Notes and Queries, Number 24, April 13, 1850

Various

Notes and Queries, Number 24, April 13, 1850

NOTES

SKINNER'S LIFE OF MONK

Reading for a different purpose in the domestic papers of Charles II.'s reign in the State Paper Office, I came upon a letter from Thomas Skinner, dated Colchester, Jan. 30. 1677, of which I will give you what I have preserved in my notes; and that is all that is of any interest.

It is a letter to the Secretary of State, asking for employment, and recommending himself by what he had done for Monk's memory. He had previously written some account of Monk, and he describes an interview with Lord Bath (the Sir John Grenville of the Restoration); in which his Lordship expressed his approval of the book.

"He [Lord Bath] professed himself so well satisfied, that he was pleased to tell me there were two persons, viz. the King and the Duke of Albemarle, that would find some reason to reflect upon me."

Lord Bath gives Skinner a letter to the Duke of Albemarle (Monk's son), who receives him very kindly, and gives him a handsome present.

"I have since waited on his Grace again, and then he proposed to me (whether upon his own inclination or the suggestion of some about him) to use my poor talent in writing his father's life apart in the universal language; to which end, he would furnish me with all his papers that belonged to his late father and his secretaries. The like favour it pleased my Lord of Bath to offer me from his own papers, some whereof I had a sight of in his study."

Now if any of your readers who are interested in Monk's biography, will refer to the author's and editor's prefaces of Skinner's Life of Monk, edited in 1723, by the Rev. William Webster; and to Lord Wharncliffe's introduction to his Translation of M. Guizot's Essay on Monk, they will see the use of this letter of Skinner's.

1. The life is ascribed to Skinner only on circumstantial evidence, which is certainly strong, but to which this letter of Skinner's is a very important edition. This letter is indeed direct proof, and the first we have, of Skinner's having been employed on a life of Monk, in which he had access to his son's and his relative Lord Bath's papers; and there can be no serious doubt that the life edited by Mr. Webster was a result of his labours.

2. This letter would show that Skinner was not on intimate terms with Monk, nor so closely connected with him as would be implied in Mr. Webster's and Morant's, the historian of Colchester, description of him, that he was a physician to Monk. Else he would not have required Lord Bath's letter of introduction to the son. Lord Wharncliffe has, I have no doubt, hit the mark, when he says that Skinner was probably Monk's Colchester apothecary. Skinner says himself, in his preface, that "he had the honour to know Monk only in the last years of his life."

3. The previous account of Monk, which gained Lord Bath's approval, and led to Monk's son soliciting him to write a life, is probably Skinner's addition of a third part to Bate's Elenchus Motuum, to which he also probably refers in the opening of his Preface to the Life of Monk:—

"I have heretofore published something of a like nature with the following sheets, though in another language, wherein several things, through want of better information, were imperfectly described."

4. It appears from Skinner's letter, that his original intention was to write a Life in Latin. Webster edited the Life which we have, from a copy in English found in the study of Mr. Owen, late curate at Bocking in Essex, and supposed to be in Skinner's handwriting; and he had seen another copy, agreeing literally with the former, which had been transcribed by Shelton, formerly rector of St. James's in Colchester; and which, after Mr. Shelton's death, became the property of Mr. Great, an apothecary in Colchester. (Webster published in 1723.)

Now, Query, as these may have been copies of a translation, can any Colchester reader help to settle affirmatively or negatively the question of a Latin Life of Monk by Skinner?

I add two other Queries:—

It appears from a passage in the Life (p. 333.), that Skinner appended, or intended to append, a collection of papers:—

"As appears from His Majesty's royal grant or warrant to him (Sir John Grenville), which we have transcribed from the original, and have added in the collection at the end of this history."

Webster says he never could get any account of this collection of papers. Can Colchester now produce any information about them?

Can any of your readers give any information about those papers of the second Duke of Albemarle, and of Grenville, Earl of Bath, to which Skinner had access? Lord Bath's papers were probably afterwards in the hands of his nephew Lord Lansdowne, who vindicated Monk in answer to Burnet.

W.D. CHRISTIE.

