Chapter XXXVI: Gilds of Norfolk--(Continued) (3)

My own conclusions, after months passed in the comparison of alphabets and other study, were as follows: (1) That the characters are Greek, resembling those in the Irish-Latin MSS. of the fifth to the seventh century A.D., described by Mr. Westwood as “singular formed Irish-Greek letters, in which capitals and minuscules are strangely mingled together” (Pal. Sac. Pict.; see there Greek Pater Noster in Book of Armagh); also, in some cases, resembling the letters of the alphabet on the Kilmalkedar stone, in Ireland--characters described by Dr. Petrie as “Græco-Roman or Byzantine characters of the fourth or fifth century A.D.” (Ec. Arc. of Ir., p. 134). This assignment of the letters may be accepted without necessarily adopting my version of the inscription, as some of the characters severally resemble more than one letter. (2) That the first half of the inscription is Celtic, sepulchral, and nearly identical with the Ogham legend on the same stone. (3) That the second half (and therein lies the ridicule, if ridicule there be) is religious or mythological, and embodies sacred names belonging to the Mithraic worship. Mithraism, as developed under the Roman emperors, was eminently a compound creed--one which undoubtedly sought to unite “Oriental and Western ideas and beliefs” (to cite your reviewer’s quotation from “Ancient and Modern Britons”--ostensibly from me, but not so), though not, of course, aiming to unite “languages.” It is only as regards certain mythological names or titles that the Newton inscriptions are not (on my view of them) entirely Celtic. Mithraic remains have been largely found in England, especially in the north; there are apparent references to its mysteries in the poems of the Welsh bards; and in Scotland some of the, as yet unexplained, symbols on the sculptured stones appear to belong to the same system.

I claim no right to dogmatise on these subjects; but I do claim to have bestowed real work on them, and it is unseemly that the results of my labour should be ridiculed by one who has not taken the trouble to find out in what they consist. Is it more improbable that remains of Mithraism should exist in Scotland than in other parts of Britain accessible to Roman influences? The improbability lies the contrary way. Why should there be more folly in seeking for traces of Paganism than in seeking for traces of Christianity among the earlier antiquities of Britain? The reproach surely rests with those who in such cases formulate extreme opinions as to the universal presence or absence of one of these religious elements, and refuse to see anything that antagonises their enthusiasms or prejudices. In conclusion, allow me add that, even if they disapproved of my paper on the Newton Stone (which I have no reason to suppose), the Scottish Society of Antiquaries have not only printed it in full, with my own illustrative diagrams, but are now printing another paper of mine, of at least equal length, on the whole of the Ogham inscriptions of Scotland--one which I sincerely hope may prove not altogether unworthy of the honour thus conferred on it.

SOUTHESK.

_Kinnaird Castle, Brechin, N.B._

_TO CORRESPONDENTS._

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

* * * * *

Books Received.

1. Old and New London. Vol. ii. By E. Walford, M.A. Cassells. 1884.

2. Transactions of the Essex Field Club. Vol. iii. 1884.

3. Transactions of Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society. Vol. i.

4. First Middle English Primer. By Henry Sweet, M.A., Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1884.

5. Johnsoniana. Arranged and collected by R. W. Montagu. A. Boot & Son. 1884.

6. Registers of the Parish of Thorington. Edited by T. H. Hill, B.C.L. Mitchell & Hughes. 1884.

7. Journal of British Archæological Association. Vol. xl. Part 3. Trübner & Co. September, 1884.

8. Northamptonshire Notes and Queries. Part iv. Northampton: Taylor & Son. October, 1884.

9. English Etchings. Parts xli. and xlii. D. Bogue, 27, King William-street, W.C.

10. The Assignment of Arms to Shakespeare and Arden. By Stephen Tucker, _Somerset Herald_. Mitchell & Hughes. 1884.

11. Hull Quarterly. No. 4. Hull: Brown & Sons. October, 1884.

12. The Genealogist. N. S. Vol. i. No. 4. October, 1884.

13. Johns Hopkins University Studies. X. Baltimore. October, 1884.

14. History of Aylesbury. Part xi. By R. Gibbs. Aylesbury. 1884.

15. The Essex Notebook and Suffolk Gleaner. No. 1. Colchester: Benham & Co. October, 1884.

16. A Smaller Biblia Pauperum. A Reprint of the Text of John Wicliff, with Preface by the late Dean Stanley. Unwin Brothers. 1884.

17. Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica. Vol. i. Nos. i. and ii. Mitchell & Hughes. 1884.

18. Irish Landed Gentry when Cromwell came to Ireland. By John O’Hart. Dublin: Gill & Son. 1884.

19. The Record Society for the Publication of Original Documents relating to Lancashire and Cheshire. Vol. x. 1884.

20. Ye Earlie Englyshe Almanack. 1885. Pettitt & Co., Frith-street, Soho.

21. The Algonquin Legends of New England. By C. G. Leland, Sampson Low & Co. 1884.

22. The Chartulary of the Monastery of Lyminge. By the Rev. R. C. Jenkins, M.A. Folkestone: R. Goulden. 1884.

23. Life, Times, and Writings of Thomas Fuller, D.D. Two vols. By the Rev. M. Fuller, M.A. John Hodges. 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Caxton’s Edition of Mallory’s King Arthur.

[2] It seems necessary to say that Caxton gratuitously explains Camelot to be Winchester; but Caxton was a Kentish man, and, moreover, lived many years abroad, in Burgundy and the Netherlands. He probably knew something, though little, of Winchester, and nothing whatever of Somerset. However, dates simply make it impossible, seeing that Winchester was conquered by the Saxons in 515.

[3] William of Malmesbury.

[4] Avilion or Avalon is the ancient name for Glastonbury.

[5] Mallory’s King Arthur, edited by Caxton.

[6] MS. Dodsw. 47, f. 151.

[7] R. de Camvill.

[8] f.m.=feudum militis, a knight’s fee, same in meaning as 1 m., one knight.

[9] Preface to “Pastoral Book.”

[10] See also, for Mr. Freeman’s view, “English Towns and Districts,” p. 230: “Chester has no Roman remains _in situ_ to be compared to the _New Port_ of Lincoln;” and p. 394, “There is [at Colchester] nothing to set even against the New Port of Lincoln.” So, too, Mr. G. T. Clark states that it “still bears a name which must have descended from the time when it was first erected, ... and is called the New-port” (“Military Architecture,” ii. 191).

[11] “The abiding Latin name of the gate, the _Nova Porta_, of itself goes far to show that there could have been no long gap between Roman or British and English occupation.” (English Towns and Districts, p. 200.)

[12] See Mr. J. Pickford’s article on this old mansion, vol. v. p. 190.

[13] “Southwell Minster: an Account of the Collegiate and Cathedral Church of Southwell, Architectural, Archæological, and Historical.” By Grevile Mairis Livett, M.A. Southwell: John Whittingham, 1883.

[14] Though his inspirations were, it is said, first noted in prose.

[15] I do not mean by this that _every_ human being is possessed of the faculty, but that _some_ men are, though it may be in a proportion of perhaps less than one in 100 millions.

[16] The passage is cited by the Encyclopædists to bring Nostradamus into discredit, and is said to occur in the first volume of Gassendi’s “Physics.” I have no doubt it is there, but I have not thought it worth while to hunt through the six volumes folio of his collected works to ascertain the fact. Bouys in his “Nouvelles Considerations” says justly enough that the learned writers of the Encyclopædia would take the testimony of Jean-Baptiste Suffren without any hesitation as a thing not to be doubted; it would only be works that should be of the most sacred authority to everyone else that they would think of calling in question.

