Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851

Over a door of one of the out-buildings is an inscription in ancient letters, from which may be traced—"Aleisbet. Pudaci, p–," with a bird sitting on the last letter p. (Elizabeth Pudsay, prioress).

The builder of the present house died in 1749; and, in 1755, his son of the same name sold the manor-house and furniture to Robert Stansfield, Esq., of Bradford; from whom the present owner is descended.1

Chas. W. Markham.

Jan. 10. 1851.

Crossing Rivers on Skins (Vol. iii., p. 3.).—Mr. C. M. G., a near relative of mine, who lately returned from naval service on the Indus, told me, last year, that he had often seen there naked natives employed in fishing. The man, with his fishing-tackle, launches himself on the water, sustained by a large hollow earthen vessel having a round protuberant opening on one side. To this opening the fisherman applies his abdomen, so as to close the vessel against the influx of water; and clinging to this air-filled buoy, floats about quite unconcernedly, and plies his fishing-tackle with great success. The analogy between this Oriental buoy and the inflated skins mentioned by Layard and by your correspondent Janus Dousa, is sufficiently remarkable to deserve a note.

G. F. G.

Edinburgh.

Queries

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL QUERIES

(Continued from Vol. ii., p. 493.)

(31.) P. H. F. (Vol. iii., pp. 24, 25.) has described a 12mo., or rather an 8vo., copy of Latin Psalter in his possession, and he wishes to know whether Montanus had any connexion with one of the translations therein exhibited. The title-page of your correspondent's volume will tell him precisely what the book contains. He had better not rely too much upon MS. remarks in any of his treasures; and when a bibliographical question is being investigated, let Cyclopædias by all means not be disturbed from their shelves. Would it not be truly marvellous if a volume, printed by Robert Stephens in 1556, could in that year have presented, by prolepsis, to its precocious owner a version which Bened. Arias Montanus did not execute until 1571? But P. H. F.'s communication excites another query. He appears to set a special value upon his Psalter because that the verses are in it distinguished by cyphers; but Pagnini's whole Bible, which I spoke of, came thirty years before it, and we have still to go nearly twenty years farther back in search of the earliest example of the employment of Arabic figures to mark the verses in the Book of Psalms. The Quincuplex Psalterium, by Jacques le Fevre, is a most beautiful book, perhaps the finest production of the press of Henry Stephens the elder; and not only are the verses numbered in the copy before me, which is of the improved "secunda emissio" in 1513, but the initial letters of them are in red. At signature A iiij. there is a very handsome woodcut of the letter A., somewhat of a different style, from the larger (not the Ascensian) P., within the periphery of which St. Paul is represented, and which is so well worthy of notice in Le Fevre's edition of the Epistole diui Pauli Apostoli, Paris, 1517. The inquiry toward which I have been travelling is this, When did Henry Stephens first make use of the open Ratdoltian letter on dotted ground? (See Maitland's Lambeth List, p. 328. Dibdin's Typog. Antiq. vol. i., Prel. Disquis., p. xl.)

(32.) Is there extant any collation of the various exemplars of the Alphabetum divini Amoris? And has an incontrovertible opinion been formed as to the paternity of this tract? For the common error of ascribing it to Gerson is entirely inexcusable, as this Parisian chancellor is frequently alleged therein. The third volume of his works, set forth by Du Pin, in 1706, contains this "Treatise of the Elevation of the Soul to God," and the editor has left the blunder uncorrected in his Eccles. Hist. iii. 53. Again, can it be affirmed that the folio impression of Louvain, (Panzer, ix. 243.), in which Gerson's name occurs, was assuredly anterior to the small black-letter and anonymous editions, likewise without dates? Two of the latter (one much older than the other) are of 12mo. size, in 8vo., as is also Bonaventura's Stimulus divini Amoris, printed in 1510 and 1517.

(33.) In what way can we detect the propounder of the Notabilis expositio super canonem misse? His work is of small folio size without mention of place or year; but it certainly proceeded from Nuremberg, and was it not one of the primitiæ of Creusner?

(34.) Who is designated by the letters "G. N. N. D.," which are put at the head of the Epistle to Zuinglius, De Magistris nostris Lovaniensibus, quot et quales sint? And why has the Vita S. Nicolai, sive Stultitiæ Exemplar, originally attached to this performance, been omitted by Dr. Münch in his edition of the Epistolæ obscurorum Vivorum, aliaque ævi decimi sexti Monimenta rarissima, Leipzig, 1827? If he had reprinted this very desirable appendix, it would have furnished him with the date "Anno M.D.XX.," which would have prevented him from assigning this satirical composition to the year "1521." (Einl. p. 408.)

