Kitabı oku: «Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851», sayfa 2

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.

Can any of your correspondents supply the words of this old ballad, and state the name of the composer of the music to it? Also whether it was published, and, if so, by whom?

E. H.

Anthony Bridges.—In the Hampshire Visitation of 1622, Harl. MS. 1544. fo. 25., appears the marriage of Barbara, second daughter of Sir Richard Pexsall, of Beaurepaire, in co. Southampton, by Ellinor his wife, daughter of William Pawlett, Marquis of Winchester, to "Anthony Bridges." That Sir Richard Pexsall died in 1571, is the only clue I have to the date of the match.

Query, Who was this Anthony Bridges, and did he leave issue?

Is it possible that this is the identical Anthony, third surviving son of Sir John Bridges, first Baron Chandos of Sudeley, respecting whose fate there is so much uncertainty? He is presumed to have married a daughter of Fortescue of Essex, but the collateral evidence on which the supposition is founded is too slight to be satisfactory. Little is known but that he was born before 1532; that he was living in 1584 (in which year he was presented to the living of Meysey Hampton in Gloucestershire, the county in which he resided); and that he had a son Robert, upon a presumed descent from whom the late Sir Egerton Brydges founded his well-known claim to the barony of Chandos of Sudeley.

O. C.

Barlaam and Josaphat (Vol. iii., p. 135.).—I was much interested in Mr. Stephens' remarks on the Rev. W. Adams's beautiful allegory, and would be glad to know from him, or some other of your learned correspondents, what English translations there are of this "spiritual romance in Greek;" where I may find an account or notice of the work, or get a copy of it.

Jarltzberg.

"Stick at Nothing."—The expression "stop at nothing" occurs in the following couplet in Dryden's Aurengzebe:

 
"The world is made for the bold impious man,
Who stops at nothing, seizes all he can."
 

And Pope, in one of his letters, has the expression "stick at nothing," where he says:

"The three chief qualifications of party-writers are, to stick at nothing, to delight in flinging dirt, and to slander in the dark by guess."

Can any of your correspondents explain the origin of the word "stick" in the sense in which it is used by Pope; and how it came to supplant altogether the more intelligible word "stop," as employed by Dryden?

Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia, January, 1851.

"Ejusdem Farinæ."—Your readers are acquainted with the expression "ejusdem farinæ," and the derogatory sense in which it is employed to describe things or characters of the same calibre. It was in common use among clerical disputants after the Reformation; and Leland has it in the following remarks respecting certain fabulous interpolations in the Black Book at Cambridge:

"Centum sunt ibi, præterea, ejusdem farinæ fabulæ."

I have no doubt, however, that the origin of the expression may be traced to the scholastic doctors and casuists of the Middle Ages.

Will any of your correspondents be good enough to explain the circumstances which gave rise to the adoption of "farina" as a term expressive of baseness and disparagement?

Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia, January, 1851.

Batail.—Favine, in his Theatre of Honour (b. ii. c. 13), in speaking of a bell at Menda, says of the clapper of a bell, that "it is a Bataill in Armes." Was this word ever introduced into English heraldry? The only instances of bells in English arms that I can discover in the books to which I have access at present are in the coats of Bell, Porter, Osney, and Richbell.

H. N. E.

The Knights of Malta.—On the stone corbels which support the roof of one of the aisles of a church in my neighbourhood, there are carved the armorial badges of persons who are supposed to have contributed to the building of the church, which was erected in the thirteenth century. On one of the corbels (the nearest to the altar, and therefore in the most honourable place) there is a lamb bearing a flag. The lamb has a nimbus round its head, and the staff of the flag terminates in a cross like the head of a processional cross. The device, I have reason to think, was the badge of the knights of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem, who had a preceptory in this neighbourhood during the thirteenth century. In the history of these knights, first of Jerusalem, then of Rhodes, and afterwards of Malta, I find it stated, that in the year 1130 Pope Innocent II. commanded that the standard of the knights (at that time settled at Jerusalem) should be "gules, a full cross argent."

