Notes and Queries

MINOR NOTES:-The Irish Queen Victoria - Register of Lord Clyde's Birth-Rhymes to Dickens and Thackeray Simon Wadloe: John Wadloe Nicholas Hilliard Epitaph, curious, to Joseph Taylor, 1732- The Druids The Term Gun- Mize or Mise, 206. QUERIES:- Ancestry and Arms wanted-Anonymous"Les Anglais s'amusent tristement" - Ballsbridge, near Dublin – Ballad - Bell Inscription at New Romney, Kent -Bis-sextile Year- Brodie of Lethen-Crest of Prince of Wales - Parody on Campbell's "Hohenlinden"-Dagnia Family French Wines in 1749-Portraits of Johnson-Lewes and its Annual Commemoration - Arms of Milan-Battle of Naseby- -Orbis Centrum-Paper making in Ireland Public Servants, &c., 208. QUERIES WITH ANSWERS:- Gloucestershire Songs-Author Wanted-- Clerkenwell-Quotation Wanted - Grand Jury Mikotzi-The Prayer for the High Court of Parliament-To "buzz" the Bottle Gibbon, 210.

REPLIES:-The Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jeru. salem, 212-Laws of Lauriston, 214- Fast, 215-Greek Pronunciation-Lord High Treasurer of England-Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel" -The Balmoral "Memorial Cairn "I know no more than the Pope- TheodoliteBockart, or Boshart-Coatbridge: Strange Production from a Blast Furnace - Epigrams-John Locke, the Philosopher-Potwalloping Franchise-Peter Paul Rubens -"The Intrepid Magazine," &c., 216. Notes on Books, &c.

Notes.

SHAKSPEARIANA.

SHAKESPEARE GENEALOGY.In the new No. (the 6th) of The Herald and Genealogist, is an article entitled " Shakespere's Home" (being a review of the Rev. Mr. Bellew's volume so called), which contains a remarkable correction of an ancient error with regard to the ancestry of the great poet. It will be remembered that, in the grants of arms made to his father, John Shakespeare, it was asserted that his —

"Parentes and late antecessors were for theire valeant and faithfull service advanced and rewarded by the most prudent prince King Henry the Seventh of famous memorie, sythence whiche tyme they have continewed at those partes in good reputacion and credit."

This assertion the biographers have usually attributed to the Ardens, the ancestors of John Shakespeare's wife, and not to his own; and such, notwithstanding the earnest remonstrances of Mr. Bellew, is clearly shown to be the right view by the critic before us. But the criticism proceeds further, and shows that Mr. Hunter, in his New Illustrations of Shakespeare, whilst he gently expressed a doubt (i. 37) whether those grants to Arden, which Mr. Malone published, actually belonged to Arden of Wilmcote (a doubt now confirmed by their being proved to have belonged to Arden of Yoxall, in Staffordshire), was still

very materially deceived by Malone having, upon mere conjecture, attached the Ardens of Wilmcote (Shakespeare's maternal ancestors) to the Visitation family of Arden of Parkhall, in Warwickshire. Mr. Hunter requests his readers to "bear in mind that Robert Arden, of Wilmecote, was a gentleman, and entitled to the same coat-armour which this testator used (John Arden, esquire for the body to Henry the Seventh)," (p. 34), and again, though we owe nothing to the heralds for the line of Arden of Wilmecote beyond the assertion that they were gentlemen of worship, and entitled to the ancient arms of Arden," &c. (p. 35). But, in making these admissions, Mr. Hunter now appears to have been entirely misled by Malone, The heralds did not allow to Shakespeare's mother the arms of the Warwickshire family of Arden: which were those used by the said John Arden; but they assigned to her (with a martlet for difference) the wholly distinct coat of Arden of Cheshire whilst other documents (which have been published by Mr. Collier) show that Robert Arden of Wilmcote was not a gentleman, but a "husbandman" only, in the year 1550. poet's pretensions to gentle descent are thus removed on the mother's side as well as the father's.

The

This discovery reads two important lessons; one, that an error, once committed by an author of estimation, may be repeated by a long train of followers, and even critical and controversial followers, without question or suspicion; the other, that the devices of heraldry are really able to lend substantial aid in the prosecution of biographical M. N. S. and historical investigations.

