Vol. III.—No. 83. NOTES AND QUERIES: A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION FOR LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

CONTENTS.

NOTES:—

QUERIES:—

REPLIES—

MISCELLANEOUS:—

ON THE PROPOSED RECORD OF EXISTING MONUMENTS.

Although disappointed in the hope we had entertained of being, by this time, in a position to announce that some decided steps had been taken to carry out, in a practical manner, the great scheme of preserving a record of our existing Monuments, we are gratified at being enabled to bring under the notice of our readers several communications which show the still increasing interest which is felt upon the subject.

The first, by Sir Thomas Phillipps, besides some valuable information upon the matter immediately under consideration, contains several very useful suggestions upon other, though kindred points.

In approving of the design mentioned in your "Notes" by MR. DUNKIN, it has surprised me that in no one of the communications which you have there printed is any allusion to the multitude of inscriptions already collected, and now preserved in the British Museum and other libraries. A list of what are already copied should first be made, which would considerably abridge the labour of collecting. For instance, the whole of Gloucestershire has

been preserved by Bigland, and nearly two-thirds of these have been printed. I should recommend his plan to be adopted, being multum in parvo, as to the headstones in the churchyards, and the clearest for reference by its alphabetical order of parishes. He copies them about 1780; so that now seventy years remain to be obtained. His collection would make two, or at most three, volumes folio, by which we can form an approximate idea as to the extent for the kingdom, which I estimate at one hundred volumes for the forty counties, because some of these are very small, and many monuments have been destroyed by the barbarous Gothlike conduct of church renovators and builders. (A propos of which conduct, I believe they are liable to an action at law from the next of kin: at all events, it is sacrilege.) In many county histories, all the monuments inside the churches, up to nearly the date of the publication, have been printed, as in Nichols's Leicestershire. I have myself printed the greater part of those for Wiltshire; but some are incorrectly printed, not having been collated; for I merely printed a few as handbooks to accompany me in my personal correcting survey of each church at another time. I have also printed as far as letter "E" of Antony à Wood's and Hinton's Oxfordshire Monuments, of which, I believe, MR. DUNKIN has a MS. copy. Now, it would be useless to reprint those which have been printed; consequently I should imagine twenty-five or thirty volumes, on Bigland's plan, would comprise all the villages; and I should imagine five or ten volumes at most would comprise all the capital towns. Allow me here to suggest the absolute necessity of taking "Notes" of the residence, parentage, and kindred of every one of the families of that vast tide of emigration now quitting our shores; and I call Lord Ashley's and Mr. Sidney Herbert's attention to it. These poor people will, many of them, become rich in half a century; will then probably die without a kindred soul in America to possess their wealth; and their next of kin must be sought for in the mother land, where, unless some registered memorial of their departure and connexions is kept, all traces of their origin may be lost for ever. It was the neglect of an act like this which has involved the beginning of nations in such profound obscurity. It was the neglect of such a register as I here propose, that makes it so difficult now for the American to discover the link which actually connected him with England. There is a corporate body, long established in this country, whose sole occupation is to make such registers; but at present they confine themselves to those called gentlemen. Why not make them useful as registers of the poor, at a small remuneration for entering each family. These poor, or their descendants, will some day become gentlemen, and perhaps not ashamed of their ancestry, although they may derive it through poverty. How gratified they may feel to be able, by means of this proposed registry, clearly to trace themselves to Great Britain (once the mistress of half the world), when their now adopted country has risen up in her place, and the mother has become subject to the daughter.

And then, too, how valuable will Americans and Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders, find the proposed Monumentarium of MR. DUNKIN.

The next is from a frequent contributor to our pages, and we have selected it for publication from among many which we have received promising assistance in the carrying out of the great scheme, because it shows very strikingly how many of the memorials, which it is the especial object of that scheme to preserve, have disappeared within the last few years.

