Volume 5 — Queries.

ALGERNON SYDNEY.

In no way, perhaps, has "N. & Q." been so useful to the literary public as in making itself the ready means of concentrating on any given point the various readings of many persons; unless, indeed, it should be considered more useful to have proved how courteous, how willing to oblige—even at some personal sacrifices—men of reading are in this day and generation. The information recently sent from so many quarters in relation to General Wolfe is a good example of what may be done in other cases; that about Sterne in Paris is another. The latter instance suggests to me a way in which some of your correspondents, whose private communications I have had to acknowledge in reference to other inquiries, might do me a real service at no great inconvenience perhaps to themselves.

I am collecting materials for a volume on Algernon Sydney. A great part of this illustrious patriot's life was spent abroad; in many parts of the continent, France, Holland, Denmark, Italy, Germany, &c. This part of his history has been so far veiled in considerable obscurity, and incidents of it misrepresented. Some better knowledge of it than we now possess, must be, I think, recoverable. A man of Sydney's birth, active temperament, and distinguished abilities, must have been spoken of in many letters and memoirs of that time. No doubt anecdotes and traits of character may be found in cotemporary French, Italian, German, and Scandinavian literature.

But with a library so vast to examine, no single man could ever feel sure that nothing was overlooked. Other explorers, working for themselves, may have hit upon statements or anecdotes of the greatest value to me. May I ask any such to oblige me by references to any works in which the information that I seek is to be found; sent either to "N. & Q.," or to my address as under?

HEPWORTH DIXON.

84. St. John's Wood Terrace.

OLD IRISH TALES.

A black-letter duodecimo, printed in London in 1584, under the anomalous title of Beware the Cat, was advertised for sale in one of Thorpe's Catalogues a few years back, at a price of seven guineas. The copy was believed to be unique; it had been in the libraries of several book collectors, and among others of Mr. Heber, who considered it the most curious volume illustrative of the times, in all his vast collection. It appears, by the short abstract of contents, that the book contains some curious notices of Ireland and Irishmen; an "account" is given "of the civil wars in Ireland, by Mackmorro, and all the rest of the wild Irish lords." This hero was probably Art Kavanagh, "the Mac-Morrogh" (the hereditary title of the chief of the Leinster septs) whose rebellions were, on two occasions, the cause of Richard II.'s two great expeditions to Ireland. Then follows the tale of "Fitz-Harris and the Prior of Tintern Abbey." Fitz-Harris, or Fitz-Henry, was an Anglo-Irish baron, who resided in the south of the county of Wexford, in the neighbourhood of a convent, which having been founded by Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, and supplied with monks from Tintern in Monmouthshire, was named after the parent monastery. The Fitz-Harris's are said to have descended from Meyler Fitz-Henry, the "indomitor totius gentis Hiberniæ," but they became, to quote Spenser's adage current of the Anglo-Irish of his day,

they "matched with the Kavanaghs of Carlow, and held with them," and thus became involved in the interminable feuds of the native tribes, and, like them, they left their estates to their bastards.

"The fashion of the Irish wars at that time" is there described, but probably not more graphically than in Derrick's quaint doggrel verses. "The Irish Churle's Tale" is next told; the churl was the husbandman, the "Protectionist" of the day, who doubtless could tell many piteous tales of oppression, rapine, and ravishment, whose only hope of protection lay in acting as a sort of sponge to some "wild lord" (who would guard him from being plundered by others, that he might himself devour his substance), and whose "tenant-right" cry of that day was "spend me, but defend me."

The volume affirms that "the wild Irishmen were better than we in reverencing their religion:" the verb is used in the preterimperfect tense. "The old Irish diet was to dine at night;" this is even a stranger assertion. Higden, in his Polychronicon, declares of the Irish clergy,

That glorious chanson à boire, commencing

must have been composed in Ireland. If the old black-letter book had said that the Irish got their dinner at night, it would have been nearer the truth, for the larders of the Milesian chiefs in the neighbourhood of the English pale were often supplied by the nocturnal marauds of their cattle-lifters. However, I see that Stanihurst writes that the Irish dined in winter before day, and in summer about the seventh hour.

Can any of your readers say in whose possession this book is now? I was informed that it was purchased by a dignitary of Cambridge University.

H. F. H.

Wexford.

POLITICAL PAMPHLETS.

