Read Ebook: Notes and Queries Number 78 April 26 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men Artists Antiquaries Genealogists etc. by Various Bell George Editor

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On the Proposed Record of Existing Monuments 313

NOTES:--

QUERIES:--

The Bellman, and his History 324 Was Sallustius a Lecturer?--Connexion between Sallustius and Tacitus, by K. R. H. Mackenzie 325 The Outer Temple, by Edward Foss 325 Bibliographical Queries 326 Dutch Books published out of the Netherlands 326 What was the Country of the Angles? 326 Minor Queries:--Villenage--Roman Roads near London--Mrs. Catherine Barton--Sempecta at Croyland --Schmidt's Antiquitates Neomagensis--Roman Medicine-stamps--Sir Harris Nicolas' History of the Royal Navy--Wooden Baldrocks--Thanksgiving-book --History of the Jesuits--Mind your P's and Q's --Mode of hiring Domestic Servants in Holderness --Sittings--Fest--Home-made Wines--Inscription on a Clock--Inscription of the Tomb of Peter the Hermit--Wife of James Torre--"The Bear's Bible"--Harris, Painter in Water-Colours--University Hoods--"Nullis Fraus tuta latebris"--Voltaire, where situated?--Table of Prohibited Degrees --Launcelot Littleton--The Antediluvians 327

MINOR QUERIES ANSWERED:--Wither's Halelujah-- Voltaire's Henriade--Christ-Cross A.--Apple-pie Order--Spick and Span new--Theory of the Earth's Form--Carolus Lawson 330

REPLIES:--

Haybands in Seals, by J. Burtt, &c. 331 North Side of Churchyards, by Rev. W. H. Kelke, &c. 332 The Rolliad, and some of its Writers, by J. H. Markland, &c. 333 Quakers' Attempt to convert the Pope 335 Snail-eating 336 Sir John Davies, Davis, or Davys, by W. H. Lammin 336 Locke MSS., by Thomas Kerslake 337 Replies to Minor Queries:--Defoe's Anticipations-- Epitaph in Hall's Discoveries--Saint Thomas of Lancaster--Francis Moore, &c. 338

MISCELLANEOUS:--

Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 341 Books and Odd Volumes wanted 342 Notices to Correspondents 342 Advertisements 342

The following communications have reached us since the publication of our remarks on the proposed MONUMENTARIUM ANGLICANUM . They serve to show how much interest the subject has excited among those best qualified to judge of the great utility of some well-organised plan for the preservation of a record of our still existing monuments.

The plan I have adopted with regard to arrangement is to folio each page three times, viz., i. each parish by itself; ii. each county; iii. alphabetically; so that each parish can be considered complete in itself; each county can be bound up by itself; or the whole alphabetically, gazetteer-wise.

The index will be also in three divisions,--i. general; ii. names of places; iii. names of persons.

I should have preferred seeing the government performing the task of preserving manuscripts of all existing monuments; but it is the fashion in Britain for government to leave all apparently national undertakings to individual exertion. I will here conclude with a quotation from the report I have just published of the Transactions at the Congress of the British Archaeological Association held in Worcester:

"Lamentation is, however, worse than useless: the spirit of the age forbids all idle mourning. If we would awaken a sympathy and interest in our pursuits, we must gird up our loins like men, and be doing, and that right earnestly; for it is hopeless any longer waiting for the government, as a 'Deus ex machina,' to help us to rescue our antiquities from destruction."

ALFRED JOHN DUNKIN.

Our next is from a correspondent who proposes a scheme almost more extensive than that advocated by MR. DUNKIN, but who differs from that gentleman by recognising the necessity of combined endeavour to carry it out.

W. J. D. R.

Our next letter, though brief, is valuable as furnishing a case in point, to prove the practical utility which would result from the realisation of some well-considered scheme for the attainment of the great national object which we are advocating.

As an instance of the practical use of such a collection, let me inform your readers that in 1847, being engaged in an ejectment case on the home circuit, it became most important to show the identity of a young lady in the pedigree, the parish register of St. Christopher le Stocks only giving the name and date of burial. I found that when St. Christopher's was pulled down for the enlargement of the Bank of England, some kind antiquary had copied all the monuments. The book was found at the Herald's College; it contained an inscription proving the identity, and a verdict was obtained.

J. S. B.

Our last communication is, we have reason to believe, from an active and zealous Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, who would heartily co-operate in carrying out the practical suggestions thrown out in his letter.

In Vol. iii, p. 218., you suggest that the Society of Antiquaries is the body which should undertake the task of forming a record of existing monuments in churches. Entirely agreeing in the opinion you have expressed, I would venture to offer some remarks on the subject. The undertaking is a vast and laborious one, and can only be effected by great subdivision of labour.

That the Society of Antiquaries is the fittest agent for the work, I think admits of little doubt; its Fellows are widely spread throughout the country. In every neighbourhood may be found one or more gentlemen able and willing to give their aid, and to excite others to assist. The Archaeological Institute and the British Archaeological Association would doubtless add the weight of their influence, and the personal assistance of their members.

The clergy throughout the country would be able and willing labourers; and surely these conjoined forces are adequate to the occasion.

The inscriptions in churches should be accompanied with rubbings of all brasses; and, as far as possible, with drawings of the most interesting monuments.

I am satisfied the thing can be done, if it be undertaken with prudence, and continued with energy. The copies should be certified by the signature of the person making them, and they should all be transcribed on paper of the same description, so that they might be bound in volumes.

