state of "intense excitement" by the announcement that "my Lords the Judges" were coming to church. The rector selected a sermon, on which he rather prided himself; the churchwardens dusted out the squire's pew, where their lordships might be the observed of all observers, and the rector's wife and daughters selected their best bonnets in honour of an event, the like of which had certainly never occurred before within the memory of the very "oldest inhabitant." The Judges were ushered into church with as much state as could be mustered by the parish authorities for the occasion, and all went perfectly well and in order till the termination of Morning Prayer, when the psalm was to be given out. In those days, the selection of the psalms was confided to the uncontrolled discretion of the parish clerk, who, when the tidings of the arrival of the august personages reached his ears, had become quite as much alive to the importance of the proper performance of his duties upon the occasion as the rector and churchwardens were. His guide in the selection of psalms upon special occasions had been the Table of Psalms set out at the end of Tate and Brady's Version, giving alphabetically the first words of each psalm. On coming to the letter S, he found, " Speak, O ye Judges," and concluding that the psalm, of which these were the opening words, must be an appropriate one, he gave them out, and invited the congregation to join in singing the 58th Psalm, which they proceeded to do most heartily, being struck by the appositeness of the introductory words, and thus they sang at the two learned judges:

66

Speak, O ye Judges of the Earth,

If just your sentence be?

Or must not innocence appeal

To Heav'n from your decree?

"Your wicked hearts and judgments are
Alike by malice swayed;

Your griping hands, by weighty bribes,
To violence betrayed."

And so forth; with all the other denunciations of the Psalmist upon the unjust Judges of Israel.

authority, I have only recently, on becoming possessed of the several works of these Kirkwoods, discovered the confusion; and as neither (although both are of sufficient mark) appear in the new edition of Lowndes, I venture a few jottings by way of supplying the deficiency in "N. & Q."

James Kirkwood, the schoolmaster, was a very notable character. We first hear of him in 1675, when he obtained charge of the school at Linlithgow; leaning to episcopacy when the Presbyterians were resolved to extinguish it root and branch from Scotland, Kirkwood soon got into trouble with his superiors; and the struggle to maintain office on the one hand, and to oust the schoolmaster on the other which followed, must have made it a cause célèbre in that quiet burgh. The clever pedagogue, however, could not hold his ground against the local magnates, and the Dominie was deposed.

The litigation which arose out of these squabbles is recorded in A Short Information of the Plea betwixt the Town Council of Linlithgow and Mr. James Kirkwood, Schoolmaster there, whereof a more full Account may perhaps come out hereafter, a quarto tract of twenty pages. Kirkwood here intimates that he has a heavier rod in pickle for his persecutors, and, being of a waggish and satirical disposition, he carried his threat into execution. Among other charges brought against him was, that he was "a reviler of the Gods of the people." "By Gods," says Kirkwood," they mean the twenty-seven Members of the Town Council, the Provost, four Baillies, Dean of Guild, Treasurer, twelve Councillors, eight Deacons ; so that the Websters, Sutors, and Tailors are Gods in Linlithgow."

Tickled with this notion, and being bent upon ridiculing the magistrates, he crowned his contempt for the burghal authorities by publishing, in a small quarto, pp. 79 –

"The History of the Twenty-seven Gods of LinlithPlea betwixt the Town Council of the said Burgh and gow; Being an Exact and True Account of a Famous Mr. Kirkwood, Schoolmaster there. Seria Mixta Jocis." Edin. 1711,

which contains many curious particulars regard

JAMES KIRKWOOD.

Under this name, in the Bibliotheca Britannica, Watt has rolled two persons into one, beginning with James Kirkwood, the Scottish grammarian, going off to James Kirkwood, the minister of Astwick, Bedfordshire, and again returning to the first, all under the same heading. Misled by this

Our schoolmaster, it might be supposed, steered a safer course in his next appointment at Kelso. But, no: the same cantankerous humour brought about a collision there, and we next have Mr. Kirkwood's Plea before the Kirk, and Civil Judicatores of Scotland. London: D. E. for the Author, 1698. Another quarto of about 150 closely printed pages, containing the story of his subsequent wranglings with the Kirk Session and Presbytery there, in all its minuteness. Beyond what can be gleaned from his own words, I find

but little recorded of this remarkable character. In Penney's History of Linlithgowshire, and in Chalmer's Life of Ruddiman, he is spoken of as the first grammarian of his day. He frequently himself alludes to the high repute in which he was held in this respect by his learned contemporaries, but I question if he is to be found in any of our biographies, or his name even to be traced in the British Museum Catalogue.

