Notes and Queries 1850.04.06 by Various
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Various >> Notes and Queries 1850.04.06
ECCLESIASTES.
["J.E.," "D.D.," and other correspondents, have also replied
to this Query by references to Eccl. ix. 4.]
_Curious Monumental Brass_ (No. 16. p. 247.)--If "RAHERE" will turn to
Mr. Boutell's _Monumental Brasses and Slabs_, p. 148., he will there
find a description as well as an engraving of what, from his account,
I doubt not he will discover to be the identical fragment to which he
refers. A foot legend, and what remains of a border inscription, is
added to it. In the above work, pp. 147 to 155, and in the Oxford
Architectural Society's _Manual for the Study of Brasses_, p. 15.,
"RAHERE" will find an account and references to numerous examples of
palimpsest brasses, to which class the one in question belongs.
I presume that "RAHERE" is a young brass-rubber, or the fact of a
plate being engraved on both sides would have presented no difficulty
to him.
ARUN.
[We have received several other replies to this Query,
referring to Mr. Boutell's _Monumental Brasses_: one from
"W."; another from "A CORNISHMAN," who says,--
"The brass in question, when I saw it last, had been
removed from the Rectory and placed in the tomb of Abbot
Wheathampstead, in company with the famous one of Thomas
Delamere, another Abbot of St. Albans."
Another from "E.V.," who states,--
"Other examples are found at St. Margaret's, Rochester (where
the cause of the second engraving is found to be an error in
costume in the first), St. Martins at Plain, Norwich, Hedgerly
Church, Bucks, and Burwell Church, Cambridgeshire. Of this
last, an engraving and description, by Mr. A.W. Franks,
is given in the fourteenth part of the Publications of the
Cambridge Antiquarian Society."
One from "WILLIAM SPARROW SIMPSON," who says,--
"It is also described in the Oxford Architectural Society's
_Manual of Mon. Brasses_, No. 6. pp. 6, 7. other examples of
which occur at Rochester, Kent, and at Cobham, Surrey. A small
plate of brass, in the possession of a friend, has on one side
a group of children, and on the reverse the uplifted hands of
an earlier figure."
And lastly, one from "A.P.H." (to which we cannot do ample
justice, as we do not keep an engraver), from which we extract
the following passages:--
"A friend of mine has a shield in his possession, taken from
a slab, and which has been enamelled. It is of late date
and rudely executed. On the back is {371} seen the hands and
breast of a small female figure, very nearly a century earlier
in date. I can also remember an inscription in Cuxton Church,
Kent, which was loose, and had another inscription on the back
in the same manner.
"I am very much impressed with the idea that the destroyed
brasses never had been used at all; but had been engraved,
and then, from circumstances that of course we cannot hope to
fathom, thrown on one side till the metal might be used for
some other purpose. This, I think, is a more probable, as well
as a more charitable explanation than the one usually given of
the so-called palimpsest brasses."]
_Chapels_ (No. 20. p. 333.).--As to the origin of the name, will you
allow me to refer Mr. Gatty to Ducange's _Glossary_, where he will
find much that is to his purpose.
As to its being "a legal description," I will not undertake to
give an opinion without a fee; but I will mention a fact which may
assist him in forming one. I believe that fifty years ago the word
_Chapel_ was very seldom used among those who formed what was termed
the "Dissenting Interest;" that is, the three "denominations" of
Independents, Baptists, and Presbyterians. But I well recollect
hearing, from good authority, nearly, or quite, forty years ago, that
an eminent barrister (whom I might now describe as a late learned
judge), who was much looked up to by the dissenters as one of their
body, had particularly advised that in all trust-deeds relating to
places of dissenting worship, they should be called "Chapels." I do
not know that he assigned any reason, but I know that the opinion was
given, or communicated, to those who had influence; and, from my own
observation, I believe that from about that time we must date the
adoption of the term, which has now been long in general use.
I do not imagine that there was any idea of either assistance
or opposition to the Church of England, in the mind of him who
recommended, or those who adopted, the alteration, or that either
of them expected or sought any thing by this measure but to obtain
a greater security for property, or, rather, to avoid some real
or imagined insecurity, found or supposed to attach to the form of
description previously in use.
A BARRISTER.
_Forlot, Forthlot_ (No. 20. p. 320.).--A measure of grain used
throughout Scotland at present--query _fourthlot_. See Jamieson's
_Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language_.
"_Firlot; Fyrlot; Furlet_.--A corn measure in S., the fourth
part of a boll.
