Part 1
[Transcriber's note: Original spelling variations have not been standardized. _Underscores_ have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts. Some Hebrew or Chaldee words may not be shown in an adequate way in this version. 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. V.--No. 117. SATURDAY, JANUARY 24. 1852.
Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition, 5_d._
CONTENTS.
Page
NOTES:--
The Pantheon at Paris 73
Churchill the Poet 74
English Medals: William III. and Grandval, by W. D. Haggard 75
Readings in Shakspeare, No. I. 75
Folk Lore:--Salting a New-born Infant--Lent Crocking--Devonshire Superstition respecting Still-born Children 76
Goldsmith's Pamphlet on the Cock Lane Ghost, by Jas. Crossley 77
Minor Notes:--Traditions of remote Periods through few Links--Preservation of Life at Sea--Epigram 77
QUERIES:--
Minor Queries--Count Konigsmark--"O Leoline! be absolutely just"--Lyte Family--Sir Walter Raleigh's Snuff-box--"Poets beware"--Guanahani, or Cat Island--Wiggan, or Utiggan, an Oxford Student--Prayers for the Fire of London--Donkey--French and Italian Degrees--The Shadow of the Tree of Life--Sun-dials--Nouns always printed with Capital Initials--John of Padua--St. Kenelm--Church 78
MINOR QUERIES ANSWERED:--Hieroglyphics of Vagrants and Criminals--Muggleton and Reeve--Rev. T. Adams--The Archbishop of Spalatro--Bishop Bridgeman--Rouse, the Scottish Psalmist--"Count Cagliostro, or the Charlatan, a Tale of the Reign of Louis XVI."--Churchyard Well and Bath 79
REPLIES:--
Collars of SS. 81
On the First, Final, and Suppressed Volume of the only Expurgatory Index of Rome, by the Rev. J. Mendham 82
The First Paper-mill in England, and Paper-mill near Stevenage, by A. Grayan 83
The Pendulum Demonstration 84
The Cross and the Crucifix, by Sir J. Emerson Tennent 85
Yankee Doodle, by C. H. Cooper 86
Perpetual Lamp 87
Kibroth Hattavah and Wady Mokatteb: Num. xi. 26. critically examined, by Moses Margoliouth 87
Replies to Minor Queries:--"Theophania"--Royal Library--Reichenbach's Ghosts--Marriage Tithe in Wales--Paul Hoste--John of Halifax--Age of Trees--"Mirabilis Liber"--Cæsarius, &c.--Tripos--"Please the Pigs"--Basnet Family--Serjeants' Rings--"Crowns have their Compass"--Hell paved with the Skulls of Priests--Cooper's Miniature of Cromwell--King Street Theatre--Groom, Meaning of--Schola Cordis, &c. 88
MISCELLANEOUS:--
Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 94
Books and Odd Volumes wanted 94
Notices to Correspondents 94
Advertisements 95
Notes.
THE PANTHEON AT PARIS.
Among the circumstances which have attracted notice in the remarkable events of the present French revolution, the restoration of the _Panthéon_ to its primitive ecclesiastical name and destination has been specially adverted to, and certainly not without reason from its implied--indeed, its obvious purpose,--that of propitiating the feelings and courting the adhesion at least of the agricultural population of the country to the new order of things; for, indifferent as Paris, with other cities, may be to religious sentiments or practice, the unsophisticated inhabitants of the provinces still conscientiously pursue the forms and exercise the duties of their long-established worship. No surer means of obtaining their suffrages could have been adopted by the French President than by gaining the favour of the parish priests, whose influence is necessarily paramount on such occasions over their flocks.
In the accounts which have appeared in our journals of the Pantheon and its varied fate, several errors and deficiencies having struck me, I beg leave briefly to correct and supply both, with your permission, by a general history of the beautiful edifice.
