Beplies. THE COWPER CENTENARY. Ir may be of interest to readers of 'N. & Q.' to know that the issues of the Eastern Daily Press (Norwich) of 23, 24, and 25 April contain articles on the Cowper Centenary by his Honour Judge Willis, Q.C. The judge deals in trenchant fashion with the inaccuracies of the poet's biographers and critics, from Hayley to Mr. Wright and Mr. Augustine Birrell. Towards the end of the final article Judge Willis gives us the following interesting particulars : -: that the poet makes a jocular reference on this subject in his letter to Mrs. Courtenay, dated 15 September, 1793. He observes: "While Pitcairne whistles for his family estate in Fifeshire, he will do well if he will sound a few notes for me. I am originally of the same shire, and a family of my name is still there, to whom, perhaps, he may whistle on my behalf not altogether in vain." In the Fife People's Journal for 28 April an account is given of the Cowpers or Coupers of Stenton, parish of Abercrombie, St. Monans, to which family the poet's remark probably applies. The writer of the article fails to show any connexion between the poet and his Fifeshire name"It is also to be regretted that at the close of a sakes, and yet he does not hesitate to speak hundred years inaccuracies should still be common of a Stenton contemporary as "the poet's in the various lives of the poet. In his recent kinsman." According to the Couper tombarticle in the Leisure Hour, Mr. Birrell says that stone in Abercrombie churchyard, John in 1803 Hayley published a life and letters of Cowper in four cumbrous volumes.' There is not Couper, who died in 1828, aged ninety-one, such an edition. Hayley published a life and letters had a son named John, who died in London, in two volumes quarto in 1803, and a third volume and it is surmised that this son may have quarto was published in 1804. As showing the come into contact with some of his popularity of the Life,' it may be mentioned that aristocratic kinsmen" in the metropolis, there was a second edition of the two volumes thereby getting to the knowledge of the quarto in the same year (1803). There was no edition in four volumes until 1806. Mr. Birrell, without poet. But all this is mere guesswork, and, any investigation of his own, appears to have at any rate, casual acquaintance is not even adopted the statement of Mr. Benham in his preface on the road to relationship. On the whole, to the Globe edition, where he speaks of a 'Life and one is forced to the conclusion that, while Letters of William Cowper, by William Hayley, Cowper happened to be right in saying 4 vols., 1803. Mr. Wright gets a little nearer the truth in saying that Hayley's 'Life' first appeared that there were people of his name in in two volumes in 1803. The fact is that it apFifeshire-worthily represented, it may be peared in three volumes, two in 1803 and the added, at the present moment-there is no third in 1804. The second edition of Hayley's' Life,' evidence to show that he and his Fifeshire which consisted of four octavo volumes in 1806, is contemporaries of his name came of the same worthy of a passing notice, because it contains an account of Hayley's attempt to procure a public stock. From the Howe of Fife to the east monument for Cowper. The list of subscribers to and the south-east of the county the inthe fund is given, and amongst them is the name fluence of the Coupers for good has been felt of the Right Hon. William Pitt, ten guineas. An for many generations; and it is not imasterisk is placed against those who had paid their possible that the indomitable" wee cooper subscriptions; William Pitt's name appears without an asterisk. He died insolvent, and the nation paid o' Fife," with his drastic methods of uxorial his debts. Amongst the other names of the sub-discipline, may be one of the clan. scribers is a name which one reads now with interest, for we can put more meaning into the fact of the subscription than could those who read it when the list first came out, the name of Theodora Jane Cowper. She as the last expression of her love subscribed and paid six guineas. As showing the manners of the time in addressing an elderly single lady, it may be mentioned that she is styled Mrs. Theodora Cowper. Hayley proposed to raise the money by giving to each subscriber of six guineas a copy of Milton's poems in three quarto volumes. The appeal was not responded to sufficiently to allow of the raising of a public monument." CHARLES