"Thay ordainit the boll to mat victual with, to be devidit
in foure partis, _videlicet_, foure _fyrlottis_ to contene
a boll; and that _fyrlot_ not to be maid efter the first
mesoure, na efter the mesoure now usit, bot in middill mesoure
betwixt the twa."--_Acts Jac._ l. 1526. c. 80. edit. 1566.
"--Ane furme, ane furlet,
Ane pott, ane pek."
Bannatyne _Poems_, p. 159.
Skinner derives it from A.-S. _feower_, quatuor; and _lot_, _hlot_,
portio (the fourth part); Teut. "_viertel_."
J.S.
_Loscop_ (No. 20. p. 319).--To be "Louecope-free" is one of the
immunities granted to the Cinque Ports in their charters of Liberties.
Jeakes explains the term thus:--
"The Saxon word Cope (in Low Dutch still Kope or Koope), for
trade or merchandising, makes this as much as to trade freely
for love. So that by no kind of monopoly patent, or company or
society of traders or merchants, the portsmen be hindered from
merchandising; but freely and for love, be permitted to trade
and traffick, even by such company of merchants, whenever it
shall happen their concerns lie together."
In my MSS., and in the print of Jeakes, it is "Louecope," with which
"Lofcope" may be readily identified; and _f_ may easily be misread for
_s_, especially if the roll be obscured.
If Jeakes's etymology of the word be correct, the inference would
rather be that "Lovecope" was a tax for the goodwill of the port
at which a merchant vessel might arrive; a "port duty" in fact,
independent of "lastage" &c., chargeable upon every trader that
entered the port, whatever her cargo might be. And the immunities
granted to the portsmen were that they should be "port duty free."
I do not venture to offer this as any thing more than a mere guess.
Among your contributors there are many more learned than myself in
this branch of antiquarian lore, who will probably be able to give
a more correct interpretation, and we shall feel obliged for any
assistance that they can give us in elucidating the question.
"Lovecope" might perhaps be the designation of the association of
merchants itself, to which Jeakes alludes; and the liberty of forming
such association, with powers of imposing port duties, may have been
dependent on special grant to any port by royal charter, such as that
which forms the subject of your correspondent's communication.
After all, perhaps, "Lovecope" was the word for an association of
merchants; and "Louecope-free" is to be freed from privileged taxation
by this body.
L.B.L.
_Smelling of the Lamp_ (No. 21. p. 335.).--"X." will find the
expression [Greek: Illuchnion ozein] attributed to Pytheas by Plutarch
(_Vit. Demosth._, c. 8.).
J.E.B. MAYOR.
_Anglo-Saxon MS. of Orosius_ (No. 20. p. 313.).--It may gratify Mr.
Singer to be informed that the Lauderdale MS., formerly in the library
at Ham House, is now preserved, with several other {372} valuable
manuscripts and books, in the library at Helmingham Hall, Suffolk, the
seat of the Tollemache family.
M.
_Golden Frog_.--Ingenious as is the suggestion of "R.R." (No. 18. p.
282.), that Sir John Poley stuck a golden frog in his ear from his
affection for _tadpoles_, I think "R.R.'s" "Rowley Poley" may be
dismissed with the "_gammon_ and spinach" of the amorous frog to which
he alludes.
Conceiving that the origin of so singular a badge could hardly fail to
be commemorated by some tradition in the family, I have made inquiry
of one of Sir John Poley's descendants, and I regret to hear from him
that "they have no authentic tradition respecting it, but that they
have always believed that it had some connection with the service Sir
John rendered in the Low Countries, where he distinguished himself
much by his military achievements." To the Low Countries, then, the
land of frogs, we must turn for the solution of the enigma.
Gastras.
Cambridge, March 9.
_Sword of Charles I._--Mr. Planche inquires (No. 12. p. 183.), "When
did the real sword of Charles the First's time, which, but a few years
back, hung at the side of that monarch's equestrian figure at Charing
Cross, disappear?"--It disappeared about the time of the coronation
of Her present Majesty, when some scaffolding was erected about the
statue, which afforded great facilities for removing the rapier (for
such it was); and I always understood it found its way, by some means
or other, to the Museum, so called, of the notoriously frolicsome
Captain D----, where, in company with the wand of the Great Wizard of
the North, and other well-known articles, it was carefully labelled
and numbered, and a little account appended of the circumstances of
its acquisition and removal.
John Street.
[Surely then Burke was right, and the "Age of Chivalry is
past!"--Otherwise the idea of _disarming a statue_ would never
have entered the head of any Man of Arms, even in his most
frolicsome of moods.]
_John Bull_.--_Vertue MSS._--I always fancied that the familiar name
for our countrymen, about the origin of which "R.F.H." inquires (No.