The church dedicated to St. Geneviève, patroness of Paris, originally begun by Clovis, and finished by his widow, St. Clotilda, in the sixth century (see Butler's _Lives of Saints_, January 3rd, and June 3rd), had fallen into decay, when Louis XV. determined to construct one near it, upon a large and magnificent scale. Designs presented by the eminent architect Soufflot were adopted, and on the 6th of September, 1764, the king, as stated by Galignani and others, laid the first stone. But scarcely had it emerged from the foundation, when the wide-spreading impiety of the age made it probable that it would eventually be diverted to uses wholly at variance with its destined purpose, and so the following lines foretold so long since as 1777; and never has prediction been more literally in many respects, and for a considerable time more completely, fulfilled:--
"Templum augustum, ingens, reginâ assurgit in urbe, Urbe et patronâ virgine digna domus, Tarda nimis pietas vanos moliris honores! Non sunt hæc, Virgo, factis digna tuis. Ante Deo summâ quam templum extruxeris urbe, Impietas templis tollet et urbe Deum."
The French translation thus impressively renders the sense:--
"Il s'élève à Paris un temple auguste, immense, Digne de Geneviève et des voeux de la France. Tardive piété! dans ce siècle pervers, Tu prépares en vain des monumens divers. Avant qu'il soit fini ce temple magnifique, Les saints et Dieu seront proscrits, Par la secte philosophique Et des temples et de Paris."
In the original pediment, since altered by the sculptor David (of Angers), a bas-relief represented a cross in the midst of clouds; and on the plinth was the following inscription:--
"D. O. M. SUB INVOC. STÆ. GENOVEFÆ--LUD. XV. DICAVIT,"
which, in 1791, when a decree of the National Assembly appropriated this monument of religion to the reception of the remains of illustrious Frenchmen, was changed to--
"AUX GRANDS HOMMES LA PATRIE RECONNAISSANTE."
On the restoration of the Bourbons, and of the edifice to its first purpose, the Latin inscription resumed its place, with the addition of "LUD. XVIII. RESTITUIT," which, however, again gave way to the French epigraph after the revolution of 1830, still probably to be retained, while accompanied with a due reference to the sanctified patroness of the church.
The French inscription was the happy thought of M. Pastoret, one of the few Academicians that embraced at its origin the principles of the Revolution, which he followed through its varying phases, until he attained an advanced age. The first mortuary deposit in the Pantheon was that of Mirabeau, in August, 1791; and, on the 30th May ensuing, the anniversary of the death of Voltaire, "L'Assemblée Nationale déclara cet écrivain le libérateur de la pensée, et digne de recevoir les honneurs décernées aux grands hommes," &c. On the 27th August following, a similar distinction was decreed to J. J. Rousseau; but in January, 1822, the tombs of these apostles of incredulity were removed, until replaced in 1830. In July, 1793, the monster Marat was inhumed there, "amidst the deepest lamentations and mournful expressions of regret for the loss sustained by the country in the death of the most valued of her citizens," whose corpse, however, on the 8th February, 1795, was torn from its cerements and flung, with every mark of ignominy, into the filth of the sewer of Montmartre. In the vicissitudes of popular favour even Mirabeau's effigy was burned in 1793. Such have been the alternations and ever-recurring contests in the feelings and principles of the ascendant parties--
"Et velut æterno certamine prælia pugnasque Edere, turmatim certantia; nec dare pausam, Conciliis et discidiis exercita crebris."
_Lucret._ ii. 117.
The cost of this beautiful edifice may be estimated at about a million sterling, or, taking into consideration the difference in the value of money at the periods, one-third of what was expended on our cathedral of St. Paul. The architect of this and other noble monuments of art, Jean Germain Soufflot, born in 1704, died in August, 1781, the victim, it is said, of the jealousy of his rival artists, whose malignant attacks on his works and fame made too deep an impression on his sensitive feelings, though supported in this trial of his moral fortitude by his most intimate friend and director, that genuine philanthropist, the father and institutor of the _Deaf and dumb_,--the Abbé de l'Epée, in whose arms he died. No one it has been observed, was more justly entitled to have the achievement of his genius invoked, as our Wren's has been, and indicated to the inquirer, as the fit repository of his mortal remains. He did not, however, live to contemplate the completed structure. The sculptor David, who has embellished the pediment with numerous statues, is now a refugee in Brussels, possibly the relative, but certainly the political inheritor of his great namesake's ultra-revolutionary sentiments, the eminent painter, I mean, and _âme damnée_, as he was called, of Robespierre, an exile, too, in Belgium for many years.
