Chapter XXXV: Gilds of Norfolk (2)

ROYAL HISTORICAL AND ARCHÆOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF IRELAND.--The Ulster quarterly meeting of this body was held on Aug. 7, at Armagh, Lord Charlemont in the chair. The minutes of the last meeting, held at Killarney, having been read by the hon. secretary, the Rev. J. Graves, and several new members elected, Mr. J. P. Prendergast, barrister-at-law, read a paper on “Charlemont Fort,” a place intimately connected with Lord Charlemont’s family. Mr. W. F. Wakeman read a paper “On Some Recent Discoveries at Lisnacrogher, near Broughshane, County Antrim.” Two interesting papers were read by Mr. J. J. Phillips, Belfast. The first was, “Notes on some old Wrought-iron Grille Work in the Vicinity of Armagh;” the second, on “The Ancient Abbey of Armagh.” Rev. G. R. Buick, M.A., read a paper on “An Earthenware Vessel found on a Pre-Historic Site at Port Stuart.” A visit was afterwards paid to the library and the ruins of the Franciscan Abbey in the Palace grounds at Armagh, which had been kindly thrown open by his Grace the Lord Primate. On the following day the members and friends visited a number of historic sites in the neighbourhood. They assembled at 10 o’clock, and drove in brakes to the site of the ancient lime-kiln at Emania. This lime-kiln is mentioned in the “Four Masters,” and is said to have been erected by Gillamacliag, successor of Patrick. The great earthwork now called Emania was the chief regal seat of the Irians, which was the generic name borne by the inhabitants of the province of Ulster. This was the resort of the renowned knights of Craebh Ruadh, or Royal Branch, and the palace of the Kings of Ulster for upwards of seven hundred years, until finally destroyed by the three Collas. The excursionists next visited the King’s Stables and Ballybrawly Stone Circle, and then proceeded to Tynan Abbey, the residence of Sir James Stronge, where the beautiful crosses and grounds were inspected.

ANTIQUARIAN NEWS & NOTES.

THE next annual meeting of the Kent Archæological Society will be held at Sandwich.

LORD DUCIE contradicts the report that he “is collecting materials for a history of the Spanish Armada of 1588.”

A COLLECTION of old Wedgwood ware has been lent by Mr. Felix Joseph for exhibition at the museum in Nottingham Castle.

LORD TENNYSON’S new poem will be entitled “St. Thomas à Becket: a Drama.” The play, it is stated, is “not intended for acting.”

OUR December number will contain an article by the Editor on Dr. Johnson, with reference to the 100th anniversary of his death.

SIR P. CUNLIFFE OWEN purposes to raise in America a sufficient sum of money to “restore” the parish church of Stratford-on-Avon from end to end.

THE Duke of Norfolk, as we learn from the _Weekly Register_, has visited Holywell, where the little Earl of Arundel was bathed in the waters of St. Winifrede’s Well.

“TREE GOSSIP,” a little volume on the byways of tree lore, by Mr. Francis George Heath, will be published shortly by Messrs. Field & Tuer, at the Leadenhall Press.

THE memorial of the liberation of Vienna in 1683 in the Cathedral of St. Stephen’s, on which the sculptor, Herr Hellmer, is engaged, will, it is expected, be completed by Christmas.

THE monument which is to commemorate the landing of St. Augustine in the Isle of Thanet, is being erected by Lord Granville himself, and not by the English Catholics, as stated by the _Journal de Rome_.

THE number of historic documents in the possession of the corporation of Hull, which is very large, and of great antiquarian interest, is to be set in order and calendared by Mr. T. T. Wildridge.

THE Rev. F. W. Weaver announces as nearly ready his “Visitations of Somerset in 1531 and 1573.” The work will be published, by subscription, by Mr. Wm. Pollard, of North-street, Exeter.

IT is stated that the two portrait pictures of the second wife of Rubens from the Blenheim collection were purchased by a member of the Rothschild family. They will go to the Continent.

THE Royal Castle of Christianborg, Copenhagen, has been burnt down, and several important works of art, including some by Thorwaldsen, as well as the archives of the Rigsdag, have been destroyed. The castle chapel and Thorwaldsen Museum have been saved.

THE Clarendon Press is about to publish a volume of York Mystery Plays, printed for the first time from a MS. in the Ashburnham collection. The book, which will contain notes and a glossary, is edited by Mr. Toulmin Smith.

THE Emperor of Austria has presented to the Royal Library at Vienna a collection of ancient Arabic literature, comprising 1,600 works in 1,052 volumes. The oldest of these MSS. dates from 1058 A.D., or earlier, and is called the “Kitab Elfelahe,” or book of agriculture.

THE new apse of the Basilica of St. John Lateran at Rome and the prolongation of the portico of Sixtus IV. are approaching completion; and the decorations of the Hall of the Candelabra in the Vatican sculpture gallery are finished.

MESSRS. WARD, LOCK & CO., are on the point of publishing an exhaustive treatise on the Violin, by Mr. Ed. Heron-Allen, author of “The Ancestry of the Violin,” “Violin-making, as it was, and is,” &c. The work will be profusely illustrated.

A “HISTORY of England under Henry IV.,” by Mr. James Hamilton Wylie, Inspector of Schools, will shortly be published by Messrs. Longmans; and “A Study of Anne Boleyn,” by Herr Paul Friedmann, is announced for publication by Messrs. Macmillan.

DR. HUMANN has been appointed Abtheilungs-Director at the Royal Museum in Berlin, which he has done so much to enrich. The excavator of Pergamus is working at Nemruddagh, and his official position has no conditions of residence attached to it.

THE front of the Curfew Tower, the most ancient portion of Windsor Castle, is being refaced with the “Neath stone.” The new masonry is being carefully built up under the supervision of Mr. R. Howe, Clerk of the Works at the Castle.

