Chapter I: Front Matter

[Transcriber's note: Original spelling varieties have not been standardized. Arabian, Hebrew, and Syriac transliterations of words have been retained as printed. Characters with macrons have been marked in brackets with an equal sign, as [=e] for a letter e with a macron on top. Underscores have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts. A list of volumes and pages in "Notes and Queries" has been added at the end.]

NOTES and QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION

FOR

LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

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

VOL. IV.--No. 97. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. 1851.

Price Threepence. Stamped Edition, 4_d._

CONTENTS.

Page

NOTES:--

Notes on Books, No. II.--Gabriel Harvey, by S. W. Singer 169

The Antiquity of Kilts, by T. Stephens 170

Notes on Julin, No. I., by Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie 171

Minor Notes:--Anecdote of Curran--Difficulty of getting
rid of a Name--House of Lord Edward Fitzgerald--Fairy
Dances--Æsop--Nelson's Coat at Trafalgar 173

QUERIES:--

John Knox, by David Laing 174

Minor Queries:--"Foeda ministeria, atque minis absistite
acerbis"--Cornish Arms and Cornish Motto--Gloucester saved
from the King's Mines--Milesian--Horology--Laurentius
Müller--Lines on a Bed--Pirog--Lists of Plants, with their
Provincial Names--Print Cleaning--Italian Writer on
Political Economy--Carli the Economist--Nightingale and
Thorn--Coleridge's Essays on Beauty--Henryson and
Kinaston--Oldys' Account of London Libraries--A
Sword-blade Note--Abacot--Princesses of Wales 174

MINOR QUERIES ANSWERED:--A Kelso Convoy--Cardinal
Wolsey--Brunswick Mum--Meaning of "Rasher" 176

REPLIES:--

Pendulum Demonstration of the Earth's Rotation 177

A Saxon Bell-house 178

The Whale of Jonah, by T. J. Buckton 178

St. Trunnian, by W. S. Hesleden 179

Replies to Minor Queries:--Lord Mayor not a Privy
Councillor--Did Bishop Gibson write a Life of
Cromwell?--Lines on the Temple--Henry Headley,
B.A.--Cycle of Cathay--Proof of Sword Blades--Was Milton
an Anglo-Saxon Scholar?--English Sapphics--The
Tradescants--Monumental Inscription--Lady Petre's
Monument 180

MISCELLANEOUS:--

Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 182

Books and Odd Volumes wanted 183

Notices to Correspondents 183

Advertisements 183

Notes.

NOTES ON BOOKS, NO. II.--GABRIEL HARVEY.

This learned friend of Spenser and Sir Philip Sydney (though better known from his quarrel with Tom Nashe) was in the habit of writing copious memoranda in his books, several of which were in the library of Mr. Lloyd, of Wygfair. Among them some miscellaneous volumes, which I believe afterwards passed into the collection of Mr. Heber, contained remarkable specimens of his calligraphic skill. His name was written four or five times: "Gabriel Harveins, 1579," and with variation, "Gabrielis Harveij" and "di Gabriello Haveio." The volumes contained the Medea and Giocasta of Lodovico Dolce, in Italian; the Hecuba and Iphigenia of Euripides in Latin, by Erasmus, the Comedies of Terence, &c.; and the first Italian and English Grammar, by Henry Grantham, 1575. On the blank pages and spaces what follows was inscribed:--

"La Giocasta d' Euripide, Dolce, et Gascoigno. Senecæ et Statii
Thebais. Item Senecæ OEdipus. Quasi Synopsis Tragoediarum
omnium.--NON GIOCO, MA GIOCASTA."

"Omne genus scripti, gravitate Tragoedia vincit."

"Hæ quatuor Tragoediæ, instar omnium Tragoediarum pro tempore:
præsertim cum reliquarum non suppetit copia. Duæ Euripidis placent
in primis, et propter auctoris prudentissimam veram, et propter
interpretis singularem delectum. Eadem in Sophoclis Antigonem
affectio, ab Episcopo Vatsono tralatam: cum propter interpretis
accuratum judicium. Qui tanti fecit optimo Tragicos, ut eosdem
soleret cum Checo et Aschamo, omnibus aliis poetis anteferre;
etiam Homero et Virgilio."

