Part 2
_Doctor Johnson a Prophet._--Can any of your readers inform me where the following anecdote is recorded? It bears the mark of authenticity, and if so adds, to the extraordinary gifts of the great moralist, that of prophecy; be it observed, however, that the prognostication is founded on a deduction of science. As the Doctor was one evening leaning out of the window of his house in Bolt Court, Fleet Street, he observed the parish lamplighter nimbly ascend a ladder for the purpose of lighting one of the old glimmering oil lamps which only served to make "darkness visible." The man had scarcely descended the ladder half way, when he discovered that the flame had expired; quickly returning he lifted the cover partially, and thrusting the end of his torch beneath it, the flame was instantly communicated to the wick by the thick vapour which issued from it.
"Ah!" exclaimed the Doctor, after a pause, and giving utterance to his thoughts, "Ah! one of these days the streets of London will be lighted by smoke!" It is needless to add that in the succeeding century the prediction was verified.
M. W. B.
_Coleridge and Plato._--Without becoming "a piddler in minute plagiarisms" (as Gifford called Warton), I think the following coincidence worth noting. S. T. Coleridge, in his "Lines on an Autumnal Evening," has these lines:
"On seraph wing I'd float a dream by night, To soothe my love with shadows of delight; Or soar aloft to be the spangled skies. And gaze upon her with a thousand eyes."
Plato had written ("To Stella," in _Anthol. Palat._):
Ἀστέρας εἰσαθρεῖς Ἀστὴρ ἐμός· εἴθε γενοίμην Οὐρανὸς ὡς μυρίοις ὄμμασιν εἴς σε βλέπω.
I cannot withhold Shelley's exquisite version:
"Fair star of life and love, my soul's delight! Why lookest thou on the crystalline skies? O that my spirit were yon heaven of night, Which gazes on thee with its thousand eyes!"
_Revolt of Islam_, c. ix. st. 36.
Dr. Wellesley's _Anthologia Polyglotta_ contains several versions of Plato's lines. There is also one by Swynfen Jervis, in Lewis's _Biographical History of Philosophy_, s. v. Plato.
C. P. PH***.
_Epitaph in St. Giles' Church, Norwich._--
"ELIZABETHA BEDINGFIELD, Sorori Francisce Sve S. R. Q. P.
"My name speaks what I was, and am, and have, A Bedding field, a piece of earth, a grave, Where I expect, untill my soule shall bring Unto the field an everlasting spring; For rayse and rayse out of the earth and slime, God did the first, and will the second time. Obiit Die 10 Maii 1637."
The above epitaph is curious; but what is the meaning of the letters "S. R. Q. P.?"
NEDLAM.
_Hair in Seals._--Stillingfleet, referring to a MS. author, who wrote a chronicle of St. Augustine's, says:
"He observes one particular custom of the Normans, _that they were wont to put some of the hair of their heads or beards into the wax of their seals_: I suppose rather to be kept as monuments than as adding any strength or weight to their charters. So he observes, _that some of the hair of William, Earl of Warren, was in his time kept in the Priory of Lewis_."--_Orig. Brit._, chap. I., _Works_, Lond. 1710, tom. iii. p. 13.
J. SANSOM.
_To_ "_eliminate_."--The meaning of this word, according both to its etymology and its usage in the Latin authors, is quite clear; it is to "turn out of doors." Figuratively, it has been used by mathematicians to denote the process by which all incidental matters are gradually thrown out of an equation to be solved, &c., so that only its essential conditions at last remain. Of late, however, I have observed it used not of the _act_ of elimination, but of the _result_; a sense quite foreign to its true meaning, and producing great ambiguity. Thus, in a recent Discourse, the object of biblical exegesis is declared to be "the _elimination_ of the statements of the Bible respecting doctrine;" the author evidently meaning, not what his words imply,--to get rid of the statements of the Bible,--though that has been sometimes the problem of exegesis, but to present the doctrinal result in a clear form, and detached from everything else.
A PRECISIAN.
Queries.
ALGERNON SYDNEY.
In no way, perhaps, has "N. & Q." been so useful to the literary public as in making itself the ready means of concentrating on any given point the various readings of many persons; unless, indeed, it should be considered more useful to have proved how courteous, how willing to oblige--even at some personal sacrifices--men of reading are in this day and generation. The information recently sent from so many quarters in relation to General Wolfe is a good example of what may be done in other cases; that about Sterne in Paris is another. The latter instance suggests to me a way in which some of your correspondents, whose private communications I have had to acknowledge in reference to other inquiries, might do me a real service at no great inconvenience perhaps to themselves.