THE literary property in letters--that is, the right to publish copies of them--remains in all cases in the writer. This was decided as long ago as 1741, in “Pope _v._ Curll, 2 Atk. 342,” when the poet obtained at the hands of Lord Hardwick an injunction against the publisher who proposed to print some of Pope’s letters.--_Law Times._

THE bicentenary of Corneille was celebrated with great _éclat_ on Saturday, October 11, by the town of Rouen, where he was born in 1606, and died in 1684. The Academy was represented on the occasion by MM. Dumas and Sully-Prudhomme, the former of whom delivered an oration in honour of the dramatist and poet.

A CALL has just been made for the purpose of forming an American Historical Association to deal with both the story of the past and with that of the immediate present. Professor C. K. Adams, of Michigan, Professor M. C. Tyler, of Cornell, and Professor Adams, of Johns Hopkins Universities, are the chief movers in the matter.

THE Clarendon Press will publish in November a work entitled “The Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt,” by Mr. A. J. Butler, Fellow of Brasenose College. The work will consist of two octavo volumes, the first being mainly architectural, the second dealing with church furniture, vestments, rites, and ceremonies. It will contain numerous plans and illustrations.

BY the generosity of three of the subscribers, copies of Mr. Greenstreet’s autotype fac-simile of the Lincolnshire Survey, temp. Henry I., have been deposited in the Public Free Libraries at Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, and Sheffield, and in the Advocate’s Library, Edinburgh, the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, and the National Library of Ireland, Dublin.

EARLY next year Mr. Quaritch will issue to subscribers Messrs. Herbert Jones’ work, entitled “The Princess Charlotte of Wales,” an illustrated monograph, which will contain reproductions in monochrome of a series of miniatures of the Princess from her cradle to her grave, painted from life by Charlotte Jones. The book will also comprise a memoir of the Princess, and selections from her correspondence. The edition will be limited to 250 copies.

THREE pictures which are claimed to be works of J. W. M. Turner, have been brought to light at Exeter. They represent views of the interior of Exeter Cathedral, and have been stowed away for nearly fifty years as lumber. An Exeter hairdresser lately purchased the pictures from a furniture broker for a sovereign each. A judge of works of art has offered £1,500 for the three, but the owner has communicated with London experts, so as to place the authorship of the works beyond question.

THE following articles, more or less of an antiquarian character, appear among the contents of the magazines for October:--_Contemporary Review_, “Goethe;” _Art Journal_, “Landscapes in London: The Inns of Court,” “The Fountaine Collection,” and “Delft Ware;” _Century Magazine_, “The ‘Odyssey’ and its Epoch;” _Gentleman’s Magazine_, “A French Curé in the Sixteenth Century;” _Harpers Magazine_, “The Great Hall of William Rufus;” _Le Livre_, “Canterbury, its Cathedral, its Library,” &c.

WITH a view to perpetuating the memory of the French Walloon refugees who settled in Canterbury three centuries ago, the directors of the French Protestant Hospice in London have commissioned a well-known Kentish archæologist to transcribe the inscriptions on the tombstones in Canterbury and the neighbourhood, where many of the refugees lie buried. Of the Huguenot and other French exiles who found a home beneath the shadow of Canterbury Cathedral, and established in its crypt a church which exists to the present day, there are now but few descendants living.

THE Mercers’ Chapel, Cheapside, has been reopened, after extensive repairs and alterations; the latter comprise new flooring, new and very handsome carved oak stalls and seats throughout, new choir stalls, prayer desk and pulpit. The fine old screen has been retained, as also all the oak panelling round the walls. The organ, one of Father Smith’s, has been entirely rebuilt and enlarged. The altar piece is not yet finished, but the three large frescoes are in position, the centre and largest panel representing the Ascension of our Lord. The whole of the roof has also been re-decorated, and a sun-light introduced into the lanthorn.

THE second volume of “Topography and Natural History of Lofthouse, near Wakefield,” by Mr. George Roberts, of that place, is in the press. In addition to the continuation of the “Natural History and Rural Notes,” it will contain an account of past and present customs, notices of places of worship, further notes on the old Lofthouse families--Hipron, Watson, and Lyley; a revised list of church sun-dials; and a short memoir of Charles Forrest, the discoverer of the Rock sculptures on Rombalds Moor, near Ilkley. The volume will be privately issued to subscribers only.

AT a recent meeting of the Academie des Inscriptions, M. Maspero read a report on his archæological work in Egypt during the past year. He dwells especially upon the new system by which the fellahs are encouraged to excavate on their own account by the guarantee that they may keep for themselves one-half of the objects they find. In this way the Boolak Museum has obtained during the past twelvemonths, with no expense beyond that of conveyance, about 2,000 objects of various interest.

THE foundation-stone of a new hall for the Butchers’ Company was laid on September 1, in St. Bartholomew-close; and at the dinner which followed the ceremony, the Master, Mr. Ernest Hart, gave some historical details relating to the halls of the Company from the reign of Henry II. The Company of Butchers, he said, dated as far back as 1180, and had had no fewer than three halls. The first, in Butcher’s-lane, was destroyed by fire, as was also the second, in Eastcheap; whilst the third, and last, had been demolished in the extension works of the District Railway.

IN the last days of August was celebrated in the old capital of Flanders an historical pageant of no ordinary interest. In honour of her patron and former sovereign, Bruges has placed before the world, in the form of a mediæval procession, the chief incidents in the life of St. Charles the Good. The committee of management, which comprised several archæologists of note, spared no pains to reproduce with the utmost exactitude the actual dresses and appurtenances of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Many of the highest ladies in the land took part in the procession, and wearing the costume of their ancestresses, assumed their parts as ladies in attendance at the Court of their ancient Count.

