Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851

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Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc

Notes

COULD SHAKESPEARE HAVE DESIGNATED CLEOPATRA "YOND RIBALD-RID NAG OF EGYPT?"

To judge of this question fairly, it will be necessary to cite the passage in which it occurs, as it stands in the folio, Act III. Sc. 8., somewhat at large.

"Eno. Naught, naught, all naught! I can behold no longer;Th' Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,With all their sixty, fly, and turn the rudder;To see't, mine eyes are blasted.Enter Scarus.Scar. Gods and goddesses, all the whole synod of them!Eno. What's the passion?Scar. The greater cantle of the world is lostWith very ignorance; we have kiss'd awayKingdoms and provinces.Eno. How appears the fight?Scar. On our side like the token'd pestilence,Where death is sure. Yond ribaudred Nagge of Egypt,Whom leprosy o'ertake, i' the midst o' the fightWhen vantage like a pair of twins appear'd,Both as the same, or rather ours the elder,The Breeze upon her, like a cow in June,Hoists sail and flies.Eno. That I beheld:Mine eyes did sicken at the sight, and could notEndure a further view.Scar. She once being loof'd,The noble ruin of her magick, Antony,Claps on his sea-wing, and, like a doting mallard,Leaving the fight in height, flies after her;I never saw an action of such shame;Experience, manhood, honour, ne'er beforeDid violate so itself.Eno. Alack, alack!"

The notes in the variorum edition begin by one from Johnson, in which he says:

"The word is in the old edition ribaudred, which I do not understand, but mention it in hopes that others may raise some happy conjecture."

Then Steevens, after having told us that a ribald is a lewd fellow, says:

"Ribaudred, the old reading, is I believe no more than a corruption. Shakspeare, who is not always very nice about his versification, might have written,

'Yon ribald-rid nag of Egypt'—

i.e. Yon strumpet, who is common to every wanton fellow."

Malone approves Steevens's ribald-rid, but adds,

"By ribald, Scarus, I think, means the lewd Antony in particular, not every lewd fellow."

Tyrwhitt saw the necessity of reading hag instead of nag, and says what follows seems to prove it:

"She once being loof'd,The noble ruin of her magick, Antony,Claps on his sea-wing."

It is obvious that the poet would not have made Scarus speak of Antony as the noble ruin of Cleopatra's magick, and of his manhood and honour, and in the same breath designate him as a ribald. He would be much more likely to apply the epithet lewd hag to such an enchantress as Cleopatra, than that of ribald-rid nag, which I feel convinced never entered the imagination of the poet.

Imperfect acquaintance with our older language has been too frequently the weak point of the commentators; and we see here our eminent lexicographer confessing his ignorance of a word which the dictionaries of the poet's age would have enabled him readily to explain. For although we have not the participle ribaudred, which may be peculiar to the poet, in Baret's Alvearie we find "Ribaudrie, vilanie in actes or wordes, filthiness, uncleanness"—"A ribaudrous and filthie tongue, os obscœnum et impudicum:" in Minsheu, ribaudrie and ribauldrie, which is the prevailing orthography of the word, and indicates its sound and derivation from the French, rather than from the Italian ribalderia.

That nagge is a misprint for hagge, will be evident from the circumstance, that in the first folio we have a similar error in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act IV. Sc. 2., where instead of "you witch, you hagge," it is misprinted "you witch, you ragge." It is observable that hagge is the form in which the word is most frequently found in the folios, and it is the epithet the poet applies to a witch or enchantress.

I cannot, therefore, but consider the alteration of the text by Steevens as one of the most violent and uncalled-for innovations of which he has been guilty; and he himself seems to have had his misgivings, for his observation that Shakspeare "is not always very nice about his versification" was meant as an apology for marring its harmony by the substitution of ribald-rid for the poet's own ribaudred.

It is to me a matter of surprise that Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight, in their laudable zeal for adherence as closely as possible to the old copies, should not have perceived the injury done both to the sense and harmony of the passage by this unwarrantable substitution.

S. W. Singer.

BROWNE'S BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS

I have lately been amusing myself by reading the small volume with this title published in Clarke's Cabinet Series, 1845.

