Part 1
[Transcriber's note: Original spelling variations have not been standardized. Characters with macrons have been marked in brackets with an equal sign, as [=e] for a letter e with a macron on top; [p=] shows a letter p with a stroke through the descender. {Old English style} letters have been shown in {braces}. 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. V.--No. 134. SATURDAY, MAY 22. 1852.
Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition, 5_d._
CONTENTS.
Page
NOTES:--
A few Things about Richard Baxter, by H. M. Bealby 481
Latin Song by Andrew Boorde, by Dr. E. F. Rimbault 482
Shakspeare Notes 483
Publications of the Stuttgart Society, by F. Norgate 484
Manuscript Shakspeare Emendations, by J. O. Halliwell 484
The Grave-stone of Joe Miller 485
Folk Lore:--Swearing on a Skull--New Moon--Rust 485
Minor Notes:--Epitaph at Low Moor--Sir Thomas Overbury's Epitaph--Bibliotheca Literaria--Inscription at Dundrah Castle--Derivation of Charing 486
QUERIES:--
Poem by Nicholas Breton 487
The Virtuosi, or St. Luke's Club 487
The Rabbit as a Symbol 487
Is Wyld's Great Globe a Plagiarism from Molenax? by John Petheram 488
Minor Queries:--Poem on the Burning of the Houses of Parliament--Newton's Library--Meaning of Royd--The Cromwell Family--Sir John Darnell, Knt.--Royal "We"--Gondomar--Wallington's Journal--Epistola Lucifera, &c.--Cambrian Literature--"VCRIMDR" on Coins of Vabalathus--Lines on Woman--Penkenol--Fairfax Family Mansion--Postman and Tubman in the Court of Exchequer--Second Exhumation of King Arthur's Remains, &c. 488
MINOR QUERIES ANSWERED:--Welsh Women's Hats--Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday--Shakspeare, Tennyson, and Claudian 491
REPLIES:--
The Ring Finger 492
The Moravian Hymns 492
Cagots 493
Sheriffs and Lords Lieutenant 494
St. Christopher 494
General Pardons: Sir John Trenchard, by E. S. Taylor 496
Replies to Minor Queries:--Dayesman--Bull; Dun--Algernon Sidney--Age of Trees--Emaciated Monumental Effigies--Bee Park--Sally Lunn--Baxter's Pulpit--Lothian's Scottish Historical Maps--British Ambassadors--Knollys Family--'Prentice Pillars; 'Prentice Windows--St. Bartholomew--Sun-dial Inscription--History of Faction--Barnacles--Family Likenesses--Merchant Adventurers to Spain--Exeter Controversy--Corrupted Names of Places--Poison--Vikingr Skotar--Rhymes on Places--"We three"--Burning Fern brings Rain--Plague Stones--Sneezing--Abbot of Croyland's Motto--Derivation of the Word "Azores"--Scologlandis and Scologi 497
MISCELLANEOUS:--
Notes on Books, &c. 501
Books and Odd Volumes wanted 502
Notices to Correspondents 502
Advertisements 503
Notes.
A FEW THINGS ABOUT RICHARD BAXTER.
In the year 1836, I visited Kidderminster for the purpose of seeing the place where Richard Baxter spent fourteen of the most valuable years of his life; and of ascertaining if any relics were to be found connected with the history of this remarkable man. Baxter thought much of Kidderminster, for with strong feeling he says, respecting this place, in his poem on "Love breathing Thanks and Praise" (_Poetical Fragments_, 1st edit. 1681):--
"But among all, none did so much abound, With fruitful mercies, as that barren ground, Where I did make my best and longest stay, And bore the heat and burden of the day; Mercies grew thicker there than summer flowers: They over-numbered my daies and hours. There was my dearest flock, and special charge, Our hearts in mutual love thou didst enlarge: 'Twas there that mercy did my labours bless, With the most great and wonderful success."