"THE MERCHANT OF VENICE" (3rd S. iv. 122.) 1. Portia, Act II. Sc. 1. In suggesting the not, I think, sufficiently considered the time and change from temple to table, MR. KEIGHTLEY has scope of the action. All oaths of chivalry, and, indeed, all solemn oaths of that period, were, as a rule, taken in churches. That this is distinctly mentioned only in the case of the Prince of Morocco, and that in

"The Prince of Arragon hath ta'en his oath,
And comes to the election presently,"

it is only shown that the oath was taken elsewhere than in the casket-room; and that in the scene where Bassanio chooses there is no mention even of the oath, is merely due to this, that Shakespeare, having sufficiently noted the course of action in the minor and unrepresented portion of the plot, did not unnecessarily repeat himself in what he held to be a scenic “ Ábridgement" of a true history. Possibly the more vague word "temple" may have been chosen of purpose. But I take it (and this is my chief reason for writing this note) that this Prince of Morocco, as well as some other romance Moors, was not a Mussulman at

all, but that the existence of the great Christian churches of Northern Africa was considered sufficient ground for making a Moor either a Christian or Moslem at any indefinite period of history, and as the exigencies of the story might require. Had this Morocco potentate been a Moslem, his religion and polygamic power would surely have been brought up against him by the misliking Portia. In like manner, and for the like reasons, Othello was a Christian; and had he been a convertite or renegade, Iago, if none other, would have made this, or his infidel birth, a cause of reproach. So too, Mulinassar, in Webster's Vittora Corombona, is associated with Knights of Malta; and the bare statement that he is a Christian is accepted without remark, and as requiring no explanation. Lastly, the most Christian king of Naples is represented as marrying his daughter Claribel, without a scruple, and without even causing a reflection on his own character, to the king of Tunis; yet, if the latter had been a Moslem, this (like Othello's marriage) would have been an act so contrary to the laws of the church, and to the most cherished opinions of the age, that neither Shakespeare nor his contemporaries, nor those whom he followed, would have ventured on introducing it, except to increase our detestation of some impious despot or villain.

2. "Of such misery doth she cut me off." Merchant of Venice, Act IV. Sc. 1.

In eking out this line by the addition of "deep," MR. KEIGHTLEY has followed a practice first commenced by the editors of the second folio, and one which has proved a snare to many subsequent editors. Before we alter Shakespeare's verses, we ought to be sure that we know the laws of versification followed by Shakespeare. I have not sufficiently investigated it, but I would submit the following as worthy of examination. That in some plays, and in some instances where a line ends with a redundant syllable, such syllable, if strong, and if not easily joining with, or if not easily absorbed by the preceding syllable, or if joining in continuous sense and rhythm with the succeeding syllable, is to be considered as completing the next line, so that the redundant and imperfect lines form together two perfect lines. As examples, I would adduce the following: "Pros. How thou | camest here | thou mayest. Mir. But that I do not. Pros. Twelve year since, | Miran | da, twelve year since.-Tempest, Act I. Sc. 2. Duke. Your safe | ty manifest | ed. Prov.

I'm your free dependant. Duke. Quick, despatch, and send the head to Anglo.-Measure for Measure, Act IV. Sc. 3. "Escal. To call him villain, | and then | to glance | from him |

To th' Duke himself to tax | him with injustice! Take him hence, to th' rack with him! We'll touse you

This were kindness." Merch. of Venice, Act I. Sc. 3. "Ant. To view | with hol | low eye | and wrink | led brow

ance

Twelfth Night, Act III. Sc. 1. Will MR. KEIGHTLEY allow me to take this

opportunity of apologising for (inadvertently for a long time) omitting to answer a query he put to me regarding "gossamer"? If I can find some mislaid memoranda, I will put them in brief BENJ. EASY. before him.

Where could Portia's suitors men of as many creeds as countries, whom "the four winds blew from every coast"-have taken their prescribed oath so fitly as in the church of Belmont? "Bring me unto my chance," cries the impatient Moor. "First, forward to the temple," answers the punctilious heiress, who, knowing the religion of her swarthy wooer, intends the church by that general designation-" after dinner your hazard shall be made." Independently of this præ-condition, whereon the collateral story of our drama rests, "to the table," is a phrase more germane to the hospitalities of a farm-house dame than of a palatial lady; œufs au Christophe Colomb were not likely to find a place in the Belmont menu. Carelessly as his immediate copyists or printers corrupted Shakspeare's text

"a beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian beauty," MR. KEIGHTLEY'S feature is hardly less satisfactory than Hanmer's dowdy, or Walker's gipsy: Ben Jonsonian it certainly is, but too pedantic for our poet. Let me attempt to restore the antithesis of the passage:

"Thus ornaments are but the guiled shore

Of a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian Deity." The oriental idols being, as travellers tell us, gaudily attired, and awfully ugly.