"Questa Medea di Dolce non è Medea di Seneca. Ma Thieste di Dolce
è Thieste medesimo di Seneca. Solo coro nel fin è soperchievole."

"Gascoigni Jocasta, magnifice acta solemne ritu, et vere tragico
apparatu. Ut etiam Vatsoni Antigone; cuive pompæ seriæ, et
exquisita. Usque adeo quidem utraque ut nihil in hoc tragico
genere vel illustrius vel accuratius."

"Jam floruerant prudentissimi Attici, Pericles, Thucydides,
Sophocles; jam florent Plato, Xenophon, Demosthenes, cum Euripides
pangit Tragoedias. Nec excellentissimorum Atticorum, ullus vel
prudentior Euripides, vel argutior, vel etiam elegantior. Nihil in
eo nugarum, nihil affectationis, et tamen singula ubique
cultissima."

"Erasmus talis Euripidis interpres, qualis Pindari Melancthon.
Foelix utriusque ad interpretandum dexteritas et fluens
elocutionis facilitas. Plus in Erasmo diligentiæ; in Melancthone
perspicuitas. Quam persequebatur, Camerarius, nec tamen
assequebatur."

"Erasmi ferè jadicium acre, et serium nec dubium est, quin
delectum adhibucrit in sapientissimis Tragoediis eligendis
exquisitum."

"Ut ferè foeminas; sic Comoedias et Tragoedias; qui unam omnimodo
novit, omnes novit quodam modo. Saltem ex ungue, Leonem; ex clave,
Herculem."

* * * * *

"Quattro Comedie del divino Pietro Aretino. Cioè Il Marescalco ò
Pedante.--La Cortigiana.--La Talanta.--Lo Hippocrito.

"Habeo et legi: sed nondum comprare potui Il Filosofo: quæ tamen
ipsius, Comoedia dicitur etiam exstare.

"Memorantur etiam duæ illius Tragoediæ, L'Hortensia.--Tragoedia di
Christo.

"Comedie, Dialoghi capricciosi, Le Lettere, e Capitoli dell'
Unico: Historie del suo tempo. La quinta essenza del suo unico
ingegno; e lo specchio di tutte l'arti Cortegiane.

"Due Comedie argutissime et facetissime di Macchiavelli Politico:
La Mandragola.--La Clitia."

"IL LEGGERE NUTRISCA LO INGEGNO."

"Suppositi d'Ariosto: Comoediam singulariter laudate à P. Jovio in
Elogiis; cum Plautinis facilè contendens Inventionis, atque
successus amenitate; si utriusque sæculi mores non inepte
comparentur. Syncrisis ætatum necessaria, ad Comoediarum,
Historiarum, aliorumque Scriptorum excellentia in examinandam,
atque judicandam solerti censura."

"Arciprologo quasi di tutte le Comedie, il primo dell' Aretino; et
il terzo e quarto dello' stesso."

"Ut Comoedias, sic Tragoedias; qui tres aut quatuor intimè novit,
novit ferè omnes. Tanti valet hic aureus libellus. Meo tandem
judicio, Poetarum sapientissimus, Euripides: vel ipse Sophocle
magis Attice nervosus et profundus, ut Seneca Latine."

* * * * *

"Ecce reliquiæ et fragmenta Menandri, Epicharmi, Alexidis,
reliquiorumque Græcorum Comicorum. Cum toto Aristophane. Et
fortasse senties nova veteribus non esse potiora. Nec usquam
prudentiores Gnomas invenies, ne apud Theognidem quidem aut
Isocratem.

