Manufactured and sold only by PARTRIDGE AND COOPER, 192, Fleet Street, "The production of Note-paper of a superior kind has long been the subject of experiment with manufacturers, but until lately no improvement could be made on that in general use, and therefore it was looked upon as certain that extreme excellence had been attained; but this conclusion did not seem satisfactory to Messrs. PARTRIDGE & COOPER, of Fleet Street, who determined to continue operations until some new result was attained. Sheer perseverance has been rewarded, for they have at last been able to produce a new description of paper, which they call CLUBHOUSE NOTE, that surpasses anything of the kind in ordinary use. The new paper is beautifully white, its surface is as smooth as polished ivory, and its substance nearly resembles that of vellum, so that the writing thereon presents an extraordinary clearness and beauty. A steel pen can be used upon it with the facility of a goose quill, and thus one great source of annoyance has been completely superseded." --Sun. "OLD ENGLISH" FURNITURE. Reproductions of Simple and Artistic Cabinet Work from Country Mansions of the XVI. and XVII. Centuries, combining good taste, sound workmanship, and economy. COLLINSON and LOCK (late Herring), CABINET MAKERS, 109, FLEET STREET, E.C. Established 1782. TAPESTRY PAPERHANGINGS. Imitations of rare old BROCADES, DAMASKS, and GOBELIN TAPESTRIES. Just published, in fcap. 8vo, boards, price 1s. REMINISCENCES OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. By JOHN GIBSON, W.S. HORNE'S POMPEIAN DECORATIONS. ROBERT HORNE, HOUSE DECORATOR and PAPER-HANGING 41, GRACECHURCH STREET, By Special Appointment to His Majesty the King of Italy. Hindoo Fairy Legends. Now ready, New and Cheaper Edition, with Illustrations, OLD DECCAN DAYS; or, Hindoo Fairy Legends Current in Southern India. Collected from Oral Tradition. By M. FRERE. With an Introduction and Notes by SIR BARTLE FRERE. "This collection of Fairy Legends is in many respects a remarkable publication. In the first place, it bears on the title-page a name with which is associated much of what has proved itself most wise and good in our Government of India for many years past. While one member of the Frere family provides us with a charming version of the legends gathered from oral tradition, and a second adorns the work with several clever little drawings, Sir Bartle Frere himself furnishes the introduction to the whole."-Pall Mall Gazette. JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street. The Mutiny of the Bounty. Now ready, with Illustrations, post 8vo, 128. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE MUTINEERS COLLINSON and LOCK (late Herring), OF THE BOUNTY, AND THEIR DESCENDANTS: in Pitcairn DECORATORS, and Norfolk Islands, down to 1870. By LADY BELCHER. "Few narratives can equal the story of the 'Bounty' in portraying either the darker crimes or the softer feelings of human nature. The tale is not new, but it will never be old; and we must thank Lady Belcher for again calling attention to it, and for placing before us a more complete and impartial account than has ever before been published. Lady Belcher has been able to make use of a valuable collection of documents, some of which have come to her from her stepfather, Captain Heywood, and some from Admiral Sir Fairfax Moresby and other naval friends."-Examiner. JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street. CATALOGUE OF OLD and CURIOUS BOOKS, including Old Plays, Works on Veterinary Science, Old Theology, County Curiosities, and Literary Miscellanies, all hunted up in out-ofthe-way places. Free on application to J. KINSMAN, Bookseller, Penzance, Cornwall. PARTRIDGE AND COOPER, MANUFACTURING STATIONERS, NOTE PAPER, Cream or Blue, 3s., 48., 58., and 6s. per ream. COLOURED STAMPING (Relief), reduced to 4s. 6d. per ream, or 88. 6d. per 1,000. Polished Steel Crest Dies engraved from 58. Monograms, two letters, from 58.; three letters, from 78. Business or Address Dies, from 38. SERMON PAPER, plain, 4s. per ream; Ruled ditto, 48. 6d. SCHOOL STATIONERY supplied on the most liberal terms. Illustrated Price List of Inkstands, Despatch Boxes, Stationery. Cabinets, Postage Scales, Writing Cases, Portrait Albums, &c., post free. (ESTABLISHED 1841.) LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 8, 1871. Ser CONTENTS.