21. p. 336.), was adopted from Swift's _History of John Bull_, first
printed in 1712; but I have no authority for saying so.
If the Vertue MSS. alluded to (No. 20. p. 319.) were ever returned by
Mr. Steevens to Dr. Rawlinson, they may be in the Bodleian Library, to
which the Doctor left all his collections, including a large mass of
papers purchased by him long after Pepys' death, as he described it,
"Thus et odores vendentibus."
These "_Pepys_ papers," as far as I can recollect, were very
voluminous, and relating to all sorts of subjects; but I saw them in
1824, and had only then time to examine and extract for publication
portions of the correspondence.
Braybrooke.
Audley End, March 25.
_Vertue's Manuscripts_.--The MS. quoted under this title by Malone
is printed entire, or rather all of it which refers to plays, by Mr.
Peter Cunningham, in the _Papers of the Shakspeare Society_, vol. ii.
p. 123., from an interleaved copy of Langbaine. Since the publication
of that paper, the entries relating to Shakspeare's plays have been
given from the original MS. in the Bodleian Library, in Halliwell's
_Life of Shakspeare_, p. 272.
S.L.
_Vertue's MSS_. (No. 20. p. 319.) were in Horace Walpole's possession,
bought by him, I think, of Vertue's widow; and his _Anecdotes of
Painting_ were chiefly composed from them, as he states, with great
modesty, in his dedication and his preface. I do not see in the
Strawberry-Hill Catalogue any notice of "Vertue's MSS.," though some
vols. of his collection of engravings were sold.
C.
_Lines attributed to Tom Brown_.--In a book entitled _Liber
Facetiarum, being a Collection of curious and interesting Anecdotes_,
published at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, by D. Akenhead & Sons, 1809, the
passage attributed to Tom Brown by your correspondent "J.T." is given
to Zacharias Boyd.
The only reference given as authority for the account is the initials
H.B.
"Zacharias Boyd, whose bust is to be seen over the entrance
to the Royal College in Glasgow, while Professor in that
university, translated the Old and New Testament into Scotch
Metre; and, from a laudable zeal to disseminate religious
knowledge among the lower classes of the community, is said to
have left a very considerable sum to defray the expense of the
said work, which, however, his executors never printed."
After a few specimens, the account goes on
"But the highest flight of his Muse appears in the following
_beautiful Alexandrine_:
"And was not Pharaoh a saucy rascal?
That would not let the children of Israel, their wives
And their little ones, their flocks and their herds, go
Out into the wilderness forty days
To eat the Pascal.
"H.B."
Speaking of Zachariah Boyd, Granger says, (vol. ii. p. 379.):
"His translation of the Scripture in such uncouth verse as to
amount to burlesque, has been often quoted, and the just fame
of a benefactor to learning has been obscured by that cloud
of miserable rhymes. Candour will smile at the foible, but
applaud the man.
"Macure, in his account of Glasgow, p. 223., informs us he
lived in the reign of Charles I."
H.I.
Sheffield, March 9. 1850. {373}
_Passage in Frith's Works_ (No. 20. p. 319).--This passage should be
read, as I suppose, "Ab inferiori ad suum superius confuse distribui."
It means that there would be confusion, if what is said distributively
or universally of the lower, should be applied distributively or
universally to the higher; or, in other words, if what is said
universally of a species, should be applied universally to the genus
that contains that and other species: e.g., properties that are
universally found in the human species will not be found universally
in the genus Mammalis, and universal properties of Mammalia wil not be
universal over the animal kingdom.
T.J.
_Martins, the Louvain Printer_.--Your correspondent "W." (No.
12. p. 185.) is informed, that in Falkenstein's _Geschichte der
Buchdrucherkunst_ (Leipzig, 1840, p. 257.), Theoderich Martens,
printer in Louvain and Antwerp, is twice mentioned. I have no doubt
but this is the correct German form of the name. Mertens, by which he
was also known, may very possibly be the Flemish form. His Christian
name was also written Dierik, a short form of Dietrich, which, in its
turn, is the same as Theodorich.
NORTHMAN.
_Master of the Revels_.--"DR. RIMBAULT" states (No. 14. p. 219.), that
Solomon Dayrolle was appointed Master of the Revels in 1744, but does
not know the date of his decease. It may be unknown to Dr. Rimbault,
that Solomon Dayrolle_s_ was an intimate friend and correspondent of
the great Lord Chesterfield: the correspondence continues from 1748
to 1755 in the selection of Chesterfield's letters to which I am
referring.
