Notes and Queries, Number 24, April 13, 1850

3. A collection of works of Miss Anne Seward, Mr. Park's copy, with his MS. notes, newspaper cuttings, &c.

As a first instalment of my promised notes on Milton's Minor Poems, I have transcribed the following from my two copies, premising that "G." stands for the name of Mr. Gilchrist, and "D." for that of Mr. Dunster, whose name is misprinted in your 316th page, as "Dunston."

Notes on Lycidas.

On l. 2. (G.):—

"O'er head sat a raven, on a sere bough."

Jonson's Sad Shepherd, Act. I. Sc. 6.

On l. 26. (D.):—

"Whose so early layPrevents the eyelids of the blushing day."

Crashaw's Music's Duel.

On l. 27. (D.):—

"Each sheapherd's daughter, with her cleanly peale,was come afield to milke the morning's meale."

Brown's Britannia's Pastorals, B. iv. Sc. 4. p. 75. ed. 1616.

On l. 29. (G.):—

"And in the deep fog batten all the day."

Drayton, vol. ii. p. 512. ed. 1753.

On l. 40. (G.):—

"The gadding winde."

Phineas Fletcher's 1st Piscatorie Eclogue, st. 21.

On l. 40. (D.):—

"This black den, which rocks emboss,Overgrown with eldest moss."

Wither's Shepherd's Hunting, Eclogue 4.

On l. 68. (D.) the names of Amaryllis and Neæra are combined together with other classical names of beautiful nymphs by Ariosto (Orl. Fur. xi. st. 12.)

On l. 78. (D.) The reference intended by Warton is to Pindar, Nem. Ode vii. l. 46.

On l. 122. (G.):—

"Of night or loneliness it recks me not."

Comus, l. 404.

On l. 142. (G.):—

"So rathe a song."

Wither's Shepherd's Hunting, p. 430. ed. 1633.

On l. 165. (G.):—

"Sigh no more, ladies; ladies, sigh no more."

Shakspeare's Much Ado, ii. 3.

On l. 171. (G.):—

"Whatever makes Heaven's forehead fine."

Crashaw's Weeper, st. 2.

J.F.M.

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES

Depinges (No. 18. p. 277., and No. 20. p. 326.).—I have received the following information upon this subject from Yarmouth. Herring nets are usually made in four parts or widths,—one width, when they are in actual use, being fastened above another. The whole is shot overboard in very great lengths, and forms, as it were, a wall in the sea, by which the boat rides as by an anchor. These widths are technically called "lints" (Sax. lind?); the uppermost of them (connected by short ropes with a row of corks) being also called the "hoddy" (Sax. hod?), and the lowest, for an obvious reason, the "deepying" or "depynges," and sometimes "angles."

At other parts of the coast than Yarmouth, it seems that the uppermost width of net bears exclusively the name of hoddy, the second width being called the first lint, the third width the second lint, and the fourth the third lint, or, as before, "depynges."

W.R.F.

Lærig.—Without contraverting Mr. Singer's learned and interesting paper on this word (No. 19. p. 292.), I hope I shall not be thought presumptuous in remarking that there must have been some other root in the Teutonic language for the two following nouns, leer (Dutch) and lear (Flemish), which both signify leather (lorum, Lat.), and their diminutives or derivatives leer-ig and lear-ig, both used in the sense of tough.

Supposing the Ang.-Sax. "lærig" to be derived from the same root, it would denote in "ofer linde lærig," the leather covering of the shields, or their capability to resist a blow.

I will thank you to correct two misprints in my last communication, p. 299.; pisan for pison, and 'Ιοαννης for 'Ιωαννης.

By the by, the word "pison" is oddly suggestive of a covering for the breast (pys, Nor. Fr.). See Foulques Fitzwarin, &c.

B.W.

March 16th.

Lærig (No. 19. p. 292.).—The able elucidation given by Mr. Singer of the meaning of this word, renders, perhaps, any futher communication on the point unnecessary. Still I send the following notes in case they should be deemed worthy of notice.

"Ler, leer—vacuus. Berini Fabulæ, v. 1219. A.-S. ge-lær."

Junii Etymol. Anglicanum.

"Lar, lær—vacuus."

Schilteri Glossarium Teutonicum.

Respecting "Lind," I find in the version by Thorkelin of De Danorum Rebus Gestis Poema Danicum Dialecto Anglo-Saxonica (Havniæ, 1815), that "Lind hæbbendra" is rendered "Vesilla habens;" but then, on the other hand, in Biorn Haldorsen's Islandske Lexicon (Havniæ, 1814), "Lind" (v. ii. p. 33) is translated "Scutum tiligneum."

