Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850

"Je n'ai pas besoin d'un si long repos après un si petit travail. Mais aussi d'attendre de moi cette heureuse facilité qui fait produire des volumes à M. de Scudéry, ce serait me connaître mal, et me faire une honneur que je ne mérite pas."

Malherbe certainly had a most happy influence on French poetry; he checked the ultra-classical school of Ronsard, and began that work of reformation afterwards accomplished by Boileau.

As I have mentioned Voiture's name, I shall add a very droll "soi-disant" impromptu of his, composed to ridicule Mademoiselle Chapelain, the sister of the poet. Like her brother, she was most miserly in her habits, and not distinguished by that virtue which some say is next to godliness.

"Vous qui tenez incessammentCent amans dedans votre manche,Tenez-les au moins proprement,Et faites qu'elle soit plus blanche."Vous pouvez avecque raison,Usant des droits de la victoire,Mettre vos galants en prison;Mais qu'elle ne soit pas si noire."Mon cœur, qui vous est bien dévot,Et que vous réduisez en cendre,Vous le tenez dans un cachotComme un prisonnier qu'on va pendre."Est-ce que, brûlant nuit et jour,Je remplis ce lieu de fumée,Et que le feu de mon amourEn a fait une cheminée?"GUSTAVE MASSON.

Hadley, near Barnet.

KONGS-SKUGG-SIO

(Vol. ii., p. 298.)

The author of the Kongs-skugg-sio is unknown, but the date of it has been pretty clearly made out by Bishop Finsen and others. (V. Finsen, Dissertatio Historica de Speculo Regali, 1766.) There is only one complete edition of this remarkable work, viz. that published at Soröe in 1768, in 4to. Bishop Finsen maintains the Kongs-skugg-sio to have been written from 1154 to 1164. Ericksen believes it not to be older than 1184; while Suhm and Eggert Olafsen do not allow it to be older than the thirteenth century. Rafn, and the modern editors of the Grönlands Historiske Mindesmærker, p. 266., vol. iii., accept the date given by Finsen as the true one. From the text of the work we learn that it was written in Norway, by a young man, a son of one of the leading and richest men there, who had been on terms of friendship with several kings, and had lived much, or at least had travelled much, in Helgeland. Rafn and others believe the work to have been written by Nicolas, the son of Sigurd Hranesön, who was slain by the Birkebeiners on the 8th of September, 1176. Their reasons for coming to this conclusion are given at full length in the work above quoted.

The whole of the Kongs-skugg-sio is well worthy of being translated into English. It may, indeed, in many respects, be considered as the most remarkable work of the old northerns.

EDWARD CHARLTON.

Newcastle-on-Tyne, Oct 7. 1850.

If F.Q. will look into Halfdan Einersen's edition of Kongs-skugg-sio, Soröe, 1768, the first time it was printed, he will find in the editor's preliminary remarks all that is known of the date and origin of the work. The author is unknown, but that he was a Northman and lived in Nummedal, in Norway, and wrote somewhere between 1140 and 1270, or, according to Finsen, about 1154; and that he had in his youth been a courtier, and afterwards a royal councillor, we infer from the internal evidence the work itself affords us. Kongs-skugg-sio, or the royal mirror, deserves to be better known, on account of the lively picture it gives us of the manners and customs of the North in the twelfth century; the state of the arts and the amount of science known to the educated. It abounds in sound morals, and its author might have sate at the feet of Adam Smith for the orthodoxy of his political economy. He is not entirely free from the credulity of his age and his account of Ireland will match anything to be found in Sir John Mandeville. Here we are told of an island on which nothing rots, of another on which nothing dies, of another on one-half of which devils alone reside, of wonderful monsters and animals, and of miracles the strangest ever wrought. He invents nothing. What he relates of Ireland he states to have found in books, or to have derived from hearsay. The following extract must therefore be taken as a specimen of Irish Folk-lore in the twelfth century:—