FOLLOWING the precedent of the Luther Exhibition held last year at the British Museum, which proved so great an attraction to the building, a Wycliffe Exhibition has been displayed by Mr. E. M. Thompson, keeper of the manuscripts, who has also compiled a catalogue descriptive of its contents. These consist of a series of manuscripts and printed books, comprising translations and service books in English, all intended to illustrate the efforts made to translate the Bible into English in early times. Then follow Wycliffe’s original works in manuscript and print; and lastly, the Reformer’s life and actions are illustrated by manuscripts and engravings.

AT Beckhampton, near Avebury, Wilts, a very interesting discovery has lately been made of an ancient British dwelling pit. The dwelling consists of two circular holes, sunk in the clean chalk, adjoining and intersecting one another. They are about five feet six inches deep, and five feet in diameter. On the floor of the pit were found the fragments of an earthen cooking vessel resting on three stones, and under it the ashes of the fire that had been used in boiling the pot. There were also found a well-shaped “spindle-whorle,” a “loom-weight,” bone ornament, and several so-called “pot boilers,” also bones of the ox, sheep, rabbit, &c. The whole of the goods and chattels, &c., found in this interesting dwelling are now in the County Museum.

CATALOGUES of rare and curious books, most of which contain the names of works of antiquarian interest, have reached us from Mr. F. Edwards, 83, High-street, Marylebone; Mr. U. Maggs, 159, Church-street, Paddington-green; Mr. G. P. Johnston, 33, George-street, Edinburgh; Mr. W. Scott, 7, Bristol-place, Edinburgh; Mr. G. Harding, 19, St. John-street, Westminster; Mr. A. B. Osborne, 11, Red Lion-passage, Holborn; Mr. J. E. Cornish, 33, Piccadilly, Manchester; Messrs. Jarvis & Son, 28, King William-street, Strand; Messrs. Robson & Kerslake, 43, Cranbourn-street, Leicester-square; Mr. W. Wilkins, Merthyr Tydvil; Mr. E. Parsons, 45, Brompton-road, S.W.; Messrs. Reeves & Turner, 196, Strand; Messrs. Farrar & Fenton, 8, John-street, Adelphi.

A PROPOSAL for the foundation of a museum devoted to the antiquities of Palestine, has recently been attracting attention in Paris. A room in the Louvre is now devoted to the display of objects of this class, which, however, in 1879 did not exceed 83 in number; to these about 100 more have recently been added, including between 50 and 60 vases and lamps in terra-cotta. In the British Museum exist between 50 and 60 similar objects; and a much larger collection, belonging to the Palestine Exploration Fund, is partly in possession of that association, either in London or in Jerusalem, and partly at the South Kensington Museum. The whole collection, in these several detachments, does not, perhaps, exceed 1,000 objects.

MR. FREDERICK HAWKINS’S “Annals of the French Stage,” which Messrs. Chapman & Hall are to publish in two volumes, extend from its origin to the death of Racine. Notwithstanding the light recently thrown in France upon the development of her old literature, no English writer has thought fit to illustrate, at least upon anything like a comprehensive scale, the rise and progress of the theatre in Paris. The author has tried to verify carefully his statements, and study at first hand the important plays which he has ventured to criticise. For the rest, these annals, unlike most books relating to the stage, give quite as much prominence to dramatists and dramatic literature as to players and their work.

IN the carrying out of some street repairs at Bonn, a portion of a Roman drain or watercourse was lately laid bare at a depth of about 5 ft. below the present surface. It seems to have come from a neighbouring encampment, is about 20 in. wide, and 30 in. deep, and is constructed and covered with heavy tufa blocks, well capable of sustaining the wear of centuries. Many of those blocks were nearly 5 ft. long by 29 in. thick. An original charter of the German Emperor Henry II., dated 25th February, 1015, which has long been given up as lost, has just been discovered during an examination of archives of the collegiate church at Bonn, which was formerly attached to a convent of nuns. The charter is on a single sheet of parchment, very well preserved, measuring 50 by 62½ centimetres (20 in. by 24½ in.), and contains a grant to the church of an estate near Königswinter, belonging to the Emperor.

THE tercentary of the death of William the Silent was celebrated in July at Delft, in Holland, by a solemn service in the church. The Prince’s tomb was magnificently decorated with funeral wreaths, including one in silver offered by a deputation of Freemasons. The church was filled by a numerous congregation, all the Ministers and the principal civil and military authorities being present. Professor Van Vries, of Leyden, delivered an address, reviewing in eloquent terms the memorable work accomplished by the founder of Dutch independence. The whole ceremony made a profound impression upon the assembly. At its conclusion the exhibition was opened, at Prinsenhof, the house in which William was assassinated by Balthasar Gerard, of relics of the Prince and a number of objects illustrating his life and works.

THE _Athenæum_ says that the death of Mr. Archibald Fraser, of Abertarff, is bringing memories of Jacobite times before the public. Only the other day the history of the Lovat family was to some extent before the Court of Session in connection with the succession to the estate of Abertarff, which was bequeathed to the late Mr. Fraser by his grandfather, a son of the notorious Lord Lovat, with an ultimate entail “in favour of the person who shall be able to prove himself to be the chief of the clan Fraser by legitimate descent from Hugh, first Lord Lovat, and his heirs male.” At the beginning of next month, the Abertarff collection of antiques, pictures, arms, &c., comprising many relics of the rebel lord and of the old family of Lovat, will be sold in Inverness by public auction.

