Notes and Queries, Number 47, September 21, 1850

Cancianus thus comments:—

"Animadverte, quam recte charta hæc cum supra alligatis formulis conveniat. Sponsus promiserat Morgencap, quando feminam desponsaverat, inde vero ante conjugium chartam conscribit: et quod et Liutprandi lege, et ex antiquis moribus Donum fuit mere gratuitum, hic appellatur Justitia secundum legem Langobardorum."

The Morgencap here assumes, I apprehend, somewhat the form of dower. That it was so, is very doubtful. (Grimm, vol. ii. p. 441. "Morgengabe.")

"An demselben Morgen empfängt die JungFrau von ihrem Gemahl ein ansehnliches Geschenk, welches Morgengabe heisst. Schon in der Pactio Guntherammi et Childeberti, werden Dos und Morganagiba unterschieden, ebenso Leg. Rip. 37. 2. Alaman. 56. 1, 2. Dos und Morgangeba; Lex Burgend. 42. 2. Morgangeba und das 'pretium nuptiale;' bei den Langobarden, 'Meta und Morgengab.'"

I do not say this answers the question of your correspondent G., which is, what is the derivation of the word?

Its actual signification, I think, means left-handed; but to think is not to resolve, and the question is open to the charitable contributions of your learned and able supporters.

As regards the Fairy Morgana, who was married to a mortal, I confess, with your kind permission, I had rather not accept her as a satisfactory reply. It is as though you would accept "once upon a time" as a chronological date! She was married to a mortal—true; but morganatically, I doubt it. If morganatic came from this, it should appear the Fairy Morgana was the first lady who so underwent the ceremony. Do not forget Lurline, who married also a mortal, of whom the poet so prettily sings:

"Lurline hung her head,Turned pale, and then red;And declared his abruptness in popping the questionSo soon after dinner had spoilt her digestion."

This lady's marriage resembled the other in all respects, and I leave you to decide, and no man is more competent, from your extensive knowledge of the mythology of Medieval Europe, whether Morgana, beyond the mere accident of her name, was more likely than Lurline to have added a word with a puzzling etymology to the languages of Europe. The word will, I think, be found of Eastern origin, clothed in a Teutonic form.

After all, Jacob Grimm and Cancianus may interest your readers, and so I send the Note.

S.H.

Athenæum, Sept. 6. 1850

MINOR NOTES

Alderman Beckford.—Gifford (Ben Jonson, vol. vi. p. 481.) has the following note:—

"The giants of Guildhall, thank heaven, yet defend their charge: it only remains to wish that the citizens may take example by the fate of Holmeby, and not expose them to an attack to which they will assuredly be found unequal. It is not altogether owing to their wisdom that this has not already taken place. For twenty years they were chained to the car of a profligate buffoon, who dragged them through every species of ignominy to the verge of rebellion; and their hall is even yet disgraced with the statue of a worthless negro-monger, in the act of insulting their sovereign with a speech of which (factious and brutal as he was) he never uttered one syllable." … "By my troth, captain, these are very bitter words."

But Gifford was generally correct in his assertions; and twenty-two years after his note, I made the following one:—

"It is a curious fact, but a true one, that Beckford did not utter one syllable of this speech. It was penned by Horne Tooke, and by his art put on the records of the city and on Beckford's statue, as he told me, Mr. Braithwaite, Mr. Seyers, &c., at the Athenian Club.

"ISAAC REED.

"See the Times Of July 23. 1838, p. 6."

The worshipful Company of Ironmongers have relegated their statue from their hall to a lower position: but it still disgraces the Guildhall, and will continue to do so, as long as any factious demagogue is permitted to have a place among its members.

L.S.

The Frozen Horn.—Perhaps it is not generally known that the writer of Munchausen's Travels borrowed this amusing incident from Heylin's Mikrokosmos. In the section treating of Muscovy, he says:—

"This excesse of cold in the ayre, gave occasion to Castilian, in his Aulicus, wittily and not incongruously to faine that if two men being smewhat distant, talke together in the winter, their words will be so frozen that they cannot be heard: but if the parties in the spring returne to the same place, their words will melt in the same order that they were frozen and spoken, and be plainly understood."

J.S.

Salisbury.

Inscription from Roma Subterranea.—If you deem the translation of this inscription, quoted in Lord Lindsay's fanciful but admirable Sketches of the History of Christian Art, worth a place among your Notes, it is very heartily at your service.

