Replies.
Reading edition
THE ROD: A POEM.
(Vol. vi., p. 493.)
My copy of this poem bears date 1754, and is not stated to be a second edition. It has "an advertisement" of three pages, deprecatory of the imputation of any personal allusions, or design to encourage school rebellions. It has also a frontispiece ("Jas. Green, sculp., Oxon."), representing two youths, one standing, the other sitting, on a form; and before them the figure of an ass, erect on his hind legs, clothed in a pallium. A birch, doctorial hat, and books, lettered Priscian and Lycophron, form the base; and on a ribbon above is the legend, "An ass in the Greek pallium teaching." In other respects my copy agrees with Mr. Crossley's description of his, except that the argument (p. 7.) commences, "The great and good King Alfred," &c.
Perhaps the following lines (though I doubt their having been written at the age of thirteen) may be received as germane to the subject:
THE BIRCH: A POEM. Written by a Youth of thirteen. Though the Oak be the prince and the pride of the grove, The emblem of power and the fav'rite of Jove; Though Phœbus his temples with Laurel has bound, And with chaplets of Poplar Alcides is crown'd; Though Pallas the Olive has graced with her choice, And old mother Cybel in Pines may rejoice, Yet the Muses declare, after diligent search, That no tree can be found to compare with the Birch. The Birch, they affirm, is the true tree of knowledge, Revered at each school and remember'd at college. Though Virgil's famed tree might produce, as its fruit, A crop of vain dreams, and strange whims on each shoot, Yet the Birch on each bough, on the top of each switch, Bears the essence of grammar and eight parts of speech. 'Mongst the leaves are conceal'd more than mem'ry can mention, All cases, all genders, all forms of declension. Nine branches, when cropp'd by the hands of the Nine, And duly arranged in a parallel line, Tied up in nine folds of a mystical string, And soak'd for nine days in cold Helicon spring, Form a sceptre composed for a pedagogue's hand, Like the Fasces of Rome, a true badge of command. The sceptre thus finish'd, like Moses's rod, From flints could draw tears, and give life to a clod. Should darkness Egyptian, or ignorance, spread Their clouds o'er the mind, or envelope the head, The rod, thrice applied, puts the darkness to flight, Disperses the clouds, and restores us to light. Like the Virga Divina, 'twill find out the vein Where lurks the rich metal, the ore of the brain. Should Genius a captive in sloth be confined, Or the witchcraft of Pleasure prevail o'er the mind, The magical wand but apply—with a stroke The spell is dissolved, the enchantment is broke. Like Hermes' caduceus, these switches inspire Rhetorical thunder, poetical fire: And if Morpheus our temples in Lethe should steep, Their touch will untie all the fetters of sleep. Here dwells strong conviction—of Logic the glory, When applied with precision à posteriori. I've known a short lecture most strangely prevail, When duly convey'd to the head through the tail; Like an electrical shock, in an instant 'tis spread, And flies with a jerk from the tail to the head; Promotes circulation, and thrills through each vein, The faculties quickens, and purges the brain. By sympathy thus, and consent of the parts, We are taught, fundamentally, classics and arts. The Birch, à priori, applied to the palm, Can settle disputes and a passion becalm. Whatever disorders prevail in the blood The birch can correct them, like guaiacum wood: It sweetens the juices, corrects our ill humours, Bad habits removes, and disperses foul tumours. When applied to the hand it can cure with a switch, Like the salve of old Molyneux, used in the itch! As the famed rod of Circe to brutes could turn men, So the twigs of the Birch can unbrute them again. Like the wand of the Sybil, that branch of pure gold, These sprays can the gates of Elysium unfold— The Elysium of learning, where pleasures abound, Those sweets that still flourish on classical ground. Prometheus's rod, which, mythologists say, Fetch'd fire from the sun to give life to his clay, Was a rod well applied his men to inspire With a taste for the arts, and their genius to fire. This bundle of rods may suggest one reflection, That the arts with each other maintain a connexion. Another good moral this bundle of switches Points out to our notice and silently teaches; Of peace and good fellowship these are a token, For the twigs, well united, can scarcely be broken. Then, if such are its virtues, we'll bow to the tree, And the Birch, like the Muses, immortal shall be.
