Chapter I: Front Matter

NOTES AND QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

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"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

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No. 47.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1850 [Price Threepence. Stamped Edition 4d.

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CONTENTS.

NOTES:--
Old Songs. 257
"Junius Identified." by J. Taylor. 258
Folk Lore:--Spiders a Cure for Ague--Funeral Superstition--Folk
Lore Rhymes. 259
On a Passage in the Tempest, by S.W. Singer. 259
Punishment of Death of Burning. 260
Note on Morganatic Marriages. 261
Minor Notes:--Alderman Beckford--Frozen Horn--Inscription
translated--Parallel Passages--Note on George Herbert's Poems--"Crede
quod habes"--Grant to Earl of Sussex--First Woman formed from a
Rib--Beau Brummell's Ancestry. 262

QUERIES:--
Gray's Elegy and Dodsley's Poems. 264
Hugh Holland and his Works, by E.F. Rimbault, L.L.D. 265
Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood. 266
Minor Queries:--Bernardus Patricius--Meaning of
Hanger--Cat and Bagpipes--Andrew Becket--Laurence
Minot--Modena Family--Bamboozle--Butcher's
Blue Dress--Hatchment and Atchievement--"Te
colui Virtutem"--"Illa suavissima Vita"--Christianity,
Early Influence of--Meaning of Wraxen--Saint,
Legend of a--Land Holland--Farewell--Stepony
Ale--"Regis ad Exemplar"--La Caronacquerie--Rev.
T. Tailer--Mistletoe as a Christmas
Evergreen--Poor Robin's Almanacks--Sirloin--Thompson
of Esholt. 266

REPLIES:--
Replies to Minor Queries:--Pension--Execution of
Charles I.--Paper Hangings--Black-guard--Pilgrims'
Road--Combs buried with the Dead--AÎrostation--St.
Thomas of Lancaster--Smoke Money--Robert Herrich--Guildhalls--AbbÈ
Strickland--Long Conkin--Havock--Becket's Mother--Watching
the Sepulchre--Portraits of Charles I.--Joachim,
the French Ambassador. 269

MISCELLANEOUS:--
Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 271
Books and Odd Volumes Wanted. 271
Notices to Correspondents. 271
Advertisements. 272

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NOTES.

OLD SONGS.

I heard, "in other days," a father singing a comic old song to one of his children, who was sitting on his knee. This was in Yorkshire: and yet it could hardly be a Yorkshire song, as the scene was laid in another county. It commenced with--

"Randle O'Shay has sold his mare
For nineteen groats at Warrin'ton fair,"

and goes on to show how the simpleton was cheated out of his money.

I find in Hasted's _History of Kent_ (vol. i. p. 468., 2nd edit.) mention made of the family of Shaw, who held the manor of Eltham, &c., and who "derive themselves from the county palatine of Chester." It is further stated that _Randal de Shaw_, his son, was settled at Haslington Hall in that county.

All, indeed, that this proves is, the probability of the hero of the song being also a native of Cheshire, or one of the adjacent counties; and that the legend is a truth, even as to names as well as general facts. The song is worthy of recovery and preservation, as a remnant of English character and manners; and I have only referred to Hasted to point out the probable district in which it will be found.

There are many other characteristics of the manners of the humbler classes to be found in songs that had great local popularity within the period of living memory; for instance, the _Wednesbury Cocking_ amongst the colliers of Staffordshire and _Rotherham Status_ amongst the cutlers of Sheffield. Their language, it is true, is not always very delicate--perhaps was not even at the time these songs were composed,--as they picture rather the exuberant freaks of a half-civilised people than the better phases of their character. Yet even these form "part and parcel" of the history of "the true-born Englishman."

One song more may be noticed here:--the rigmarole, snatches of which probably most of us have heard, which contains an immense number of mere truisms having no connexion with each others, and no bond of union but the metrical form in which their juxtaposition is effected, and the rhyme, which is kept up very well throughout, though sometimes by the introduction of a nonsense line. Who does not remember--

"A yard of pudding's not an ell,"

or

"Not forgetting _dytherum di_,
A tailor's goose can never fly,"

and other like parts?