SOME discoveries of great interest to antiquaries have been made on the Yorkshire Wolds by the Rev. E. M. Cole, M.A., vicar of Wetwang, Yorkshire--viz., a large number of entrenchments, which are supposed to have been the work of the ancient Britons. The dale “heads,” it has been ascertained, are all covered with entrenchments, and a village called Fimber appears to be completely surrounded by them, as if it had been an enormous camp. In one of these entrenchments, near the monument to the late Sir Tatton Sykes, at Garton, a large number of dead bodies were found, but the idea is not entertained that the entrenchments were used for purposes of burial. According to Mr. J. R. Mortimer, a well-known Yorkshire archæologist, they are mostly V-shaped. They appear to have been much used, and are trodden hard and firm.

A LARGE Indian mound near the town of Gasterville, North America, has recently been opened and examined by a committee sent out from the Smithsonian Institute. At some depth from the surface a kind of vault was found, in which was discovered the skeleton of a giant measuring 7 ft. 2 in. His hair was coarse and jet black, and hung down to the waist, the brow being ornamented with a copper crown. The skeleton was remarkably well preserved. Near it were also found the bodies of several children of various sizes, the remains being covered with beads made of bone of some kind. Upon removing these the bodies were seen to be enclosed in a network of straw or reeds, and beneath this was a covering of the skin of some animal. On the stones which covered the vault were carved inscriptions, and these when deciphered will doubtless lift the veil that now shrouds the history of a race of giants that at one time undoubtedly inhabited the American continent. The relics have been forwarded to the Smithsonian Institute, and they are said to be the most interesting collection ever found in the United States. The explorers explored another mound in Bartow county, Pennsylvania.

THE excavations of General Cesnola have not exhausted the possibilities of Cyprus, and surely if Englishmen are to excavate anywhere, this island is the natural field for their labours. A committee, consisting of Englishmen and Cypriotes, was formed in 1882 by Sir Robert Biddulph, with the object of establishing a local museum at Leukosia. Under the auspices of the committee, excavations on a small scale and supported by private subscriptions have been carried on in the years 1883-1884. It is a little surprising that these excavations have had to be conducted by a German, Herr Max Ohnefalsch Richter, and that the report appears this month in a German periodical, the _Mittheilungen_, of the German archæological institute at Athens. The site chosen was the village of Voni, the ancient Chytrai, and the find has been a large one. It speedily became evident from a multitude of inscriptions that the excavators had lighted on a sanctuary of Apollo. The architectural remains are insignificant, but there is evidence that on the remains of the old pagan shrine a Christian church had been raised, into the walls of which a mass of fragments of ancient sculpture was built. The sculptural find was a very rich one; as many as 133 statues are already catalogued.--_Builder._

THE _Athenæum_ announces that a strong committee, upon which the Society of Antiquaries is represented by Lord Carnarvon, Dr. Perceval, Mr. Milman, Mr. Franks, Dr. John Evans, Dr. Freshfield, the Hon. Harold Dillon, Mr. Hilton Price, Mr. Roach Smith, and other Fellows; the Institute of Architects by Mr. Whichcord; the City of London by the Lord Mayor, Sir Reginald Hanson, Alderman Staples, Sir John Monckton, Ex-Sheriff Burt, Mr. Deputy Saunders, Mr. William Rome, and others; the Metropolitan Board of Works by its chairman, Sir J. M‘Garel Hogg; and London archæology generally by Mr. Hyde Clarke, Mr. Anderson Rose, Mr. Herbert Fry, Mr. Henry W. King, and others, has been formed to raise a fund for taking immediate steps to protect and record monuments of antiquity in London and its vicinity at the moment of discovery. The executive committee consists of Mr. Alfred White, Mr. Overall (the City Librarian), Mr. John E. Price (secretary), and Mr. Brabrook. Sir John Lubbock has consented to act as treasurer. The committee is already taking steps, through Mr. J. E. Price, to preserve and place in a public museum some remarkable remains of the Roman occupation of London which have just been found used as building material in a bastion of the wall at Bevis Marks.

UP to the present time the _form_ of the Rigveda, that curious collection of ancient Indian poems which has long engaged the attention of scholars in India and Europe, has remained an inscrutable mystery. The 1,017 hymns follow one another in ten books or sections, but no one has hitherto detected any system in their arrangement. Mr. Frederic Pincott, however, has, the _Manchester Guardian’s_ London correspondent says, just discovered the hidden method, and his discovery promises to give a new impetus and direction to Vedic studies. He has found that the first book of the Rigveda is a selection of hymns arranged in the order of their recitation at the offering of an oblation to the sacred Soma Juice. The next six books are family collections, containing the poems of particular poets and their relatives; whilst the eighth book contains hymns omitted from previous books. The ninth book is filled with hymns celebrating the praises of the Soma Juice, and the last book contains hymns ascribed to mythological authors. When the poet, the deity, the length, and the metre are known, the hymns are found to have a methodical arrangement. A full exposition of Mr. Pincott’s curious discovery is about to be given in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_.

A BIBLE which contains two signatures that profess to be written by Shakespeare has turned up at Manchester. It was bought about thirty years ago by the late Mr. William Sharp, a somewhat eccentric collector, who was firmly convinced of the authenticity of the signatures, but rarely showed the book. Its present custodian exhibited it the other day to a number of gentlemen at the Manchester Free Library, including Prof. A. Ward, Mr. Alexander Ireland, Mr. C. W. Sutton, Mr. J. H. Nodal, and Mr. W. E. A. Axon. One signature is on the inside of the end cover, and reads “William Shakspere off S × o × A his Bible 1613.” The other is on the reversed title of the New Testament, and reads “William Shakspere 1614.” The volume contains the Old Testament, Apocrypha, New Testament, and Psalms of the “breeches” edition of 1611, but some of the earlier leaves are gone. There are many names of other possessors from about 1633 downwards, and one entry appears to indicate that the volume has been rebound and a Prayer-Book taken from it. In this case the signature now on the end leaf may have been transferred to the new binding. As to the authenticity of the signatures it would be impossible to speak with confidence without the application of more searching tests. They do not resemble any of the five undoubted signatures, but they are both marvellously like that on the title-page of Florio’s Montaigne now in the British Museum. The present custodian of the “Shakspere Bible” purposes, we understand, to accept the advice tendered to him of submitting it to a critical examination at the British Museum.--_Public Opinion._

Antiquarian Correspondence.