The epitaph above referred to of Sir Christopher Wren, under the choir of St. Paul, celebrated as it rightly is, for its appropriate application ("Subtus conditur hujus Ecclesiæ Conditor ... Lector, si monumentum quæris, circumspice"), does not appear, I may add, to have been a primary, or original thought, for it was long preceded by one of somewhat suggestive and similar tenor in the old church of the Jesuits, now in ruins, at Lisbon (St. Jose). "Hoc mausolæo condita est Illustrissima D.D. Philippa D. Comes (Countess) de Linhares--Cujus, si ... pietatem et munificientiam quæris, hoc Templum aspice"--Obiit MDCIII. This date is long anterior to our great architect's birth (1631), and above a century prior to his death in 1723, while, again, the epitaph was not inscribed for several subsequent years.
J. R. (Cork.)
CHURCHILL THE POET.
Mr. Tooke, in the biographical notice prefixed to the new edition, says that Churchill was educated at Westminster school, and at the age of fifteen--
"Became a candidate for admission [on the foundation], and went in head of the election.... At the age of eighteen he stood for a fellowship at Merton College ... when being opposed by candidates of superior age, he was not chosen.... He quitted Westminster school; and there is a story current, that _about this period_ he incurred a repulse at Oxford on account of alleged deficiency in the classics, which is obviously incorrect, as there is no such examination or matriculation in our Universities as could lead to his rejection. In point of fact, long before he was nineteen, he was admitted of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is equally certain that he met with some slight or indignity at Cambridge, from whence he returned immediately after his admission, disgusted at the treatment he experienced, which he afterwards visited on both universities."
There is an obvious confusion here which perhaps I can clear up.
I need not say, to those who know anything of Westminster, and of the old system of examination at our Universities, that a youth who entered college, as it is called, head of an election was qualified, at the time, not merely to have entered the University, but to have taken a degree, had age and circumstances permitted; and this opinion is confirmed in Churchill's case, by his standing for a fellowship at Merton when only in his "second election"--second year on the foundation--at Westminster. How to reconcile this with the stories current is the apparent difficulty, and yet a few words will, I think, make it all clear. There is what is called an "election" every year, from the senior boys on the foundation at Westminster, to scholarships at Christchurch, Oxford, and Trinity, Cambridge. As the scholarships at Oxford are understood to be worth three or four times as much as those at Cambridge, all are anxious to obtain an Oxford scholarship. The election is professedly made after examination; but while I knew anything of the school it was _selection_ according to interest, and it must have been rare scholarship indeed that obtained the reward against private interest. Herein, I take it, was the repulse Churchill met with, not _at_ Oxford, but as a candidate _for_ Oxford. I have little doubt that with all his merit, proved by the prior election into college, he was put off with a Trinity scholarship; and it was not, probably, until he arrived at Cambridge that he clearly understood its exact no-value. He then saw that it was impossible to maintain himself there for three years--he had already imprudently married, and therefore resolved to struggle for himself, and rely on his father's interest to get ordained, and at the proper age he succeeded in getting ordained.
C. P.
ENGLISH MEDALS.--WILLIAM III. AND GRANDVAL.
In "N. & Q.", (Vol. iv., p. 497.), S. H. alludes to the case of Grandval, who was to attempt the life of King William, and likewise to the plot to assassinate him four years afterwards. In my collection of medals relating to English history, I have two silver medals struck to commemorate these events. I beg to send you a description of them for insertion, if you consider them of sufficient interest.