It is just such a piece of burlesque as Swift might have written: but many circumstances lead me to think it must be much older. Has it ever been printed?

There is another old (indeed an evidently very ancient) song, which I do not remember to have seen in print, or even referred to in print. None of the books into which I have looked, from deeming them likely to contain it, make the least reference to this song. I have heard it in one of the midland counties, and in one of the western, both many years ago; but I have not heard it in London or any of the metropolitan districts. The song begins thus:--

"London Bridge is broken down,
Dance over my Lady Lea:
London Bridge is broken down,
With a gay ladÈe."

This must surely refer to some event preserved in history,--may indeed be well known to well-read antiquaries, though so totally unknown to men whose general pursuits (like my own) have lain in other directions. The present, however, is an age for "popularising" knowledge; and your work has assumed that task as one of its functions.

The difficulties attending such inquiries as arise out of matters so trivial as an old ballad, are curiously illustrated by the answers already printed respecting the "wooing frog." In the first place, it was attributed to times within living memory; then shown to exceed that period, and supposed to be very old,--even as old as the Commonwealth, or, perhaps, as the Reformation. This is objected to, from "the style and wording of the song being evidently of a much later period than the age of Henry VIII.;" and Buckingham's "mad" scheme of taking Charles into Spain to woo the infanta is substituted. This is enforced by the "burden of the song;" whilst another correspondent considers this "chorus" to be an old one, analogous to "Down derry down:"--that is, M. denies the force of MR. MAHONY's explanation altogether!

(Why MR. MAHONY calls a person in his "sixth decade" a "sexagenarian" he best knows. Such is certainly not the ordinary meaning of the term he uses. His pun is good, however.)

Then comes the HERMIT OF HOLYPORT, with a very decisive proof that neither in the time of James I., nor of the Commonwealth, could it have originated. His transcript from Mr. Collier's _Extracts_ carries it undeniably back to the middle of the reign of Elizabeth. Of course, it is interesting to find intermediate versions or variations of the ballad, and even the adaptation of its framework to other ballads of recent times, such as "Heigho! says Kemble,"--one of the Drury Lane "O.P. Row" ballads (_Rejected Addresses_, last ed., or Cunningham's _London_). Why the conjecture respecting Henry VIII. is so contemptuously thrown aside as a "fancy," I do not see. A _fancy_ is a dogma taken up without proof, and in the teeth of obvious probability,--tenaciously adhered to, and all investigation eschewed. This at least is the ordinary signification of the term, in relation to the search after truth. How far my own conjecture, or the mode of putting it, fulfills these conditions, it is not necessary for me to discuss: but I hope the usefulness and interest of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" will not be marred by any discourtesy of one correspondent towards another.

At the same time, the HERMIT OF HOLYPORT has done the most essential service to this inquiry by his extract from Mr. Collier, as the question is thereby inclosed within exceedingly narrow limits. But if the ballad do not refer to Henry VIII., to whom can it be referred with greater probability? It is too much to assume that all the poetry, wit, and talent of the Tudor times were confined to the partizans of the Tudor cause, religious or political. We _know_, indeed, the contrary. But for his communication, too, the singular coincidence of two such characteristic words of the song in the "Poley Frog" (in the same number of the "NOTES AND QUERIES") might have given rise to another conjecture: but the _date_ excludes its further consideration.

I may add, that since this has been mooted, an Irish gentleman has told me that the song was familiar enough in Dublin; and he repeated some stanzas of it, which were considerably different from the version of W.A.G., and the chorus the same as in the common English version. I hope presently to receive a complete copy of it: which, by the bye, like everything grotesquely humorous in Ireland, was attributed to the author of _Gulliver's Travels_.

T.S.D.

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"JUNIUS IDENTIFIED."

It is fortunate for my reputation that I am still living to vindicate my title to the authorship of my own book, which seems otherwise in danger of being taken from me.