I copy from a MS. extract-book, and shall be glad of a reference to any place in which these lines have appeared in print.
Balliolensis.
THE DUTCH EAST-INDIA COMPANY.
(Vol. vi., p. 316.)
These folio volumes appeared in 1646, without name or place of either author or printer, under the title—
"Begin ende Voortgang van de Vereenighde Nederlandsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie, vervattende de voornaemste Reysen, by de inwoonderen derselver provincien derwaerts gedaen, alles nevens de beschryvinghen der Rycken, Eylanden, Hovenen, Rivieren, Stroomen, Rheden, winden, diepten, ondiepten, mitsgaders religien, manieren, aerdt, politie, ende regeeringhe der volckeren, oock mede haerder Specerÿen, drooghen, geldt ende andere koopmanschappen; met veele discoursen verryckt, nevens eenighe koopere platen verciert. Nut ende dienstig alle curieuse ende andere zee-varende. Met dry besondere tafels ofte registers; in twee Delen verdeelt, waer het eerste begrypt veerttien voyagien den meerendeelen voor desen noyt in 't licht geweest. Gedrukt in den jaere 1646."
(Translation.)
Commencement and progress of the United Dutch Chartered East-India Company, containing the principal travels made among the inhabitants of the provinces there, together with a description of the kingdoms, courts, islands, rivers, roadsteads, winds, deeps, shallows, as well as religions, manners, character, police, and governments of the people; also their spices, drugs, money, and other merchandise, enriched with many discourses, and adorned with copperplates. Useful and profitable to all curious and seafaring virtuosi. With three separate tables or registers; divided into two parts, of which the first contains fourteen voyages, the most part never before published. Printed in the year 1646.
The compiler, however, goes too far in asserting that the greatest part of these voyages had never been printed. The contrary appears when we open the folio catalogue of the Leyden Library, containing a fine collection of these early voyages of our ancestors.
These voyages were printed consecutively in small folio before 1646; as also the Oost Indische en West Indische Voyagien, Amsterdam, by Michel Colyn, boekverkooper (East Indian and West Indian Voyages, Amsterdam, by Michel Colyn, bookseller), anno 1619, one volume, in the same form and thickness as those of 1646: some of the plates also in this volume are similar to those of 1646.
This work was dedicated, 28th February, 1619, to the Heeren Gecommitteerde Raden ter Admiraliteit residerende te Amsterdam (Advising Committee to the Admiralty residing at Amsterdam), and begins with the Reis naar Nova Sembla (Voyage to Nova Zembla), printed at Enkhuizen in 1617, by Jacob Lenaertsz Meijn, at the Vergulde Schryfboek (Gilt Writing-book), so that it is not improbable that the whole work was printed at Enkhuizen. Michel Colyn also published other Dutch voyages in 1622.
Concerning Cornelis Claesz (i.q. son of Nicholas), printer at Amsterdam, I have to observe that he died before 1610, but that the late Lucas Jansz. Wagenaer had bought all his plates, maps, privileges, &c.
By a notarial act passed 16th August, 1610, at Enkhuizen, Tryn Haickesdr., widow of the above-named Wagenaer, declared that the widow of Cornelis Claesz might make over to Jacob Lenaertsz all the above-mentioned maps, privileges, &c. See a resolution of the States-General of 13th September, 1610, in Dodt's Kerkelÿk en Wereldlÿk Archief, p. 23. (Ecclesiastical and Civil Archives).—From the Navorscher.
Elsevier.
Leyden.