While prosecuting my inquiries, I was shown the house in which he is said to have resided. It is situated in the High Street, and was, at the time of my visit, inhabited by a grocer; but I had my doubts, from a difference of opinion I heard stated as to this being the actual house. After looking at this house, I visited the vestry of the Unitarian Chapel, and examined the pulpit; the description of which given by your correspondent is very correct. He omits to mention Job Orton's chair, which was shown me, as well as that of Bishop Hall. From all I could learn at the time, and since, I should say that there is not the slightest probability of any engraving having been published of this pulpit. Sketches may have been made by private hands, but nothing I believe in this way has ever been given to the public. I have long taken a deep interest in everything, pertaining to Richard Baxter. I some years ago collected ninety-seven out of the one hundred and sixty-eight works which he wrote, most of them the original editions, and principally on controversial subjects. After they had served the purpose for which I purchased them, I parted with them, reserving to myself the first editions of the choicest of his practical writings. The folio edition of his works contains only his practical treatises. One of the most remarkable facts connected with the history of Baxter, is the prodigious amount of mechanical drudgery to which he must have patiently submitted in the production of his varied publications. He had a very delicate frame: he was continually unwell, and often greatly afflicted. To this constant ailment of body he refers in a very affecting note in his _Paraphrase on the New Testament_ under the fifth verse in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of St. John. The reference is to the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, who had an infirmity thirty and eight years.
_Note._ "How great a mercy is it, to live eight and thirty years under God's wholesome discipline? How inexcusable was this man, if he had been proud, or worldly, or careless of his everlasting state? O my God! I thank thee for the like discipline of eight and fifty years. How safe a life is this, in comparison of full prosperity and pleasure."
His ministerial duties were of an arduous nature, and yet he found time to write largely on theological subjects, and to plunge perpetually into theological controversy. The _Saint's Rest_, by which his fame will ever be perpetuated, was published in 1619, 4to. It is in four parts, and dedicated respectively to the inhabitants of Kidderminster, Bridgenorth, Coventry, and Shrewsbury. It was the first book he wrote, and the second he published (_The Aphorisms of Justification_ being the first published): it was written under the daily expectation of dying. The names of Brook, Hampden, and Pym, which have a place in the first edition, are, singularly enough, omitted in the later ones. Fifty years after the appearance of the _Saint's Rest_, and a few months only before his death, he published the strangest of all his productions; it is--
"The Certainty of the World of Spirits, fully evinced by unquestionable Histories of Apparitions and Witchcrafts, Operations, Voices, &c. Proving the Immortality of Souls, the Malice and Misery of Devils and the Damned, and the Blessedness of the Justified. Written for the Conviction of Sadducees and Infidels."
12mo. 1691.
His _Reliquiæ Baxterianæ_, folio, 1686, is the text-book for the actual every-day life of this eminent divine.
H. M. BEALBY.
North Brixton.
LATIN SONG BY ANDREW BOORDE.
The life of this "progenitor of Merry Andrew," as he is termed, would, if minutely examined, doubtless prove a curious piece of biography. Wood furnishes many particulars, but some of his statements want confirmation. He tells us that Boorde was borne at Pevensey in Sussex; but Hearne corrects him, and says it was at Bounds Hill in the same county. It then becomes a question whether he was educated at Winchester school. Certain it is that he was of Oxford, although he left without taking a degree, and became a brother of the Carthusian order in London. We next find him studying physic in his old university, and subsequently travelling through most parts of Europe, and even of Africa. On his return to England, he settled at Winchester, and practised as a physician. Afterwards we find him in London occupying a tenement in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. This appears to have been the period when, in his professional capacity, King Henry VIII. is said to have consulted him. How long he remained in London is uncertain, but in 1541 he was living at Montpelier in France, where he is supposed to have taken the degree of doctor in physic, in which he was afterwards incorporated at Oxford. He subsequently lived at Pevensey, and again at Winchester. At last we find him a prisoner in the Fleet--the cause has yet to be learned,--at which place he died in April, 1549. The following curious relic is transcribed from the flyleaf of a copy of _The Breviary of Health_, 4to., London, 1547. It is signed "Andrew Boord," and if not the handwriting of the facetious author himself, is certainly that of some one of his cotemporaries:
"Nos vagabunduli, Læti, jucunduli, Tara, tantara teino. Edimus libere, Canimus lepide, Tara, &c. Risu dissolvimur, Pannis obvolvimur, Tara, &c. Multum in joculis, Crebro in poculis, Tara, &c. Dolo consuimus, Nihil metuimus, Tara, &c. Pennus non deficit, Præda nos reficit, Tara, &c. Frater Catholice, Vir apostolice, Tara, &c. Dic quæ volueris Fient quæ jusseris, Tara, &c. Omnes metuite Partes gramaticæ, Tara, &c. Quadruplex nebulo Adest, et spolio, Tara, &c. Data licencia, Crescit amentia, Tara, &c. Papa sic præcipit Frater non decipit Tara, &c. Chare fratercule, Vale et tempore, Tara, &c. Quando revititur, Congratulabimur, Tara, &c. Nosmet respicimus, Et vale dicimus, Tara, &c. Corporum noxibus Cordium amplexibus, Tara tantara teino."
