Various
Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc

Notes

Notes on Midland County Minstrelsy

It has often occurred to me that the old country folk-songs are as worthy of a niche in your mausoleum as the more prosy lore to which you allot a separate division. Why does not some one write a Minstrelsy of the Midland Counties? There is ample material to work upon, and not yet spoiled by dry-as-dust-ism. It would be vain, perhaps, to emulate the achievements of the Scottish antiquary; but surely something might be done better than the county Garlands, which, with a few honorable exceptions, are sad abortions, mere channels for rhyme-struck editors. There is one peculiarity of the midland songs and ballads which I do not remember to have seen noticed, viz. their singular affinity to those of Scotland, as exhibited in the collections of Scott and Motherwell. I have repeatedly noticed this, even so far south as Gloucestershire. Of the old Staffordshire ballad which appeared in your columns some months ago, I remember to have heard two distinct versions in Warwickshire, all approaching more or less to the Scottish type:

"Hame came our gude man at e'en."

Now whence this curious similarity in the vernacular ideology of districts so remote? Are all the versions from one original, distributed by the wandering minstrels, and in course of time adapted to new localities and dialects? and, if so, whence came the original, from England or Scotland? Here is a nut for Dr. Rimbault, or some of your other correspondents learned in popular poetry. Another instance also occurs to me. Most of your readers are doubtless familiar with the pretty little ballad of "Lady Anne" in the Border Minstrelsy, which relates so plaintively the murder of the two innocent babes, and the ghostly retribution to the guilty mother. Other versions are given by Kinloch in his Ancient Scottish Ballads, and by Buchan in the Songs of the North, the former laying the scene in London:

"There lived a ladye in London,
All alone and alonie,
She's gane wi' bairn to the clerk's son,
Down by the green-wood side sae bonny."

And the latter across the Atlantic:

"The minister's daughter of New York,
Hey with the rose and the Lindie, O,
Has fa'en in love wi' her father's clerk,
A' by the green burn sidie, O."

A Warwickshire version, on the contrary, places the scene on our own "native leas:"

"There was a lady lived on lea,
All alone, alone O,
Down the greenwood side went she,
Down the greenwood side, O.

"She set her foot all on a thorn¹,
Down the greenwood side, O,
There she had two babies born,
All alone, alone O.

"O she had nothing to lap them in,
All alone, alone O,
But a white appurn and that was thin,
Down the greenwood side, O," &c.

Here there are no less than four versions of the same ballad, each differing materially from the other, but all bearing unmistakeable marks of a common origin. It would be interesting to know the process by which this was managed.

C. Clifton Barry.

COMET SUPERSTITIONS IN 1853

From the 19th of August to the present time that brilliant comet, which was first seen by M. Klinkerfues, at Göttingen, on the 10th of June last, has been distinctly visible here, and among the ignorant classes its appearance has caused no little alarm. The reason of this we shall briefly explain.

During the past fifty-five years the Maltese have grievously suffered on three different occasions; firstly, by the revolution of 1798, which was followed by the plague in 1813; and lastly, by the cholera in 1837. In these visitations, all of which are in the recollection of the oldest inhabitants, thirty thousand persons are supposed to have perished.

Mindful as these aged people are of these sad bereavements, and declaring as they do that they were all preceded by some "curious signs" in the heavens which foretold their approach, men's minds have become excited, and, reason as one may, still the impression now existing that some fatal harm is shortly to follow will not be removed.

A few of the inhabitants, more terrified than their neighbours, have fancied the comet's tail to be a fiery sword, and therefore predict a general war in Europe, and consequent fall of the Ottoman Empire. But as this statement is evidently erroneous, we still live in great hopes, notwithstanding all previous predictions and "curious signs," that the comet will pass away without bringing in its train any grievous calamity.

By the following extracts, taken from some leading journals of the day, it will be seen that the Maltese are not alone in entertaining a superstitious dread of a comet's appearance. The Americans, Prussians, Spaniards, and Turks come in the same list, which perhaps may be increased by your correspondents:

"The Madrid journals announce that the appearance of the comet has excited great alarm in that city, as it is considered a symptom of divine wrath, and a presage of war, pestilence, and affliction for humanity."—Vide Galignani's Messenger of August 31, 1853.