J. A. de Chalmot, in his Biographical Dictionary of the Netherlands, vol. vii. p. 251., names as author, or rather as compiler of this work, Isaak Commelin, born at Amsterdam 19th October, 1598, died 3rd Jan. 1676, and quotes Kasp. Commelin's Description of Amsterdam, which I have not at hand to refer to. The work was printed at Amsterdam without printer's name: each voyagie or description is separately paged; some places have a French text. In the second volume is a Generale beschryvinghe van Indien, &c., naer de copÿe ghedruckt tot Batavia in de druckerÿe van Gansenpen, anno 1638 (General Description of India, &c., according to the copy printed at Batavia at the office of the Goose Quill). Whether any other pieces which Commelin compiled had been earlier printed, I have not been able to discover.—From the Navorscher.
J. C. K.
"ITS."
(Vol. vi., p. 509.)
The following are earlier instances of the employment of its by the poets, than any that your correspondent seems to have met with:
"How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and makes itself a pastime To harder bosoms! Winter's Tale, Act I. Sc. 2.
"Each following day Became the next day's master, till the last Made former wonders its." Henry VIII., Act I. Sc. 1.
"On the green banks which that fair stream in-bound, Flowers and odours sweetly smiled and smell'd, Which, reaching out its stretched arms around, All the large desert in its bosom held." Fairefax, Godfrey of Bulloigne, xviii. 20., 1600.
I doubt if there are any earlier instances among the poets. I have had no opportunity of examining the prose writers of the sixteenth century, but think they must have employed its earlier than the poets. As we may see in the version of the Bible, and other works of the time, the English, like the Anglo-Saxon, long continued to use the genitive his for neuters as well as for masculines; and thereof for our present of it, its.
Its leads me to reflect how ignorant people were of the old languages in the last century. If ever there was a palpable forgery, it is the Poems of Rowley: yet, if my memory does not deceive me, Tyrwhitt regarded them as genuine; and Malone authoritatively affirmed that "no one except the nicest judges of English poetry, from Chaucer to Pope, was competent to test their genuineness." Why, this little word its might have tested it. You see we have not been able to trace it in poetry higher up than the end of the sixteenth century; and I am quite sure that it is not to be found in either Chaucer or Spenser: and yet, in the very first page of Rowley, we meet with the following instances of it:
"The whyche in yttes felle use doe make moke dere."
"The thynge yttes (ytte is?) moste bee yttes owne defense."
But there is a still surer test. We can hardly read a line of Chaucer, Gower, or any other poet of the time, without meeting with what the French term the feminine e, and which must be pronounced as a syllable to make the metre. From one end to the other of the Poems of Rowley, there is not a single instance of it!
Thos. Keightley.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE YEAR.
(Vol. vi., p. 563.)
It may be of service to the inquirer as to the commencement of the year, to call his attention to the note appended to the "Table of moveable Feasts" in editions prior to 1752. As given by Keeling, from the editions antecedent and subsequent to the last review, in 1662, they are as follows:
"Note.—That the supputation of the year of our Lord in the Church of England beginneth the xxvth day of March, the same day supposed to be the first day upon which the world was created, and the day when Christ was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary" [1604].
"Note.—That the supputation of the year of our Lord in the Church of England beginneth the xxvth day of March" [1662].
Of course, after the act for alteration of the style (24 Geo. II. c. 23.) was passed, this note was omitted. But up to that date the old supputation was authoritative and legal. Reference to Hampson's Medii Ævi Kalendarium might further illustrate the point.
To this Note allow me to append a Query. After the collect for St. Stephen's Day follows this rubric:
"Then shall follow the collect of the Nativity, which shall be said continually until New Year's Eve."
Query, Was this collect to be repeated from December 25 to March 24? for, according to the above supputation, that would be New Year's Eve.
The following note, from the preface to Granger's Biographical History, may not be out of place:
"The following absurdities, among many others, were occasioned by these different computations. In 1667 there were two Easters, the first on the 25th of April, and the second on the 22nd of March following; and there were three different denominations of the Year of our Lord affixed to three state papers which were published in one week, viz. his Majesty's Speech, dated 1732-3; the Address of the House of Lords, 1732; the Address of the House of Commons, 1733."—Page xxiii., edit. 1824.
Balliolensis.
"PENARDO AND LAISSA."
(Vol. vii., p. 84.)