The expense would probably be considerable, because in some instances paid labour might be requisite; but it would be as nothing compared with the magnitude and importance of the result; and if, as is probable, the Society of Antiquaries might hesitate at undertaking the whole charge, I doubt not that many would contribute towards it, and amongst them

Q. D.

A very slight consideration of the object which it is proposed to accomplish, and the means by which it can be attained, will show that it falls properly into three distinct operations, namely, Collection, Preservation, and Publication.

The first and most important is, the Collection of Materials. In this, it is obvious, the co-operation of individuals well qualified for the work may be secured in all parts of the country, provided some well-defined plan of operation is furnished for their guidance, by some recognised centre of union. A Committee of the Society of Antiquaries, who should well consider and determine upon some uniform plan of recording the inscriptions, &c., is clearly the body who, from their position, could most effectually, and with the greatest propriety, issue such circulars. That the Antiquaries would in this receive the support of both the Archaeological Societies, there cannot, of course, be any doubt.

And as we have in the Society of Antiquaries a machinery already established for the proper collection of the materials, so we have an existing and most appropriate place for their preservation in the British Museum, where they may be consulted at all times, by all parties, with the greatest facility, and free of charge.

These two great points, then, of Collection and Preservation, it is clear may be attained at an expense so inconsiderable, compared with the benefits to be gained from their accomplishment, that we cannot believe in their failure from want of funds.

For the accomplishment of the third great end, that of Publication, there is no existing machinery. But let the work of collection and preservation be once fairly entered upon--let it be seen how valuable a collection of materials has been gathered ready to the hand of a Society which should undertake its publication, and there need be little fear that from the supporters of the various Antiquarian, Archaeological, and Publishing Societies, now spread throughout the country, there would be found plenty of good men and true ready to lend their aid to the printings and publishing of the MONUMENTARIUM ANGLICANUM.

Notes

I quote these lines because I wish to show that Tyrwhitt, in taking them as indicative of the very day on which the journey to Canterbury was performed, committed a great mistake.

But because Tyrwhitt, who, although an excellent literary critic, was by no means an acute reader of his author's meaning, was incapable of appreciating the admirable combination of physical facts by which Chaucer has not only identified the real day of the pilgrimage, but has placed it, as it were, beyond the danger of alteration by any possible corruption in the text, he set aside these physical facts altogether, and took in lieu of them the seventh and eighth lines of the prologue quoted above, which, I contend, Chaucer did not intend to bear any reference to the day of the journey itself, but only to the general season in which it was undertaken.

Accordingly, Mr. Tyrwhitt did not hesitate to adopt in his text the twenty-eighth of April as the true date, without stopping to examine whether that day would, or would not, be consistent with the subsequent phenomena related by Chaucer.

Both methods of explaining the phrase lead eventually to the same result, which is also identical with the interpretation of Chaucer's own contemporaries, as appears in its imitation by Lydgate in the opening of his "Story of Thebes:"

"Whan bright Phebus passed was the Ram, Midde of Aprill, and into the Bull came."

I enter into this explanation, not that I think it necessary to examine too curiously into the consistency of an expression which evidently was intended only in a general sense, but that the groundlessness of Tyrwhitt's alleged necessity for the alteration of "the Ram" into "the Bull" might more clearly appear.

I have said that Tyrwhitt was not a competent critic of Chaucer's practical science, and I may perhaps be expected to point out some other instance of his failure in that respect than is afforded by the subject itself. This I may do by reference to a passage in "The Marchante's Tale," which evinces a remarkable want of perception not only in Tyrwhitt, but in all the editors of Chaucer that I have had an opportunity of consulting.

"Bright was the day and blew the firmament, Phebus of gold his stremes doun hath sent To gladen every flour with his warmnesse; He was that time in Geminis, I gesse, But litel fro his declination In Cancer."

"ere the dayis eight Were passid, er' the month July befill."

A. E. B.

Leeds, April 8. 1851.

THE ACADEMIES OF SIR FRANCIS KYNASTON AND SIR BALTHAZAR GERBIER.

Among the many interesting associations connected with old Covent Garden and its neighbourhood, we ought not to overlook Sir Francis Kynaston's "Museum Minervae."

"Sir Francis Kynaston, the poet, was living in Covent Garden in 1636, on the east side of the street towards Berrie" .

And again, in his notice of Bedford Street , he says, Sir Francis resided "on the west side in 1637." Both these entries refer to the same residence--a noble mansion, built in the year 1594, which, after being inhabited by several important families, finally passed into the possession of Sir Francis Kynaston, who altered and adapted it as the college of the "Museum Minervae." The ground plan, which is now before me, exhibits a well-arranged and commodious building with two fronts, one in what is now Bedfordbury, and the other in the street now called Bedford Street. The building, when Sir Francis Kynaston purchased it in 1634, stood in the centre of a large garden. The surrounding streets,--King Street, New Street, Bedford Street, Chandos Street, Henrietta Street, and Bedfordbury, were not commenced building until the year 1637.

Balthazar Gerbier was born at Antwerp about 1591, came young into England, and was a retainer of the Duke of Buckingham as early as 1613. Upon the accession of Charles the First, he was employed in Flanders to negociate privately a treaty with Spain. In 1628 he was knighted at Hampton Court; and, as he says himself in one of his books, was promised by the king the office of surveyor-general of the works, after the death of Inigo Jones. In 1637 he was employed in some private transactions of state; and on the 13th of July, 1641, he took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, having a bill of naturalisation. In 1648 he appears to have projected the above-named academy, the failure of which very soon happened. Sir Balthazar then went to America, where he seems to have been very ill treated by the Dutch, and narrowly escaped with his life. He afterwards returned to England, and designed the triumphal arch for the reception of Charles the Second. He died at Hempsted-marshal, in 1667, whilst engaged in superintending the mansion of Lord Craven, and was buried in the chancel of that church.

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