I can assure your correspondent R.J. (Vol. ii., p. 103.) that I was not only "literally _the writer_," (as he kindly suggests, with a view of saving my credit for having put my name to the book), but in its fullest sense _the author of "Junius Identified"_; and that I never received the slightest assistance from Mr. Dubois, or any other person, either in collecting or arranging the evidence, or in the composition and correction of the work. After I had completed my undertaking, I wrote to Mr. Dubois to ask if he would allow me to see the handwriting of Sir Philip Francis, that I might compare it with the published fac-similes of the handwriting of Junius; but he refused my request. His letter alone disproved the notion entertained by R.J. and others, that Mr. Dubois was in any degree connected with me, or with the authorship of the work in question.

With regard to the testimony of Lord Campbell, I wrote to his lordship in February, 1848, requesting his acceptance of a copy of _Junius Identified_, which I thought he might not have seen; and having called his attention to my name at the end of the preface, I begged he would, when opportunity offered, correct his error in having attributed the work to Mr. Dubois. I was satisfied with his lordship's reply, which was to the effect that he was ashamed of his mistake, and would take care to correct it. No new edition of that series of the _Lives of the Chancellors_, which contains the "Life of Lord Loughborough," has since been published. The present edition is dated 1847.

R.J. says further, that "the late Mr. George Woodfall always spoke of the _pamphlet_ as the work of Dubois;" and that Sir Fortunatus Dwarris states, "the _pamphlet_ is said, I know not with what truth, to have been prepared under the eye of Sir Philip Francis, it may be through the agency of Dubois." If _Junius Identified_ be alluded to in these observations as a _pamphlet_, it would make me doubt whether R.J., or either of his authorities, ever saw the book. It is an 8vo. vol. The first edition, containing 380 pages, was published in 1816, at 12s. The second edition, which included the supplement, exceeded 400 pages, and was published in 1818, at 14s. The supplement, which contains the plates of handwriting, was sold separately at 3s. 6d., to complete the first edition, but this could not have been the pamphlet alluded to in the preceding extracts. I suspect that when the work is spoken of as a pamphlet, and this if often done, the parties thus describing it have known it only through the medium of the critique in the _Edinburgh Review_.

Mr. Dubois was the author of the biography of Sir Philip Francis, first printed in the _Monthly Mirror_ for May and June, 1810, and reprinted in _Junius Identified_, with acknowledgment of the source from which it was taken. To this biography the remarks of Sir Fortunatus Dwarris are strictly applicable, except that it never appeared in the form of a pamphlet.

JOHN TAYLOR.

30. Upper Gower Street, Sept. 7. 1850.

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FOLK LORE.

_Spiders a Cure for Ague_ (Vol. ii., p. 130.).--Seeing a note on this subject reminds me that a few years since, a lady in the south of Ireland was celebrated far and near, amongst her poorer neighbours, for the cure of this disorder. Her universal remedy was a large house-spider alive, and enveloped in treacle or preserve. Of course the parties were carefully kept in ignorance of what the wonderful remedy was.

Whilst I am on the subject of cures, I may as well state that in parts of the co. Carlow, the blood drawn from a black cat's ear, and rubbed upon the part affected, is esteemed a certain cure for St. Anthony's fire.

JUNIOR.

_Funeral Superstition._--A few days ago the body of a gentleman in this neighbourhood was conveyed to the hearse, and while being placed in it, the door of the house, whether from design or inadvertence I know not, was closed before the friends came out to take their places in the coaches. An old lady, who was watching the proceedings, immediately exclaimed, "God bless me! they have closed the door upon the corpse: there will be another death in that house before many days are over." She was fully impressed with this belief, and unhappily this impression has been confirmed. The funeral was on Saturday, and on the Monday morning following a young man, resident in the house, was found dead in bed, having died under the influence of chloroform, which he had inhaled, self-administered, to relieve the pain of toothache or tic-douloureux.

Perhaps the superstition may have come before you already; but not having met with it myself, I thought it might be equally new to others.

H.J.

Sheffield.

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_Folk Lore Rhymes._--

"Find odd-leafed ash, and even-leafed clover,
And you'll see your true love before the day's over."

If you wish to see your lover, throw salt on the fire every morning for nine days, and say--

"It is not salt I mean to burn,
But my true lover's heart I mean to turn;
Wishing him neither joy nor sleep,
Till he come back to me and speak."

"If you marry in Lent,
You will live to repent."

