Notes and Queries, Number 31, June 1, 1850

PARISH REGISTERS.—STATISTICS

Among the good services rendered to the public by yourself and your correspondents, few, I think will be found more important than that of having drawn their attention to Mr. Wyatt Edgell's valuable suggestions on the transcription of Parochial Registers. The supposed impracticability of his plan has perhaps hitherto deterred those most competent to the work from giving it the consideration which it deserves. I believe the scheme to be perfectly practicable; and, as a first move in the work, I send you the result of my own dealings with the registers of my parish.

It is many years since I felt the desideratum which Mr. Edgell has brought before the public; and, by way of testing the practicability of transcribing, and printing the parochial registers of the entire kingdom in a form convenient for reference, I made an alphabetical transcript of my own, which is now complete. The modus operandi which I adopted was this:—1. I first transcribed, on separate slips of paper, each baptismal entry, with its date, and a reference to the page of the register, tying up the slips in the order in which the names were entered in the register; noting, as I proceeded, on another paper, the number of males and females in each year.

2. The slips being thus arranged, they came in their places handy for collation with the original. I then collated each, year by year; during the process depositing the slips one by one in piles alphabetically, according to the initial letter of the surnames.

3. This done, I sorted each pile in an order as strictly alphabetical as that used in dictionaries or ordinary indices.

4. I then transcribed them into a book, in their order, collating each page as the work proceeded.

5. I then took the marriages in hand, adopting the same plan; entering each of these twice, viz. both under the husband's and the wife's name.

6. Next, the burials, on the same plan.

7. I then drew up statistical tables of the number of baptisms, marriages, and burials in each year, males and females separately where the register appeared badly kept, making notes of the fact, and adding such observations as occasionally seemed necessary.

8. I then drew up lists of vicars, transcripts of miscellaneous records of events, and other casual entries that appeared in the register.1

I noted, as I went on, the time occupied in each of these operations. It was as follows:—

My registers begin in the year 1558, and the present population of the parish is about 420, so that you have here an account of the labour necessary to complete an alphabetical transcript of the register of a rural parish of that extent in population.

I send you the result as a first step to a work of great national importance, and of inestimable value with relation to family descent, title to property long in abeyance, &c. &c. As to statistics, I doubt whether any data worthy of consideration can be obtained from these sources, owing to the constant irregularities which occur in keeping the registers.

No man, much less the minister of a parish, who has abundant calls upon his time, can be expected to sit down to the task of transcribing his registers through many consecutive hours; but there are few who could not give occasionally one or two hours to the work. In this way I effected my transcripts; the work of 195 hours being distributed through nearly five months—no great labour after all.

On an average, twelve words, with the figures, may be calculated for each entry, which will give for this parish about 500 folios. Each entry having been transcribed twice, we may call it, at a rough calculation, 1000 folios written out ready for printing.

If the authorities at the Registrar-General's office would give their attention to it, they must have there abundant data on which to form calculations as to the probable cost of the undertaking And I cannot help thinking that, setting aside printing as an after consideration, alphabetical transcripts, at least, might be obtained of all the parochial registers in the kingdom, and deposited in that office, at no insurmountable expense; and if the cost appear too heavy, the accomplishment of the work might be distributed through a given number of years; say ten, or even twenty.

Parliament might, perhaps, be induced to vote an annual grant for so important a work till it was accomplished; albeit, when we think of their niggardly denial of any thing to the printing, or even the conservation of the public records, sanguine hopes from that quarter can hardly be indulged.

To insure correctness, without which the scheme would be utterly valueless, I would propose that a certain number of competent transcribers be appointed for each county, either at a given salary, or at a remuneration of so much per entry, to copy the registers of those parishes the ministers of which are unwilling to do it, or feel themselves unequal to the task. The option, however, should always, in the first instance, be given to the minister, as the natural custos of the registers, and as one, from local knowledge, likely to do the work correctly. To each county there should also be appointed one or more competent persons as collators, to correct the errors of the transcribers.