Among the many pleasing passages that I met with in its pages, two in particular struck me as being remarkable for their beauty; but I find that neither of them is cited by either Ellis or Campbell. (See Ellis, Specimens of the Early English Poets, 4th edition, corrected, 1811; and the Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets, 1819.)

Indeed Campbell says of Browne:

"His poetry is not without beauty; but it is the beauty of mere landscape and allegory, without the manners and passions that constitute human interest."—Vol. iii. p. 323.

Qualified by some such expression as—too often—generally—in almost every instance,—the last clause might have passed,—standing as it does, it appears to me to give anything but a fair idea of the poetry of the Pastorals. My two favourites are the "Description of Night"—

"Now great Hyperion left his golden throne," &c.,

(consisting of twenty-six lines)—book ii. song 1. (Clarke, p. 186.) and the "Lament of the Little Shepherd for his friend Philocel"—

"With that the little shepherd left his task," &c.,

(forty-four lines)—book ii. song 4. (Clarke, p. 278.)

If you will allow me to quote a short extract from each passage, it may enable the reader to see how far I am justified in protesting against Campbell's criticism; and I will then try to support the pretensions of the last, by showing that much of the very same imagery that it contains is to be found in other writings of acknowledged merit:—

I. FROM THE "DESCRIPTION OF NIGHT.""And as Night's chariot through the air was driven,Clamour grew dumb, unheard was shepherd's song,And silence girt the woods: no warbling tongueTalk'd to the echo; satyrs broke their dance,And all the upper world lay in a trance.Only the curlëd streams soft chidings kept,And little gales that from the green leaf sweptDry summer's dust, in fearful whisp'rings stirr'd,As loath to waken any singing bird."II. FROM THE "LAMENT OF THE LITTLE SHEPHERD.""See! yonder hill where he was wont to sit,A cloud doth keep the golden sun from it,And for his seat, (as teaching us) hath madeA mourning covering with a scowling shade.The dew in every flower, this morn, hath lain,Longer than it was wont, this side the plain,Belike they mean, since my best friend must die,To shed their silver drops as he goes by.Not all this day here, nor in coming hither,Heard I the sweet birds tune their songs together,Except one nightingale in yonder dellSigh'd a sad elegy for Philocel.Near whom a wood-dove kept no small ado,To bid me, in her language, 'Do so too'—The wether's bell, that leads our flock around,Yields, as methinks, this day a deader sound.The little sparrows which in hedges creep,Ere I was up did seem to bid me weep.If these do so, can I have feeling less,That am more apt to take and to express?No—let my own tunes be the mandrake's groan,If now they tend to mirth when all have none."

Both these passages may have been quoted by some of Campbell's predecessors. This might justify him in not repeating them, but not in writing the criticism to which I have ventured to object. His work holds a high rank in English literature—it is taken as a text-book by the generality of readers; for which reasons I think that every dictum it lays down ought to be examined with more than usual care and attention.

Compare with different parts of the "Lament:"

"And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,Dewy with nature's tear drops, as they pass,Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,Over the unreturning brave,—alas!Ere evening to be trodden like the grass," &c.—Childe Harold, Canto iii. St. 27.

"The morning of the day on which the farmer was to be buried, was rendered remarkable by the uncommon denseness of an autumnal fog. To Mrs. Mason's eye, it threw a gloom over the face of nature; nor, when it gradually yielded to the influence of the sun, and slowly retiring from the valley, hung, as if rolled into masses, mid-way upon the mountains, did the changes thus produced excite any admiration. Still, wherever she looked, all seemed to wear the aspect of sadness. As she passed from Morrison's to the house of mourning, the shocks of yellow corn, spangled with dewdrops, appeared to her to stand as mementos of the vanity of human hopes, and the inutility of human labours. The cattle, as they went forth to pasture, lowing as they went, seemed as if lamenting that the hand which fed them was at rest; and even the Robin-red-breast, whose cheerful notes she had so often listened to with pleasure, now seemed to send forth a song of sorrow, expressive of dejection and woe."—Miss Hamilton's Cottagers of Glenburnie, chap. xii.