C.I.R.

Vox et præterea nihil (No. 16. p. 247.).—The allusion to this proverb, quoted as if from the Anatomy of Melancholy, by "C.W.G." (No. 16. p. 247.), may be found in Addison's Spectator, No. 61, where it is as follows:—

"In short, one may say of the pun as the countryman described his nightingale—that it is 'vox et præterea nihil.'"

The origin of the proverb is still a desideratum.

Nathan.

Vox et præterea nihil (No. 16. p 247.).—In a work entitled Proverbiorum et Sententiarum Persicarum Centuria, a Levino Warnero, published at Amsterdam, 1644, the XCVII. proverb, which is given in the Persian character, is thus rendered in Latin,—

"Tympanum magnum edit clangorem, sed intus vacuum est."

And the note upon it is as follows:—

"Dicitur de iis, qui pleno ore vanas suas laudes ebuccinant. Eleganter Lacon quidam de luscinia dixit,—

Φωνα τυ τις εσσι και ουδεν αλλο,Vox tu quidem es et aliud nihil."

This must be the phrase quoted by Burton.

HERMES.

Supposed Etymology of Havior (No. 15. p. 230., and No. 17. p. 269.).—The following etymology of "heaviers" will probably be considered as not satisfactory, but this extract will show that the term itself is in use amongst the Scotch deerstalkers in the neighbourhood of Loch Lomond.

"Ox-deer, or 'heaviers,' as the foresters call them (most likely a corruption from the French 'hiver'), are wilder than either hart or hind. They often take post upon a height, that gives a look-out all round, which makes them very difficult to stalk. Although not so good when December is past, still they are in season all the winter; hence their French designation."—Colquhoun's Rocks and Rivers, p. 137. (London, 8vo. 1849.)

C.I.R.

Havior.—Without offering an opinion as to the relative probability of the etymology of this word, offered by your various correspondents (No. 17. p. 269.), I think it right that the use of the word in Scotland should not be overlooked.

In Jamieson's admirable Dictionary, the following varieties of spelling and meaning (all evidently of the same word) occur:—

"Aver or Aiver, a horse used for labour; commonly an old horse; as in Burns—

"'Yet aft a ragged cowte's been kenn'd To mak a noble aiver.'

"'This man wyl not obey.... Nochtheles I sall gar hym draw lik an avir in ane cart'—Bellend. Chron.

"'Aiver, a he-goat after he has been gelded: till then he is denominated a buck.

"Haiver, haivrel, haverel, a gelded goat (East Lothian, Lanarkshire, Sotherland).

"Hebrun, heburn, are also synonymes.

"Averie, live-stock, as including horses, cattle, &c.

"'Calculation of what money, &c. will sustain their Majesties' house and averie'—Keith's Hist.

"'Averia, averii, 'equi, boves, jumenta, oves, ceteraque animalia quæ agriculturæ inserviunt.'"—Ducange.

Skene traces this word to the low Latin, averia, "quhilk signifies ane beast." According to Spelman, the Northumbrians call a horse aver or afer.

See much more learned disquisition on the origin of these evidently congenerous words under the term Arage, in Jamieson.

EMDEE.

Mowbray Coheirs (No. 14. p. 213.).—Your correspondent "G." may obtain a clue to his researches on reference to the private act of parliament of the 19th Henry VII., No. 7., intituled, "An Act for Confirmation of a Partition of Lands made between William Marquis Barkley and Thomas Earl of Surrey."—Vide Statutes at Large.

W.H. LAMMIN.

Spurious Letter of Sir R. Walpole (No. 19. p. 304.)—"P.C.S.S." (No. 20. p. 321.) and "LORD BRAYBROOKE" (No. 21. p. 336.) will find their opinion of the letter being spurious confirmed by the appendix to Lord Hervey's Memoirs, (vol. ii. p. 582.), and the editor's note, which proves the inaccuracy of the circumstances on which the inventor of the letter founded his fabrication. In addition to Lord Braybrooke's proofs that Sir Robert was not disabled by the stone, for some days previous to the 24th, from waiting on the king, let me add also, from Horace Walpole's authority, two conclusive facts; the first is, that it was not till Sunday night, the 31st January (a week after the date of the letter) that Sir Robert made up his mind to resign; and, secondly, that he had at least two personal interviews with the king on that subject.

C.