"Placent etiam Comoediæ quæ non sunt Comoediæ; et Tragoediæ quæ
non sunt Tragoediæ: Ut utriusque generis multæ egregiæ apud
Homerum, et Virgilium in Heroicis; Frontinum et Polyænum in
Strategematis; Stephanum in Apologia Herodoti: Rabelesium in
Heroicis Gargantuæ: Sidneium in novissima Arcadiæ: Domenichum in
Facetiis. Quomodo antiquorum unus Græcorum dixit:--Delicatissimos
esse Pisces quæ non sunt Pisces, et carnes lautissimas quæ non
sunt carnes. Da mihi Fabulas non Fabulas, Apologos non Apologos.
Et sensi optima Apophthegmata quæ non sunt Apophthegmata: Optima
Adagia quæ non Adagia.

"Inutiliter Tragoedias legit qui nescit philosophicas sententias a
Tyrannicis distinguere. Alia scholarum doctrina, alia regnorum
disciplina. Politico opus est judicio ad distinguendum
prudentissimas sententias à reliquis. Nec semper Tyrannus
barbarus: nec semper poeta, aut philosophus sapiens: solertis
judiciis fuerit, non quis dicat, set quia dicatur respicere, et
undique optima seligere."

"Euripidis Jocastæ apud Gascoignum summa ferè Tragoediarum
omnium."

* * * * *

"No finer or pithier Examples than in y'e excellent Comedies and
Tragedies following, full of sweet and wise discourse. A notable
Dictionarie for the Grammer."

* * * * *

"Ut de hac Terentii tralatione sentirem honorificentius; fecit
Aldus exquisita editio."

I thought these notes worth transcribing, not only as showing the attention paid by the learned students of this time to _the drama_, as well ancient as modern, but more especially for the mention made of the _Jocasta_ of George Gascoigne, and the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, translated, as he says, by Watson, Bishop of Worcester, and not by Thomas Watson, as Warton supposed. It may be doubted whether this translation was into English; but Harvey seems to imply that it was acted, as well as the Jocasta. Bishop Watson was celebrated for his dramatic skill, in his Latin tragedy of _Absalon_, by Roger Ascham, who says,--

"When M. Watson, in St. John's College at Cambridge, wrote his
excellent Tragedie of Absalon, M. Cheke, he, and I, had many
pleasant talkes togither, in comparing the preceptes of Aristotle
and Horace with the examples of Euripides, Sophocles, and
Seneca.... M. Watson had another maner of care of perfection, with
a feare and reverence of the judgement of the best learned: who to
this day would neuer suffer yet his Absalon to go abroad, and that
onelie bicause (_in locis paribus_) _Anapæstus_ is twise or thrise
used instead of _Iambus_."

In a volume in the Bodleian Library marked Z. 3., Art. "Selden," is "The Life of Howleglas," printed by Copland: at the bottom of the last page is the following MS. note:

"This Howleglasse, with Scoggin, Skelton, and (L----zario----?)
given me at London of M. Spenser, xx Decembris, 1578, on condition
y't I shoold bestowe y'e readinge on them, on or before y'e first
day of January immediately ensuinge: otherwise to forfeit unto him
my Lucian in fower volumes. Whereupon I was y'e rather induced to
trifle away so many howers as were idely overpassed in running
through y'e aforesaid foolish bookes; wherein methought y't not
all fower together seemed comparable for fine and crafty feates
with Jon Miller, whose witty shiftes and practises are reported
among Skelton's Tales."

Mr. Malone, from whose memoranda I copy this, says, "I suspect it is Gabriel Harvey's handwriting."

I have a copy of the Organon of Aristotle in Greek, which bears marks of Gabriel Harvey's diligent scholarship. It is copiously annotated and analysed by him when a student at Cambridge, and he has registered the periods at which he completed the study of each part.

S. W. SINGER.

Mickleham, Aug. 15. 1851.

THE ANTIQUITY OF KILTS.

This has been the subject of many discussions, and has recently found a place in the columns of "NOTES AND QUERIES." I do not propose to take any part in the present discussion, but it may be of some service to historical students for me to introduce to public notice a much older authority than any that has yet been cited.

