Replies.

HOBY FAMILY.

(Vol. ix., p. 19.)

Many years have passed away since I went over Bisham Abbey; but I was then informed that any family portraits belonging to the old House had been taken away by the widow of Sir John Hoby Mill, Baronet, who sold the property to Mr. George Vansittart in 1780, or shortly afterwards. I am not aware that there are any engraved portraits of the Hobys, excepting those mentioned by your correspondent Mr. Whitborne, which form part of the series of Holbein's Heads, published in 1792 by John Chamberlaine, from the original drawings still in the royal collection. In the meagre account of the persons represented in that work, Lady Hoby is described as "Elizabeth, one of the four daughters of Sir Antony Cooke, of Gidea Hall, Essex," and widow of Sir Thomas Hoby, who died in 1566, at Paris, whilst on an embassy there. The lady remarried John Lord Russell, eldest son of Francis, second Earl of Bedford, whom she also survived, and deceasing 23rd of July, 1584, was buried in Bisham Church, in which she had erected a chapel containing splendid monuments to commemorate her husbands and herself. The inscriptions will be found in Ashmole's Berkshire, vol. ii. p. 464., and in Wotton's Baronetage, vol. iv. p. 504., where the Hoby crest is given as follows; "On a chapeau gules turned up ermine, a wolf regreant argent." The armorial bearings are described very minutely in Edward Steele's Account of Bisham Church, Gough MSS., vol. xxiv., Bodleian, which contains some other notices of the parish.

Braybrooke.

POETICAL TAVERN SIGNS.

(Vol. viii., pp. 242. 452. 626.)

I send two specimens from this neighbourhood, which may, perhaps, be worth inserting in your columns.

The first is from a public-house on the Basingstoke road, about two miles from this town. The sign-board exhibits on one side "the lively effigies" of a grenadier in full uniform, holding in his hand a foaming pot of ale, on which he gazes apparently with much complacency and satisfaction. On the other side are these lines:

The next specimen, besides being of a higher class, has somewhat of an historical interest. In a secluded part of the Oxfordshire hills, at a place called Collins's End, situated between Hardwick House and Goring Heath, is a neat little rustic inn, having for its sign a well-executed portrait of Charles I. There is a tradition that this unfortunate monarch, while residing as a prisoner at Caversham, rode one day, attended by an escort, into this part of the country, and hearing that there was a bowling-green at this inn, frequented by the neighbouring gentry, struck down to the house, and endeavoured to forget his sorrows for awhile in a game at bowls. This circumstance is alluded to in the following lines, which are written beneath the sign-board:

The sign, which seems to be a copy from Vandyke, though much faded from exposure to the weather, evidently displays an amount of artistic skill that is not usually to be found among common sign-painters. I once made some inquiries about it of the people of the house, but the only information they could give me was that they believed it to have been painted in London.

G. T.

Reading.

TRANSLATION FROM SHERIDAN, ETC.

(Vol. viii, p. 563.)

I cannot furnish Balliolensis with the translation from Sheridan he requires, but I am acquainted with that from Goldsmith. It is to be found somewhere in Valpy's Classical Journal. As that work is in forty volumes, and not at hand, I am not able to give a more precise reference. I recollect, however, a few of the lines at the beginning:

No doubt there is a copy of the Classical Journal in the Bodleian; and if Balliolensis can give me volume and page, I in turn shall be much obliged to him.

Hypatia.

The lines to which your correspondent Balliolensis refers—

are a translation of the song in Sheridan's Duenna, Act I. Sc. 2., beginning—

They were done by Marmaduke Lawson, of St. John's College, Cambridge, for the Pitt Scholarship in 1814, for which he was successful:

I have not sent the English, as it can be easily got at. The other translation I am not acquainted with.

B.

FLORINS AND THE ROYAL ARMS.

(Vol. viii., p. 621.)