Line quoted by De Quincey.—"S.P.S." (No. 22. p. 351.) is informed that

"With battlements that on their restless frontsBore stars"…

is a passage taken from a gorgeous description of "Cloudland" by Wordsworth, which occurs near the end of the second book of the Excursion. The opium-eater gives a long extract, as "S.P.S." probably remembers.

A.G.

Ecclesfield, March 31. 1850.

Quem Jupiter vult perdere priùs dementat.—Malone, in a note in Boswell's Johnson (p. 718., Croker's last edition), says, that a gentleman of Cambridge found this apophthegm in an edition of Euripides (not named) as a translation of an iambic.

"Ον Θεος Δελει 'απολεσαι, πρωτ' 'αποφρενοι."

The Latin translation the Cambridge gentleman might have found in Barnes; but where is the Greek, so different from that of Barnes, to be found? It is much nearer to the Latin.

C.

Bernicia.—In answer to the inquiry of "GOMER" (No. 21. p. 335.), "P.C.S.S." begs leave to refer him to Camden's Britannia (Philemon Holland's translation, Lond. fol. 1637), where he will find, at p. 797., the following passage:—

"But these ancient names were quite worn out of use in the English Saxon War; and all the countries lying north or the other side of the arme of the sea called Humber, began, by a Saxon name, to be called [Old English: Northan-Humbra-ric] that is, the Kingdome of Northumberland; which name, notwithstanding being now cleane gone in the rest of the shires, remayneth still, as it were, surviving in Northumberland onely; which, when that state of kingdome stood, was known to be a part of the Kingdome of Bernicia, which had peculiar petty kings, and reached from the River Tees to Edenborough Frith."

At p. 817. Camden traces the etymology of Berwick from Bernicia.

P.C.S.S.

Cæsar's Wife.—If the object of "NASO'S" Query (No. 18. p. 277.) be merely to ascertain the origin of the proverb, "Cæsar's wife must be above suspicion," he will find in Suetonius (Jul. Cæs. 74.) to the following effect:—

"The name of Pompeia, the wife of Julius Cæsar,having been mixed up with an accusation againstP. Clodius, her husband divorced her; not, as he said,because he believed the charge against her, but becausehe would have those belonging to him as free fromsuspicion as from crime."J.E.

[We have received a similar replay, with the addition of a reference to Plutarch (Julius Cæsar, cap. 10.), from several other kind correspondents.]

Nomade (No. 21. p. 342.).—There can be no doubt at all that the word "nomades" is Greek, and means pastoral nations. It is so used in Herodotus more than once, derived from νομος, pasture: νεμω, to graze, is generally supposed to be the derivation of the name of Numidians.

C.B.

Gray's Elegy.—In reply to the Query of your correspondent "J.F.M." (No. 7. p. 101.), as well as in allusion to remarks made by others among your readers in the following numbers on the subject of Gray's Elegy, I beg to state that, in addition to the versions in foreign languages of this fine composition therein enumerated, there is one printed among the poem, original and translated, by C.A. Wheelwright, B.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge, published by Longman & Co. 1811. (2d. edition, 1812.) If I mistake not, the three beautiful stanzas, given by Mason in his notes to Gray, viz. those beginning,—

"The thoughtless world to majesty may bow,""Hark! how the sacred calm that breathes around,""Him have we seen," &c.

(the last of which is so remarkable for its Doric simplicity, as well as being essential to mark the concluding period of the contemplative man's day) have not been admitted into any edition of the Elegy.

With the regard to the last stanza of the epitaph, its meaning is certainly involved in some degree of obscurity, though it is, I think, hardly to be charged with irreverence, according to the opinion of your correspondent "S.W." (No. 10. p. 150.). By the words trembling hope, there can be no doubt, that Petrarch's similar expression, paventosa speme, quoted in Mason's note, was embodied by the English poet. In the omitted version, mentioned in the beginning of this notice, the epitaph is rendered into Alcaics. The concluding stanza is as follows:—

"Utra sepulti ne meritis fane,Et parce culpas, invide, proloqui,Spe nunc et incerto timoreNuminis in gremio quiescunt."ARCHÆUS.

Wiesbaden, Feb. 16. 1850.

Cromwell's Estates (No. 18. p. 277., and No. 21. p. 339.).—I am much obliged to "SELEUCUS" for his answer to this inquiry, as far as regards the seignory of Gower. It also throws a strong light on the remaining names; by the aid of which, looking in Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire, I have identified Margore with the parish of Magor (St. Mary's), hundred of Caldecott, co. Monmouth: and guess, that for Chepstall we must read Chepstow, which is in the same hundred, and the population of which we know was stout in the royal cause, as tenants of the Marquis of Worcester would be.