C. Forbes.

Temple.

Minor Notes

"In the Sweat of thy Brow" (Vol. ii., p. 374.).—To the scriptural misquotation referred to, you may add another:

"In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread."

The true text reads,—

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread."—Gen. iii. 19.

The misquotation is so common, that a reference to a concordance is necessary for proving to many persons that it is not a scripture phrase.

J. Gallatly.

[In the Wickliffite Bible lately published by the University of Oxford, the words are, "swoot of thi cheer or face," and in some MSS. "cheer ether bodi."]

Anecdotes of Old Times (Vol. iii., p. 143.).—A friend of mine has furnished me with the following particulars, which may, perhaps, be interesting to A. A.

When the aunt of my friend married and began housekeeping, there were only two tea-kettles besides her own in the town of Knighton, Radnorshire. The clergyman of the parish forbad the use of tea in his family; but his sister kept a small tea service in the drawer of the table by which she sat at work in the afternoon, and secretly made herself a cup of tea at four o'clock, gently closing the drawer if she heard her brother approach. This clergyman's daughter died, at an advanced age, in 1850.

My friend's mother (who was born a year or two before the battle of Culloden), having occasion to visit London while living at Ludlow, went by the waggon, at that time the only public conveyance on that road. A friend of her's wished to place her daughter at a school in Worcester, and as she kept no carriage, and was unable to ride on horseback, then the usual mode of travelling, she walked from her residence in Knighton to Ludlow, and thence to Worcester, accompanied by her daughter, who rode at a gentle pace beside her.

Wedsecnarf.

Foreign English.—The following handbill is a specimen of German English, and is stuck up among other notices in the inn at Rastadt:

"ADVICE OF AN HOTEL

"The underwritten has the honour of informing the public that he has made the acquisition of the hotel to the Savage, well situated in the middle of this city. He shall endeavour to do all duties which gentlemen travellers can justly expect; and invites them to please to convince themselves of it by their kind lodgings at his house.

Basil Jr. SingisemBefore the tenant of the Hotel to the Stork in this city."Blowen.

Britannicus.—I gather the following anecdote from the chapter "Paper Wars of the Civil Wars" in Disraeli's Quarrels of Authors. Sir John (Birkenhead) is the representative of the Mercurius Aulicus, the Court Gazette; Needham, of a Parliamentary Diurnal.

"Sir John never condescends formally to reply to Needham, for which he gives this singular reason: 'As for this libeller, we are still resolved to take no notice, till we find him able to spell his own name, which to this hour Britannicus never did.' In the next number of Needham, who had always written it Brittanicus, the correction was silently adopted."

A similar error occurs on the shilling and six-penny pieces of George III., circa 1817 (those most frequently met with in the present circulation), whilst the cotemporary crowns and half-crowns have the correct orthography.

R. W. C.

Honeymoon.—Among my memoranda I find that, on January 31, 1845, an accomplished Welsh lady said to me, that the common expression "Honeymoon" was "probably derived from the old practice in Wales of drinking methèglin for thirty days after the marriage of a bride and bridegroom. A methèglin jollification for thirty days among the relatives and friends of the newly married pair." The methèglin is a fermented liquor, of some potency, made from honey. The lady asked me, at the same time, if honey was used by the ancient Greeks or Romans in the preparation of a fermented liquor. I said that I recollected no such use of honey among them, but that the ancient Greeks seemed to have brewed a beer of some kind from barley or other grain, as allusion was made to it by Aristophanes. Perhaps this notice of the "honeymoon" may draw forth some information from your correspondents who are learned in "folk lore." In the Old Testament there are many passages alluding to the use of honey, but none of them appear to indicate its having been employed in making a fermented beverage. Lucretius alludes to the practice of enticing children to swallow disagreeable medicine by anointing the edge of the cup with honey.

G. F. G.

Edinburgh.

Fees at Westminster Abbey.—The custom of taking fees at Westminster Abbey is of very ancient date, and was always unpopular. Shirley alludes to it in his pleasant comedy called The Bird in a Cage, when Bonomico, a mountebank, observes—

"I talk as glib,Methinks, as he that farms the monuments."