"The entire appearance (of the comet) is brilliant and dazzling; and while it engrosses the attention and investigation of the scientific, it excites the alarm of the superstitious, who, as in ancient times, regard it as the concomitant of pestilence and the herald of war."—Vide New York correspondence of The Sun, Aug. 24, 1853.

"The splendid comet now visible after sun-set on the western horizon, has attracted the attention of every body here. The public impression is, that this celestial phenomenon is to be considered as a sign of war; and their astrologers, to whom appeal is made for an interpretation, make the most absurd declarations: and I have been laughed at by very intelligent Turks, when I ventured to persuade them that great Nature's laws do not care about troubles here below."—Vide Turkish correspondence of The Herald, Aug. 25, 1853.

"The comet which has lately been visible has served a priest not far from Warsaw with materials for a very curious sermon. After having summoned his congregation together, although it was neither Sunday nor festival, and shown them the comet, he informed them that this was the same star that had appeared to the Magi at the birth of our Saviour, and that it was only visible now in the Russian empire. Its appearance on this occasion was to intimate to the Russian eagle, that the time was now come for it to spread out its wings, and embrace all mankind in one orthodox and sanctifying church. He showed them the star now standing immediately over Constantinople, and explained that the dull light of the nucleus indicated its sorrow at the delay of the Russian army in proceeding to its destination."—Vide Berlin correspondence of The Times.

W. W.

Malta.

THE OLD ENGLISH WORD "BELIKE."

The word belike, much used by old writers, but now almost obsolete, even among the poor, seems to have been but very imperfectly understood—as far as regards its original meaning and derivation. Most persons understand it to be equivalent, or nearly so, to very likely, in all likelihood, perhaps, or, ironically, forsooth; and in that opinion they are not far wrong. It occurs in this sense in numerous passages in Shakspeare; for instance:

"Some merry mocking lord, belike."—Love's Labour's Lost.

"O then, belike, she was old and gentle."—Henry V.

"Belike, this show imports the argument."—Hamlet.

Such also was Johnson's opinion of the word, for he represents it to be "from like, as by likelihood;" and assigns to it the meanings of "probably, likely, perhaps." However, I venture to say, in opposition to so great an authority, that there is no immediate connexion whatever between the words belike and likely, with the exception of the accidental similarity in the syllable like.

We find three different meanings attached to the same form like in English, viz. like, similis; to like, i. e. to be pleased with; and the present word belike, whose real meaning I propose to explain.

The first is from the A.-S. lic, gelic; Low Germ. lick; Dutch gelyk; Dan. lig (which is said to take its meaning from lic, a corpse, i. e. an essence), which word also forms our English termination -ly, sometimes preserving its old form like; as manly or manlike, Godly or Godlike; A.-S. werlic, Godlic; to which the Teut. adjectival termination lich is analogous.

The second form, to like, i. e. to be pleased with, is quite distinct from the former (though it has been thought akin to it on the ground that simili similis placet); and is derived from the A.-S. lician, which is from lic, or lac, a gift; Low Germ. licon; Dutch lyken.

The third form, the compound term belike (mostly used adverbially) is from the A.-S. licgan, belicgan, which means, to lie by, near, or around; to attend, accompany; Low Germ. and Dutch, liggen; Germ. liegen. In the old German, we have licken, ligin, liggen—jacere; and geliggen—se habere; which last seems to be the exact counterpart of our old English belike; and this it was which first suggested to me what I conceive to be its true meaning. We find the simple and compound words in juxtaposition in Otfridi Evang., lib. i. cap. 23. 110. in vol. i. p. 221. of Schilter's Thes. Teut.:

"Thoh er nu biliban si,
Farames thoh thar er si
Zi thiu'z nu sar giligge,
Thoh er bigraben ligge."