"Sisto viatorTot ibi trophæa, quot ossaQuot martyres, tot triumphi.Antra quæ subis, multa quæ cernis marmora,Vel dum silent,Palam Romæ gloriam loquuntur.Audi quid Echo resonetSubterraneæ Romæ!Obscura licet Urbis CoemetriaTotius patens Orbis Theatrium!Supplex Loci Sanetitatem venerare,Et post hac sub luto aurumCoelum sub coenoSub Româ Romam quærito!"

Roma Subterranea, 1651, tom. i. p. 625.

(Inscription abridged.)

Stay, wayfarer—beholdIn ev'ry mould'ring bone a trophy here.In all these hosts of martyrs,So many triumphs.These vaults—these countless tombs,E'en in their very silenceProclaim aloud Rome's glory:The echo'd fameOf subterranean RomeRings on the ear.The city's sepulchres, albeit hidden,Present a spectacleTo the wide world patent.In lowly rev'rence hail this hallow'd spot,And henceforth learnGold beneath drossHeav'n below earth,Rome under Rome to find!F.T.J.B.

Brookthorpe.

Parallel Passages.—

"There is an acre sown with royal seed, the copy of the greatest change from rich to naked, from cieled roofs to arched coffins, from living like gods to die like men."—Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying, chap. i. sect. 1. p. 272. ed. Edin.

"Here's an acre sown indeedWith the richest royalest seeds,That the earth did e'er suck in,Since the first man dyed for sin:Here the bones of birth have cried,Though gods they were, as men they died."F. BEAUMONTM.W. Oxon.

A Note on George Herbert's Poems.—In the notes by Coleridge attached to Pickering's edition of George Herbert's Poems, on the line—

"My flesh begun unto my soul in pain,"

Coleridge says—

"Either a misprint, or noticeable idiom of the word began: Yes! and a very beautiful idiom it is: the first colloquy or address of the flesh."

The idiom is still in use in Scotland. "You had better not begin to me," is the first address or colloquy of the school-boy half-angry half-frightened at the bullying of a companion. The idiom was once English, though now obsolete. Several instances of it are given in the last edition of Foxe's Martyrs, vol. vi. p. 627. It has not been noticed, however, that the same idiom occurs in one of the best known passages of Shakspeare; in Clarence's dream, Richard III., Act i. Sc. 4.:

"O, then began the tempest to my soul."

Herbert's Poems will afford another illustration to Shakspeare, Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 7.:—

"And then this should is like a spendthrift sigh,That hurts by easing."

Coleridge, in the Literary Remains, vol. i. p. 233., says—

"In a stitch in the side, every one must have heaveda sigh that hurts by easing."

Dr. Johnson saw its true meaning:

"It is," he says, "a notion very prevalent, that sighs impair the strength, and wear out the animal powers."

In allusion to this popular notion, by no means yet extinct, Herbert says, p. 71.:

"Or if some years with it (a sigh) escapeThe sigh then only isA gale to bring me sooner to my bliss."D.S.

"Crede quod habes," &c.—The celebrated answer to a Protestant about the real presence, by the borrower of his horse, is supposed to be made since the Reformation, by whom I forget:—

"Quod nuper dixistiDe corpore ChristiCrede quod edis et edis;Sic tibi rescriboDe tuo palfridoCrede quod habes et habes."

But in Wright and Halliwell's Reliquiæ Antiquæ, p. 287., from a manuscript of the time of Henry VII., is given—

"Tu dixisti de corpore Christi, crede et habesDe palefrido sic tibi scribo, crede et habes."M.

Grant to the Earl of Sussex of Leave to be covered in the Royal Presence.—In editing Heylyn's History of the Reformation, I had to remark of the grant made by Queen Mary to the Earl of Sussex, that it was the only one of Heylyn's documents which I had been unable to trace elsewhere (ii. 90.). Allow me to state in your columns, that I have since found it in Weever's Funeral Monuments (pp. 635, 636).

J.C. ROBERTSON.

Bekesbourne.

The first Woman formed from a Rib (Vol. ii., p. 213.).—As you have given insertion to an extract of a sermon on the subject of the creation of Eve, I trust you will allow me to refer your correspondent BALLIOLENSIS to Matthew Henry's commentary on the second chapter of Genesis, from which I extract the following beautiful explanation of the reason why the rib was selected as the material whereof the woman should be created:—

"Fourthly, that the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him; but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved."