Dayrolles, during all that period, held a diplomatic appointment from
this country at the Hague. See Lord Chesterfield's letter to him of
the 22d Feb. 1748, where Lord C. suggests that by being cautious he
(Dayrolles) may be put _en train d'etre Monsieur l'Envoye_.
In several of the letters Chesterfield warmly and familiarly commends
his hopeful son, Mr. Stanhope, to the care and attention of Dayrolles.
I have not been able to ascertain when Dayrolles died, but the above
may lead to the discovery.
W.H. LAMMIN.
_French Maxim_.--The French saying quoted by "R.V." is the 223rd
of _Les Reflexions morales du Duc de la Rochefoucauld_ (Pougin,
Paris, 1839). I feel great pleasure in being able to answer your
correspondent's query, as I hope that my reply may be the means of
introducing to his notice one of the most delightful authors that has
ever yet written: one who deserves far more attention than he appears
to receive from general readers in this degenerate age, and from whom
many of his literary successors have borrowed some of their brightest
thoughts. I need not go far for an illustration:
"Praise undeserved, is scandal in disguise,"
is merely a condensation of,
"Louer les princes des vertus qu'ils n'ont pas, c'est leur
dire impunement des injures."--La Rochefoucauld, Max. 327.
I believe that Pope marks it as a _translation--a borrowed
thought--not as a quotation_. He has just before used the words "your
Majesty;" and I think the word "_scandal_" is employed "_consulto_,"
and alludes to the offence known in English law as "scandalum
magnatum." Your correspondent will, of course, read the work in the
original; in fact, he _must_ do so _per force_. A good translation
of _Les Maximes_ is still a desideratum in English literature. I
have not yet seen one that could lay claim even to the meagre title
of mediocrity; although I have spared neither time nor pains in the
search. Should any of your readers have been more fortunate, I shall
feel obliged by their referring me to it.
MELANION.
_Endeavour_.--I have just found the following instance of "endeavour"
used as an active verb, in Dryden's translation of Maimbourg's
_History of the League_, 1684.
"On the one side the majestique House of Bourbon,... and on
the other side, that of two eminent families which endeavour'd
their own advancement by its destruction; the one is already
debas'd to the lowest degree, and the other almost reduc'd to
nothing."--p. 3.
C. FORBES.
Temple.
* * * * *
MISCELLANIES.
_Epigram by La Monnoye_.--It has been ingeniously said, that "Life is
an epigram, of which death is the point." Alas for human nature! good
points are rare; and no wonder, according to this wicked, but witty,
EPIGRAM BY LA MONNOYE.
The world of fools has such a store,
That he who would not see an ass,
Must bide at home, and bolt his door,
And break his looking glass.
S.W.S.
Mickleham, Dec. 10. 1849.
_Spur Money_.--Two or three years since, a party of sappers and miners
was stationed at Peterborough, engaged in the trigonometrical survey,
when the officer entered the cathedral with his spurs on, and was
immediately beset by the choristers, who demanded money of him for
treading the sacred floor with armed heels. Does any one know the
origin of this singular custom? I inquired of some of the dignitaries
of the Cathedral, but they were not aware even of its existence. The
boys, however, have more tenacious memories, at least where their
interest is concerned; but we must not look to them for the origin of
a {374} custom which appears to have long existed. In the _Memorials
of John Ray_, published by the Ray Society, p. 131., there is the
following entry in his second Itinerary:--
"July the 26th, 1661, we began our journey northwards from
Cambridge, and that day, passing through Huntingdon and
Stilton, we rode as far as Peterborough twenty-five miles.
There I first heard the Cathedral service. The choristers made
us pay money for coming into the choir with our spurs on."
East Winch.
[The following note from _The Book of the Court_ will serve
to illustrate the curious custom referred to by our
correspondent:
"In _The Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII._ edited by
Sir Harris Nicolas, there occur several entries of payments
made to the choristers of Windsor 'in rewarde for the king's
spurs'; which the editor supposes to mean 'money paid to
redeem the king's spurs, which had become the fee of the
choristers at Windsor, perhaps at installations, or at the
annual celebration of St. George's feast.' No notice of the
subject occurs in Ashmole's or Anstis's _History of the Order
of the Garter_. Mr. Markland, quoting a note to Gifford's
edition of Ben Jonson, vol. ii. p. 49., says, 'In the time
of Ben Jonson, in consequence of the interruptions to Divine
Service occasioned by the ringing of the spurs worn by persons
walking and transacting business in cathedrals, and especially
in St. Paul's, a small fine was imposed on them, called
"spur-money," the exaction of which was committed to the
beadles and singing-boys.' This practice, and to which,
probably, the items in Henry's household-book bear reference,
still obtains, or, at least, did till very lately, in the
Chapel Royal and other choirs. Our informant himself claimed
the penalty, in Westminster Abbey, from Dr. Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester, and received from him an eighteenpenny bank token
as the fine. He likewise claimed the penalty from the King
of Hanover (then Duke of Cumberland), for entering the choir
of the Abbey in his spurs. But His Royal Highness, who had
been installed there, excused himself with great readiness,
pleading 'his right to wear his spurs in that church, inasmuch
as it was the place where they were first put on him!'--See
further, _European Mag._, vol. iii. p. 16."]