I am collecting materials for a volume on Algernon Sydney. A great part of this illustrious patriot's life was spent abroad; in many parts of the continent, France, Holland, Denmark, Italy, Germany, &c. This part of his history has been so far veiled in considerable obscurity, and incidents of it misrepresented. Some better knowledge of it than we now possess, must be, I think, recoverable. A man of Sydney's birth, active temperament, and distinguished abilities, must have been spoken of in many letters and memoirs of that time. No doubt anecdotes and traits of character may be found in cotemporary French, Italian, German, and Scandinavian literature.
But with a library so vast to examine, no single man could ever feel sure that nothing was overlooked. Other explorers, working for themselves, may have hit upon statements or anecdotes of the greatest value to me. May I ask any such to oblige me by references to any works in which the information that I seek is to be found; sent either to "N. & Q.," or to my address as under?
HEPWORTH DIXON.
84. St. John's Wood Terrace.
OLD IRISH TALES.
A black-letter duodecimo, printed in London in 1584, under the anomalous title of _Beware the Cat_, was advertised for sale in one of Thorpe's Catalogues a few years back, at a price of seven guineas. The copy was believed to be unique; it had been in the libraries of several book collectors, and among others of Mr. Heber, who considered it the most curious volume illustrative of the times, in all his vast collection. It appears, by the short abstract of contents, that the book contains some curious notices of Ireland and Irishmen; an "account" is given "of the civil wars in Ireland, by Mackmorro, and all the rest of the wild Irish lords." This hero was probably Art Kavanagh, "the Mac-Morrogh" (the hereditary title of the chief of the Leinster septs) whose rebellions were, on two occasions, the cause of Richard II.'s two great expeditions to Ireland. Then follows the tale of "Fitz-Harris and the Prior of Tintern Abbey." Fitz-Harris, or Fitz-Henry, was an Anglo-Irish baron, who resided in the south of the county of Wexford, in the neighbourhood of a convent, which having been founded by Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, and supplied with monks from Tintern in Monmouthshire, was named after the parent monastery. The Fitz-Harris's are said to have descended from Meyler Fitz-Henry, the "indomitor totius gentis Hiberniæ," but they became, to quote Spenser's adage current of the Anglo-Irish of his day,
"As Irish as O'Hanlan's breech;"
they "matched with the Kavanaghs of Carlow, and held with them," and thus became involved in the interminable feuds of the native tribes, and, like them, they left their estates to their bastards.
"The fashion of the Irish wars at that time" is there described, but probably not more graphically than in Derrick's quaint doggrel verses. "The Irish Churle's Tale" is next told; the churl was the husbandman, the "Protectionist" of the day, who doubtless could tell many piteous tales of oppression, rapine, and ravishment, whose only hope of protection lay in acting as a sort of sponge to some "wild lord" (who would guard him from being plundered by others, that he might himself devour his substance), and whose "tenant-right" cry of that day was "spend me, but defend me."
The volume affirms that "the wild Irishmen were better than we in reverencing their religion:" the verb is used in the preterimperfect tense. "The old Irish diet was to dine at night;" this is even a stranger assertion. Higden, in his _Polychronicon_, declares of the Irish clergy,
"They ben chaste, and sayen many prayers, and done great abstinence a-day, and drinketh all night."
That glorious _chanson à boire_, commencing
"I cannot eat but little meat, My stomach is not good; But I do think that I can drink With him that wears a hood!"
must have been composed in Ireland. If the old black-letter book had said that the Irish _got their dinner_ at night, it would have been nearer the truth, for the larders of the Milesian chiefs in the neighbourhood of the English pale were often supplied by the nocturnal marauds of their cattle-lifters. However, I see that Stanihurst writes that the Irish dined in winter _before_ day, and in summer about the seventh hour.
Can any of your readers say in whose possession this book is now? I was informed that it was purchased by a dignitary of Cambridge University.
H. F. H.
Wexford.
POLITICAL PAMPHLETS.
The loan of the following works is much desired by a gentleman who has in vain tried to find them in the British Museum, or to purchase them. They belong to a class of books which being of little money-value are generally _wasted_ by booksellers, rarely or never inserted in their catalogues:--
_A Collection of Letters on Government, Liberty and the Constitution_, which appeared from the time Lord Bute was appointed First Lord of the Treasury to the Death of Lord Egremont. 3 vols. [possibly 4], published in 1774 by Almon.