"Gilded timber do worms enfold" has neither rhythm nor syntax. Rowe's woods claims cousinship with timber; and Johnson's tombs is co-parcener in three of its six letters, but his reading seems more apposite to the scroll of "carrion death."

Antonio's interruption of his earnest advocate"I pray you, think you question with the Jew,"

Measure for Measure. And as Shakspeare elsewhere uses mind for remind

"Let me be punished, who have minded you Of what you should forget." Noticing these differences, "stint your question," appears to me as needless as it is harsh.

One slight substitution, a for the, would materially effect-improve, I venture to say, the whole passage.

"I pray you think you question with a Jew," exemplifying Antonio's general scorn and hatred of the whole race. "With a Jew," with HIM, then and there present, its type and monograph, than whom, in the Christian merchant's vehement exergesia, waves, wolves, and winds, are less unpersuadable. If this reading be not, as possibly it is, in some early edition of our poet, I willingly accept the peril of its suggestion.

Agreeing with MR. KEIGHTLEY in the evident loss of a syllable

from which lingering penance

Of such misery doth she cut me off,"

I think the simple article a preferable to any epithet for its suppletion. If one there must be, let it be reasonably relative to its subject, not vague and general.

I am glad to conclude with the ready acceptance of MR. KEIGHTLEY'S emendatory of for or, so happily enforcing Portia's denunciation, Act IV. Sc. 1. Never was the effect of one letter's change made more evident than in this, and his almost equally concise substitution of we for who in Lenox's fine irony (so fine as to be positively transparent), Macbeth, Act III. Sc. 6. Were a French newswriter or pamphleteer to be half as ironical, Monsieur Persigny's successor would not be slow in sending him a caution.

EDMUND LENTHAL SwiftE.

"The masculine gender is more worthy than the feminine.

Therefore, Licio, Backarè."

Lyly, Mydas, Act I. Sc. 2. "Backare, you are marvellous forward." Taming of the Shrew. Act II. Sc. 1.

As would appear from Heywood. and Lyly, Backare was supposed to signify "go back!" This, however, would account only for the first syllable; and I suspect that the original meaning may have been quite different. May not Mortimer's sow have been a brindled one ? and he have called her bigarrée, i. e. brindle, which, being corrupted into backare, may then have been thought to come from back? THOS. KEIGHTLEY. Belvidere, Kent.

"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL" (3rd S. iv. 107.)- MR. EASY's conjecture as to the meaning of the initials E. and G., in the stage directions of the first folio of All's Well that Ends Well, has been anticipated by Capell in his notes on the play. As one of the editors of the Cambridge Shakspeare, I may be permitted to add that we had independently come to the same conclusion as MR. EASY with regard to the meaning of the names "Charbon" and "Poysam," and that our note containing this conclusion was in the printer's hands several days before MR. EASY's note appeared. W. ALDIS WRIGHT. Trin. Coll., Cambridge.

F. G.

Shakspeare makes Cæsar say: "Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf." Is there any authority for this? [Shakspeare's authority for this exclamation, Et tu, Brute!' would appear to have been in the old play enprinted in 1600, on which he formed his Third Part of titled The True Tragedy of Richarde, Duke of Yorke, &c., King Henry VI.:

"Et tu, Brute! wilt thou stab Cæsar too?" The same line is also found in Acolastus his Afterwitte, by S. Nicholson, printed in the same year. So in "Cæsar's Legend," Mirror for Magistrates, 1587 :—

"And Brutus thou, my sonne, quoth I, whom erst I loved best."

Malone conjectures that the Latin words appeared originally in the old Latin play, Epilogus Cæsaris Interfecti, by Richard Eedes; played at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1582.]

LETTERS OF SHAKSPEARE AND NELL GWYNNE.Can any reader of "N. & Q." throw light upon

the following paragraph, which is to be found in the Monthly Mirror for October, 1802, p. 281?"Besides these two original letters of Shakespeare, addressed to Thomas, Lord Buckhurst, which have been lately discovered among the Dorset Papers, the Correspondence of Dryden, Otway, Lee, Sedley, and Prior, with Charles Earl of Dorset, is most valuable. The letters of Nell Gwynn to that nobleman throw light on some of the secret measures of Charles II.'s reign, and are extremely interesting from the anecdotes contained in them. It was at the express desire of the late Duke of Dorset that the Duchess is now giving these papers to the Public."