-N° 171. NOTES:-Facts in unexpected Places, 297-"History of Edward II.," Fol. 1680, 298 - Folk Lore: Usages at a Cleveland Funeral Forty Years Ago, &c., Ib.-Ancient Signet found at Baiæ, 300-Isaac Disraeli, Ib.-Tennyson and the "Plain Dealer "-James Cavan a Centenarian-SmallPox Seizure of Chattels under a "Heriot"- ChapBooks A Mountebank of the last Century, 301. QUERIES:- William Baliol-Character of Constantine -De Lorraine "Documentos Arabicos" -A German Etymological Dictionary - Handel's "Messiah "- Harrow School: John Lyon- Hogarth Book-plates - Lord Jertsolder or Yertsolder-Rev. Timothy Lee: Ackworth Church - Montagu Queries - Priory of St. Ethernau Metrical Versions of the Psalms Putting to Death_by Torture for imputed Heresy Saints' Emblems mon of St. Eloy, or Eligius - Sewell - Wrecks, 302. REPLIES:-Ombre: Boston, 305 Mourning, or Blackedged writing Paper, 307-Adam de Orleton, 308-Marriages of Princesses - Lady Grimston's Grave in Tewin Churchyard -The White Tower "The Hob in the Well" Arms of Flemish Families Cookes: Cookesey: Cooke- - Quotation -A Spitten Laird - "Après moi le Déluge"- Furness Abbey and the Chetham Society Lancashire Witches -"A Monsieur, Monsieur A. B. The Schoolmaster Abroad in Staffordshire-"The Straight Gate and Narrow Way"-The Priory of Coldingham Letter of Edward IV. - Albaney and Amondeville" Pen of an Angel's Wing": Wordsworth, Constable, &c.- Janney Family - G. Camphausen -"Veritas in Puteo" — Punning and Jesting on Names - Ballasalley - Finderne Flowers-Smijth, &c., 309. Notes on Books, &c. Notes. FACTS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES. To the readers of "N. & Q." there can be nothing new in the assertion that many curious and often really valuable notes and details are found in books where they are least likely to be sought. Of course to any one investigating a special period, or the life of any individual, certain volumes would speedily occur for examination for his object. But how many and important gleanings lie unknown and unsought in books which would seem little likely to yield such treasure! It has, therefore, often occurred to me that it might be of real service to future writers to chronicle such memoranda in various biographies and general books; and where could references to these be more fitly accumulated than in the pages of "N. & Q."? Its most valuable indexes, I doubt not, are of inestimable service to our present writers on all sorts of subjects, and will become increasingly so. The house in which James III. of Scotland was assassinated was not long ago referred to by a correspondent (p. 90). At the period this was mentioned I had just met with the following illustrative passage in the Memoir of Dr. James Hamilton, by Rev. W. Arnot (Nisbet, London). It will be seen that it yields also an interesting gleaning concerning Bannockburn and "the Bruce." During an excursion in 1836, Dr. Hamilton writes: "At Beaton Mills, saw the old cottage where James III. was murdered, and was shown part of the upper and nether mill-stones, with marks of the spindle-sockets which had been in use at the time. . . The room where James expired is a small place, with a roof too low to admit of your standing upright. The corner where he lay is still pointed out by the side of the fire. Then proceeded to the field of Bannockburn. The Bruce's flagstone still remains. A weaver had it built into the wall of his house, but the laird very properly made him take down the wall and surrender the stone, which is now defended from further perils by a strong iron grating. The cows were feeding very peaceably in the morass_where Edward's cavalry made such stumbling amongst Bruce's spikes and pitfalls."-P. 87. Two years later Dr. Hamilton mentions that, among other curiosities, he saw in the house of Mrs. Gregory, "widow of the late Dr. G. of famous classical and medical memory, the bones and coffin nails of Robert Bruce"! (P. 101.) We have also memoranda of "the famous '45" (1745). When the rebels were in Edinburgh, one night a Highland follower of the prince was taken up by the guard because it was plain he could not take care of himself. When in the guard-house he came somewhat to his senses; his first ejaculation was, "Hech, sirs! it's sair wark flitting thae kings." (P. 381.) Forty years ago Strathblane (the early home of Dr. H.) retained traces of primitive simplicity. The name of Rob Roy filled a larger place in the imagination of the people than the Duke of Wellington; and all who had reached fourscore could recall the times of the Pretender. Mrs. Provan was eight years old when a detachment of the rebel army passed through the Muir of Fintry, and as she was the only one left at home, the Highlanders coaxed and threatened her by turns to reveal the hidingplace of the meal and cheeses; but, although she had seen them buried in the moss, the little maid was firm, and neither swords nor sweeties' could extort her secret. The arrival of the first umbrella was a comparatively recent and well-remembered era.”