"There is also one thing, he says, that will seem wonderful, and it happened in the town which is called Kloena [Cloyne]. In that town there is a church which is dedicated to the memory of a holy man called Kiranus. And there it happened one Sunday, as the people were at prayers and heard mass, that there descended gently from the air an anchor, as if it had been cast from a ship, for there was a cable to it, and the fluke of the anchor caught in the arch of the church-door, and all the people went out of church, and wondered, and looked up into the air after the cable. There they saw a ship floating above the cable, and men on board; and next they saw a man leap overboard, and dive down to the anchor to free it. He appeared, from the motions he made with both hands and feet, like a man swimming in the sea. And when he reached the anchor, he endeavoured to loosen it, when the people ran forwards to seize the man. But the church in which the anchor stuck fast had a bishop's chair in it. The bishop was present on this occasion, and forbade the people to hold the man, and said that he might be drowned just as if in water. And immediately he was set free he hastened up to the ship, and when he was on board, they hauled up the cable and disappeared from men's sight; but the anchor has since laid in the church as a testimony of this."

CORKSCREW.

GOLD IN CALIFORNIA

(Vol. ii., p. 132.)

E.N.W. refers to Shelvocke's voyage of 1719, in which reference is made to the abundance of gold in the soil of California. In Hakluyt's Voyages, printed in 1599-1600, will be found much earlier notices on this subject. California was first discovered in the time of the Great Marquis, as Cortes was usually called. There are accounts of these early expeditions by Francisco Vasquez Coronada, Ferdinando Alarchon, Father Marco de Niça, and Francisco de Ulloa, who visited the country in 1539 and 1540. It is stated by Hakluyt that they were as far to the north as the 37th degree of latitude, which would be about one degree south of St. Francisco. I am inclined, however, to believe from the narrations themselves that the Spanish early discoveries did not extend much beyond the 34th degree of latitude, being little higher than the Peninsular or Lower California. In all these accounts, however, distinct mention is made of abundance of gold. In one of them it is stated that the natives used plates of gold to scrape the perspiration off their bodies!

The most curious and distinct account, however, is that given in "The famous voyage of Sir Francis Drake into the South Sea, &c. in 1577", which will be found in the third volume of Hakluyt, page 730., et seq. I am tempted to make some extracts from this, and the more so because a very feasible claim might be based upon the transaction in favour of our Sovereign Lady the Queen. At page 737. I find:

"The 5th day of June (1579) being in 43 degrees wards the pole Arctike, we found the ayre so colde, that our men being grievously pinched with the same, complained of the extremitie thereof, and the further we went, the more the colde increased upon us. Whereupon we thought it best for that time to seeke the land, and did so, finding it not mountainous, but low plaine land, till we came within thirty degrees toward the line. In which height it pleased God to send us into a faire and good baye, with a good winde to enter the same. In this baye wee anchored."

A glance at the map will show that "in this baye" is now situated the famous city of San Francisco.

Their doings in the bay are then narrated, and from page 738. I extract the following:—

"When they [the natives with their king] had satisfied themselves [with dancing, &c.] they made signes to our General [Drake] to sit downe, to whom the king and divers others made several orations, or rather supplications, that hee would take their province or kingdom into his hand, and become their king, making signes that they would resigne unto him their right and title of the whole land, and become his subjects. In which, to persuade us the better, the king and the rest with our consent, and with great reverence, joyfully singing a song, did set the crowne upon his head, inriched his necke with all their chaines, and offred unto him many other things, honouring him by the name of Hioh, adding thereulto, as it seemed, a sign of triumph; which thing our Generall thought not meet to reject, because he knew not what honour and profit it might be to our countrey. Whereupon, in the name and to the use of Her Majestie, he took the scepter, crowne, and dignitie of the said country into his hands, wishing that the riches and treasure thereof might so conveniently be transported to the inriching of her kingdom at home, as it aboundeth in ye same.

"Our Generall called this countrey Nova Albion, and that for two causes; the one in respect of the white bankes and cliffes, which lie towards the sea, and the other, because it might have some affinities with our countrey in name, which sometime was so called."

Then comes the curious statement:

"There is no part of earth heere to be taken up, wherein there is not some probable show of gold or silver."

The narrative then goes on to state that formal possession was taken of the country by putting up a "monument" with "a piece of sixpence of current English money under the plate," &c.