* * * * *
MINIMUM DE MALIS.
(_FROM THE LATIN OF BUCHANAN._)
Calenus owed a single pound, which yet
With all my dunning I could never get.
Tired of fair words, whose falsehood I foresaw,
I hied to Aulus, learned in the law.
He heard my story, bade me "Never fear,
There was no doubt--no case could be more clear:--
He'd do the needful in the proper place,
And give his best attention to the case."
And this he may have done--for it appears
To have been his business for the last ten years,
Though on his pains ten times ten pounds bestow'd
Have not regain'd that one Calenus owed.
Now, fearful lest this unproductive strife
Consume at once my fortune and my life,
I take the only course I can pursue,
And shun my debtor and my lawyer too.
I've no more hope from promises or laws,
And heartily renounce both debt and cause--
But if with either rogue I've more to do,
I'll surely choose my debtor of the two;
For though I credit not the lies he tells,
At least he _gives_ me what the other _sells_.
Rufus.
* * * * *
_Epigram on Louis XIV._--I find the following epigram among some old
papers. The emperor would be Leopold I., the king Louis XIV.
_Epigram by the Emperor, 1666, and the King of France._
Bella fugis, sequeris bellas, pugnaeque repugnas,
Et bellatori sunt tibi bella tori.
Imbelles imbellis amas, totusque videris
Mars ad opus Veneris, Martis ad arma Venus.
J.H.L.
_Macaulay's Young Levite._--I met, the other day with a rather curious
confirmation of a passage in Macaulay's _History of England_, which
has been more assailed perhaps than any other.
In his character of the clergy, Macaulay says, they frequently
married domestics and retainers of great houses--a statement which has
grievously excited the wrath of Mr. Babington and other champions.
In a little book, once very popular, first published in 1628, with
the title _Microcosmographie, or a Piece of the World discovered_,
and which is known to have been written by John Earle, after the
Restoration Bishop of Worcester and then of Salisbury, is the
following passage. It occurs in what the author calls a character of
"a young raw preacher."
"You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape and serge
facing, and his ruffe, next his hire, the shortest thing
about him.... His friends, and much painefulnesse, may
preferre him to thirtie pounds a yeere, and this meanes, to
a chamber-maide: with whom we leave him now in the bonds of
wedlocke. Next Sunday you shall have him againe."
The same little book contains many very curious and valuable
illustrations of contemporary manners, especially in the universities.
That the usage Macaulay refers to was not uncommon, we find from a
passage in the _Woman-Hater_, by Beaumont and Fletcher (1607), Act
III. Sc. 3.
Lazarillo says,
"Farewell ye courtly chaplains that be there!
All good attend you! May you never more
Marry your patron's lady's waiting-woman!"
I.T.
Trin. Coll. Camb., March 16. 1850. {375}
_St. Martin's Lane_.--The first building leases of St. Martin's Lane
and the adjacent courts accidentally came under my notice lately.
They are dated in 1635 and 1636, and were granted by the then Earl of
Bedford.
Arun.
* * * * *
CHARLES DEERING, M.D.
"Author of the Catalogue of Plants in the neighbourhood of Nottingham.
'Catalogus Stirpium, &c., or a Catalogue of Plants naturally growing
and commonly cultivated in divers parts of England, and especially
about Nottingham,' 8vo. Nottingh. 1738.
"He was in the suite of the English ambassador to Russia, returned and
practised physic in London married unfortunately, buried his wife,
and then went to Nottingham, where he lived several years. During
his abode there he wrote a small _Treatise on the Small Pocks_, this
_Catalogue of Plants_, and the _History of Nottingham_, the materials
for which John Plumtre, Esq. of Nottingham, was so obliging as to
assist him with. He also was paid 40l. by a London bookseller for
adding 20,000 words to an English dictionary. He was master of seven
languages, and in 1746 he was favoured with a commission in the
Nottinghamshire Foot, raised at that time. Soon after died, and was
buried in St. Peter's Churchyard.