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ask it once more, if it was his interest to tell the truth according to Grimm, why then did he not do so? If he knew the exact details of the case, why did he not publish them, were it even only to redress the wrong done to Dubois? Grimm says:

"A mon retour à Paris, on ne parlait que du beau trait du Chevalier d'Assas, et il n'était pas plus question de Dubois que s'il n'eût jamais existé," &c.

No, I think that I have established the fact, that people in Paris at that time neither talked about D'Assas nor about Dubois. The Gazette de France merely mentions the chevalier's name among the fallen, and misspells it. Voltaire records his heroic deed for the first time in his Précis du règne de Louis XVI, which was published in 1769. Mind, that at the same time he declares in the most positive manner that he learned D'Assas's extraordinary death long after it had occurred. This is, I should say, perfectly opposed to Grimm's statements. But then also I should be glad to learn his motives for not making generally known the circumstances of the event, such as he alleges to have witnessed them. If it was his conviction that Dubois, and not D'Assas, merited the title of "hero of Klostercamp," why then did he not express this conviction publicly? These various important contradictions in Grimm's memoirs induce me to think that they ought not to be taken as an authority in the pending question.

The same version of the affair is to be found in the memoirs of Lombard de Langres, who was Dutch ambassador at the French court during the Directoire. (Perhaps Grimm has gathered his details from this source.) Lombard published his work in 1823. He states (vol. i. p. 230 and following) that his father, who filled the place of sergeant-major in Auvergne, told him several times very positively that D'Assas did not go quite alone to watch the enemy in the wood, that Dubois accompanied him, that it was he who shouted "A nous Auvergne," &c., and that afterwards D'Assas had time before he died for nobly testifying in favour of his companion. Here, at least, we do not read about the presence of M.' de Castries, who interferes in so unlucky a manner in Grimm's narrative. I believe Lombard to be bona fide: he says (and I fully agree with him there) that he could not see the use of his father uttering a continual falsehood, for the mere pleasure of lying. He finally tells us :

"J'ai hésité à rendre ce fait public. J'ai prié un ami, M. Crétu, employé au ministère de la guerre, de faire toutes les recherches possibles pour savoir s'il ne découvrirait point sur les registres du temps quelque indice qui pût jeter du jour sur un fait si remarquable: ses soins ont été infructueux; ces registres sont muets. Enfin j'ai cru devoir parler."

No doubt Lombard's account has a certain

stamp of veracity; but it is, I believe, not at all superfluous, and only fair, to state that the Dutch ambassador was, above all, notorious for his being an anecdotier, as the French call it. He liked to compile such matters as Contes militaires, Anecdotes secrètes, Niaiseries historiques, &c. Some of his assertions brought him into serious trouble. He was once, for instance, compelled by Fieldmarshal Lefebvre to disavow himself concerning certain details which he alleged to hold from his (Lefebvre's) own mouth.

The Bibliophile Belge (vol. iii. p. 130) has furnished another version. According to this entirely different one, D'Assas shouted "Tirez, Auvergne, c'est l'ennemi," after Dubois had done and same, was deadly wounded, in the darkness of the night, by his own gens de piquet.

the

At last I find, in the Mémoires de Dumouriez (edited by MM. Berville and Barrière), a note in which the learned editors, after having mentioned the chevalier's heroic act, go on as fol

lows:

"On regrette que les Mémoires de Rochambeau [which were published two years after the death of the apparence de fondement, des doutes sur la réalité d'une field-marshal, in the year 1809] jettent, avec quelque si belle action."

Rochambeau was colonel of the Auvergne regiment when the engagement near Klostercamp know things best. In referring to his memoirs, took place; so, of course, he was in a position to I find the following (vol. i. p. 162):

:

"Je dois à la vérité, dont j'ai toujours fait profession, de détailler ici le trait connu du Chevalier d'Assas dans toute son exactitude. Charpentier, caporal des chasseurs, fut le premier qui découvrit l'ennemi dans cette nuit très-noire; il me mena sur cette colonne, qui fit feu sur nous. Je revins aux grenadiers et chasseurs, je leur ordonnai de faire feu par demi-compagnie alternativement, et surtout de périr à leur poste plutôt que de D'Assas, un des capitaines de chasseurs, placé à l'extré l'abandonner, en attendant l'arrivée de la brigade. mité de l'aile gauche de ce bataillon, fut attaqué et se défendait vigoureusement. Un officier lui criant qu'il tirait sur ses propres gens, il sortit du rang, reconnut l'ennemi et cria: Tirez, chasseurs, ce sont les ennemis !' Il fut criblé de coups de baïonnette, et voua ainsi à sa justement célébré."

patrie le sacrifice de sa vie avec cet héroïsme qui a été si

It is quite true that the chevalier does not play as prominent a part in this narrative as in the others, but still his deed remains a praiseworthy

and noble sacrifice.