Then I guess Woolaston may be Woolston (hundred of Dewhurst), co. Gloucester; and Chaulton, one of the Charltons in the same county, perhaps Charlton Kings, near Cheltenham; where again we read, that many of the residents were slain in the civil war, fighting on the king's side.

This leaves only Sydenham without something like a probable conjecture, at least: unless here, too, we may guess it was miswritten for Siddington, near Cirencester. The names, it is to be observed, are only recorded by Noble; whose inaccuracy as a transcriber has been shown abundantly by Carlyle. The record to which he refers as extant in the House of Commons papers, is not to be found, I am told.

Now, if it could be ascertained, either that the name in question had been Cromwell's, or even that they were a part of the Worcester estates, before the civil war, we should have the whole list cleared,—thanks to the aid so effectually given by "SELEUCUS'S" apposite explanations of one of its items.

Will your correspondents complete the illustrations thus well begun?

V.

Belgravia, March 26.

MISCELLANIES

Franz von Sickingen.—Your correspondent "S.W.S." (No. 21. p. 336.) speaks of his having had some difficulty in finding a portrait of Franz Von Sickingen; it may not therefore, by uninteresting to him to know (if not already aware of it) that upon the north side of the nave of the cathedral of Treves, is a monument of Richard Von Greifenklan, who defended Treves against the said Franz; and upon the entablature are portraits of the said archbishop on the one side, and his enemy Franz on the other. Why placed there it is difficult to conceive, unless to show that death had made the prelate and the robber equals.

W.C.

BODY AND SOUL

(From the Latin of Owen.)The sacred writers to express the whole,Name but a part, and call the man a soul.We frame our speech upon a different plan,And say "somebody," when we mean a man.Nobody heeds what everybody says,And yet how sad the secret it betrays!RUFUS.

"Laissez faire, laissez passer."—I think your correspondent "A MAN IN A GARRET" (No. 19. p. 308.) is not warranted in stating that M. de Gournay was the author of the above axiom of political economy. Last session Lord J. Russell related an anecdote in the House of Commons which referred the phrase to an earlier date. In the Times of the 2nd of April, 1849, his Lordship is reported to have said, on the preceding day, in a debate on the Rate-in-Aid Bill, that Colbert, with the intention of fostering the manufactures of France, established regulations which limited the webs woven in looms to a particular size. He also prohibited the introduction of foreign manufactures into France. The French vine-growers, finding that under this system they could no longer exchange their wine for foreign goods, began to grumble. "It was then," said his Lordship, "that Colbert, having asked a merchant what he should do, he (the merchant), with great justice and great sagacity, said, 'Laissez faire et laissez passer'—do not interfere as to the size and mode of your manufactures, do not interfere with the entrance of foreign imports, but let them compete with your own manufactures."

Colbert died twenty-nine years before M. de Gournay was born. Lord J. Russell omitted to state whether Colbert followed the merchant's advice.

C. ROSS.

College Salting and Tucking of Freshmen (No. 17. p. 261., No. 19. p. 306.).—A circumstantial account of the tucking of freshmen, as practised in Exeter College, oxford, in 1636, is given in Mr. Martyn's Life of the First Lord Shaftesbury, vol. i. p. 42.

"On a particular day, the senior under-graduates, in the evening, called the freshmen to the fire, and made them hold out their chins; whilst one of the seniors, with the nail of his thumb (which was left long for that purpose), grated off all the skin from the lip to the chin, and then obliged him to drink a beer-glass of water and salt."

Lord Shaftesbury was a freshman at Exeter in 1636; and the story told by his biographer is, that he organised a resistance among his fellow freshmen to the practice, and that a row took place in the college hall, which led to the interference of the master, Dr. Prideaux, and to the abolition of the practice in Exeter College. The custom is there said to have been of great antiquity in the college.

The authority cited by Mr. Martyn for the story is a Mr. Stringer, who was a confidential friend of Lord Shaftesbury's, and made collections for a Life of him; and it probably comes from Lord Shaftesbury himself.

C.

Byron and Tacitus.—Although Byron is, by our school rules, a forbidden author, I sometimes contrive to indulge myself in reading his works by stealth. Among the passages that have struck my (boyish) fancy is the couplet in "The Bride of Abydos" (line 912),—

"Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease!He makes a solitude, and calls it—peace!"

Engaged this morning in a more legitimate study, that of Tacitus, I stumbled upon this passage in the speech of Galgacus (Ag. xxx.),—

"Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem adpellant."

