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Read Ebook: Notes and Queries Number 41 August 10 1850 by Various
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NOTES: Sir William Gascoigne, by Edward Foss An old Guy, by Dr. Bell Folk Lore:--Folk Lore of South Northamptonshire, No. 2 Mice, Snakes, Poultry, Crows, Owls, Cuckoos, &c. Minor Notes:--Hon. A. Erskine--Gloves--Punishment of Death by Burning--India Rubber
QUERIES: The "Bar" of Michael Angelo, by S.W. Singer Annotated Copies of Bishop Andrewes' Works Minor Queries:--Robert Innes, a Grub Street Poet--Sicilian Vespers--One Bell--Treasure Trove--Poeta Anglicus--Hornbooks--Ben Jonson, or Ben Johnson--MS. Book of Prayers belonging to Queen Catherine Parr--Waltheolf--De Combre Family--Ilda--"De Male quaesitis"--Westminster Abbey--Haberdasher--Martinet-- "Querela Cantabrigiensis"--Long Lonkin
REPLIES: Treatise of Equivocation Boethius' Consolations of Philosophy, by C.H. Cooper Etymological Queries answered, by Albert Way Replies to Minor Queries:--Solingen--Blackguard--The Three Dukes--Bonny Dundee--Was Quarles pensioned?--Collar of Esses--The Story of the Three Men and their Bag of Money--Will. Robertson of Murton--Long Meg of Westminster--Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Antholin's--The Plant "Haemony"--Mildew in Books--The Carpenter's Maggot--Martello Towers--Highland Kilts--Derivation of Penny--Scarf--Smoke-money--Common, Mutual, and Reciprocal--Juice Cups--Curfew--Derivation of Totnes, &c.
MISCELLANEOUS: Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c Books and Odd Volumes Wanted Notices to Correspondents Advertisements
NOTES.
SIR WILLIAM GASCOIGNE.
Although you and I no doubt unite in the admiration, which all our fellow-countrymen profess, and some of them feel, for our immortal bard, yet I do not think that our zeal as Shakspearians will extend so far as to receive him as an unquestionable authority for the facts introduced into his historical plays. The utmost, I apprehend, that we should admit is, that they represent the tradition of the time in which he wrote, and even that admission we should modify by the allowance, to which every poet is entitled, of certain changes adopted for dramatic effect, and with the object of enhancing our interest in the character he is delineating.
"Sir, here comes the nobleman that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph."
And Falstaff in the same scene thus addresses Gascoigne:
"For the box of the ear that the prince gave you,--he gave it like a rude prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it, and the young lion repents."
And Gascoigne, when Henry refers to the incident in these words:
"How might a prince of my great hopes forget So great indignities you laid upon me? What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison The immediate heir of England! Was this easy? May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten?"
thus justifies himself to the king:
"I then did use the person of your father; The image of his power lay then in me: And in the administration of his law, Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth, Your highness pleased to forget my place,-- The majesty and power of law and justice, The image of the king whom I presented,-- And, struck me in my very seat of judgment; Whereon, as an offender to your father, I gave bold way to my authority, And did commit you."
We cannot, however, be so easily satisfied with the second fact,--the reappointment of Gascoigne,--thus asserted by Shakspeare when making Henry say:
"You did commit me; For which, I do commit into your hand The unstain'd sword that you have us'd to bear; With this remembrance,--that you use the same With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit, As you have done 'gainst me."
It is well known that Sir William Hankford was Gascoigne's successor as Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and the real question is, when he became so. Dugdale states that the date of his patent was January 29, 1414, ten months after King Henry's accession; and if this were so, the presumption would follow that Gascoigne continued Chief Justice till that time. Let us see whether facts support this presumption.
Further, although Gascoigne was summoned to the first parliament on March 22, yet on its meeting on May 15, he was not present;--added to which, his usual position, as first named legal trier of petitions, was filled by Sir William Hankford, placed too in precedence of Sir William Thirning, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.
I think I may fairly ask whether it is possible to suppose that in either of these records, particularly the latter, he would have been docked his title, had he ever been Chief Justice of the reigning king?
Edward Foss.
Street-End House, near Canterbury.
AN OLD GUY?
No one would at present think of any other answer to a Query as to the meaning of this term than that the phrase originated with the scarecrows and stuffed apings of humanity with which the rising generation enlivens our streets on every fifth of November, and dins in our ears the cry, "Please to remember the guy," and that it alludes to the Christian name of the culprit, Guido. Have, however, any of your readers met this title, or any allusion to it, in any writer previously to 1605? and may its attribution to the supposed framer of the Gunpowder Plot only have been the accidental appropriation of an earlier term of popular reproach, and which had become so since the conversion of the nation to Christianity? This naturally heaped contumely and insult upon every thing relating to the Druids, and the heathen superstitions of the earlier inhabitants.