Sin scire labores,
Quære, age: quærenti pagina nostra patet.

_All communications must be accompanied by the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for publication._

A BISHOP ON ARCHÆOLOGY.

SIR,--At the reopening of a church in Northamptonshire recently, the Bishop of Peterborough is reported to have observed that churches were not architectural museums merely designed for the recreation and instruction of persons of an architectural turn of mind, but places designed for worship and the comfort of those who attended them, and that whatever interfered with such objects should be removed. I wonder what the members of the Archæological Institute and Association, to say nothing of fellows of the Society of Antiquaries, will think of such a remark.

W. E.

GUERIN, COUNT OF MONTGLAVE.

SIR,--In the preface of Mr. Charles Tomlin’s “Chess Manual,” particulars are given of a game of chess, said to have been played between Charlemagne and Guérin, a powerful noble of Aquitaine, the stakes to be Guérin’s possessions against the kingdom of France. The Emperor lost, but it was at last arranged that, in lieu of France, Guérin was to receive the Countship of Montglave, or Lyons, if he could wrest the place from the Saracens, who then held it. This, with the aid of his knights and followers, he is said to have done, taking prisoners Gasier, the Sultan, and his only daughter, Mabiletta, whom he afterwards married on her becoming a Christian. They had four sons. A romance recounting the adventures and victories of these four sons was printed by M. Michel le Noir, 1515, under the title of “L’Histoire de Guérin de Montglave,” since which date, and under the same title, the story has been reproduced in prose and verse by several authors, but in none are any details respecting their father, Guérin, given, although frequent mention of both Mabiletta and the Count are made, representing him as the great friend, as well as one of the chief captains of Charlemagne. Can any of your readers inform me where particulars respecting this Guérin, the game of chess, and his victory over the Saracens, &c., are to be found?--Yours faithfully,

WM. C. LUKIS DE GUERIN.

_98, Sandgate-road, Folkestone_.

EXTINCT MAGAZINES.

(See vol. v. p. 273.)

SIR,--In accordance with the promise appended to my query at the preceding reference, I send you, as a first instalment, a few hurriedly written particulars of a magazine which, if I am not misinformed, died at its initial number. Like many another publication, doomed to an ephemeral existence, it deserved other and better treatment.

The _Border Miscellany_, or, as it is printed on the illustrated cover, _Thompson’s Border Miscellany_, was published at Berwick-on-Tweed, March, 1852, price sixpence, and though consisting of only forty-eight pages, octavo, it contains several exceedingly interesting items, among which I would reckon an “Unpublished Letter of Sir Walter Scott,” “Atoms of Information,” and the article of rather more than eight pages, entitled “The Tweed and its Tributaries,” by a disciple of Isaak Walton. The extracts from the Books of Council and Session, under the heading, “Memoranda Scotica,” are also interesting, especially to those who may have the genealogy of the Oliphants and other Scottish families at heart.

The story with which the _Miscellany_ opens, “Florrette; or, Henri Quatre’s First Love,” adapted from the German of Zschokke, by Bon Gualtier, is, in my humble estimation, a piece of dull, uninteresting reading. The poetry, literary notices, and some other odds and ends, do not call for special recognition.

Here is the motto of this short-lived magazine:--

“L’ENVOY.

For us and our Miscellany,
Here, stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
SHAKESPEARE (New Edition).”

On the back cover the following note of warning appeared:--

“Publishers are warned that the articles in this Miscellany are
copyright. When short extracts from any of the papers are quoted,
it will be obliging if the name of the Miscellany be prefixed.”

Who the editor of this venture was I know not, though I am aware that it was published by W. Thompson, at the time and place already mentioned. Perhaps some of your readers can throw light on the matter.

P. J. MULLIN.

_Leith, N.B._

PORTREEVE.

SIR,--Should any of your readers feel further interest in this subject, I would beg to refer them to your September number for my defence against Mr. Round’s repeated attacks, and contrast my paper with the misrepresentations which are now made of it in his note for this month. I would fain assume that these misrepresentations are not intentional, and that they may rather be attributed to that “lamentable confusion--truly distressing confusion,” which another contributor to your pages has described as characteristic of a former paper by Mr. Round, and which, indeed, seems to pervade all his papers. That these misrepresentations, however, exist will not for a moment be doubted by anyone who may make the comparison above suggested, and their existence, from whatever cause arising, must for the future preclude my bestowing any further notice of anything emanating from Mr. Round.

It seems almost unnecessary to specify any of the misrepresentations in question, but as something of the kind may be expected, and for the satisfaction of those who may not have seen my paper, or have an opportunity of easily referring to it, I will just cite one or two examples out of the numerous ones with which Mr. Round’s note abounds.