HIATT. Some of the Scottish newspapers have taken the present opportunity to revive the legend which connects Cowper with the county of Fife. It may be remembered THOMAS BAyne. The interesting record of Cowper which appeared in 'N. & Q.' induces me to ask space in your columns for some reminiscences of my own concerning Olney and the neighbourhood, arising from the unforgotten past. I may say that I once held a curacy in the vicinity for more than three years, and on one occasion took charge of the parish of Olney for a month, residing in the vicarage. It is, however, more than thirty years ago, yet the memory is still retentive and receptive. There were, indeed, many places full of interest in the neighbourhood. For instance, at no great distance was the Yardley Oak commemorated by Cowper, now majestic on the banks of the slow flowing Ouse, in decay : Thou wast a bauble once; a cup and ball Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay, Seeking her food, with ease might have purloined. Only a mile or two distant from Yardley Hastings was Easton Maudit, where Bishop Percy, the editor of the Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,' was vicar from 1753 to 1782. The church at that place' was a fine structure, and contained many monuments of the Yelvertons. It was restored in a loving spirit by the late Marquess of Northampton, and the old vicarage hard by has still a Percyish appearance, as also the parsonage where Dr. Johnson came to visit his friend Percy, and helped Mrs. Percy to feed the ducks. Here it was that the song was written, O Nanny, wilt thou gang with me? From my visit grew a little memoir of Percy prefixed to the MS. folio long preserved in the archives at Ecton House, the property of Percy's grandson, Mr. Isted, and in the dining-room at Ecton still hang the portraits of Percy and his wife. Some pleasant afternoons-for it was in the leafy month of June -were spent, fleeting the time as they did in Arden's shade, in the Wilderness at Weston Underwood, or Weston, as Cowper usually styles it. A charmingly retired spot it is, a sunk fence in front, an alcove in the grounds; a bust of Homer on a pedestal, and an effigy of a lion, on which is inscribed "Mortuo leoni etiam lepores insultant," are ornaments. But let the poet describe in his own pleasant manner what we should call a garden party on an afternoon in the Wilderness. He says, writing to his friend Lady Austen : Yesterday sen'night we all dined together in the Spinnie-a most delightful retirement belonging to Mrs. Throckmorton, of Weston. Lady Austen's lackey, and a lad that waits on me in the garden, drove a wheelbarrow full of eatables and drinkables to the scene of our fête champêtre. A board laid over the top of the wheelbarrow served us for a table; our dining-room was a root-house lined with moss and ivy. At six o'clock the servants, who had dined under a great elm upon the ground at a little distance, boiled the kettle, and the said wheelinto the Wilderness about half a mile off, and were at home again a little after eight, having spent the day together from noon till evening without one cross occurrence, or the least weariness of each other-a happiness few parties of pleasure can boast of." barrow served us for a table. We then took a walk Within a short distance were Castle Ashby, the stately seat of the Marquess of Northampton, built by Inigo Jones, and Turvey, the home in former years of the Mordaunts and the grave of the brave Earl of Peterborough. The fine old church at Olney, situated The had at that time (1865) undergone but little alteration since the days of Cowper and John Newton. The platform upon which the desk, or rather the lectern and chair, was raised was still in existence. I can well remember the pleasure that my selecting for worship the old favourite hymns gave the congregation. John Newton held the benefice of St. Mary Woolnoth until his death in 1809. church is now to be turned by vandalism into a railway station. Dr. Dibdin, of bibliographical fame, mentions his having been taken when a boy of fifteen, in 1791, to hear Newton preach his wife's funeral sermon at St. Mary Woolnoth, and how "he had, and always had, the entire ear of his congregation. In fact, the preacher was one with his discourse. The sermon, an extemporaneous one, was on the striking text Habakkuk iii. 17, 18. Olney cannot well be imagined, and can now A more pleasant little trip than one to be managed in about an hour from London so let me advise your readers who admire the poetry of Cowper to take it, and those who enjoy quiet pastoral scenery will have their tastes gratified. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge. PICTS AND SCOTS (9th S. v. 261).-CANON TAYLOR has given some important information about the Picts, but he does not take into account the Irish Picts. There is a great element of confusion in the neglect to translate the word Scoti. Now the Scoti were in all ancient writings the Irish, whether of Ireland or of North Britain. Iona was an Irish church, as much an Irish church as Derry or Durrow. St. Aidan, the great missionary of Northumbria, was an Irishman, and his mission an Irish mission. Mr. Green was the first English historian to recognize and state these facts. The Irish of North Britain were as much Irish as the Normans of England were Norman for many a year, indeed for almost two centuries. To speak of the Scoti, or Scots, as some people different from the Irish, and specially belonging to North Britain, is to convey a false impression. To this day their language is, and is called, Erse-that is, Irish. If the words Erse and Erseland were used to describe the Scoti and Scotia of North Britain we should then get rid of this difficulty. If CANON TAYLOR would give us the limits of Erseland and Pictland I should be very glad. The difficulty is that the Erse were continually pressing north and east and carrying their language with them. I should be sorry to give up the old division, pointed out by CANON TAYLOR, into the land of the invers and the land of the abers. I still think it correct, even though some Irish ecclesiastics may have carried their language into Fifeshire and left invers there in the very home of the Picts. Perhaps some one can say whether golf is a Pictish game. Caman, the Irish game, is very different. C. S. "The Scots, who were an Irish sept, crossed in the fourth century to Argyle.' would be brave words from any pen other These than that of CANON TAYLOR. Your amateur historian is oftentimes deterred from declaring "whatsoever things are true" by the bold destructiveness of modern history; making. But CANON TAYLOR'S is a sure and practised hand, which trembleth not when stating facts. And in this instance, even when raised against the weight and glamour of Gibbon's clarum et venerabile nomen, it manifests its accustomed steadiness. Gibbon is evidently the father of those who gainsay the fact so undoubtingly advanced by CANON TAYLOR. He says (Decline and Fall,' vol. i. p. 743) : "It is probable that in some remote period of antiquity the fertile plains of Ulster received a colony of hungry Scots......it is certain that, in the declining age of the Roman Empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and the Isle of Man were inhabited by the Scots......They long cherished the lively tradition of their common name and origin; and the mis sionaries of the Isle of Saints, who diffused the light of Christianity over North Britain, established the vain opinion that their Irish countrymen were the natural as well as spiritual fathers of the Scottish race. The loose and obscure tradition has been preserved by the Venerable Bede......On this slight foundation an huge superstructure of fable was gradually reared......The Scottish nation, with mistaken pride, adopted their Irish genealogy.... The Irish descent of the Scots has been revived, in the last moments of its decay, and strenuously supported by the Rev. Mr. Whitaker (Hist. of Manchester, i. 430; and Genuine History of the Britons Asserted,' p. 154). Yet he acknowledges, 1. That the Scots of Ammian (A.D. 340) were already settled in Caledonia, and that the Roman authors do not afford any hints of their emigration from another country. 2. That all the accounts of such emigrations which have been asserted or received by Irish bards, Scotch historians, or English antiquaries are totally fabulous. 3. That three of the Irish tribes which are mentioned by Ptolemy (A.D. 150) were of the Caledonian extraction. 