—Pp. 13, 14. Many details, correspondence, &c., are given of the disruption of the Free Kirk of Scotland, pp. 98, 158, 200, 209, 211, 231. Among them is a description by Dr. Hamilton of the memorable withdrawal from the General Assembly, May 18, 1843. We have also a reminiscence of Sir Francis Burdett, p. 91; Lord Jeffrey's account of the system by which he remembered his speeches, and his failure in his "maiden speech" in Parliament, p. 400; and sundry particulars of the Rev. Edward Irving in his early days, and especially in London, pp. 65, 175, 184: also reminiscences, letters, &c., of the late Rev. R. M'Cheyne of Dundee, pp. 143, 148, 153, 235, 237, 239, 316; the late Rev. W. Burns, pp. 143, 147, 148, 152, 309; of Dr. (now Archbishop) Tait, pp. 45, 465, 466. In his early days, under the lectures of Sir W. Hooker, Dr. Hamilton studied botany. See pp. 9297 for details of intercourse with Sir W. and his family, and of "old George Don," the Scotch botanist. Dr. Hamilton writes in 1837: "All know the story of Mungo Park and the moss. When he came home he gave it to his brother-in-law, Mr. Dickson, and told him that is the moss that saved my life in Africa.' Mr. D. gave it to Sir William, who keeps it among a multitude of other curiosities."-Pp. 95, 96. Let me also add, that sundry explanations and details respecting the common-place books, indexes, &c., whereby Dr. Hamilton made available the stores accumulated by his extensive reading, may be interesting and suggestive to other students: pp. 397-404; also, pp. 77-80. S. M. S. [The only objection to the suggestion of our valued correspondent is the difficulty of carrying it out. Unless all the names mentioned in such papers as are proposed are entered in our Index, the object aimed at would not be attained; and if so entered we fear our Index would be increased to a very inconvenient extent.-ED. "N & Q."] "HISTORY OF EDWARD II.," FOL. 1680. In the first volume of the first series of "N. & Q." the question is raised as to the authorship of this history, which in the abridged edition of it, printed in the same year, is represented as "found among the papers of, and supposed to be writ by, the Right Honourable Henry Viscount Faulkland, sometime Lord Deputy of Ireland." To the folio edition is however prefixed "the author's preface to the reader," signed "E. F.," and dated February 20, 1627-manifestly_disagreeing with the attribution to the first Lord Falkland. On the other hand, the same work is ascribed to Edward Fannant by the compilers of the British Museum Catalogue, but on what grounds I am unable to say. But whoever might have been the author, I wish to call attention to the fact-which, I believe, has not been before noticed that the speeches interspersed in it, and occasionally part of the narrative, are in blank verse, suggesting the probability that the history was transprosed or worked up into its present shape from some old play. I will give a specimen or two from the volume, it being understood that the following extracts are printed in it as prose. The Queen's expostulation with Mortimer on his proposing to make away with the King (p. 153): I dare not say I yield or yet deny it; Or privy to the time, the means, the manner." I not so much as question or controul them; FOLK LORE. USAGES AT A CLEVELAND FUNERAL FORTY YEARS AGO. miserly life, who died at Redcar about forty years An aged man, wealthy, but having lived a since, ordered his funeral as follows:— lifetime. "A great public breakfast was held, such eating and drinking having never been witnessed in the old man's knotted together, and borne by relays of men to Marshe, The coffin was carried, slung upon towels up the old Corpse-way' [see "Church-road" in my Cleveland Glossary], bumped three times on a heap of stones (an ancient resting-place at the top of the hill); The Lamentation of a Sinner' was then sung, and the procession moved on to the