Notes and Queries, Number 09, December 29, 1849

"The duke has lost Hippolita; each tookA several land."

Mr. Dyce suspects that for "land" we should read "laund," an old form of lawn. "Land" being either wrong, or having a sense not understood now, we must fall back on the general sense of the passage. When people go a hunting, and don't keep together, it is very probable that they may take a several "direction." Now hand means "direction," as we say "to the right" or "left hand." It is not, therefore, probable, that we should read "a several hand?"

SAMUEL HICKSON

"GOTHIC" ARCHITECTURE

It would require more space than you could allot to the subject, to explain, at much length, "the origin, as well as the date, of the introduction of the term 'Gothic,' as applied to pointed styles of ecclesiastical architecture," required by R. Vincent, of Winchester, in your Fourth Number. There can be no doubt that the term was used at first contemptuously, and in derision, by those who were ambitious to imitate and revive the Grecian orders of architecture, after the revival of classical literature. But, without citing many authorities, such as Christopher Wren, and others, who lent their aid in depreciating the old mediæval style, which they termed Gothic, as synonymous with every thing that was barbarous and rude, it may be sufficient to refer to the celebrated Treatise of Sir Henry Wotton, entitled The Elements of Architecture, 4to., printed in London so early as 1624. This work was so popular, that it was translated into Latin, and annexed to the works of Vitruvius, as well as to Freart's Parallel of the Ancient Architecture with the Modern. Dufresnoy, also, who divided his time between poetry and painting, and whose work on the latter art was rendered popular in this country by Dryden's translation, uses the term "Gothique" in a bad sense. But it was a strange misapplication of the term to use it for the pointed style, in contradistinction to the circular, formerly called Saxon, now Norman, Romanesque, &c. These latter styles, like Lombardic, Italian, and the Byzantine, of course belong more to the Gothic period than the light and elegant structures of the pointed order which succeeded them. Felibien, the French author of the Lives of Architects, divides Gothic architecture into two distinct kinds—the massive and the light; and as the latter superseded the former, the term Gothic, which had been originally applied to both kinds, seems to have been restricted improperly to the latter only. As there is now, happily, no fear of the word being understood in a bad sense, there seems to be no longer any objection to the use of it in a good one, whatever terms may be used to discriminate all the varieties of the style observable either at home or abroad.

J.I.Trinity College, Oxford.

DR. BURNEY'S MUSICAL WORKS

Mr. Editor,—On pp. 63. and 78. of your columns inquiry is made for Burney's Treatise on Music (not his History). Before correspondents trouble you with their wants, I think they should be certain that the books they inquire for have existence. Dr. Burney never published, or wrote, a Treatise on Music. His only works on the subject (the General History of Music excepted) are the following:—

"The Present State of Music in France and Italy. 8vo. 1771.

"The Present State of Music in Germany, the Netherlands, and United Provinces. 2 vols. 8vo. 1775.

"An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster Abbey, and the Pantheon, &c. in Commemoration of Handel. 4to. 1785.

"A Plan for the Formation of a Musical Academy, 8vo. n. d."

As your "NOTES AND QUERIES" will become a standard book of reference, strict accuracy on all points is the grand desideratum.

EDW. F. RIMBAULT.

P.S. I might, perhaps, have included in the above list the Life of Metastasio, which, although not generally classed among musical works, forms an admirable supplement to the General History of Music.

E.F.R.