Will any of your correspondents be so kind as to inform me if the device on the corbel was the badge of the knights of the order of St. John of Jerusalem? and if so, at what time they first assumed it?

S. S. S.

General Pardons.—Has any example of a general pardon under the great seal been ever printed at length? particularly any of those granted after the restoration of Charles II.?

J. G. N.

"Too wise to err."—You will oblige many of your readers if you will inform them from whence the words

"Too wise to err, too good to be unkind,"

are quoted.

T. W. A.

Replies

THOMAS MAY

(Vol. iii., p. 167.)

Thomas May, famous amongst the busy characters of his age, both as a politician and a poet, was the eldest son of Sir Thos. May, Knt., of Mayfield, in Sussex, where he was born in 1595. At the usual period of life, he was admitted a fellow-commoner of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge; and having taken the degree of B.A. he entered himself at Gray's Inn, with the intention of studying the law, which, however, it is uncertain whether he ever pursued as a profession. Whilst he was a student of the law, he made the acquaintance of Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon; and became the intimate associate of Ben Jonson, Selden, Cotton, Sir K. Digby, Thos. Carew¹, "and some others of eminent faculties in their several ways."

"His parts of nature and art," writes Clarendon², in describing his character, "were very good, as appears by his translation of Lucan (none of the easiest work of that kind), and more by his Supplement to Lucan, which being entirely his own, for the learning, the wit, and the language, may be well looked upon as one of the best epic poems in the English language."

As an elegant writer, indeed, of Latin verse, he is justly numbered amongst the most successful of the accomplished poets of our nation—Ben Jonson, Cowley, Milton, Marvell, Crashaw, Addison, Gray, Smart, T. Warton, Sir W. Jones, &c.—who have devoted their leisure to this species of composition. Clarendon goes on to say that May was "born to a fortune, if his father had not spent it; so that he had only an annuity left him, not proportionable to a liberal education:"

"Yet since," continues this illustrious authority, "his fortune could not raise his mind, he brought his mind down to his fortune, by a great modesty and humility in his nature, which was not affected, but very well became an imperfection in his speech, which was a great mortification to him, and kept him from entering upon any discourse but in the company of his very friends," of whom he had not a few, for "he was cherished by many persons of honour, and very acceptable in all places."

From Charles I., no mean judge of poetry, and a liberal patron of the Muses, May received much encouragement, and many substantial marks of favour in the shape of donatives; and it was at the express command of this monarch that he wrote his historical poem entitled The Victorious Reigne of Edward III. From disgust, however, at the appointment of D'Avenant to the Laureateship, on the death of Jonson in 1637,—a post to which, according to what he considered to be his own superior deserts³, he was himself justly entitled,—"May fell from his duty, and all his former friends," and became an active agent in promoting the designs of the so-called popular leaders. Through the interest of Cromwell, he was nominated Secretary to the Parliament, in which capacity he wrote a History of its transactions, a work which was published in 1647. This performance, which is highly commended by Granger, rendered its author extremely obnoxious to the royal party, who exercised all their powers of pen to disparage both the book and its compiler. He is represented by Clarendon, for instance, "as prostituting himself to the vile office of celebrating the infamous acts of those who were in rebellion against the king; which he did so meanly, that he seemed to all men to have lost his wits, when he left his honesty." Anthony à Wood's account⁴ of these matters, and of May himself, is that

"He was graciously countenanced by K. Charles I. and his royal consort; but he, finding not that preferment from either which he expected, grew discontented, sided with the Presbyterians, and, upon the turn of the times, became a debauchee ad omnia; entertained ill principles as to religion, spoke often very slightly of the Trinity, kept beastly and atheistical company, of whom Thos. Challoner, the regicide, was one, and endeavoured to his power to asperse and invalidate the king and his cause."

His acquaintance with Challoner is also alluded to by Aubrey who says⁵, "that his translation of Lucan's excellent poem, made him in love with the republique." Aubrey adds, he was—

"A handsome man, debauched, and lodged in the little square by Cannon Row, as you go through the alley."