[17] To show the probability that they would not all prove erroneous, it may amuse the reader to learn that Sir Thomas Brown did once in sport attempt a prophecy in reply to an ancient metrical one that had been sent him by a friend:--

“When new England shall trouble new Spain,
When Jamaica shall be Lady of the Isles and the main;
When Spain shall be in America hid,
And Mexico prove another Madrid;
When Mahomet’s ships on the Baltic shall ride,
And Turks shall labour to have ports on that side;
When Africa shall no more sell out her blacks,
To make slaves and drudges to the American tracts;
When Batavia the old shall be subdued by the new;
When a new drove of Tartars shall China subdue;
When America shall cease to send out its treasure,
But employ it at home for American pleasure;
When the new world shall the old invade,
Nor count them their lords but their fellows in trade;
When shall almost pass to Venice by land,
Not in deep water, but from sand to sand;
When Nova Zembla shall be no stay
Unto them that pass to or from Cathay;
Then think strange things are come to light,
Whereof but few have had a foresight.”

Now the most unlikely part of the above to be realised was the ships of Mahomet appearing in the Baltic, but, nevertheless, it happened. “Mahomet’s ships” did actually ride in the Baltic, manned by the corsairs of Algiers, in 1819, so the line was verified, though not as Brown intended. (_Quarterly Review_, xxvi. 191.)

[18] Van Hasselt.

[19] The name is Flemish: each consonant, therefore, must be sounded, but the second vowel is short, Dam-Dam-mĕ.

[20] The Zwyn has entirely disappeared from the map of Europe. Guide-books say that “mention is made of the harbour of the Zwyn in the laws of the Saxon Ethelred.” I cannot endorse this statement, having failed to confirm it on examination. The Zwyn was the scene of the great maritime victory won by Edward III. over the French fleet in 1340, the harbinger of the naval supremacy of England.

[21] paper read at the Congress of the Archæological Institute at Lewes, July, 1883.

[22] Mrs. Siddons’ maternal grandfather. For the gloves and the story I leave them upon the conscience of the glazier, hereby declaring myself ready to prove the utter falsehood of the whole narrative.--ED.

[23] Of this John Ward I read that he was a well-known performer in the time of Betterton, and was in 1723 the original Hazeroth in the tragedy of “Mariamne,” by Elijah Fenton, the friend of Pope. It was for his benefit that Mrs. Woffington at Dublin, in 1760, played Sir Harry Wildair for the first time, and he was the maternal grandfather of Mrs. Siddons, his daughter having married Mr. Roger Kemble, and the great Kembles being the issue of that union. In considering the probabilities of this story, we may therefore conclude that John Ward was not likely to play a huge practical joke upon Garrick. We may further assume that he was a man of the world, not over credulous, or to be imposed upon with ease.--S. W. B.

[24] In his interesting remarks on the reduplication of synonyms, Mr. Isaac Taylor gives us a marked example in the instance of Brindon Hill, in Somerset, where “we have first the Cymric _bryn_, a hill. To this was added _dun_, a Saxonised Celtic word, nearly synonymous with _bryn_; and the English word _hill_ was added when neither _bryn_ nor _dun_ were any longer significant words.” Thus, in fact, we are presented with a threefold instance of the kind in question. (See “Words and Places,” p. 141.)

[25] This is actually represented in an accompanying map by a small drawing clearly showing the usual form of the arched Roman gate.

[26] Camden’s “Britannia,” by Gibson, 1695, p. 855.

[27] “History of the Anglo-Saxons,” by Sharon Turner, 1823, vol. iii. p. 224.

[28] From the _Entertaining Magazine_, March, 1814.

[29] The heads of the arrows are formed of flint.

[30] A large knife, of a metal resembling brass, was the only implement of a metallic nature discovered in the barrow; it might, therefore, be supposed to have been a present to the British chief from the ‘princely merchants’ of Phœnicia.

[31] The Roman road, raised on flints, goes close to the barrow, and deviates from the straight line on purpose to avoid it: a proof of the antiquity of the barrow and the veneration of the Romans for the dead.

[32] _Hesus_ and _Taranis_, Celtic Deities, of the same character as Woden and Thor in the Saxon mythology.