(35.) A student can scarcely be considered moderately well versed in ancient ecclesiastical documents who has neither read nor heard of the Somnium Viridarii; and we may wonder at, and pity, the learned Goldast, for having fallen into the extravagant mistake of attributing this Latin translation of the celebrated Dialogue, Le Songe du Verger, to "Philotheus Achillinus, Consiliarius Regius." (Monarch. S. Rom. Imper. i. 58. Hanov. 1612.) The question arises, How was he misled? Was it not through a strange misconception of a sentence in the Silva Nuptialis of Nevizan, to which he refers in his preliminary "Dissertatio de Auctoribus?" This writer, who has been plentifully purified by the Roman Index, had cited the preface of an Italian poem, "Il Viridario," composed by his contemporary, Giovanni Filoteo Achillini; and is it thus that an author of the sixteenth century has got credit for an anonymous achievement of the fourteenth age? Goldastus has hardly been out-Heroded by those who have devised an individual named Viridarius, or "Le Sieur du Vergier." (See Baillet, Déguisemens des Auteurs, p. 479., and M. De la Monnoye's note, pp. 501-2.)

(36.) Is there not a transpositional misprint in the colophon of the old German Life of S. Dorothea, the so-called patroness of Prussia? For it would seem to be inevitable that we should endeavour to elicit 1492, and not 1512, from the following date: "Den Dingstag nach Gregory als man tzelete, M.CCCC. unde cxii." (Vid. Lilienthal, Histor. B. Doroth. p. 6. Dantisc., 1744.)

(37.):—

"The Original Manuscript of both volumes of this History will be deposited in the Cotton Library, by

"T. Burnett."

Has this declaration been inserted, in the handwriting of Thomas Burnet, on the reverse of the title-page of the second volume, in all large-paper copies (and is it strictly limited to them?) of Bishop Burnet's History of his own Time, Lond., 1734? Compare the printed "Advertisement to the Reader" in the first volume, published in 1724.

(38.) Mr. T. R. Hampson, the author of Medii Ævi Kalendarium, which has, I believe, been commended in "Notes and Queries," informs us, in a precious production which he has lately issued on the Religious Deceptions of the Church of Rome, p. 30., that—

"Dr. Geddes, himself a learned Romanist, has selected many [remarkable errors] in his tract, A Discovery of some Gross Mistakes in the Roman Martyrology."

Only fancy a Romanist, learned or unlearned, having the effrontery to bestow so outrageous an appellation upon such an exploit. Does not the second volume of Miscellaneous Tracts, in which the said treatise may be seen, explicitly admonish us to remember that Michael Geddes, LL.D., was erst a chancellor of the Church of Sarum? "Quid Romæ faciam?" he upbraidingly asks in one of his title-pages, "mentiri nescio."

R. G.

Minor Queries

Bishops' Lands.—In the month of September, 1642, the Parliament appointed a committee for the sale of Bishops' lands; and an account of some sold between 1647 and 1651, will be found in vol. i. of the Collectanea Topographica, 8vo., 1834. On the Restoration, a committee sat to inquire into these sales and make satisfaction. Bishop Kennet refers to a MS. containing the orders of the commissioners, but does not state where the MS. was deposited; nor has Sir Frederic Madden, who communicated that article to the Collectanea, met with it anywhere.

Can any of your correspondents give any information upon the subject, or say where may be found any accounts of the sales of the lands under the parliamentary orders, or of the proceedings of the commissioners appointed to make restitution upon the king's restoration?

G.

The Barons of Hugh Lupus.—It appears by the charter foundation to the abbey of St. Werburge at Chester, that several very eminent persons held the rank of Baron, under Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester. The charter is signed by the earl himself and by the following barons: Richard, son of Hugh Lupus; Hervey, Bishop of Bangor; Ranulph de Meschines, nephew of the earl; Roger Bigod, Alan de Perci, William Constabular, Ranulph Dapifer, William Malbanc, Robert Fitz-Hugh, Hugh Fitz-Norman, Hamo de Masci, and Bigod de Loges.

Can any of your readers inform us what befel the families and descendants of William Malbanc, and Bigod de Loges? The descendants of the rest are too well authenticated to need inquiry.

P.