IOTA.

Beau Brummel's Ancestry.—Mr. Jesse some years back did ample justice to the history of a "London celebrity," George Brummell; but, from what he there stated, the following "Note" will, I feel assured, be a novelty to him. At the time that Brummell was considered in everything the arbiter elegantiarum, the writer of this has frequently heard Lady Monson (the widow of the second lord, and an old lady who, living to the age of ninety-seven, had a wonderful fund of interesting recollections) say, that this ruler of fashion was the descendant of a very excellent servant in the family. Not long ago, some old papers of the family being turned over, proofs corroborative of this came to light. William Brummell, from the year 1734 to 1764, was the faithful and confidential servant of Charles Monson, brother of the first lord: the period would identify him with the grandfather of the Beau; the only doubt was, that as Mr. Jesse has ascertained that William Brummell, the grandfather, was, in the interval above given, married, had a son William, and owned a house in Bury Street, how far these facts were compatible with his remaining as a servant living with Charles Monson, both in town and country. Now, in 1757, Professor Henry Monson of Cambridge being dangerously ill, his brother Charles sent William Brummell down, as a trustworthy person, to attend to him; and in a letter from Brummell to his master, he, with many other requisitions, wishes that there may be sent down to him a certain glass vessel, very useful for invalids to drink out of, and which, if not in Spring Gardens, "may be found in Bury Street. It was used when Billy was ill." From the familiarity of the word "Billy," he must be speaking of his son. These facts are certainly corroborative of the old dowager's statement.

M(2).

QUERIES

GRAY'S ELEGY AND DODSLEY POEMS

I have here, in the country, few editions of Gray's works by me, and those not the best; for instance, I have neither of those by the Rev. J. Mitford (excepting his Aldine edition, in one small volume), which, perhaps, would render my present Query needless. It relates to a line, or rather a word in the Elegy, which is of some importance. In the second stanza, as the poem is usually divided (though Mason does not give it in stanzas, because it was not so originally written), occurs,

"Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight."

And thus the line stands in all the copies (five) I am able at this moment to consult. But referring to Dodsley's Collection of Poems, vol. iv., where it comes first, the epithet applied to "flight" is not "droning," but drony—

"Save where the beetle wheels his drony flight."

Has anybody observed upon this difference, which surely is worthy of a Note? I cannot find that the circumstance has been remarked upon, but, as I said, I am here without the means of consulting the best authorities. The Elegy, I presume, must have been first separately printed, and from thence transferred to Dodsley's Collection; and I wish to be informed by some person who has the earliest impression, how the line is there given? I do not know any one to whom I can appeal on such a point with greater confidence than to MR. PETER CUNNINGHAM, who, I know, has a large assemblage of the first editions of our most celebrated poets from the reign of Anne downwards, and is so well able to make use of them. It would be extraordinary, if drony were the epithet first adopted by Gray, and subsequently altered by him to "droning," that no notice should have been taken of the substitution by any of the poet's editors. I presume, therefore, that it has been mentioned, and I wish to know where?

Now, a word or two on Dodsley's Collection of Poems, in the fourth volume of which, as I have stated, Gray's-Elegy comes first. Dodsley's is a popular and well-known work, and yet I cannot find that anybody has given the dates connected with it accurately. If Gray's Elegy appeared in it for the first time (which I do not suppose), it came out in 1755 which is the date of vol. iv. of Dodsley's Collection, and not in 1757, which is the date of the Strawberry Hill edition of Gray's Odes. The Rev. J. Mitford (Aldine edit. xxxiii.) informs us that "Dodsley published three volumes of this Collection in 1752; the fourth volume was published in 1755 and the fifth and sixth volumes, which completed the Collection, in 1758." I am writing with the title-pages of the work open before me, and I find that the first three volumes were published, not in 1752, but in 1748, and that even this was the second edition so that there must have been an edition of the first three volumes, either anterior to 1748, or earlier in that year. The sale of the work encouraged Dodsley to add a fourth volume in 1755, and two others in 1758 and the plate of Apollo and the Muses was re-engraved for vols. v. and vi., because the original copper, which had served for vols. i., ii., iii., and iv., was so much worn.

This matter will not seem of such trifling importance to those who bear in mind, that if Gray's Elegy did not originally come out in this Collection in 1755, various other poems of great merit and considerable popularity did then make their earliest appearance.