Clarendon concludes his notice of May by observing that—

"Shortly after the publication of his parliamentary history he died, miserable and neglected, and deserves to be forgotten."

The fact is, he was found dead in his bed in Nov. 1650; but that he was "neglected" is not altogether correct. At any rate, he was honoured with a public funeral, a marble monument, and a laudatory epitaph in Westminster Abbey,—short-lived dignities! for, at the Restoration, the memorial of his fame was torn down, whilst his body was exhumed, and, after being treated with much ignominy, hurled into a large pit in St. Margaret's churchyard adjoining.—Besides the works above noticed, May also wrote The Description of Henry II., in verse, with A Short Survey of the Changes of his Reign, and The Single and Comparative Character of Henry and Richard his Sons, in prose. Nor was that of Lucan his only translation, for he rendered into English verse Virgil's Georgics and Selected Epigrams of Martial. He was also the author of five dramas, two of which are given in Dodsley's Old Plays. A now forgotten critic, Henry Headley, B.A., of Norwich, observes concerning his historical poetics, that May—

"Has caught no small portion of the energy and declamatory spirit which characterises the Roman poet, whom, as he translated, he insensibly made his model. His battle pieces," our critic continues, "highly merit being brought forward to notice; they possess the requisites, in a remarkable degree, for interesting the feelings of an Englishman. While in accuracy they vie with a gazette, they are managed with such dexterity, as to busy the mind with unceasing agitation, with scenes highly diversified and impassioned by striking character, minute incident, and alarming situation."⁶

In confirmation of the general propriety and justness of these remarks, I would refer to the description of "The Den of the Vices" (H. II. b. i.), and to the accounts of "The Death of Rosamond" (H. II. b. v.), "The Battle of Cressy" (E. III. b. iii.), and "The Capture of Mortimer" (E. III. b. i.). These pieces can only be thus vindicated, being much too long for extracting; but I think a republication of the entire poems would be an acceptable boon to the public.

Cowgill.

Although May's version of Cato's soliloquy is immeasurably below Addison's, I am inclined to agree with J. H. L., that, on comparing them, it is more than probable, Addison had May's description of Cato's death in his mind at the same time he penned the justly celebrated soliloquy in the 5th Act of his Cato.

E. B. Price.

Cow Cross.

Thomas May, the author of the Supplement to Lucan (Vol. iii., p. 167), was the secretary and historian of the Long Parliament. He was born at Mayfield in 1595; took the degree of B.A. at Sydney-Sussex College, Cambridge, and afterwards entered Gray's Inn, but devoted himself to literature. He translated Virgil's Georgics, Selected Epigrams of Martial, and in 1627 Lucan's Pharsalia; to the latter, in 1630, he supplied an English continuation of his own in seven books; intituled, A Continuation of the Subject of Lucan's Historical Poem till the Death of Julius Cæsar. It was dedicated to Charles. He afterwards published at Leyden a Latin translation of the seven additional books; this was added to the Amsterdam and other editions of Lucan, and has established May's fame as a classic scholar. Andrew Marvell, who saw only an apology for the doings of the tyrannical parliament in the continuation of Lucan's poem, calls May—

 
"Most servile wit, and mercenary pen,
Polydore, Lucan, Allan, Vandal, Goth.
Malignant poet and historian both.
Go seek the novice statesmen and obtrude
On them some Roman cast similitude."
 

He died suddenly in the night of 13th Nov., 1650, his death being attributed by Marvell to a little too much indulgence in wine.

 
"As one pot drunk into the packet-boat,
Tom May was hurry'd hence, and did not know't."
 

W. Durrant Cooper.

81. Guilford Street.

[We are also indebted to Balliolensis and other correspondents for general replies to this Query; and to W. S. (Richmond) for a reference to Baron Maseres' account of him prefixed to his edition of May's History of the Long Parliament.]