Part 1

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[Transcriber's note: Original spelling varieties have not been standardized. Underscores have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts. A list of volumes and pages in "Notes and Queries" has been added at the end.]

NOTES and QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION

FOR

LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

VOL. IV.--No. 96. SATURDAY, AUGUST 30. 1851.

Price Threepence. Stamped Edition 4_d._

CONTENTS.

Page

The Caxton Memorial and Chaucer's Monument 145

NOTES:--

Collar of SS., by Edward Foss 147

Printing 148

Folk Lore:--Bible Divination in Suffolk--Mode of discovering Bodies of the Drowned--Somersetshire Rhyme 148

Dictionary of Hackneyed Quotations 149

Minor Notes:--Cocker's Arithmetic--The Duke of Normandy--Anachronisms and Errors of Painters--The Ring Finger--The Od Force--New Costume for Ladies 149

QUERIES:--

Judges styled Reverend, &c. 151

Minor Queries:--Frederick Egmont; Peter (Egmont?)--Unlucky for Pregnant Women to take on Oath--Cockroach--Felton--Date of a Charter--Thomas Tusser the "Husbandman"--Godfrey Higgins' Works--Noctes Templariæ--Commissioners on Officers of Justice in England--Marcus Ælius Antoninus--Derivation of Pic-nic--Sir Thomas More's Knighthood--Portrait of Mandeville--Early History of Dingle--Language of Ancient Egypt--Dr. Matthew Sutcliffe--Names first given to Parishes--German Testament--The Man of Law--The Termination "Ship"--Nullus and Nemo--The noblest Object of the Work of Art--Poulster 151

MINOR QUERIES ANSWERED:--Rev. Cæsar de Missy--F. Beaumont and Jeremy Taylor--"Carve out Dials"--Log Book--Lord Clydesdale--"Time is the Stuff of which Life is made"--"Yet forty Days"--The Empress Helena 153

REPLIES:--

Royal Library 154

The "Eisell" Controversy 155

Lord Mayor not a Privy Councillor 157

"House of Yvery" 158

On "Rack" in the Tempest 158

Richard Rolle of Hampole 159

Replies to Minor Queries:--Lady Flora Hastings' Bequest--"The Right divine of Kings to govern wrong"--Fairlight Church--Dogmatism and Puppyism--Was Stella Swift's Sister?--Charles Lamb's Epitaph--Meaning of Carnaby--Scandinavian Mythology, &c. 160

MISCELLANEOUS:--

Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 165

Books and Odd Volumes wanted 166

Notices to Correspondents 166

Advertisements 167

THE CAXTON MEMORIAL AND CHAUCER'S MONUMENT.

The result of the appeals which have recently been made to the sympathies of the present age for the purpose of erecting a Memorial to our first Printer, and of restoring the crumbling tomb of one of our earliest and greatest Poets, has gone near to prove that the admirers of Caxton and Chaucer are disposed to yield to the objects of their hero-worship little more than lip service. In short, the plan for the Caxton Memorial, and that for the restoration of Chaucer's Monument, have well nigh failed.

The projectors of the former had, indeed, in the necessity of settling what the Caxton Memorial should be, to encounter, at the very outset of their undertaking, one difficulty from which the Chaucer Committee was free; and the uncertainty whether it should assume the form of the symbolical "lamp and fountain" so poetically suggested by the Dean of St. Paul's, or the ideal cast-iron statue of the Coalbrook Dale Company, may have had a sinister effect upon the Subscription List.

Between the suggestive symbol and the fancy portrait there would seem to be little room for hesitation, since the former would merely veil a truth, while the latter would perpetuate a falsehood. But our readers have had before them a third, and, as it seems to us, a far more reasonable proposal, in that made by MR. BOLTON CORNEY for a collective impression of Caxton's original compositions: and we cannot but think that if that gentleman will take the trouble to enter into the necessary details as to the extent of such compositions, and the expense of transcribing and printing them, his scheme may yet be realised, and that too to the satisfaction of all the subscribers to the Caxton Memorial. The following communication indicates the favour with which MR. CORNEY'S proposal will probably be received by the followers of Caxton's art in this country.