CUNNINGHAM'S LIVES OF EMINENT ENGLISHMEN.—WHITGIFT AND CARTWRIGHT

In a modern publication, entitled Lives of Eminent Englishmen, edited by G.G. Cunningham, 8 vols. 8vo. Glasgow, 1840, we meet with a memoir of Archbishop Whitgift, which contains the following paragraph:—

"While Whitgift was footing to an archbishopric, poor Cartwright was consigned to poverty and exile; and at length died in obscurity and wretchedness. How pleasant would it have been to say that none of his sufferings were inflicted by his great antagonist, but that he was treated by him with a generous magnanimity! Instead of this, Whitgift followed him through life with inflexible animosity."—Cunningham's Lives, ii. 212.

Mr. Cunningham gives no authority for these statements; but I will furnish him with my authorities for the contradiction of them.

"After some years (writes Walton, in his Life of Hooker), the Doctor [Whitgift] being preferred to the see, first of Worcester and then of Canterbury, Mr. Cartwright, after his share of trouble and imprisonment (for setting up new presbyteries in divers places against the established order), having received from the Archbishop many personal favours, retired himself to a more private living, which was at Warwick, where he became master of an hospital, and lived quietly and grew rich;… the Archbishop surviving him but one year, each ending his days in perfect charity with the other."

To the same effect is the statement in Strype, which I borrow from Dr. Zouch's second edition of Walton's Lives, p. 217.:—

"Thomas Cartwright, the Archbishop's old antagonist, was alive in 1601, and grew rich at his hospital at Warwick, preaching at the chapel there, saith my author, very temperately, according to the promise made by him to the Archbishop; which mildness of his some ascribed to his old age and more experience. But the latter end of next year he deceased. And now, at the end of Cartwright's life, to take our leave of him with a fairer character, it is remarkable what a noble and learned man, Sir H. Yelverton, writes of some of his last words—'that he seriously lamented the unnecessary troubles he had caused in the Church, by the schism he had been the great fomenter of, and wished to begin his life again, that he might testify to the world the dislike he had of his former ways;' and in this opinion he died."

I find it stated, moreover, on the authority of Sir G. Paul's Life of Whitgift, that Cartwright acknowledged the generosity of Whitgift, and admitted "his bond of duty to the Archbishop to be so much the straiter, as it was without any desert of his own."—Carwithen's History of the Church of England, i. 527. 2nd edit.

Lest this should not suffice to convict Mr. Cunningham of error, I will adduce two extracts from The Life of Master Thomas Cartwright, written by the Presbyterian Sa. Clarke, in 1651, and appended to his Martyrologie.

"About the same time [viz. 1580], the Earl of Leicester preferred him [Cartwright] to be master of his hospital at Warwick, which place was worth to him about one hundred pounds."—Clarke, p. 370.

"For riches, he sought them not; yea, he rejected many opportunities whereby he might have enriched himself. His usual manner was, when he had good sums of gold sent him, to take only one piece, lest he should seem to slight his friend's kindness, and to send back the rest with a thankful acknowledgement of their love and his acceptance of it; professing that, for that condition wherein God had set him, he was as well furnished as they for their high and great places."—Ib. p. 372.

So much for the "poverty," the "wretchedness," of Cartwright, and the "inflexible animosity" of Whitgift. The very reverse of all this is the truth.

J.K.

INEDITED LETTER OF THE DUKE OF MONMOUTH

Several notices of the Duke of Monmouth having appeared in "NOTES AND QUERIES," you may be glad to have the following letter, which I copied literatim some years ago in the State Paper Office from the domestic papers of the year 1672. The letter was written to Lord Arlington, then Secretary of State. Monmouth was at the time commanding the English force serving under Louis XIV. against the Dutch, and was in his twenty-third year. Mr. Ross had been his tutor; and was at this time, I believe, employed in the Secretary of State's office.

"ffrom the Camp nigh"Renalle the 29 Jun

"Mr Ross has tolld mee how mutch I am obliged to you for your kindness wch I am very sensible of and shall try to sho it upon all occations. I will asur you the effects of your kindness will make me live within compas for as long as I receave my mony beforehand I shall do it wth a greadell of easse.

"I wont trouble you wth news becaus Mr. Aston will tell you all ther is. I will try to instrokt him all as well as I can. I wont trouble you no longer, only I doe asur you ther is nobody mor your humble servant than I am.

"MONMOUTH."

C.

