a mere monkish legend, invented long after Holyrood was founded (although, perhaps, not so recent as Lord Hailes supposed)? and is it not, therefore, absurd to speak of such a cross being taken at the battle of Durham, or to identify it with the Black Rood of Scotland?

6. The quotation of W. S. G. from the _MS. Dunelm_ is curious; but is there any contemporary authority for the Black Rood having been taken with King David at the battle of Durham? I can find none.

7. Is it not, however, probable that King David lost _two_ crosses at Durham, one a military cross, carried with his army, and taken from the Abbey of Holyrood; and the other the famous Black Rood found on his person, and made an offering to the shrine of St. Cuthbert? This would reconcile some apparent discrepancies.

8. I find it noticed by Richardson in his _Table Book_ (Newcastle, 1846, vol. i. p. 123.), that "there is a letter in the British Museum (Faustina, A 6. 47.) from the prior of Durham to the Bishop (then absent), giving an account of the battle of Neville's cross." Has this letter been printed, and where? If not so, will any of your correspondents have the {105} kindness to examine it, and say if it gives any information as to a cross or crosses captured with the King of Scots?

J. D. N. N.

* * * * *

Minor Queries.

_The "Tanthony."_--When the porteress at the principal entrance to Kimbolton Park opens the gates for the admission of a visitor, she rings a bell to give warning to the servants at the castle of his approach. This bell is popularly called the "Tanthony," in reference, I presume, to some legend of Saint Anthony. Will one of your readers be good enough to enlighten me?

ARUN.

"_Beauty Retire._"--Will the noble editor of Pepys's _Diary_ permit me to ask him whether he has seen, in the Pepysian library, or elsewhere, a copy, either in print or MS., of Pepys's song, "Beauty Retire," words and music; or is it to be found in any miscellaneous collection of songs?

I. H. M.

_The Soul's Dark Cottage._--Being called on to reply to matters as plain as those to which I replied last week, I am less reluctant to acknowledge my own ignorance or obliviousness, respecting a couplet of which, I doubt not, hundreds of your readers know the original _habitat_, but which cannot be recalled to my own memory, nor to that of several friends to whom I have referred. The couplet is--

"The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time hath made."

EFFARESS.

London, Jan. 4, 1851.

"_Small by degrees and beautifully less._"--This is a very common quotation, but, although I have made frequent inquiries, I have never yet been able to find out the author of it. Perhaps some of your readers can inform me.

W. H. B.

_Musical Plagiarism._--I think I remember to have heard, two or three years ago, of an action for damages brought against an eminent composer, on account of plagiarism in a musical composition; and that the defendant's argument was founded on the fact, that there exist very few really "original compositions," if originality excludes every form of plagiarism. And he adduced as examples the "See the conquering hero," of Handel; and the "Zitti Zitti," of Rossini. Can any of your readers refer me to the minutes of this trial; and tell me if any book has been published in criticism of the originality of composers?

R. M.

_Simon Bache._--In the parish church of Knebworth, Herts, is the brass of a priest, with the following inscription:--

"Hic jacet Dominus Simo Bache, Clericus, quondam _Thesaurarius Hospitii_ illustrissimi Principis Domini Henrici Quinti Regis Angliæ, ac Canonic. Ecclesiæ Cathedralis Sancti Paulli, London; qui obiit xix. die Maii. Anno Dom. nostr. 1414."

Can any of your readers inform me what this office of _Thesaurarius Hospitii_ was; also, who Simon Bache was that held it; and how it happens that he is buried at Knebworth?

A. W. H.

_Sir Walter Raleigh._--In speaking of the difficulty which exists in obtaining a perfect knowledge of any event, reference is often made to Sir Walter Raleigh having witnessed an occurrence, while confined in the Tower, and that two witnesses gave such a different account from each other as well as from himself, that he threw his MS. history into the fire. In what contemporary work is this recorded?

A similar discrepancy in evidence is mentioned with reference to the celebrated tourney at Tiani, in 1502, in Prescott's _Ferdinand and Isabella_, vol. iii. p. 45.

H. J.