THE HERMIT OF HOLYPORT.

Sept. 1850.

P.S. My attention has been directed to the subject of Gray's Poems, and particularly to his Elegy, by a recent pilgrimage I made to Stoke Poges, which is only five or six miles from this neighbourhood. The church and the poet's monument to his mother are worth a much longer walk; but the mausoleum to Gray, in the immediate vicinity, is a preposterous edifice. The residence of Lady Cobham has been lamentably modernised.

HUGH HOLLAND AND HIS WORKS

The name of Hugh Holland has been handed down to posterity in connexion with that of our immortal bard; but few know anything of him beyond his commendatory verses prefixed to the first folio of Shakspeare.

He was born at Denbigh in 1558, and educated at Westminster School while Camden taught there. In 1582 he matriculated at Baliol College, Oxford; and about 1590 he succeeded to a Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. Thence he travelled into Italy, and at Rome was guilty of several indiscretions by the freedom of his conversations. He next went to Jerusalem to pay his devotions at the Holy Sepulchre, and on his return touched at Constantinople, where he received a reprimand from the English ambassador for the former freedom of his tongue. At his return to England, he retired to Oxford, and, according to Wood, spent some years there for the sake of the public library. He died in July, 1633, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, "in the south crosse aisle, neere the dore of St. Benet's Chapell," but no inscription now remains to record the event.

Whalley, in Gifford's Jonson (1. cccxiv.), says, speaking of Hugh Holland—

"He wrote several things, amongst which is the life of Camden; but none of them, I believe, have been ever published."

Holland published two works, the titles of which are as follows, and perhaps others which I am not aware of:—

1. "Monumenta Sepulchralia Sancti Pauli. Lond. 1613. 4to."

2. "A Cypres Garland for the Sacred Forehead of our late Soveraigne King James. Lond. 1625. 4to."

The first is a catalogue of the monuments, inscriptions, and epitaphs in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, which Nicolson calls "a mean and dull performance." It was, at any rate, very popular, being printed again in the years 1616, 1618, and 1633.

The second is a poetical tract of twelve leaves, of the greatest possible rarity.

Holland also printed commendatory verses before a curious musical work, entitled Parthenia, or the Maydenhead of the First Musick for the Virginalls, 1611; and a copy of Latin verses before Dr. Alexander's Roxana, 1632.

In one of the Lansdowne MSS. are preserved the following verses written upon the death of Prince Henry, by "Hugh Hollande, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge:"—

"Loe, where he shineth yonderA fixed Star in heaven,Whose motion here came underNone of the planets seven.If that the Moone should tenderThe Sun her love, and marry,They both could not engenderSo sweet a star as HARRY."

Our author was evidently a man of some poetical fancy, and if not worthy to be classed "among the chief of English poets," he is at least entitled to a niche in the temple of fame.

My object in calling attention to this long forgotten author is, to gain some information respecting his manuscript works. According to Wood, they consist of—1. Verses in Description of the chief Cities of Europe; 2. Chronicle of Queen Elizabeth's reign; 3. Life of William Camden.

Can any of your readers say in whose possession, or in what library, any of the above mentioned MSS. are at the present time? I should also feel obliged for any communication respecting Hugh Holland or his works, more especially frown original sources, or books not easily accessible.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

HARVEY'S CLAIM TO THE DISCOVERY OF THE CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD

I have both a Note and a Query about Harvey and the circulation of the blood (Vol. ii., p. 187.). The Note refers to Philostratus (Life of Apollorius, p. 461., ed. 1809), Nouvelles de la République des Lettres, June, 1684, xi.; and Dutens pp. 157-341. 4to. ed. 1796. I extract the passage from Les Nouvelles:—