_A Collection of esteemed Political Tracts_, which appeared 1764, 5, and 6. 3 or 4 vols. published 1766 or 7, by Almon.
_A Collection of most Interesting Political Letters_ which appeared in the Public Papers from 1763 to 1765. 3 or 4 vols. Almon, 1766.
_The Briton_ (a Periodical). 1763.
_The Auditor_ (a Periodical). 1763.
_A Collection of all Remarkable and Personal Passages in the Briton, North Briton, and Auditor._ Almon, 1765.
_The Expostulation_, a Poem. Bingley, 1768.
_Vox Senatus._ 1771.
_Two Remarkable Letters of Junius and The Freeholder._ 1770.
_Junius's Letters._ Wheble, 1771 (not 1772 or 1775).
_Wilkes's Speeches._ 3 vols.
The Editor of "N. & Q." has undertaken to take charge of them, and when done with to return them safely to their respective owners.
Q. N.
Minor Queries.
_The Book of Nicholas Leigh._--Some twenty or thirty years since a gentleman named Abraham Roth resided in London, having in his possession a manuscript of the early part of the seventeenth century bearing the above title, and relating to the history and internal polity of the town of Kilkenny. It is frequently quoted by Dr. Ledwich in his _Antiquities of Kilkenny and Irishtown_. Mr. Roth subsequently deceased in London, and it is believed his books and other effects were sold there.
Qy. Is _The Book of Nicholas Leigh_ known to any of the correspondents or readers of "N. & Q.?"
JAMES GRAVES.
Kilkenny.
_Gabriel Harvey's Notes on Chaucer._--It appears by a note of Park's in Warton's _Poetry_, vol. iii. p. 86. (ed. 1840), that Bishop Percy had in his possession a copy of Speght's _Chaucer_, in which was a note by Gabriel Harvey to the effect that some of Heywood's _Epigrams_ were supposed to be "conceits and devices of pleasant Sir Thomas More." Is the copy of Speght in existence, and where? If it contain many notes by Harvey, they would probably prove to be worth recording.
PHILO CHAUCER.
_The Cholera and the Electrometer._--During the late visitation of cholera, observations were made tending to establish a relation between the state of the Electrometer and the quotidian fluctuations of the disease.
Where can any authentic account of these observations be found, and what is the name of the observer?
T. J.
_Terre Isaac._--Can I be referred to any source of information respecting Isaac, mentioned in _Domesday Book_ as holding lands in Norfolk of the gift of the Conqueror, and whether he had any descendants?
G. A. C.
_Daundelyon._--One of the earliest Queries kindly inserted in Vol. i., p. 92., requesting information regarding the legend and tradition of the tenor bell at Margate, being still unanswered, be pleased to append as a note the following lines from a descriptive poem called _The Margate Guide_, 1797, by the late Mr. Zechariah Cozens, an esteemed local antiquary, now buried within its sound:
"But on the north John Daundelyon lies, Whose wondrous deeds our children yet surprise; Still at his feet his faithful dog remains, Who with his master equal notice claims; For by their joint exertions legends tell, They brought from far the ponderous tenor bell."
"_Note._--Concerning this bell the inhabitants repeat this traditionary rhyme:
"John de Daundelyon with his great dog, Brought over this bell upon a mill cog."
Page 31.
E. D.
_Mallet's Death and Burial._--Where did Mallet the poet die, and where was he buried?
F.
_Classical Quotations in Grotius._--I have been told that Grotius quoted from memory _alone_ when writing his _Commentary_; is this possible, considering the number and variety of the quotations? One thing is certainly very remarkable, and goes some way towards favouring this notion, viz., in many of the quotations there are mistakes,--words are inserted, or rather substituted for others, but without destroying the sense. This I have frequently observed myself; but the observation applies only, as far as I know, to the _poetical_ quotations;--may he not have quoted the _poetry_ from memory, and, for the _prose_, had recourse to the original?
L. G.
_The Authorised Version._--You have allowed some discussion in your pages on what I consider the certainly incorrect translation of Heb. xiii. 4. in our authorised version. I do not think it at all desirable to encourage a captious spirit of fault-finding towards that admirable translation, but fair criticism is assuredly allowable. Can any of your correspondents account for the rendering in Heb. x. 23. of τὴν ὁμολογίαν τῆς _ἐλπίδος_ by "the _pro_fession of our _faith_?"