WEDSECNARF.

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EMENDATION OF A PASSAGE IN THE "TEMPEST."

Premising that I should approach the text of our great poet with an almost equal degree of awful reverence with that which characterises his two latest editors, I must confess that I should not have the same respect for evident errors of the printers of the early editions, which they have occasionally shown. In the following passage in the _Tempest_, Act i., Scene 1., this forbearance has not, however, been the cause of the very unsatisfactory state in which they have both left it. I must be indulged in citing at length, that the context may the more clearly show what was really the poet's meaning:--

"Enter FERDINAND _bearing a Log_.

"_Fer._ There be some sports are painful; and their labour
Delight in them sets off; some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone; and most poor matters
Point to rich ends. This my mean task
Would be as heavy to me, as odious; but
The mistress, which I serve, quickens what's dead,
And makes my labours pleasures: O! she is
Ten times more gentle than her father's crabbed;
And he's composed of harshness. I must remove
Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up,
Upon a sore injunction: My sweet mistress
Weeps when she sees me work; and says such business
Had never like executor. I forget:
But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours;
Most busy lest when I do it."

Mr. Collier reads these last two lines thus--

"But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours;
Most busy, least when I do it."

with the following note--

"The meaning of this passage seems to have been misunderstood by
all the commentators. Ferdinand says that the thoughts of
Miranda so refresh his labours, that when he is most busy he
seems to feel his toil _least_. It is printed in the folio
1623,--

'Most busy _lest_ when I do it,'

--a trifling error of the press corrected in the folio 1632,
although Theobald tells us that both the oldest editions read
_lest_. Not catching the poet's meaning, he printed,--

'Most busy-_less_ when I do it,'

and his supposed emendation has ever since been taken as the
text; even Capell adopted it. I am happy in having Mr. Amyot's
concurrence in this restoration."

Mr. Knight adopts Theobald's reading, and Mr. Dyce approves it in the following words:--

"When Theobald made the emendation, 'Most busy-_less_,' he
observed that 'the corruption was so very little removed from
the truth of the text, that he could not afford to think well of
his own sagacity for having discovered it.' The correction is,
indeed, so obvious that we may well wonder that it had escaped
his predecessors; but we must wonder ten times more that one of
his successors, in a blind reverence for the old copy, should
re-vitiate the text, and defend a corruption which outrages
language, taste, and common sense."

Although at an earlier period of life I too adopted Theobald's supposed emendation, it never satisfied me. I have my doubts whether the word _busyless_ existed in the poet's time; and if it did, whether he could possibly have used it here. Now it is clear that _labours_ is a misprint for _labour_; else, to what does "when I do _it_" refer? _Busy lest_ is only a typographical error for _busyest_: the double superlative was commonly used, being considered as more emphatic, by the poet and his contemporaries.

Thus in Hamlet's letter, Act ii. Sc. 2.:

"I love thee best, O _most best_."

and in _King Lear_, Act ii. Sc. 3.:

"To take the basest and _most poorest_ shape."

The passage will then stand thus:--

"But these sweet thoughts, do even refresh my labour,
Most busiest when I do it."

The sense will be perhaps more evident by a mere transposition, preserving every word:

"But these sweet thoughts, most busiest when I do
My labour, do even refresh it."

Here we have a clear sense, devoid of all ambiguity, and confirmed by what precedes; that his labours are made pleasures, being beguiled by these sweet thoughts of his mistress, which are busiest when he labours, because it excites in his mind the memory of her "weeping to see him work." The correction has also the recommendation of being effected in so simple a manner as by merely taking away two superfluous letters. I trust I need say no more; secure of the approbation of those who (to use the words of an esteemed friend on another occasion) feel "that making an opaque spot in a great work transparent is not a labour to be scorned, and that there is a pleasant sympathy between the critic and bard--dead though he be--on such occasions, which is an ample reward."

S.W. SINGER

Mickleham, Aug 30. 1850.

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PUNISHMENT OF DEATH BY BURNING.

(Vol. ii., pp. 6. 50. 90. 165.)

In the "NOTES AND QUERIES" of Saturday, the 10th of August, SENEX gives some account of the burning of a female in the Old Bailey, "about the year 1788."