I have just read with great pleasure the article on "A Caxton Memorial suggested" in your Number for the 19th of July. I was particularly pleased with the "_proposed conditions_;" and as an humble follower of the art of which Caxton stands at the head, and as an enthusiastic admirer of that great and talented, and learned printer, I should feel great pleasure in becoming a subscriber, should anything of the kind be undertaken; and have no doubt but that many,--aye, as many as might be required to complete the subscription list, might be found among the printers of this country, who would feel proud to subscribe to such a "Memorial." If anything of the kind should be undertaken, the projectors might depend upon me becoming a subscriber.

HENRY RYLETT, Printer.

Horncastle, Aug. 18. 1851.

The following letter, on the other hand, from a correspondent whose smallest suggestion deserves, as it will be sure to receive, the respectful attention of all who have the pleasure of knowing his high personal character and great acquirements, although pointing at what might be a fitting Memorial of one of the greatest of the Worthies of Westminster, clearly indicates that if MR. CORNEY'S scheme can be carried out it will have the benefit of the writer's encouragement and support:

MR. BOLTON CORNEY'S letter is entitled to much attention. It is satisfactory to learn that the original design has been abandoned. The fountain and the illumination might be a very pretty idea, but it would have sorely puzzled some of our countrymen to connect that memorial in their minds with the name and services of the first English printer.

Might not the funds that were raised be advantageously employed in founding a Caxton scholarship at Westminster School; or in the building or enlarging some school bearing Caxton's name, connected with Westminster? The spiritual wants of that city are great.

If the statue be raised, which should not present a _bonâ fide_ resemblance to our celebrated printer, it would be worse than valueless--something like an imposture and it would have as little connexion with Caxton as the statue in St. Peter's bears to the great Apostle, though called by his name.

MR. CORNEY'S proposal, of giving an impression of Caxton's original compositions, would unquestionably be his most enduring and glorious monument. These reprints would be dear, not only to the bibliographer, but to the philologist and men of letters generally. But the work would be an expensive one, and the editors should be far more liberally recompensed than by merely receiving a limited number of copies. As the subscription would probably be very limited, the work should be undertaken by the nation, and not by individuals; still, the funds already raised, if not otherwise expended for educational purposes, as before suggested, would serve as the foundation for accomplishing MR. CORNEY'S excellent suggestion.

J. H. M.

Our present purpose, however, is to call attention to a hint thrown out not only in the following Note addressed to ourselves (which, be it observed, has been in type for several weeks), but also in the pages of our learned and able contemporary the GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE, in an article from which we extract the most important passage, namely, that in the event of the failure of the projected Caxton Memorial, the funds subscribed might with propriety and good effect be applied (the consent of the subscribers being of course first obtained) to an object with which Caxton himself would so surely have sympathised, namely, the restoration of the tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer:

_Chaucer and Caxton._--"Not half" of the required 100_l._ "has yet been subscribed" for the restoration of Chaucer's monument. Chaucer was an especial favourite of Caxton; and as the first English printer seems for awhile destined to remain without "light and fountain," as once upon a time suggested by Dr. Milman, treasurer of the Caxton fund, possibly the subscribers to that fund would not object to the transmission of the sum required by the old monument of the poet, from the no monument of the printer? Will the Dean of St. Paul's ask for suffrages on the matter?

Q.

After alluding to the various proposals for the Caxton Memorial, and the correspondence between MR. BOLTON CORNEY and MR. BERIAH BOTFIELD in "NOTES AND QUERIES," Sylvanus Urban proceeds:

"But the discussion will do good. If neither proposal can be carried out, we shall probably have a better suggestion than either. The money in hand is said to be _far short_ of the sum necessary to erect a statue or to print the works; if so, why not repair Chaucer's tomb with it? Nothing would be more agreeable to Caxton himself. He not only printed Chaucer's works, and re-imprinted them merely to get rid of errors; but, feeling that the great poet 'ought eternally to be remembered' in the place where he lies buried, he hung up an epitaph to his memory over that tomb which is now mouldering to decay.