First, then, as regards the term “port or gate.” In employing the term port or gate as I did in my first paper, it was in the full assurance that these words are here absolutely _synonymous_, and that I was strictly correct in thus using the word _port_ where it occurs in the Laws of Athelstan. On this point, however, Mr. Round thought fit to assail me, asserting that my “rendering outside the port or gate” was a mere “gloss” of _my own_ on the word “port.” In consequence of this strange and somewhat unintelligible charge I was led to look into the question more closely, and found, though previously unaware of the fact, that I was entirely supported in my view and use of the words both by Camden and by Sharon Turner. In my next paper I accordingly quoted from Camden that at “_Portgate_,” on the Roman Wall, there was formerly _a gate_, as “_the word in both languages_” (Roman and Saxon) “fairly evinces.” On this passage, which it will be seen completely establishes my case, Mr. Round “evinces” _his_ sense of fairness by suppressing all allusion to it. Again, it was pointed out that Sharon Turner distinctly uses the words as _synonymous_ where he speaks of “the _port_-gerefa _or_ the gerefa of the _gate_.” Nothing can be clearer or stronger than this, yet all notice of this is also suppressed, and Mr. Round, even after this has been pointed out to him, does not scruple to misrepresent me by repeating his assertion, and still arguing that in thus rendering the words “port or gate,” the words “or gate” are a mere “_gloss_” of _my own_. What opprobrium he intends to convey by the word “gloss” it is difficult to say, but, whatever it may be, your readers will now see that it applies quite as strongly to such high authorities as Camden and Sharon Turner as it does to me.

Further on, Mr. Round states that he has proved by demonstration that the markets were not held at the gates. I remarked in my paper that he might have spared himself the pains of proving what no one ever doubted, “the well-known fact that the forum was situated in the centre of a Roman town or city”; but I also pointed out what Mr. Round appears still to be ignorant of, that _large transactions were conducted at the gates_, the levying of tolls and the sale and purchase of merchandise, and thus “the word _port_, originally restricted to _the gates_ where such extensive transactions were carried on, would at no distant period become applied,” in the way described, “to the town itself” (p. 114).

This latter passage, and all allusion to it, Mr. Round also suppresses, satisfying his sense of fair and reasonable argument in this case by merely harping again on the statement that “_I proved_ by demonstration that the markets were never held at the gate,” which, in fact, no one at all conversant with the subject ever thought they were.

Apart, then, from what has here been thus briefly exposed, the character of Mr. Round’s papers is otherwise such as would deter me from giving any further time to their discussion.

A profuse rush of words--“_verba et voces prætereaque nihil_”--which seem to shun all approach to logical sequence, will not in the present day be accepted in place of the legitimate rules of reasoning, neither will they justify a writer who indulges in them in dispensing with the ordinary rules of courtesy.

JAMES HURLY PRING, M.D.

_Taunton, October, 1884._

_TO CORRESPONDENTS._

THE Editor declines to pledge himself for the safety or return of MSS. voluntarily tendered to him by strangers.

MUS RUSTICUS.--You will find a good description of a Lord Mayor’s Show in the reign of James I. in F. W. Fairholt’s “History of Lord Mayors’ Pageants,” privately printed by the Percy Society in 1843.

Books Received.

1. The Lay of St. Aloys. By Thomas Ingoldsby. Eyre & Spottiswoode. 1884.

2. The Aberdeen Printers. (1620-1736.) By J. P. Edmond. Aberdeen: Edmond & Spark. 1884.

3. The Lauderdale Papers. Vol. i. Edited by Osmund Airy. Camden Society. 1884.

4. Some Observations upon the Law of Ancient Demesne. By Pym Yeatman, Barrister-at-Law. Mitchel & Hughes. 1884.

5. Some Account of a Roman Garrison at Greta Bridge. By the Rev. J. Hirst. Reprinted from the Journal of the Yorkshire Archæological Association. 1884.

6. Birmingham, Aston, and Edgbaston, as seen in Domesday Book; and the Saxons in Warwickshire. By J. A. Langford, LL.D. (Privately printed.)

7. Pottery and Porcelain. By F. Litchfield. Bickers & Son. 1884.

8. Doctor Johnson: His Life, Works, and Table Talk. (Centenary Edition.) T. Fisher Unwin. 1884.

9. Records of Chesterfield. By Pym Yeatman, Esq. Chesterfield: Wilfred Edmunds. 1884.

10. Phallicism: Celestial and Terrestrial. By Hargrave Jennings. Geo. Redway. 1884.

Books, &c., for Sale.

Works of Hogarth (set of original Engravings, elephant folio, without text), bound. Apply by letter to W. D., 56, Paragon-road, Hackney, N.E.

Original water-colour portrait of Jeremy Bentham, price 2 guineas. Apply to the Editor of this Magazine.

A large collection of Franks, Peers’ and Commoners’. Apply to E. Walford, 2, Hyde Park Mansions, N.W.

Books &c., Wanted to Purchase.

_Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer_, several copies of No. 2 (February, 1882) are wanted, in order to complete sets. Copies of the current number will be given in exchange at the office.

Dodd’s Church History, 8vo., vols. i. ii. and v.; Waagen’s Art and Artists in England, vol. i.; East Anglian, vol. i., Nos. 26 and 29. The Family Topographer, by Samuel Tymms, vols. iii. and iv.; Notes and Queries, the third Index. Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets” (Ingram and Cooke’s edition), vol. iii. A New Display of the Beauties of England, vol. i., 1774. Chambers’ Cyclopædia of English Literature, vol. i. Address, E. Walford, 2, Hyde Park Mansions, Edgeware-road, N.W.

_From “Greater London.”_ (_See post. p. 281._)]

_The Antiquarian Magazine & Bibliographer._

Dr. Johnson.

BY THE EDITOR.

IF there be truth in the old saying, _Inter arma silent leges_, it is not less true that _inter arma silent Musæ_. When the attention of the public is taken up with “wars and rumours of wars,” abroad or at home, and when at home political parties have broken out into open strife, there is no chance for the Muses or their votaries to get a hearing. To no other cause can I ascribe the fact that my countrymen and countrywomen made no response, or next to none, when they were lately asked by the Mayor of Lichfield, Dr. Johnson’s native city, whether the centenary of his death should be celebrated, and if so, then how?