In addition to that I have mentioned, I possess his Prima Pars Grammaticæ in Metrum redacta: Authore Jacobo Kirkwoodo, 12mo, Edin. 1675. With the Privy Council's Privilege for nineteen years; the Second and Third Parts. Editio Secunda, 1676; and All the Examples, both Words and Sentences of the First Part of Grammar, translated into English by I. K. 1676. Contained in one volume.

As with Watt, my first impression on becoming acquainted with the names of these Kirkwoods was, that the grammarian and the minister at Astwick were identical, and that James Kirkwood was one of the rabbled curates for whom the government had to provide for in the south; but a very slight examination showed this to be a mistake; and we find that, while the pugnacious schoolmaster was fighting his battles with the Gods of Linlithgow and Kelso, the minister of Astwick was engaged in England with his pastoral duties, and in connection with the Hon. Rob. Boyle, labouring to supply the Irish with a Vernacular version of the Scriptures. The minister was however, also a Scot. He figures in Charter's, Catalogue of Scottish Writers as "James Girdwod, Minister of Minto, outed for refusing the Test." The only work of his which I have is, A New Family Book; or the True Interest of Families, being Directions to Parents and Children, &c. With a Preface by Dr. Horneck, 2nd edit. 12mo, London, 1693. A frontispiece by Vander Gutch in two compartments-the happy and the unhappy family; the latter a grotesque representation of the wicked parents, with a hopeful lot of seven children all in a state of inebriety, with the usual accompaniment of the religious chap-book -the monster in the corner of the picture vomiting flames, indicating a family on the road to Tophet. Perhaps some other correspondent may be able to tell us what became of the restless grammarian; and, if any, what was the relationship between these two Kirkwoods. J. O.

OF WIT.

Many of our old English words have, in passing from one age to another, dropped, either wholly or in a great measure, their original signification. The elder D'Israeli has illustrated this in a very pleasing way in one of his entertaining works.

The word WIT has, however, been overlooked, and I have something to say, not in example, but in illustration of it.

"Tell me, O tell," says Cowley, "what kind of thing is wit?" a question I admit the propriety of his asking, for he defines it but by negatives and negatives alone. Every one concedes to Butler the name of a wit, and that Hudibras abounds in wit of the finest quality. But this is in its present sense. What was wit in one age became bombast or affectation in another: and he who was styled a wit in the age of Elizabeth is styled a poet now. "Nothing," says Addison, “is so much admired and so little understood as wit." "Wit," says Locke, "lies in the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to make up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the fancy." Addison shows that any resemblance cannot be called wit: "thus, when a poet tells us the bosom of his mistress is as white as snow, there is no wit in the comparison; but when he adds, with a sigh, that it is as cold too, it then grows into wit." "True wit," says the same great writer, "consists in the resemblance and congruity of ideas, and false wit in the resemblance of words. Mixed wit, which we find in Cowley, partakes of the character of both, a composition of pure and true wit."

I select a few instances of the use of the word wit from the works of Dryden :—

"True wit is sharpness of conceit, the lowest and There are most grovelling kind of wit-clenches. many witty men, but few poets. Shakspeare's comic wit degenerated into clenches; his serious swelled into bombast. No man can say Shakspeare ever had a fit subject for his wit, and that he did not excel. One cannot say Ben Jonson wanted wit, but rather that he was frugal of it. Wit, and language, and humour, we had before Jonson's days. If I would compare Jonson with Shakspeare I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakspeare the greater wit. Shakspeare, who many times has written better than any poet in our language, is far from writing wit always, or expressing that wit according to the dignity of the subject. Donne was the greatest wit, though not the greatest poet, of our nation. Donne's sent age, that if we are not so great wits as Donne, yet Satires abound in wit. I may safely say this of the precertainly we are better poets. The composition of all poems is, or ought to be, wit, which is no other than the faculty of imagination. The definition of wit (which has been so often attempted, and ever unsuccessfully, by many poets) is only this,-that it is a propriety of thoughts and words; or in other terms, thoughts and words elegantly adapted to the subject."

Twice has Dryden repeated his definition or description of wit; "which is not," says Addison, "so properly a description of wit as of good writing in general. If Dryden's be a true definition of wit, I am apt to think," Addison adds, "that Euclid is the greatest wit that ever set pen to paper."

Wit, in its original signification, Johnson tells us, "denoted the powers of the mind-the mental faculties-the intellects." The meaning has been greatly extended; it has been used for imagination, and for quickness of fancy or genius. A wit, too, has been called a poet, and a poet designated a wit.