Thus, according to the above clear and probable account of the event, D'Assas left the ranks of his regiment in order to examine the position of the enemy; as a gallant officer he did it himself, and was killed before he could rejoin his soldiers. Perhaps Dubois was with him. It is even very likely that an officer should take some one with him in such a case. That D'Assas's act should be remembered, and Dubois's deed-if any there

has been-should be forgotten, nobody has a right to be astonished at. It is a well-known fact that in olden times, and up to the French revolution of 1789, the illustrious actions of the plebeians did not count; those of the nobility only were recorded and rewarded. If Dubois has really been a hero, his heroism will for ever be lost in the obscurity which surrounds the Klostercamp affair; but D'Assas cannot be deprived of his glorious attribute, that is quite certain. His noble sacrifice is a fact, but a fact altered and embellished by poetical and imaginary details in the popular as well as in the official version. So D'Assas did not go to watch the enemy in a wood, for the simple reason that there was no wood in the neighbourhood of Klostercamp. Between the Auvergne regiment, which formed the extremity of the left wing, and the canal of Rheinberg, there were only a few hedges and a heath. Besides, the most elementary knowledge of strategy would tell us that an army does not encamp near a wood without occupying it, at least by outposts. The measures of M. de Castries were perfectly sound: the French army was in a good position, covered by a vanguard of 3000 men at Rheinberg, by advanced posts on the canal, and by a division which had taken possession of the abbey of Camp on the other side of the canal. It is true that the French were on the point of being overtaken by the enemy: the Germans had surrounded silently the abbey of Camp, and driven in some of the outposts; but, says Rochambeau, "ces premières fusillades suffirent pour donner l'alarme." The combat was progressing when D'Assas's death occurred; there is not the slightest doubt left about that. All the brigades were fighting, or ready to do so, at a moment's notice. Thus, that brave officer could not well have saved the army, l'empêchant d'être surprise;" for there was no surprise, it was no longer possible. The following words of the official account, therefore, contain an evident and monstrous exaggeration : "L'armée va périr si elle ignore le danger qui l'a menacé." And the "environné de baionettes prêtes à le percer, il peut acheter sa vie par son silence," is also obviously a licentia poetica. Nobody has seen or told that. Dubois and D'Assas were dead, and the only witnesses who could have testified to it consisted of the German soldiers who put them to death. They have never been examined, as far as I know; and even if they had, it is not at all likely that they would have recollected or even understood D'Assas's exclamation; for a common German soldier (in those days especially) must not be presumed to know foreign languages. In concluding this inevitably long article, I must add, that the successful result of the engagement near Klostercamp, for the French, was not only due to the personal intrepidity of D'Assas (which, however valuable it may have been from

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a moral point of view, could not have any material influence on the ultimate issue), but also to the talent of their officers, to the valour of their troops, and last, though not least, to the many heroic deeds of their soldiers, which in a battle remain almost always unknown. The Auvergne regiment alone lost fifty-eight out of eighty officers, and 800 men killed and wounded. The other divisions of the army fought with the same bravery, and sustained equally heavy losses. I end with a quotation from Jules Simon, containing a universal and everlasting truth:

"Les hommes aiment naturellement tout ce qui vient du cœur, tout ce qui est grand, tout ce qui éblouit, et même tout ce qui est étrange. Une action héroïque, ou simplement un acte de générosité, les émeut infailactions; ils ne voient pas la justice dans le cœur du juste. liblement et provoque leur enthousiasme. Ils voient ces Soyez D'Assas, et votre nom sera immortel pour un moment de courage sublime. Mais Aristide, si le sort ne le place pas à la tête de la république, peut n'emporter au tombeau qu'une froide estime." Amsterdam.

TOOTH-SEALING.

