Chapter 2

In the year 1635, King Charles the First granted his letters patent to Sir Francis Kynaston, "Esquire of the body to his Majesty," whereby a house in Covent Garden, which Sir Francis had purchased, and furnished with books, manuscripts, musical and mathematical instruments, paintings, statues, antiques, &c., was appropriated for ever as a college for the education of the young, nobility, and others, under the name of the "Museum Minervae." Sir Francis Kynaston was made the governor with the title of "regent;" Edward May, Thomas Hunt, Nicholas Phiske, John Spidell, Walter Salter, Michael Mason, fellows and professors of philosophy and medicine, music, astronomy, geometry, languages, &c. They had power to elect professors also of horsemanship, dancing, painting, engraving, &c.; were made a body corporate, were permitted to use a common seal, and to possess goods and lands in mortmain. (Pat. 11 Car. pt. 8. No. 14.) In the following year, 1636, was published, dedicated to the "Regent and Professors," _The Constitutions of the Museum Minervae; giving an Account of an Academy for teaching chiefly Navigation, Riding, Fortification, Architecture, Painting, and other useful Accomplishments_.

The "Museum" seems to have been highly patronised, for we find that on the 27th February, 1635 (the year of its foundation), Prince Charles, the Duke of York, and the Lady Mary their sister, honoured it with their presence to witness a masque, entitled "Corona Minervae," which was written and prepared for the occasion by Sir Francis Kynaston. This masque was, I believe, printed in the year of its production, but I do not find it mentioned in the last edition of the _Biographia Dramatica_.

Mr. Cunningham, in his _Handbook of London_, mentions (p. 42.) that

"Sir Francis Kynaston, the poet, was living in Covent Garden in 1636, on the east side of the street towards Berrie" (Bedfordbury).

And again, in his notice of Bedford Street (p. 44.), he says, Sir Francis resided "on the west side in 1637." Both these entries refer to the same residence--a noble mansion, built in the year 1594, which, after being inhabited by several important families, finally passed into the possession of Sir Francis Kynaston, who altered and adapted it (rebuilding some portions) as the college of the "Museum Minervae." The ground plan, which is now before me, exhibits a well-arranged and commodious building with two fronts, one in what is now Bedfordbury, and the other (probably added by Sir Francis) in the street now called Bedford Street. The building, when Sir Francis Kynaston purchased it in 1634, stood in the centre of a large garden. The surrounding streets,--King Street, New Street, Bedford Street, Chandos Street, Henrietta Street, and Bedfordbury, were not commenced building until the year 1637.

The "Museum Minervae" is not named in Mr. Cunningham's excellent _Handbook_; but when we take into consideration the enormous amount of information required for a work of the kind, we ought not to blame the author for a few trifling omissions.

Sir Balthazar Gerbier, an enterprising projector of the same century, by profession a painter and an architect, but now scarcely remembered as either, seems to have imitated the "Museum Minervae" in an academy opened at Bethnal Green in 1649. Here, in addition to the more common branches of education, he professed to teach astronomy, navigation, architecture, perspective, drawing, limning, engraving, fortification, fireworks, military discipline, the art of well speaking and civil conversation, history, constitutions and maxims of state, and particular dispositions of nations, "riding the great horse," &c. Once in each week, at three o'clock in the afternoon, Sir Balthazar gave a public lecture gratis on the various sciences. The lectures were {318} generally advertised in the _Perfect Diurnal_, and a few curious specimens of these advertisements may be seen in Lysons' _Environs of London_, ed. 1795, vol. ii. p. 30.

Balthazar Gerbier was born at Antwerp about 1591, came young into England, and was a retainer of the Duke of Buckingham as early as 1613. Upon the accession of Charles the First, he was employed in Flanders to negociate privately a treaty with Spain. In 1628 he was knighted at Hampton Court; and, as he says himself in one of his books, was promised by the king the office of surveyor-general of the works, after the death of Inigo Jones. In 1637 he was employed in some private transactions of state; and on the 13th of July, 1641, he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, having a bill of naturalisation. In 1648 he appears to have projected the above-named academy, the failure of which very soon happened. Sir Balthazar then went to America, where he seems to have been very ill treated by the Dutch, and narrowly escaped with his life. He afterwards returned to England, and designed the triumphal arch for the reception of Charles the Second. He died at Hempsted-marshal, in 1667, whilst engaged in superintending the mansion of Lord Craven, and was buried in the chancel of that church.