ANCIENT INSCRIBED DISHES

Judging from the various notices in your Nos. 3, 5, and 6, the dishes and inscriptions mentioned therein by CLERICUS, L.S.B., &c., pp. 44. 73. 87., are likely to cause as much speculation here as they have some time experienced on the continent. They were there principally figured and discussed in the Curiositãten, a miscellaneous periodical, conducted from about 1818 to 1825, by Vulpius, brother-in-law of Göthe, librarian to the Grand Duke of Saxe Weimar. Herr v. Strombeck, Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal at Wolfenbüttel, first noticed them from a specimen belonging to the church of a suppressed convent at Sterterheim near Brunswick, and they were subsequently pounced upon by Joseph v. Hammer (now v. Purgstall), the learned orientalist of Vienna, as one of the principal proofs which he adduced in his Mysterium Baphometis Revelatum in one of the numbers of the Fundgruben (Mines) des Orients, for the monstrous impieties and impurities which he, Nicolai, and others, falsely attributed to the Templars. Comments upon these dishes occur in other works of a recent period, but having left my portfolio, concerning them, with other papers, on the continent, I give these hasty notices entirely from memory. They are by no means uncommon now in England, as the notices of your correspondents prove. A paper on three varieties of them at Hull was read in 1829, to the Hull Literary and Philosophical Society. In Nash's Worcestershire one is depicted full size, and a reduced copy given about this period in the Gentleman's Magazine, and Nash first calls them "Offertory Dishes." The Germans call them Taufbecken, or baptismal basins; but I believe the English denomination more correct, as I have a distinct recollection of seeing, in a Catholic convent at Danzig, a similar one placed on Good Friday before the tomb of the interred image of the Saviour, for the oblations for which it was not too large. Another of them is kept upon the altar of Boroughbridge Church (N. Riding of Yorkshire), but sadly worn down by scrubbing to keep it bright, and the attempt at a copy of the Inscription in a Harrowgate Guide is felicitously ludicrous: it is there taken as a relic of the Roman Isurium on the same spot. Three others were observed some years ago in a neglected nook of the sacristy of York Cathedral. At the last meeting of the Institute at Salisbury, a number of these were exhibited in St. John's House there, but I believe without any notice taken of them in its Proceedings; and another was shown to the Archæological Society, at their last Chester Congress, by Colonel Biddulph, at Chirk Castle; when more were mentioned by the visitors as in their possession, anxious as your correspondents to know the import of the inscriptions. They are sometimes seen exposed in the shops of Wardour Street, and in other curiosity shops of the metropolis.

On their sunken centres all have religious types: the most common is the temptation of Eve; the next in frequency, the Annunciation; the Spies sent by Joshua returning with an immense bunch of grapes suspended betwixt them, is not unfrequent; but non-scriptural subjects, as the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, mentioned by L.S.B., is a variety I have not before observed.

The inscriptions vary, and are sometimes double in two concentral rings. The most usual is that alluded to by your correspondents, and though obviously German, neither old nor obsolete; having been viewed even by native decipherers, through the mist of a preconceived hypothesis, have never yet been by them satisfactorily accounted for. It is always repeated four times, evidently from the same slightly curved die; when, however, the enlarged circumference of the circle required more than this fourfold repetition to go round it, the die was set on again for as much of a fifth impression as was necessary: this was seldom more than four or five letters, which, as pleonastic or intercalary, are to be carefully rejected in reading the rest; their introduction has confused many expositors.

The readings of some of your correspondents who understand German is pretty near the truth. I have before said that the centre type of Eve's Temptation is the most common, and to it the words especially refer, and seem at the place of their manufacture (most probably Nuremburg) to have been used for other centres without any regard to its fitness. The letters, as I can safely aver from some very perfect specimens, are

DER SELEN INFRID WART;

in modern German "der Seelen Infried wort." To the German scholar the two latter words only require explanation. Infrid for Unfried, discord, disturbance, any thing in opposition to Frieden or peace. The Frid-stools at Beverley, Ripon, and Hexham, still bear the old theotise stamp. Wart, or ward, may be either the past tense of werden, to be (our was), or an old form of währen, to endure, to last: our English wear is the same word. The sense is pretty much the same in both readings alluding to Eve. In the first:

(By her) the soul's disturbance came (was).

By the second:

(Through her) the soul's disturbance continues.

I may here observe that the words ICH WART are particularly distinct on a helmet, pictured in the Journal of the British Archæological Association, which the Secretary, Mr. Planche, in such matters the highest authority, regards as a tilting helmet. It may there have been in the original ICH WARTE, meaning I bide (my time).