Can the Queen make a Gentleman?—The following is from the Patent Rolls (13 Ric. II. pars. 1. m. 37. Prynne's Fourth Institutes, p. 68.):—

"Le Roy a tous ceux as queux cestes Lettres viendrount. Sachez qe come un Chivalier Fraunceys, a ceo qe nous Soums enformez, ad chalenge un nostre Liege, Johan de Kyngeston, a faire certeinez faitz et pointz darmes oveske le dit Chivalier. Nous a fyn qe le dit nostre liege soit le multz honerablement resceuz a faire puisse et perfourmir les ditz faitz et pointz d'armes luy avons resceux en lestat de Gentile homme, et luy fait Esquier. Et volons, qil soit conuz par armes, et porte desore enavant, Cestassavoir d'argent ove une, chapewe Dazure ovesque une plume Dostrich de goules. Et ceo a tous yeaux as queux y appertient nous notifions pu ycelles. En tesmoignance de quelle chose nous avons fait faire cestes noz lettres patentes. Done souz nostre grant Seal a nostre Paleys de Westm. le primer jour de Juyll.

"Par brief de Prive Seal."

H. Witham.

Plafery.—In Carew's masque of Cœlum Britannicum, acted before the court at Whitehall, the 18th of February, 1633; Momus, arriving from Olympus immediately after Mercury, says to him—

"The hosts upon the highway cry out with open mouth upon you, for supporting plafery in your train; which, though, as you are the god of petty larceny, you might protect, yet you know it is directly against the new orders, and oppose the reformation in diameter."

What is plafery? It is evident that the joking allusion to it was rather bold, for Mercury exclaims,—

"Peace, railer, bridle your licentious tongue,And let this presence teach you modesty."B. R. I.

St. John's Bridge Fair.—In what county in England was St. John's Bridge Fair held in the year 1614, and in what town in the county?

Josephus.

Queries on Costume.—In Wilson's Life of De Foe there is an anecdote of Charles II. concealing himself, when a fugitive from Worcester, beneath a lady's hoop, while his pursuers searched the house in which he had taken refuge. Were hoops worn so early as the year 1651? In the Book of Costume I find no mention of them before the beginning of the eighteenth century; but I do not think this circumstance conclusive, as the "Lady of Rank" is not always very accurate.

Writing in the reign of Anne, she says, "Fans were now very much used," but omits to mention that they were in fashion long before, having been indispensable to Catherine of Braganza and her ladies at home and abroad, in the church and the theatre.

"Long gloves," says the Lady of Rank, "began to be worn by the ladies in this reign." (Queen Anne's).

"Twelve dozen Martial,2 whole and half," says Evelyn:—were not whole Martial gloves, long?

Wedsecnarf.

Cum Grano Salis.—Sometime ago I asked from what figure is borrowed the expression of "Cum grano salis," and have had no reply. I can't find it in Erasmus. Once a very clever Cambridge man said that it meant "the thing must be swallowed with a little Attic salt to make it go down pleasantly." I don't think that he was right.

E. H.

Earl of Clarendon's Daughter, Lucretia.—I should be very glad to learn whether the great Earl of Clarendon had a daughter named Lucretia. A friend of mine is descended from Dr. Marsh, archbishop of Armagh, who (it is said) married Lucretia, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, and was the father of Lucretia, wife of Dr. McNeil, Dean of Down and Connor.

Wedsecnarf.

Vandyke's Portrait of Lord Aubigny.—Can any of your correspondents give any information respecting a portrait, by Vandyke, of George Lord Aubigny, brother to the Duke of Richmond and Lennox? There is no doubt that such a picture once existed.

L.

Foundation Stone of St. Mark's, Venice.—In vol. xxvi. of the Archæologia is a paper by the late Mr. Douce, "On the foundation stone of the original church of St. Mark, at Venice," &c., accompanied by an engraving of the mutilated object itself, which also appears to have been submitted to the inspection of the Society of Antiquaries at the time the paper was read. The essay contains, in reality, very little information relating to the stone, and that little is of no very satisfactory kind; and I have never been able to divest myself of the idea that it bears somewhat the semblance of a hoax. Were I inclined to discuss the points which have suggested this notion, the necessity there is for brevity in corresponding with the Editor of "Notes and Queries" would preclude my doing it; but I must quote the following passage, which comes immediately after the statement that the original church, in the foundation of which this stone was deposited, was destroyed in 976.

"It is very possible that, in clearing away the rubbish of the old church, the original foundation stone was discovered, and, in some way or other, at present not traceable, preserved."

If the fact is so, this stone, "of a circular form, the diameter six inches and a quarter, its thickness half an inch," must have been loose in the world for 858 years from its exhumation to 1834, when Mr. Douce's essay was read, and during that time has lost only the least important part of its inscription and ornaments.