churchyard, every man, woman, and child receiving a dole of 6d. as they entered." [See "Dole" as above]. ing, adds that not long since, in an account of a My correspondent, in illustration of the bumpJewish funeral at Bruges, she met with the following sentence : "During the procession to the burying ground, the mourners repeated verses from Ps. xci, with the object of coffin was put down on the road three times, and-the driving away evil spirits." above, copied from a Bible of the date 1612, said to be composed temp. Henry VIII., and with the music in the old angular notation, runs thus: "The Lamentation of a Sinner," mentioned "O Lorde, turne not away thy face Which gate thou openest wide to those Shut not that gate against me, Lord, And call me not to mine accounts, For then I know right well, O Lord, I need not to confesse my life, I know thou knowest it well. O Lord, thou knowest what things be past, Before the heauens and earth were made, And can the things that I haue done Be hidden from thee then? Nav, nay, thou knowest them all, O Lord, Where they were done and when. Wherefore with teares I come to thee, To beg and to entreat : Euen as the child that hath done euill, So come I to thy mercy gate, What I doe beg or craue: Danby in Cleveland. J. C. ATKINSON. IRISH FOLK LORE.The following, which I take from a report of a case in the Court of Probate which occurred very lately in Dublin, is, I think, well worth preservation in the pages of "N. & Q." "Crawley v. Crawley. "The deceased Thomas Crawley was a farmer residing at Carrickmacross, in the county of Monaghan. He died in May last, having on the 2nd of Dec. 1869 made a will, which having been duly executed, was placed in a safe, of which the wife kept the key by the testator's direction; but on the night of his death, when there were a number of people in the place, some of the women present suggested that it was wrong to have any doors or drawers in the place locked when a person was dying, and accordingly all locks were unbolted, the safe amongst other places being left open. In the morning it was discovered that the will was removed and could not be found. "Mr. Houston, who appeared for the plaintiff, examined a number of witnesses as to the contents of the missing document, and as to the circumstances under which it had been lost, and his Lordship (Judge Warren), who heard the case without a jury, being satisfied that the will was not destroyed by the testator in his lifetime, and that it must have been taken by some of the persons in the house on the night of the decease, granted probate of its contents." SHEFFIELD FOLK LORE.-It is, I believe, an admitted fact that the scene of Mr. Charles Reade's Put yourself in his Place is laid at Sheffield; and that the author spent some time in that neighbourhood when engaged on the composition of the work. It seems to me, therefore, that the following scraps of folk lore, put into the mouth of Jael Dence, "a villager of unbroken descent," are worth extracting for "N. & Q." I quote from the edition in one volume: 1. "If a girl was in church when her banns were cried, her children would all be born deaf and dumb” (p. 120). 2. The "Gabriel hounds," called by Jael "Gabble retchet." What is the meaning of "retchet"? "They are not hounds at all; they are the souls of unbaptised children, wandering in the air till the day of judgment." The "Gabriel hounds are explained as "a strange thing in the air, that is said in these parts to foretell calamity," sounding like "a great pack of beagles in full cry": they are, of course, connected with the German wild Jäger (pp. 156, 157). 3. "If you sing before breakfast, you'll cry before supper" (p. 157). In London the version commonly used is: "Laugh before breakfast, cry before night." 4. Is the reason for the "unluckiness" of meeting a magpie generally known? I have never met with it elsewhere. "That's the only bird that wouldn't go into the ark with Noah and his folk.. a very old woman told me. . . . She liked better to perch on the roof of th' ark, and jabber over the drowning world. So ever after that, when a magpie flies across, turn back, or look to meet ill luck" (p. 172). 5. "I like you too well to give you a pin." "What would be the consequence ?" "Ill fuck, you may be sure. Heart trouble, they do say " (p. 144). 