H. TIEDEMAN.

(3rd S. x. 391; xi. 450, 491, 523.) The doubt of ANGLO-SCOTUS whether this practice ever existed may be removed by reference to the Rev. E. H. Dashwood's Sigilla Antiqua (Second Series), where, in plate 1, will be found a representation of "The impression of the teeth on the wax, in place of seal, of Agnes, the daughter of Agnes, the daughter of William Fiz of Fyncham, to a deed by which she enfeoffs Adam de Fyncham, in one acre and three roods there, s. d. temp. Edw. II.”

This would, however, be the resource only of people of inferior rank, and who were actually unprovided with a seal: for the same collection, derived from the muniments of Sir Thomas Hare, Bart. of Stowe-Bardolph, shows how very customary it was for persons to use any seals of which they had become possessed, at secondhand, even if bearing the names and arms of their former (original) owners. At an earlier date the humblest parties who required seals for the transfer of lands, had them engraved in lead with a flower or other simple device, surrounded by their name. For a remarkable series see the deeds of the parish of Arlesey, in Bedfordshire, described in the Collectanea Topog. et Genealogica.

The rhyming charters attributed to William the Conqueror, John of Gaunt, and others are, of course, medieval pleasantries; but it may be remarked, with regard to that printed in p. 524, that in the line

"To me that art both Line and Dear," there is an obvious error in the word "Line," which should be "liue" or "lieve," an old word nearly synonymous with " dear." The name

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"Give to the Norman Hunter"

means, "I William the King give to thee, Norman Hunter, who art so lieve and dear," &c.; and so in the first line also," the means thee. There is a place named Hope Baggot, not many miles from Hopton-in-the-Hole, otherwise called Hopton Cangeford, in Shropshire. Whether these were the places intended by the rhymes I cannot determine, nor do I know whether Mr. Eyton has condescended to notice this apocryphal charter in his History of Shropshire. I agree with ANGLO-SCOTUS that Hope and Hopton have been engrafted on the verses, which originally belonged to Ettrick Dale and the banks of Yarrow. J. G. N.

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F.

JUNIUS AND DR. JOHNSON (3rd S. xi. 444.)-I quite agree with your correspondent that the sooner Sir Philip Francis is acknowledged, by general consent, to have been an "unmitigated (qu. impostor) the better for the credit of political investigation and literary criticism in this country. But how the discussion, with merited contempt, of the hypothesis first broached some fifty years after Junius had ceased to write, and favoured, we are told, by the silly octogenarian, can tend to accelerate the appearance of Junius in propriâ personá is beyond all reasonable apprehension.

considers that his hypothesis of the disputed authorship is in some degree fortified by the probable unwillingness of Burke to retort upon Johnson-namely, on the score of friendship; but that I suppose gives no colour to the assertion, that the anonymous writer felt himself to have been destroyed-in other words, worsted in the encounter of sarcasm and invective

"Snuffed out by an article," which certainly was not the case.

We

the contemporaries of Junius. The inquiry was surely a very narrow one to Who had been specially aggrieved by the ministers principally assailed? and, in that class, what individual could have been singled among the number by the mark of intellectual competency? There were not "six Richmonds in the field." might as well believe that any contemporary of Shakespeare ("whose magic could not copied be") could have written Macbeth, as that several opponents of the Grafton administration could have wielded the pen of "Junius." Besides, the mere discord of opinion, the "non idem sentire de Republicâ," could scarcely, in the political warfare of those times, have instigated the use of such envenomed weapons. The bitterness of personal hatred, the sense of intolerable wrong, are conspicuous throughout.

In Croker's Boswell (p. 122, 1 vol. edition, 1859) it is stated on the authority of Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes, that "he (Johnson) delighted his imagination with the thought of having destroyed Junius." Is there any other evidence to support the notion that the "6 mighty boar of the forest" was terrified into silence by the Johnsonian thunder in the False Alarm? or can you specify any commentator of Junius who has attributed to the pamphlet the cessation of the Letters? Mr. Prior, I am aware,

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It is remarkable that the long and elaborate reply (fifty pages) was never communicated to the right reverend accuser, and that we find no positive denial on the part of Burke of the imputed slanders. Yet the piece is finished with all the force of his genius; indeed, it may be said that no other essay of his pen exhibits in a more unqualified degree, the astonishing power of the writer. For the suppression of this letter, the only assignable reason, in my judgment, is that it lacked the "one thing needful," the disavowal of any share in the production of the "Letters."