Having myself been present at the last execution of a female in London, where the body was burnt (being probably that to which SENEX refers), and as few persons who were then present may now be alive, I beg to mention some circumstances relative to that execution, which appear to be worthy of notice.

Our criminal law was then most severe and cruel: the legal punishment of females convicted of high treason and petty treason was burning; coining was held to be high treason; and murder of a husband was petty treason.

I see it stated in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, that on the 13th of March, 1789,--

"The Recorder of London made his report to His Majesty of the
prisoners under sentence of death in Newgate, convicted in the
Sessions of September, October, November, and January (forty-six
in number), fourteen of whom were ordered for execution;
five of whom were afterwards reprieved."

The recorder's report in regard to these unfortunate persons had been delayed during the incapacity of the king; thus the report for four sessions had been made at once. To have decided at one sitting of council upon such a number of cases, must have almost been enough to overset the strongest mind. Fortunately, these reports are now abolished.

In the same number of the _Gentleman's Magazine_, under date the 18th of March, there is this statement,--

"The nine following malefactors were executed before the
Debtors' Door at Newgate pursuant to their sentence, viz., Hugh
Murphy and Christian Murphy _alias_ Bowman, Jane Grace, and
Joseph Walker, for coining. [Four for burglary, and one for
highway robbery.] They were brought upon the scaffold, about
half an hour after seven, and _turned off_ about a quarter past
eight. The woman for coining was brought out after the rest were
turned off, and fixed to a stake and burnt; being first
strangled by the stool being taken from under her."

This is the execution at which I was present; the number of those who suffered, and the burning of the female, attracted a very great crowd. Eight of the malefactors suffered on the scaffold, then known as "the new drop." After they were suspended, the woman, in a white dress, was brought out of Newgate alone; and after some time spent in devotion, was hung on the projecting arm of a low gibbet, fixed at a little distance from the scaffold. After the lapse of a sufficient time to extinguish life, faggots were piled around her, and over her head, so that her person was completely covered: fire was then set to the pile, and the woman was consumed to ashes.

In the following year, 1790, I heard sentence passed in the Criminal Court, in the Old Bailey, upon other persons convicted of coining: one of them was a female. The sentence upon her was, that she should be "drawn to the place of execution, and there burnt with fire till she was dead."

The case of this unfortunate woman, and the cruel state of the law in regard to females, then attracted attention. On the 10th of May, 1790, Sir Benjamin Hammett, in his place in the House of Commons, called the attention of that House to the then state of the law. He mentioned that it had been his official duty to attend on the melancholy occasion of the burning of the female in the preceding year (it is understood he was then one of the sheriffs of London), he moved for leave to bring in a bill to alter the law, which he characterised as--

"One of the savage remains of Norman policy, disgracing our
statute book, as the practice did the common law."

He noticed that the sheriff who did not execute the sentence of burning alive was liable to a prosecution; but he thanked Heaven there was not a man in England who would carry such a sentence into effect. He obtained leave to bring in a bill for altering this cruel law; and in that session the Act 30 G. III. c. 48. was passed--

"For discontinuing the judgment which has been required by law
to be given against women convicted of certain crimes, and
substituting another judgment in lieu thereof."

A debt of gratitude is due to the memory of Sir Benjamin Hammett, for his exertions, at that period, in the cause of humanity. Thank God, we now live in times when the law is less cruel, and more chary of human life.

OCTOGENARIUS.

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A NOTE ON MORGANATIC MARRIAGES.

Grimm (_Deutsche Rechts Alterthumer_, vol. ii., p. 417.), after a long dissertation, in which it appears that the money paid by the bridegroom to the wife's relations (I believe subsequently also to the wife herself) had every form of a _purchase_, possibly derived also from some _symbolic_ customs common to all northern tribes, offers the following as the origin of this word "morganatic:"--

"Es gab aber im Alterthum noch einen erlaubten Ausweg f¸r die
Verbindung vorneluner Männer mit geringen (freien und selbst
unfreien) Frauen, den _Concubinat_, der ohne feierliches
Verlˆbniss, ohne _Brautgabe_ und _Mitgift_ eingegangen wurde,
mithin _keine wahre und volle Ehe_, dennoch ein rechtmässiges
Verhältniss war.

