Notes and Queries, Number 23, April 6, 1850

One from "WILLIAM SPARROW SIMPSON," who says,—

"It is also described in the Oxford Architectural Society's Manual of Mon. Brasses, No. 6. pp. 6, 7. other examples of which occur at Rochester, Kent, and at Cobham, Surrey. A small plate of brass, in the possession of a friend, has on one side a group of children, and on the reverse the uplifted hands of an earlier figure."

And lastly, one from "A.P.H." (to which we cannot do ample justice, as we do not keep an engraver), from which we extract the following passages:—

"A friend of mine has a shield in his possession, taken from a slab, and which has been enamelled. It is of late date and rudely executed. On the back is seen the hands and breast of a small female figure, very nearly a century earlier in date. I can also remember an inscription in Cuxton Church, Kent, which was loose, and had another inscription on the back in the same manner.

"I am very much impressed with the idea that the destroyed brasses never had been used at all; but had been engraved, and then, from circumstances that of course we cannot hope to fathom, thrown on one side till the metal might be used for some other purpose. This, I think, is a more probable, as well as a more charitable explanation than the one usually given of the so-called palimpsest brasses."]

Chapels (No. 20. p. 333.).—As to the origin of the name, will you allow me to refer Mr. Gatty to Ducange's Glossary, where he will find much that is to his purpose.

As to its being "a legal description," I will not undertake to give an opinion without a fee; but I will mention a fact which may assist him in forming one. I believe that fifty years ago the word Chapel was very seldom used among those who formed what was termed the "Dissenting Interest;" that is, the three "denominations" of Independents, Baptists, and Presbyterians. But I well recollect hearing, from good authority, nearly, or quite, forty years ago, that an eminent barrister (whom I might now describe as a late learned judge), who was much looked up to by the dissenters as one of their body, had particularly advised that in all trust-deeds relating to places of dissenting worship, they should be called "Chapels." I do not know that he assigned any reason, but I know that the opinion was given, or communicated, to those who had influence; and, from my own observation, I believe that from about that time we must date the adoption of the term, which has now been long in general use.

I do not imagine that there was any idea of either assistance or opposition to the Church of England, in the mind of him who recommended, or those who adopted, the alteration, or that either of them expected or sought any thing by this measure but to obtain a greater security for property, or, rather, to avoid some real or imagined insecurity, found or supposed to attach to the form of description previously in use.

A BARRISTER.

Forlot, Forthlot (No. 20. p. 320.).—A measure of grain used throughout Scotland at present—query fourthlot. See Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language.

"Firlot; Fyrlot; Furlet.—A corn measure in S., the fourth part of a boll.

"Thay ordainit the boll to mat victual with, to be devidit in foure partis, videlicet, foure fyrlottis to contene a boll; and that fyrlot not to be maid efter the first mesoure, na efter the mesoure now usit, bot in middill mesoure betwixt the twa."—Acts Jac. l. 1526. c. 80. edit. 1566.

"—Ane furme, ane furlet,Ane pott, ane pek."Bannatyne Poems, p. 159.

Skinner derives it from A.-S. feower, quatuor; and lot, hlot, portio (the fourth part); Teut. "viertel."

J.S.

Loscop (No. 20. p. 319).—To be "Louecope-free" is one of the immunities granted to the Cinque Ports in their charters of Liberties.

Jeakes explains the term thus:—

"The Saxon word Cope (in Low Dutch still Kope or Koope), for trade or merchandising, makes this as much as to trade freely for love. So that by no kind of monopoly patent, or company or society of traders or merchants, the portsmen be hindered from merchandising; but freely and for love, be permitted to trade and traffick, even by such company of merchants, whenever it shall happen their concerns lie together."

In my MSS., and in the print of Jeakes, it is "Louecope," with which "Lofcope" may be readily identified; and f may easily be misread for s, especially if the roll be obscured.

If Jeakes's etymology of the word be correct, the inference would rather be that "Lovecope" was a tax for the goodwill of the port at which a merchant vessel might arrive; a "port duty" in fact, independent of "lastage" &c., chargeable upon every trader that entered the port, whatever her cargo might be. And the immunities granted to the portsmen were that they should be "port duty free."