I throw out these rough hints in the hope that some of your correspondents will furnish their ideas on the subject, till we at last arrive at a fully practicable plan of carrying out Mr. Wyatt Edgell's suggestions, and, at all events, obtain transcripts, if not printed copies, of every register in the kingdom.

THE HUDIBRASTIC VERSE

"He that fights and runs away," &c.—Your correspondent MELANION may be assured that the orations of Demosthenes do not afford any trace of the proverbial senarius, ανηρ δ φευγων και παλιν μαχησεται; and it does not appear quite clear how the apophthegm containing it (which has been so generally attributed to Plutarch) has been concocted. Heeren, in doing full justice to the biographical talent of the Chæronean, has yet observed, "We may easily see that in his Lives he only occasionally indicates his authorities, because his own head was so often the source." It is in the life of Demosthenes that the story of his flight is told, but briefly; and for that part which relates to the inscription on the shield of Demosthenes, he says, 'ως ελεγε Πυθεας. The other life among those of the Ten Orators, the best critics think not to be Plutarch's; and the relation in it is too ridiculous for credit; yet it is repeated by Photius.

The first writer in which the story takes something of the form in which Erasmus gives it is Aulus Gellius (Noct. Att. l. xvii. c. 21.):—

"Post inde aliquanto tempore Philippus apud Chaeroneam proelio magno Athenienses vicit. Tum Demosthenes orator ex eo proelio salutem fuga quaesivit: quumque id ei, quod fugerat, probrose objiceretur; versu illo notissimo elusit, ανηρ δ φευγων, inquit, και παλιν μαχησεται."

We here see that the senarius is designated as a well-known verse, so that it must have been in the mouths of the people long before it was applied to this piece of gossip. I have hitherto not been able to trace it to an earlier writer.

The Apophthegmata of Erasmus were first published, I believe, in 1531, in six books. I have an edition printed by Frobenius, at Basle, in 1538, in which two more books are added; and, in an epistle prefixed to the seventh book, Erasmus says,—

"Prodiit opus, tanta aviditate distractum est, ut protinus à typographo coeperit efflagitare denuo."

He names twenty-one ancient Greek and Latin authors from which the apophthegms had been collected; and, with regard to what he has taken from Plutarch, he mentions the licence he has used:—

"Nos Plutarchum multis de causis sequi maluimus quam interpretari, explanare quam vertere."

It is from this book of Erasmus that the worthy Nicolas Udall selected his Two Bookes of Apophthegmes; and he tells his readers,—

"I have been so bold with mine author as to make the first booke and second booke, which he maketh third and fowerth."

Udall has occasionally added further explanations of his own to those translated from Erasmus. He promises, in good time, the remaining, books, but says,—

"I have thought better, with two of the eight, to minister unto you a taste of this bothe delectable and fruitefull recreation."

Those who are desirous of knowing at large the course pursued by Erasmus in the compilation of this amusing and once popular work, will find it fully stated in his preface; one passage of which will show the large licence he allowed himself:—

"Sed totum opus quodammodo meum feci, dum et explanatius effero qua Graece referuntur, interjectis interdum quæ apud alios autores additur comperissem," &c.