"Da jedoch die Kirche ein solches Verhältniss missbilligte durch
keine Einsegnung weihte, so wurde es allmählich unerlaubt und
verboten als Ausnahme aber bis auf die neueste Zeit f¸r F¸rsten
zugelassen--ja durch Trauung an die linke Hand gefeiert. Die
Benennung Morganatische Ehe,--Matrimonium ad Morganaticam (11.
Feud. 29.), r¸hrt daher, dass _den Concubinen_ eine _Morgangabe_
(woraus im Mittelalter die Lombarden '_Morganatica_'
machten)--bewilligt zu werden pflegte--_es waren Ehen auf blosse
Morgengabe_. Den Beweis liefern Urkunden, die Morganatica f¸r
Morgengabe auch in Fallen gebrauchen wo von wahrer Ehe die Rede
ist." (See Heinecius, _Antiq_. 3. 157, 158.)

The case now stands thus:

It was the custom to give money to the wife's relations on the marriage-day.

It was not the custom with respect to unequal marriage (Misheirath): this took place "ohne Brautgabe und Mitgift," which was also of later origin.

The exception made by the Church for _princes_, restored the woman so far, that the marriage was legally and morally recognised by the Lombard law and the Church, with exceptions as regards _issue_, and that the left hand was given for the _right_.

With regard to this latter, it would be desirable to trace whether giving of the hand had any _symbolic_ meaning. I think the astrologists consider the right as the nobler part of the body; if so, giving of _the left_ in this case is not without symbolic significance. It must be remembered how much symbolism prevailed among the tribes which swept Europe on the fall of the Roman empire, and their Eastern origin.

The Morgengabe, according to Cancianus (_Leges Barbarorum_, tom. iv. p. 24.), was at first a _free gift_ made by the husband after the first marriage night. This was carried to such excess, that Liutprand ordained

"Tamen ipsum Morgengabe volumus, ut non sit amplius nisi quarta
pars ejus substantia, qui ipsum Morgengabe dedit."

This became subsequently converted into a _right_ termed _justitia_.

Upon this extract from a charter,--

"Manifesta causa est mihi, quoniam die ilio quando te sposavi,
promiseram tibi dare _justitiam_ tuam secundum _legem meam_ [qr.
_my Lombard_ law in opposition to the Roman, which he had a
right to choose,] in Morgencap, id est, quartam portionem omnium
rerum mobilium et immobilium," &c.

Cancianus thus comments:--

"Animadverte, quam recte charta hÊc 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 empf‰ngt 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 question
So 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.

AthenÊum, 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 viator
Tot ibi trophÊa, quot ossa
Quot martyres, tot triumphi.
Antra quÊ subis, multa quÊ cernis marmora,
Vel dum silent,
Palam RomÊ gloriam loquuntur.
Audi quid Echo resonet
SubterraneÊ RomÊ!
Obscura licet Urbis Cœmetria
Totius patens Orbis Theatrium!
Supplex Loci Sanetitatem venerare,
Et post hac sub luto aurum
Coelum sub coeno
Sub Rom‚ Romam quÊrito!"

_Roma Subterranea_, 1651, tom. i. p. 625.

(Inscription abridged.)

Stay, wayfarer--behold
In 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 silence
Proclaim aloud Rome's glory:
The echo'd fame
Of subterranean Rome
Rings on the ear.
The city's sepulchres, albeit hidden,
Present a spectacle
To the wide world patent.
In lowly rev'rence hail this hallow'd spot,
And henceforth learn
Gold beneath dross
Heav'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_ indeed
_With_ 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. BEAUMONT

M.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 beg_u_n 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 heaved
a 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) escape
The sigh then only is
A 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 dixisti
De corpore Christi
Crede quod edis et edis;
Sic tibi rescribo
De tuo palfrido
Crede quod habes et habes."

But in Wright and Halliwell's _ReliquiÊ AntiquÊ_, p. 287., from a manuscript of the time of Henry VII., is given--

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