Drake and the bold cavaliers of that day probably found that it paid better to rob the Spaniard of the gold and silver ready made in the shape of "the Acapulco galleon," or such like, than to sift the soil of the Sacramento for its precious grains. At all events, the wonderful richness of the "earth" seems to have been completely overlooked or forgotten. So little was it suspected, until the Americans acquired the country at the peace with Mexico, that in the fourth volume of Knight's National Cyclopædia, published early in 1848, in speaking of Upper California, it is said, "very little mineral wealth has been met with"! A few months after, intelligence reached Europe how much the reverse was the case.

T.N.

THE DISPUTED PASSAGE PROM THE TEMPEST

(Vol. ii., pp. 259. 299.)

When the learning and experience of such gentlemen as MR. SINGER and MR. COLLIER fail to conclude a question, there is no higher appeal than to plain common sense, aided by the able arguments advanced on each side. Under these circumstances, perhaps you will allow one who is neither learned nor experienced to offer a word or two by way of vote on the meaning of the passage in the Tempest cited by MR. SINGER. It appears to me that to do full justice to the question the passage should be quoted entire, which, with your permission, I will do.

"Fer. There be some sports are painful; and their labourDelight in them sets off: some kinds of basenessAre nobly undergone; and most poor mattersPoint to rich ends. This, my mean taskWould be as heavy to me as odious, butThe mistress, which I serve, quickens what's deadAnd makes my labours pleasures: O, she isTen times more gentle than her father's crabbed,And he's compos'd of harshness. I must removeSome thousands of these logs, and pile them upUpon a sore injunction: my sweet mistressWeeps when she sees me work, and says, such basenessHad ne'er like executor. I forget;But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labour(s),Most busy(l)est when I do it."

The question appears to be whether "most busy" applies to "sweet thoughts" or to Ferdinand, and whether the pronoun "it" refers to the act of forgetting or to "labour(s);" and I must confess that, to me, the whole significancy of the passage depends upon the idea conveyed of the mind being "most busy" while the body is being exerted. Every man with a spark of imagination must many a time have felt this. In the most essential particular, therefore, I think MR. SINGER is right in his correction but at the same time agreeing with MR. COLLIER, that it is desirable not to interfere with the original text further than is absolutely necessary, I think the substitution of "labour" for "labours" is of questionable expediency. What is the use of the conjunction "but" if not to connect the excuse for the act of forgetting with the act itself?

Without intending to follow MR. COLLIER through the course of his argument, I should like to notice one or two points. The usage of Shakspeare's day admitted many variations from the stricter grammatical rules of our own; but no usage ever admitted such a sentence as this,—for though elliptically expressed, MR. COLLIER treats it as a sentence,—

"Most busy, least when I do it."

This is neither grammar nor sense: and I persist in believing that Shakspeare was able to construct an intelligible sentence according to rules as much recognised by custom then as now.

But, indeed, does not MR. COLLIER virtually admit that the text is inexplicable in his very attempt to explain it? He sums up by saying "that in fact, his toil is no toil, and that when he is 'most busy' he 'least does it,'" which is precisely the reverse of what the text says, if it express any meaning at all. I will agree with him in preferring the old text to any other text where it gives a perfect meaning; but to prefer it here, when the omission of a single letter produces an image at once noble and complete, would, to my mind, savour more of superstition than true worship.

P.S. It should be observed that MR. COLLIER'S "least" is as much of an alteration of the original text as MR. SINGER'S "busyest", the one adding and the other omittng a letter. The folio of 1632, where it differs front the first folio, will hardly add to the authority of MR. COLLIER himself.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

Oct. 10. 1850.

If one, who is but a charmed listener to Shakspeare, may presume to offer an opinion to practised interpreters, I should suggest to MR. SINGER and MR. COLLIER, another and a totally different reading of the passage in discussion by them from the exquisite opening scene of the 3d Act of the Tempest.

There can be little doubt that "most busy" applies more poetically to thoughts than to labours; and, in so much, MR. SINGER'S reading is to be commended. But it is equally true that, by adhering to the early text, MR. COLLIER'S school of editing has restored force and beauty to many passages which had previously been outraged by fancied improvements, so that his unflinching support of the original word in this instance is also to be respected. But may not both be combined? I think they may, by understanding the passage in question as though a transposition had taken place between the words "least" and "when".