Can any one say where this stone now is? When and where Mr. Douce obtained it? And, I must add, what history was attached to it when in his possession? for he was not a person likely to possess such an object without, at least, endeavouring to trace its history. On these points the essay contains not a word.

H. C. R.

Coins of Richard Cromwell.—Will any of your numismatical readers inform me whether there are any coins or medals known of Richard Cromwell, either during his chancellorship of Oxford, or his short protectorate of these realms?

Blower.

Cataracts of the Nile.—Seneca (Nat. Quæst. iv. 2.) tells a story of the natives suffering themselves to be carried down in sport, which Rollin says is confirmed by modern travellers; but can this be so? Can any one give the names of any of these travellers, and supply the blank thus left by the historian?

S. G.

Paternoster Tackling.—Dancing Trenchmore.—What is the origin and meaning of this term? also of the phrase "Dancing Trenchmore?"

S. G.

Hymns.—Will some of your correspondents favour me with a copy of "Queen Mary's Lament," a translation of which appeared in Coxe's delightful Christian Ballads. Also Adam of St. Victor's "exquisite poem" on the Cross, referred to by Mr. Trench in his Sacred Latin Poetry?

Jarltzberg.

Camden and Curwen Families.—Camden, in his Britannia, art. "Cumberland," mentions his descent, by the mother's side, from the Curwens of Workington. Should any of your numerous correspondents be able to trace their descent, he would much oblige a member of that family.

H. C.

Jartuare.—Can any of your readers oblige me with any account of a printed book called Jartuare? Its date would be early in the sixteenth century, if not earlier.

W.(1.)

Replies

JOHN BUNYAN AND HIS PORTRAIT.—DID BUNYAN KNOW HOBBES?

(Vol. ii., pp. 476. 518.; Vol. iii., p. 70.)

The best portrait of John Bunyan was drawn and engraved by White, to the Holy War, 1682. The original drawing, and a fine impression of the engraving, is preserved in the illustrated Grainger's History of England, in the print-room at the British Museum. It was copied in folio for Bunyan's Works. It has been recently copied for Mr. Bogue's elegant edition of the Pilgrim, and for the first complete edition of Bunyan's Works, now publishing by Messrs. Blackie and Sons, Glasgow. A fac-simile was engraved for an edition of the Pilgrim, by Mr. Pickering, 8vo. 1849.

That the great allegorist was not the author of Heart's Ease in Heart Trouble is perfectly clear, not only that the style is very different, but from the author being known. It was first published in 1690, under the initials of J. B., and the Epistle is dated "From the house of my pilgrimage, March, 1690." Bunyan died in August, 1688. Mr. Palmer, in his Calamy, vol. ii. p.16., states that the author was James Birdwood.

Whether Bunyan was acquainted with Hobbes depends upon the authority of a small volume of Visions of Heaven and Hell, published under the name of Bunyan. In this it is represented that he saw poor Hobbes in hell, and recognised an old acquaintance.

The earliest edition of The Visions which I have been able to discover, is at "London: printed for Edward Midwinter, at the Looking Glass upon London Bridge, price, bound, one shilling;" without date. It was printed early in the reign of George I.; this is seen in an advertisement of books at the end, among which is The Lives of the Monarchs of England to his present Majesty King George. It is entitled, The Visions of John Bunyan, being his last remains. There is no account of either of this, or the Heart's Ease, in The Struggler for the Preservation of Mr. John Bunyan's Labours. This gives a list of forty-three works published by him, and of seventeen left by him at his decease for publication. If The Visions were written by him, it must have escaped the search of his widow and surviving friends; but the style at once proves that it was not a production of his prolific pen. Bunyan's style was remarkably simple and plain. The following phrases extracted from The Visions will carry conviction to every reader:—

"Mormo's of a future state," "metempsychosis of nature," "nefandous villanies," "diurnal and annual," "my visive faculty," "soul-transparent and diaphonous," "translucid ray," "terrene enjoyments," "our minds are clarified," "types both of the ante and post-diluvian world," "the tenuity thereof," "the aereal heavens," "effluxes of divine glory," "all ænigmas," "corruscations of his divine nature," "Solomon's mystick epithalamium," "the epiphonema," "propinquity in nature," "diversified refractions," "too bright and too diaphonous," "sweet odes and eniphalamics," "amarantine crown," "bright corruscancy," "palinodies and elegies," "no cataplasm," "eccentricks quite exterminate," "mutual assassinates," &c. &c.