Ben Jonson uses the word wit for verse; he who possessed wit possessed the faculty of song. Shakspeare, Fletcher, and Jonson formed, says Sir John Denham, a triumvirate of wit. What is translated poetry, says the same writer, but transplanted wit. Cleveland, wishing to express the rank of Jonson among the poets of his age, says,

he

"Stood out illustrious in an age of wit." Pope, alluding to the little patronage which poets meet with, speaks of

"The estate which wits inherit after death."

The mob of gentlemen that twinkled in the poetical miscellanies of the days of the Charleses are called by Pope the "wits" of their age.

"But for the wits of either Charles's days,

The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease." It is not poetry, says Butler, that makes men poor, for men have taken to wit only to avoid being idle.

"It is not poetry that makes men poor;

For few do write that were not so before: And those that have writ best, had they been rich, Had ne'er been clapp'd with a poetic itch; Had lov'd their ease too well to take the pains To undergo that drudgery of brains; But being for all other trades unfit, Only to avoid being idle set up-wit." Davenant has a great Nursery of Nature in his Gondibert, and foremost in this delightful dwelling has a band of pleasant poets : "And he who seem'd to lead this ravish'd race,

Was Heav'n's lov'd Laureate that in Jewry writ; Whose harp approach'd God's ear, though none his face Durst see, and first made inspiration, wit." That King David was a wit, and wrote wit, sounds in an ear of the nineteenth century as a sad misapplication of terms. Yet in Davenant the word, in its old signification, is very appropriate, and very poetical.

Such have been the changes in the meaning of of the word wit. Shakspeare was a wit in his age, but Wordsworth would have deemed it no compliment to be called a wit in ours. Johnson's definition of wit is admirable:-"That which though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknow ledged to be just, that which he that never found wonders how he missed."* This is near the mark, but perhaps this is nearer:-"Wit," says Corbyn Morris, "is the lustre resulting from the quick

A few months since an able, affecting, and most interesting appeal, in behalf of the Catholic Blind Institution, Glasnevin, in the immediate vicinity of this city, appeared in the Freeman's Journal, from the pen of its present guardian, Brother Jerome Moroney. After enumerating several instances of the high intellectual attainments of which this afflicted class are capable, such as that of Didymus of Alexandria, who had among his pupils the illustrious St. Jerome and Palladius; Diodatus, the preceptor of Cicero; Scupi Neria, who held a professorship in Bologna, wrote poetry in Latin and Italian, and was one of the most accomplished scholars of his day; Salinos, who, although blind from his infancy, was yet elected Professor of Music in the University of Salamanca about the year 1713; the writer of this brief memoir- and to this I wish particularly to direct the attention of your readers mentions that in the year 1542 Dr. Wauchop, although blind from infancy, attained, as a divine and a scholar, such distinguished eminence, that he readily obtained the degree of Doctor of Divinity in the University of Paris; attended on the part of Julius III. at the Council of Trent, and was subsequently appointed by Paul III. to the see of Armagh. Now, being under the impression that blindness, as well as any prominent physical defect, constituted what is termed a canonical impediment, incapacitating the parties for the reception of Holy Orders, I was, I confess, somewhat sceptical as to the accuracy of Brother Jerome's statement, more particularly as I could find no reference whatever to Dr. Wauchop in the profound and learned work of Dr. Lanigan, or such writers on Irish subjects as I happened to have at hand. At length, however, this worthy monk referred me to Dr. Renehan's Collections on on Irish Church History, from which I make the following extract:

"Robert Wauchop (alias Venantius) was appointed to the see of Armagh by Paul III. when informed of the death of Dr. Cremer in 1542. Wauchop was by birth a Scotchman, and although blind from childhood yet such vering industry, that he distinguished himself highly were the natural powers of his mind, and such his perseduring his collegiate studies, and easily obtained the degree of Doctor of Divinity from that learned faculty. Pope Paul III. had confirmed the Order of the Jesuits, and selected Wauchop in 1541 to introduce that order

into Ireland. In consequence, John Coclure was first sent to this country, and after his death many others, among whom was Paschasius, Francis Zapata, and the celebrated Alphonsus Salmeron, who afterwards attended the Council of Trent. Wauchop was shortly afterwards appointed to the see of Armagh, but it would appear he never took possession of his see, which was already taken possession of by Dr. Dowdal by the appointment of Henry VIII. His learning, piety, and prudence recommended him to the confidence, and secured him the esteem of Paul III., and so highly did that discriminating pontiff, as also his successor Julius III., appreciate his taste for business, that he sent him as their Legate à latere to the Emperor of Germany and to the Court of France, which gave occasion to the saying 'Legatus cæcus oculatis Germanis.' He also attended on the part of the pontiff at the Council

of Trent during the first ten sessions from 1545 to 1547. After the death of Paul III., his patron, and the consequent prorogation of the Council, he started for Ireland, and subsequently retired to France, where he died in a convent of the Jesuits at Paris, on the 10th of November, 1551."