Your correspondent E. D. is fortunate in the possession of a rare book, worth a "jew's eye" in the good old days of the Bibliomania. It formed a part of the Heber Collection, where (see Part iv. p. 111.) it figures under the following quaint title:
"The First Booke of the Famous Historye of Penardo and Laissa, other-ways called the Warres of Love and Ambitione, wherein is described Penardo his most admirable deeds of Arms, his ambition of glore, his contempt of love, with loves mighte assalts and ammorous temptations, Laissa's feareful inchantment, hir relief, hir travells, and lastly, loves admirabel force in hir releiving Penardo from the fire. Doone in Heroik Verse by Patrik Gordon.
Printed at Dort by George Waters, 1615."
This copy, which was originally John Pinkerton's, cost Mr. Heber 21l., and was resold at his sale for 12l. 5s., for the library of Mr. Miller, of Craigentenny; another is in the possession of Dr. Keith, Edinburgh. Pinkerton, in his Ancient Scottish Poems, London, 1792, thus describes Penardo and Laissa:
"Rare to excess; nor can more than two copies be discovered, one in the editor's possession, another in that of an anonymous correspondent in Scotland. The author was probably so ashamed of it as to quash the edition, for it is the most puerile mixture of all times, manners, and religions that ever was published; for instance, the Christian religion is put as that of Ancient Greece."
Of the author, Patrick Gordon, little or nothing seems to be known beyond the fact of his styling himself "gentleman," probably the only ground for Pinkerton calling him "a man of property." The fame of Gordon, however, rests upon a better foundation than the above work, he having also "doone in heroik verse The Famous Historie of the Renouned and Valiant Prince Robert, surnamed the Bruce, King of Scotland," "a tolerable poem," says the same critic, "but not worth reprinting, although it had that compliment twice paid to it."
J. O.
ROBIN HOOD.
(Vol. vi., p. 597.)
Ireland, too, is associated with the fame of this renowned wood-ranger. This "pen-ultima Thule," which received and protected the refugees of Roman oppression and the victims of Saxon extermination, was looked to in later times as a sanctuary where crime might evade punishment; and in the Annals of Robin Hood this national commiseration was evinced.
"In the year 1189," writes Holinshed, "there ranged three robbers and outlaws in England, among which 'Robert' Hood and Little John were chieftains, of all thieves doubtless the most courteous. Robert, being betrayed at a nunnery in Scotland, called Bricklies, the remnant of the 'crue' was scattered, and every man forced to shift for himself; whereupon Little John was fain to flee the realm by sailing into Ireland, where he sojourned for a few days at Dublin. The citizens being 'doone' to understand the wandering outcast to be an excellent archer, requested him heartily to try how far he could shoot at random, who, yielding to their behest, stood on the bridge of Dublin and shot to a hillock in Oxmantown (thereafter called Little John's shot), leaving behind him a monument, rather by posterity to be wondered than possibly by any man living to be counterscored."—Description of Ireland, fol., p. 24.
The danger, however, of being taken drove Little John thence to Scotland, where, adds the annalist, "he died at a town or village called Moravie."
John D'Alton.
I may perhaps be allowed to subscribe to the opinion expressed by H. K., that "though men of the name of Robin Hood may have existed in England, that of itself could afford no ground for inferring that some one of them was the Robin Hood of romantic tradition;" and at the same time to express my dissent from the conclusion, that "any pretence for such a supposition is taken away by the strong evidence, both Scotch and French," which H. K. has "adduced in support of the opposite view."
The inferences which I draw from the facts adduced by H. K. are, that the fame of the hero of English ballads probably extended to France and Scotland, and that the people of Scotland probably sympathised with this disturber of the peace of the kingdom of their "aulde ennemies."
I must, however, confess that I have not met with any portion of "the discussion about the nature of Robin Hood," excepting that contained in Ritson's Notes and Hunter's Tract, and that the evidence adduced in the latter publication, in support of the tradition handed down to us in the ballad entitled A Lyttel Geste of Robyn Hode, seems to me to satisfactorily show that "the Robin Hood of romantic tradition really existed in England in the time of Edward II."