"Etsi vero is (Lazarus) jam mortuus est,
Eamus tamen ubi is sit,
Quomodo id jam se habeat (quo in statu sint res ejus),
Etiamsi jam sepultus jaceat."

On which Schilter remarks:

"Zi thiu'z nu sar giligge quomodo se res habeat, hodie standi verbo utimur,—wie es stehe, zustehe."

We thus see that the radical meaning of the word belike is to lie or be near, to attend; from which it came to express the simple condition, or state of a thing: and it is in this latter sense that the word is used as an adverbial or rather an interjectional expression, when it may be rendered, it may be so, so it is, is it so, &c. Sometimes ironically, sometimes expressing chance, &c.; in the course of time it became superseded by the more modern term perhaps. Instances of similar elliptical expressions are common at the present day, and will readily suggest themselves: the modern please, used for entreaty, is analogous.

It is not a little singular that this account of the word belike enables us to understand a passage in Macbeth, which has been unintelligible to all the commentators and readers of Shakspeare down to the present day. I allude to the following, which stands in my first folio, Act IV. Sc. 3., thus:

"      .       .       .       .     What I am truly
Is thine, and my poor countries, to command:
Whither indeed before they heere approach,
Old Seyward, with ten thousand warlike men,
Already at a point, was setting foorth:
Now we'll together, and the chance of goodnesse
Be like our warranted quarrel."

Now it is not easy to see why Malcolm should wish that "chance" should "be like," i. e. similar to, their "warranted quarrel;" inasmuch as that quarrel was most unfortunate and disastrous. Chance is either fortunate or unfortunate. The epithet just, which might apply to the quarrel in question, is utterly irreconcilable with chance. Still this sense has pleased the editors, and they have made "of goodnesse" a precatory and interjectional expression. Surely it is far more probable that the poet wrote belike (belicgan, geliggen) as one word, and that the meaning of the passage is simply "May good fortune attend our enterprise." Mr. Collier's old corrector passes over this difficulty in silence, doubtless owing to the circumstance that the word was well understood in his time.

I have alluded to the word like as expressive in the English language of three distinct ideas, and in the A.-S. of at least four; is it not possible that these meanings, which, as we find the words used, are undoubtedly widely distinct, having travelled to us by separate channels, may nevertheless have had originally one and the same source? I should be glad to elicit the opinion of some one of your more learned correspondents as to whether the unused Hebrew ילן may not be that source.

H. C. K.

—– Rectory, Hereford.

DRUSES

Comparing the initiatory undertaking or covenant of the Druses, as represented by Col. Churchill in his very important disclosures (Lebanon, ii. 244.), with the original Arabic, and the German translation of Eichhorn (Repertorium für Bibl. und Morgenland, lib. xii. 222.), I find that the following additions made by Col. Churchill (or De Sacy, whom he follows) are not in the Arabic, but appear to be glosses or amplifications. For example:

"I put my trust and confidence in our Lord Hakem, the One, the Eternal, without attribute and without number."

"That in serving Him he will serve no other, whether past, present, or to come."

"To the observance of which he sacredly binds himself by the present contract and engagement, should he ever reveal the least portion of it to others."

"The most High, King of Kings, [the creator] of the heaven and the earth."

"Mighty and irresistible [force]."

Col. Churchill, although furnishing the amplest account which has yet appeared of the Druse religion, secretly held under the colour of Mahometanism, has referred very sparingly to the catechisms of this sect, which, being for the especial instruction of the two degrees of monotheists, constitute the most authentic source of accurate knowledge of their faith and practices, and which are to be found in the original Arabic, with a German translation in Eichhorn's Repertorium (xii. 155. 202.). In the same work (xiv. 1., xvii. 27.), Bruns (Kennicott's colleague) has furnished from Abulfaragius a biography of the Hakem; and Adler (xv. 265.) has extracted, from various oriental sources, historical notices of the founder of the Druses.

The subject is peculiarly interesting at the present juncture, as it is probable that the Chinese religious movement, partaking of a peculiar kind of Christianity, may have originated amongst the Druses, who appear from Col. Churchill to have been in expectation of some such movement in India or China in connexion with a re-appearance of the Hakem.