No. I.--Bust to the right; flowing hair and ample drapery: legend, "WILHELMINUS III., D. G. MAG. BRIT. FRANC. ET HIB. REX." Reverse, a monument, or pedestal, on the top of which is the naked body of Grandval, and a man about to dissect it; on each side is a fire-pot, to burn the entrails, and pikes, on which the head and four quarters are stuck; between two pikes, on the right, is a gibbet. An inscription in Latin is on the pedestal to this effect:
"Bartholomew de Grandval, a murderer, bribed by the money of Louis, convicted of parricide, and suffered the most severe punishment for having attempted to assassinate William III., King of Great Britain; his head and quarters exposed to be a frightful monument of his sacrilege, and of the perfidy of the French."
Exergue: "XIII. Aug'st 1692."
No. II.--Bust to the right; flowing hair: legend, "WILHELMUS III., D. G. MAG. BRIT. FRANC. ET HIB. REX;" the breast and shoulders covered by half of a shield, on which is written in Hebrew characters the name "Jehovah," and round it, in Latin, thus "He whom I shield is safe." Reverse: Six women, emblematical of Conspiracy, armed with daggers, snakes, and torches, in dancing attitudes, ready to attempt the king's life, and are withheld by cords issuing from a cloud, held by an invisible hand, which encircle their necks and faces. The legend is to this effect: "An invisible hand withholds them." Exergue: "1696, Boskam F."
W. D. HAGGARD.
Bullion Office, Bank of England.
READINGS IN SHAKSPEARE, NO. I.
"In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets; As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun; and the moist star, Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, Was pale almost to dooms-day with eclipse."
_Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 1.
Such is the present state of the text; and notwithstanding its evident corruption, it has been judiciously preferred by modern editors to the various emendations and additions which, even to the manufacture of a complete line alleged to be deficient, had been unscrupulously made in it.
But the slight change I now wish to propose, in the substance of one word, and in the received sense of another, carries such entire conviction to my own mind of accordance with the genuine intention of Shakspeare, that I may perhaps be pardoned if I speak of it with less hesitation than generally ought to accompany such suggestions, particularly as I do not arrogate to myself its sole merit, but freely relinquish to Malone so much of it as is his due.
With Malone however the suggestion, such as it was, appears to have been but a random guess, abandoned as soon as formed, and avowedly prompted by very different considerations from those that have actuated me. That he should have been on the very brink, as it were, of the true reading, and yet fail to discover it, is only to be accounted for by his subjection to that besetting sin of the day which denied to Shakspeare all philological knowledge except what he might derive through his own language.
In order to give Malone strict justice, I shall transcribe his suggestion, together with the comment by which Steevens appears to have stifled it in the birth:--
"The disagreeable recurrence of the word stars in the second line induces me to believe that As stars, in that which precedes, is a corruption. Perhaps Shakspeare wrote:--
_Astres_ with trains of fire-- ----and dews of blood _Disasterous_ dimm'd the sun.
The word _astre_ is used in an old collection of poems entitled _Diana_, addressed to the Earl of Oxenforde, a book of which I know not the date, but believe it was printed about 1580. In _Othello_ we have _antres_, a word of exactly a similar formation."--_Malone._
"The word _astre_ (which is nowhere else to be found) was affectedly taken from the French by John Southern, author of the poems cited by Mr. Malone. This wretched plagiarist stands indebted both for his verbiage and his imagery to Ronsard."--_Steevens._
Hence, according to Malone's own account, the consideration by which _he_ was led to the suggestion of "astres" was "the disagreeable recurrence of _stars_ in the second line."
He did not perceive the analogy between _aster_ and _disaster_, which renders a verbal antithesis of these two words so extremely probable with Shakspeare!--he did not apparently think of "asters" at all, although that word is so close to the text that it may be almost said to be identical with it; and, notwithstanding that "aster" had been so long familiarised in every English garden as to be literally under his nose, he must search out "astre" in obscure and contemptible ballads, in order that Shakspeare might be sanctioned in the use of it.