The dean and chapter, however, in those days were more moderate in their demands, for the price of admission was but one penny to the whole.

"This grant was made to the chapter in 1597, on condition that, receiving the benefit of the exhibition of the monuments, they should keep the same monuments always clean," &c.—See Reply from the Dean and Chapter to an Order of the House of Commons, 1827.

Blowen.

Turning the Tables.—In Bingley's Useful Knowledge, under the head of Maple, I chanced to hit upon the following the other day:

"By the Romans maple wood, when knotted and veined, was highly prized for furniture. When boards large enough for constructing tables were found, the extravagance of purchasers was incredible: to such an extent was it carried, that when a Roman accused his wife of expending his money on pearls, jewels, or similar costly trifles, she used to retort, and turn the tables on her husband. Hence our expression of 'turning the tables.'"

Can any of your kind contributors supply a better derivation?

Ω. Φ.

Queries

AUTHORS OF THE ROLLIAD—PURSUITS OF LITERATURE

I cannot doubt but that many of your readers feel with me under great obligations to your very able and obliging correspondents, Lord Braybrooke and Mr. Markland, for the information afforded us upon the subject of the writers of the Rolliad. And, though not many of them are, probably, sufficiently old to remember as I do—if not the actual publication of that work, yet, at least, the excitement produced by its appearance—I apprehend that the greater number are aware that it really did produce a great sensation; and that, as with the Letters of Junius before it, and the Pursuits of Literature subsequently, public curiosity for a long time busied itself in every direction to detect the able and daring authors. With this impression, I have been not a little surprised to find, since the notice of the work in your pages, that I have failed in tracing any account of it in the two books to which I naturally turned, the Gentleman's Magazine and Nichols' Literary Anecdotes. Very thankful therefore should I be if any of our correspondents would direct my inquiries to a better channel, and particularly if they would guide me to information respecting the authors,—for here I am completely at fault. I allude more especially to Richardson, Tickell, and General Fitzpatrick; who, I doubt not, were men of such notoriety and standing in their day, that "not to know them, argues myself unknown." And yet, humiliating as is this acknowledgment, it is far better to make it than to remain in ignorance; for the case can surely not be one "where ignorance is bliss," and where, consequently, "'tis folly to be wise."

I need hardly beg it to be understood, that, in grouping together the Rolliad, the Pursuits of Literature, and Junius' Letters, I by no means intended to place them upon an equality; and here I may inform your correspondent S. T. D. (what a pity that you do not require every one to give his name at length!) that the fact of Mr. Matthias being the author of the second of these works was scarcely made a secret by his family after he went to Italy. Indeed, for some time previously, it was well known to myself from what passed at this house, where he was a frequent visitor, and where I should at any time be happy to give S. T. D. ocular demonstration of it, by the production of the letters addressed to the "Anonymous Author of the Pursuits of Literature," accompanied in some cases with his own answers.

Dawson Turner.

Yarmouth, April 1. 1851.

ACCOUNT OF A LARGE ANCIENT WOOD-ENGRAVING

Perhaps some of your readers may be able to give me information regarding a large and very elaborate woodcut, which has been many years in my possession, and obviously has been used as the fly-leaf of some folio volume, though, of course not originally intended for such a purpose. It is so complicated, that I fear I shall have some difficulty in explaining it, and my explanation may require more space than you may be willing to afford me. You can, however, insert my Query at any time when you have room to spare.