"'Post obitum Caxton voluit te vivere, cura Willelmi, Chaucer clare poeta, tui, Nam tua, non solum, compressit opuscula formis, Has quoque sed laudes jussit hic esse tuas.'

"The epitaph, touching evidence of Caxton's affection for the poet, has disappeared. In a few years the tomb itself will have submitted to inevitable fate. What better mode of keeping alive the memory of both Chaucer and Caxton, or of doing honour to the pious printer, than by showing that even after the lapse of centuries his wishes for the preservation of Chaucer's memory in that place are not forgotten? If the fund is more than sufficient for the purpose, the surplus might be invested on trust to perform the wish of Caxton, by keeping Chaucer's monument in repair for ever."--_Gentleman's Magazine_, August, p. 167.

Here we leave the matter for the present not, however, without the hope that the present age will do honour to the memories of two of our Illustrious Dead, and that few months will witness both a Caxton Memorial in the shape of a collective edition of his original writings, and the Restoration of the Monument of the Father of English Poetry.

Notes.

COLLAR OF SS.

(Vol. ii., pp. 89. 475.)

No less than nine long months have elapsed since you adopted my suggestion of limiting your columns, on the disputed question relative to the collar of SS., to a record of the names of those persons who, either on the monumental effigies or brasses, or in their portraits or otherwise, are represented as wearing that ornament; together with a short statement of the position held by each of these individuals in the court of the then reigning monarch, seeming to warrant the assumption. How is it that the invitation has not produced more than a single response? Is it that the combatants are more fond of discussing the probabilities of a disputed point, than of seeking for facts to aid in its illustration? I hope that this is not so, in an age that prides itself in its antiquarian and historical investigations; and I trust that, now the dismissal of the parliament has relieved many from onerous duties, your pages may benefit, not only on this but on other important subjects, by the vacational leisure of your learned contributors.

That I may not myself be chargeable with a continuance of the silence of which I complain, I now offer to you no less than eleven of the earliest names, principally taken from Boutell's _Monumental Brasses_, but some suggested in your own pages, on whose monuments or otherwise the collar occurs. To most of these I have added a few particulars seeming to warrant the assumption; and I doubt not that some of your correspondents will supply you with similar hints as to those of whom I have as yet been unable to trace anything applicable to the subject of enquiry.

1. The first of these is in 1382, seventeen years before the accession of Henry IV. It appears on the brass of Sir Thomas Burton, in Little Castreton Church, in Rutlandshire. This knight, we find, received letters of protection on accompanying the Duke of Lancaster to France in 1369, when Edward III. revived his claim to that kingdom.[1] Being thus one of the retainers of the duke, the assumption of his collar of livery may be at once accounted for.

[Footnote 1: N. Foedera, iii. 870.]

2. The next that we have is on the monument of John Gower in the church of St. Saviour, Southwark. The poet died in 1402, 4 Henry IV. It is more than doubtful whether he was a knight, and the only ground that I can suggest for his being represented with the collar of SS. is, that he was in some manner, perhaps as the court poet, attached to the household of the king. Of his transferred devotion to Henry IV. we have sufficient evidence in the revision of his _Confessio Amantis_, from which he excluded all that he had previously said in praise of his patron Richard II.

3. Sir Thomas Massingberd died in 1406, and on his monument in Gunby Church in Lincolnshire, both he and his lady are represented with collars of SS. Why, I have still to seek.

4. In 1407 there is a similar instance of a knight and his lady being so ornamented. These are Sir William and Lady Bagot, whose monument is in Baginton Chruch, Warwickshire. Boutell says that he was the first who received this decoration from the king. Be this as it may, the Patent Rolls contain sufficient to account for his and his wife's assuming King Henry's livery from gratitude for the restoration of his land, which he had forfeited as an adherent to Richard II.[2]

[Footnote 2: Cal. Rot. Pat. 236. 243.]