In conclusion, it may be as well to mention, that, prior to the establishment of the "Museum Minervae," a committee had been appointed in the House of Lords, consisting of the Duke of Buckingham and others, for taking into consideration the state of the public schools, and method of education. What progress was made in this inquiry is not known, but in all probability the academies of Sir Francis Kynaston and Sir Balthazar Gerbier owed their origin to the meetings of this committee.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

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SHAKSPEARE AND FLETCHER.

I feel greatly obliged to your correspondent C. B. for the attention he has bestowed on the question of Fletcher's connexion with _Henry VIII._, as it is only through the concurrent judgments of those who think the subject worthy of their full and impartial consideration, that we can hope to arrive at the truth. His remarks (Vol. iii., p. 190.) are the more valuable, as they coincide with a doubt in my own mind, which has, to a great extent, ripened since I last communicated with you on the subject; and, indeed, I have no need to hesitate in saying, that I had more difficulty in coming to a conclusion with regard to the scene (Act III. Sc. 2.) in which the passages occur quoted by C. B., than with any other scene in the whole play. The suggestions, that Shakspeare might have touched scenes of which the mass had been written by Fletcher, is a point which I had not overlooked, and which indeed, to some extent, might be said to follow from the view I took of the relation of Shakspeare and Fletcher as master and scholar. Yet this suggestion is especially valuable regarding this scene, and may account for that which, without it, is not so easily explained.

If, however, there be any lurking notion in your correspondent's mind, that the scene in _Antony and Cleopatra_ (Act III. Sc. 1) referred to by X. Z. (Vol. iii., p. 139.) is, judging from certain coincidences of expression, an interpolation, and not by Shakspeare, I beg at once to be allowed to express my total dissent from such a view. Whether, also, there may have been any secondary allusion to some known event of the day, as X. Z. supposes, and as is by no means improbable, I cannot say; but I protest against its being said that the scene referred to is "totally unconnected with what goes before, and what follows." Antony is the hero of the play; and this scene shows the culminating point of Antony's fortunes, when his very successes turn against him.

To return to _Henry VIII._, the compliment to the Queen, to which your correspondent refers, is, as he very justly observes, brought in in a very forced manner. This, to my mind, is very strong evidence; otherwise I should not think it unworthy of Shakspeare. And it still has to be borne in mind, that he would have had to accommodate his characters and circumstances to the views of another writer. Shakspeare's spirit was too catholic, too universal, to have allowed, in a work entirely his own, even his Wolsey to have made use of the term "a spleeny Lutheran;" yet neither in the passage in which this expression occurs, nor in the one above referred to, is the versification characteristic of Fletcher. For my own part, however, I cannot recognise Shakspeare's spirit in this antagonism of creeds, which is, perhaps, even more strongly displayed in the prophetic speech of Cranmer's in the last scene, wherein he says, "God shall be truly known!" It may be said, that in both these instances the expressions are true to the characters of Wolsey and Cranmer. It may be so; for both are wanting in that ideal elevation which Shakspeare never fails to give. That, with this reservation, he becomes the mouth-piece of each character, is most true; and a curious instance of the writer's utter forgetfulness of his assumed character of contemporary with the events he is relating, occurring in Act. IV. Sc. 2 where Griffiths says--

"He was most princely: ever witness for him Those twins of learning, that he rais'd in you, Ipswich and Oxford! _one of which fell with him_, Unwilling to outlive the good that did it; The other, though unfinish'd, yet so famous, So excellent in art, _and still so rising_,"--