For the last three months and more the English world has been so occupied with the _pros_ and _cons_ of Mr. Gladstone’s Franchise Bill, that to the above appeal society has turned a deaf ear. I regret it, but I am scarcely surprised. We have not forgotten to observe the centenary of Robert Raikes, as the reputed founder of Sunday-schools; it is not so very long since the centenary of Robert Burns was celebrated, not by the Scottish people only, but by Englishmen, at the Crystal Palace and elsewhere; but, shame to write and to say it, there is no response when Englishmen are asked to commemorate the author of the first really good English Dictionary, the author of the best collection of Lives of our English Poets, the man who almost in defiance of the law, and at the risk of a prosecution, first really called into existence the practice of reporting the Debates of Parliament; the greatest practical philosopher and teacher of the last century; the man who first raised and ennobled the profession of the pen; and the man who twice at least stood up, as few have stood up, on behalf of that profession, firstly, when he flung back with contempt the tardily offered favour and “patronage” of Lord Chesterfield, and, secondly, when he knocked down the insolent publisher, Thomas Osborne, in his own shop, with one of his own folio volumes. Is not such a man, I ask, deserving of a Centenary celebration from his brethren of the pen, or, let me say, rather from his sons and disciples?

But to be serious. There can be little doubt that if all that he said, and wrote, and did, be fairly considered, few men can claim credit for having lived more useful lives than Dr. Johnson. Long before the end of that life arrived, King George III. had spontaneously borne testimony to his merits by the gift, rare at that time, of a literary pension, adding a graceful compliment: “I should perhaps have thought that you had written enough, if you had not written so well.” Born in humble, though not needy circumstances, unable to complete his education and to obtain an Oxford degree by the _res angusta domi_, he came to London to fight the battle of life, his only weapon being his pen, and he won the day against all difficulties, the cold indifference of the rich, the jealousies of his equals and contemporaries, and the heart-breaking and niggardly doles of the London publishers. Undaunted by these and other difficulties, he showed Edmund Cave how his new venture, the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, might come to deserve its name on other grounds than that alleged at first, viz., that it was not fit for any lady to read it. He raised, by his essays and biographical sketches, the whole style and character of that which in the middle of the last century was one of the leading organs of the time, when the daily papers as yet were not, and the country gentleman’s household had to depend for the news of the day on the “news-letter” written specially for their amusement and information. Till Johnson took the matter in hand, and set himself to supply the want by a new method which his native wit suggested, the country knew not one iota of the speeches delivered in the Houses of Parliament; the legislation of the country was carried on in the dark, so far as concerned the people at large. If he had done nothing else than this, Dr. Johnson would deserve, at the very least, the honour of a statue on the Thames Embankment, or of a scholarship bearing his name at Pembroke College, Oxford, the scene of his early struggles.

I am not intending to write a life of Dr. Johnson. That has been done with wondrous fidelity and graphic skill by his _fidus Achates_, James Boswell; and Sir John Hawkins and Mrs. Thrale-Piozzi, in their supplemental Memoirs and Recollections of him, have thrown most interesting and valuable side-lights on his character. Boswell’s “Life of Dr. Johnson,” as every reader of English literature knows, was largely amplified, and most cruelly distorted, by John Wilson Croker, who, though himself a Tory of Tories, seems to have been unable to comprehend the character of the man who hated a Whig almost as much as he hated a Scotchman; and Mr. Croker was almost as cruelly punished for his offence by Macaulay, who cut his book into shreds in the _Edinburgh Review_. Still, in spite of its glaring sins, not certainly of omission, but of commission, Croker’s edition of Boswell will always be a work of value, for he entered on his task before the last of Dr. Johnson’s friends and acquaintances had passed away. Amongst these were Lord Stowell, who figures in Boswell as “Dr. Scott of Doctors’ Commons;” Mr. John Sidney Hawkins, and Miss Letitia Hawkins, the son and daughter of Sir John Hawkins; Mr. Fitzherbert (afterwards Lord St. Helen’s); Miss Monckton, the Lady Cork of the Regency, a “Queen of Society” under George IV. and William IV., and who lived into the reign of Victoria. He knew also Mrs. Thrale’s daughter, the venerable Lady Keith; and last, not least, the still more venerable Dr. Routh, President of Magdalen College, who had seen Dr. Johnson in the flesh at Oxford, and who lived to December, 1854. From these and from other sources he gathered much material which had not been available to Boswell, and had he been content with facts instead of probabilities and possibilities, he would doubtless have been proof and unassailable to Macaulay’s pen. For instance, there is not the shadow of a ground for supposing (as he does) that Dr. Johnson was “out in ’45” with the adherents of Charles Edward, except the fact that in that year his pen was idle; and he is still less justified in supposing that Dr. Johnson was a Roman Catholic because he advocated the _principle_ of pilgrimages, and prayers for the dead, and confession, as natural and right in themselves, and as distinct from their abuses; because there is not a single Roman Catholic tenet, except that of the divinely-appointed Primacy of the See of St. Peter, which has not at one time or another been supported and defended by some Protestant writer.

Dr. Johnson, it must be owned even by his adversaries, has left his mark upon the literature of his country. Gibbon’s style is most ornate, but it is cumbrous and unnatural, and the author of the “Decline and Fall” has found no one to copy him. It was otherwise with Johnson. He was fond of Ciceronian Latin, and his English smacked as strongly of the Ciceronian flavour as did Dr. Pusey’s style of the Augustinian. For myself, I infinitely prefer the short and simple words which come from the Anglo-Saxon mint to what is now sneeringly called “Johnsonese.” But I cannot shut my eyes to that “union of perspicuity and splendour,” that nervous vigour, that “expansion and harmony” which mark the stately flow of Johnson when he is at his best. Towards the end of every unmutilated edition of Boswell’s “Life” is given a list of those who in earnest or in jest have set themselves to imitate the burly Doctor’s style. Foremost amongst these are the historians Robertson and Gibbon, the Rev. Dr. Nares, George Colman, Professor Young, of Glasgow, the Rev. Dr. Knox, the popularity of whose writings is ascribed to this very feature, and some of the best contributors to the old Edinburgh _Mirror_. There is no doubt also that Dr. Johnson’s style was very largely but almost insensibly copied and reproduced in the sermons, charges, and essays of most Bishops and dignitaries of the Established Church for some sixty or seventy years after his death. In fact, Dr. Johnson may be said in a very great degree to have “tuned their pulpits.” It is only of later years, concurrently with the study of German and of Anglo-Saxon literature in this country, that a simpler and less stilted style has prevailed. And this is no small testimony to the great powers of the “learned lexicographer.”