Andrew Boorde's printed works are as follows:
1. _A Book of the Introduction to Knowledge_, 4to., London, 1542.
2. _A Compendious Regiment or Dietary of Health, made at Mountpyller_, 8vo., 1542.
3. _The Breviary of Health_, 4to., London, 1547.
4. _The Princyples of Astronomye_, 12mo., R. Copland, London, n. d.
Wood tells us he wrote "a book on prognosticks," and another "of urines." _The Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham_ are also ascribed to him, as well as _A Right Pleasant and Merry History of the Mylner of Abington_, &c.
The origin of the _Merry Tales_ is pointed out by Horsfield, in his _History of Lewes_, vol. i. p. 239.:--
"At a _last_, holden at Pevensey, Oct. 3, 24 Hen. VIII., for the purpose of preventing unauthorised persons 'from setting nettes, pottes, or innyances,' or anywise taking fish within the privileges of the Marsh of Pevensey, the king's commission was directed to John, Prior of Lewes; Richard, Abbot of Begham; John, Prior of Mychillym; Thomas, Lord Dacre, and others ... Dr. Boorde (the original Merry Andrew) founds his tale of the 'Wise Men of Gotham' upon the proceedings of this meeting, Gotham being the property of Lord Dacre, and near his residence."
The inhabitants of Gotham in Nottinghamshire have hitherto been considered the "biggest fools in christendom;" but if the above extract is to be depended upon, the _Gothamites_ of Sussex have a fair claim to a share of this honourable distinction.
The quotation from the _History of Lewes_ was first pointed out by your learned correspondent, MR. M. A. LOWER, in a communication to Mr. Halliwell's _Archæologist_, 1842, p. 129. The investigation of the origin of this popular collection of old _Joe Millerisms_ is of some importance, because upon them rests Dr. Boorde's title to be the "progenitor of Merry Andrew."
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
SHAKSPEARE NOTES.
Who was the editor of _The Poems and Plays of William Shakspeare_, eight vols. 8vo., published by Scott and Webster in 1833?
In that edition the following passage from _The Merchant of Venice_, Act III. Sc. 2., is _pointed_ in this way:--
"Thus ornament is but the guiled shore To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian; beauty's, in a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on To entrap the wisest."
To which the anonymous editor appends the following note:--
"I have deviated slightly from the folio--the ordinary reading represents ornament as '_the beauteous scarf veiling an Indian beauty_,' a sentence which by no means serves to illustrate the reflexion which Bassanio wishes to enforce. Sir Thomas Hanmer proposed to read _dowdy_ for beauty!"
My object in this quotation is not that of commending the emendation, but of affording an opportunity of recording the following reasons which induce me to reject it; not only as no improvement to the sense, but as a positive injury to it.
1st. The argument of Bassanio is directed against the deceptiveness of ornament in general, of which seeming beauty is only one of the subordinate illustrations. These illustrations are drawn from _law_, _religion_, _valour_, and _beauty_; all of which are finally summed up in the passage in question, beginning "_Thus ornament_," &c. and still further concentrated in the phrase "_in a word_." Therefore this summing up cannot refer singly to _beauty_, no more than to any other of the subordinate illustrations, but it must have general reference to adventitious ornament, against which _the collected argument_ is directed.
2ndly. The word _beauty_ is necessarily attached to Indian as designative _of sex_: "an Indian," unqualified by any other distinction, would imply a male; but an "Indian beauty" is at once understood to be a female.