{319} has no parallel in Shakspeare's works. To John Fletcher, indeed, at the close of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, these things were known; but scarcely to the attendant of Queen Katherine, who has but just narrated the circumstances, then newly happened, of Wolsey's fall. On maturer consideration, then, I am inclined to think that the whole of the scene (Act III. Sc. 2.) to which your correspondent refers, was originally written by Fletcher, although, as it now stands, it is strongly marked by the hand of Shakspeare. In the same category, also, I am inclined to place Scenes 3. and 4. of Act II. It will be observed that these changes are not inconsistent with the view I had previously taken; the effect being merely, that I am inclined to ascribe a little more than in the first instance to the hitherto unsuspected participator in the work. I am not sure, too, that I shall not be coming nearer to MR. SPEDDING; as, if I am not mistaken, it is in some of these scenes that he imagines he detects "a third hand;" a theory which, though I do not adopt, I certainly have not confidence enough to reject altogether. But this view affects so very small a portion of the play, that it is of very little consequence.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

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ILLUSTRATIONS OF TENNYSON.

That great poets are sometimes obscure, needs no proof. That the greatest poets will necessarily be so to the ordinary reader, seems to me equally indisputable.

Not without effort can one enter into the spontaneous thought of another, or even of himself in another mood. How much more when that other is distinguished from his fellows by the _greatness_ and _singularity_ of his thoughts, and by the extreme subtilty of their connecting links. Obscurity is not a blemish but an excellence, if the pains of seeking are more than compensated by the pleasures of finding, the luxury of [Greek: mathesis], where the concentrated energy of a passage, when once understood, gives it a hold on the imagination and memory such as were ill sacrificed to more diluted clearness.

_Grandis praefatio tenui incepto_--a sort of apology to Tennyson for implying that he needs illustration. Some time ago I made a few notes on particular passages in _Locksley Hall_, which I now enclose. Some of them are, I dare say, superfluous--some, possibly, erroneous. If so, they will stand a fair chance of being corrected in your valuable publication.

By the bye, if a "NOTES AND QUERIES" had existed in the days of AEschylus, we might have been saved from many a recourse to "corrupt text" and "lacunae admodum deflendae."

_Notes on Locksley Hall._

Stanza 2. "Dreary gleams:" in apposition with "curlews." I know the construction of this line has puzzled a good many readers.

Stanza 23. "Yet it shall be." Yet "decline" thou certainly wilt.

Stanza 28. "He will answer," &c. With an oath, it may be--at the least with a coarse rebuff.

Stanza 29. "The heart's disgrace." The disgrace, the injury, and degradation the heart has suffered--its prostitution to a mercenary service by a marriage of interest.

Stanza 34. "Never." Alas! I never can.

Stanza 35. "In division of the records of the mind." In dividing my recollections of her into two groups, and erasing the one.

Stanza 38. "The poet is" (as I think has been already pointed out) Dante.

Stanza 40. "He hunts," &c. He--thy husband.

Stanza 42. "Never, never," &c. Never again! (joys never to return) sung by the ghosts of years departed.

Stanza 51. "I have but an angry fancy"--my only _qualification_.

Stanza 53. "But the jingling of the guinea," &c. But there is no fighting now: the nations get over their quarrels in another way--by the jingling of the guinea, instead of the clang of arms.

Stanzas 54. "Mother-age."; 93. "Mother-age, for mine I know not."

This mother-age is a great difficulty. At first I took it for _the past of history_, but now understand by it _the past of his own life_, at least its earliest and brightest period--that age which had been as a mother, the only mother he ever knew.

Stanza 70. "Youthful joys." The bright hopes of his youth. (?)

Stanza 75. "Blinder motions," Less rational, less well-guided emotions.

Stanza 91. "The distance." The distant future, the "good time coming."

There are some lines in _In Memoriam_ (I have not the book at hand, but any reader thereof will instantly recollect them), which indicate Tennyson's acquaintance with and appreciation of Jeremy Taylor, who thus expresses the thoughts of the "wild fellow in Petronius," suggested by the sight of a floating corpse.

"That peradventure this man's wife, in some part of the Continent, safe and warm, looks next month for the good man's return or, it may be, his son knows nothing of the tempest: or his father thinks of that affectionate kiss which is still warm upon the good old man's cheek ever since he took a kind farewell; and he weeps with joy to think how blessed he shall be when his beloved boy returns into the circle of his father's arms."--_Holy Dying._

Compare with "Sure never moon to evening," &c., in the same poem, and I think the same place: {320}

"Nec nox ulla diem, neque noctem aurora secuta est, Quae non audierit mistos vagitibus aegris Ploratus mortis comites, et funeris atri."--_Lucretius_, ii. 579.