The size of the engraving, is 16 inches by 13, and it is divided into two large oblong circles, and a centre; a story being carried on, clearly allegorically, from the outer circle to the second, and from the second to the centre. I will speak of each, beginning with the outer, which is entered by a portico, consisting of two columns and a round arch; on the base of one of the columns is a monogran of the artist or of the engraver, formed of the letters R. D. Under the arch is seated a lady richly attired, who holds a large cup and cover in her left hand, and around her are fourteen naked children, to one of which she seems tendering the chalice; while a bearded old man, with a scroll, is directing attention to what is going on in the outer circle. Passing under this portico we see, immediately behind it, six ladies, three religious and three secular; while to the right of the three secular ladies is a naked, winged female figure, with her foot on a sphere, a large goblet in her right hand, and some objects that look like fetters in her left hand. To the right of this figure are many others of both sexes, but nearer the spectator, some tranquil and some in despair; while, within a sort of pavilion, we see a young lady and an old gentleman banquetting, and in another compartment in bed. Still farther to the right of the winged figure are persons who appear to be escaping from torments, while a young man in rags is making his way towards a person in a religious habit, who has a scourge in his hand; behind these are two persons under a miserable thatched shed, while a lady is pointing out to a young man what is to be observed in the second circle.

This division is entered by another gate consisting of two square ornamental columns supporting a low gable, beneath which a lady, with a cross on the cape of her dress, is receiving a young man. The persons in this circle are very variously employed: on the right of the spectator are rocks with one man climbing up them, and another fallen headlong: on the left are five persons, male and female, engaged in singing and playing, and near them two men performing military music on a drum and fife; to their right are groups of philosophers and men of science with spheres, astrolabes, books, compasses, &c., and one wearing a laurel crown with a scroll in his hand, probably a poet.

We then come to the centre, or inner circle, which is entered by a wooden gate of the simplest construction, and under it is a religious lady with a young erect female on her right hand, and a supplicating male, in tattered garments, on her left. Beyond these are six females, variously clad, some with flowing hair, some in close caps, and others with nebulæ round their heads. A little to the right of these is a throned lady, with a crown of peculiar construction on her head, and a sceptre in her hand, before whom kneels a female figure, upon whose brows the throned lady is about to place a coronet. Behind the throne is what appears to be a conventual building of rather singular appearance, with round, square, and octagon towers, and surrounded by a battlemented wall. Considerably to the right of the throned lady is a figure clearly intended for some booted king wearing a crown and a collar of esses: on one side of him is a severe looking dame, fully clad and with flowing hair; and on the other a younger lady, also with flowing hair, and with her bosom bare.

Such is the woodcut regarding which I request some intelligence from your readers, as I have shown it to several persons, who I thought could enlighten me, but who could afford me no satisfaction. I suspect, from the costumes and the edificies, that it is German; and I ought to have mentioned that each circle is separated from the others by a low stone wall running all around, and that trees, hills, and fountains are not sparingly introduced. In the whole, it includes nearly a hundred figures of men, women, and children.

The Hermit of Holyport.

Minor Queries

Viaggi di Enrico Wanton.—A fiction, upon the same plan as Gulliver's Travels, describing the visit of two Europeans to communities of monkeys and cynocephali, and written by a Venetian named Zaccaria Seriman, was printed at Venice in 1749, and again in 1764. A third citation, with the title-page Delli Viaggi de Enrico Wanton alle Terre Australi, nuova Edizione, was printed in London in 1772, "presso Tommaso Brewman Stampatore in Wych Street, Temple Bar," in 4 vols. 8vo. This edition is dedicated to George III. by "L'umilissimo e fedelissimo suddito, Enrico Wanton." Can any of your correspondents explain how this work (which is of no great literary merit) came to be reprinted in England, and dedicated to the king?

A notice of Seriman's life may be found in the Biographie Universelle.

L.

Gloucester Alarm.—In the archives of Lyme Regis is this entry:

"Town Accompt Book.

"1661. For the four soldiers and drummers for service on the Gloucester alarm and candles, 10s. 0d."

What was the "Gloucester alarm?"

G. R.

Where is Criston, County Somerset?—Mr. Vaughan, a young man who was to have joined the Duke of Monmouth, was of that house or place.

G. R.

"There was a Maid of Westmoreland."—"Some fifty summers past," I was in the habit of hearing sung a simple ballad, which commenced—

"There was a maid of Westmoreland,Who built her house upon the sand:"

and the conclusion of which was, that, however desolate and exposed a situation that might be for her dwelling, it was better than in "the haunts of men." This was said to have been written by the late Mr. Thomas Sheridan. I never heard by whom the music to it, which was very pretty, was composed; nor whether or not it was published.