The loan of the following works is much desired by a gentleman who has in vain tried to find them in the British Museum, or to purchase them. They belong to a class of books which being of little money-value are generally wasted by booksellers, rarely or never inserted in their catalogues:—

A Collection of Letters on Government, Liberty and the Constitution, which appeared from the time Lord Bute was appointed First Lord of the Treasury to the Death of Lord Egremont. 3 vols. [possibly 4], published in 1774 by Almon.

A Collection of esteemed Political Tracts, which appeared 1764, 5, and 6. 3 or 4 vols. published 1766 or 7, by Almon.

A Collection of most Interesting Political Letters which appeared in the Public Papers from 1763 to 1765. 3 or 4 vols. Almon, 1766.

The Briton (a Periodical). 1763.

The Auditor (a Periodical). 1763.

A Collection of all Remarkable and Personal Passages in the Briton, North Briton, and Auditor. Almon, 1765.

The Expostulation, a Poem. Bingley, 1768.

Vox Senatus. 1771.

Two Remarkable Letters of Junius and The Freeholder. 1770.

Junius's Letters. Wheble, 1771 (not 1772 or 1775).

Wilkes's Speeches. 3 vols.

The Editor of "N. & Q." has undertaken to take charge of them, and when done with to return them safely to their respective owners.

Q. N.

Minor Queries.

The Book of Nicholas Leigh.

—Some twenty or thirty years since a gentleman named Abraham Roth resided in London, having in his possession a manuscript of the early part of the seventeenth century bearing the above title, and relating to the history and internal polity of the town of Kilkenny. It is frequently quoted by Dr. Ledwich in his Antiquities of Kilkenny and Irishtown. Mr. Roth subsequently deceased in London, and it is believed his books and other effects were sold there.

Qy. Is The Book of Nicholas Leigh known to any of the correspondents or readers of "N. & Q.?"

JAMES GRAVES.

Kilkenny.

Gabriel Harvey's Notes on Chaucer.

—It appears by a note of Park's in Warton's Poetry, vol. iii. p. 86. (ed. 1840), that Bishop Percy had in his possession a copy of Speght's Chaucer, in which was a note by Gabriel Harvey to the effect that some of Heywood's Epigrams were supposed to be "conceits and devices of pleasant Sir Thomas More." Is the copy of Speght in existence, and where? If it contain many notes by Harvey, they would probably prove to be worth recording.

PHILO CHAUCER.

The Cholera and the Electrometer.

—During the late visitation of cholera, observations were made tending to establish a relation between the state of the Electrometer and the quotidian fluctuations of the disease.

Where can any authentic account of these observations be found, and what is the name of the observer?

T. J.

Terre Isaac.

—Can I be referred to any source of information respecting Isaac, mentioned in Domesday Book as holding lands in Norfolk of the gift of the Conqueror, and whether he had any descendants?

G. A. C.

Daundelyon.

—One of the earliest Queries kindly inserted in Vol. i., p. 92., requesting information regarding the legend and tradition of the tenor bell at Margate, being still unanswered, be pleased to append as a note the following lines from a descriptive poem called The Margate Guide, 1797, by the late Mr. Zechariah Cozens, an esteemed local antiquary, now buried within its sound:

"Note.—Concerning this bell the inhabitants repeat this traditionary rhyme:

E. D.

Mallet's Death and Burial.

—Where did Mallet the poet die, and where was he buried?

F.

Classical Quotations in Grotius.

—I have been told that Grotius quoted from memory alone when writing his Commentary; is this possible, considering the number and variety of the quotations? One thing is certainly very remarkable, and goes some way towards favouring this notion, viz., in many of the quotations there are mistakes,—words are inserted, or rather substituted for others, but without destroying the sense. This I have frequently observed myself; but the observation applies only, as far as I know, to the poetical quotations;—may he not have quoted the poetry from memory, and, for the prose, had recourse to the original?

L. G.

The Authorised Version.

—You have allowed some discussion in your pages on what I consider the certainly incorrect translation of Heb. xiii. 4. in our authorised version. I do not think it at all desirable to encourage a captious spirit of fault-finding towards that admirable translation, but fair criticism is assuredly allowable. Can any of your correspondents account for the rendering in Heb. x. 23. of τὴν ὁμολογίαν τῆς ἐλπίδος by "the profession of our faith?"

I have never seen any reply to a former Query of mine (Vol. ii., p. 217.) about the omission of the word "holy" in the article on the Church in the Nicene Creed in all our Prayer-books. It is not omitted in the original Greek and Latin.

J. M. W.

Rector's Chancel.

