Part 4

These entries are very numerous in our books with every variety of spelling, though the prices remain very much the same. I have found no entries of the kind after 1744, but that may be owing to the accounts being not entered fully in every case after that period; but I cannot agree with J. B. in his assertion that these animals are now considered innocuous; witness the vulgar error with regard to the hedgehog's sucking the teats of cows, an error which no process of reasoning can induce the farmers about here to renounce; moreover, I know for a fact that not more than a dozen years ago the farmers near Wakefield used to give a halfpenny per head for every unlucky sparrow (fledged or unfledged) that was brought to them by any bird-nesting youngster.

J. EASTWOOD.

Ecclesfield, Sheffield.

THE CLAIMS OF LITERATURE.

(Vol. iv., p. 337.)

There is the more pressing need, in our day, of an _Order of Victoria_, or _of Civil Merit_--such as you justly and feelingly contend for and describe in the "NOTES AND QUERIES"--from the great and increasing numbers of our literary and scientific men, who are acutely sensible of the undeserved stigma and ban under which they lie, by being often excluded from the intellectual society so congenial to them, owing to their not possessing some recognised badge of honour and passport in life, equivalent to the degrees or distinctions so justly conferred upon those who have studied at our Universities, or are awarded to men who have won eminence in the Naval, Military, or Civil Service of the Crown. An honourable title, proceeding from the Sovereign herself, and bestowed alike on _both sexes_ (for who would think--certainly not our beloved Queen--of wounding the delicate female mind by excluding a Somerville, a Hannah More, a Joanna Baillie, or a Felicia Hemans--the three latter not needing now our poor applause--from the cheering honours due to their genius, their talents, and their virtues?) would be a fitting tribute from a British, a Christian Monarch to that intellectual superiority and moral worth which are the immortal distinctions of our race. At present many individuals who have raised themselves by their native force of mind and acquirements to a position of honour and respectability as literary and scientific men, are yet looked upon and treated as pariahs by those who are the bestowers and guardians of national distinctions. The just pride and self-respect of such men will forbid their courting, by any unworthy advances, an introduction to society, from which, by their position, they stand excluded; and it would be a truly royal exercise of her sovereign rights, for Queen Victoria to extend, beyond the present line of demarcation, the barriers that now prevent those from meeting together, who, if they were better acquainted, would learn to value and esteem each other: while society at large would be an immense gainer in all its relations--scientific, literary, and artistic--by the honours and distinctions thus conferred upon a most worthy, but most contemned and neglected portion of the educated community.

A CONTRIBUTOR TO "NOTES AND QUERIES."

Replies to Minor Queries.

_Arbor Lowe_--_Stanton Moor_--_Ayre Family_ (Vol. iv., p. 274.).--In Rhodes's _Peak Scenery_, p. 228, it is said:

"Near Middleton, by Youlgrave, we found the celebrated Druidical monument of Arbor Low, one of the most striking remains of antiquity in any part of Derbyshire. This circle includes an area of from forty to fifty yards diameter, formed by a series of large unhewn stones, not standing upright, but all laid on the ground, with an inclination towards the centre; round these the remains of a ditch, circumscribed by a high embankment, may be traced. Near the south entrance into this circle there is a mound, or burial-place, in which some fragments of an urn, some half-burnt bones, and the horns of a stag, were found."

In the same work, at pages 236, 237., is an account of the Druidical remains at Stanton Moor. And at page 224. are the following remarks:--

"The Eyres is one of the oldest families in Derbyshire, where they have continued to reside through the long lapse of more than seven hundred years, as appears from the following curious extract from an old pedigree which is preserved at Hassop. 'The first of the Eyres came in with King William the Conqueror, and his name was Truelove; but in the battle of Hastings (14 Oct. 1066) this Truelove, seeing the king unhorsed, and his helmet beat so close that he could not breathe, pulled off his helmet and horsed him again. The king said, Thou shalt hereafter from Truelove be called _Air_ or _Eyre_, because thou hast given me the air I breathe. After the battle the king called for him, and being found with his thigh cut off, he ordered him to be taken care of; and being recovered, he gave him lands in the county of Derby, in reward for his services, and the seat he lived at he called Hope, because he had hope in the greatest extremity; and the king gave the leg and thigh cut off in armour for his crest, and which is still the crest of all the Eyres in England.'"