“Horrensque suis altaribus Hesus
Et Taranis, Scythicæ non mitior ara Dianæ.”--LUCAN.

[33] Even in the time of Lucan it was deserted, for he speaks of “desertæ mœnia Lunæ.” (See Lucan, Phars. i. 586.) Bulwer, in his “King Arthur” (Book iv. stanza 14), writes:--

“That old friendly soil
Whose ports, perchance, yet glitter with the prows
Of Punic ships, when resting from their toil
In Luna’s gulf, the seabeat crews carouse.”

[34] Calendar of State Papers, Report on the foundation, history, and present state of St. Katherine’s Hospital.

[35] See _ante_, pp. 3-5.

[36] Freeman, Norm. Conq. (2nd ed.) ii. 237.

[37] England in the Early and Middle Ages, i. 103.

[38] Casters and Chesters (_Cornhill Magazine_, xlv. 434).

[39] Anglo-Saxon Britain (S.P.C.K.), p. 65.

[40] Norman Conquest (2nd ed.), i. 18. It is, however, but right to state that Mr. Freeman may here not have meant what his words would imply. He was probably thinking not of the whole “name” but of the “Glou-,” for elsewhere he observes, “Here and there a place keeps a Welsh name ... like _Gloucester_ and Winchester” (English Towns and Districts, p. 35), and even goes so far as to proclaim, exactly as I am myself doing, that “Our endless _chesters_ everywhere proclaim the fact of their former Roman occupation. But they proclaim it by the name given to it by foreign conquerors, not by any title which the place bore while the rule of Rome lasted.” (_Ibid._ p. 192.)

[41] Roman Britain (S.P.C.K.), p. 180.

[42] Casters and Chesters, p. 423.

[43] _Ibid._ p. 419.

[44] Casters and Chesters, p. 434.

[45] Casters and Chesters, p. 422.

[46] _Ibid._, p. 421. So Mr. Freeman, in the case of Chester, claims that “the name is historically a contraction” (English Towns and Districts, p. 231).

[47] This is the case of “Newport Gate,” from my point of view, over again (_ante_, p. 24).

[48] Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 104.

[49] P.S.--As it would seem, from the letter of “A. H.” (_ante_, p. 47) that there are people who believe that the Anglo-Saxon “port” was the “equivalent of haven,” or sea-port (_portus_), it may be worth referring to the English Chronicle, where, so late as 1088, Worcester, the town most distant from the sea, is spoken of distinctively as a “port.” The passage is thus rendered by Mr. Freeman: “They came to the port itself, and would then the port burn.” (W. Rufus, i. 47, 48.) In Earle’s “Philology of the English Tongue” (3rd Ed.) it is explained that by _port_ was “signified, in Saxon times, just ‘a town, a market-town.’ This is the sense of it in such compounds as Newport Pagnell” (p. 19). It is, however, erroneously there too “derived from the Latin _porta_, a gate.” It is also worth noting that in the _Quarterly Review_, No. 315 (July, 1884), p. 9, it is asserted that “a port-reeve is the equivalent of a shire-reeve (!): and has nothing to do with _portus_, but much with _porta_”--the very error of which, I hope, I have now effectually disposed.

[50] This _jeu d’esprit_ was written by Sir Joshua Reynolds to illustrate a remark which he had made--“That Dr. Johnson considered Garrick as his property, and would never suffer anyone to praise or abuse him but himself.” In the first of these supposed dialogues, Sir Joshua himself, by high encomiums upon Garrick, is represented as drawing down upon him Johnson’s censure; in the second, Gibbon, by taking the opposite side, calls forth his praise.

It should be added that the _jeu d’esprit_ was printed privately in 1816, given by Lady Thomond to Mrs. Gwynne, who gave it to a lady connected with the family of Wynn of Wynnstay.

[51] The substance of this sermon, in consequence of a strongly expressed wish, will form the subject of a paper in our next number.