Your valuable remarks on this head have induced me to send you a few observations in the same direction. You have justly said that the means by which the object can be accomplished fall into the three distinct operations of Collection, Preservation, and Publication. The first will require the help of all antiquaries throughout the kingdom who will volunteer their services, and of the clergymen resident in country parishes. Where possible, it would be well to find a co-operator in every county town, who would undertake the collection of all ancient memorials in his own district, either by personal inspection, or by the aid of the clergy. For this county we have, fortunately, a record of all or most of the monuments existing in the time of James I., published in Burton's History. Besides the monuments, there are also mentioned the coats of arms preserved in the churches. In the useful and voluminous world of Nichols, the record is brought down nearly to the commencement of the present century. But in late years, many ancient memorials have been removed altogether, or displaced. A day or two ago, I found only one monument in a village church, where Burton says there were two in his time. The chancel of St. Martin's Church, Leicester, a few years ago, contained a large number, of which many have been placed elsewhere, in order to "improve" the appearance of this part of the edifice. I believe a list of the monuments is preserved somewhere. This kind of proceeding has been carried on very generally throughout the country since the desire for "church restoration" has prevailed, and has led to great alterations in the interiors of our old parish churches. I should be happy to lend a helping hand in the collections for Leicester and the neighbourhood.

From our next communication, it will be seen that the Scottish Antiquaries, whose zeal and intelligence in the preservation and illustration of objects of national interest, are beyond all praise, are working in the same direction; and although we have not seen the Origines Parochiales, we can readily believe in the great value of a work of such a character when undertaken by the Bannatyne Club.

It may interest some of your "Monumental" and "Ecclesiological" correspondents to be informed that in 1834 there was collected and published by D. Macvean, bookseller, Glasgow, a volume of Epitaphs and Monumental Inscriptions in Scotland. Also, that there has just been published by Lizars, Edinburgh, for the Bannatyne Club, the first volume of the Origines Parochiales Scotiæ.

The former of these books (Epitaphs, &c.) is perhaps of no great value, being badly selected and worse arranged; but the latter (Origines, &c.) seems to be exactly such a work as W. J. D. R. (Vol. iii., p. 314.) has in his mind's eye for England.

A correspondent, MERCURII, has also directed our attention to a small volume, published in 1848, by one of the most valued contributors to our own columns, MR. DAWSON TURNER, under the title of Sepulchral Reminiscences of a Market Town, as afforded by a List of the Interments within the Walls of the Parish Church of St. Nicholas, Great Yarmouth, collected chiefly from Monuments and Gravestones still remaining, June, 1845. This little volume may be regarded as a public testimony on the part of MR. DAWSON TURNER to the value of the plan under consideration, and there are

few antiquaries whose opinions are entitled to greater respect upon this or any other point to which he has devoted his talents and attention. Can we doubt, then, the success of a plan which has met with such general approbation, and is undertaken with so praiseworthy an object,—an object which may well be described in the words which Weever used when stating the motive which led him to undertake the publication of his Funeral Monuments, viz., "To check the unsufferable injury, offered as well to the living as to the dead, by breaking down and almost utterly ruinating monuments with their epitaphs, and by erasing, tearing away, and pilfering brazen inscriptions, by which inhumane deformidable act, the honorable memory of many virtuous and noble persons deceased is extinguished, and the true understanding of divers families is so darkened, that the course of their inheritance is thereby partly interrupted."

Notes.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHAUCER, NO. VIII.

If, during his own lifetime, and under his own eye, poor Chaucer was so sinned against as to provoke this humorous malediction upon the head of the delinquent, it cannot be a matter of surprise that, in the various hands his text has since passed through, many expressions should have been perverted, and certain passages wholly misunderstood. And when we find men, of excellent judgment in other respects, proposing, as Tyrwhitt did, to alter Chaucer's words to suit their own imperfect comprehension of his meaning, it is only reasonable to suspect that similar mistakes may have induced early transcribers to alter the text, wherever, to their wisdom, it may have seemed expedient.