I have never seen any reply to a former Query of mine (Vol. ii., p. 217.) about the omission of the word "holy" in the article on the Church in the Nicene Creed in all our Prayer-books. It is not omitted in the original Greek and Latin.
J. M. W.
_Rector's Chancel._--Would you, or one of your correspondents, kindly inform me how the following case has been settled; it is one which in all probability has often arisen, but I have not yet been able to learn anything about it that is satisfactory.
In old times when a church became too small for the parish, the ordinary custom was to build an additional part to it in such a way that the old church, after the alteration, formed an aisle to the new part, which henceforth because the nave. Until the Reformation the altar in the old chancel would probably remain after the new chancel was built, and be used as an inferior altar, while the new altar would be used for high mass; under these circumstances the rector's right in the chancel would probably remain untouched, and his obligation to keep it in repair undisputed. But when, at the Reformation, all but high altars were taken away, which chancel was accounted the rector's, the new, or the old, or both? This question has just arisen in an adjoining county.
H. C. K.
---- Rectory, Hereford.
_Duchess of Lancaster._--Can any of your correspondents inform us whether the Queen is really Duchess of Lancaster? The Lancastrians have always rather prided themselves on that circumstance, but some wise person has lately made the discovery that William III. never created himself Duke of Lancaster, nor any of the Hanoverian dynasty, and that consequently the title remains with the Stuarts, although the duchy privileges belong to the Crown. Is this really the truth?
A LANCASTRIAN.
_Cheke's Clock._--Strype, in his _Life of Sir John Cheke_, mentions that among other presents bestowed on him by the king, was his own clock, which after his death came into the possession of Dr. Edwin Sandys, Bishop of Worcester, who, about 1563, gave it as a new year's gift to Cecil the Secretary. Can any of your readers give a description of this clock, or what became of it after coming into Cecil's possession?
C. B. T.
_Ruthven Family._--In a pedigree by Vincent in the College of Arms, two sons of Patrick Ruthven are to be found, the first called Cames de Gowrie, the second Robert Ruthven; they were alive in 1660. Can any of your correspondents tell me what became of them?
S. C.
"_The Man in the Almanack._"--Will some kind correspondent favour me with an elucidation of the phrase "Man in the Almanack," which occurs in the following quotation from the epilogue to Nat. Lee's _Gloriana, or the Court of Augustus Cæsar_?
"The ladies, too, neglecting every grace, Mob'd up in night cloaths, came with lace to face, The Towre upon the forehead all turn'd back, And stuck with pins like th' Man i' th' Almanack."
Has this any reference to the practice of "pricking for fortunes?"
HENRY CAMPKIN.
_Arkwright._--What is the origin of this name? It might have been the family name of the patriarch Noah, but I suppose it hardly goes so far back.
M.
_Burial, Law respecting._--Is there in existence any law rendering burial in consecrated ground compulsory? Most people have a strong desire to receive such interment; but some few might prefer to have their mortal remains deposited in some loved spot, far away from other graves,--in a scene where many happy hours had been passed. It would be a very unusual thing; but supposing such a desire to exist, could its execution be prevented? It is recorded that Manasseh, King of Judah, "slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the gardens of Uzza."--2 Kings xxi. 18.
SAMPSON ANRAMENII.
_Mr. Borrow's Muggletonians._--If this gentleman correctly states (in his _Lavengro_) that a minister of the Antinomians, with whom he was formerly acquainted, was otherwise called a Muggletonian, the inconceivable fact of that wretched maniac of the seventeenth century (whose portrait indicates the most hopeless fatuity) still having believers, must be a fact. But I marvel how Antinomianism should arise out of the teaching of an Unitarian, as Muggleton was. Can Mr. B. have confounded Muggleton with Huntington?
A. N.
_Puritan Antipathy to Custard._--Can any of your readers inform me why "custard" was held in such abomination by the Puritans?--See _Ken's Life_, by W. L. Bowles, vol. i. p. 143.
W. N.
_"Corruptio Optimi," &c._--To what source is the well-known saying, "Corruptio optimi fit pessima," to be traced?
Hs.