LYDGATE AND COVERDALE, AND THEIR BIOGRAPHERS

Dan John Lydgate, as Warton truly observes, was not only the poet of his monastery, but of the world in general. Yet how has he been treated by his biographers? Ritson, in his Bibliographia Poetica, says, "he died at an advanced age, after 1446." Thomson, in his Chronicles of London Bridge, 2nd edition, p. 11., says, "Lydgate died in the year 1440, at the age of sixty;" and again, at p. 164. of the same work, he says, "Lydgate was born about 1375, and died about 1461!" Pitt says that he died in 1482; and the author of the Suffolk Garland, p. 247., prolongs his life (evidently by a typographical blunder), to about the year 1641! From these conflicting statements, it is evident that the true dates of Lydgate's birth and decease are unknown. Mr. Halliwell, in the preface to his Selection from the Minor Poems of John Lydgate, arrives at the conclusion from the MSS. which remain of his writings, that he died before the accession of Edward IV., and there appears to be every adjunct of external probability; but surely, if our record offices were carefully examined, some light might be thrown upon the life of this industrious monk. I am not inclined to rest satisfied with the dictum of the Birch MS., No. 4245. fo. 60., that no memorials of him exist in those repositories.

The only authenticated circumstances in Lydgate's biography (excepting a few dates to poems), are the following:—He was ordained subdeacon, 1389; deacon, 1393; and priest, 1397. In 1423 he left the Benedictine Abbey of Bury, in Suffolk, to which he was attached, and was elected prior of Hatfield Brodhook; but the following year had license to return to his monastery again. These dates are derived from the Register of Abbott Cratfield, preserved among the Cotton MSS. Tiber, B. ix.

My object in calling the attention of your readers to the state of Lydgate's biography is, to draw forth new facts. Information of a novel kind may be in their hands without appreciation as to its importance.

I take this opportunity of noticing the different dates given of Myles Coverdale's death.

Strype says he died 20th May, 1565, (Annals of Reformation, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 43., Oxf. ed.), although elsewhere he speaks of his as being alive in 1566. Neale (Hist of Pur., vol. i. p. 185.) says, the 20th May, 1567. Fuller (Church Hist., p. 65. ed. 1655) says he died on the 20th of January, 1568, and "Anno 1588," in his Worthies of England, p. 198., ed. 1662.

The following extract from "The Register of Burials in the Parish Church of St. Bartholomew's by the Exchange" sets the matter at rest. "Miles Coverdall, doctor of divinity, was buried anno 1568., the 19th of February."

That the person thus mentioned in the register is Miles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, there can be no doubt, since the epitaph inscribed on the tomb-stone, copied in Stow's Survey, clearly states him to be so. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to observe that the date mentioned in the extract is the old style, and, therefore, according to our present computation, he was buried the 19th of February, 1569.

Can any of your correspondents throw any light upon the authorship of a work frequently attributed to Myles Coverdale, and thus entitled, "A Brieff discours off the Troubles begonne at Frankford in Germany, Anno Domini, 1554. Abowte the Booke off common prayer and Ceremonies, and continued by the Englishe Men theyre, to the ende off Q. Maries Raigne, in the which discours, the gentle reader shall see the verry originall and beginninge off all the contention that hathe byn, and what was the cause off the same?" A text from "Marc 4." with the date MDLXXV. Some copies are said to have the initials "M.C." on the title-page, and the name in full, "Myles Coverdale," at the end of the preface; but no notice is taken of this impression in the excellent introductory remarks prefixed by Mr. Petheram to the reprint of 1846. If the valuable work was really written by Myles Coverdale (and it is much in his style), it must have been interspersed with remarks by another party, for in the preface, signed, as it is said by Coverdale, allusion is made to things occuring in 1573, four years after his death.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

QUERIES

SPECULUM EXEMPLORUM:—EPISTOLA DE MISERIA CURATORUM

Who was the compiler of the Speculum Exemplorum, printed for the first time at Deventer, in 1481? A copy of the fourth edition, Argent, 1490, does not afford any information about this matter; and I think that Panzer (v. 195.) will be consulted in vain. Agreeing in opinion with your correspondent "GASTROS" (No. 21. p. 338.) that a querist should invariably give an idea of the extent of his acquaintance with the subject proposed, I think it right to say, that I have examined the list of authors of Exempla, which is to be found in the appendix to Possevin's Apparatus Sacer, tom. i. sig. β 2., and that I have read Ribadeneira's notice of the improvements made in this Speculum by the Jesuit Joannes Major.