—Would you, or one of your correspondents, kindly inform me how the following case has been settled; it is one which in all probability has often arisen, but I have not yet been able to learn anything about it that is satisfactory.

In old times when a church became too small for the parish, the ordinary custom was to build an additional part to it in such a way that the old church, after the alteration, formed an aisle to the new part, which henceforth because the nave. Until the Reformation the altar in the old chancel would probably remain after the new chancel was built, and be used as an inferior altar, while the new altar would be used for high mass; under these circumstances the rector's right in the chancel would probably remain untouched, and his obligation to keep it in repair undisputed. But when, at the Reformation, all but high altars were taken away, which chancel was accounted the rector's, the new, or the old, or both? This question has just arisen in an adjoining county.

H. C. K.

—— Rectory, Hereford.

Duchess of Lancaster.

—Can any of your correspondents inform us whether the Queen is really Duchess of Lancaster? The Lancastrians have always rather prided themselves on that circumstance, but some wise person has lately made the discovery that William III. never created himself Duke of Lancaster, nor any of the Hanoverian dynasty, and that consequently the title remains with the Stuarts, although the duchy privileges belong to the Crown. Is this really the truth?

A LANCASTRIAN.

Cheke's Clock.

—Strype, in his Life of Sir John Cheke, mentions that among other presents bestowed on him by the king, was his own clock, which after his death came into the possession of Dr. Edwin Sandys, Bishop of Worcester, who, about 1563, gave it as a new year's gift to Cecil the Secretary. Can any of your readers give a description of this clock, or what became of it after coming into Cecil's possession?

C. B. T.

Ruthven Family.

—In a pedigree by Vincent in the College of Arms, two sons of Patrick Ruthven are to be found, the first called Cames de Gowrie, the second Robert Ruthven; they were alive in 1660. Can any of your correspondents tell me what became of them?

S. C.

"The Man in the Almanack."

—Will some kind correspondent favour me with an elucidation of the phrase "Man in the Almanack," which occurs in the following quotation from the epilogue to Nat. Lee's Gloriana, or the Court of Augustus Cæsar?

Has this any reference to the practice of "pricking for fortunes?"

HENRY CAMPKIN.

Arkwright.

—What is the origin of this name? It might have been the family name of the patriarch Noah, but I suppose it hardly goes so far back.

M.

Burial, Law respecting.

—Is there in existence any law rendering burial in consecrated ground compulsory? Most people have a strong desire to receive such interment; but some few might prefer to have their mortal remains deposited in some loved spot, far away from other graves,—in a scene where many happy hours had been passed. It would be a very unusual thing; but supposing such a desire to exist, could its execution be prevented? It is recorded that Manasseh, King of Judah, "slept with his fathers, and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the gardens of Uzza."—2 Kings xxi. 18.

SAMPSON ANRAMENII.

Mr. Borrow's Muggletonians.

—If this gentleman correctly states (in his Lavengro) that a minister of the Antinomians, with whom he was formerly acquainted, was otherwise called a Muggletonian, the inconceivable fact of that wretched maniac of the seventeenth century (whose portrait indicates the most hopeless fatuity) still having believers, must be a fact. But I marvel how Antinomianism should arise out of the teaching of an Unitarian, as Muggleton was. Can Mr. B. have confounded Muggleton with Huntington?

A. N.

Puritan Antipathy to Custard.

—Can any of your readers inform me why "custard" was held in such abomination by the Puritans?—See Ken's Life, by W. L. Bowles, vol. i. p. 143.

W. N.

"Corruptio Optimi," &c.

—To what source is the well-known saying, "Corruptio optimi fit pessima," to be traced?

Hs.

Miss Fanshawe's Enigma.

—The enigma of Miss Catherine Fanshawe on the letter "H" is so good, as to make me wish much to see the other by the same lady, to which E. H. Y. refers in your Number of Vol. v., p. 258. If E. H. Y. could procure a copy, and send it to you for publication, he would probably oblige many besides

E. S. S. W.

Winton.

Mary Ambree.

—Is there any good account (not scattered notices) of Mary Ambree?

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

Minor Queries Answered.

Sir W. Stanley.

—I find in one of the usual history books in use that Sir William Stanley, who was beheaded for high treason, for saying "If Perkin Wabbeck is son of Edward IV., I will supply him with five hundred men," was executed in the third year of Henry VII. Now, in a memorandum of the time in a Horæ B. Virg. in my possession, it states:

"Memorandum: Quod die lune xvio die Februarii anno Regis Henrici Septimi Decimo Willius Stanley, Miles, Camerarius regis prædicti receptus fuit apud Turrim London, et ductus usque scaffold et ibidem fuit decapitatus. Johannes Warner et Nicholas Allwyn tunc vic. London."