Was this a literary hoax? If not, what has become of the letters? INQUISITOR.

NORTH ASTON, OXFORDSHIRE.

The writer of an article on "Judge Page" in one of your numbers for January, 1862, having incorrectly named North Aston as the place of abode of that once famous functionary, I took the liberty of correcting your correspondent in a letter, which you did me the favour to insert on Feb. 22, 1862, showing that Middle Aston, within the parish of Steeple Aston, was the site of Page's mansion (destroyed in 1805), and that he had nothing to do with North Aston. Some particulars as to that parish (North Aston) may be interesting, and not the less so that the manor, mansion, impropriate tithes, and principal landed estate in it have recently changed by purchase from the family of Bowles to that of FosterMelliar; and that modern improvements are obliterating some ancient features and customs.

The church closely adjoins the mansion, and contains an oak pulpit the gift of Lady Howard in or about 1720, with a shield handsomely engraved upon it, not very correct in its heraldry, but curious as giving the crests of every family then owning real property in the parish, that of an ancestor of the writer among others. The rood-loft staircase remains. There are several mural tablets; one being to the memory of Bernard Gates, the musical composer, in the inscription on which Gates is said to have held at court the appointment of "Tuner of the Regals (Qy. What were his duties?); and under the arch, between the chancel and a chantry chapel, are the recumbent figures on an altar-tomb of a knight and lady in fine preservation, said to be Sir John Anne and Alice his wife, of the date of 1426.

Lord Brooke held the manor at the period of the Great Rebellion. A descendant of the Brooke family devised it to a Fermor, under whom the widow of Sir Robert Howard had a

lease of it for life. Charles Bowles acquired it by purchase in 1746; his son Oldfield Bowles held it till his death in 1812, and the grandson of the

first Bowles, Charles Oldfield Bowles, held it nearly till his death in 1862.

Bradenstoke Priory, in Wiltshire, held the impropriate tithes and the advowson of the vicarage till the dissolution. The Commissioners for taking account of Chantries suppressed by 1 Edward VI. c. 14 (1547), found that the parish of North Aston contained "certaine land of the yearly value of twentypence given to the fyndyng of a lampe lyght within said parish church, by whom unknown."

In 1717, Esquire Churchill gave 10%. to the poor of this parish, but Mr. Dodwell (his lawyer probably) kept 11. for his trouble, so that William Wing and Richard May, the churchwardens, would only acknowledge it in their account-book as a gift of 91. The Charity Commissioners of 1822 found this charity still existing, the 97. having been made up to 10%., which were then in the hands of Mr. Bowles, who paid 10s. per annum for interest, and 2. 10s. for rent of a piece of meadow land, which, with other moneys, were distributed yearly among the poor in coal or blankets. This piece of meadow land is defined by boundary stones, one of which is a hideous gurgoyle of about three feet in height from the soil as it now stands.

The parish contains a farm belonging to the trustees of a charity created for the benefit of the poor of Hendon in Middlesex, of the origin of which charity I know nothing. A tithe rent charge is paid in respect of this farm to the impropriator (Mr. Melliar), and another to the vicar. Similar payments are made in respect of another farm in this parish, which forms the endowment of the rectory of Rowtham. And the following article from a local newspaper of July 27th last appears noteworthy at the present time:

"North Aston contains a meadow called Bestmoor, consisting of about forty acres, abutting upon the main stream of the Cherwell, from which the farmers of Dun's Tew from time immemorial have had the privilege of taking the first mowth for hay, the after-feed belonging to the proprietor of the principal estate in North Aston, or his tenant.

"It is understood that an arrangement has recently been entered into, whereby Sir H. W. Dashwood, as Mr. Preedy, of Bloxham, relinquish the privilege of themprincipal owner of Dun's Tew, the vicar of that parish, and selves and their tenants, in the hay crop of Bestmoor, and W. M. Foster-Melliar, Esq., becomes the owner of its entirety. Thus is one more mixed ownership, in the Cherwell valley absorbed, to the probable improvement of the drainage of the meadow in question, and the benefit being brought to the utmost perfection. Six, at least, of all who are interested in the growth of natural hay mixed ownerships in the valley have been extinguished in the last sixty years.