"On voit avec plaisir un passage d'André Cæsalpinus qui contient fort clairement la doctrine de la circrilation. Il est tiré de ses Questions sur la médecine imprimées l'an 1593. Jean Leonicenas ajoûte que le père Paul découvrit la circulation du sang, et les valvules des veines, mais qu'il n'osa pas en parler, de peur d'exciter contre luy quelque tempête. Il n'etois déjà que trop suspect, et il n'eut fallu que ce nouveau paradoxe pour le transformer en hérétique dans le pais d'inquisition. Si bien qu'il ne communiqua son secret qu'au seul Aquapendente, qui n'osant s'exposer à l'envie.... Il attendit à l'heure de sa mort pour mettre le livre qu'il avoit composé touchant les valvules des veines entre les mains de la république de Venise, et comme les moindres nouveautez font peur en cc pais-là, le livre fut caché dans le billiothèque de Saint Marc. Mais parcequ' Aquapendente ne fit pas difficulté de s'ouvrir à un jeune Anglois fort curieux nommé Harvée, qui étudioit sous lui a Padouë, et qu'en même temps le père Paul fit a même confidence à l'Ambassadeur d'Angleterre, ces deux Anglois de retour chez eux, et se voyant en pais de liberté, publièrent ce dogme, et l'ayant confirmé par plusieurs expériences, s'en attribuèrent toute la gloire."

The Query is, what share Harvey had in the discovery attributed to him?

W.W.B.

Minor Queries

Bernardus Patricius.—Some writers mention Bernardus Patricius as a follower of Copernicus, about the time of Galileo. Who was he?

M.

Meaning of Hanger.—Can any one of your readers inform me, what is the meaning of the word hanger, so frequently occurring in the names of places in Bedfordshire, such as Panshanger?

W. Anderson

Cat and Bagpipes.—In studying some letters which passed between two distinguished philosophers of the last century, I have found in one epistle a request that the writer might be remembered "to his friends at the Crown and Anchor, and the Cat and Bagpipes." The letter was addressed to a party in London, where doubtless, both those places of entertainment were. The Crown and Anchor was the house where the Royal Society Club held its convivial meetings. Can you inform me where the Cat and Bagpipes was situated, and what literary and scientific club met there? The name seems to have been a favourite one for taverns, and, if mistake not, is common in Ireland. Is it a corruption of some foreign title, as so many such names are, or merely a grotesque and piquant specimen of sign-board literature?

Quasimodo.

Andrew Becket.—A.W. Hammond will feel obliged for any information respecting Andrew Becket, Esq., who died 19th January, 1843, æt. 95, and to whose memory there is a handsome monument in Kennington Church. According to that inscription, he was "ardently devoted to the pursuits of literature," personally acquainted in early life with the most distinguished authors of his day, long the intimate friend of David Garrick, "and a profound commentator on the dramatic works of Shakspeare." Can any of the learned readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" satisfy this Query?

Laurence Minot.—Is any other MS. of Minot known, besides the one from which Ritson drew his text? Is there any other edition of this poet besides Ritson's, and the reprints thereof?

E.S. JACKSON.

Modena Family.—When did Victor Amadeus, King of Sardinia, die? When did his daughter, Mary Duchess of Modena, die, (the mother of the present Duke of Modena, and through whom he is the direct heir of the House of Stuart)?

L.M.M.R.

Bamboozle.—What is the etymology of bamboozle, used as a verb?

L.M.M.R.

Butcher's Blue Dress.—What is the origin of the custom, which seems all but universal in England, for butchers to wear a blouse or frock of blue colour? Though so common in this country as to form a distinctive mark of the trade, and to be almost a butcher's uniform, it is, I believe, unknown on the continent. Is it a custom which has originate in some supposed utility, or in the official dress of a guild or company, or in some accident of which a historical notice has been preserved?

L.

Hatchment and Atchievement.—Can any one of the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" tell me how comes the corruption hatchment from atchievement? Ought the English word to be spelt with a t, or thus, achievement? Why are hatchments put up in churches and on houses?

W. ANDERSON.

"Te colui Virtutem."—Who is the author of the line—

"Te colui virtutem ut rem ast tu nomen inane es?"

It is a translation of part of a Greek tragic fragment, quoted, according to Dio Cassius, by Brutus just before his death. As much as is here translated is also to be found in Plutarch De Superstitione.

E.

"Illa suavissima Vita."—Where does "Illa suavissima vita indies sentire se fieri meliorem" come from?

E.

Christianity, Early Influence of.—"The beneficial influence of the Christian clergy during the first thousand years of the Christian era."

What works can be recommended on the above subject?

X.Y.Z.

Wraxen, Meaning of.—What is the origin and meaning of the word wraxen, which was used by a Kentish woman on being applied to by a friend of mine to send her children to the Sunday-school, in the following sentence?—"Why, you see, they go to the National School all the week, and get so wraxen, that I cannot send them to the Sunday School too."