I do not venture to offer this as any thing more than a mere guess. Among your contributors there are many more learned than myself in this branch of antiquarian lore, who will probably be able to give a more correct interpretation, and we shall feel obliged for any assistance that they can give us in elucidating the question.

"Lovecope" might perhaps be the designation of the association of merchants itself, to which Jeakes alludes; and the liberty of forming such association, with powers of imposing port duties, may have been dependent on special grant to any port by royal charter, such as that which forms the subject of your correspondent's communication.

After all, perhaps, "Lovecope" was the word for an association of merchants; and "Louecope-free" is to be freed from privileged taxation by this body.

L.B.L.

Smelling of the Lamp (No. 21. p. 335.).—"X." will find the expression Ιλλυχνιων οζειν attributed to Pytheas by Plutarch (Vit. Demosth., c. 8.).

J.E.B. MAYOR.

Anglo-Saxon MS. of Orosius (No. 20. p. 313.).—It may gratify Mr. Singer to be informed that the Lauderdale MS., formerly in the library at Ham House, is now preserved, with several other valuable manuscripts and books, in the library at Helmingham Hall, Suffolk, the seat of the Tollemache family.

M.

Golden Frog.—Ingenious as is the suggestion of "R.R." (No. 18. p. 282.), that Sir John Poley stuck a golden frog in his ear from his affection for tadpoles, I think "R.R.'s" "Rowley Poley" may be dismissed with the "gammon and spinach" of the amorous frog to which he alludes.

Conceiving that the origin of so singular a badge could hardly fail to be commemorated by some tradition in the family, I have made inquiry of one of Sir John Poley's descendants, and I regret to hear from him that "they have no authentic tradition respecting it, but that they have always believed that it had some connection with the service Sir John rendered in the Low Countries, where he distinguished himself much by his military achievements." To the Low Countries, then, the land of frogs, we must turn for the solution of the enigma.

Gastras.

Cambridge, March 9.

Sword of Charles I.—Mr. Planché inquires (No. 12. p. 183.), "When did the real sword of Charles the First's time, which, but a few years back, hung at the side of that monarch's equestrian figure at Charing Cross, disappear?"—It disappeared about the time of the coronation of Her present Majesty, when some scaffolding was erected about the statue, which afforded great facilities for removing the rapier (for such it was); and I always understood it found its way, by some means or other, to the Museum, so called, of the notoriously frolicsome Captain D–, where, in company with the wand of the Great Wizard of the North, and other well-known articles, it was carefully labelled and numbered, and a little account appended of the circumstances of its acquisition and removal.

John Street.

[Surely then Burke was right, and the "Age of Chivalry is past!"—Otherwise the idea of disarming a statue would never have entered the head of any Man of Arms, even in his most frolicsome of moods.]

John Bull.—Vertue MSS.—I always fancied that the familiar name for our countrymen, about the origin of which "R.F.H." inquires (No. 21. p. 336.), was adopted from Swift's History of John Bull, first printed in 1712; but I have no authority for saying so.

If the Vertue MSS. alluded to (No. 20. p. 319.) were ever returned by Mr. Steevens to Dr. Rawlinson, they may be in the Bodleian Library, to which the Doctor left all his collections, including a large mass of papers purchased by him long after Pepys' death, as he described it, "Thus et odores vendentibus."

These "Pepys papers," as far as I can recollect, were very voluminous, and relating to all sorts of subjects; but I saw them in 1824, and had only then time to examine and extract for publication portions of the correspondence.

Braybrooke.

Audley End, March 25.

Vertue's Manuscripts.—The MS. quoted under this title by Malone is printed entire, or rather all of it which refers to plays, by Mr. Peter Cunningham, in the Papers of the Shakspeare Society, vol. ii. p. 123., from an interleaved copy of Langbaine. Since the publication of that paper, the entries relating to Shakspeare's plays have been given from the original MS. in the Bodleian Library, in Halliwell's Life of Shakspeare, p. 272.

S.L.

Vertue's MSS. (No. 20. p. 319.) were in Horace Walpole's possession, bought by him, I think, of Vertue's widow; and his Anecdotes of Painting were chiefly composed from them, as he states, with great modesty, in his dedication and his preface. I do not see in the Strawberry-Hill Catalogue any notice of "Vertue's MSS.," though some vols. of his collection of engravings were sold.