The only sure ground, as far as I can discover, for this gradually constructed legend, is the mention of the flight of Demosthenes by Æschines and Dinarchus. In the more amplified editions of Erasmus's Adages, after the publication of the Apophthegmata, he repeats the story in illustration of a Latin proverb (probably only a version of the Greek), "Vir fugiens et denuo pugnabitur;" and I find in some collections of the sixteenth century both the Latin and Greek given upon the authority of Plutarch! Langius, in his Polyanthea (a copious common-place book which would outweigh twenty of our late Laureate's) has given the apophthegm verbatim from Erasmus, and has boldly appended Plutarch's name. But the more extraordinary course is that which one Gualandi took, who published, at Venice, in 1568, in 4to., an omnium gatherum, in five books, from various sources, in which there is much taken from Erasmus, and yet the title is Apoftemmi di Plutarco. In this book, the whole of the twenty-three apophthegms of Erasmus which relate to Demosthenes are given, and two more added at the end. It appears that Philelphus, and after him Raphael Regius, had printed, in the fifteenth century, Latin collections under the title of Plutarch's Apophthegms, and, according to Erasmus, had both taken liberties with their original. I have not seen either of these Latin versions, of which there were several editions. As far as regards Demosthenes, I think we may fairly conclude that the story is apocryphal. The Greek proverbial verse was no doubt a popular saying, which Aulus Gellius thought might give a lively turn to his story, of which an Italian would say, "Se non vero è ben trovato."

Feb. 9. 1850.

CUSTOM OF PRESENTING GLOVES

The following extracts from a MS. "Day-book" of the celebrated Anne Countess of Pembroke, recording the daily events of the last few months of her life passed at Brougham Castle in 1675, afford a further illustration of the custom of presenting gloves (Vol. i. pp. 72. 405.) as a matter of courtesy and kindness; and show, also, that it was not unusual to make presents of small sums of money in exhibition of the same feelings on the part of the donor:—

"January, as the year begins on New Year's Day.

"10th day, And to-day there dined here with my folks my cousin Thomas Sandford's wife, of Askham, and her second son; so after dinner I had them into my chamber and kissed her, and took him by the hand, and I gave her a pair of buckskin gloves, and him 5s., and then they went away.

"12th day. There dined here in the Painted Chamber with my folks Mrs. Jane Carleton, the widow, sister to Sir W'm. Carleton, deceased. So after dinner I had her into my chamber, and kissed her and talked with her awhile, and I gave her 5s., and she went away.

"17th day, To-day there dined with my folks my cousin, Mr. Thomas Burbeck, of Hornby, and his wife and their little daughter, and his father-in-law, Mr. Cotterick, and his wife and his mother; and there also dined here Mr. Robert Carleton, only son to the widow, Lady Carleton. So after dinner I had them all into my chamber, and kissed the women, and took the men by the hand, and I gave to my cousin, Mr. Burbeck, and his wife each 10s., and his mother 10s., and his father-in-law, Mr. Cotterick, and his wife, each of them 10s., and 6s. to the child, and I gave Mr. Carleton a pair of buckskin gloves, and then they all went away."

In another entry the Countess records the gift to a Mrs. Winch of Settra Park of "four pair of buckskin gloves that came from Kendall."

It does not appear that any present was made to the Countess in return. As in the case of Archbishop Laud and Master Prynne (Vol. i. p. 405.), these gifts were evidently expressions of condescension and good will by one in a high position to another in a somewhat lower station. It is, I take it, evident that the money-gifts, from the rank in life of the parties, and their connection with the Countess, could have been made with no other meaning or intention.

Streatham, April 22. 1850.

FOLK LORE

Exhumation of a Body ominous to Family of the Deceased.—In the counties of Leicester and Northampton, and I doubt not in other parts of England, there is a superstitious idea that the removal or exhumation of a body after interment bodes death or some terrible calamity to the surviving members of the deceased's family. Turner, in his History of Remarkable Providences, Lond. 1677, p. 77., thus alludes to this superstition:—

"Thomas Fludd of Kent, Esq., told me that it is an old observation which was pressed earnestly to King James I., that he should not remove the Queen of Scots' body from Northamptonshire, where she was beheaded and interred. For that it always bodes ill to the family when bodies are removed from their graves. For some of the family will die shortly after, as did Prince Henry, and, I think, Queen Anne."

In the above-named counties, nine roasted mice, three taken each third morning, constitutes the common charm for the hooping-cough.