_Miss Fanshawe's Enigma._--The enigma of Miss Catherine Fanshawe on the letter "H" is so good, as to make me wish much to see the other by the same lady, to which E. H. Y. refers in your Number of Vol. v., p. 258. If E. H. Y. could procure a copy, and send it to you for publication, he would probably oblige many besides
E. S. S. W.
Winton.
_Mary Ambree._--Is there any good account (not scattered notices) of Mary Ambree?
"That _Mary Ambree_ Who marched so free To the siege of Gaunt, And death could not daunt, As the ballad doth vaunt?"
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
Minor Queries Answered.
_Sir W. Stanley._--I find in one of the usual history books in use that Sir William Stanley, who was beheaded for high treason, for saying "If Perkin Wabbeck is son of Edward IV., I will supply him with five hundred men," was executed in the third year of Henry VII. Now, in a memorandum of the time in a _Horæ B. Virg._ in my possession, it states:
"Memorandum: Quod die lune xvio die Februarii anno Regis Henrici Septimi Decimo Willius Stanley, Miles, Camerarius regis prædicti receptus fuit apud Turrim London, et ductus usque scaffold et ibidem fuit decapitatus. Johannes Warner et Nicholas Allwyn tunc vic. London."
Could you help me to the true account?
JOHN C. JACKSON.
Cross House, Ilminster, Somerset.
[The memorandum in the _Horæ_ agrees with the date given in Fabyan's _Chronicle_, p. 685., edit. 1811, viz. February 16, 1495. Fuller, in his _Worthies_, also states that Allwyn and Warner were sheriffs of London in the tenth year of Henry VII.]
_Mires--Somerlayes._--In the appointment of a pinder for the town of Hunstanton, Norfolk, dated 1644, these two words occur: "No person shall feed any _mires_ with any beast," &c. _Mire_ is clearly the same as _meer_, i.e. the strip of unploughed ground bounding adjacent fields. "None shall tye any of their cattle upon anothers _somerlayes_ without leave of the owner," &c. I suppose _somerlaye_ to be the same as _somerland_, explained by Halliwell to mean, land lying fallow during summer. I find neither word in Forby's _Glossary_.
C. W. G.
[Grass laid down for summer pasture, is called in Kent, _lay fields_; doubtless _somerlayes_ are such. Probably a corruption of _lea_, the _lesura_ of Latin charters.]
_Wyned._--In an old precedent (seventeenth century) of a lease of a house, I find the words "divers parcels of _wyned_ waynescott windowes and other implements of household." What is _wyned_?
C. W. G.
[A friend, who is extremely well versed in early records, and to whom we referred this Query, observes, "I have never met with the word, nor can I find a trace of it anywhere. I suspect that the querist has misread his MS., and that, in the original, it is _payned_, for _paned_. In the slovenly writing of that period many a form of _pa_ might be mistaken for _w_. The upstroke of the _p_ is often driven high. I have seen many a _pa_ like this instance."]
_Cromwell Family._--Two leaves, paged from 243 to 246, cuttings from an old magazine, seemingly having dates down to 1772, entitled "Account of the Male Descendants of Oliver Cromwell. By the Rev. Mr. Hewling Luson, of Lowestoft, in Suffolk. In a Letter to Dr. Brooke." [Concluded from our last, page 197.] The next article commencing, "On the Knowledge of Mankind. From Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son," having lately come into my hands, I shall feel greatly obliged by being informed through "N. & Q.," or otherwise, where may I meet with the previous part of such account of the Cromwell family, or the title and date of such magazine?
W. P. A.
[Mr. Luson's letter to Dr. Brooke, referred to by our correspondent, will be found in Hughes's _Letters_, edited by Duncombe, vol. ii. Appendix, p. xxxii. edit. 1773.]
_Beholden._--Is the word "beholden" a corruption of the Dutch "gehouden," or is it a past participle from the verb "to behold?" If the latter, how comes it from signifying "seen," to denote "indebted"?
A. F. S.
[If our correspondent had referred to Richardson's _Dictionary_, his difficulty would have been removed on reading this derivation and definition:
"_Angl.-Saxon_, Be-healdan, Be-haldan, Healdan. _Dutch_, Behouden, tenere, servare, observare. To keep or hold (_sc._ the eye fixed upon any object), to look at it, to observe, to consider."]
_Men of Kent and Kentish Men._--The natives of Kent are often spoken of in these different terms. Will you be so good as to inform me what is the difference between these most undoubtedly distinctive people?
B. M.