But the centres and this inscription are the least difficulty. A second, frequently met with, is by far more puzzling. I could not give your readers any idea of it without a drawing: however it is found imperfectly depicted on the plates I have before mentioned in Nash's Worcestershire, and the Gentleman's Magazine, and I think I recollect also a very rude copy in a volume of Hearne's Miscellaneous Works, which I examined in the Gottingen Library, but whether belonging to the work or a MS. addition I cannot now call to mind. The fanciful and flowery form of its letters gives great scope to the imagination in assigning them their particular position in the alphabet, and the difficulty of reading them is enhanced by the doubts of German archæologists whether they are initials or component parts of a sentence. Herr Joseph v. Hammer Purgstall, however, in his version RECORD DE SCI GNSI, or in full Recordamini de sancta Gnosi, deduces thence his principal proof of Gnostic heresy amongst the calumniated Templars, in which I am sorry to say he has been too servilely followed in England: e.g. by Mr. Godfrey Higgins, in his posthumous Anaclypsis (p. 830 note), as well as by E.G. Addison, The Temple Church (p. 57), and by Mr. R.W. Billings more especially, who tacks to his account of this building an "Essay on the symbolical Evidences of the Temple Church, where the Templars are proved Gnostic Idolators, as alleged by Edward Clarkson, Esq." Had the learnedly hypothetic Austrian seen the engravings of the Crypt at Canterbury Cathedral (Archæologia, viii. p. 74.), and Ledwick's remarks on it in conjunction with the carvings at Glendalloch (History of Ireland, p. 174.), or those of Grymbald's Crypt at Oxford, he might have been expected to have attributed their monstrosities to his order, with as little hesitation and as thorough a contempt of chronology, or proved connection, as he has the curious and innocent sculptures of the church at Schöngrabern in Bohemia (vide Curiositäten, vol. viii. p. 501.).

WILLIAM BELL, Phil. Dr.

MINOR NOTES

Prince Modoc.—At p. 57., "ANGLO-CAMBRIAN" refers to the report of the Proceedings of the British Association at Swansea, in Aug. 1848, extracted from the Athenæum newspaper. In the course of a discussion which took place on Prof. Elton's address, it was observed (if I recollect rightly) by the learned Dr. Latham, that a vocabulary of the so-called Welsh-Indian dialect has been formed, and that it contains no trace of any Celtic root.

J.M.T. December 10. 1849.

St. Barnabas.—About the time of the Reformation, it was strongly debated whether the festival days of St. Paul and St. Barnabas should be admitted into the calendar; and, in the 2d Book of K. Edward, the conversion of St. Paul is put down in black, and St. Barnabas is omitted altogether! No wonder, therefore, if, in Suffolk, liberties were taken with the name of St. Barnabas, and it was transferred to doggerel rhyme, to be repeated by children.

J.I.

Register of Cromwell's Baptism.—The communication of your correspondent C.W.G. at p. 103. of your last number, induces me to offer you the inclosed copy from the Register of All Saints' Church, Huntingdon, of the birth and baptism of Oliver Cromwell:—

"Anno Domini 1599 Oliverus filius Roberti Cromwell generosi et Elisabethæ huxoris ejus Natus vicesimo quinto die Aprilis et Baptisatus vicesimo nono ejusdem mensis."

Then follow the words "England's plague for many years," written in a different hand.

R.O.

The Times.—A correspondent (NASO) informs us of the following fact in the history of this widely circulated and influential journal; namely, that it is stated in that the paper of the 12th of March, 1788, that it was printed "Logographically!" We wish our correspondent had furnished us with the precise words of this very curious statement.

Roland Monoux.—I have in my possession a brass monumental plate, said to have been taken from some church in Middlesex, and bearing the following lines, engraved in black letter:—

"Behold what droupinge Dethe maye doe, consumey'e corse to duste,What Dethe maie not shall lyue for aye, in spite ofDethe his luste;Thoughe Rouland Monoux shrowdeth here, yetRouland Monoux lives,His helpynge hand to nedys want, a fame for evergeves;Hys worde and dede was ever one, his credyth neverquaylde,His zeall' to Christ was stronge, tyll' dethe w'th latestpanges asaylde.Twyse thre and one he Children had, two sones, onekepes his name,And dowghters fyve for home he carde, y't lyve inhonest fame.What booteth more, as he be kynde dyd come ofJentyll race,So Rouland Monoux good Desertes this grave cannot Deface."

I should be obliged to any of your readers for some account of this Rouland Monoux, and when he died. I may also add; that I should be very willing to restore the brass to its original site, did I know the spot from whence it has been sacrilegiously torn.

M.