Suffolk Folk Lore.—I send you a few articles on "Folk Lore", now, or not long ago, current in the county of Suffolk, in addition to what is to be found in the latter part of the second volume of Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia.

1. To ascertain whether her pretended lovers really love her or not, the maiden takes an apple-pip, and naming one of her followers, puts the pip in the fire. If it makes a noise in bursting from the heat, it is a proof of love; but if it is consumed without a crack, she is fully satisfied that there is no real regard towards her in the person named.

2. "I remember the wooing of a peascod instead of her." (Shakesp.)—The efficacy of peascods in the concerns of sweethearts is not yet forgotten among our rustic vulgar. The kitchen-maid, when she shells green peas, never omits, when she finds one having nine peas, to lay it on the lintel of the kitchen door; and the first clown who enters it is infallibly to be her husband, or at least her sweetheart.

3. If you have your clothes mended upon your back, you will be ill spoken of.

4.

Similar to which is the following:—

5. To sleep in a room with the whitethorn bloom in it during the month of May, will surely be followed by some great misfortune.

6. Cure for Fits.—If a young woman has fits, she applies to ten or a dozen unmarried men (if the sufferer be a man, he applies to as many maidens) and obtains from each of them a small piece of silver of any kind, as a piece of a broken spoon, or ring, or brooch, buckle, and even sometimes a small coin, and a penny; the twelve pieces of silver are taken to a silversmith or other worker in metal, who forms therefrom a ring, which is to be worn by the person afflicted. If any of the silver remains after the ring is made, the workman has it as his perquisite; and the twelve pennies also are intended as the wages for his work, and he must charge no more.

In 1830 I went into a gunsmith's shop in the village where I then resided, and seeing some fragments of silver in a saucer, I had the curiosity to inquire about them, when I was informed that they were the remains of the contributions for a ring for the above purpose which he had lately been employed to make.

Bible and Key.—Mr. Stevens's note on divination (Vol. i. p. 413.) reminds me of another use to which the bible and key are made subservient by the rustics in this locality. When some choice specimen of the "Lancashire Witches" thinks it necessary to decide upon selecting a suitor from among the number of her admirers, she not unfrequently calls in the aid of these auxiliaries to assist in determining her choice. Having opened the Bible at the passage in Ruth which states, "whither thou goest I will go," &c., and having carefully placed the wards of the key upon the verses, she ties the book firmly with a piece of cord; and, having mentioned the name of an admirer, she very solemnly repeats the passage in question, at the same time holding the Bible suspended by joining the ends of her little fingers inserted under the handle of the key. If the key retain its position during the repetition, the person whose name has been mentioned is considered to be rejected and so another name is tried until the book turns round and falls through the fingers, which is said to be a sure token that the name just mentioned is that of an individual who will certainly marry her.

Burnley, April 27.

P.S. In confirmation of the above, I may state that I have a Bible in my possession which bears evidence of having seen much service of this description.

NOTES ON JEREMY TAYLOR'S LIFE OF CHRIST

(Eden's Edit.)

Part I. Ad sect. 8. § 2. p. 166.—"It was Tertullian's great argument in behalf of Christians, 'see how they love one another.'"—Apol. c. 39.

Part I. Discourse iv. § 4. p. 173.—"A cook told Dionysius the tyrant, the black broth of Lacedæmon would not do well at Syracuse, unless it be tasted by a Spartan's palate."—Cicero, Tusc. D. v. § 98. Stob. Flor. Tit. 29. n. 100. Plut. Inst. Lac. 2. [these have been already referred to in "NOTES AND QUERIES"]: and compare Plutarch (Vit. Lycurgi, c. 12.).

Part II. Ad sect. 12. § 4. p. 394.—"If a man throw away his gold, as did Crates the Theban."—Diog. Laert. vi. § 87.

Ibid. § 7. p. 395. note b.—"Gaudet patientia duris."—Lucan. ix. 403.