In reference to the arrangement consequent upon the union with Scotland, he observes that, how proper soever the impaling the arms of the two kingdoms was in other respects, it appeared with great impropriety upon the money. The four escocheons in cross had hitherto been marshalled in their circular order from the left, whereby the dexter escocheon was the fourth; according to which order the united arms, being quartered first and fourth, would have fallen together; therefore they were placed at the top and bottom, which indeed was right: but then France by the same rule was then in the third place, and Ireland in the second; unless to reconcile it we make a rule contrary to all rule, to take sinister first and dexter second.

In the coinage of King George I., the representation of the armorial bearings in four separate shields, as upon the milled money of King Charles II., was continued. In the uppermost escocheon, England impaling Scotland; the dexter the arms of his Majesty's electoral dominions; sinister France; and in the bottom one Ireland, all crowned with the imperial crown of Great Britain. The marshalling of the four escocheon's in this manner might and ought to have been objected to by the heralds (has it been brought under their cognizance?), because it appears by many instances, as well as upon coins and medals of the emperors and several princes of the entire, that arms marshalled in this circular form are blazoned, not in the circular order, but from the dexter and sinister alternately; and thus the emperor at that time bore eleven escocheons round the imperial eagle. In like manner, upon the money of Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick, we see the crest with a circle of eleven escocheons in the same order. The same order is observed in marshalling the escocheons of the seven provinces of Holland and there is a coin of the Emperor Ferdinand, another of Gulick, and a third of Erick, Bishop of Osnaburgh, with four escocheons in cross, and four sceptres exactly resembling the English coins. That it was not altered therefore at that time, the mistake being so evident, can be attributed only to the length of time the error had prevailed; so hard is it to correct an error in the first instance whereby the arms of his Majesty's German dominions, which occupy the fourth quarter in the royal arms, do in fact upon the money occupy the second place; a mistake however so apparent, as well by the bearing upon other occasions as by the areas of Ireland, which before occupied the same escocheon, that nothing was meant thereby to the dishonour of the other arms; but that being now established, it is the English method of so marshalling arms in cross or circle, or rather that they have no certain method.

Until the union with Scotland, the dexter was the fourth escocheon; from that time the bottom one was fourth; now the dexter was again the fourth. Such is the force of precedent in perpetuating error, that the practice has prevailed even to the present time and it may be inferred, that fancy and effect are studied by the engraver before propriety. No valid reason can be advanced for placing the arms in separate shields after their declared union under one imperial crown.

J.

CHRONOGRAMS.

(Vol. viii., p. 351. &c.)

The banks of the Rhine furnish abundant examples of this literary pleasantry: chronograms are as thick as blackberries. I send you a dozen, gathered during a recent tour. Each one was transcribed by myself.

1. Cologne Cathedral, 1722; on a beam in a chapel, on the south side of the choir:

"pIa VIrgInIs MarIæ soDaLItas annos sæCV- LarI renoVat."

2. Poppelsdorf Church, near Bonn. 1812:

"paroChIaLIs teMpLI rVIxIs æDIfICabar."

3. Bonn; on the base of a crucifix outside the minster, on the north side. 1711:

"glorifiCate et portate DeVM In Corpore Vestro. 1 Cor. 6."

4. Bonn; within the minster. 1770:

"CapItVLVM patronIs pIe DICaVIt."

5. Aix-la-Chapelle; on the baptistery. 1660:

"sacrvM paroChIaLe DIVI johannIs baptIstæ."

6. Aix-la-Chapelle.—St. Michael: front of west gallery. 1821:

"sVM pIa CIVItatIs LIberaLItate renoVata DeCorata."

7. Aix-la-Chapelle, under the above. 1852:

"eCCe MIChaeLIs aeDes."

8. Konigswinter; on the base of a crucifix at the northern end of the village. 1726:

"In VnIVs VerI aC In CarnatI DeI honoreM posVere. ——— Joannes Petrus Mümrer et Maria Gengers Conjuges 2 dā Septembris."