6. Martha Dence marries Phil. Davis. Jael says: "I went to church with a heavy heart on account of their both beginning with a D-Dence and Davis: for 'tis an old saying — If you change the name and not the letter, You change for the worse and not for the better.'" (p. 333). I have purposely omitted some examples which are widely distributed. JAMES BRITTEN. Kew. A WEATHER SAYING.-A Huntingdonshire cottager (an octogenarian) told me the other day, "There's a saying that a dark Christmas sends a fine harvest. I've known that saying from a boy, and I've always found it to hold good." The dark Christmas, of course, referred to "no moon." CUTHBERT BEDE. NEW YEAR SUPERSTITION.-In East Lancashire many householders are very anxious that a THE GREAT BEAR AND SUMMER RAINFALL.— A skilful old gardener, a native of Yorkshire, has just assured me that the coming summer will be a dry one, and for the following reason:-"The Great Bear is on this side of the North Pole, and as long as he remains there the summers will be dry. He has been on this side for the last three years, and the summers have all been dry. If he could get the other side we should have a wet summer, especially as he would then be in connexion with Venus and Jupiter." Though familiar with the popular "sayings about the weather" in Devon and Cornwall, the foregoing is new to me. Can any writer of "N. & Q." say whether it is known in Yorkshire or elsewhere, and whether my ancient friend has in any way metamorphosed it? Torquay. WM. PENGELLY. ANCIENT SIGNET FOUND AT BAIÆ. Some twenty miles south of Pæstum there is a small village called Porcile, at the foot of Mount Stella. Here I happened to be benighted in my wanderings through Italy, and thereby became acquainted with its respectable padre, Pietro Zammarella, whom I found to possess a small collection of curiosities of various kinds-coins, cameos, but the most interesting to me was a signet which had been picked up at Baiæ. Any closer approach to our printing type could not well be imagined, and when I covered the raised type with ink and stamped it on my note book I got the letters as clearly printed as if they had been formed by one of our most accurate type-founders. The material seemed to be bronze, the characters were raised, and I should imagine that it had been formed in a mould. There was a ring attached to it. The letters had been made with great exactness and wonderfully similar, the letters being very slender. It was in inches 2.1 in length, 9 in breadth, and the height of the letters was 3. The inscription was SEX POMPO VALENTIS. A fac-simile of this signet will be found in my Nooks and By-ways of Italy (p. 20). I do not pretend to have investigated this subject at all carefully, and therefore if I say that this is one of the earliest approaches to printing among the Romans that has yet been found, it must be understood that I do so with considerable reserve. Can any one who has investigated this point tell us the earliest specimen that has yet been found of this attempt at printing among the Romans? There are specimens, I believe, in the British Museum. Can any approximation to the age of any of these specimens be made? In regard to Sextus Pomponius Valens, to whom this signet belonged, I would inquire if the names of the tioned during the imperial period of Rome at admirals (præfecti) of the fleet which was staMisenum, close to Baiæ, are known. Whoever this Pomponius was, he must have been of high rank to possess such a signet-ring. signet-ring. The only Sextus Pomponius who is mentioned in history is the celebrated jurist, some of whose works have been preserved. If we could imagine that this was the seal of the jurist, it would be a valuable relic, but we do not know that his cognomen was Valens. The family of Valens came into notice in the imperial period, and from the reign of Augustus we find several of some celebrity. None of them, however, have the names Sextus Pomponius. One of the principal generals of the Emperor Vitellius in A.D. 69 was Fabius Valens, whose character is drawn in the blackest colours by Tacitus. In the royal museum at Naples I recollect seeing an inscription rather_remarkable, as it is in both Greek and Latin. It was found near Misenum, and on it is the name Val. Valens, commander (præfectos) of the fleet, the same office that was held by the elder Pliny when he fell a victim to the eruption of Vesuvius, A.d. 79. I have been reminded of this seal by the interesting paper of MR. HOLT on early Block Books (4th S. vii. 13.) CRAUFURD TAIT RAMAGE. |