3rdly. The repetition, or rather _the opposition_, of "_beauteous_" and "_beauty_," cannot seriously be objected to by any one conversant with the phraseology of Shakspeare. Were it at all necessary, many similar examples might be cited. How the anonymous annotator, already quoted, could say that the sentence, as it stands in the folio, "_by no means serves to illustrate Bassanio's reflexion_," I cannot conceive. "The beauteous scarf" is the deceptive ornament which leads to the expectation of something beneath it _better_ than an _Indian_ beauty! Indian is used adjectively, in the sense of wild, savage, hideous--just as we, at the present day, might say a Hottentot beauty; or as Shakspeare himself in other places uses the word "Ethiop:"
"Thou for whom Jove would swear Juno but an Ethiop were."
"_Her mother was her painting._"--_Cymbeline_, Act III. Sc. 4.--I have read Mr. Halliwell's pamphlet upon this expression, noticed in "N. & Q." of the 10th of April (p. 358.) I would beg to suggest to that gentleman that he has overlooked one text in Shakspeare that would tell more for his argument than the whole of those he has cited. All his examples are drawn from the word _father_, metaphorically applied in the sense of _creator_ to inanimate objects; and the same sense he extends, by analogy, to _mother_. But in the following lines from _As You Like It_ (Act III. Sc. 5.), _mother_ is directly used as a sort of warranty of female beauty! Rosalind is reproving Phebe for her contempt of her lover, and in derision of her beauty, she asks:
"Who might be your mother? That you insult, exult, and all at once, Over the wretched?"
Now if Phebe had been one who _smothered her in painting_, an appropriate answer to Rosalind's question might have been--her mother was _her painting_!
Most certainly, this latter phrase is the more graceful mode of expressing the idea--far more in unison with the language one would expect from the refined, the delicate, the bewitching Imogen--from her who wished to set "_that parting kiss betwixt two charming words_."
A. E. B.
Leeds.
PUBLICATIONS OF THE STUTTGART SOCIETY.
The following is a list of the works which have appeared under the auspices of the Stuttgart Society, referred to in my Note respecting Felix Faber:--
I. 1. Closener's Strassburgische Chronik.
2. Des Ritters Georg von Ehingen Reisen.
(_a_). Nach der Ritterschaft.
(_b_). Æneas Sylvius Piccolomineus de Viris illustribus.
(_c_). Ott Ruland's Handlungsbuch.
(_d_). Codex Hirsaugiensis.
II.-IV. Fratris Felicis Fabri Evagatorium, 3 vols.
V. (_a_). Die Weingartner Liederhandschrift.
(_b_). Italiänische Lieder des Hohenstaufischen Hofes in Sicilien.
VI. Briefe der Prinzessin Elisabeth Charlotte v. Orleans an die Raugräfin Louise (1676-1722).
VII. (_a_). Des Böhmischen Herrn Leo's von Rozmital Reise durch die Abendländer in den Jahren 1465, 1466, und 1467.
(_b_). Die Livländische Reimchronik.
VIII. Chronik des Edlen En Ramon Muntaner.
IX. (_a_). Bruchstück über den Kreuzzug Friederichs I.
(_b_). Ein Buch von guter Speise.
(_c_). Die alte Heidelberger Liederhandschrift.
X. Urkunden, Briefe und Actenstücke zur Geschichte Maximilians I. und seiner Zeit.
XI. Staatspapiere zur Geschichte des Kaisers Karl V.
XII. Das Ambraser Liederbuch vom Jahre 1582.
XIII. Li Romans d'Alixandre par Lambert, Li Tors et Alexandre de Bernay.
XIV. Urkunden zur Geschichte des Schwäbischen Bundes (1488-1533), Erster Theil, 1488-1506.
XV. Cancionero Geral I.
XVI. (_a_). Carmina Burana (from a MS. of thirteenth century).
(_b_). Albert v. Beham u. Regerten Papst Innocenz IV.
XVII. Cancionero Geral II.
XVIII. Konrads von Weinsberg Einnahmen- und Ausgaben-Register.
XIX. Das Habsburg.-Oesterreichische Urbarbuch.
XX. Hadamars v. Laber Jagd.
XXI. Meister Altswert.
XXII. Meinauer Naturlehre (_circa_ 1300).
XXIII. Der Ring, von Heinrich Wittenweiler.
XXV. Ludolfi de Itinere terræ sanctæ liber (_circa_ 1350).
Vol. XXIV. is in the press.