It is known to but few antiquaries out of the principality, that the ancient poetry of Wales throws more light on the immediate post-Roman history of Britain than any documents in existence. These poems vividly pourtray the social condition of the period, and contain almost the only records of the great contest between the natives and the Saxon invaders; they prove beyond a doubt that the Romans had left the province in an advanced stage of civilisation, and they supply us with the means of affirming decisively, that the vine was cultivated here to a very considerable extent.

The antiquity of these poems admits of no reasonable doubt; on that point the _Vindication_ of Turner enables the antiquaries of Wales to make this assertion with confidence: and having recently translated most of our old poems, with a view to future publication, I feel myself warranted in assuming them to belong to the sixth and seventh centuries of our era. One of these bards, Aneurin by name, belonged to the British tribe, described by the Romans as Ottadini, and by themselves as the people of Gododin. This people were situated at the junction of England and Scotland, and the poems of this bard chiefly refer to that district; but as the bards were a rambling class, and as the bulk of the people from Chester to Dumbarton were the same race as the people of the principality, we are not surprised when we find this bard sometimes among "the banks and braes of bonny Doon," and sometimes in North and South Wales. In one of his verses he thus describes the kilt of a British chief:--

"Peis dinogat e vreith vreith
O grwyn balaot ban ureith."

These lines may be found in the _Myvyrian Archæology_, vol. i. p. 13. col. 1.; and a most unwarrantable translation of _dinogat_ may be found in Davies' _Mythology of the Druids_; but the literal rendering would be this:

"Dinogad's kilt is stripy, stripy,
Of the skins of front-streak'd wolf-cubs."

_Peis_ or _pais_ is the word now used for the article of female attire known as a petti-coat, which in form bears a sufficiently close resemblance to the male kilt to justify me in using that word here. It also occurs in _pais-arfau_, a coat of arms, and _pais-ddur_, a coat of mail. The words _vreith vreith_ have been translated word for word; in the Kymric language it is a very common form of emphatic expression to repeat the word on which the emphasis falls, as _yn dda da_ for _very good_; but a more idiomatic translation would have been, _very stripy_. _Vraith_ with us also stands for plaid, and in the Welsh Bible Joseph's "coat of many colours" is named _siacced vraith_.

Now I will not attempt to determine what relation this kilt stands in to the kilts of the Highlands, whether the Gael borrowed it from the Briton, or the Briton from the Gael, or whether the dress was common to both at the time in which Dinogad lived; but thus much appears to be clear, that we here have a _kilt_, and that that kilt was striped, if not a _plaid_; and it only remains for us to determine the period at which Dinogad lived. Most persons are acquainted with the name of Brochmael, Prince of Powys, the British commander at the battle of Bangor in 613, on the occasion of the dispute between Augustine and the primitive British church; Dinogad stood to him in the following relation:

BROCHMAEL
|
CYNAN GARWYN
|
+-----------+-----------+
| |
SELYF OR SALOMON. DINOGAD.

Of Dinogad himself there is but one fact on record, and that took place in 577. His brother Selyf fell at the battle of Bangor or Chester in 613. If we take these facts together, we may form a pretty accurate idea respecting the period at which he lived.

Viewing this matter from a Cambrian standpoint, I feel myself warranted in hazarding the following remarks. In the lines of Aneurin, the thing selected for special notice is the excess of stripe; and therefore, whether it was the invention of Dinogad, or whether he borrowed the idea from the Scots or Picts when he was at Dumbarton in 577, it is quite clear, from the repetition of the word _vreith_, that his kilt had the attribute of stripyness to a greater extent than was usually the case; while it is also equally clear, that amongst the Britons of that period, kilts of a stripy character were so common as to excite no surprise. We may therefore affirm,

1. That in the beginning of the seventh century the British chiefs were in the habit of wearing skin kilts.

2. That striped kilts were common.

3. That a chief named Dinogad was distinguished by an excess of this kind of ornament. And

4. That as the Kymry of North Britain were on intimate terms with their neighbours, it is highly probable that the Scottish kilt is much older than 1597.