C.

Lines attributed to Tom Brown.—In a book entitled Liber Facetiarum, being a Collection of curious and interesting Anecdotes, published at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, by D. Akenhead & Sons, 1809, the passage attributed to Tom Brown by your correspondent "J.T." is given to Zacharias Boyd.

The only reference given as authority for the account is the initials H.B.

"Zacharias Boyd, whose bust is to be seen over the entrance to the Royal College in Glasgow, while Professor in that university, translated the Old and New Testament into Scotch Metre; and, from a laudable zeal to disseminate religious knowledge among the lower classes of the community, is said to have left a very considerable sum to defray the expense of the said work, which, however, his executors never printed."

After a few specimens, the account goes on

"But the highest flight of his Muse appears in the following beautiful Alexandrine:

"And was not Pharaoh a saucy rascal?That would not let the children of Israel, their wivesAnd their little ones, their flocks and their herds, goOut into the wilderness forty daysTo eat the Pascal."H.B."

Speaking of Zachariah Boyd, Granger says, (vol. ii. p. 379.):

"His translation of the Scripture in such uncouth verse as to amount to burlesque, has been often quoted, and the just fame of a benefactor to learning has been obscured by that cloud of miserable rhymes. Candour will smile at the foible, but applaud the man.

"Macure, in his account of Glasgow, p. 223., informs us he lived in the reign of Charles I."

H.I.

Sheffield, March 9. 1850.

Passage in Frith's Works (No. 20. p. 319).—This passage should be read, as I suppose, "Ab inferiori ad suum superius confuse distribui."

It means that there would be confusion, if what is said distributively or universally of the lower, should be applied distributively or universally to the higher; or, in other words, if what is said universally of a species, should be applied universally to the genus that contains that and other species: e.g., properties that are universally found in the human species will not be found universally in the genus Mammalis, and universal properties of Mammalia wil not be universal over the animal kingdom.

T.J.

Martins, the Louvain Printer.—Your correspondent "W." (No. 12. p. 185.) is informed, that in Falkenstein's Geschichte der Buchdrucherkunst (Leipzig, 1840, p. 257.), Theoderich Martens, printer in Louvain and Antwerp, is twice mentioned. I have no doubt but this is the correct German form of the name. Mertens, by which he was also known, may very possibly be the Flemish form. His Christian name was also written Dierik, a short form of Dietrich, which, in its turn, is the same as Theodorich.

NORTHMAN.

Master of the Revels.—"DR. RIMBAULT" states (No. 14. p. 219.), that Solomon Dayrolle was appointed Master of the Revels in 1744, but does not know the date of his decease. It may be unknown to Dr. Rimbault, that Solomon Dayrolles was an intimate friend and correspondent of the great Lord Chesterfield: the correspondence continues from 1748 to 1755 in the selection of Chesterfield's letters to which I am referring.

Dayrolles, during all that period, held a diplomatic appointment from this country at the Hague. See Lord Chesterfield's letter to him of the 22d Feb. 1748, where Lord C. suggests that by being cautious he (Dayrolles) may be put en train d'être Monsieur l'Envoye.

In several of the letters Chesterfield warmly and familiarly commends his hopeful son, Mr. Stanhope, to the care and attention of Dayrolles.

I have not been able to ascertain when Dayrolles died, but the above may lead to the discovery.

W.H. LAMMIN.

French Maxim.—The French saying quoted by "R.V." is the 223rd of Les Réflexions morales du Duc de la Rochefoucauld (Pougin, Paris, 1839). I feel great pleasure in being able to answer your correspondent's query, as I hope that my reply may be the means of introducing to his notice one of the most delightful authors that has ever yet written: one who deserves far more attention than he appears to receive from general readers in this degenerate age, and from whom many of his literary successors have borrowed some of their brightest thoughts. I need not go far for an illustration:

"Praise undeserved, is scandal in disguise,"

is merely a condensation of,

"Louer les princes des vertus qu'ils n'ont pas, c'est leur dire impunément des injures."—La Rochefoucauld, Max. 327.