Whilst on the subject of the mistletoe, I cannot forbear to mark the coincidences that run through the popular notions of a country in all ages. Pliny, in his very exact account of the druidical rites, tells us, when the archdruid mounted the oak to cut the sacred parasite with a golden pruning-hook, two other priests stood below to catch it in a white linen cloth, extremely cautious lest it should fall to earth. One is almost tempted to fancy that Shakspeare was describing a similar scene when he makes Hecate say
"Upon the corner of the moon, There hangs a vap'rous drop profound, I'll catch it ere it come to ground."
In a very excellent note to Dr. Giles' translation of Richard of Cirencester, p. 432., he adduces the opinion of Dr. Daubeny, of Oxford, that as the mistletoe is now so rarely found in Europe on oaks, it had been exterminated with the other druidical rites on the introduction of Christianity. I am not sufficiently botanist to determine how far it is possible to destroy the natural habitat of a plant propagated by extrinsic means, and should be more inclined to account for the difference then and now by supposing that the Druids may have known the secret of inoculating a desirable oak with the seeds where birds had not done so, and practised it when necessary.
P.S. Since writing the above, I recollect that the Latin verse,
William Bell, Ph.D.
FOLK LORE.
"A whistling woman and a crowing hen, Is neither fit for God nor men."
According to Pluquet, the Normans have a similar belief, and a saying singularly like the English one:
"Un Poule qui chante le coq, et une fille qui siffle, portent malheur dans la maison."
Before the death of a farmer his poultry frequently go to roost at noon-day, instead of at the usual time. When the cock struts up to the door and sounds his clarion on the threshold, the housewife is warned that she may soon expect a stranger. In what is technically termed "setting a hen," care is taken that the nest be composed of an odd number of eggs. If even, the chickens would not prosper. Each egg is always marked with a little black cross, ostensibly for the purpose of distinguishing them from the others, but also supposed to be instrumental in producing good chickens, and preventing any attack from the weasel or other farm-yard marauders. The last egg the hen lays is carefully preserved, its possession being supposed to operate as a charm upon the well-doing of the poultry. In some cases, though less commonly, the one laid on Good Friday is preserved, from the same reason. When a baby is first taken out to see its friends, it is customary for them to give it an egg: this, if preserved, is held to be a source of good fortune to the future man. The first egg laid by a pullet is usually secured by the shepherd, in order to present to his sweetheart,--the luckiest gift, it is believed, he can give her.
"The oule eke that of deth the bode bringeth."
When, as sometimes happens, he exchanges the darkness of his ivy bush for the rays of the sun at noon-day, his presence is looked upon as indicative of bad luck to the beholder. Hence it not infrequently happens that a mortal is as much scared by one of these occasional flights as the small bird denizens of the tree on which he may happen to alight.
"Cuckoo, cuckoo, cherry tree Catch a penny and give it to me."
"The robin and the wren, Be God A'mighty's cock and hen."
T.Y.
Minor Notes
"The Hon. A. Erskine was fourth son of the fifth Earl of Kelley. Mr. Boswell told me the 30th of May, 1794, that A.E., having spent all his property, in a fit of despair threw himself from a rock into the sea last winter, and was drowned. His body was found five days after, when it appeared it was a deliberate act, as he had filled his pockets with stones."
"ENGUANTADO. El que entra con Guantes adonde se le ha de tener a descortesia. El que sirve no los ha de tener delante de su Senor: ni Vasallo, sea quien fuere, delante de su Rey." Fo. 453. b. ed. 1611.
The use of gloves must be of very high antiquity. In the Middle Ages the priest who celebrated mass always, I believe, wore them during that ceremony; but it was just the contrary in courts of justice, where the presiding judge, as well as the criminal, was not allowed to cover his hands. It was anciently a popular saying, that three kingdoms must contribute to the formation of a good glove:--Spain to prepare the leather, France to cut them out, and England to sow them.
S.W. Singer.
Mickleham, July 26. 1850.
It is, perhaps, as well to state that there were some fifteen to twenty persons standing around the smouldering embers at the time I passed.
Senex.
"Our readers, perhaps, who employ themselves in the art of drawing, will be pleased with a transcript of the following advertisement:--'I have seen, says Dr. Priestly, a substance, excellently adapted to the purpose of wiping from paper the marks of a black lead pencil. It must, therefore, be of singular use to those who practise drawing. It is sold by Mr. Nairne, mathematical instrument-maker, opposite the Royal Exchange. He sells a cubical piece, of about half an inch, for three shillings; and, he says, it will last several years.'"
N.B.
QUERIES
THE "BAR" OF MICHAEL ANGELO.
"Levommi il mio pensiero in parte ov' era Quello eh' io cerco, e non ritrovo in terra; ... in questa spera Sarai ancor meco, s' el desir non erra."
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