Does not this look very much like what we call "cabbaging?" If you think so, by adding it to the other plagiarisms of the same author, noted in some of your former numbers, you will confer a great honour on

A SCHOOLBOY.

The Pardonere and Frere.—If Mr. J.P. Collier would, at some leisure moment, forward, for your pages, a complete list of the variations from the original, in Smeeton's reprint of The Pardonere and Frere, he would confer a favour which would be duly appreciated by the possessors of that rare tract, small as their number must be; since, in my copy (once in the library of Thomas Jolley, Esq.), there is an autograph attestation by Mr. Rodd, that "there were no more than twenty copies printed."

G.A.S.

Mistake in Gibbon (No. 21. p. 341.).—The passage in Gibbon has an error more interesting than the mere mistake of the author. That a senator should make a motion to be repeated and chanted by the rest, would be rather a strange thing; but the tumultuous acclamations chanted by the senators as parodies of those in praise of Commodus, which had been usual at the Theatres (Dio), were one thing; the vote or decree itself, which follows, is another.

There are many errors, no doubt, to be found in Gibbon. I will mention one which may be entertaining, though I dare say Mr. Milman has found it out. In chap. 47. (and see note 26.), Gibbon was too happy to make the most of the murder of the female philosopher Hypatia, by a Christian mob at Alexandria. But the account which he gives is more shocking than the fact. He seems not to have been familiar enough with Greek to recollect that 'ανειλον means killed. Her throat was cut with an oyster-shell, because, for a reason which he has very acutely pointed out, oyster-shells were at hand; but she was clearly not "cut in pieces," nor, "her flesh scraped off the bones," till after she was dead. Indeed, there was no scraping from the bones at all. That they used oyster-shells is a proof that the act was not premeditated. Neither did she deserve the title of modest which Gibbon gives her. Her way of rejecting suitors is disgusting enough in Suidas.

C.B.

Public Libraries.—In looking through the Parliamentary Report on Libraries, I missed, though they may have escaped my notice, any mention of a valuable one in Newcastle-on-Tyne, "Dr. Thomlinson's;" for which a handsome building was erected early last century, near St. Nicholas Church, and a Catalogue of its contents has been published. I saw also, some years ago, a library attached to Wimborne Minster, which appeared to contained some curious books.

The Garrison Library at Gibraltar is, I believe, one of the most valuable English libraries on the continent of Europe.

W.C.T.

Edinburgh, March 30. 1850.

NOSCE TEIPSUM,—AN EXCEPTION

(From the Chinese of Confucius, or elsewhere.)I've not said so to you, my friend—and I'm not going—You may find so many people better worth knowing.RUFUS.

MISCELLANEOUS

NOTES ON BOOKS, CATALOGUES, SALES, ETC

Mr. Thorpe is preparing for publication a Collection of the Popular Traditions or Folk Lore of Scandinavia and Belgium, as a continuation of his Northern Mythology and Superstitions, now ready for the press.

Mr. Wykeham Archer's Vestiges of Old London, of which the Second Part is now before us, maintains its character as an interesting record of localities fast disappearing. The contents of the present number are, the "House of Sir Paul Pindar, in Bishopgate Without," once the residence of that merchant prince, and now a public-house bearing his name; "Remains of the East Gate, Bermondsey Abbey;" which is followed by a handsome staircase, one of the few vestiges still remaining of "Southhampton House," the residence of the Wriothesleys, Earls of Southampton. A plate of "Street Monuments, Signs, Badges, &c.," gives at once variety to the subjects, and a curious illustration of what was once one of the marked features of the metropolis. "Interior of a Tower belonging to the wall of London," in the premises of Mr. Burt, in the Old Bailey, presents us with a curious memorial of ancient London in its fortified state; it being the only vestige of a tower belonging to the wall in its entire height, and with its original roof existing. The last plate exhibits some "Old Houses, with the open part of Fleet Ditch, near Field Lane;" and the letter-press illustration of this plate describes a state of filth and profligacy which we hope will soon only be known among us as a thing that has been.

We have received the following Catalogues:—Messrs. Williams and Norgate's (14. Henrietta Street) German Catalogue, Part I. comprising Theology, Ecclesiastical History, and Philosophy; John Petheram's (94. High Holborn) Catalogue, Part CX. No. 4. for 1850, of Old and New Books; John Miller's (43. Chandos Street) Catalogue, Number Four for 1850 of Books Old and New; and E. Palmer and Son's (18. Paternoster Row) Catalogue of Scarce and Curious Books.