A descendant of this person is the present Earl of Newburgh, of Hassop Hall.

At page 240. is an account of the village of Birchover, and also of the Rowter Rocks, but no mention is made of the family of the Ayres, or of the ruins of any house formerly belonging to them.

JOHN ALGOR.

Sheffield.

_The Duke of Monmouth's Pocket-books_ (Vol. iv., p. 3.).--The paragraph quoted by SIR F. MADDEN out of _Prayers after the confession of sins, and the sense of pardon obtained_, and well called by him "striking," is a _verbatim_ copy of a passage in "A Guide for the Penitent," published at the end of Jeremy Taylor's _Golden Grove_.

The short preface, by a nameless hand, which precedes this division of the _Golden Grove_, would lead one to suppose that "A Guide for the Penitent" was a posthumous work of Jeremy Taylor; but this is not exactly stated. The prayers, however, have the same spirit and grandeur of piety which characterise those which are the acknowledged compositions of Bishop Taylor. Monmouth was beheaded eighteen years after Taylor died. It would be interesting to identify the author of "A Guide for the Penitent" (should there be any doubt on the subject): also, to ascertain how far Monmouth _quoted_, in his "prayers," from Taylor or any other divine.

MARGARET GATTY.

Ecclesfield.

_Buxtorf's Translation of Elias Levita's "Tov Taam._"--Your correspondent T. T., in reply to my Query respecting this work, says (Vol. iv., p. 328.) that it "was printed in Venice, 1538, in 4to." This is impossible: for the elder Buxtorf was born in 1564; and it would be singular if he had translated R. Elias' work, and printed it at Venice, twenty-six years before he was born.

T. T. seems not to have observed that my inquiry related to Buxtorf's _translation_, not to the original work of Elias Levita, which, although now rare, is sufficiently well known to Rabbinical scholars. I must therefore renew my inquiry (Vol. iv., p. 272.): has Buxtorf's _translation_ ever been printed, or does it now exist in MS.?

JAMES H. TODD.

Trin. Coll. Dub.

_Burke's "Mighty Boar of the Forest"_ (Vol. iii., p. 493.).--Idomeneus awaiting the attack of AEneas could hardly be compared with Junius attacking every body in his way. Burke more probably borrowed his boar from even a greater poet than Homer. See Psalm lxxx. verses 8 to 13 (Common Prayer Version), and the context before and following, which contains perhaps the most picturesque and beautiful, as well as practical, allegory in the compass even of sacred literature. "The wild boar out of the wood doth root it up, and the wild beasts of the field devour it."

J.M.G.

Hallamshire.

"_Son of the Morning_" (Vol. iv., pp. 209. 330.).--I have always understood Byron's apostrophe "Son of the morning, rise! approach you here!" to be merely an appeal to one of the _Orientals_ who then ruled in that region. And this appears to me to be confirmed by the suggestion which follows that the creed of Mahomet shall pass away as that of Jove has done. The words "Come--but molest not yon defenceless urn," did not appear to me to have any reference to the iconoclastic propensities of the person addressed. But this notice of your correspondent is ingenious.

W.W.

Cambridge.

"_Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love_" (Vol. iv., p. 72.).--This quotation, the author of which was inquired for,--

"When first I attempted your pity to move," &c.

is from a comedy in three acts called the _Panel_, altered from Bickerstaff's comedy _'Tis well it's no worse_.

M.W.B.

Burges, Sept. 26. 1851.

_Anecdote of Curran_ (Vol. iv., p. 173.).--This anecdote, I beg to observe, is incorrectly represented; and surely presents to the reader no adequate provocation for the sharp retort on him attributed to the hostess, on his offering her a glass of wine. But the fact is, that the circumstance occurred, not at a small country inn, but in the city of Galway; nor solely in company with a brother advocate, as stated by M.W.B., but at the general bar-mess. The Connaught circuit was not Curran's, who had been called there _specially_, and who, having heard of the barmaid's ready wit, was determined to test it. Her name, I well recollect, was Honor Slaven; and her quick repartee to the not very delicate jokes constantly practised on her by the gentlemen (?) of the bar, had spread her fame beyond the province. Curran, however, was far superior to those whom she had foiled in these too often unseemly combats, and was expected to prove that superiority in this contest. Among the customary toasts of that time was a succession of three alliterative ones, of which the last was of flagrant indecency; and this Curran resolved should fall to Honor's turn to give in due rotation. Making her take a seat, with one interposed between them, he began with the first:--"Honor (directing himself to _her_) and Honesty," followed by "Love and Loyalty" from his next neighbour; when, ordering a bumper, he said, "Come Honor, you know the next toast; be not squeamish, and let us have it." "No, Sir," replied she, with an arch smile, "but I will pledge you in your own toast--'Honor and Honesty, or, _your absent friends_.'" These last words were uttered with special emphasis, and, in their provoked application, well sustained the barmaid's reported character; as, indeed, promptly acknowledged by Curran himself. I have more than once heard similar retorts from her when thus assailed.