T. STEPHENS.

Merthyr Tydfil.

NOTES ON JULIN, NO. 1.

(Vol. ii., pp. 230. 282. 379. 443.)

In approaching a subject set at rest so long since, I feel some apology due to you; and that apology I will make by giving you the results of my recent investigation of the question of Vineta _v._ Julin _alias_ Wollin, made in Pomerania, and noted from personal testimony and Pomeranian chronicles.

But, first, to correct an _erreur de plume_ of DR. BELL'S. He says, in stating the position of Vineta (Vol. ii., p. 283.), "opposite the small town of _Demmin, in Pomerania_." DR. BELL has mis-written the name: there is no such place on the Baltic. The real name is _Damerow, on the Isle of Usedom_. A little lower he remarks, speaking of Wollin, "No _rudera_, no vestiges of ancient grandeur, now mark the spot; not even a tradition of former greatness." In this I think DR. BELL will find (and, I am sure, will readily allow, in the same spirit of good faith in which I make my observations) that he is in error, from the following narrative.

The gentleman who has kindly given me, by word of mouth, the following particulars, is a native of Wollin, and of one of the most ancient and noble families in that island, a relative of that Baron Kaiserling who was the Cicero of Frederick the Great, but of an elder branch of that family, the Counts of Kaiserling. M. de Kaiserling states that, when a young man, in his native town, he took a delight in reading the records of its bygone glory, and in tracing out the ruins in the neighbourhood of the town, extending to the distance of about one English mile from its outskirts. The foundations of houses and tracks of streets[1] are still exposed in the operations of agriculture, and any informant has in his possession several Byzantine and Wendish coins which he at that time picked up. He has likewise seen a Persian coin, which was found in the same neighbourhood by a friend. Having been led by circumstances to examine the evidence _pro_ and _con._ in this question, he has come to the conclusion that Wollin and Julin or Jumne are identical. He treats the story of Vineta as a nursery tale and a myth.

[Footnote 1: Particularly the Salmarks (Wendish for Fishmarkets),
as they were called.]

From the recently-published work on Wollin (_Die Insel Wollin und das Seebad Misdroy. Historische Skizze von Georg Wilhelm von Raumer_: Berlin, 1851) I extract the following account of Wollin in 1070, as I think it important to have all the best evidence attainable[2]:--

"Adam of Bremen, a contemporaneous historian, has left us a
curious description of Wollin as it appeared at the time of its
merchant greatness; yet he was himself, most probably, never
there, but compiled his account from the narratives of sailors,
from whose mouth he, as he says, heard almost incredibilities
about the splendour of the town. He describes the famous city as
the chief staple place of the trade of the surrounding Slavonians
and Russians: also as the largest of all towns at this end of
Europe, and inhabited by Slavonians, Russians, and various pagan
nations. Also many Germans from Lower Saxony had come to the town,
yet it was not permitted them to appear openly as Christians;
though the political interests of a trading place, then as now,
caused all nations to be allowed the liberty of incolation
(_Niederlassungsrecht_) and toleration. The peculiar inhabitants
of the place, particularly those who held the government, were
mostly pagans, but of great hospitality, of liberal and humane
customs, and great justice. The town had become very rich, by
means of the trade of Northern Europe, of which they had almost
the monopoly: every comfort and rarity of distant regions was to
be found there. The most remarkable thing in Wollin was a pot of
Vulcan, which the inhabitants called Greek fire.[3] Probably we
should understand by this, a great beacon fire, which the
Wolliners sustained by night on account of navigation, and of
which a report was among the sailors that it was Greek fire; but
it is also possible that in the trade with the Orient, which the
discovered Arabic coins prove, real Greek fire was brought to
Wollin in pots. A tricaputed idol of a sea-god, or Neptune, stood
in Wollin, to denote that the island Wollin was surrounded by
three different seas: that is to say, a green one, the Ostsee; a
white one, under which we should probably understand the Dievenow;
and one which was retained in raging motion by continual storms,
the Haff. The navigation from Wollin to Demmin, a trading place of
the Peene, is short; also from Wollin to Samland, in Prussia,
eight days only were necessary to go by land from Hamburgh to
Wollin, or by sea, across Schleswig; and forty-three days was the
time of sailing from Wollin to Ostragard in Russia. These notices
point to the chief trade of Wollin by sea, that is, with Demmin,
Hamburgh, Schleswig, and Holstein, Prussia, and Russia.