"Most busy when least I do it,"

or,—

"Most busy when least employed."

forming just the sort of verbal antithesis of which the poet was so fond.

An actual transposition of the words may have taken place through the fault of the early printers; but even if the present order be preserved, still the transposed sense is, I think, much less difficult than the forced and rather contradictory meaning contended for by MR. COLLIER. Has not the pause in Ferdinand's labour been hitherto too much overlooked? What is it that has induced him to forget his task? Is it not those delicious thoughts, most busy in the pauses of labour, making those pauses still more refreshing and renovating?

Ferdinand says—

"I forget,"—

and then he adds, by way of excuse,—

"But the sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours,Most busy when least I do it."

More busy in thought when idle, than in labour when employed. The cessation from labour was favourable to the thoughts that made it endurable.

Malone quarrelled with the word "but", for which he would have substituted "and" or "for". But in the apologetic sense which I would confer upon the last two lines of Ferdinand's speech, the word "but", at their commencement, becomes not only appropriate but necessary.

A.E.B.

Leeds, October 8. 1850.

"LONDON BRIDGE IS BROKEN DOWN."

(Vol. ii., p. 258.)

Your correspondent T.S.D. does not remember to have seen that interesting old nursery ditty "London Bridge is broken down" printed, or even referred to in print. For the edification then of all interested in the subject, I send you the following.

The old song on "London Bridge" is printed in Ritson's Gammer Gurton's Garland, and in Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes of England; but both copies are very imperfect. There are also some fragments preserved in the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1823 (vol. xciii. p. 232.), and in the Mirror for November 1st of the same year. From these versions a tolerably perfect copy has been formed, and printed in a little work, for which I am answerable, entitled Nursery Rhymes, with the Tunes to which they are still sung in the Nurseries of England. But the whole ballad has probably been formed by many fresh additions in a long series of years, and is, perhaps, almost interminable when received in all its different versions.

The correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine remarks, that "London Bridge is broken down" is an old ballad which, more than seventy years previous, he had heard plaintively warbled by a lady who was born in the reign of Charles II., and who lived till nearly that of George II. Another correspondent to the same magazine, whose contribution, signed "D.," is inserted in the same volume (December, p. 507.), observes, that the ballad concerning London Bridge formed, in his remembrance, part of a Christmas carol, and commenced thus:—

"Dame, get up and bake your pies,On Christmas Day in the morning."

The requisition, he continues, goes on to the dame to prepare for the feast, and her answer is—

"London Bridge is broken down,On Christmas Day in the morning."

The inference always was, that until the bridge was rebuilt some stop would be put to the dame's Christmas operations; but why the falling of a part of London Bridge should form part of a Christmas carol it is difficult to determine.

A Bristol correspondent, whose communication is inserted in that delightful volume the Chronicles of London Bridge (by Richard Thomson, of the London Institution), says,—

"About forty years ago, one moonlight night, in a street in Bristol, his attention was attracted by dance and chorus of boys and girls, to which the words of this ballad gave measure. The breaking down of the bridge was announced as the dancers moved round in a circle, hand in hand; and the question, 'How shall we build it up again?' was chanted by the leader, whilst the rest stood still."

Concerning the antiquity of this ballad, a modern writer remarks,—

"If one might hazard a conjecture concerning it, we should refer its composition to some very ancient date, when, London Bridge lying in ruins, the office of bridge master was vacant, and his power over the river Lea (for it is doubtless that river which is celebrated in the chorus to this song) was for a while at an end. But this, although the words and melody of the verses are extremely simple, is all uncertain."

If I might hazard another conjecture, I would refer it to the period when London Bridge was the scene of a terrible contest between the Danes and Olave of Norway. There is an animated description of this "Battle of London Bridge," which gave ample theme to the Scandinavian scalds, in Snorro Sturleson; and, singularly enough, the first line is the same as that of our ditty:—

"London Bridge is broken down;Gold is won and bright renown;Shields resounding,War horns sounding,Hildur shouting in the din;Arrows singing,Mail-coats ringing,Odin makes our Olaf win."