G. P.

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FOLK LORE.

_Sacramental Wine_ (Vol. iii., p. 179.).--From a note by MR. ALBERT WAY, on the use of sacramental wine, one would be led to infer that it was recommended on account of some superstitious belief in its superior excellency from having been used in religious worship; but I would suggest that the same reasons which recommend Teynt wine, the kind generally used for the Sacrament, are those which have established for it a reputation in cases of sickness: these are its rich red colour, and sweet and agreeable flavour.

Weakness is popularly supposed to be caused by a thinness and want of blood; if wine be recommended for this, there is a deeply rooted prejudice in favour of red wine because the blood is red, and upon no better principle than that which prescribes the yellow bark of the barberry for the yellow state of jaundice; the nettle, for the nettle-rash; and the navel-wort (_Cotyledon umbilicus_), for weakness about the umbilical region. The truth is, that rustic practice is much influenced by the doctrine of similitudes, the principle of "_similia similibus curantur_" having been more extensively recognised in the olden time than since the days of Hahnemann.

The sweetness of Teynt wine would recommend it for children, to whom a stronger wine is generally distasteful; but Port is generally prescribed as a tonic for adults.

It may further be remarked, that the recommendation to give Sacramental wine might arise from the fact, that, as in some parishes more wine is provided than is required, the remainder is put by to be given to the poor who may require it at the hands of the clergyman.

In sending these remarks, I am led to request that your correspondents would make Notes upon such old wives' remedies as are employed upon the principles I have mentioned.

JAMES BUCKMAN.

Cirencester, April 12.

_Cure of Disease by means of Sheep._--A child in my parish has been for some time afflicted with disease of some of the respiratory organs. The mother was recommended to have it carried through a flock of sheep as they were let out of the fold in the morning. The time was considered to be of importance.

[Hebrew: B].

L---- Rectory, Somerset.

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ANCIENT INEDITED BALLADS, NO. IV.

I next transcribe the following lines from the same MS. as my last. It is another epitaph on the Mr. Browne that I mentioned in No. II. It contains a curious illustration of a passage in Shakspeare, which has been often debated in the pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES," and so deserves preservation.

"Vpon the death of that right worthye man, MR. BROWNE, late of Caius and Gonville Colledge disceased. Epicedion."--(_Harl. MSS._, No. 367. fol. 155.)

"If vowes or teares from heartes or eyes, Could pearce the unpenitrable skyes, Then might he live, that now heere lyes.

But teares are tonguelesse, vowes are vaine, T' recall what fate calls; els how faine 5 What death hath seis'd, wold I regaine.

But sure th' immortal one belaves This wished soule in 's blissfull waves: Ill comes too oft, when no man craves.

Rest, therefore, vrne, rest quietlye, 10 And when my fates shall call on me, So may I rest, as I wish the. "R. CONSTABLE, Caio-Gonvillensis."

I need hardly point out the striking similarity between the expression in Shakspeare--

"and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods,"--

and the third stanza of this poem.

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

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POETICAL COINCIDENCES, ETC.

_Byron._

In the _Jealous Lovers_ of Thomas Randolph, the following passage occurs, which may possibly have suggested to Lord Byron the fearful curse he has put into the mouth of Eve, in "the grand and tremendous drama of _Cain_."[1]

"May perpetual jealousie Wait on their beds, and poison their embraces With just suspitions; may their children be Deform'd, and fright the mother at the birth: May they live long and wretched; all men's hate, And yet have misery enough for pity: May they be long a-dying--of diseases Painful and loathsome," &c.

That exquisite stanza in the Third Canto of _Childe Harold_, "Even as a broken mirror," &c., has been often admired. In Carew's poem, _The Spark_, I find the following lines, which contain similar image:

{321}

"And as a looking-glass, from the aspect, Whilst it is whole, doth but one face reflect, But being crack'd, or broken, there are shown Many half faces, which at first were one; So Love," &c.