"Up to the present year Bestmoor Meadow-mowing has been a rural holiday. Backways having been trod out by boys through the standing herbage, each farmer in Dun's Tew has sent as strong a staff of mowers as he could procure, who, during the dark hours of an early July

morning, have plodded the spot, in order to commence operations with the first streak of dawn, and to complete their work, if possible, by nightfall. A few hours later the meadow became alive with haymakers; beer and provisions were abundant, and the scene sometimes closed with one of those almost inseparable termini of rural festivities, a scrimmage.

"During the winter months the tap-room of the village alehouse resounded from time to time with self-laudation of their prowess 'in the field and in the fight' of the Bestmoor Meadow mowers.

"All these matters will now be as obsolete as Bradenstoke Priory, which was once owner of the afterfeed of the meadow in question, and the mowing and removal of its produce will probably for the future be as quiet an affair as that of an upland piece of sainfoin; but I have thought it worth while to become the historian of Bestmoor by writing this letter.

"Similar tenures existed in the parish I date from, whence the first grass of two meadows used to be hauled to Wootton and Glympton, six miles to the south-west; and a century ago the farmers of this place had the pri

vilege of the afterfeed of a meadow in Lower Heyford, called Broadhead, after the farmers of the latter place had secured the hay crop, which they were by custom obliged to do by a fixed day; and some half a score similar privileges may yet be traced out between Charwelton and Magdalen Bridge at Oxford."

Steeple Aston.

WILLIAM WING.

KNITTING SONG.

All readers of Southey's Doctor — and I hope there are many must remember the affecting story of Betty Yewdale, given in interchapter XXIV. She tells how she and her sister were sent, to learn the art of knitting socks, from Langdale to Dentsdale, in Yorkshire:

"Than we ust at sing a mack of a sang, whilk we were at git at t'end on at every needle, ca'ing ower t'neams of o't' fwoak in t' Deaal -but Sally an me wad never ca' Dent Fwoak-sea we ca'ed Langdon Fwoak. T' sang

was

"Sally an' I, Sally an' I,

For a good pudding pye,

Taa hoaf wheat, an' tudder hoaf rye,
Sally an' I, for a good pudding pye.'

"We sang this (altering t' neams) at every needle: and when we com at t'end cried off,' an' began again, an' sae we strave on o' t' day through."

This extract gives a good idea of what is meant by "a Knitting Song." I now beg to give one in use only a very short time ago, if not even at the present day, by the knitters in the sun in Wensleydale. It has been communicated to me by a most trustworthy friend, who learnt it from an old woman, a parishioner. Though it simply consists of numerals up to twenty, it is most curious; and seeing that it is evidently in the Norse language, must have lingered in the Dale a thousand years. I give an exact copy from my friend's writing:

THE COBRA AND THE MONGOOSE. Enclosed is a cutting from a Madras newspaper, which I am sure is worthy of a place in your columns. The point has long been a disputed one whether the mongoose owes its impunity from the cobra's bite to the knowledge of an antidote, or whether the serpent's poison had no effect on the animal. This question is at last settled; and as the only carefully drawn up account of a fight between the cobra and mongoose I have ever seen, I trust you will make a Note of it.

W. KINCAID, Capt. 22nd Reg. M.N.I.

Bangalore.

FIGHT BETWEEN A MONGOOSE AND A COBRA.

"DEAR SIR,We think the long vexed question, whether the mongoose on being bitten by the cobra retires into the jungle and finds some herb an antidote for the poison, or whether the venom of the serpent produces no effect on the animal, has been at last settled.

"On Saturday morning last whilst seated in the Mess House with several officers of the regiment, a servant came and stated that a snake had been seen by one of the guard to enter a hole in the ground, close to where the guard was; we immediately sent for a mongoose (a tame one, the property of an officer), and put him to the hole. He soon began to scratch away the earth, and in half an hour a fine cobra, about a yard long, came forward, with head erect and hood distended, to attack the mongoose; who seemed to care nothing for the reptile, but merely jumped out of the way to avoid the blows which the snake struck at him. The mongoose unfortunately had just been fed, consequently did not show sufficient inclination to go in at him and kill him; so we secured the snake and carried him over to the officer's quarters to have the contest carried out there, after the mongoose should have had some little time to get over his break

fast.

"After a couple of hours rest, we placed the cobra in a room with closed doors (we having, in the mean time,

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