NOTES AND QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of."—CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

CONTENTS.

• NOTES:—
  • Domingo Lomelyn, Jester to Henry VIII., By Edward F. Rimbault
  • Marlowe and the Old Taming of a Shrew
  • Beetle Mythology
  • Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster, by Rev. M. Walcott
  • Notes on Cunningham's London, by E.F. Rimbault
  • Old Painted Glass
  • Aelfric's Colloquy, by S.W. Singer
  • Logographic Printing
  • Memorial of Duke of Monmouth's Last Days
• QUERIES:—
  • Catherine Pegge, by Lord Braybrooke
  • William Basse and his Poems, by J.P. Collier
  • Minor Queries:—Christmas Hymn—Passage in Pope—Circulation of the Blood—Meaning of Pallace—Oliver Cromwell—Savegard and Russells—Pandoxare—Lord Bacon's Psalms—Festival of St. Michael, &c.—Luther and Erasmus—Lay of the Phoenix—Agricola—Liturgy Version of Psalms
• MISCELLANIES—including ANSWERS TO MINOR QUERIES:—
  • Sir W. Rider—Sonnet—Pilgrimage of Princes, &c.—Seal of Killigrew—Lacedaemonian Black Broth—Epigram—Bigotry—Gowghe's Dore of Holy Scripture—Reinerius Saccho—Discurs Modest—Defoe—Etymology of Muffins—By Hook or by Crook—El Buscapié, &c.
• MISCELLANEOUS:—
  • Notes on Books, Sales, catalogues, &c.
  • Books and Odd Volumes wanted
  • Notices to Correspondents
  • Advertisements

DOMINGO LOMELYN, JESTER TO HENRY VIII.

Shakespeare, in the Second Part of Henry IV. act v. sc. 3 makes Silence sing the following scrap:—

And Nash, in his Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600 (reprinted in the last edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. xi. p. 47.) has

T. Warton, in a note in vol. xvii. of the Variorum Shakespeare, says, "Samingo, that is San Domingo, as some of the commentators have observed. But what is the meaning and propriety of the name here, has not yet been shown. Justice Silence is here introduced as in the midst of his cups; and I remember a black-letter ballad, in which either a San Domingo or a Signior Domingo, is celebrated for his miraculous feats in drinking. Silence, in the abundance of his festivity, touches upon some old song, in which this convivial saint, or signior, was the burden. Perhaps, too, the pronounciation in here suited to the character." I must own that I cannot see what San Domingo has to do with a drinking song. May it not be an allusion to a ballad or song on Domingo, one of King Henry the Eighth's jesters?

None of the commentators have noticed this, but I think my suggestion carries with it some weight.

In the Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry the Eighth (published by Sir H. Nichols, in 1827), are many entries concerning this Domingo, most of which relate to payments of money that he had won from the king at cards and dice. He was evidently, as Sir Harris Nichols observes, one of King Henry's "diverting vagabonds," and seems to have accompanied his majesty wherever he went, for we find that he was with him at Calais in 1532. In all these entries he is only mentioned as Domingo; his surname, and the fact of his being a Lombard, we learn from Skelton's poem, mentioned above.

The following story, told of Domingo, occurs in Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Harington's Treatise on Playe, 1597, printed in the Nugae Antiquae, edit. Park, vol. i. p.222.:—

"The other tale I wold tell of a willinge and wise loss I have hearde dyversly tolde. Some tell it of Kyng Phillip and a favoryte of his; some of our worthy King Henry VIII. and Domingo; and I may call it a tale; becawse perhappes it is but a tale, but thus they tell