I believe that Pope marks it as a translation—a borrowed thought—not as a quotation. He has just before used the words "your Majesty;" and I think the word "scandal" is employed "consulto," and alludes to the offence known in English law as "scandalum magnatum." Your correspondent will, of course, read the work in the original; in fact, he must do so per force. A good translation of Les Maximes is still a desideratum in English literature. I have not yet seen one that could lay claim even to the meagre title of mediocrity; although I have spared neither time nor pains in the search. Should any of your readers have been more fortunate, I shall feel obliged by their referring me to it.

MELANION.

Endeavour.—I have just found the following instance of "endeavour" used as an active verb, in Dryden's translation of Maimbourg's History of the League, 1684.

"On the one side the majestique House of Bourbon,… and on the other side, that of two eminent families which endeavour'd their own advancement by its destruction; the one is already debas'd to the lowest degree, and the other almost reduc'd to nothing." —p. 3.

C. FORBES.

Temple.

MISCELLANIES

Epigram by La Monnoye.—It has been ingeniously said, that "Life is an epigram, of which death is the point." Alas for human nature! good points are rare; and no wonder, according to this wicked, but witty,

EPIGRAM BY LA MONNOYEThe world of fools has such a store,That he who would not see an ass,Must bide at home, and bolt his door,And break his looking glass.S.W.S.

Mickleham, Dec. 10. 1849.

Spur Money.—Two or three years since, a party of sappers and miners was stationed at Peterborough, engaged in the trigonometrical survey, when the officer entered the cathedral with his spurs on, and was immediately beset by the choristers, who demanded money of him for treading the sacred floor with armed heels. Does any one know the origin of this singular custom? I inquired of some of the dignitaries of the Cathedral, but they were not aware even of its existence. The boys, however, have more tenacious memories, at least where their interest is concerned; but we must not look to them for the origin of a custom which appears to have long existed. In the Memorials of John Ray, published by the Ray Society, p. 131., there is the following entry in his second Itinerary:—

"July the 26th, 1661, we began our journey northwards from Cambridge, and that day, passing through Huntingdon and Stilton, we rode as far as Peterborough twenty-five miles. There I first heard the Cathedral service. The choristers made us pay money for coming into the choir with our spurs on."

East Winch.

[The following note from The Book of the Court will serve to illustrate the curious custom referred to by our correspondent:

"In The Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII. edited by Sir Harris Nicolas, there occur several entries of payments made to the choristers of Windsor 'in rewarde for the king's spurs'; which the editor supposes to mean 'money paid to redeem the king's spurs, which had become the fee of the choristers at Windsor, perhaps at installations, or at the annual celebration of St. George's feast.' No notice of the subject occurs in Ashmole's or Anstis's History of the Order of the Garter. Mr. Markland, quoting a note to Gifford's edition of Ben Jonson, vol. ii. p. 49., says, 'In the time of Ben Jonson, in consequence of the interruptions to Divine Service occasioned by the ringing of the spurs worn by persons walking and transacting business in cathedrals, and especially in St. Paul's, a small fine was imposed on them, called "spur-money," the exaction of which was committed to the beadles and singing-boys.' This practice, and to which, probably, the items in Henry's household-book bear reference, still obtains, or, at least, did till very lately, in the Chapel Royal and other choirs. Our informant himself claimed the penalty, in Westminster Abbey, from Dr. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and received from him an eighteenpenny bank token as the fine. He likewise claimed the penalty from the King of Hanover (then Duke of Cumberland), for entering the choir of the Abbey in his spurs. But His Royal Highness, who had been installed there, excused himself with great readiness, pleading 'his right to wear his spurs in that church, inasmuch as it was the place where they were first put on him!'—See further, European Mag., vol. iii. p. 16."]

MINIMUM DE MALIS

(From the Latin of Buchanan.)Calenus owed a single pound, which yetWith all my dunning I could never get.Tired of fair words, whose falsehood I foresaw,I hied to Aulus, learned in the law.He heard my story, bade me "Never fear,There was no doubt—no case could be more clear:—He'd do the needful in the proper place,And give his best attention to the case."And this he may have done—for it appearsTo have been his business for the last ten years,Though on his pains ten times ten pounds bestow'dHave not regain'd that one Calenus owed.Now, fearful lest this unproductive strifeConsume at once my fortune and my life,I take the only course I can pursue,And shun my debtor and my lawyer too.I've no more hope from promises or laws,And heartily renounce both debt and cause—But if with either rogue I've more to do,I'll surely choose my debtor of the two;For though I credit not the lies he tells,At least he gives me what the other sells.Rufus.