But it is absolutely incredible that any person to whom _astre_ suggested itself should not also be reminded of _aster_. The conclusion therefore is almost unavoidable, that Malone and Steevens considered the latter word as too learned for poor Shakspeare's small acquirements. They would not trust him, even for a synonyme to star, unless under the patronage of John Southern!
At least such was the spirit in which too many of the commentators of that day presumed to treat Shakspeare,--him to whom, if to any mortal, his own beautiful language is applicable--
"How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! In apprehension how like a god!"
Let us be thankful we have fallen to better times.
It is only by the occurrence of such difficulties as the present, which, after remaining so long obscure, are at last only resolvable by presupposing in Shakspeare a depth of knowledge far exceeding that of his triflers, that his wonderful and almost mysterious attainments are beginning to be appreciated.
In the present case he must not only have known that the fundamental meaning of _aster_ is a spot of light[1], but he must also have taken into consideration the power of _dis_ in producing an absolute reversal in the meaning of the word to which it may be prefixed. Thus, _service_ is a benefit, _disservice_ is an injury, while _unservice_ (did such a word exist) would be a negative mean between the two extremes. Similarly, if _aster_ signify a spot of light, a name singularly appropriate to a comet, _disaster_[2] must, by reversal, be a _spot of darkness_, and "_disasters in the sun_" no other than what we should call spots or maculæ upon his disk.
[Footnote 1: Ἀστὴρ, ab ἄω, luceo.]
[Footnote 2: Ἀνάστερος, obscurus.]
Can there remain a doubt, therefore, that Shakspeare intended the passage to read as follows, which, requiring neither addition nor alteration of the text as transmitted to us--saving one slight change of "as stars" into "asters,"--must be perfectly intelligible to every reader, especially if accompanied by the simple note of explanation which I subjoin to it:--
"In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets Asters with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun[3], and the moist star Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands, Was sick almost to dooms-day with eclipse."
[Footnote 3: Spots or blotches.]
A. E. B.
Leeds.
FOLK LORE.
_Salting a New-born Infant._--In Ezekiel xvi. 4 we read, "In the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; _thou wast not salted at all_, nor swaddled at all." Salting seems to be spoken of as a regular part of the process which a new-born child underwent amongst the Jews in the days of Ezekiel. Can any one give me information on this point? Can the salt in baptism alluded to by SELEUCUS (Vol. iv., p. 163.) have any connexion with this passage?
ALFRED GATTY.
_Lent Crocking._--The children in this neighbourhood have a custom of going round to the different houses in the parish, on the Monday before Shrove Tuesday, generally by twos and threes, and chanting the following verses, by way of extracting from the inmates sundry contributions of eggs, flour, butter, halfpence, &c., to furnish out the Tuesday's feast:
"Lent Crock, give a pancake, Or a fritter, for my labour, Or a dish of flour, or a piece of bread, Or what you please to render. I see by the latch, There's something to catch; I see by the string, There's a good dame within. Trap, trapping throw, Give me my mumps, and I'll be go" [gone].
The above is the most popular version, and the one indigenous to the place; but there is another set, which was introduced some few years ago by a late schoolmistress, who was a native of another part of the county, where her version was customary:
"Shrove-tide is nigh at hand, And we are come a-shroving; Pray, Dame, give something, An apple, or a dumpling, Or a piece of crumple cheese, Of your own making; Or a piece of pancake. Trip, trapping, throw; Give me my mumps, and I'll be go."
PHILIP HEDGELAND.
Bridestowe, Okehampton.
_Devonshire Superstition respecting Still-born Children._--One of the Commissioners of Devonport complaining last week that a charge of one shilling and sixpence should have been made upon the parish authorities for the grave and interment of a still-born child, said, "When I was a young man it was thought lucky to have a still-born child put into any open grave, as it was considered to be a sure passport to heaven for the next person buried there." Query, Is this prejudice still common?
R. R.
GOLDSMITH'S PAMPHLET ON THE COCK LANE GHOST.