See Laing's Heimskringla, vol. ii. p. 10.; and Bulwer's Harold, vol. i. p. 59. The last-named work contains, in the notes, some excellent remarks upon the poetry of the Danes, and its great influence upon our early national muse.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

[T.S.D.'s inquiry respecting this once popular nursery song has brought us a host of communications; but none which contain the precise information upon the subject which is to be found in DR. RIMBAULT's reply. TOBY, who kindly forwards the air to which it was sung, speaks of it as a "'lullaby song,' well-known in the southern part of Kent and in Lincolnshire."

E.N.W. says it is printed in the collection of Nursery Rhymes published by Burns, and that he was born and bred in London, and that it was one of the nursery songs he was amused with. NOCAB ET AMICUS, two old fellows of the Society of Antiquaries, do not doubt that it refers to some event preserved in history, especially, they add, as we have a faint recollection "of a note, touching such an event, in an almost used-up English history, which was read in our nursery by an elder brother, something less than three-fourths of a century since. And we have also a shrewd suspicion that the sequel of the song has reference to the reconstruction of that fabric at a later date."

J.S.C. has sent us a copy of the song; and we are indebted for another copy to AN ENGLISH MOTHER, who has accompanied it with notices of some other popular songs, notices which at some future opportunity we shall lay before our readers.—ED.]

ARABIC NUMERALS

(Vol. ii., pp. 27. 61.)

I must apologise for adding anything to the already abundant articles which have from time to time appeared in "NOTES AND QUERIES" on this interesting subject; I shall therefore confine myself to a few brief remarks on the form of each character, and, if possible, to show from what alphabets they are derived:—

1. This most natural form of the first numeral is the first character in the Indian, Arabic, Syriac, and Roman systems.

2. This appears to be formed from the Hebrew ב, which, in the Syriac, assumes nearly the form of our 2; the Indian character is identical, but arranged vertically instead of horizontally.

3. This is clearly derived from the Indian and Arabic forms, the position being altered, and the vertical stroke omitted.

4. This character is found as the fourth letter in the Phœnician and ancient Hebrew alphabets: the Indian is not very dissimilar.

5. and 6. These bear a great resemblance to the Syriac Heth and Vau (a hook). When erected, the Estrangelo-Syriac Vau is precisely the form of our 6.

7. This figure is derived from the Hebrew ז, zayin, which in the Estrangelo-Syriac is merely a 7 reversed.

8. This figure is merely a rounded form of the Samaritan Kheth (a travelling scrip, with a string tied round thus,

). The Estrangelo-Syriac

also much resembles it.

9. Identical with the Indian and Arabic.

0. Nothing; vacuity. It probably means the orb or boundary of the earth.—10. is the first boundary, תחום, Tekum, Δεκα, Decem, "terminus." Something more yet remains to be said, I think, on the names of the letters. Cf. "Table of Alphabets" in Gesenius, Lex., ed. Tregelles, and "NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol. i., p. 434.

E. S. T.

Arabic Numerals.—With regard to the subject of Arabic numerals, and the instance at Castleacre (Vol. ii., pp. 27. 61.), I think I may safely say that no archæologist of the present day would allow, after seeing the original, that it was of the date 1084, even if it were not so certain that these numerals were not in use at that time. I fear "the acumen of Dr. Murray" was wasted on the occasion referred to in Mr. Bloom's work. It is a very far-fetched idea, that the visitor must cross himself to discover the meaning of the figures; not to mention the inconvenience, I might say impossibility, of reading them after he had turned his back upon them,—the position required to bring them into the order 1084. It is also extremely improbable that so obscure a part of the building should be chosen for erecting the date of the foundation; nor is it likely that so important a record would be merely impressed on the plaister, liable to destruction at any time. Read in the most natural way, it makes 1480: but I much doubt its being a date at all. The upper figure resembles a Roman I; and this, with the O beneath, may have been a mason's initials at some time when the plaister was renewed: for that the figures are at least sixty years later than the supposed date, Mr. Bloom confesses, the church not having been built until then.