On a reperusal of them (having given many days and nights in the interval, to the pages of Burke) I am struck with coincidences of thought, diction, and even cadence, such as seem to conduct to only one conclusion, namely, that Johnson narrowed the question with his usual force of discrimination, when he remarked that he "knew of no other man than Burke capable of writing those letters." Burke admitted to Sir Joshua Reynolds that he knew the author,* thereby con

[* What evidence is there of this ?-ED. "N. & Q.”]

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CHURCHES WITH THATCHED ROOFS (3rd S. xi. 517.)-Your correspondent states that the roof of the church of Little Melton, Norfolk, is thatched, and asks if it is unique. This kind of roofing is by no means uncommon, and prevails in Norfolk, Suffolk, and in a few churches in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. The following are examples: Norfolk, S. Margaret, Paston; S. Peter, Ridlington; S. Nicholas, Swafield; S. Ethelred, Norwich; S. Michael, Ormesby, and Belton. Suffolk, S. Andrew, Garleston; Pakefield; Gisleham, and Kirtley. Lincolnshire, S. Margaret, Somersby, near Horncastle.

JOHN PIGGOT, JUN.

Thatched churches are by no means uncommon in Norfolk, although I know of none covered in like way in any other county. In the next parish to Little Melton, Marlingford, the church roof is thatched. I could give a dozen instances of thatched churches, if I had the good fortune to be in that county just now, but I do not like to speak at hap-hazard. The chancel of Horning church is, I know, thatched. The custom of thatching has doubtless arisen from the ease with which reeds are procured in the great marshes which even now form so marked a feature in the county. The beams supporting the chancel roof at Little Melton are arranged like those of a common barn, but those of the nave are placed together in a way which is very effective in an architectural point of view. Instead of being shaped like the letter A, they are arranged in a figure somewhat like that of the "pons asinorum" in Euclid. There are faint traces of painting, too, on some of the beams in the nave at Little Melton. C. W. BARKLEY.

The old church of Rigsby, near Alford, Lincolnshire, which was rebuilt in 1863, afforded an example of the above-named roof; and I believe that CUTHBERT BEDE would find one still existing at Markby in the same neighbourhood. J. T. M. Common "in Norfolk and Suffolk, and the northern parts of Cambridgeshire."-Handbook of English Ecclesiology, 1847. The choir of Sher

borne was once thatched. (Gentleman's Magazine, Sept. 1865, p. 337.) I think I have heard of two or three thatched churches in Lincolnshire, but they may have been "restored."

J. T. F.

Scott's Border Antiquities of England and Scotland, IRON HAND (3rd S. xi. 496.) It is stated in vol. ii. p. 206, that the family of Clephane of Carslogie

have been in possession, time immemorial, of a hand made in the exact imitation of that of a man, curiously formed of steel. This is said to have been conferred by one of the kings of Scotland, along with other more valuable marks of his favour, on the laird of Carslogie, who had lost his hand in the service of his country."

An engraving of this interesting relic is given.
EDWARD PEACOCK.

The iron hand of the valorous Götz von Berlichingen, of the sixteenth century, immortalized by Goethe, is preserved at Jaxthausen, near Heilbronn. A duplicate is in the celebrated Schloss at Erbach in the Odenwald, famous for its antique armour. This extraordinary character died 1562 at Hornberg Castle, near Mosbach, some short distance from Heidelberg, now the property of the Gemmingen family, who are Freiherrn or Barons; and here, with a collection of family portraits, late medieval weapons, &c., is the complete suit of armour of Götz von Berlichingen at the farm house, "die volstandige Rüstung Götzens." This castle is in the village of Neckarzimmern. Here he married, in 1518, Dorothea Gailing, and wrote his own life. The castle, it may be interesting to know, was a fief of Spire, and Götz became possessed of it by purchase after the raübritter (robber knight), Küntz of Schottestein, was beheaded by the Schwabian Bund or Confederacy, being the previous proprietor. The MSS. of Götz are preserved among the archives of the town of Heilbronn. COURTOIS.

"To SLAIT" (3rd S. xi. 520.) A short time since, being out rabbiting with my keeper, on crossing a field we found several wires set, when he allows to slait this piece for himself." And my man remarked, "I know whose these are; I found he meant that the poacher named considered that ground his own, and would look on any other poacher as a trespasser. This meaning seems to differ from that given ut supra. E. V.