Ibid. § 16. p. 404. note y.—"Plato vocat puritatem αποκρισιν χειρονων απο βελτιονων." Definit. p. 415. D.

Ibid. § 41. (on the tenth commandment) p. 446. note z.—"Non minus esse turpe oculos quam pedes in aliena immittere, dixit Xenocrates."—Ælian. Var. Hist. xiv. 42. Plutarch de Curiositate, c. 12.

Part II. Sect. 12. Discourse xi. § 5. p 451.—"Harpaste, Seneca's wife's fool."—Seneca, Epist. 50.

Part II. Sect. 12. Discourse xiv. § 8. p. 496.—"Vespasian, by the help of Apollonius Tyaneus, who was his familiar."—See Philostratus (Vit. Apollon. v. 28. § 1.).

Part III. Sect. 13. Discourse xv. § 11. p. 526.—"What the Roman gave as an estimate of a rich man, saying, 'He that can maintain an army, is rich.'"—Cicero Off. I. § 25. Plutarch Vit. Crassi, c. 2.

Part III. Sect. 13. Discourse xvi. § 8. p. 554. note e.—"Hic felix, nullo turbante Deorum; Is, nullo parcente, miser."—Lucan, viii. 707.

NOTES ON JEREMY TAYLOR'S SERMONS

(Eden's Edit.)

Serm. XVIII. Part I. sect. 2. § 2.—"Alexander, that wept because he had no more worlds to conquer."—Plutarch de Tranquillitate Animi, c. 4.

Serm. XXIII. Part I. p. 613.—"οφρυς επηρκοτες, και το φρονιμον ζητουντες εν τοις περιπατοις."—Plato Comicus apud Athenæum, p. 103. d. Lib. iii. c. 23. § 61. Cfr. Bato Comicus apud eundem, p. 163. b. Lib. iv. c. 17. § 55.

Serm. XXIV. § 5. p. 625.—"Lysander was πανουργος."—Plutarch, Lysand. c. 7.

NOTE ON TAYLOR'S HOLY DYING

(Eden's Edit.)

Cap. III. Sect. 7. § 7. p. 340.—"When men saw the graves of Calatinus, of the Servilii, the Scipios, the Metelli, did ever any man amongst the wisest Romans think them unhappy?" Translated from Cicero (Tusc. Disc. 1. c. 7. § 13.)

Cap. III. Sect. 8. § 6. p. 345.—"Brutus, … when Furius came to cut his throat, after his defeat by Anthony, he ran from it like a girl."—Valer. Max. ix. 13. § 3 Senec. Epist. 82.

Marlborough College, May 13.

UNPUBLISHED EPIGRAMS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM

I am not aware that the following epigrams have ever been printed. I transferred them to my note-book some time ago from the letters of Mr. Martyn, a littérateur of temporary fame in the first half of the eighteenth century, addressed to Dr. Birch; which are among the Birch MSS. in the British Museum. Mr. Martyn, if I remember right, gives them as not his own. You may think them worth printing in your agreeable Miscellany:—

Two epigrams on the coffins of Dr. Sacheverel and Sally Salisbury being found together in the vault of St. Andrew's:—

ON AUTHORS AND BOOKS, NO. 7

The author of the volume of which I am about to give a character, from the Ms. of sir William Musgrave, seems to be the person who is described by Gough as "Arthur Dobbs, Esq. of Castle Dobbs, promoter of the discovery of the N.W. passage." The note may interest both historians and collectors of books.

AN ESSAY on the trade and improvement of Ireland. By Arthur Dobbs, Esq. Dublin, 1729-31. 8vo.

"This volume contains both the parts of the work and is a most curious collection of facts and accounts respecting the population revenue and trade of Ireland; and I believe it is scarce, as I have not often met with it, nor do I remember to have heard it quoted on either side during the warm disputes about the commercial intercourse between England and Ireland in the year 1785." [W. Musgrave.]