5. Then follows Sir John Drayton, whose monument, dated in 1411, is in Dorchester Church, Oxfordshire. It may be presumed that he was in the king's household; as in the beginning of the reign of Richard II. he was keeper of the royal swans; and early in that of Henry IV., was serjeant of the king's pavilions and tents. Thomas Drayton, who was made Assayer of the Mint in the year of Sir John's death[3], was probably his son.

[Footnote 3: Cal. Rot. Pat. 196. 259.; Devon's Issue Roll, 286.]

6. In the following year, 1412, we have the collar of SS. represented on the brass of Sir Thomas Swynborne in Little Horkeley Church, Essex. Two or three years before, and perhaps at the time of his death, the knight held the offices of Mayor of Bordeaux, and of the king's lieutenant in those parts.

The last five of these are in the reign of Henry IV. In the reign of Henry V., I am not aware of any examples; but in that of Henry VI., we find five other instances.

7. In Trotton Church, Sussex, is the monument of Thomas Lord Camoys, who died in 1424, and of his wife; both of whom are distinguished by the collar. He was a Knight of the Garter, and commanded the left wing of the English army at the battle of Agincourt.

8. A monument, supposed to be that of Sir John Segrave, dated in 1425, occurs in Dorchester Church, Oxfordshire: of whom I can state nothing.

9. On the brass of John Leventhorpe, Esq., in the church of Sawbridgeworth, in Hertfordshire, the collar is also to be found. He died in 1433, and was one of the executors named in the will of King Henry IV.[4]

[Footnote 4: Devon's Issue Roll, 334.]

10. The monument in Yatton Church, Somersetshire, representing a judge in his robes, is traditionally ascribed to Sir Richard Newton, who died Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1449. This is, I believe, the first example of a judge being represented with the collar of SS.

11. The silver collars of the king's livery bequeathed by the will of John Baret of Bury, may be presumed, although he did not die till after the accession of Edward IV., to be of the livery of Henry VI.; as he is not only represented on his tomb, which he had erected during Henry's reign, with the collar of SS.; but the chantry, also built by him, is profusely ornamented with the same collar, enclosing his monogram J. B. He probably received the privilege of wearing it during Henry's visit to St. Edmondsbury in 1433.[5]

[Footnote 5: Bury Wills, Camden Soc. 15-14. 233.]

I shall be glad to see a continuation of this list carried on through subsequent reigns, since it is only by the multiplication of examples that we shall be enabled to form a more correct conclusion on the various questions connected with this interesting subject.

Will one of your correspondents kindly inform me where it appears that Richard II. ever wore the collar of SS.?

EDWARD FOSS.

PRINTING.

This art cannot be assigned to any single year, but must rather be referred to a _decennium_; and the one in which we now are (1851--1860), is certainly the first decennium of the fifth century of the existence of the art. If anything were proposed in the way of celebration of this _anni_versary, probably the year 1855 would be chosen, not only as the year which touches the middle of the decennium, but as being very probably the year in which the printing of the Bible was completed. We have then a year or two to consider in what manner the spirit which anniversaries usually call up shall be turned to account. The following will probably be suggested.

_A feed._ If we could call down Fust and Gutenberg to witness that within twelve hours after dessert and commonplaces are finished, an account of the dinner, as long as three epistles of St. Paul, would be about the world in something like a hundred thousand copies, such a celebration would have a strong point of interest about it.

_A monument in sculpture._ That is to say, a lame subscription, a committee, five-and-twenty abusive paragraphs before the thing is done, one more when, ten years after, it is completed, and a short notice in the handbooks of London in all time to come.

If these two modes are abandoned, many others would be proposed. Mine would be, a subscription to defray the expense of publishing, on a large scale, a book of fac-similes of early typography, to be sold at a cheap rate, with such prefatory matter as would form an accurate popular history of printing from 1450 to 1550. The great interest with which I saw plain working men looking at the treasures now exhibited in glass cases at the British Museum, made me think of this.

