Chapter C: H. Cooper

Cambridge, June 18. 1851.

DOZEN OF BREAD; BAKER'S DOZEN

(Vol. ii., p. 298.; Vol iii., p. 153.).

From the following extracts from two of the "Bury Wills" recently published by the Camden Society, it would appear that a dozen of bread always consisted of _twelve_ loaves; and that the term "Baker's dozen" arose from the practice of giving, in addition to the _twelve_ loaves, a further quantity as "_inbread_," in the same manner as it is (or until recently was) the custom to give an extra bushel of coals as "ingrain" upon the sale of a large quantity; a chaldron, I believe.

Francis Pynner, of Bury, Gent., by will, dated April 26, 1639, gave to feoffees certain property upon trust (_inter alia_) out of the rents, upon the last Friday in every month in the year, to provide one twopenny loaf for each of forty poor people in Bury, to be distributed by the clerk, sexton, and beadle of St. Mary's parish, who were to have the "_inbread of the said bread_." And the testator also bequeathed certain other property to feoffees upon trust to employ the rents as follows (that is to say):--

"The yerely s[=u]me of ffiue pounds p'cell of the said yerely
rents to be bestowed in wheaten bread, to be made into _penny_
loaves, and upon eu'y Lord's day, called Sonday, throughout eu'y
yere of the said terme [40 years or thereabouts], _fowre_ and
_twenty_ loaves of the said bread, with the _inbread_ allowed by
the baker for those _twoe dosens_ of bread, to be timely brought
and sett vpon a forme towards the vpp' end of the chancell of the
said p'ish church of St. Marie, and ... the same _twoe dosens_ of
bread to be giuen and distributed ... to and amongst fowre and
twentie poore people ... the p'ish clarke and sexton of the said
church, and the beadle of the said p'ish of St. Marie for the time
then being, shall alwaies be three which from time to time shall
haue their shares and parts in the said bread. And they, the said
clarke, sexton, and bedell, shall alwaies haue the _inbread_ of
all the bread aforesaid ovr and besides their shares in the said
twoe dosens of bread from time to time----"

And William Fiske, of Pakenham, Gent., by will, dated March 20, 1648, provided twelvepence a week to pay weekly for _one dozen_ of bread which his mind was, should "be weekly given vnto twelue _or thirteene_" persons therein referred to.

J. B. COLMAN.

Eye, June 16. 1851.

MOSAIC.

(Vol. iii., p. 389.)

Among the various kinds of picturesque representation, practised by the Greeks and Romans, and transmitted by them to after times, is that of _Mosaic_, a mode of execution which, in its durability of form, and permanency of colour, possesses distinguished advantages, being unaffected by heat or cold, drought or moisture, and perishing only with the building to which it has been originally attached. This art has been known in Rome since the days of the Republic. The severer rulers of that period forbade the introduction of foreign marbles, and the republican mosaics are all in black and white. Under the Empire the art was greatly improved, and not merely by the introduction of marbles of various colours, but by the invention of artificial stones, termed by the Italians _Smalti_, which can be made of every variety of tint. This art was never entirely lost. On the introduction of pictures into Christian temples, they were first made of _mosaic_: remaining specimens of them are rude, but profoundly interesting in an historical point of view. When art was restored in Italy, mosaic also was improved; but it attained its greatest perfection in the last and present century. _Roman mosaic, as now practised, may be described as being the production of pictures by connecting together numerous minute pieces of coloured marble or artificial stones. These are attached to a ground of copper, by means of a strong cement of gum mastic, and other materials, and are afterwards ground and polished, as a stone would be, to a perfectly level surface._ By this art not only are ornaments made on a small scale, but pictures of the largest size are copied. The most remarkable modern works are the copies which have been executed of some of the most important works of the great masters, for the altars in St. Peter's. These are, in every respect, perfect imitations of the originals; and when the originals, in spite of every care, must change and perish, these mosaics will still convey to distant ages a perfect idea of the triumphs of art achieved in the fifteenth century. _Twenty years_ were employed in making one of the copies I have mentioned. The pieces of mosaic vary in size from an eighth to a sixteenth of an inch, and eleven men were employed for that time on each picture. A great improvement was introduced into the art in 1775, by Signor Raffaeli, who thought of preparing the _smalti_ in what may be termed fine threads. _The pastes or smalti are manufactured at Venice, in the shape of crayons, or like sticks of sealing-wax, and are afterwards drawn out by the workman, by a blowpipe, into the thickness he requires, often almost to an hair, and are seldom thicker than the finest grass stalk._ For tables, and large articles, of course, the pieces are thicker; but the beauty of the workmanship, the soft gradation of the tints, and the cost, depend upon the _minuteness_ of the pieces, and the skill displayed by the artist. A ruin, a group of flowers or figures, will employ a good artist about two months, when only two inches square; and a specimen of such a description costs from 5_l._ to 20_l._, according to the execution: a landscape, six inches by four, would require eighteen months, and would cost from 40_l._ to 50_l._ For a picture of Pæstum, eight feet long by twenty inches broad, on which four men were occupied for three years, 1000_l._ sterling was asked. The mosaic work of Florence differs entirely from Roman mosaic, being composed of stones inserted in comparatively large masses. It is called work in _pietra dura_; the stones used are all of a more or less precious nature. In old specimens, the most beautiful works are those in which the designs are of an arabesque character. The most remarkable specimen of this description of _pietra dura_, is an octagonal table, in the _Gubinetto di Baroccio_, in the Florence Gallery. It is valued at 20,000_l._ sterling, and was commenced in 1623 by Jacopo Detelli, from designs by Ligozzi. Twenty-two artists worked upon it without interruption till it was terminated, in the year 1649.