9. Konigswinter; over the principal door of the church. 1828:

"es Ist seInes MenCher WohnUng sonDem eIn herrLIChes haUsz Unseres gottes, i. b. d. ker. er. 29. c. v. i."

10. Konigswinter; under the last. 1778:

"VnI sanCtIssIMo Deo, patrI atqVe fiLIo spIrItVIqVe sanCto."

11. Konigswinter under the last. 1779:

"erIgor sVb MaX. frIDerICo konIgsegg antIstIte CoLonIensI pIe gVbernante."

12. Coblenz.—S. Castor; round the arch of the west door. 1765:

"DIro MarIa IVngfraV reIn Las CobLenz aubefohLen seIn."

Of these, Nos. 9, 10. and 11. are incised on one stone, the letters indicating the chronograph being rubricated capitals; but in No. 10. the second I in "filio," and the first I in "spirituique," though capitals, are not in red. I shall be much obliged to any of your correspondents who can supply a complete or corrected copy of the following chronogram, from the Kreutzberg, near Bonn. The height at which it was placed, and its defective colour, prevented me from deciphering the whole; nor do I vouch for the correctness of the subjoined portion:

Some parts of this inscription might be conjecturally supplied; but I prefer presenting it as I was able to transcribe it. The staircase in question was erected by the Elector Clement Augustus, in or about 1725, in imitation of the Scala Santa at Rome. (See Murray's Handbook.)

W. Sparrow Simpson.

OATHS.

(Vol. viii., pp. 364. 471.)

In Primate Colton's Metropolitan Visitation of the Diocese of Derry, A.D. 1397, edited by the Rev. William Reeves, D.D., it is stated, at p. 44., that several persons therein mentioned took their oath "tactis sacrosanctis Evangeliis;" and in a note Dr. Reeves says that—

"Until the arrival of the English the custom of swearing on the holy evangelists was unknown to the Irish, who resorted instead to croziers, bells, and other sacred reliquaries, to give solemnity to their declarations. Even when the Gospels were used, it was not uncommon to introduce some other object to render the oath doubly binding. Thus in a monition directed by Primate Prene to O'Neill, he requires him to be sworn 'tactis sacrosanctis Dei evangeliis ad ea, et super Baculum Jesu in ecclesia cathedrali Sanctæ Trinitatis Dublin.' (Reg. Prene, fol. 117.)"

The following lines upon the subject in question will be found in the Red Book of the Irish Exchequer:

"Qui jurat super librum tria tacit.

"Primo quasi diceret omnia que scripta sunt in hoc libro nunquam mihi perficiant neque lex nova neque vetus si mencior in hoc juramento.

"Secundo apponit manum super librum quasi diceret numquam bona opera que feci michi proficiant ante faciem Jeshu Christi nisi veritatem dicam quando per manus significentur opera.

"Tercio et ultimo osculatur librum quasi diceret numquam oraciones neque preces quas dixi per os meum michi ad salutem anime valeant si falsitatem dicam in hoc juramento michi apposito."

Judging by the character of the handwriting, I would say that the above-mentioned lines were written not later than the time of Edward I.; and as many of the vellum leaves of this book have been sadly disfigured, as well by the pressure of lips as by tincture of galls, I am inclined to think that official oaths were formerly taken in the Court of Exchequer of Ireland by presenting the book when opened to the person about to be sworn in the manner at this day used (as we are informed by Honoré de Mareville) in the Ecclesiastical Court at Guernsey.

It appears by an entry in one of the Order Books of the Exchequer, deposited in the Exchequer Record Office, Four Courts, Dublin, that in James I.'s time the oath of allegiance was taken upon bended knee. The entry to which I refer is in the following words:

"Easter Term, Wednesday, 22nd April, 1618.—Memorandum: This day at first sitting of the court, the lord threasurer, vice threasurer, and all the barons being present on the bench, the lord chauncellor came hither and presented before them Thomas Hibbotts, esq., with his Majesty's letters patents of the office of chauncellor of this court to him graunted, to hold and execute the said office during his naturall life, which being read the said lord chauncellor first ministred unto him the oath of the King's supremacy, which hee tooke kneeling on his knee, and presently after ministred unto him the oath ordayned for the said officer, as the same is contayned of record in the redd booke of this court; all which being donn the said lord chauncellor placed him on the bench on the right hand of the lord threasurer, and then departed this court."