4. That a younger branch of Caledonian princes of the house of Fingal acquired and possessed the monarchy of Ireland. After these concessions, the remaining difference between Whitaker and his adversaries is minute and obscure." Gibbon's distinction between probability and certainty in the two facts he adduces in his opening sentence is as undialectic as it is arbitrary. But logic was never his forte. Those two facts are on a similar plane of certainty, with the addition that the former is not confined to one province. The Scots overran a wider area than Ulster. Then, again, curiously enough, the historian fails to see that a lively [or living] tradition" could hardly be also loose and obscure." Such confusion of epithets entirely invalidates the subsequent "loose and obscure" charges of "slight foundation," "huge superstructure of fable," "mistaken pride," and the more surprising as he has a keen eye "last moments of its decay." This is all the rest these latter go for nothing in face for Whitaker's suicidal concessions." For of the simple fact so succinctly stated by CANON TAYLOR. The marvel is that it should need restating. Yet few facts need it more. The "mistaken pride" has faded into either seemingly, resent the "Irish descent" with as a burning shame or a flat denial. Scotsmen, much heat as they would an imputed one from the Hottentots. More than once, both in Scotland and out of it, I have emphasized the relationship by transmuting the adage "Scratch a Russian and find a Tartar" into "Scratch a Scotsman and find an Irishman," but the effort was invariably received with a "The Scottish cynical smirk of unbelief. nation" no longer adopt the Irish genealogy" with "mistaken pride." Is there not something of the undutifulness of children disowning their parents in this? But, disown it as they will, the plain historic fact is there. Nomenclature and language alike proclaim it; prejudice and obstinacy alone ignore it. The Goidelic races (kinsmen to the Irish Scots) may have wandered north of the Tweed, but they were not the parents of the Caledonian Scots; those bracketed were, and the Ulster plantation under James was nothing short of a return of the descendants of the original Irish colonists to the mother country. Scottish and Irish character may, and does now, differ toto cœlo, but it is the difference between parent and child prolonged through many generations, which in a family is confined to few. In neither case is it a severance of blood. J. B. McGoVERN. 66 St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester. It is fairly certain, as CANON TAYLOR Observes, that the north of Scotland (Caithness and Sutherland) remained largely Pictish, although under Gaelic rule, until the arrival of the Scandinavian races. It probably still contains a considerable infusion of Pictish blood. The language, however, must have become Gaelic, and has remained so, in part, to the present day. In the Orkney and was only a question of Pictish or Scottish 8, Royal Avenue, S. W. Shetland Isles, as I pointed out in my small work on 'Orkney: Past and Present,' the case is different. Here the Gaelic language has never penetrated. There are no traces, either in the language or in antiquarian remains, of Celtic occupation. The Scandinavian races must have immediately succeeded the Pictish. The language commonly spoken, until the last century, was Scandinavian. The relics that are not prehistoric are Scandinavian also. To this I must make one exception. I have in my possession three photographs of a wooden box carved on three of its sides. This was pronounced by the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, and by Mr. Evans, to whom I showed it at the Society of Antiquaries in London, to be undoubtedly Celtic. This is so rare as to be worth record ing. The specimen is a very good one. What became of the Pictish language who can tell? Was it swallowed up in the Scandinavian On the mainland it may have become amalgamated with the Gaelic. I have referred to the peculiarities of the Aberdeen dialect, but cudgel in the virile manner of the P. I. had not before heard them attributed to Scotorum, and would have greedily seized on Pictish influence; in fact, in spite of all any chance to have a thump at an error in the recent efforts to unearth it, the time- the derivation of the name of the hills. A honoured joke of Sir W. Scott in The Anti-writer in a Scotch antiquarian paper recently quary' anent the Pictish language is almost as true as ever. With regard to the anatomical characters of the Picts, the dark, curling hair and dolichocephalic skull are, if we identify them with the Neolithic races, well established; but I cannot agree with CANON TAYLOR in regarding lobeless ears as a Pictish characteristic; this I consider a distinctive mark of the pure Scandinavian type. It is extremely prevalent in Orkney (without the dolichocephaly), and is to be attributed, not to Pictish, but to Scandinavian influence. It is still seen, too, in Denmark, but less frequently, owing to German admixture. The Picts, on the other hand, would correspond with the type marked A by the Committee of the British Association, in which the skull is described as dolichocephalic, the hair very dark, crisp, and curling, but the ears rounded and lobed, and the nose straight and long.