Who was the writer of the Epistola de Miseria Curatorum? My copy consists of eight leaves, and a large bird's-cage on the verse of the last leaf is evidently the printer's device. Seemiller makes mention of an Augsburg edition of this curious tract. (Biblioth. Acad. Ingolstad. Incunab. typog. Fascic. ii. p. 142. Ingolst. 1788.)

R.G.

THE SECOND DUKE OF ORMONDE

The review of Mr. Wright's England under the House of Hanover, illustrated by the Caricatures and Satires of the Day, given in the Athenæum (No. 1090.), cites a popular ballad on the flight and attainder of the second Duke of Ormonde, as taken down from the mouth of an Isle of Wight fishmonger. This review elicited from a correspondent (Athenæum, No. 1092.) another version of the same ballad as prevalent in Northumberland. I made a note of these at the time; and was lately much interested at receiving from an esteemed correspondent (the Rev. P. Moore, Rochenon, co. Kilkenny), a fragment of another version of the same ballad, which he (being at the time ignorant of the existence of any other version of the song) had taken down from the lips of a very old man of the neighbourhood, viz.:—

"My name is Ormond; have you not heard of me?For I have lately forsaken my own counterie;I fought for my life, and they plundered my estate,For being so loyal to Queen Anne the great.Queen Anne's darling, and cavalier's delight,And the Presbyterian crew, they shall never have their flight.I am afraid of my calendry; my monasteries are all sold,And my subjects are bartered for the sake of English gold.But, as I am Ormond, I vow and declare,I'll curb the heartless Whigs of their wigs, never fear."

I do not quote the versions given in the Athenæum, but, on a comparison, it will be seen that they all must have been derived from the same original.

The success of your queries concerning the Duke of Monmouth impel me to propose a few concerning the almost as unfortunate, and nearly as celebrated, second Duke of Ormonde. Many scraps of traditionary lore relative to the latter nobleman must linger in and about London, where he was the idol of the populace, as well as the leader of what we should now call the "legitimist" party.

With your leave. I shall therefore propose the following Queries, viz.:—

1. Who was the author of the anonymous life of the second Duke of Ormonde, published in one volume octavo, some years after his attainder?

2. Was the ballad, of which the above is a fragment, printed at the time; and if so, does it exist?

3. What pamphlets, ballads, or fugitive pieces, were issued from the press, or privately printed, on the occasion of the Duke's flight and subsequent attainder?

4. Does any contemporary writer mention facts or incidents relative to the matter in question, between the period of the accession of George I., and the Duke's final departure from his residence at Richmond?

5. Does any traditionary or unpublished information on the subject exist in or about London or Richmond.

JAMES GRAVES.

Kilkenny.

MAYORS.—WHAT IS THEIR CORRECT PREFIX?

I wish to ask, of any of your numerous readers, what may be considered the most proper official prefix for Mayors, whether Right Worshipful or Worshipful? Opinions, I find, differ upon the subject. In the Secretary's Guide, 5th ed. p. 95. it is said that Mayors are Right Worshipful; the late Mr. Beltz, Lancaster Herald, was of opinion that they were Worshipful only; and Mr. Dod, the author of a work on Precedence, &c., in answer to an inquiry on the point, thought that Mayors of cities were Right Worshipful, and those of towns were only Worshipful. With due deference, however, I am rather inclined to think that all Mayors, whether of cities, or of towns, ought properly to be styled "the Right Worshipful" for the following reason:—all Magistrates are Worshipful, I believe, although not always in these days so designated, and a mayor being the chief magistrate ought to have the distinctive "Right" appended to his style. And this view of the subject derives some support from the fact of a difference being made with regard to the Aldermen of London (who are all of them magistrates), those who have passed the chair being distinguished as the Right Worshipful, whilst those below the chair are styled the worshipful only; thus showing that the circumstance of being Mayor is considered worthy of an especial distinction. Probably it may be said that custom is the proper guide in a case like this, but I believe that there is no particular custom in some towns, both prefixes being sometimes used, and more frequently none at all. It seems desirable, however, that some rule should be laid down, if possible, by common consent, that it may be understood in future what the appropriate Prefix is. I shall be glad if some of your heraldic or antiquarian readers will give their opinions, and if they know of any authorities, to quote them.

