Oldalképek
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

66

I have three small copper coins having the same date (1718), and the same reverse, viz. IDALER S. M." (Scheide Münze?), in a round shield garnished; and the following obverses: 1. An armed figure-" MARS."

2. A figure surrounded by rays of light"PHOEBUS."

3. An armed man with a lion at his side: the man holds his sword at the guard. Legend, 66 FLINK OCH EARDIG." (Is this "Quick and noble," in Germ. Flink und ehrlich?) This has been plated. Can any correspondent of " N. & Q." give me any information about these coins? Are they Dutch? JOHN DAVIDSON.

PAPA AND MAMMA. Will any reader of "N. & Q." tell me why I should not spell Papa with three p's? Mamma, I know is derived from the Greek word μáμua, and has three m's; and papa is derived from яάπжɑs, and yet has only two. SCHOOLBOY.

JOSHUA PEEL-In 1781 was published in 12mo, at Whitby, Hymns on various Subjects, composed by Joshua Peel, and published for the good of mankind in general. One hymn was composed on the death of his only daughter, Mary Peel, and was sung before her corpse to the grave. I shall be thankful to any of your correspondents who can furnish information touching the author of these hymns, S. Y. R.

PHOENIX FAMILY.-Wanted, any information concerning the family and descendants of James P. Phoenix, who was librarian of the Liverpool Library Lyceum from 1817 to 1844; and died at Everton, near Liverpool, in 1846, aged sixty-two years. A bighly eulogistic notice of him appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1846. J. C. L.

THE PRINCE IMPERIAL A SON OF ST. Louis.I saw it stated recently, that a French genealogist had proved the descent of the Prince Imperial from St. Louis. Can any correspondent of "N. & Q." give me the particulars of the pedigree? I presume it is traced through the Guzmans. JOHN WOODWARD.

66

New Shoreham.

1

SARAH LEIGH PYKE Wanted, biographical particulars regarding Mrs. Sarah Leigh Pyke, author of The Triumphs of Messiah, a Poem, Exeter, 1812. Mrs. Pyke is also author of Israel, 2 vols. 1795, by Serena; and eighty Village Hymns, Taunton, 1832. R. INGLIS.

RANULPH DE MESCHINES.-Where can I find any account of the paternal ancestors of Ranulph, commonly called by English antiquaries "De Meschines," who, in 1119, succeeded to the earldom of Chester in right of his mother, sister to Hugh Lupus? X. X.

ST. PETER'S IN-the-East, OxfORD.-There is in the crypt of the church of St. Peter's-in-theEast, Oxford, a deep recess, walled up at the end, which is reported to have formerly been a passage leading out of the crypt. Can anybody give any grounds for the tradition, or furnish an account of any like underground passage elsewhere existing? X. X. SEPTUAGINT.-I should be glad if some of your correspondents would kindly inform me whether in the case of the Septuagint, the authorised versior. of the Greek Church, there has been any edition put forth by the church by authority, as in the case of the Sixtine and Clementine editions of the Vulgate of the Roman Church, or the English Bible of 1611 in our own church. If so, is that edition solely employed throughout the Greek Church? I am unable to find the fact in any

book.

Trinity College.

Socius.

EXHIBITION OF SIGN BOARDS IN 1761.-In this year, I believe, Bonnell Thornton held an exhibition either at his own rooms in Bow Street, where he lived, or somewhere else. It is not known what he charged for admission, but he printed a catalogue, and the object of this query is to ascertain where a copy may be seen. Cunningham mentions the fact in his London, Past and Present, and a paragraph in an old newspaper that I have seen announces the Sign Board Exhibition as then open. Many of the signs, as may be imagined, were very comical. The Irish arms, for instance, was a pair of clumsy legs. J. C. H.

MR. CHARLES SPINK died in Edinburgh, May 14, 1816; he had been in India, and had written, but not published," a most ingenious and original work on the "Philosophy of Mind." Is any thing more known of this gentleman, or of his writings? especially of that MS.?

SAMUEL NEIL.

WAND OF GRAND MASTER OF THE TEMPLARS. Can any correspondent give me some information respecting the form and ornaments of the wand (the symbol of office), borne by the Grand Master

[blocks in formation]

[That the Dean of St. Paul's intended his son to take orders is evident from one of his letters to Mrs. Cockaine. He says, drawing my son unmaturely into orders, or putting into "But, my noble sister, though I am far froin his hands any church with cure; yet there are many prebends and other helps in the church, which a man without taking orders, may be capable of, and for some such I might change a living with cure, and so begin to Letters made by Sir Tobie Mathews, 1692, p. 353.) That accommodate a son in some preparation." (Collection of John Donne, jun. eventually became a clergyman, and had some preferment in the diocese of Peterborough, we learn from a letter written to him by Dr. John Towers, ship thanks him for the first volume of his father's SerBishop of Peterborough, his diocesan, wherein his lord

mons, telling him " that his parishioners may pardon his silence to them for awhile, since by it he hath preached to them and to their children's children, and to all our English churches, for ever." This letter, dated July 20, 1640, is prefixed to the third volume of his father's Sermons. The benefice referred to appears to have been the rectory of Ufford, co. Northampton, which he held only for two or three years (1639-41); and whether he afterwards held the sinecure rectory of Martinsthorpe, in the same diocese, has not been satisfactorily determined; though, in dedicating the second volume of Sermons to the Earl of Denbigh, he addresses him as "his patron." That he held some church preferment under the patronage of the Crown, appears also from the same volume. Addressing the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal, he writes: "The reward that many years since was proposed for the publishing these Sermons, having lately been conferred upon me, under the authority of the Great Seal, I thought myself in gratitude bound to deliver them to the world under your lordships' probation; in order to show how careful you are in dispensing that part of the However, from the time of the first-named publication in Church's treasure that is committed to your disposing." 1640 to that of his death, he dates his letters "From my house in Covent Garden." His will is printed in our 2nd S. iv. 175.]

CAXTON'S FIRST BOOK.-Dr. Munk, the talented librarian of the Royal College of Physicians, has lately been engaged in making a catalogue of their library, and has discovered a translation of Lefevre's History of Troy, written and printed by

Caxton in 1471. I understand there are five or
six copies of this valuable work extant. In
whose possession are they?
W. I. S. HORTON.

[Mr. William Blades, in his splendid work, The Life and Typography of William Caxton, 2 vols. 4to, 1863, has furnished the following interesting particulars of the existing copies of The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, ascribed to Raoul de Fevre, translated 1460-71, folio, without place or date [1472-4?], the first book printed in the English language by Caxton:

1. British Museum, King's Library. Made perfect from another copy.

2. Cambridge Public Library. Imperfect. 3. The same. Imperfect.

4. Trinity College, Cambridge. Imperfect. 5. Bodleian, Oxford. Imperfect.

6. Ditto. Imperfect.

7. Paris, Imperial Library. Very imperfect.
8. Sion College, London. Imperfect.

9. Duke of Devonshire. Imperfect, wanting the last leaf, which is supplied in facsimile. The late Duke bought this interesting volume at the Roxburghe sale for 10607. 10s. It had been purchased by the Duke of Roxburghe for 507, from Mr. Laing, who had received it in exchange from Major Swinton.

10. Marquis of Bath, said to be perfect, but much wormed and repaired.

11. Earl of Pembroke. Very imperfect.

12. Earl of Jersey. Perfect, and very clean Autograph at the beginning of Book I., "Sir Th: Fairfax the elder knight oweth this booke."

13. Earl of Ashburnham. Imperfect. 14. Earl Spencer. Imperfect.

15. Sir Thomas Phillips, Bart. Imperfect. 16. Beriah Botfield, Esq. Imperfect. During the progress of this work through the Caxton, as he himself informs us in his Prologue to the Third Book, learnt the new art.]

press,

DARK HOUSE. — In Noah Webster's Dictionary is the following:

“Darkhouse, n. an old word for a madhouse. - Shak

speare."

There is, I believe, in the city of London, a lane called Dark House Lane. Does this lane take its name from a madhouse formerly there, or what? S. BEISLY.

[The word Darkhouse is used by Shakspeare in All's Well that Ends Well, Act II. Sc. 3, where it denotes a house which is the seat of gloom and discontent. A kind of pandemonium, called the Dark House at Billingsgate, is coarsely described in Ned Ward's London Spy, parts II. and III., edit. 1709. Ward and his companion, it appears, spent a night in this cavern of depravity, and in the morning he tells us, that "after satisfying our tun-bellied hosts, we left the infernal mansion to the sinful sons of darkness, there to practise their iniquities." Hogarth, during his "Five Days' Peregrination," also paid a visit to this receptacle for the nymphs of Billingsgate. He says, "On Saturday, May 27th, we set out with the morning, and took our departure from the Bedford Arms Tavern in Covent Garden, to the tune Why should we quarrel for riches?' The first land we made was Billingsgate, where we dropped anchor at the Dark House." There Hogarth made a caricature of a porter, most facetiously drunk, who called himself "The Duke of Puddle Dock." The drawing was (by his Grace) pasted on the cellar

door; but unhappily it has not been engraved. "We were agreeably entertained by the humours of the place, particularly an explanation of a Gaffer and Gammer, a little obscene, though in presence of two of the fair sex. Here we continued till the clock struck one.". Hogarth's Works by Nichols, iii. 113. The site on which it stood is now called Dark House Lane.]

SHAKSPEARE'S DAUGHTER'S TOMBSTONE. - In Wheeler's History of Stratford-upon-Avon (p. 77), in describing the tombstone of Mrs. Hall, Shak("Witty above her sexe," &c.), it is stated: speare's daughter Susanna, and the epitaph

"These English verses (preserved by Dugdale) were many years since purposely obliterated, to make room for another inscription, carved on the same stone, for Richard Watts of Ryhon Clifford-a person of no relation to the Shakspeare family."

Was this so? And is the inscription one now reads on the tombstone, a modern restoration ?

I. B. H.

[The lines preserved by Dugdale, commencing"Witty above her sexe, but that's not all, Wise to salvation was good Mistress Hall," &c.were certainly removed to make room for an inscription to the memory of Richard Watts, who died in 1707; but they were some years ago restored at the expense of the Rev. William Harness.]

ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S CHURCH, Smithfield. Can you tell me if the proceedings of the meeting held at St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, on July 13th, regarding the restoration of the church have been published? I have seen Mr. Parker's address, but I should be glad to see the Report by the architects, and the Rev. Mr. Hugo's address.

W. H.

[An account of the meeting at St. Bartholomew's church on July 13, 1863, was given in the City Press of July 18, as well as in the Gentleman's Magazine for Aug. 1863, p. 157, and Mr. Parker's lecture will be found in this month's number of the latter periodical. The report of the architects, Messrs. Lewis and Slater, appeared in the City Press of May 30, 1863; and Mr. Hugo's historical account of "Rahere, a pleasant-witted gentleman, called the King's minstrel," is also printed in a previous number of the same paper.]

the Incumbents previous to the Great Fire of
ST. PANCRAS, MIDDLESEX.-Is there any list of
London in 1666?
CPL.

[The following names appear in a very imperfect list printed in Coull's History and Traditions of St. Pancras, 8vo, 1861, p. 10:-

"1183. Fulcherius.
1190. Alexander.
1580. Gray.

Henry Bradley, sen.
1627. John Elborow.
1647. William Birkete.
1657. Randolf Yearwood.
1660. Timothy Boughey. Oct. 22.
1664. Thomas Daniel. June 17."]

give particulars of the family of Sir William
SIR WILLIAM MYERS.-Can any of your readers

Myers, who fell at Albuera, and his monument in St. Paul's? M.

[Sir William James Myers, Bart., lieut.-col. of the seventh regiment of foot, born Nov. 27, 1783 was the only son of Sir William, first baronet, Commander-in-chief of his Majesty's forces in the Leeward Islands. His grandfather, Christopher Myers of Monkstown, co. Dublin, was a native of Lancashire, and resided at Whitehaven, but subsequently settled in Ireland for the purpose of building water-works. A brief notice of the family may be found in the Gentleman's Mag. lxxv. 881, 969; and lxxxi. pt. ii. p. 88.]

ALFRED BUNN.-Bunn died in 1860. Did any sketch of his life appear about the time in our journals or elsewhere? 0.

[Mr. Alfred Bunn died suddenly of apoplexy at Boulogne-sur-Mer on December 20, 1860. A biographical sketch of him appeared in the Daily Telegraph at the time, and was copied into a dramatic periodical entitled The Players of Dec. 29, 1860. Consult also his works, The Stage; both before and behind the Curtain, 3 vols. 12mo, 1840; and Old England and New England, 2 vols. 12mo, 1853.]

Replies.

SEDECHIAS.

(3rd S. iv. 9.)

If Sedechias swallowed a man whole and vomited him, under Louis le Débonnaire, he must have been a fine old fellow, seeing that, at least sixty-three years before, under Pepin, he had filled the air with the elementary spirits of the Cabbala, to prove to unbelievers that such things existed. He was a Cabbalist; and after he had convinced the people, they took it into their heads that the sylphs, &c. would destroy the harvest by storms; so that both Charlemagne and Louis issued edicts against the spirits. This is all I can find; and it is from the Dictionnaire des Sciences Occultes in Migne's collection (Zedechias, Cabbala). The only authorities given are the Abbé de Villars, Le Comte de Gabalis; ou Entretiens sur les Sciences secrètes, best edition, 1742, 12mo; and the supplements, more than one: also the Marquis d'Argens, Lettres Cabbalistiques, Hague, 1741, 6 vols. 12mo, the fuller work.

The elementary spirits of the Cabbala, the sylphs, gnomes, salamanders, ondins and ondines, contain, as all know, the machinery of the Rape of the Lock: but many have never heard of their origin. We know Undine as a spirit of our own day; and we shall soon have young ladies named after her, if warning be not given that the name is not a proper name, but that of a class of semi-demons, of no very high reputation. If Walter Scott had given a little information about the recognised character of the White Lady in the Monastery, that creation would not have been so distasteful as he afterwards confesses it to have been; regular old forms of the demoniacal are always tolerated.

The account here given of Zedechias by no

means accords with that of the Dicta Moralia of 1350. But this work may be strongly suspected of being an inferior production, copied after a higher book of the day. Shortly before it appeared, Walter Burley (ob. 1337) had issued his Vita omnium Philosophorum et Poetarum cum auctoritatibus et sententiis aureis eorundem. This is the first mediæval attempt at a history of philosophy, and is so called by Brucker. It was long the only work of its kind, and was printed at least thirteen times before 1500, often without Burley's name. There is not a word about Zedechias: Burley sets the example of beginning philosophy with Thales. It would be worth while to compare the dicta with the aurea sententiæ: perhaps the first would be found to be largely copied from the second.

The dicta say that Zedechias was "Primus per quem nutu dei lex præcepta fuit et sapientia intellecta." It is clear that the sylph-shower and man-swallower has been confounded with Noah, or Moses, or some other primæval legislator, if not with Adam himself; that is, if the language of the dicta really have any connection with Pepin's magician. This is not impossible: the stories of antiquity are so strangely concocted, that even Zachariah, or Zedekiah with the iron horns, or Sadoch, as Zadok was called, may all go for something in the matter. But the only lawgiver who claimed nutu dei, and whose name bears any affinity of letters to Zedechias, is Zerdusht or Zoroaster. My suspicion tends this way: perhaps when the name of Zerdusht had been a little altered, those who used it might have fallen in with the legend of the man-swallower. The age associated prodigy with every species of intellectual power: and their philosophy in this matter was that of the groom: "If so be as the gentleman is a wit, he can ride three horses

at once.

There was much tendency, but not created by Burley, to make philosophy very old. Brucker begins his history with the Adamite philosophy, on which we should say he was forced by the necessity of discussing previous writers, if we did not see that he was quite willing. In the very year (1742) in which his first volume appeared, was also published the Historia Matheseos of Heilbronner, who begins mathematics expressly from Adam, whose school subdivided into those of Cain and Abel. A. DE MOrgan.

EXPEDITION TO CARTHAGENA.
(3rd S. iv. 165.)

Circumstances having led me to take an interest in this subject, I am glad to afford J. M. any information in my power. In the outset, the expedition experienced an irreparable misfortune.

HEATH BEER.