F. NORGATE.
MANUSCRIPT SHAKSPEARE EMENDATIONS.
Your able correspondent MR. S. W. SINGER, in Vol. v., p. 436., gives his positive adhesion to MR. COLLIER'S emendation of the corruption "bosom multiplied" in _Coriolanus_, Act III. Sc. 1. Agreeing with MR. SINGER in his opinion of the value of this emendation, there is yet an importance attached to it which I feel sure MR. COLLIER will not object to have pointed out, although doubtlessly all the argument respecting the _sources_ of his early MS. corrections will be carefully considered in the volume he so liberally intends presenting to the Shakspeare Society. Shakspearian criticism is a field so open to varied opinions, and is a subject on which so few can be brought exactly to agree, it is a mere chance if, in addressing these few lines, I in any degree anticipate MR. COLLIER'S conclusions.
MR. COLLIER'S discovery was, perhaps, of even greater interest to myself than to others, not merely on account of its being an important evidence for the state of the text, _but because I had long since had the opportunity of using a volume of precisely similar character_, namely, the copy of the third folio, with numerous MS. emendations in a coeval hand, mentioned by Lowndes, p. 1646., as having some years since sold for 65_l._, on account of those MS. emendations. This volume contains several hundred very curious and important corrections, amongst which I may mention an entirely new reading of the difficult passage at the commencement of _Measure for Measure_, which carries conviction with it, and shows, what might have been reasonably expected, that _that to_ is a misprint _for a verb_. There are numerous other corrections of equal importance, but I forbear at present to notice them, under the conviction it is not safe to adopt MS. corrections, unless we know on what authority they are made. It was on this account I ventured to indicate the extreme danger of adopting any of the MS. readings of MR. COLLIER'S second folio, without a most rigid examination, or until their authority was unquestionably ascertained. Now, in MR. COLLIER'S first two communications to the _Athenæum_ there was scarcely a single example which indicated it was derived from an authentic source, but many, on the other hand, which could be well believed to be mere guess-work; and it was rather alarming to see the readiness with which they were received, threatening the loss of Shakspeare's genuine text.
A ray of light, however, at length appears in the new reading in _Coriolanus_. This, more than any other, gives hopes of important results; and it does something more than this: it opens a reasonable expectation that the MS. corrector had, in some cases, recollection of the passages as they were delivered in representation. Once establish a probability of this, and although many of the corrections must still be looked upon as conjectural, the volume will be of high value. The correction "_bisson multitude_" seems to me to be clearly one of those alterations that no conjectural ingenuity could have suggested. The volume has evidently been used for stage purposes; and it may be taken as almost beyond a doubt that that particular correction was made on authority. We can scarcely imagine that authority to be a MS. of the play, and are therefore thrown on the supposition the corrector sometimes altered from memory, and sometimes from conjecture, writing as he thought Shakspeare _ought_ to have written, even if he did not.
It is scarcely necessary to say these observations are grounded solely on what is already before the public. The appearance of MR. COLLIER'S volume may modify their effect either one way or the other; and perhaps I am committing a literary trespass on my friend's manor in thus prematurely entering into an argument on the subject. But MR. COLLIER, with his usual liberality, has invited rather than deprecated discussion; and having expressed in print opinions grounded on his first two communications, it would be uncandid in me not to acknowledge they are in some degree modified by the very important correction since published.
J. O. HALLIWELL.
THE GRAVE-STONE OF JOE MILLER.
In consequence of the disfranchisement of St. Clement's burial-ground, Portugal Street, Clare Market, the last memorial of "honest Jo" is condemned for removal; and this being the case, I have forwarded for "N. & Q." a copy of the inscription. The epitaph written by Stephen Duck, and the stone itself, were, about the beginning of the present century, in jeopardy of obliteration, but for the compassion of Mr. Bulgen, the grave-digger; and being still in a very bad condition, Mr. Buck a few years afterwards repaired it. The following is the inscription:
"Here Lye the Remains of honest Jo. Miller who was a tender Husband, a sincere Friend, a facetious Companion, and an excellent Comedian. He departed this Life the 15th day of August 1738, aged 54 years.