[52] In all these quotations I give the words in the old-fashioned version of Garencières, for the French would scarcely be understood by the general reader.

[53] Sometimes, even as at iii. 87, he particularly says that the warning he gives will be utterly useless to prevent the evil announced: “Sang nagera, _captif ne me croiras_.”

[54] Compare this with the demon of Socrates.

[55] In these quatrains I quit Garencières, and translate the rendering and Scholia of Le Pelletier.

[56] This reading of _Lonole_ is from the _Editio princeps_ of Pierre Rigaud (Lyon. 1558. Avec les varientes de Benoist Rigaud. Lyon. 1568). Others read: “_Doudlé_ donra topique.” Garencières reads _Londre_.

[57] _Donra_ is for _donnera_.

[58] _Topique_ simply stands for the common-places of writing, and _Lonole_ is said by Le Pelletier to be the anagram of _Olleon_, or Ολλὑων = Destroyer.

[59] After the death of Elizabeth he became James I.

[60] _Dechassé_ is a Latin form, and stands for _chassé_ simply.

[61] _Par ire_ equals _per iram_, by reason of (popular) fury.

[62] _Tracer_ is an old word equivalent to _faire chemin_, or as we still say in English, to _trace a path_.

[63] _Contre_ equals “aupres a côté de.”

[64] Holland was detached from the Low Countries in 1579. Antwerp stood on Spanish territory on the very confines of Holland. Philip IV. made every possible effort to subdue Holland, and did not give over till the Treaty of Westphalia, which established its independence in 1648, one year before the decapitation of Charles I.

[65] This expression occurs again, Century x. quatrain 7: “L’Isle Britanne par vin sel en soucy.” Wine figuratively standing for heat and courage, or force; whilst salt may represent wisdom, for its incorruptibility as well as wit for its pungency.

[66] _Macelin_; Latin, _marcellum_; Italian, _marcellaio_, butcher.

[67] 1588 is the date of the destruction of Philip II.’s _Invincible Armada_ by storms and by Drake in Cadiz Bay. From that time the maritime supremacy of England dates, and, according to Nostradamus, it is to last more than three centuries, but not four. It culminated with the death of Nelson at Trafalgar, and the tale of that event still stirs the soul to heroism, and to that still more sacred thing, a sense profound of duty. But all that has happened since seems like a slow toning down to gradual nothingness. In four years the bare three centuries will stand completed. An Englishman may ask, I think, with some emotion, how much the _plus_ stands for.

[68] This paper is the substance of a sermon preached in the parish church of St. Mary, Tenby, on Sunday, September 6, 1884, before the Congress of the British Archæological Association, from the text Jeremiah vi. 16: “Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.”

[69] Mr. Gladstone.

[70] Max Müller, “Science of Religion.”

[71] “Plutarch: His Life, his Lives, and his Morals,” by Archbishop Trench, p. 95.

[72] Discovered in 1779, now in the British Museum.

[73] A.D. 627.

[74] Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, by Dr. Giles, pp. 95, 96.

[75] Arles, 314 A.D.; Sardiæ 347; Ariminum 363.

[76] The Editor has learnt at the last moment that this Jeu d’Esprit is to be found in a work by Miss L. Hawkins. It came to the Editor’s hands in MS., in a private note-book formerly belonging to a member of the family of Wynn, of Wynnstay.

[77] See ANTIQUARIAN MAGAZINE, vol. i. p. 78.

[78] See the frontispiece to the present number.

[79] These pyramids are minutely described by William of Malmesbury.

[80] Speed. I have followed Speed’s description taken from Giraldus, save where Speed, in defiance of all chronology, makes the finding of Arthur to have been during Henry II.’s reign, under Abbot Henry of Blois. The dates show that it was during Richard I.’s reign, under Henry de Soliaco.

[81] Almost certainly Henry de Soliaco, in whose abbey the remains were discovered. Henry of Blois was buried at Winchester.

[82] Journal of the Archæological Institute, vol. xx. p. 395.

[83] See vol. iii. p. 144.