James F. Ferguson.

Dublin.

PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE.

Splitting Paper for Photographic Purposes.—If the real and practical mode of effecting this were disclosed, it would be (in many cases) a valuable aid to the photographer. I have had many negative calotypes ruined by red stains on the back (but not affecting the impressed side of the paper); which, could the paper have been split, would in all probability have been available, and printed well.

I was sorry to see in "N. & Q" (Vol. iii., p. 604.) an article under this head which went the round of the papers several months ago. Anything more impracticable and ridiculously absurd than the directions there given can hardly be imagined: "cylinders of amber!" or "cylinders of metallic amalgam!!" "excited in the usual manner," &c. I presume electrical excitation is intended. Though, how cylinders of metal are to receive electrical excitation, and to have sufficient attractive power over a sheet of paper as to rend it asunder, would be a problem which I believe even a Faraday could not solve: neither would excited glass cylinders effect the object any better; or if they could, it would be erecting a wheel to break a fly upon.

The whole proposition must originally have been a hoax: in fact, we live in a day when the masses of the people are easily induced to believe that electricity can do everything.

Another, and far more feasible plan has been proposed ("N. & Q.," Vol. viii., p. 413.), viz. to paste the paper to be split between two pieces of calico or linen; and when perfectly dry, part them. One half, it is said, will adhere to each piece of the linen, and may afterwards be obtained or set free from the linen by soaking.

I have tried this with partial, but not satisfactory success. It will be remembered that the results of the true process were some years ago exhibited before a scientific company (I think at the Royal Institution), when a page of the London Illustrated News was first exhibited in its usual condition, printed on both sides; and was then taken to an adjoining apartment, and in a short time (perhaps a quarter of an hour) re-exhibited to the company split into two laminæ, each being perfect. Neither the pasting plan, nor the electrical gammon, could have effected this. I hope some of your readers (they are a legion) will confer on photographers the favour of informing them of this art.

Cokely.

Curling of Iodized Paper.—The difficulty which your correspondent C. E. F. has met with, in iodizing paper according to Dr. Diamond's valuable and simple process, may be easily obviated.

I experienced the same annoyance of "curling up" till it was suggested to me to damp the paper previously to floating it. I have since always adopted this expedient, and find it answer perfectly. The method I employ for damping it is to leave it for a few hours previously to using it upon the bricks in my cellar: and I have no doubt but that, if C. E. F. will try the same plan, he will be equally satisfied with the result.

W. F. W.

How the Glass Rod is used.—Would you be kind enough to inform me how paper is prepared or excited with the glass rod in the calotype process? Is the solution first poured on the paper, and then equally diffused over it with the rod?

Duthus.

[The manner in which the glass rod is to be used for exciting or developing is very simple, although not easily described. The operator must provide himself with some pieces of thin board, somewhat larger than the paper intended to be used; on one of these two or three folds of blotting-paper are to be laid, and on these the paper intended to be excited, and which is to be kept steady by pins at the top and bottom right-hand corners, and the forefinger of the left hand. The operator, having ready in a small measure about thirty drops of the exciting fluid, takes the glass rod in his right hand, moves it steadily over the paper from the right hand to the left, where he keeps it, while with the left hand he pours the exciting fluid over the side of the glass rod, and moving this to and fro once or twice to secure an equal portion of the exciting fluid along the whole length of the rod; he then moves the rod from left to right and back again, until he has ascertained that the whole surface is covered, taking care that none of the exciting fluid runs over the side of the paper, as it is then apt to discolour the back of it. When the whole surface has been thoroughly wetted, the superfluous fluid is to be blotted off with a piece of new blotting-paper.]