One principal distinction between the ancient and modern mosaic is, I believe, that the former was arranged in _patterns_, the latter _coloured in shades_. I shall not take up your columns by dwelling on the ancient mosaic, which, as all know was in use among the Orientals, especially the Persians and Assyrians; and from the Easterns the Greeks received the art. In the Book of Esther, i. 6., we have an allusion to a mosaic pavement; and Schleusner understands the [Greek: Lithostrôton] of St. John, xix. 13., to mean a sort of elevated mosaic pavement. Andrea Tafi, towards the close of the thirteenth century, is said to have revived this art in Italy, having learned it from a Greek named Apollonius, who worked at the church of St. Mark at Venice, and to have been the founder of the modern mosaic.

Now for the derivation. The Lithostrata, or tesselated pavements of the Romans, being worked in a regular and mechanical manner, were called _opus musivum, opera qua ad amussim facta sunt_. Hence the Italian _musaico_, from whence is derived our appellation of _mosaic_; but, like most of our arts, through the channel of the French _mosaïque_. (Vide Pitisci _Lexicon_, ii. 242.; Roscoe's _Life of Lorenzo de Medici_; Winkelman; _Pompeiana_, by Gell; Smith's _Greek and Roman Antiq._; Beckman's _Inventions_; and _Récherches sur la Peinture en Mosaïque chez les Anciens_, &c., annexed to his _Description d'un Pavé en Mosaïque_, &c.: Paris, 1802.)

GERONIMO.

Replies to Minor Queries.

_Prenzie_ (Vol. iii., p. 401.)--Several words have been suggested to take the place of the unintelligible "_prenzie_" in _Measure for Measure_; but none of them appear to me to satisfy all the four conditions justly required by Leges.

I would suggest _phrensied_ or _phrenzied_, a word extremely like _prenzie_ both in sound and appearance, and of the proper metre, thus perfectly satisfying two of the conditions.

With respect to the propriety of using this word in the two instances where _prenzie_ occurs, Claudio, in the first place, when informed by his sister of the villany of Angelo, may well exclaim in astonishment--

"The _phrenzied_ Angelo?"

_i.e._ "What, is he mad?" or, with a note of admiration, "Why, Angelo must be mad!" Then, I think, naturally follows Isabella's reply:--

"O 'tis the cunning livery of Hell,
The damned'st body to invest and cover
In _phrenzied_ guards!"

that is, in the disguise or under the cloak of madness.

Johnson defines Frenzy to be

"Madness; distraction of mind; alienation of understanding; any
violent passion approaching to madness."

and surely Angelo's _violent passion_ for Isabella, and his determination to gratify it at all risks, may, properly be said to _approach to madness_.

W. G. M.

There is a Scotch word so nearly resembling this, and at the same time so exactly answering to the sense which the passage in _Measure for Measure_ requires, that it may be worth while calling the attention of the Shakspearian commentators to it. In Allan Cunningham's Glossary to Burns, I find _Primsie_, which he defines to mean _demure_, _precise_. An old Scotch proverb is quoted, in which the word is used:

"A _primsie_ damsel makes a laidlae dame."

The term is evidently connected with, or formed from, the English _prim_, which has the same sense. It seems this was formerly sometimes written _prin_. Halliwell cites from Fletcher's poems the lines--

"He looks as gaunt and prin, as he that spent
A tedious twelve years in an eager Lent."

Now if from _prim_ be formed the secondary adjective _primsie_, so from _prin_ we get _prinsie_ or _prinzie_. But without resorting to the supposition of the existence of this latter word, it is evident that in _primzie_, which does or did exist, we have a word answering all the conditions laid down by Leges for determining the true reading, more nearly than any other that has been suggested.

CEBES.

[Dr. Jamieson, in his _Scottish Dictionary_, defines Primsie,
demure, precise, S. from E. _prim_.

"Poor Willie, wi' his bow-kail runt
Was brunt wi' primsie Mallie."

Burns, iii. 129.]

_Lady Flora Hastings' Bequest_ (Vol. iii., p. 443.).--Were the beautiful lines entitled "Lady Flora's Bequest" in reality written by that lamented lady? They are not to be found in the volume of her Poems published after her death by her sister, the Marchioness of Bute; and they did appear in _The Christian Lady's Magazine_ for September, 1839, with the signature of Miss M. A. S. Barber appended to them.

In the preceding Number of the same magazine there is a very touching account of Lady Flora, from the pen of its talented editress, who mentions the fact of Lady Flora having with her _dying hand_ "delivered to her fond brother a little Bible, the gift of her mother, requesting him to restore it to that beloved parent with the assurance that from the age of seven years, when she received it from her, it had been her best treasure; and, she added, her sole support under all her recent afflictions."

If your correspondent Erza has never seen that obituary notice (Seeleys, publishers) I think she will be glad to meet with it.