J. Lewelyn Curtis.
PHOTOGRAPHIC NOTES AND QUERIES.
Originator of Collodion Process (Vol. vii., pp. 47. 92. 116.).—The fairest way of deciding M. Le Gray's claims would be, to quote what he really says.
Willat's pamphlet, published in 1850, entitled A Practical Treatise, &c., by Gustave Le Gray, translated by Thomas Cousins, ends with an appendix, which runs thus:
"I have just discovered a process upon glass by hydrofluoric ether, the fluoride of potassium, and soda dissolved in alcohol 40°, mixed with sulphuric ether, and afterwards saturated with collodion; I afterwards re-act with aceto-nitrate of silver, and thus obtain proofs in the camera in five seconds in the shade. I develope the image by a very weak solution of sulphate of iron, and fix with hyposulphite of soda. I hope by this process to arrive at great rapidity. Ammonia and bromide of potassium give great variations of promptitude. As soon as my experiments are complete I will publish the result in an appendix. This application upon glass is very easy: the same agents employed with albumen and dextrine, give also excellent results and very quick. I have also experimented with a mucilage produced by a fucus, a kind of sea-weed, which promises future success. I hope by some of these means to succeed in taking portraits in three or four seconds."
I know not at what time of the year the pamphlet came out, nor whether the appendix was subsequently added; but any copy containing it was bought about the middle of August, 1850.
Thos. D. Eaton.
[We have much pleasure in inserting this communication, as it may be the means of drawing fresh attention to the other substances mentioned by Le Gray; for we are strongly of opinion that, notwithstanding the advantages of collodion, there are other media which may prove preferable.—Ed.]
The Soiling of the Fingers may be entirely avoided by a simple expedient. Use a slightly concave horizontal dish for sensitizing, and a depth of solution not sufficient to wet the back of the collodionized plate, and after the impressed plate has been placed on the levelled stand and developed, proceed thus: instead of holding the plate by the fingers to perform the subsequent processes, take a strip of glass (say five inches long and one and a half wide for the ordinary portrait size), put a single drop of water on it, and carefully pass it beneath the developed plate; lift the glass thereby; the adhesion is sufficiently firm to sustain the plate in any required position for the remaining manipulations till it is washed and finished.
Cokely.
Sir W. Newton's Process.—Chloride of Bromium.—May I ask, through the medium of your very excellent journal, what purpose Sir W. Newton intends to meet by the application of his wash of chloride of barium previous to iodizing?
F. Maxwell Lyte.
The Collodion Process.—Absence from London has prevented my seeing your Numbers regularly; but in one for December I see Mr. Archer has used my name in connexion with the collodion process. He states that he called several times, and made me familiar with the process; by which he would lead persons to suppose that he taught me in fact to take pictures. Now I beg most distinctly to state that this is incorrect. Mr. Archer made, it is true, several attempts in my glass room to take a picture, but totally failed. And why? Because he attempted to follow out the process as he himself had published it. From that time I worked it out by myself, assisted by hints from Mr. Fry, who at the time I allude to was a successful manipulator, and had produced and exhibited many beautiful pictures, and at whose suggestion I commenced it in the first instance.
There is also another portion of Mr. Archer's letter incorrect; but as this relates to the sale of collodion, I will let it pass, trusting, as you have given insertion to his, you will not refuse space for mine.
F. Horne.
123. Newgate Street.
Portable Camera (Vol. vii., p. 71.).—If India rubber should turn out to be what H. Y. W. N. thinks he has found it to be, it would be capable of being turned to excellent account. For instance, instead of having a single "portable camera," which is on many accounts very awkward to use, why should not the tourist have a light framework constructed, and covered entirely with this India rubber: in fact, an India rubber box, in which his camera, and a partitioned shelf containing his collodion, developing fluid, hypo-soda solution, &c., might be easily packed, and in which, by the aid of sleeves, &c., he might coat his plates, and develop and fix them, quite apart from his camera? He must have something to pack his camera, &c. in; and the above-described packing-case would be very light, and also waterproof.
J. L. S.