Now I know of no passage more likely to have been tampered with in this way, than those lines of the prologue to the Persone's Tale, alluded to at the close of my last communication. Because, supposing (which I shall afterwards endeavour to prove) that Chaucer really meant to write something to this effect: "Thereupon, as we were entering a town, the moon's rising, with Min al auwâ in Libra, began to ascend (or to become visible),"—and supposing that his mode of expressing this had been,

—in such a case, what can be more probable than that some ignorant transcriber, never perhaps dreaming of such a thing as the Arabic name of a star, would endeavour to make sense of these, to him, obscure words, by converting them into English. The process of transition would be easy; "min" or "men" requires little violence to become "mene" (the modern "mean" with its many significations), and "al auwâ" (or "alwai," as Chaucer would probably write it) is equally identical with "alway." The misplacement of "Libra" might then follow as a seeming necessity; and thus the line would assume its present form, leaving the reader to understand it, either with Urry, as,

or with Tyrwhitt:

Now, to Urry's reading, it may be objected that it makes the thing ascending to be Libra, and does not of necessity imply the moon's appearance above the horizon. But since the rising of the moon is a visible phenomenon, while that of Libra is theoretical, it must have been to the former Chaucer was alluding, as to something witnessed by the whole party as they

or otherwise this latter observation would have no meaning.

The objection to Tyrwhitt's reading is of a more technical nature—the moon, if in the middle of Libra, could not be above the horizon, in the neighbourhood of Canterbury, at four o'clock P. M., in the month of April. Tyrwhitt, it is true, would probably smooth away the difficulty by charging it as another inconsistency against his author; but I—and I hope by this time such readers of as are interested in the subject—have seen too many proofs of Chaucer's competency in matters of science, and of his commentator's incompetency, to feel disposed to concede to the latter such a convenient method of interpretation.

But there is a third objection common to both readings—that they do not satisfactorily account for the word "alway;" for although Tyrwhitt endeavours to explain it by continually, "was continually ascending," such a phrase is by no means intelligible when applied to a single observation.

For myself, I can say that this word "alway" was, from the first, the great difficulty with me—and the more I became convinced of the studied meaning with which Chaucer chose his other expressions, the less satisfied I was with this; and the more convinced I felt that the whole line had been corrupted.

In advocating the restoration of the reading which I have already suggested as the original meaning of Chaucer, I shall begin by establishing the probability of his having intended to mark the moon's place by associating her rising with that of a known fixed star—a method of noting phenomena frequently resorted to in ancient astronomy. For that purpose I shall point out another instance wherein Chaucer evidently intended an application of the same method for the purpose of indicating a particular position of the heavens; but first it must noted, that in alluding to the Zodiac, he always refers to the signs, never to the constellations—in fact, he does not appear to recognise the latter at all! Thus, in that palpable allusion to the precession of the equinoxes, in the Frankeleine's Tale—

—by the hed of Aries, Chaucer did not mean the os frontis of the Ram, whereon Alnath still shines conspicuously, but the equinoctial point, from which Alnath was shove by the extent of a whole sign.

This being premised, I return to the indication of a point in the ecliptic by the coincident rising of a star; and I contend that such was plainly Chaucer's intention in those lines of the Squire's Tale wherein King Cambuscan is described as rising from the feast:—

Which means that the sign Leo was then in the horizon—the precise degree being marked by the coincident rising of the star Aldryan.

Speght's explanation of "Aldryan," in which he has been copied by Urry and Tyrwhitt, is—"a star in the neck of the Lion." What particular star he may have meant by this, does not appear; nor am I at present within reach of probable sources wherein his authority, if he had any, might be searched for and examined; but I have learned to feel such confidence in Chaucer's significance of description, that I have no hesitation in assuming, until authority for a contrary inference shall be produced, that by the star "Aldryan" he meant REGULUS, not the neck, but the heart, of the Lion—

1st. Because it is the most remarkable star in the sign Leo.

2nd. Because it was,

in Chaucer's time, as it now is, nearly upon the line of the ecliptic.

3rd. Because its situation in longitude, about two-thirds in the sign Leo, just tallies with Chaucer's expression "yet ascending,"—that is, one-third of the sign was still below the horizon.

Let us examine how this interpretation consists with the other circumstances of the description. The feste-day of this Cambuscan was "The last idus of March"—that is, the 15th of March—"after the yere"—that is, after the equinoctial year, which had ended three or four days previously. Hence the sun was in three degrees of Aries—confirmed in Canace's expedition on the following morning, when he was "in the Ram foure degrees yronne," and his corresponding right ascension was twelve minutes. Now by "the angle meridional" was meant the two hours inequall immediately succeeding noon (or while the "1st House" of the sun was passing the meridian), and these two hours may, so near the equinox, be taken as ordinary hours. Therefore, when "Phebus hath left the angle meridional," it was two o'clock P.M., or eight hours after sunrise, which, added to twelve minutes, produces eight hours twelve minutes as the ascending point of the equinoctial. The ascending point of the ecliptic would consequently be twenty degrees in Leo, or within less than a degree of the actual place of the star Regulus, which in point of fact did rise on the 15th of March, in Chaucer's time, almost exactly at two in the afternoon.