(3rd S. iv. 229.)

time almost universal in Ireland. The following The tradition alluded to by J. L. was at one perhaps may in some measure be apposite, if not a satisfactory explanation. Up to about a century ago, wealthy farmers brewed beer for the practice was continued by landed proprietors, and use of their own household and workmen. The other wealthy persons, down to a much more recent period; but since the commencement of the present century, it has disappeared altogether; which was used for the malting purpose of the owing, no doubt, to the price obtained for barley, beer: and besides that, the country people had learnt the way of making whiskey from raw grain (oats, &c.). The point about the "heath beer," however, is explained as follows:- When the little plant is in blossom (and a very pretty blos and taste. It was then gathered, and carefully som it bears), it has a peculiarly attractive odour cleaned; and was then placed at the bottom of the vessels, through which the worts were run off, parting to the liquid a peculiar flavour, most and acted as a strainer; at the same time im agreeable to the palate-hence the fabled tradiI ascertained this fact more than thirty years tion of the beer being made from the heath itself. ago from my grandfather, who was at the time a fine hale old gentleman, upwards of eighty years old; and he told me he had often performed the operation in making his own beer. I may also Ireland, is more pure and valuable than what is state that honey, collected in heathery districts in collected in other quarters. I have often drunk a ing honey-comb (after expressing the honey), and liquor called "mead," which is produced by boiladding a small quantity of home-made barm. This liquor is agreeable if well made, and taken spirits it is seductive and intoxicating. I may in small quantity; but when mixed with ardent add, that I do not know this from experience. Perhaps this will explain the notion of beer being made from heath. S. REDMOND. Liverpool.

The General commanding, Charles, 8th Lord Cathcart-a war-taught soldier of courage and conduct-died; and was succeeded by an officer who had neither knowledge, weight, nor confidence in himself. Bad leading, bad organisation, and bad understanding between the military and naval forces, naturally ended in damage and disgrace. A cessation of that particular foreign war was followed by a paper conflict, and recriminations at home. Chelsea inquiries in our day enable us to realise the state of public feeling that then existed. Smollett, I presume, wrote his graphic "Account of the Expedition" soon after his return from that service, in 1741-2. Roderick Random was written in 1748. Smollett, The sketch in I believe, continued the subject in a Compendium of Voyages, published in 1751. J. M. asks, where Smollett's pamphlet can be found? I know of no other than the "Account," &c., already mentioned; it is in my handy copy of Smollett's Works (Bohn's edit. 1856). In April 1743, there was published An Account of the Expedition to Carthagena, with explanatory notes, price 1s. The Gent's Mag., 1743 (vol. xiii. p. 208), contains extracts which clearly show that the writer was not Smollett. This is abundantly shown by style, tone, and narration. To this Account, &c. (about November of the same year), a counterblast appeared, viz. A Journal of the Expedition to Carthagena, in Answer to the Account of that Expedition, &c. I think J. M.'s pamphlet under this title, but said to have been published in 1744, must be a reprint or second edition. J. M. can easily satisfy himself in regard to my supposition by comparing his pamphlet with certain extracts from the pamphlet of 1743; which extracts he will find at pp. 39 and 207 of the Gent.'s Mag. for 1744, vol. xiv. Touching the authorship of the Journal in Answer, &c., we can throughout trace the hand of a military officer that was present during the transactions he is so anxious to explain. The editor of the Gent.'s Mag. had a correspondent "W. B.," who supplied the extracts to which reference has just been made; "W. B." also addressed a long letter to the editor on the same subject in December, 1743. I have little doubt that the pamphleteer was "W. B." And, from an original MS. document now in my possession, I find that the Adjutant-General of the expeditionary force was Colonel William Blakeney. I know of three Carthagena pamphlets, which appeared in 1744, viz. in January, Original Papers, &c., price 18. 6d.; Authentic Papers, &c., price 1s. 6d.; and A Letter to Admiral Vernon, by a certain John Cathcart. I have thus exhausted my information, perhaps also my reader's patience; but the history of the ill-fated Cartha-Romans made a beverage somewhat like beer of the bells "The old peasants here have a tradition that the gena expedition is of general interest-to states- of heather (heath), and that this trough was used in the men and military men it is particularly suggestive. process of making such drink."

C.

In the moorland districts, traversed by the Roman Wall running from Wall's End, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to the Solway Frith, tradition tells of "heath beer" as an ancient tipple. Sir David Smith, in his MSS. in the possession of the Duke of Northumberland, speaking of a large trough cut in the solid rock at Kutchester, the Roman station Vindobala, says:

Dr. Bruce adds:

« ElőzőTovább »