Reference is frequently made upon the origin of printing, to the _fasciculus temporum_, or _Cologne Chronicle_. In one place I find a citation in support of the Gutenberg Bible having been commenced in 1450; in another citation it is only affirmed that printing was first done in that year. The only edition I have the means of consulting at this moment is that of Ratdolt, 1484. And here I find nothing about printing except that, of the year 1457 and thereabouts, it is said that

"Artifices mira celeritate subtiliores solito fiunt. Et impressores librorum multiplicant in terra."

In the preface Ratdolt says that he had printed the _fasciculus_ three times already, of which Hain mentions two. He says, moreover, that this fourth (Venice) edition was _cura et opera diligentiori_. Did Ratdolt, after inquiry, abandon the more specific account above cited, and content himself with the above sentence, as expressing all that could be verified; or, as I have sometimes supposed, do _different books_ circulate under the title of _fasciculus temporum_? Be this as it may, Ratdolt expressly refers to the great impulse which the mechanical arts in general received just about the time when printing became common. Now we may hope the same thing of the decennium on which we are entering, the beginning of which is made conspicuous by the great forcing-house of art, which has not yet got the name it is to keep.

M.

FOLK LORE.

_Bible divination in Suffolk._--In Suffolk it is a practice on New Year's Eve to open a Bible at midnight, and the passage upon which they stick a pin will be the luck (good or bad) that attends them the following year.

R. J. S.

_Mode of Discovering the Bodies of the Drowned._--What must we think of the following, transcribed from the _Gentleman's Mag._, vol. xxxvii. p. 189.? Can such things be?

"WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1767.

"An inquisition was taken at _Newbery_, _Berks_, on the body of a child near two years old, who fell into the river _Kennet_, and was drowned. The jury brought in their verdict _accidental death_. The body was discovered by a very singular experiment, which was as follows:--After diligent search had been made in the river for the child, to no purpose, a two-penny loaf, with a quantity of quicksilver put into it, was set floating from the place where the child it was supposed had fallen in, which steered its course down the river upwards of half a mile, before a great number of spectators, when the body happening to lay on the contrary side of the river, the loaf suddenly tacked about, and swam across the river, and gradually sunk near the child, when both the child and loaf were immediately brought up, with grabbers ready for that purpose."

Is this experiment ever tried at the present time, and do there exist any authentic accounts of such trials and their results?

* & ?

Manpadt House.

_Somersetshire Rhyme._--In Vol. iii., p. 206., there is mention of a traditional rhyme on Lynn and Rising. At Taunton, in Somersetshire, there is a similar tradition current:

"Nertown was a market town When Taunton was a furzy down."

This Nertown is a village adjoining Taunton, and lying on the north side of it. Its name is variously regarded as a corruption of Northtown Near-town, and Nethertown, of which the last is doubtless the right derivation.

R. D. H.

DICTIONARY OF HACKNEYED QUOTATIONS.

Allow me to suggest the publication of a small work, which might be entitled "The Book of Hackneyed Quotations." Manifold would be its usefulness. Here information would be imparted to enquirers anxious to discover the source of such passages and the labours of other oracles, as well as of the editor of "NOTES AND QUERIES," would be thus in this department diminished. Reporters would by this means be enabled to correct mistakes; for, owing either to blunders in the delivery, or errors in the short-hand notes, rarely are quotations faithfully printed. The gentleman "totally unaccustomed to public speaking," and the orator of "unadorned eloquence," might from hence cull some flowers wherewith to embellish their speeches while to the practised author and the accomplished speaker such a collection might serve as an index expurgatorius, teaching them what to avoid as common-place, and so the recurrence of old friends, "familiar in our mouths as household words," would be more "like angels' visits, few and far between."

An index referring to the rhyming or important words should be appended, and it would be advisable to subjoin translation of the few Latin and French citations.