Such coincidences as these could not result from mere accident; and, whatever may have been Speght's authority for the location of Aldryan, I shall never believe that Chaucer would refer to an inferior star when the great "Stella Regia" itself was in so remarkable a position for his purpose—assuming always, as a matter of course, that he referred his phenomena, not to the country or age wherein he laid the action of his tale, but to his own.

This, then, is the precedent by which I support the similar, and rather startling, interpretation I propose of these obscure words "In mena Libra alway."

There are two twin stars, of the same magnitude, and not far apart, each of which bears the Arabic title of Min al auwâ; one (β Virginis) in the sign Virgo—the other (δ Virginis) in that of Libra.

The latter, in the south of England, in Chaucer's time, would rise a few minutes before the autumnal equinoctial point, and might be called Libra Min al auwâ either from that circumstance, or to distinguish it from its namesake in Virgo.

Now on the 18th of April this Libra Min al auwâ would rise in the neighbourhood of Canterbury at about half-past three in the afternoon, so that by four o'clock it would attain an altitude of about five degrees—not more than sufficient to render the moon, supposing it to have risen with the star, visible (by daylight) to the pilgrims "entrying at a towne's end."

It is very remarkable that the only year, perhaps in the whole of Chaucer's lifetime, in which the moon could have arisen with this star on the 18th of April, should be the identical year to which Tyrwhitt, reasoning from historical evidence alone, would fain attribute the writing of the Canterbury Tales. (Vide Introductory Discourse, note 3.)

On the 18th of April, 1388, Libra Min al auwâ, and the moon, rose together about half-past three P. M. in the neighbourhood of Canterbury; and Tyrwhitt, alluding to the writing of the Canterbury Tales, "could hardly suppose it was much advanced before 1389!"

Such a coincidence is more than remarkable—it is convincing: especially when we add to it that 1388 "is the very date that, by a slight and probable injury to the last figure, might become the traditional one of 1383!"

Should my view, therefore, of the true reading of this passage in Chaucer be correct, it becomes of infinitely greater interest and importance than a mere literal emendation, because it supplies that which has always been supposed wanting to the Canterbury Tales, viz., some means of identifying the year to which their action ought to be attributed. Hitherto, so unlikely has it appeared that Chaucer, who so amply furnishes materials for the minor branches of the date, should leave the year unnoted, that it has been accounted for in the supposition that he reserved it for the unfinished portion of his performance. But if we consider the ingenious though somewhat tortuous methods resorted to by him to convey some of the other data, it is by no means improbable that he might really have devised this circumstance of the moon's rising as a means of at least corroborating a date that he might intend to record afterwards in more direct terms.

P.S.—Since writing the foregoing I have obtained, through the kindness of Mr. Thoms, the several readings of the lines commented upon in six different MSS. in the British Museum. And I have great satisfaction in finding that five out of the six confirm my hypothesis, at least with respect to the uncertain spelling of "alway." The readings in respect of the two words are these:

I acknowledge that, from the first, if I could have discovered a probable interpretation of "mene" as an independent word, I should have preferred it rather than that of making it a part of the Arabic name, because I think that the star is sufficiently identified by the latter portion of its name "Al auwâ," and because the preservation of "mene" in its proper place in the line would afford a reading much less forced than that I was obliged to have recourse to. Now it very singularly happens that in "NOTES AND QUERIES" of this day (page 388.) I find, upon the authority of A. C. M., that there is an Armorican word "menex" or "mene," signifying a summit or boundary. Here is an accidental, though most probable, original of the Chaucerian "mene," because the moon's place in longitude at the time specified was precisely on the verge or boundary of Libra: or even in the sense "summit" the word would be by no means inappropriate to the point of a sign in the ecliptic which first emerges from the horizon; with such a reading the lines would stand thus, which is a very slight change from their present form:

Perhaps A. C. M. would be good enough to cite his authorities for the word "mene," "menez"—in the signification of "summit" or "margin"—with examples, if possible, of its use in these or kindred senses.