J. R.

Cork.

_Sibi_ (Vol. iv., p. 327.).--The erroneous use of the reflective pronoun, of which MR. FORBES gives an example in a quotation from the _Legenda Aurea_, is common in monkish writings. I have an instance before me, in a charter of Cnut (Kemble's _Codex Dipl. Anglo-Sax._, vol. iv. p. 28.):

"Eius (_i.e._ Christi) quippe largiflua bonitate regia dignitate subtronizatus, ego Knu[d] rex Angligenae nationis, pro nauciscendo eius immensitatis misericordiae dono, concedo _sibi_ de suo proprio quae mihi gratuito concessit, villam," &c.

C. W. G.

_Cassek Gwenwyn_ (Vol. iv., p. 269.).--I learn from the dictionaries of Walters and Owen, that _casec gwanwyn_, mare of spring, means a woodpecker. And the more curious part of the name is confirmed by Llwyd, who calls a woodpecker _casec drychin_, mare of storms. But here I read that _casec gwenwyn_, mare of poison, means a screech-owl. Of this I have not elsewhere found anything. Therefore I ask for more information; to save me from the heresy of thinking that that woman was turned into a woodpecker. In what country and language does _mara_ mean a screech-owl?

A. N.

_The Monumental Inscriptions of the Bourchier Family_ (Vol. iv., p. 233.).--Your inquirer L. M. M. will most probably meet with the information he desires in the county of Essex, of which portion of the kingdom they were Earls, and held immense possessions from the early part of the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. Their principal estates were in the parishes of Moreton, Tollesbury, Chingford, Little Laver, Greensted, Ramsden, South Church, Wakering, Maldon, North Farnbridge, Lachingdon, Mayland, Langford, Great Totham, Bentley, Wickes, Tendring, Great Holland, Beaumont, Ramsey, Bromfield, Rivenhall, Halsted, Hanningfield, Chicknall, Ulting, Messing, Hedingham Sibil, Ballington, Foxearth, Belchamp, Toppesfield, Braintree, Little Easton, Chickney; Broxted, Roding Aythorp, Little Hallingbury, Walden, and Farnham. In all these parishes they held manors, with the advowsons of several of the churches. Many of the manors are called after the family, _Bourchier's Hall_; some members of the family were buried in Bilegh Abbey, which stood in the west part of the town of Maldon. In Halsted they founded a chantry for a master and eight priests; and adjoining Little Easton church still remains a fine chapel, known as Bourchier's chapel, where there are tombs to some of the family in fine preservation. By a visit to the churches of the parishes above enumerated, much information may probably be obtained, for there can be little doubt but so powerful a family were great benefactors to the churches of the several parishes where their estates and mansions were situated; and most probably many members of the family were interred in them, and had tombs to their memory.

J. R. J.

_Test of the Strength of a Bow_ (Vol. iv., p. 56.).--TOXOPHILUS will find all his Queries well answered in Hansard's _Book of Archery_. The modern method of proving a bow is very different from that quoted by PHILOSOPHUS from Ascham, p. 211. A bow is now, I believe, tested by placing the bow across a piece of stout timber made for the purpose, and hanging weights to the string till it reaches about twenty-seven or twenty-eight inches. The weight necessary to do this determines the power of the bow.

H. N. E.

Bitton Vicarage, Oct. 1851.

_Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester_ (Vol. iv., p. 274.).--Is it worth while, in reference to SIGMA'S inquiry as to the name of the author of one of the Bishop of Worcester's works, to tell you a droll mistake on that point, which I have before my eyes? I have the work in a fine old binding, which in the gilt _lettering_ on the back, states it to be by _Ed. Wigorn_. This reminds me of another similar _naivete_. When the late Bishop Prettyman, then Bishop of Winchester, wrote to propose to Mr. Murray to publish his life of Pitt, Mr. Murray, following the signature too literally, addressed his answer to _George Winton, Esq._

C.

_Yankee Doodle_ (Vol. iv., p. 344.).--During the attacks upon the French outposts in 1755 in America, Governor Shirley and General Jackson led the force directed against the enemy lying at Niagara and Frontenac. In the early part of June, whilst these troops were stationed on the banks of the Hudson, near Albany, the descendants of the "Pilgrim fathers" flocked in from the eastern provinces; never was seen such a motley regiment as took up its position on the left wing of the British army. The band played music some two centuries of age, officers and privates had adopted regimentals each man after his own fashion; one wore a flowing wig, while his neighbour rejoiced in hair cropped closely to the head; this one had a coat with wonderful long skirts, his fellow marched without his upper garment; various as the colours of the rainbow were the clothes worn by the gallant band. It so happened that there was a certain Dr. Shuckburgh, wit, musician, and surgeon, and one evening after mess he produced a tune, which he earnestly commended as a well-known piece of military music, to the officers of the militia. The joke succeeded, and Yankee Doodle was hailed by acclamation "their own march." During the unhappy war between the American colonies and the mother country, that quaint merry tune animated the soldiers of Washington; it is now the national air of the United States.

MACKENZIE WALCOTT, M.A.

_General Wolfe_ (Vol. iv., pp. 271. 323.).--Some of the inquiries made at p. 271. respecting General Wolfe have been subsequently answered, I find, in p. 323., but no mention appears of his family beyond his father and mother; a deficiency which I can in some degree supply by ascending to his great-grandfather, Captain George Wo_u_lfe (sic), of whom we are told by Ferrar, in his _History of Limerick_, there printed by A. Watson, in 1787,--

"That on the capitulation of the city of Limerick in October, 1651, to the Parliamentarian general Ireton, twenty of the most distinguished of its defenders were excepted from pardon, and reserved for execution. Amongst them were two brothers, George and Francis Woulfe: the former, a military officer; the latter, a friar, who was hanged,--but the captain made his escape. He fled," says Ferrar (p. 350.), "to the north of England, where he settled; and his grandson, General Edward Woulfe, was appointed colonel of the 8th regiment of foot in the year 1745. He transmitted his virtues with additional lustre to his son Major-General James Woulfe, whose memory will be for ever dear to his country, and whose name will be immortalised in history."

Captain Woulfe married, and changed his religion; to which his brother the friar fell a martyr, exhibiting on the scaffold, it is related, far more intrepidity than many of his fellow sufferers of military rank. Ireton, however, finally pardoned several of those originally excepted from the capitulation. Woulfe's family was at that period one of the most eminent in the county of Clare, where it still retains a respectable rank; and one of its members was the late Chief Baron, Stephen Woulfe, a gentleman equally beloved in society as respected on the bench. Another was a chemist of some eminence in London, at the close of the past century. They retained the _u_ in the name, which most others, like the captain's descendants, laid aside; as Bonaparte did during his triumphant campaign in Italy, in order to un-Italianise and Frenchify his patronymic B_u_onaparte. The Chief Justice Wolfe, who was so barbarously murdered in Dublin at the outbreak of young Emmet's rebellion in 1803, was of a different branch. Edward, the general's father, had distinguished himself under Marlborough, as did the son in 1747, at the battle of Lawfelst on the continent. My own family, I may add, has been brought into close connexion with that of the subsisting Irish branch of the general's stock by intermarriage.

J. R. (Cork.)

_The Violin_ (Vol. iv., p. 101.).--This article reminds me of a distich said to have been inscribed on the violin of Palestrina, the "Musicae Princeps" of the sixteenth century:--

"Viva fui in sylvis; sum dura occisa securi; Dum vixi tacui; mortua dulce sona."

Thus translated into French:

"La hache m'arracha mourant du ford des bois; Vivant, j'etais muet; mort, on vante ma voix."

Palestrina's violin was made by a great musical instrument maker at Bologna, who had the same lines graven on his lutes, bass-viols, &c.