Wessel Cup Hymn.—The following Wassail Song is taken from a little chap-book printed at Manchester, called A Selection of Christmas Hymns. it is obviously a corrupted version of a much older song:—

"Here we come a wesseling,Among the leaves so green,Here we come a wandering,So fair to be seen."Cho.—Love and joy come to you,And to your wessel too,And God send you a happy new year,A new year,And God send you a happy new year."Our wessel cup is made of the rosemary tree,So is your beer of the best barley."We are not daily beggars,That beg from door to door,But we are neighbours' children,Whom you have seen before."Call up the butler of this house,Put on his golden ring,Let him bring us up a glass of beer,And the better we shall sing."We have got a little purse,Made of stretching leather skin,We want a little of your money,To line it well within."Bring us out a table,And spread it with a cloth,Bring us out a mouldy cheese,And some of your Christmas loaf."God bless the master of this house,Likewise the mistress too,And all the little children,That round the table go."Good master and mistress,While you'r sitting by the fire,Pray think of us poor children,Who are wand'ring in the mire."Cho.—Love and joy come to you,And to your wessel to,And God send you a happy new year,A new year,And God send you a happy new year.Our wessel cup is made of the rosemary tree,So is your beer of the best barley."

It is a song of the season which well deserves to be preserved. Its insertion will at least have that effect, and may be the means of our discovering an earlier and purer text.

AMBROSE MERTON.

Portrait of Charles I.—In Sir Henry Ellis's Original Letters, 2d series, vol. iii. p. 254., amongst the prefatory matter to the reign of Charles I., there is a notice of a sermon, entitled "The Subject's Sorrow, or Lamentations upon the Death of Britaine's Josiah, King Charles."

Sir Henry Ellis says it is expressly stated, in this Sermon, that the King himself desired "that unto his Golden Manual might be prefixed his representation, kneeling; contemning a temporal crown, holding our blessed Saviour's crown of thorns, and aspiring unto an eternal crown of happiness."

Note b. upon this passage is as follows:—

"This very portrait of King Charles the First, engraved by Marshall, adorned the original edition of the [Greek: Eikon Basilikae]. 8vo. 1648. The same portrait, as large as life, in oil painting, was afterwards put up in many of our churches."

When I was a boy, such a portrait, in oil painting, hung upon the south wall of the body of St. Michael's Church, Cambridge, between the pulpit and a small door to the west, leading into the south aisle.

Out of the window of the chamber in which the King was kneeling was represented a storm at sea, and the ship being driven by it upon some rocks.

A few years ago, upon visiting Cambridge, I went purposely to St. Michael's Church to see this picture, which had been so familiar to me in my boyhood. The clerk told me it had been taken down, and was in the vestry. In the vestry I found it, on its side, on the floor against the wall.

You are probably aware that this St. Michael's Church was nearly destroyed by fire not many weeks since; that a committee is established to arrange its restoration.

Would it not be worth while that some inquiry should be made about the fate of this picture?

R.O.

Dec. 17. 1849.

P.S.—I may add, that there was affixed to the bottom of the frame of the picture a board, on which was painted, in conformably large letters—

"LORD, remember David and all his trouble."Psalm cxxxii. 1.

The italics in part of the Note above quoted are mine.

Autograph Mottoes of Richard Duke of Gloucester, and Henry Duke of Buckingham.—In the volume of the Cottonian MSS. marked Vespasian F. XIII., at fol. 53., is a slip of parchment, upon which is written by the hands of Richard Duke of Gloucester, and Henry Duke of Buckingham, the following couplet:—

"Loyaulte me lieRichard Gloucestre"Souente me souèneHarre Bokingh'a'm."

A fac-simile is engraved in Autographs of Royal, Noble, Learned, and Remarkable Personages in English History, engraved by C.J. Smith, and edited by Mr. John Gough Nichols, 1829, 4to., where the editor suggests that this slip of parchment was "perhaps a deceitful toy," or it may have been attached to some present offered by the Duke of Gloucester to his royal nephew Edward the Fifth. The meaning of Gloucester's motto is perfectly free from misapprehension; but he asserts his fidelity to the crown, which he soon so flagrantly outraged—"Loyalty binds me." In the work above mentioned, the motto of Buckingham is interpreted by these words, in modern French:—"Souvent me souviens." This does not appear to me perfectly satisfactory; and I have to request the opinions of such as are conversant with old manuscripts, whether the true meaning, or even the true reading, of the Duke of Buckingham's motto has as yet been ascertained?

H.