And perhaps some Arabic scholar will explain the name "Min al auwâ," and show in what way the absence of the prefix "Min" would affect it?

TRADITIONS FROM REMOTE PERIODS THROUGH FEW LINKS.

In some of your former numbers (Vol. iii., pp. 206.; 237.; 289.) allusions have been made by your correspondents, showing that traditions may come down from remote periods through very few links. Having myself seen a man whose father lived in the time of Oliver Cromwell, I trust I shall be excused for stating some particulars of this fact, which I think will be considered by your readers as one of the most remarkable on record. In

the year 1844 died James Horrocks, a small farmer, who lived at Harwood, a short distance from Bolton, in Lancashire, having completed his hundredth year. This circumstance, however, was not so remarkable as that of his own birth, his father, William Horrocks, having been born in 1657, one year before the death of Cromwell, and having married in 1741, at the advanced age of eight-four, a second wife, a young and buxom woman of twenty-six, by whom he had one child, the above James Horrocks, born March 14, 1744, and baptized at Bradshaw Chapel, near Bolton.

It is believed that the first wife of William Horrocks had been employed in the well-known family of the Chethams, at Castleton Hall, near Rochdale (a branch of that of Humphrey Chetham), by whom they were both much respected; and soon after the second marriage, he and his youthful wife were sent for to Castleton Hall by the Chethams, by whom they were treated with much kindness; and the remarkable disparity of years in their marriage having no doubt created great interest, a painter was employed to take their portraits, which are still in existence, with the ages of the parties at the time, and the dates, when taken, painted upon them.

I paid the son, James Horrocks, more than one visit, and on the last occasion, in company with James Crossley, Esq., of Manchester, the Reverend Canon Parkinson, Principal of St. Bees' College, and one or two other gentlemen, I took my son with me. It happened to be the very day on which he completed his hundredth year, and we found him full of cheerfulness and content, expecting several of his descendants to spend the day with him. I possess a portrait in crayons of this venerable patriarch, taken on that day by a very clever artist, who accompanied us on our visit, and which is an extremely faithful likeness of the original. Should it please Providence to spare my son to attain to his seventieth year, he also will be enabled, in the year 1900, to say that he has seen a man whose father lived in the time of Oliver Cromwell; thus connecting events, with the intervention of one life only, comprehending a period of very nearly two centuries and a half.

P.S. A very interesting narrative of all the facts of this case was published in the Manchester Guardian a few years ago, comprising many curious particulars not noticed by myself, a copy of which I shall be glad to send you, if you think it worthy of insertion in "NOTES AND QUERIES".

[We accept with thanks the offer of our valued correspondent.]

DR. YOUNG'S NARCISSA.

A pamphlet was recently published at Lyons and Paris, by a Monsieur de Terrebasse, intending to prove that the daughter-in-law of Dr. Young, so pathetically lamented by him in the Night Thoughts under the poetical name of "Narcissa," was not clandestinely buried at Montpellier; that Dr. Young did not steal a grave for her from the Roman Catholics of that city; and that consequently the celebrated and touching episode in Night III. is purely imaginary. This opinion of M. de Terrebasse, first given to the world by him in 1832, and now repeated, has been controverted by the writer of an article in the Gazette Médicale of Montpellier. The tomb, it is said, of Elisabeth Lee, Dr. Young's daughter-in-law, was discovered a few years since at Lyons; and M. de Terrebasse endeavours to prove, from that circumstance, and from a comparison of facts and dates, that this Elisabeth Lee was the "Narcissa" of the poet. Not having seen M. de Terrebasse's pamphlet, and being indebted to the Journal des Savants for this brief account of it, it seems difficult to discover from it how M. de Terrebasse can pretend so summarily to invalidate the solemn and touching assertions of the poet, which assuredly are anything but flights of fancy.