"So magnificent was ancient Wollin, according to the narrative of
the seamen; yet it must not be considered exactly a northern
Venice, but a wide-circuited place, chiefly, however, of wooden
houses, and surrounded by walls and palisades, in which (in
comparison with the then rudeness and poverty of the countries on
the Ostsee) riches and merchandise were heaped up.

"And now it is time to mention the fable of the drowned city
Vineta. While an old chronicler, Helmold, follows Adam of Bremen
in the description of the city Wollin, he puts, through an error
of transcription[4], in place of Julinum or Jumne, which name Adam
of Bremen has, Vineta; such a place could not be found, and it was
concluded, therefore, that the sea had engulfed it. The celebrated
Buggenhagen[5] first discovered, in the beginning of the sixteenth
century, a great rock formation in the sea, at the foot of the
Streckelberg, on the island of Usedom[6], and then the city
Vineta was soon transplanted thither; and it was absurdly
considered that a rock reef (which has lately been used for the
harbour of Swinemünde, and has disappeared) was the ruins of a
city destroyed by the waves a thousand years ago: indeed, people
are not wanting at the present day, who hold fast to this fable,
caused by the error of a transcriber. In the mean time it has
become a folk tale, and as such retains its value. A Wolliner
booth-keeper recounted me the interesting story, which may be read
in Barthold's _History of Pomerania_ (vol. i. p. 419.),--a rough
sterling Pomeranian (_ächt-pommerschis_) fantastical picture of
the overbearing of the trade-enriched inhabitants of Vineta, which
God had so punished by sending the waves of the ocean over the
city. The town of Wollin, to which alone this legend was
applicable, is certainly not destroyed by the sea, nor wholly
desert: but if they deserved punishment for their pride in their
greatness, they had received it in that they had quite fallen from
their former glory."--Pp. 22-25.

[Footnote 2: Likewise, repetition must be excused, as it is here
scarcely avoidable.]

[Footnote 3: "Olla Vulcani quæ incolæ Græcam vocant ignem de quo
etiam meminit Solinus," adds Adam of Bremen. Solinus speaks of
oil, or rather naphtha, from Moesia; and it is not improbable that
the Wolliners imported it for their beacons in pots.]

[Footnote 4: The oldest MSS. are said not to have this error.]

[Footnote 5: A native of Wollin, by the bye.]

[Footnote 6: Close by Damerow.]

As I wish thoroughly to dispose of the question, I shall divide my communication on Julin into two parts, of which the above is the first. I reserve my own remarks till all the evidence has been heard.

KENNETH R. H. MACKENZIE.

Minor Notes.

_Anecdote of Curran._--During one of the circuits, Curran was dining with a brother advocate at a small inn kept by a respectable woman, who, to the well ordering of her establishment, added a reputation for that species of apt and keen reply, which sometimes supplies the place of wit. The dinner had been well served, the wine was pronounced excellent, and it was proposed that the hostess should be summoned to receive their compliments on her good fare. The Christian name of this purveyor was Honoria, a name of common occurrence in Ireland, but which is generally abbreviated to that of Honor. Her attendance was prompt, and Curran, after a brief eulogium on the dinner, but especially the wine, filled a bumper, and, handing it, proposed as a toast, "Honor and Honesty." His auditor took the glass, and with a peculiarly arch smile, said, "Our absent friends," and having drank off her amended toast, she curtseyed and withdrew.