Now with reference to Dr. Dowdall, above alluded to, a few brief particulars may, en passant, prove interesting. On the 16th of March, 1543, died George Cromer, Archbishop of Armagh; and on November 28, a mandate was issued by Henry VIII. for the consecration of George Dowdall. He was consecrated by Dr. Staples, assisted by other bishops; but, unlike his suffragan, neither the frowns nor caresses of the world could turn him from the path of rectitude and duty, as the following circumstance will satisfactorily prove. The English Liturgy was read for the first time in the cathedral of Christ's Church, Dublin, on Easter Sunday, 1551; and in the same year, Sir James Crofts, the Lord Deputy, invited the bishops of the Catholic Church and of the Reformation to have a discussion on religion. The prelates assembled in the great hall of St. Mary's Abbey, Dublin: the subject of debate being the Sacrifice of the Mass. The primate, Dr. Dowdall, defended the Catholic doctrines. His antagonist, on the Protestant side, being no other than his consecrator Edward Staples, once Catholic bishop of Meath. Whatever may have been the relalative learning or abilities displayed by the disputants, there was no doubt on which side lay the prospect of worldly promotion. The result of the discussion being, says Ware, that it gave to the King and Council an opportunity to deprive Dowdall for his obstinacy of the title of Primate of all Ireland, and of annexing it to the see of Dublin for ever. Accordingly, Brown obtained Letters Patent from King Edward VI., dated October 20, 1551, that he and his successors should be Primates of all Ireland. Dowdall, aware of the tone and temper of the parties he had to deal with, fled to the Continent and took refuge in the monastery of Centre Brabant. Edward VI. died

in July, 1553, and was succeeded by Mary, daughter of Catherine of Arragon. Soon after her accession, Archbishop Dowdall was recalled from exile, and the title of Primate of all Ireland was by Letters Patent restored to him. To reform abuses which crept in during the last two reigns, and to remove false brethren from the sanctuary, were the especial objects of his care.

Dowdall having now obtained considerable influence in the government of the country, lived to see those principles triumph for which he suffered. He saw the seeds of true faith and Christian piety, planted by his episcopal labours, growing up into a rich and abundant harvest, and Providence spared him the mortification of seeing the crop destroyed by the political elements that shortly after his death checked their growth and threatened their entire ruin. Having held a synod of his diocese at Drogheda in 1557, he died in the year 1558 in England, on the Feast of the Assumption, just three months before the accession of Elizabeth to the English throne. Vide Renehan's Collections on Irish Church History. To return, however, to the special object of this brief communication. I must not forget, says Ware, that during the life of George Dowdall, who was in possession of the see of Armagh (by donation from King Henry VIII.), Pope Paul III. conferred that archbishopric on Robert Waucop, a Scot, who, although blind from his youth, yet applied himself with that diligence to learning, that he commenced Doctor in Divinity in Paris. He assisted at the Council of Trent from the 1st Session held in 1545, to the eleventh in 1547. He was sent by the Pope as legate à latere into Germany from whence arose the proverb, Legatus cæcus ad oculatos Germanos— a blind legate to the sharp-sighted Germans. By his means the Jesuits were first introduced into Ireland. He died in a convent of Jesuits at Paris, Nov. 10, 1551. De Burgo, in his Hibernia Dominicana, states that:

66

Pater Nicolaus Orlandinus e Societate Jesu Memoriæ

prodidit, hac tempestate floruisse Robertum Iba Primis, virum insignem et super alias fulgentissimas virtutes eo admiratione dignum, quod quamvis a puero fuerit oculis captus, nihil tamen minus claro mentis lumine hæresis furore obviam ire, laborantique insulæ subvenire curaverit, atque ejus Rogatu nonnullos Patres Idibus Sept. Roma profectos & B. Ignatii Patriarchæ magistri sui documentis in munere obeundo instructos in Ibernia multum operæ impendisse. Post Religiosorum vero Reditum, Primatum ipsum qui Conc. Triden. interfuit, suam Provinciam petentem, Parisiis in Conventu Patrum Soc. 10 Nov. diem obiisse ea verba identidem proferentem: Domine, si Populo tuo sum opus, ego quidem laborem non recuso; sin minus, nequicquam moleste fero ex hujus laboriosissimæ vitæ præsidio et statione discedere divino tuo conspectu et æternæ quiete recreandus."

O'Sullivan, in his Catholic History, confirms

Ancient and Modern.

us that he closed his career in a manner worthy of