To the coincidences which have been already pointed out regarding that exquisite line in the _Bride of Abydos_:

"The mind, the music breathing from her face,"

the following from Carew may perhaps be added:

"The harmony of colours, features, grace, Resulting airs (the magic of a face) Of musical sweet tunes, all which combin'd, To crown one sovereign beauty, lie confined To this dark vault."--_Epitaph on the Lady S._

All will recollect the wonderful description of the shipwreck in _Don Juan_; and more particularly the incidents so graphically related in stanzas 52 and 53 of the Second Canto: to a part of which, the following passage fro Lee's _Oedipus_ bears some resemblance:

"Methought I heard a voice, Now roaring like the ocean, when the winds Fight with the waves; now in a still small tone Your dying accents fell, as wrecking ships, After the dreadful yell, sink murm'ring down, And bubble up a noise."

I have now before me a print of John, the first Lord Byron, engraved from a painting in the collection of Lord Delaware; in which he is pourtrayed in armour, with a truncheon in the left hand, and the _right arm bare_ to above the elbow. Can this have suggested to Lord Byron the idea of describing "Alp the renegade" as fighting with "the white arm bare," in the _Siege of Corinth_?

Byron refers to Smollett as an authority for "blatant beast," apparently forgetting that the figure originated with Spenser. Again, in a note to _Don Juan_ respecting his use of the phrase "reformadoes," he remarks:

"The Baron Bradwardine, in _Waverley_, is authority for the word."

It occurs, however, in Ben Jonson, and may be found in Blount's _Glossographia_; Phillips's _World of Words_, and other old dictionaries of the same period.

T. C. SMITH.

[Footnote 1: Sir Walter Scott.]

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THE REPUBLIC OF SAN MARINO.

Amidst the Apennines, far removed from the ordinary track of tourists, is the diminutive republic of San Marino, which boasts never to have been subjugated. Whether it has escaped invasion because it has escaped notice, or because burglars never attack an empty cottage, is a point which I shall not stop to discuss. Few travellers visit it, but the trouble of doing so would be amply repaid. The situation is highly romantic; and the view from the summit of the bold escarpment, upon which the town is perched, extends over a wilderness of mountains.

The population of the territory is said not to exceed 6,000 or 7,000 souls. Its whole income is derived from a moderate duty on tobacco; and its standing army (for it possesses this indispensable incident to political independence) is chiefly employed in vain attempts to prevent the evasion of that duty.

Among the greatest and most highly esteemed curiosities of the place, is a statue of Christ on the cross, with a head of real hair, which is cut twice a year, and always grows again! This faculty of reproduction is as profitable as it is wonderful; for, besides the resort of pious visitors, drawn by the capillary attractions of such a miraculous piece of sculpture, the locks that are cut off are stated, by the ecclesiastical functionaries in charge of the statue, to be a sure preservative against all harm to the wearer, and are of course in request as an article of commerce. My object in communicating to you these notes, is to introduce to you a copy, which I transcribed myself, of one of the state papers preserved in the archives of the republic. It appears to be a letter of encouragement, addressed by the Priors and Gonfaloniere of the republic of Florence to that of S. Marino, during a siege that the latter was undergoing. Perhaps some of your readers may be able to point out the precise occasion that called for the letter.

SYDNEY SMIRKE.

"Magnifici viri amici nri car^{mi}, Habbiamo vedato la lettera vi scrive il Governatore, et habbiamo inteso la volunta dello exercito della Chiesa. Dovete essere di buono animo et stare constanti et fermi: et perdere la vita insieme con la liberta che e meglo allo huomo uso a essere libero, essere morto che essere servo. Iddio a chi piace la liberta vi aiutera difenderai: et noi et la nra lega non vi manchera: havete inteso le provisioni facte et di denari et di gente ad Arimino; et faremo delle altre tante che saranno abastanza. Valete. Ex palatio nro die viij. Junij, M.CCCCLXVIIIj.

"Priores libertatis et } Vexillifer Justitiae } Populi Florentinj.

"Barth. Scala.

"Magnificis Viris hominibus terrae S[=a] Marini amicis nris car^{mis}."

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ST. FRANCIS.