J.

QUEVEDO—SPANISH BULL-FIGHTS

The clear and satisfactory reply that "MELANION" received in No. 11. to his query on the contradictions in Don Quixote, tempts me to ask for some information respecting another standard work of Spanish literature, written by a cotemporary of the great Cervantes.

How is it, that in the Visions of Don Quevedo, a work which passes in review every amusement and occupation of the Spanish people, the national sport of bull-fighting remains entirely unnoticed?

The amusement was, I presume, in vogue during the 16th and 17th centuries; and the assignations made, and the intrugues carried on, within the walls of the amphitheatre would have supplied many an amusing, moralising penitent, male and female, to the shades below—the "fabulæ manes" with whom Quevedo held converse. As my copy of the Visions is an anonymous translation, and evidently far from being a first-rate one, I shall not be surprised if I receive as an answer,—"Mistaken as to your fact, read a better translation:" but as in spite of its manifold, glaring defects, I have no reason to suspect that the text is garbled, I think I may venture to send the query.

In "Vision 7." I find Nero accusing Seneca of having had the insolence to use the words, "I and my king." I have often heard of Henry VIII., Wolsey, and "Ego et rex meus;" but as I never heard Quevedo quoted as an illustration, I look upon this as one of the suspicious passages in my copy of his work.

C. FORBES.

Temple.

MINOR QUERIES

Gilbert Browne.—"G.C.B." is desirous of information respecting the family from which was descended Gilbert Browne of the Inner Temple, who died about a century ago, and was buried in North Mymms Church, Herts, where there is a monument to him (vide Clutterbuck's History); also as to the arms, crest, and motto, as borne by him, and whether he was in any way related to Michael Browne of Hampton Court, Herefordshire, who married Elizabeth Philippa, daughter of Lord Coningsby, as stated in Collins's Peerage. He also desires information as to any enrolment of arms previous to the Visitations, by which the bearings of families who had grants of land from the Conqueror may be ascertained; as, for instance, a family who began to decay about the end of the 14th century, having previously been of great rank and position.

The Badger.—Can any body point out to me any allusion, earlier than that in Sir T. Browne's Vulgar Errors, to the popular idea that the legs of the badger were shorter on one side than on the other, whence Mr. Macaulay says, "I think that Titus Oates was as uneven as a badger?"

W.R.F.

Ecclesiastical Year.—Note in an old parish register, A.D. 1706. "Annus Domini Secundum Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ Supputationem incipit 25to Mensis Martij."

Query the authority for this? the reason seems easy to define.

NATHAN.

Sir William Coventry.—Pepys mentions in his Diary, that Sir William Conventry kept a journal of public events. Is anything known of this journal? It is not known of at Longleat, where are several papers of Sir William Conventry's.

A MS. letter from Lord Weymouth to Sir Robert Southwell, giving an account of Sir W. Conventry's death, was sold at the sale of Lord de Clifford's papers in 1834. Can any of your readers inform me where this letter now is?

C.

Shrew.—Is shrew, as applied to the shrew-mouse, and as applied to a scolding woman, the same word? If so, what is its derivation?

The following derivations of the word are cited by Mr. Bell. Saxon, "Schreadan," to cut; "Schrif," to censure; "Scheorfian," to bite; "Schyrvan," to beguile. German, "Schreiven," to clamour; none of which, it is obvious, come very near to "Schreava," the undoubted Saxon origin of the word shrew.

Now it was a custom amongst our forefathers to endeavour to provide a remedy against the baneful influence of the shrew-mouse by plugging the wretched animal alive in a hole made in the body of an ash tree, any branch of which was thenceforth held to be possessed of a power to cure the disease caused by the mouse. It thereupon occurred to me that just as brock, a still existing name for the badger, is clearly from the Saxon broc, persecution, in allusion to the custom of baiting the animal; so schreava might be from schræf, a hollow, in allusion to the hole in the ash tree; and on that supposition I considered "shrew," as applied to a woman, to be a different word, perhaps from the German schreyen, to clamour. I have, however, found mentioned in Bailey's Dictionary a Teutonic word, which may reconcile both senses of "shrew,"—I mean beschreyen, to bewitch. I shall be obliged to any of your subscribers who will enlighten me upon the subject.