The value of his Dictionary has, of course, declined since the study of Etymology has been raised to the dignity of a science; for Dr. Johnson knew little or nothing of those primitive languages from which all the European languages are derived, and of which they are at the root only variations and dialects. His Dictionary, therefore, must be judged by the standard of a century ago, not by that of the Victorian Era. Were Dr. Johnson now alive, he would be among the first to say to Professor Skeat, to Max Müller, and our other lexicographers, “_agnosco procerem_,” and to own that since his own day in this branch of learning, at least, we have made giant strides.

As the last and only surviving Editor of the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ in its former shape, when it dealt with the intelligence and the literature of the age, and was a recognised organ of the educated world, I feel that it is my duty at this moment to put in a few words on behalf of a man whose literary merits have never been sufficiently acknowledged. With all his ruggedness and even “bearishness” of manner, what a contrast does he present to us, as he lives in Boswell, to the cross, crabbed, snappish, and selfish “philosopher of Chelsea,” who equalled him in nothing but in plodding industry, and surpassed him, _me judice_, in bearishness alone! And how few of the present generation are there who might not learn lessons of improvement, both moral and intellectual, by a careful and patient study of the “wit and wisdom” of Samuel Johnson!

E. WALFORD.

Down a Yorkshire River.

_PART II._

(_Continued from p._ 218.)

A FEW miles lower down, passing through Sowerby Bridge, commercially thriving but poetically poor, we come again to green fields and remnants of ancient forest, and notice on the left hand Wood Hall, where the boy Laurence Sterne, of “Tristram Shandy” fame, spent his early years. The Heath Grammar School, where he was educated, is half an hour’s walk beyond the ridge of the hill in the direction of Halifax. Formerly a rustic bridge, little better than a plank, spanned the river near Wood Hall, and it was along this plank, there is little doubt, that Lucy Gray’s footprints were tracked after she had slipped into the water. We have now reached a point where the scenery, if less wild than the glens and gorges near the border hills of Lancashire and Yorkshire, is scarcely less beautiful, and what it loses in ruggedness of natural contour it gains in historic associations and legendary romance. Copley Hall, in the eleventh century the residence of the knightly family of Copley, has long ago been turned into cottages, but the name survives in the pretty modern village and prettier church, and antiquaries love to dwell on the old stories connected with the spot, and tell how Adam de Copley fell fighting for William the Conqueror at the siege of York; how his grandson, another Adam de Copley, became rector of his parish church at Halifax; and how a third Sir Adam, for this was a favourite name, carried away a sister from Kirklees Nunnery, and afterwards joined the Crusaders and died in Palestine. This fair nun, alas! was immured in a tower seven stories high, and mysterious lights were long seen to burn in the ladye’s chamber, the ruins of which are said to have been visible some years ago. Elland, anciently and more correctly Ealand, with its fine old fane and relics of mediæval times, where the Ealands and the Saviles lived in barbaric splendour, was the scene of many a thrilling legend and bloody fray, notably the tragedy, or rather chain of tragedies, which ended in the murder of Sir John Ealand and his little boy as they were crossing the weir-stones on Palm Sunday on their way to matins at Saint Mary’s. By this deed, which took place in the fourteenth century, a feud that had lasted two generations was brought to an end, as was likewise the family name of Ealand, the male line of which became extinct on the death of Sir John’s only boy, the child who shared his father’s fate on the weir-stones. A few miles beyond Ealand, on the hill slope above the Calder, stand the stately groves of Kirklees Priory, so well known, as we have seen, to the gay Sir Adam de Copley. At Kirklees, as many readers are aware, died the most chivalrous of bandits, Robin Hood. His grave, overshadowed by majestic beeches, is not far from the ruins of the Nunnery, but in unconsecrated ground, though it is said there used to be a cross to mark the spot. Calder dale was a favourite haunt of the merry men, and many the fat buck they have run down in this valley. Robin Hood has left his name in several places hereabouts, and the peasantry still love to repeat the traditionary stories of his gallantry and daring. Pinder Green, near Wakefield, as we read in ballad line, was the scene of an encounter between Robin and the Jolly Pinder. But we have not left the ruins of the Priory. I suppose that all lovers of Brontëan literature know that the scene of “Shirley” is laid close to Kirklees, which place figures indeed in the novel as Nunnely. Any one acquainted with the locality will recognise Kirklees very thinly disguised under this name: “The village of Nunnely has been alluded to: its old church, its forest, its monastic ruins. It had also its Hall, called the Priory--an older, a larger, a more lordly abode than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and, what is more, it had its man of title--its baronet, which neither Briarfield nor Whinbury could boast.” In another chapter Kirklees is thus spoken of: “Kind gentleman as the baronet is, he asked the tutor too; but the tutor would much sooner have made an appointment with the ghost of the Earl of Huntingdon to meet him, and a shadowy ring of his merry men, under the canopy of the thickest, blackest, oldest oak in Nunnely Forest. Yes, he would rather have appointed tryst with a phantom abbess, or mist-pale nun, among the wet and weedy relics of that ruined sanctuary of theirs, mouldering in the core of the wood.”