T. J. Buckton.

Birmingham.

FOLK LORE

Legends of the County Clare.—How Ussheen (Ossian) visited the Land of "Thiernah Ogieh" (the Country of perpetual Youth).—Once upon a time, when Ussheen was in the full vigour of his youth, it happened that, fatigued with the chace, and separated from his companions, he stretched himself under a tree to rest, and soon fell asleep. "Awaking with a start," he saw a lady, richly clothed and of more than mortal beauty, gazing on him; nor was it long until she made him understand that a warmer feeling than mere curiosity had attracted her; nor was Ussheen long in responding to it. The lady then explained that she was not of mortal birth, and that he who wooed an immortal bride must be prepared to encounter dangers such as would appal the ordinary race of men. Ussheen, without hesitation, declared his readiness to encounter any foe, mortal or immortal, that might be opposed to him in her service. The lady then declared herself to be the queen of "Thiernah Ogieh," and invited him to accompany her thither and share her throne. They then set out on their journey, one in all respects similar to that undertaken by Thomas the Rhymer and the queen of Faerie, and having overcome all obstacles, arrived at "the land of perpetual youth," where all the delights of the terrestrial paradise were thrown open to Ussheen, to be enjoyed with only one restriction. A broad flat stone was pointed out to him in one part of the palace garden, on which he was forbidden to stand, under penalty of the heaviest misfortune. One day, however, finding himself near the fatal stone, the temptation to stand on it became irresistible, and he yielded to it, and immediately found himself in full view of his native land, the existence of which he had forgotten from the moment he had entered the kingdom of Thiernah Ogieh. But alas! how was it changed from that country he had left only a few days since, for "the strong had become weak," and "the brave become cowards," while oppression and violence held undisputed sway through land. Overcome with grief, he hastened to the the queen to beg that he might be restored to his country without delay, that he might endeavour to apply some remedy to its misfortunes. The queen's prophetic skill made her aware of Ussheen's transgression of her commands before he spoke, and she exerted all her persuasive powers to prevail upon him to give up his desire to return to Erin, but in vain. She then asked him how long he supposed he had been absent from his native land, and on his answering "thrice seven days," she amazed him by declaring that three times thrice seven years had elapsed since his arrival at the kingdom of Thiernah Ogieh; and though Time had no power to enter that land, it would immediately assert its dominion over him if he left it. At length she persuaded him to promise that he would return to his country for only one day, and then come back to dwell with her for ever; and she gave him a jet-black horse of surpassing beauty, from whose back she charged him on no account to alight, or at all events not to allow the bridle to fall from his hand. She farther endued him with wisdom and knowledge far surpassing that of men. Having mounted his fairy steed, he soon found himself approaching his former home; and as he journeyed he met a man driving before him a horse, across whose back was thrown a sack of corn: the sack having fallen a little to one side, the man asked Ussheen to assist him in balancing it properly; Ussheen instantly stooped from his horse, and catching the sack in his right hand, gave it such a heave that it fell over on the other side. Annoyed at his mistake, he forgot the injunctions of his bride, and sprung from his horse to lift the sack from the ground, letting the bridle fall from his hand at the same time: instantly the horse struck fire from the ground with his hoofs, and uttering a neigh louder than thunder, vanished; at the same instant his curling locks fell from Ussheen's head, darkness closed over his beaming eyes, the more than mortal strength forsook his limbs, and, a feeble helpless old man, he stretched forth his hands seeking some one to lead him: but the mental gifts bestowed on him by his immortal bride did not leave him, and, though unable to serve his countrymen with his sword, he bestowed upon them the advice and instruction which flowed from wisdom greater than that of mortals.

Francis Robert Davies.

SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE

On "Run-awayes" in Romeo and Juliet.—

"Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steedes,
Towards Phœbus' lodging such a wagoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudie night immediately.
Spred thy close curtaine, Love-performing night,
That run-awayes eyes may wincke, and Romeo
Leape to these armes, vntalkt of and vnseene."

Your readers will no doubt exclaim, is not this question already settled for ever, if not by Mr. Singer's substitution of rumourer's, at least by that of R. H. C., viz. rude day's? I must confess that I thought the former so good, when it first appeared in these pages, that nothing more was wanted; yet this is surpassed by the suggestion of R. H. C. As conjectural emendations, they may rank with any that Shakspeare's text has been favoured with; in short, the poet might undoubtedly have written either the one or the other.

But this is not the question. The question is, did he write the passage as it stands in the first folio, which I have copied above? Subsequent consideration has satisfied me that he did. I find the following passage in the Merchant of Venice, Act II. Sc. 6.:

"– but come at once,
For the close night doth play the run-away,
And we are staid for at Bassanio's feast."

Is it very difficult to believe that the poet who called the departing night a run-away would apply the same term to the day under similar circumstances?

Surely the first folio is a much more correctly printed book than many of Shakspeare's editors and critics would have us believe.

H. C. K.

—– Rectory, Hereford.

The Word "clamour" in "The Winter's Tale."—Mr. Keightley complains (Vol viii., p. 241.) that some observations of mine (p. 169.) on the word clamour, in The Winter's Tale, are precisely similar to his own in Vol. vii., p. 615. Had they been so in reality, I presume our Editor would not have inserted them; but I think they contain something farther, suggesting, as they do, the A.-S. origin of the word, and going far to prove that our modern calm, the older clame, the Shakspearian clamour, the more frequent clem, Chaucer's clum, &c., all of them spring from the same source, viz. the A.-S. clam or clom, which means a band, clasp, bandage, chain, prison; from which substantive comes the verb clæmian, to clam, to stick or glue together, to bind, to imprison.

If I passed over in silence those points on which Mr. Keightley and myself agreed, I need scarcely assure him that it was for the sake of brevity, and not from any want of respect to him.

I may remark, by the way, on a conjecture of Mr. Keightley's (Vol. vii., p. 615.), that perhaps, in Macbeth, Act V. Sc. 5., Shakspeare might have written "till famine clem thee," and not, as it stands in the first folio, "till famine cling thee," that he is indeed, as he says, "in the region of conjecture:" cling is purely A.-S., as he will find in Bosworth, "Clingan, to wither, pine, to cling or shrink up; marcescere."

H. C. K.

—– Rectory, Hereford.

Three Passages in "Measure for Measure."—H. C. K. has a treacherous memory, or rather, what I believe to be the truth, he, like myself, has not a complete Shakspeare apparatus. Collier's first edition surely cannot be in his library, or he would have known that Warburton, long ago, read seared for feared, and that the same word appears in Lord Ellesmere's copy of the first folio, the correction having been made, as Mr. Collier remarks, while the sheet was at press. I however assure H. C. K. that I regard his correction as perfectly original. Still I have my doubts if seared be the poet's word, for I have never met it but in connexion with hot iron; and I should be inclined to prefer sear or sere; but this again is always physically dry, and not metaphorically so, and I fear that the true word is not to be recovered.

I cannot consent to go back with H. C. K. to the Anglo-Saxon for a sense of building, which I do not think it ever bore, at least not in our poet's time. His quotation from the "Jewel House," &c. is not to the point, for the context shows that "a building word" is a word or promise that will set me a-building, i. e. writing. After all I see no difficulty in "the all-building law;" it means the law that builds, maintains, and repairs the whole social edifice, and is well suited to Angelo, whose object was to enhance the favour he proposed to grant.

Again, if H. C. K. had looked at Collier's edit., he would have seen that in Act I. Sc. 2., princely is the reading of the second folio, and not a modern conjecture. If he rejects this authority, he must read a little farther on perjury for penury. As to the Italian prenze, I cannot receive it. I very much doubt Shakspeare's knowledge of Italian, and am sure that he would not, if he understood the word, use it as an adjective. Mr. Collier's famed corrector reads with Warburton priestly, and substitutes garb for guards, a change which convinces me (if proof were wanting) that he was only a guesser like ourselves, for it is plain, from the previous use of the word living, that guards is the right word.

Thos. Keightley.

Shakspeare's Works with a Digest of all the Readings (Vol. viii., pp. 74, 170.).—I fully concur with your correspondent's suggestion, and beg to suggest to Mr. Halliwell that his splendid monograph edition would be greatly improved if he would undertake the task. As his first volume contains but one play (Tempest), it may not be too late to adopt the suggestion, so that every variation of the text (in the briefest possible form) might be seen at a glance.

Este.

DEATH ON THE FINGERS

"Isaac saith, I am old, and I know not the day of my death (Gen. xxvii. 2.); no more doth any, though never so young. As soon (saith the proverb) goes the lamb's skin to the market as that of the old sheep; and the Hebrew saying is, There be as many young skulls in Golgotha as old; young men may die (for none have or can make any agreement with the grave, or any covenant with death, Isa. xxviii. 15. 18.), but old men must die. 'Tis the grant statute of heaven (Heb. ix. 27.). Senex quasi seminex, an old man is half dead; yea, now, at fifty years old, we are accounted three parts dead; this lesson we may learn from our fingers' ends, the dimensions whereof demonstrate this to us, beginning at the end of the little finger, representing our childhood, rising up to a little higher at the end of the ring-finger, which betokens our youth; from it to the top of the middle finger, which is the highest point of our elevated hand, and so most aptly represents our middle age, when we come to our ακμὴ, or height of stature and strength; then begins our declining age, from thence to the end of our forefinger which amounts to a little fall, but from thence to the end of the thumb there is a great fall, to show, when man goes down (in his old age) he falls fast and far, and breaks (as we say) with a witness. Now, if our very fingers' end do read us such a divine lecture of mortality, oh, that we could take it out, and have it perfect (as we say) on our fingers' end, &c.

"To old men death is præ januis, stands before their door, &c. Old men have (pedem in cymbâ Charonis) one foot in the grave already; and the Greek word γήρων (an old man) is derived from παρὰ το εἰς γὴν ορᾶν, which signifies a looking towards the ground; decrepit age goes stooping and grovelling, as groaning to the grave. It doth not only expect death, but oft solicits it."—Christ. Ness's Compleat History and Mystery of the Old and New Test., fol. Lond. 1690, chap. xii. p. 227.

From The Barren Tree, a sermon on Luke xiii. 7., preached at Paul's Cross, Oct. 26, 1623, by Thos. Adams:

"Our bells ring, our chimneis smoake, our fields rejoice, our children dance, ourselues sing and play, Jovis omnia plena. But when righteousnesse hath sowne and comes to reape, here is no haruest; οὐκ εὐρίσκω, I finde none. And as there was neuer lesse wisdome in Greece then in time of the Seven Wise Men, so neuer lesse pietie among vs, then now, when vpon good cause most is expected. When the sunne is brightest the stars be darkest: so the cleerer our light, the more gloomy our life with the deeds of darkness. The Cimerians, that live in a perpetuall mist, though they deny a sunne, are not condemned of impietie; but Anaxogoras, that saw the sunne and yet denied it, is not condemned of ignorance, but of impietie. Former times were like Leah, bleare-eyed, but fruitful; the present, like Rachel, faire, but barren. We give such acclamation to the Gospell, that we quite forget to observe the law. As vpon some solenne festivall, the bells are rung in all steeples, but then the clocks are tyed vp: there is a great vntun'd confusion and clangor, but no man knowes how the time passeth. So in this vniuersall allowance of libertie by the Gospell (which indeed rejoyceth our hearts, had we the grace of sober vsage), the clocks that tel vs how the time passes, Truth and Conscience, that show the bounded vse and decent forme of things, are tyed vp, and cannot be heard. Still Fructum non invenio, I finde no fruits. I am sorry to passe the fig-tree in this plight: but as I finde it, so I must leave it, till the Lord mend it."—Pp. 39, 40., 4to. Lond. 1623.

Balliolensis.

Minor Notes

On a "Custom of ye Englyshe."—When a more than ordinarily doubtful matter is offered us for credence, we are apt to inquire of the teller if he "sees any green" in our optics, accompanying the query by an elevation of the right eyelid with the forefinger. Now, regarding this merely as a "fast" custom, I marvelled greatly at finding a similar action noted by worthy Master Blunt, as conveying to his mind an analogous meaning. I can scarcely credit its antiquity; but what other meaning can I understand from the episode he relates? He had been trying to pass himself off as a native, but—

"The third day, in the morning, I, prying up and down alone, met a Turke, who, in Italian, told me—Ah! are you an Englishman, and with a kind of malicious posture laying his forefinger under his eye, methought he had the lookes of a designe."—Voyage in the Levant, performed by Mr. Henry Blunt, p. 60.: Lond. 1650.

—a silent, but expressive, "posture," tending to eradicate any previously formed opinion of the verdantness of Mussulmans!

R. C. Warde.

Kidderminster.

Epitaph at Crayford.—I send the following lines, if you think them worthy an insertion in your Epitaphiana: a friend saw them in the churchyard of Crayford, Kent.

"To the Memory of Peter Izod, who was thirty-five years clerk of this parish, and always proved himself a pious and mirthful man.

"The life of this clerk was just three score and ten,
During half of which time he had sung out Amen.
He married when young, like other young men;
His wife died one day, so he chaunted Amen.
A second he took, she departed,—what then?
He married, and buried a third with Amen.
Thus his joys and his sorrows were treble, but then
His voice was deep bass, as he chaunted Amen.
On the horn he could blow as well as most men,
But his horn was exalted in blowing Amen.
He lost all his wind after threescore and ten,
And here with three wives he waits till again
The trumpet shall rouse him to sing out Amen."

Tradition reports these verses to have been composed by some curate of the parish.

Quæstor.

The Font at Islip.—

"In the garden is placed a relic of some interest—the font in which it is said King Edward the Confessor was baptised at Islip. The block of stone in which the basin of immersion is excavated, is unusually massy. It is of an octangular shape, and the outside is adorned by tracery work. The interior diameter of the basin is thirty inches, and the depth twenty. The whole, with the pedestal, which is of a piece with the rest, is five feet high, and bears the following imperfect inscription:

'This sacred Font Saint Edward first receavd,
From Womb to Grace, from Grace to Glory went,
His virtuous life. To this fayre Isle beqveth'd,
Prase … and to vs but lent.
Let this remaine, the Trophies of his Fame,
A King baptizd from hence a Saint became.'

"Then is inscribed:

'This Fonte came from the Kings Chapell in Islip.'"

—Extracted from the Beauties of England and Wales, title "Oxfordshire," p. 454.

In the gardens at Kiddington there—

"was an old font wherein it is said Edward the Confessor was baptized, being brought thither from an old decayed chapel at Islip (the birth-place of that religious prince), where it had been put up to an indecent use, as well as the chapel."—Extracted from The English Baronets, being a Historical and Genealogical Account of their Families, published 1727.

The Viscounts Montague, and consequently the Brownes of Kiddington, traced their descent from this king through Joan de Beaufort, daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

C. B.

"As good as a Play."—I note this very ordinary phrase as having royal origin or, at least, authority. It was a remark of King Charles II., when he revived a practice of his predecessors, and attended the sittings of the House of Lords.

The particular occasion was the debate, then interesting to him, on Lord Roos' Divorce Bill.

W. T. M.

Hong Kong.

Queries

LOVETT OF ASTWELL

It is stated in all the pedigrees of this family which I have seen, that Thomas Lovett, Esq., of Astwell in Northamptonshire, who died in 1542, married for his first wife Elizabeth, daughter (Burke calls her "heir," Extinct Baronetage, p. 110.) of John Boteler, Esq., of Woodhall Watton, in Hertfordshire. The pedigree of the Botelers in Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

1

In one of the Scottish ballads the same idea is more prettily expressed "leaned until a brier."

Back