JEFWELLIS (3rd S. xi. 355.)—This word is evidently a corruption of diabhol (the d pronounced in the original likej, and bh exactly like v), which is the Gaelic name for devil. The statement of Lord Argyle's men, as quoted by your correspondent, when they speak of "the malice and device of those jefwellis," just means the malice and device of those devils. The Scotch etymologists to whom your correspondent refers-Jamieson and Laing-were but little acquainted with the Celtic

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"MORNING'S PRIDE" (3rd S. xi. 457, 529.)This rusticism (to coin a word which, I venture think, is needed) has been made classical by Keble's introduction of it into The Christian Year. The third stanza of the poem for the twentyfifth Sunday after Trinity runs:

"Pride of the dewy morning!

The swain's experienced eye
From thee takes timely warning,
Nor trusts the gorgeous sky.
For well he knows, such dawnings gay
Bring noons of storm and shower,
And travellers linger on the way
Beside the sheltering bower."

Keble's lines tally with what MR. J. M. CowPER has heard said in Kent. On the other hand, MR. JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN (at Hampstead), MR. H. FISHWICK (in Lancashire), and A. H. (mentioning no county or place in particular), have found the expression used of a morning mist that is supposed to promise a fine day. And it was with this latter view of it that the gardener, or the farmer, or the farm-labourer in the east of Somersetshire used to say to me as a child, "That's the pride of the morning," or "That's only the pride of the morning."

JOHN HOSKYNS-ABRAHALL, JUN. This phrase can scarcely be called a provincialism, as MR. HOTTEN supposes. He heard it in Middlesex, I have heard it in numerous parts of Devon and Cornwall, and a few days ago, when I spoke of it in a somewhat large party, it was stated, on competent authority, to be a common expression in Kent, Norfolk, and Dorset-, Worcester-, and Herefordshires. The prevalent form seems to be the "Pride of the morning."

Torquay.

WM. PENGELLY.

RUNIC INSCRIPTION AT ST. MOLIO (3rd S. xi. 194, 334, 499.)—So long as DR. WILSON fails to recognise the Icelandic sign týr, in the first letter of the intermediate word of the Runic inscription, carved within the water-worn recess on Holy Island, and confounds the Greek eta with the letter H, from its apparent resemblance to that character, he has more reason to correct his own

"epigraphy" than draw attention to my deficiencies in this respect, real or supposed.

DR. WILSON will be pleased to observe that I am not the author, but the expounder, of the inscription. I am not bound to explain why the characters týr and hagl have been used, in this instance, in place of the usual thurs. Sufficient for my purpose that I have accurately represented the fact. I answer, once for all, that I submitted a cast of this inscription to a gentleman well skilled in Northern Runic literature, who quite confirmed my reading. The letters of the intermediate word certainly are, as I read, t, h, a, n, e. If your correspondent DR. WILSON can find in these anything other than the Norse word thane, he must possess a fertile imagination. I have not seen the new edition of the Prehistoric Annals, but do not accept DR. WILSON's representation of the character in dispute, as given in the first.

I cannot help what Professor Munch may have said in regard to this to me at least-apocryphal saint. I am a disciple and tributary of Professor Fact. So far as I am aware, Professor Munch did not say that this inscription does not contain the word thane. J. C. RR.*

As I have occasionally contributed to "N. & Q.," and have usually signed my communications with the initials of my name, it may be well to state that the article on "Scottish Archæology" (p. 334) is not by me. J. C. ROBERTSON.

Precincts, Canterbury.

I have been attracted by DR. WILSON's rejoinder to your correspondent J. C. R. with reference to the Runic inscription in St. Molio's cave. I beg leave to suggest that the character which DR. WILSON reads as a in the imaginary word ahane, is not accurately represented in the Prehistoric Annals. No doubt, as there given, it is the character ár in one of its forms; but in the inscription itself the diagonal line, projecting downward, proceeds from a point nearer to the top of the perpendicular line, and certainly suggests to me the idea of a carelessly-formed t. Another circumstance in favour of this view is that the actual letter a in the same word, and also that in the word raist, are in another form of the character, represented by a diagonal line intersecting the perpendicular line (projecting downward from before, and upward from behind). In anything of this kind which has fallen under my notice I have found the same form of character preserved in every recurrence of the same letter throughout the entire inscription. Upon the whole I am inclined to adopt J. C. R.'s reading of the intermediate word thane, which makes sense of it, and accords with the ordinary import and style of

[* We have ventured to make a slight alteration in the signature of our more recent correspondent, to avoid future mistakes as to identity of communication.-ED.]

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