Could you help me to the true account?

JOHN C. JACKSON.

Cross House, Ilminster, Somerset.

[The memorandum in the Horæ agrees with the date given in Fabyan's Chronicle, p. 685., edit. 1811, viz. February 16, 1495. Fuller, in his Worthies, also states that Allwyn and Warner were sheriffs of London in the tenth year of Henry VII.]

Mires—Somerlayes.

—In the appointment of a pinder for the town of Hunstanton, Norfolk, dated 1644, these two words occur: "No person shall feed any mires with any beast," &c. Mire is clearly the same as meer, i.e. the strip of unploughed ground bounding adjacent fields. "None shall tye any of their cattle upon anothers somerlayes without leave of the owner," &c. I suppose somerlaye to be the same as somerland, explained by Halliwell to mean, land lying fallow during summer. I find neither word in Forby's Glossary.

C. W. G.

[Grass laid down for summer pasture, is called in Kent, lay fields; doubtless somerlayes are such. Probably a corruption of lea, the lesura of Latin charters.]

Wyned.

—In an old precedent (seventeenth century) of a lease of a house, I find the words "divers parcels of wyned waynescott windowes and other implements of household." What is wyned?

C. W. G.

[A friend, who is extremely well versed in early records, and to whom we referred this Query, observes, "I have never met with the word, nor can I find a trace of it anywhere. I suspect that the querist has misread his MS., and that, in the original, it is payned, for paned. In the slovenly writing of that period many a form of pa might be mistaken for w. The upstroke of the p is often driven high. I have seen many a pa like this instance."]

Cromwell Family.

—Two leaves, paged from 243 to 246, cuttings from an old magazine, seemingly having dates down to 1772, entitled "Account of the Male Descendants of Oliver Cromwell. By the Rev. Mr. Hewling Luson, of Lowestoft, in Suffolk. In a Letter to Dr. Brooke." [Concluded from our last, page 197.] The next article commencing, "On the Knowledge of Mankind. From Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son," having lately come into my hands, I shall feel greatly obliged by being informed through "N. & Q.," or otherwise, where may I meet with the previous part of such account of the Cromwell family, or the title and date of such magazine?

W. P. A.

[Mr. Luson's letter to Dr. Brooke, referred to by our correspondent, will be found in Hughes's Letters, edited by Duncombe, vol. ii. Appendix, p. xxxii. edit. 1773.]

Beholden.

—Is the word "beholden" a corruption of the Dutch "gehouden," or is it a past participle from the verb "to behold?" If the latter, how comes it from signifying "seen," to denote "indebted"?

A. F. S.

[If our correspondent had referred to Richardson's Dictionary, his difficulty would have been removed on reading this derivation and definition:

"Angl.-Saxon, Be-healdan, Be-haldan, Healdan. Dutch, Behouden, tenere, servare, observare. To keep or hold (sc. the eye fixed upon any object), to look at it, to observe, to consider."]

Men of Kent and Kentish Men.

—The natives of Kent are often spoken of in these different terms. Will you be so good as to inform me what is the difference between these most undoubtedly distinctive people?

B. M.

[A very old man, in our younger days, whose informant lived temp. Jac. II., used to explain it thus:—When the Conqueror marched from Dover towards London, he was stopped at Swansconope, by Stigand, at the head of the "Men of Kent," with oak boughs "all on their brawny shoulders," as emblems of peace, on condition of his preserving inviolate the Saxon laws and customs of Kent; else they were ready to fight unto the death for them. The Conqueror chose the first alternative: hence we retain our Law of Gavelkind, &c., and hence the inhabitants of the part of Kent lying between Rochester and London, being "invicti," have ever since been designated as "Men of Kent," while those to the eastward, through whose district the Conqueror marched unopposed, are only "Kentish Men." This is hardly a satisfactory account; but we give it as we had it.

We suspect the real origin of the terms to have been, a mode of distinguishing any man whose family had been long settled in the county (from time immemorial, it may be), from new settlers; the former being genuine "Men of Kent," the latter only "Kentish." The monosyllabic name of the county probably led to this play upon the word, which could not have been achieved in the "shires."]

Bee-Park.

—This term is used in Cornish title-deeds. What species of inclosure does it express? Do any such exist now?