NOTES IN ANSWER TO QUERIES

Lord Erskine's Brooms.—"G.B." informs us, that the anecdote about Lord Erskine's brooms, and the apprehension of his servant for selling them without a licence, will be found in his Life by Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 618.). Erskine himself attended the sessions to plead the man's cause, and contended that the brooms were agricultural produce, or, as he jocosely observed, "came under the sweeping clause." The when is about 1807, and the where an estate in Sussex, which proved rather an unprofitable speculation to its owner, as it produced nothing but birch trees, and those but stunted ones. To which information "W.J." adds, that about the same period Lord Erskine printed, for private circulation, An Appeal in favour of the agricultural Services of Rooks; a production probably scarce now, but full of humanity, and very characteristic.

Scarborough Warning.—In a postscript to a letter written from court on the 19th January, 1603, by Toby Matthew, Bishop of Durham, to Hutton, Archbishop of York, I find the term Scarborough warning. Can any of the correspondents of your valuable paper inform me of the origin and prevalence of this saying? The postscript is—

"When I was in the middest of this discourse, I received a message from my lord chamberlaine, that it was his majesty's pleasure that I should preach before him upon Sunday next; which Scarborough warning did not perplex me, but so puzzled me, as no mervail if somewhat be pretermitted, which otherwise I might have better remembered."

Quoted in Caldwell's Conferences, p. 166.

W.M.C.

[NARES tells us, that Ray, on the authority of Fuller, states that this saying took its origin from "Thomas Stafford, who, in the reign of Mary, A.D. 1557, with a small company, seized on Scarborough Castle (utterly destitute of provision for resistance), before the townsmen had the least notice of their approach;" but shows that it was probably much older, as, in a ballad written by J. Heywood on the taking of that place by Stafford, the following more probable origin is given to the proverb:—

"This term Scarborow warning grew (some say),By hasty hanging for rank robbery theare.Who that was met, but suspect in that way,Straight he was trust up, whatever he were."

This implies that Scarborough imitated the Halifax gibbet law. Is any thing known of such a privilege being claimed or exercised by the men of Scarborough? We should be glad to hear from any local antiquary upon this point.]

Gray's Elegy.—In answer to your correspondent, J.F.M. (p. 101.), who asks for information respecting the competition for the best translation of Gray's Elegy, in which Dr. Sparke was a candidate, I would beg to refer him to the satirical poem attributed to Mr. T.J. Matthias, formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, entitled The Pursuits of Literature, in which a ludicrous account is given of the affair. It does not appear who offered the prize, but Mr. Nares, the editor of The British Critic, was the judge, and the place of meeting "The Musical Room in Hanover Square," which was decorated for the occasion with appropriate scenery—at least so says The Critic. He thus describes the solemnity (p. 174 8th edit. 1798):—

"Lo, learned clerks in sable stole,Graceful in years, pant eager for the goal.Old Norbury starts, and, with the seventh-form boys,In weeds of Greek the church-yard's peace annoys,With classic Weston, Charley Coote and Tew,In dismal dance about the mournful yew.But first in notes Sicilian placed on high,Bates sounds the soft precluding symphony;And in sad cadence, as the bands condense,The curfew tolls the knell of parting sense."

The distribution of prizes is thus recorded, Dr. Norbury being apparently the "conqueror:"—

"Nares rising paused; then gave, the contest done,To Weston, Taylor's Hymns and Alciphron,And Rochester's Address to lemans loose;To Tew, Parr's Sermon and the game of goose;To Coote the foolscap, as the best reliefA dean could hope; last to the hoary chiefHe filled a cup; then placed on Norbury's backThe Sunday suit of customary black.The gabbling ceased; with fixed and serious lookGray glanced from high, and owned his rival, COOK."W. Lincoln's Inn, Dec. 17.

Coffee, the Lacedæmonian Black Broth.—Your correspondent "R.O." inquires what modern author suggests the probability of coffee being the black broth of the Lacedæmonians? The suggestion, I think, originated with George Sandys, the translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Sandys travelled in the Turkish empire in 1610. He first published his Notes in 1615. The following is from the 6th edit. 1652, p. 52.:—

"Although they be destitute of taverns, yet have they their coffa-houses, which something resemble them. Their sit they, chatting most of the day, and sip of a drink called coffa (of the berry that it is made of), in little China dishes, as hot as they can suffer it; black as soot, and tasting not much unlike it (why not that black broth which was in use among the Lacedæmonians?) which helpeth, as they say, digestion, and procureth alacrity," &c.