Chapter C: J. W

_Age of Trees_ (Vol. iv., p. 401.).--I am rather surprised that your correspondent L., in his enumeration of remarkable trees, and collections of trees, in Great Britain, makes no mention, whilst on the subject of yew, of the splendid collection of old yew trees in Kingley Bottom, near Chichester, in Sussex. Should L. never have visited this charming spot, and its green antiquities, I can promise him a rich treat whenever he does so. Common report of the neighbourhood, from time immemorial, gives these venerable trees a date as far back as the landing of the sea-kings on the coast of Sussex; and sundry poems by local bards have been written on this theme.

On one of the most prominent of the South Down Hills, rising immediately above the yew-tree valley, and called Bow Hill, are two large, and some smaller tumuli, which are always called by the natives the graves of the sea-kings, who with their followers are supposed to have fallen in a battle fought under these very yew trees.

Can anybody tell me if the age of any of these trees has ever been ascertained? Kingley Bottom, or, as people now-a-days prefer calling it, Kingley Vale, is so much frequented as a spot for pic-nics and festive days, that I have no doubt many of your readers have seen the trees to which I refer, and can bear me out in asserting that they are worthy of ranking, in age and beauty, with any of their species in the kingdom.

SCANDINAVIAN.

The "Hethel Thorn," so well known to many Norfolk people, is on a farm now the property of that munificent patron of historical literature, Mr. Hudson Gurney, by whom it was purchased from Sir Thomas Beevor. The first Sir Thomas always said it was mentioned in a deed of 1200 and odd, as a boundary, under the appellation of "the Old Thorn." It is stated, also, that it is mentioned in some chronicle as _the thorn_ round which a meeting of insurgent peasantry was held during the reign of King John (can any readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" give a reference to the precise passage?). An etching of this interesting relic has been made by Mr. Ninham. The involution of its branches, which are all hollow tubes, as heavy as iron, is most curious; and although the tree is certainly diminished of late years, it still puts out leaves and berries vigorously.

W. J. T.

_Treatise against Equivocation_ (Vol. iv., p. 419.).--Your correspondent EUPATOR has, in his examination of the MS. of this treatise, overlooked a title prefixed by Garnet, which furnishes the heading by which the book is correctly entered in the Catalogue of the Laudian MSS. as _A Treatise against (not _of_ or _for_) Lying and Fraudulent Dissimulation_. "Of" was first written, but at once crossed out, and "against" written _after_ it, _not_ interlined. Of the two errors which EUPATOR points out, the one was made at the press, by failure in reading the contraction for "verbo," which is printed correctly at length at p. 43., and the other was a mistake on the part of the transcriber.

W. D. M.

_Lycian Inscriptions_ (Vol. iv., p. 383.).--As to the double language in Homer of the gods and men, Heyne and others have thought (ad _Il._ A. 403.) that the one was the old language, the other the modern. See Clarke ib., who thinks one was the learned name, the other the vulgar: but gives a scholion of the former opinion. The passages are as follow:

_Il._ Gods. Men.
[Greek: Alpha] 403. Briareus AEgaeon.
[Greek: Beta] 813. Tomb of Myrine Batiea.
[Greek: Xi] 291. Chalcis Cymindis.
[Greek: Upsilon] 74. Xanthus Scamander.

All these words, except one, are plain Greek,--and that one is a word of men. It is impossible, therefore, that the gods' language could have been the antiquated Greek language.

In the _Odyssey_ ([Greek: Kappa] 305.) Mercury says that a certain plant is called _Moly_ by the gods, and that it is very difficult for men to find. The answer to the question, What do men call it? therefore would probably have been, that they have no name for it at all. It is an odd word, not easy to derive, and ending in _u_; which Aristotle says is the ending of only five words in Greek, and one of those, [Greek: asty], was obsolete as an appellative in Aristotle's time.

Ichor, though applied in Homer to the gods, he does not say was a word of the gods; and as it is used in Hippocrates, it is more probably a dialectic than an antiquated word. Its termination, however is rare; and in another instance, [Greek: tekmor], was obsolete in Aristotle's time (_Rhet. init._).

As to the Lycian language, the alphabet is said, in the appendix to Fellows, to resemble partly the Greek, partly the Zend, and one or two letters the Etruscan. The language is said (ib. 430.) to resemble the Zend more than any other known language; but to differ too much to be considered as a dialect of Zend, and must rank as a separate language.

I would observe, that one of the peculiarities mentioned, as compared with all the Indo-Germanic languages--namely, the having no consonant at the end of the masculine or feminine accusative--existed in the old Latin, as in the Scipionic tombs, "optimo viro, omne Loucana."

Sir Edmund Head, in the _Classical Museum_, No. II., considers the people to be the Solymi of Homer.

C. B.

_Alterius Orbis Papa_ (Vol. ii., p. 497.).--In Twysden's _Historical Vindication of the Church of England_, p. 22. (Cambridge edition, 1847), I find--

"After the erection of Canterbury into an archbishopric, the bishops
of that see were held _quasi alterius orbis papae_, as Urban II. styled
them."

In a note, William of Malmesbury (_De Gestis Pontif._, lib. i. in Anselm., p. 223. l. 33.) is referred to as authority for the above statement. Urban II. was pope from 1087 to 1099.