C. W. G.

[We have never met with the word, and can only guess at random that it is quasi "the bee-croft," the enclosure where the bees were kept; always remembering that formerly, when honey was an article of large consumption, immense stores of these insects must have been kept. In royal inventories we have "honey casks" enumerated to an immense amount.]

A great Man who could not spell.

—Of what great historical character is it recorded, that though by no means deficient in education, he never could succeed in spelling correctly? I have an impression of having read this in some biography a few years since, and I think it was a great military commander, who always committed this error in his despatches, though a man of acknowledged high talents and well-informed mind, and conscious of this defect, which he had endeavoured in vain to overcome.

SAMPSON ANRAMENII.

[Does our correspondent allude to the Duke of Marlborough, who was avowedly "loose in his cacography" as Lord Duberly has it?]

Glass-making in England.

—The appearance in your pages of several very interesting Notes on the First Paper-mill in England leads me to beg space for a few Queries on another subject of Art-History.

1. When, where, and under what circumstances, was the first manufactory for glass established in England?

2. What writer first notices the introduction or use of glass, in our island?

3. Are there any works of authority published devoted to this material? If so, may I request some of your learned contributors to direct me to them, or, in fact, to any good notice of its early history?

JOSIAH CATO.

5. Holland Place, North Brixton.

[Fosbroke, in his Encyclopædia of Antiquities, vol. i. p. 397., has given some curious notices of the early manufacture of this useful article. The art of glass-making was known to the early Egyptians, as is fully discussed in a Memoir by M. Boudet, in the Description de l'Egypt, vol. ix. Antiq. Mémoires. See also the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, vol. viii. p. 469, which contains many historical notices, from a neat and concise sketch published by Mr. Pellatt, of the firm of Pellatt and Green, whose works are scientifically conducted on a scale of considerable magnitude.]

Eustace.

—Was Eustachius Monachus ever in Guernsey?

MORTIMER COLLINS.

[It is very probable. Some of the crew of this renowned pirate were captured at Sark. See Michel's Introduction to the Roman d'Eustache le Moine, 8vo. 1834, where copies of most of our records, and of the passages in our early historians, in which Eustace is mentioned, have been collected with great care.]

Mas.

—I inquired what was the meaning of Mass Robert Fleming, and I partly answer my own question, by saying that Cameronian preachers were so styled, or rather Mas with one "s" before their Christian names,—as Mas David Williamson, Mas John King: see John Creichton's Memoirs. But I ask again, how the title arises, and whether it is short for master?

A. N.

[Nares, in his Glossary, has given several examples from our earlier dramatists in which Mas is used as a colloquial abbreviation of Master, the plural being Masse.]

John Le Neve.

—Who was John Le Neve, the compiler and editor of the Fasti Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ, fol. 1716? He has been, though erroneously, supposed to be a brother of Peter Le Neve, Norroy. When did he die?

G.

[John Le Neve was born in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, Dec. 27, 1679. In his twelfth year he was sent to Eton School, and at the age of sixteen became a fellow-commoner of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained three years. He married Frances, the second daughter of Thomas Boughton, of King's Cliffe, in Northamptonshire, by whom he had four sons and four daughters. He died about 1722. Mr. Lysons, in Environs of London, says he had a house at Stratford, Bow. (See Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 128.) In Cole's MSS., vol. i. p. 143., is the following curious note respecting his Fasti:—"I was told by my worthy friend and benefactor, Browne Willis, Esq., that though Mr. John Le Neve has the name and credit of the Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, yet the real compiler of that most useful book was Bishop Kennett." The Bodleian contains a copy of this work, with MS. additions by Bishop Tanner.]

Meaning of Crow.

—At page 437. of Lloyd's Statesmen and Favourites of England is a letter from Queen Elizabeth addressed to the mother of Sir John Norris, written upon the occasion of the death of the said Sir John, which she commences thus: "My own Crow." This appears to me a very curious mode of address, particularly from a queen to a subject, and seems to mark a more than ordinary intimacy between the correspondents, for it has been suggested to me that it is still used as a term of endearment, in the same way as "duck," &c. are used: I have, however, never before met with it myself, and have sent you a Note of it now, not only because I consider it curious that the queen should thus write, but because I hope that some of your correspondents may be able to suggest how this word came to be thus used.

JOHN BRANFILL HARRISON.

Maidstone.

[Queen Elizabeth had pet-names, or nick-names, for all the people of her court. Burghley was her "Spirit," Mountjoy her "Kitchen-maid;" and so of many others.]