J. R. (Cork.)

_Earwig_ (Vol. iv., p. 274.).--The allusion to the word "Earwig" induces me to repeat a _charade_ on it, not without merit, though the last lines appear more responsive to the rhyme than to the fact:--

"My _first_, if lost, is a disgrace, Unless misfortunes bear the blame; My _second_, though it can't efface, The dreadful loss, yet hides the shame.

"My _whole_ has life, and breathes the air, Delights in softness and repose; Oft, when unseen, attends the fair, And lives on honey, and the rose."

J. R. (Cork.)

_Prophecies of Nostradamus_ (Vol. iv., pp. 86. 140. 258. 329.).--In answer to MR. DE ST. CROIX'S fair inquiry of the source whence I derived my assertion of the existence of the first edition of Nostradamus (at p. 329.), I have to say, that it was from the very intelligent bibliographer, A. A. Renouard. I had known him in Paris at his dwelling in the _Rue de Tournon_ (where my friend, the celebrated Arthur O'Connor, with his wife, the daughter of Condorcat, had apartments), and I afterwards had some interviews with him in London at my own house; when, on observing in his _Catalogue d'un Amateur_ the Elzevir edition of 1668, we entered into some conversation on the subject; and, in reference to the original edition, not much valued indeed as very imperfect, he said, that though now rare, because long, as not worth preserving, neglected, it still may, and must be, in the Royal Library; "il doit necessairement s'y trouver, et non-seulement la, mais ailleurs." I too certainly thought that the great national repository must contain it, but I made no inquiry; and as MR. DE ST. CROIX so diligently pursued the search without discovering it, I conclude, of course, that it is not there; but if he authorises M. Renouard's son, who resides in the _Rue Garanciere_, or any respectable bookseller, to provide the little volume for him, I feel confident of his success. Nor do I apprehend that the price will correspond with its rarity, like the works of so many other writers; such even as the prophecies of Merlin, as stated in the article referred to by MR. DE ST. CROIX, without recurring to our Shakspeare's early editions, or to those of Ariosto, Cervantes, Boccacio, Moliere, Froissart, Le Roman de la Rose, Amadis de Gaule, the _Romances of Chivalry_ in various languages, and the editiones principes of the classics, &c. &c., a comparison of the value of which two centuries or less ago, as we find them in old catalogues, with their present cost, so strikes the reader. Numerous books, on the other hand, have experienced a proportionally equal depreciation:

"Sic volvenda aetas commutat tempora rerum; Quod fuit in pretio, fit nullo denique honore," &c.

_Lucretius_, lib. v. 1276.

J. R. (Cork.)

_Expressions in Milton_ (Vol. iii., p. 241.).--If this Query has already met with an answer, my apology for troubling you with this must be, that it has escaped my notice.

R. is undoubtedly right in supposing that a "toothed sleck stone" means a toothed or jagged whetstone; the word _sleck_ preserving a greater resemblance to its Danish cousin _slecht_ than the modern _slick_.

For "bullish," Milton shall be his own interpreter. "I affirm it to be a _bull, taking away the essence of that which it calls itself_."

The phrase "bid you the base" is apparently taken from the old game of Prisoner's Base, for which, if necessary, reference may be made to the _Boy's Own Book_. I am inclined to think that the very phrase was, in my school days, used in the game; but if wrong in any remembrance, I may still be right in my conjecture, and then the phrase would be equivalent to, "I challenge you to follow me," as one boy follows another in Prisoner's Base; and we should then have a curious illustration of the antiquity of the game.

PHILIP HEDGELAND.

_The Termination "-ship"_ (Vol. iv., p. 153.).--A. W. H. is referred to Dr. Latham's _English Language_, [Section] 294. p. 372., ed. 2. The Dutch termination _-schap_, e.g. _vriendschap_, may be added.

CHARLES THIRIOLD.

"_A little Bird told me_" (Vol. iv. p. 232.).--The following are merely a few rough notes made from time to time on this saying. I have tried to put them into some kind of order but they are too trivial, and too easily verified by reference, to deserve more space in print than they have hitherto had in writing:--

1. Last lines of _King Henry IV._ Part II., and Steevens's note.

2. The "pious lie" of Mahomet's pigeon. See Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, chap. 1. Marg. lemma--"His character," the note beginning--"The Christians, rashly enough," &c. And--"Life of Mahomet" [_Library of Useful Knowledge_] note on p. 19. For line from--_Dunciad_--[a slovenly reference] see book iv. 358.