Epigram on Louis XIV.—I find the following epigram among some old papers. The emperor would be Leopold I., the king Louis XIV.

Epigram by the Emperor, 1666, and the King of FranceBella fugis, sequeris bellas, pugnæque repugnas,Et bellatori sunt tibi bella tori.Imbelles imbellis amas, totusque viderisMars ad opus Veneris, Martis ad arma Venus.J.H.L.

Macaulay's Young Levite.—I met, the other day with a rather curious confirmation of a passage in Macaulay's History of England, which has been more assailed perhaps than any other.

In his character of the clergy, Macaulay says, they frequently married domestics and retainers of great houses—a statement which has grievously excited the wrath of Mr. Babington and other champions. In a little book, once very popular, first published in 1628, with the title Microcosmographie, or a Piece of the World discovered, and which is known to have been written by John Earle, after the Restoration Bishop of Worcester and then of Salisbury, is the following passage. It occurs in what the author calls a character of "a young raw preacher."

"You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape and serge facing, and his ruffe, next his hire, the shortest thing about him.... His friends, and much painefulnesse, may preferre him to thirtie pounds a yeere, and this meanes, to a chamber-maide: with whom we leave him now in the bonds of wedlocke. Next Sunday you shall have him againe."

The same little book contains many very curious and valuable illustrations of contemporary manners, especially in the universities.

That the usage Macaulay refers to was not uncommon, we find from a passage in the Woman-Hater, by Beaumont and Fletcher (1607), Act III. Sc. 3.

Lazarillo says,

"Farewell ye courtly chaplains that be there!All good attend you! May you never moreMarry your patron's lady's waiting-woman!"I.T.

Trin. Coll. Camb., March 16. 1850.

St. Martin's Lane.—The first building leases of St. Martin's Lane and the adjacent courts accidentally came under my notice lately. They are dated in 1635 and 1636, and were granted by the then Earl of Bedford.

Arun.

CHARLES DEERING, M.D

"Author of the Catalogue of Plants in the neighbourhood of Nottingham. 'Catalogus Stirpium, &c., or a Catalogue of Plants naturally growing and commonly cultivated in divers parts of England, and especially about Nottingham,' 8vo. Nottingh. 1738.

"He was in the suite of the English ambassador to Russia, returned and practised physic in London married unfortunately, buried his wife, and then went to Nottingham, where he lived several years. During his abode there he wrote a small Treatise on the Small Pocks, this Catalogue of Plants, and the History of Nottingham, the materials for which John Plumtre, Esq. of Nottingham, was so obliging as to assist him with. He also was paid 40l. by a London bookseller for adding 20,000 words to an English dictionary. He was master of seven languages, and in 1746 he was favoured with a commission in the Nottinghamshire Foot, raised at that time. Soon after died, and was buried in St. Peter's Churchyard.

"William Ayscough, father of the printer of this Catalogus Stirpium (G. Ayscough), in 1710, first introduced the art of printing at Nottingham.

"Mr. White was the same year the first printer at Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and Mr. Dicey at Northampton."—MS. Note in the Copy of the Cat. Stirpium, in the Library of the British Museum.

MISCELLANEOUS

NOTES ON BOOKS, CATALOGUES, SALES, ETC

Our advertising columns already show some of the good results of the Exhibition of the Works of Ancient and Mediæval Art. Mr. Williams announced last week his Historic Reliques, to be etched by himself. Mr. Cundall has issued proposals for Choice Examples of Art Workmanship; and, lastly, we hear that an Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition, prepared by Mr. Franks, the zealous Honorary Secretary of the Committee, and so arranged as to form a History of Art, may be expected. We mention these for the purpose of inviting our friends to contribute to the several editors such information as they may think likely to increase the value of the respective works.

The second edition of our able correspondent, Mr. Peter Cunningham's Handbook of London, is on the eve of publication.

There are few of our readers but will be glad to learn from the announcement in a previous column, that the edition of the Wickliffite Versions of the Scriptures, upon which Sir Frederick Madden and his fellow labourers have been engaged for a period of twenty years, is just completed. It forms, we believe, three quarto volumes.