Such phrases and terms plain John Bunyan utterly despised. They prove, as does the whole plan of the treatise, that it must have been a very different man to the author of the Pilgrim's Progress who wrote these Visions.

It is not likely that Hobbes and Bunyan were acquainted; they lived in distant parts of the country. Bunyan's Pilgrim, which was the foundation of his wide-spread fame, was not published till 1678, when the Leviathan philosopher was ninety years of age; he died in 1679. Hobbes' company were the learned and illustrious among men,—the Des Carteses, Gassendis, and Wallises of his age; while Bunyan associated with the despised Nonconformists. Nor is is likely that Bunyan read the Leviathan; Dent's Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven, The Practice of Piety, Fox's Martyrs, and, above all, his Bible, constituted his library during his imprisonment for conscience-sake, which lasted from 1660 to 1672. Had he suffered from Hobbes's philosophy, he would have proclaimed it upon the house-tops, especially in his Grace Abounding, that others might have been guarded from such dangerous scepticism. The Vision of Hobbes was doubtless intended to render the forgery more popular.

George Offor.

Hackney, Jan. 1851.

THE MOTHER CHURCH OF THE SAXONS

In "Notes and Queries" (Vol. ii., p. 478.) Sir Henry Ellis observes, that—

"Although St. Martin's, Canterbury, is commonly called the mother church of England on account of its having been the first used here by Augustine, tradition represents, that when this missionary arrived in Kent, he found an ancient church on the site of what is now called St. Martin's."

Sir H. Ellis adds, that—

"A charter of King Canute's styles Saviour's church, Canterbury, the mother and mistress of all churches in the kingdom of England."-Æcclesia Salvatoris, &c.

I conceive these accounts to be perfectly reconcilable. From Bede's Ecclesiastical History (b. i., caps. 25, 26.), we learn that, on the east side of Canterbury, in the year 597, there was a church dedicated to the honour of St. Martin, that was "built while the Romans were still in the island," some two hundred years before this date. St. Martin's was the church wherein Bertha, Queen of Kent, used to pray; she having been a Christian of the Royal Family of the Franks.

It will, of course, be allowed that during the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, different saints were held in especial honour in different countries. For instance, not long after the arrival of the Roman missionaries in England, various churches and monasteries,—at Canterbury, Lindisfarne, Bamborough, Lichfield, Weremouth, and Jarrow, and the capital city of the Picts,—were wholly or partially named after St. Peter. When Naitan, King of the Picts, was about to build his church, he sought the assistance of the Abbot of Weremouth, a strong supporter of Roman observances, and "promised to dedicate the same in honour of St. Peter," and to follow the custom of the Roman church, in certain matters, which the subjects of his kingdom had protested against, for more than a hundred years.

Now, on the occasion of Queen Bertha's leaving France, she was accompanied to England by a bishop of her native country, named Luidhard; and when it is remembered that they settled in Kent, amongst heathens of great superstition,—an example of which is recorded on the part of her own husband,—it is natural to suppose they would, in some public manner, seek the especial protection of the popular saint of France; and that saint was Martin. For so profound was the popular veneration which the Franks at one period offered to the power of Saint Martin, that they even computed ordinary occurrences and national events, by an era which commenced with the year of his death.3

It is therefore very probable that the public act of reverence just alluded to, consisted in a new dedication of the repaired church, by adding to the ancient name that of St. Martin.

That a practice of altering the names of sacred edifices in this manner was common at the date under consideration, cannot be questioned. For example, Bishop Aidan, about the year 652, built a church in the island of Lindisfarne, the name of which is now unknown. This structure, however, having been destroyed by a fire, his successor, Finan, erected another on the same site, and apparently of the same name. But when a second fire destroyed this church also, in some five and twenty or thirty years, "a larger church" was erected on the old site, and gratefully "dedicated in honour of St. Peter," by Theodore of Roman appointment, "the first archbishop whom all the English church obeyed." (Bede, iii. 17. and 25., and iv. 2.) Here, then, a new name was given to a church on the site of a former one of different appellation; and in Lichfield, we have two examples of similar alterations in the names of churches; one St. Chad's Church, Stow, and the other, the cathedral. On the site of the former, according to Bede, Bishop Chad built a St. Mary's Church, hard by which he was buried; "but afterwards, when the church of the most holy prince of the apostles, Peter, was built, his bones were translated into it." (Ecc. History, iv. 3.) That is to say, when Chad was canonised, his remains were removed to the site of the present cathedral, as relics over which the principal church of the Mercian kingdom was to be erected.