* The Neolithic race was a very short one, the average height being only sixtythree inches. The Scandinavians, on the other hand, were tall, brachycephalic, with arched brows and prominent noses, and bore many points of resemblance to the Celtic races. as Why, too, is Duncan called a usurper? It This is the type found in the long barrows. It is often found in Orkney. CANON TAYLOR mentions the origin of Pentland Firth, but says Pentland Hills has a different derivation. Would it be too much to ask what it is? Pinkerton, in his History of Scotland before 1056,' gives the originals of the Pechtland, Pikland, or Pentland Firth, but does not mention any difference in the word Pentland when applied to the hills, as Pinkerton uses his critical far as I can see. set down the name of the hills as synony mous with that of the fiord. There is un- Perth. It is a drawback that CANON TAYLOR has omitted the Cruithne from his purview, for they are also termed "Gwyddel ffichti," or Irish Picts. This constitutes a valid dis tinction from the earlier Cymric Picts of Dumbarton; and surely, if these Britons "painted" so late as Cæsar tells us, they belong to the primitive natives rather than to some antediluvian dwellers in weams and ogos, who have left no linguistic remains. A study of the feud between Chalmers and Pinkerton will show that, however we may HOT CROSS BUNS (9th S. v. 334).—Your "shuffle the cards," there is not much to learn since the last century but one. Pictish is shown to have Celtic and Teutonic analogies, indicating a mixture between Britons from the south and Teutons from the north-east, say Scandinavia. A. HALL. correspondent ranks it as a sign of deca- muns. "LA FE ENDRYCZA AL SOBIERAN BEN (9th S. v. 187, 258).-This is explained at the last reference, but the language is not given. It is obviously meant for Provençal But sobieran should be sobeiran; and endrycza is have been taken from some provincial form not quite satisfactory. However, it may of Languedoc. WALTER W. SKEAT. The language is Spanish; ben is an antiquated, also a Catalan form of bien: "Faith raises (?) to the sovereign good (or supreme good)." Endrysca I cannot find in dictionaries old, dialect, or modern. Probably it is an epenthetic form of en(d)riscar, with the frequent transposition of sc into cs (Diez). Enriscar to raise, elevate; or is it enderezar, derezar, drezar, endrezar, endereçar, to guide, C. G. S.-M. "COLLY" (9th S. v. 208).—I shall be glad to know the meaning of the name "Collishaw." I have friends in two families so C. C. BELL. called. GRAMMATICAL USAGE (9th S. v. 288, 360).—prepare? I beg leave to add three examples of the use of here comes and where is with plural substantives, which I happened to observe in Marlowe quite recently, and subsequently to my last communication:Eneas, see, here comes the citizens. 'Dido,' II. i. By'r lord! here comes the king and the nobles. 'Edw. II.,' I. i. But where's the king and the other Spencer fled? 'Edw. II.,' IV. v. Any one who lies in wait for similar examples may, with some diligence, find more. WALTER W. SKEAT. REV. CHARLES FORSHAW (9th S. v. 229, 294). -DR. FORSHAW may be interested to know that the Rev. Charles Forshaw was chaplain to the mock corporation of Newburgh, Lancashire. (See Manchester City News, 14 April.) convivial club. This corporation, like that of Sefton, was a WILLIAM E. A. AXON. FIRST EDITION OF MOLIÈRE (9th S. v. 266). ADMIRAL SIR THOMAS DILKES (2nd S.-Both according to Brunet's 'Manuel' and x. 449; xi. 52; 9th S. v. 377).—Surely MR. DILKS should have looked at a naval history or at the Dictionary of National Biography' before writing to you. The best-known portrait of this most distinguished officer is not that named by MR. DILKS, but that in Greenwich Hospital. A. S. T. Despois and Mesnard's standard edition of Molière (in 11 vols. 8vo., Par., 1873-93), the first collected-though not complete-edition, comprising his ten earliest comedies, in 2 vols., appeared in 1666; the second and third, each consisting of 7 vols., in 1673 and 1674-76. The five supplementary volumes which com |