In the notes to an edition of the Night Thoughts, printed in 1798, by C. Whittingham, for T. Heptinstall—

"It appears," it is stated, "by the extract of a letter just printed, that in order to obtain a grave, the Doctor bribed the under gardener, who dug the grave, and let him in by a private door, bearing his beloved daughter, wrapped up in a sheet, upon his shoulder. When he had laid her in this hole he sat down, and, as the man expressed it, 'rained tears.' It appears also, that some time previous to this event, expecting the catastrophe, he had been seen walking solitarily backward in this garden, as if to find the most solitary spot for his purpose."—See Evang. Mag., Nov. 1797.

I do not know what authority this letter quoted from the Evang. Mag. may possess.

Minor Notes.

Curious Epitaph.—The following lines are on a stone in Killyleagh churchyard. I have a faint recollection of seeing a similarly constructed epitaph in Harris's History of the County of Down, which was perhaps composed by the same person. Is any of your readers acquainted with any English inscription in the same style?

It will easily be seen that the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth words are to be read in connexion, as are those that follow these, and those next in succession.

The person on whose tomb the lines occur was the Rev. William Richardson, who died in 1670, having been minister of Killyleagh for twenty-one years. By the way, is not mysta a strange designation for a Presbyterian minister? I should think it would be now considered as objectionable as sacerdos.

The Curse of Scotland (Vol. i., pp. 61. 90.; Vol. iii., p. 22.).—

"The queen of clubs is called in Northamptonshire Queen Bess, perhaps, because that queen, history says, was of a swarthy complexion; the four of spades, Ned Stokes, but why I know not; the nine of diamonds, the curse of Scotland, because every ninth monarch of that nation was a bad king to his subjects. I have been told by old people, that this card was so called long before the Rebellion in 1745, and therefore it could not arise from the circumstance of the Duke of Cumberland's sending orders, accidentally written upon the card, the night before the battle of Culloden, for General Campbell to give no quarter."

The above extract from a communication to the Gentleman's Magazine for 1791, p. 141., is quoted in Mr. Singer's Researches into the History of Playing Cards, p. 271.; but the reason assigned by the writer does not

explain why the nine of diamonds should have acquired the name in question. The nine of any other suit would be equally applicable.

The Female Captive: a Narrative of Facts which happened in Barbary in the Year 1756. Written by Herself, 2 vols. 12mo. Lond., 1769.—Sir William Musgrave has written this note in the copy which is now in the library at the British Museum:

"This is a true story. The lady's maiden name was Marsh. She married Mr. Crisp, as related in the narrative. But he having failed in business went to India, where she remained with her father, then agent Victualler at Chatham, during which she wrote and published these little volumes. On her husband's success in India, she went thither to him.

"The book having, as it is said, been bought up by the lady's friends, is become very scarce."

Pictorial Antiquities.—The following memorandum, in the autograph of Edward, Earl of Oxford (the Harleian collector), seems worth preserving:

One might have thought that these notes were made for the use of Horace Walpole's History of Painting; but their writer, the second Lord Oxford, died in June, 1741, long before Walpole could have thought of such matters. They perhaps may afford clues to other antiquaries.

Queries.

ENGLISH POEMS BY CONSTANTINE HUYGHENS.

It is probable that some of your friendly correspondents in Holland may have it in their power to indicate where the English verses of Constantine Huyghens are to be found which he refers to in his Koren Bloemen, 2de Deel, p. 528. ed. 1672, where he was given Dutch translations with the following superscriptions: "Aen Joffw Utricia Ogle, uyt mijn Engelsh;" and "Aen Me-Vrouwe Stanhope, met mijn Heilige dagen, uyt mijn Engelsh."

Huyghens appears to have had a thorough knowledge of our language, and his very interesting volume contains translations of twenty of Dr. Donne's poems, very ably rendered, considering the difficulty of the task. He refers to this in his address to the reader, and says that an illustrious Martyr [Charles I.] many years since had declared that he could not have believed that any one could have successfully accomplished it. Huyghens confesses that the Latinisms with which our language abounds, had given him much to wrestle with; and that it was difficult to express in pure Dutch such words as ecstasy, atomy, influence, legacy, alloy, &c. The first stanza of the song, "Go and catch a falling Star," may perhaps be acceptable to some of your readers, who may not readily have access to the book: