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Can any Legend respecting the Isle of Ely. reader of "N. & Q." inform me which of the Popes it was who, according to a legend I have somewhere met with, effected the unique metamorphosis of changing the wives and children of the clergy of the Isle of Ely into eels, and thus gave it its present name, as a punishment for refusing to comply with his edict for the celibacy of the clergy? I think the legend is referred to in some part of Dr. Prideaux's works, but I have no means of certifying the fact. J. R. C.

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The author inquired for by M. Y. R. W. is Gilbert Cousin, of Nozeroy, in Franche Comté (better known under his Latin name of Cognatus), whose collected works were published at Basle in 3 vols. folio, 1562. He was one of the restorers of literature in the sixteenth century, and having filled the office of secretary to Erasmus, acquired such enlightened sentiments in regard to religion, as to render him at a later period of life suspected of a tendency to Protestantism; in consequence of which a Bull was obtained from Pius V. for his imprisonment, and he died in the course of his trial before the Inquisition in 1567,—another victim to the merciless system of the papal creed. In his treatise entitled "Ourens, sive de Officio Famulorum," composed at Freiburg in Brisgau (a city of the Grand Duchy of Baden, in the upper circle of the Rhine), in the year 1535, and addressed to Ludovicus à Vero, Abbot of the Convent of Mons S. Mariæ et Charitatis, he thus writes on the subject of painted figures of the Trusty Servant (Opp. vol. i. p. 223.):

"De famulo dicendi finem faciam, venerande Me

canas, si pro coronide adjecero Probi Famuli imaginem, quem Galli quidam effingunt conclavibus suis. Hæc ad hunc habet modum. Pileum rubrum et elegans erat in capite, nec inelegans interula tegebat corpus; rostrum erat suillum, aures asininæ, pedes cervini. Dextra manus erecta, et in palmam explicata; humero sinistro pertica librabat duas aquæ situlas, quarum altera pendebat à tergo, altera à fronte. Sinistra palam gestabat plenam riris pruinis. Addita erat singulorum interpretatio.

famulo debetur elegans cultus. Suillum rosmonebat, non decere famulum esse yoxpòv

ac fastidiosi palati, sed quovis cibo oportere contentum esse. Auriculæ designabant, famulum oportere patientibus esse auribus, si quid forte dominus durius dixerit. Dextra erecta admonebat fidei in contrectandis rebus

herilibus. Cervini pedes, significabant celeritatem in Situlæ et ignis, industriam ac peragendis mandatis. celeritatem in multis negotiis simul peragendis."

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The description here given is quoted, nearly in the same words, by Laur. Beyerlinck, in his Magnum Theatrum Vitae Humanæ, tom. iii., Venet. 1707, p. 525., under the title of "Famuli Probi Schema ;" and it will, I think, readily be admitted, that the figure at Winchester College, although differing in some respects from the one described by Cousin, yet in its general features and purport is the same. It is therefore highly probable that the figure was originally painted in the sixteenth century, and the design borrowed from our Gallic neighbours. The costume in which this figure at present appears, would not give it an antiquity of much more than a century and a quarter; but in the Memorials of Winchester College, published by D. Nutt in 1846, an entry is quoted from a Compotus of the year 1637 in the following words, "Pictori pingenti Servum et Carmina, 13s. Od.;' and the writer justly remarks, "It may be considered doubtful whether this entry accounts for the original execution, or only a restoration of the work." A more diligent examination of the old College accounts would probably throw further light on the subject, and also show at what periods the figure had been repainted, and, no doubt, altered according to the fashion and ideas of the time. This view is borne out by the earliest engraving of the figure in my possession, entitled, "A Piece of Antiquity painted on the wall adjoining to the kitchen of Winchester College, which has been long preserved, and as oft as occasion requires, is repaired." This print is in folio, and was published in 1749, and has the verses both in Latin and English. In one corner may be read the faint traces of the engraver's name, Mosley sculp. It has been recently republished from the original plate, with the addition of the name H. C. Brown, Winchester." The next engraving, in point of date, is inserted in the History and Antiquities of Winchester, 12mo. 1773, vol. i. p. 91., entitled "The Trusty Servant," W. Cave del. Winton, without the verses. I have also an 8vo. print of rather later date, badly engraved, in which the English verses only are given, and the Scoop or dustpan omitted in the left hand of the figure (as it is seen in the earlier copies). Subsequent to this is a small and very incorrect representation in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1812, vol. i. p. 114.; and more recently (but before 1842) is a large and handsome engraving (both plain and coloured) published by James Robins and D. E. Gilmour, at Winchester, in which a background of landscape and cottages is intro

duced, and, in the upper left-hand corner, the arms of William of Wykeham, the founder of the college, surmounted by the episcopal mitre. Below are the Latin and English verses engraved in capitals. In this engraving, in addition to the shovel, pitch-fork, and broom held in the left hand of the figure, is inserted a square instrument with bars, the use of which is not very obvious, and which appears joined on to the shield suspended from the arm. The coat, also, has the addition of a collar, not seen in the earlier prints. The coloured figure, as represented in this last engraving, has been copied and prefixed to the Polka composed in 1850 by William Patten, and entitled The Trusty Servant. I might here close my reply to the Query of M. Y. R. W., but must entreat the patience of your readers a little longer, in order to introduce a counter-Query on the subject. In Hoffman's Lexicon Universale, published at Leyden in 1698, under the word Asinine, occurs the following curious comment:

"Asininæ aures digitis formatæ, stupidum aliquem et asinum denotabant. Salmas. in Tertullian. de Pallio, ubi de variis digitorum ad aliquem deridendum formationibus, p. 338. Sed et asinine aures attentionis ac obedientiæ symbolum, in celebri Apellis pictura, quâ officia servorum auribus hujusmodi, naribus porcinis, manibus omni instrumentorum genere refertis, humeris patulis, ventre macilento, pedibus cervinis, labiisque obseratis, repræsentavit, etc.”

The words in Italics would seem to be a quotation, and I would fain inquire from what author they are taken, and also the authority for ascribing this famous picture to Apelles, and the writers by whom it is mentioned? It is remarkable that in this, as in the Winchester figure, the lips are locked, a peculiarity that is unnoticed by Cousin in his account of the French usage of depicting such representations. I should likewise be glad to receive information, whether any traces of this usage still exist in France, or whether it is mentioned or alluded to by any other writers of that country in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ?

Before I conclude, I am bound to acknowledge that the references to the works of Cognatus, Beyerlinck, and Hoffman were given to me by the late C. F. Barnwell, Esq., of the British Museum, a gentleman gifted with a large amount of information on curious topics connected with early literature, and whose urbanity and readiness to impart his knowledge to others will ever cause his memory to be deeply respected by his friends. He is, perhaps, the individual alluded to by your querist M. Y. R. W. F. MADDEN,

British Museum, June 29.

THE EARL OF ERROLL.

(Vol. v., pp. 297. 398.)

I saw, with some interest, the observations made by your correspondents PETROPROMONTORIENSIS and INVERURIENSIS on the position and status of the Earl of Erroll, who, with his peerage, holds the office of Great Constable of Scotland, conferred upon his ancestor by King Robert the Bruce in 1314. But I cannot come to the same conclusion which they appear to have arrived at. This matter is worthy of further elucidation.

honours of his house undoubtedly and without That the present Earl of Erroll holds the dispute, is clear from the decision of the House of Lords, given in favour of George Earl of Erroll, the grand-uncle of the present Earl, in 1797. The then Earl of Lauderdale had questioned Earl George's right to vote at an election of the peers of Scotland; and the House of Lords, after a full inquiry, decided in favour of the right so questioned.

One of the objections made to the title was, that it was claimed through a nomination, which Gilbert Earl of Erroll, who died without issue in 1674, had made in favour of his kinsman Sir John Hay, a short time before his death. This was one of the peculiarities in the Scottish law of Peerage, that a party might, by a resignation to the Crown, and a charter following upon such resignation, obtain power to nominate the heirs to succeed him in his honours and dignities. Some of the highest of the Scottish peerages are held under such nominations, at the present day. It was decided in the case of the earldom of Stair (in 1748) that this power of nomination could not be validly exercised after the Union.

It is true that the Earl of Erroll is the heir

(though barred by attainders) of the earldoms of Kilmarnock, Linlithgow, and Calendar, which have been held by his direct ancestors.

But none of these facts and circumstances, nor all of them together, could (as stated by your correspondents) make "the Earl of Erroll, by birth, the first subject in Great Britain after the blood royal, and, as such, having the right to take place of every hereditary honour." We have higher authority upon this subject than "Dr. Anderson, the learned and laborious editor of The Bee," to whom one of your correspondents refers.

There was nothing in the Scottish peerage to which its members were more anxiously and tenaciously attached than to their rights of precedency. This often produced among them the most unseemly contentions at Parliaments and Conventions. For avoiding of these contentions King James VI., in 1606, granted a royal commission to certain of the Scottish nobility to call their brethren before them, and "according to their productions and verifications to set down every man's rank and place."

The then Earl of Erroll was one of the Commissioners: he made no claim, as in right of birth, to be the first subject in Scotland. He is set down and ranked as the fourth among the Earls.

In the roll which was called daily in the Scottish Parliament, at the time of the Union, termed the Union Roll, the Earl of Erroll is marked second of the earls, one of those who had stood before him in 1606 (Argyle) having been created a duke, and the other earldom (Angus) having become merged in a dukedom; and he stands ranked in the same way, as the second of the earls, in the roll which has been called at all elections of peers since 1746. But upon the subject which has been mooted in this case by your correspondents, we are not left in any doubt. On the 13th of March, 1542, it is thus stated in the minutes of the Parliament of Scotland:

"The quhilk day the Lordis spirituale, temporale, and Commissars of burrowis representand the thre

estatis of Parliament hes declarit and declaris James Erle of Arrane, Lord Hamiltoun, secund persoun of this realme, and narrest to succeed to the Crone of the samin, falzeing of our Sovirane Lady and the barnis lauchfullie to be gottin of hir bodie, and nane utheris, and be resoun thereof tutour lauchful to the Queenes Grace, and Govñour of this Realme."

This James Earl of Arran, and Governor of the Realm, was grandson of Margaret Countess of Arran, eldest daughter of King James II.: thence arose his relationship to Queen Mary, and to the royal family.

James, the Regent, was created Duke of Chatelheraud in France; his grandson, John, was created Marquis of Hamilton in 1599; James, the grandson of this Marquis John, was created Duke of Hamilton in 1643, with a limitation to him and the heirs male of his body; which failing, to his brother and the heirs male of his body; which failing, to the eldest heir female of the duke's body, without division, and the heirs male of the body of such heir female. He left no issue male.

On the death of William, his brother, the second duke (who also died without issue male), he was succeeded in the honours and estates by Anne, the daughter of the first duke, who thus became Duchess of Hamilton, and was the lineal heiress of the Regent Earl of Arran, who was declared to have been the nearest heir to the crown in 1542.

James, the eldest son of Anne, fell in the wellknown duel with Lord Mohun in 1712.

Her grandson James, and her great-grandson of the same name, were successively Dukes of Hamilton. The last-mentioned James, sixth Duke of Hamilton, married Miss Gunning, in her day a lady of great beauty and celebrity; and was y her father of two sons, James-George and uglas, who were successively seventh and eighth es of Hamilton. They had also one daughter,

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Elizabeth, who was married to Edward, the twelfth Earl of Derby, in 1774.

When the Commissioners for settling the precedency of the Scottish nobility made their decree in 1606, the Duke of Lennox was the peer first named. He was then a duke, while the head of the Hamilton family was only a marquis: but the honours of Lennox became vested in King James VI., through his father Lord Derneley, and were thus merged in the crown. King James VI. granted these honours anew to members of the Lennox family whom he selected. The whole of these new creations had disappeared before the union of the kingdoms.

Accordingly, in the Union Roll, the Duke of Hamilton's appears as the first name; and the same has so appeared in every list used since the Union. There appears thus to be no reason to doubt that the head of the Hamilton family is the first subject in Scotland after the blood royal.

It has been mentioned that James, sixth Duke of Hamilton, and Elizabeth his wife, had two sons, who were successively Dukes of Hamilton; and that they had also a daughter, Elizabeth Countess of Derby.*

When Douglas Duke of Hamilton died, the Countess of Derby, his sister, came to be heiress of line to Anne Duchess of Hamilton, who had succeeded to the honours and estates in the preceding century: but these honours and estates had been limited to the heirs male of the body of the Duchess Anne; and, upon the death of Douglas Duke of Hamilton without issue, they became vested in his uncle Archibald, the ninth Duke of Hamilton, the father of the Duke that now is.

Elizabeth Countess of Derby was the grandmother of the Earl of Derby, our present Premier, to whom her rights, whatever they were, have descended.

Most persons conversant with subjects of this nature are aware of the high position which the Earl of Derby holds; but, it is believed, there are few who are fully aware of the high position in which he stands in the Peerage of Scotland to the illustrious family of Hamilton, as heir of line to Anne Duchess of Hamilton, whose issue male SCRUTATOR. now enjoy the honours and estates.

INSCRIPTION AT PERSEPOLIS.

(Vol. v., p. 560.)

Premising that I know nothing of this inscription excepting from the communication of your

Elizabeth Duchess of Hamilton married, as her second husband, John, fifth Duke of Argyle, and by him had two sons, George-William and John-DouglasEdward, who were successively Dukes of Argyle. Thus she was mother of four dukes,—perhaps, out of the royal family, an unprecedented occurrence.

JULY 3. 1852.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

Querist, I should say that the spirit of the thing (a sort of verbal magic square) seems to require the repetition of the same words in all three pairs Therefore the last two of parallel columns. columns might have consisted of precisely the same words as the two middle ones (excepting of course the bottom row), without injury to the sense: a circumstance that appears to have been lost sight of by whoever framed the Latin version. At all events, the fifth and sixth words in the top line ought to be dicit and scit, instead of audit and expedit. These, and some others, are perhaps misquotations.

The key consists in taking the words of the bottom row alternately with those of any of the upper

rows in the same pair of columns:-Thus, the
first sentence is, "Non dicas quoddamque scis,
nam qui dicit quodcunque scit, sæpe dicit quod non
scit." I trust your correspondent did not intend
this as a sly hit at contributors, its meaning being,
"Thou must not talk of all that thou knowest, for
he who talks of everything he knows, often talks
of what he knoweth not."

The following English version-in which the bottom line is transposed to the top, for the sake of clearness-will give some idea of the arrangemust be understood as sees into or comprehends. ment. The last word sees, in the last column,

Leeds.

A. E. B.

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TELL

YOU MAY KNOW

TELLS

HE KNOWS

TELLS

HE KNOWS

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The original appears to have suffered in the
H. C. K.
[We are also indebted to Sc.-R. MC.-T. J. B.-
SEVARG-W. S. SIMPSON
JUVENIS-J. EASTWOOD-
B. R. J.-L. X. R., &c., for similar Replies.]

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Nov. 3, 1824 (No. 10,288), to find the authorship claimed by Dr. Marshall of Durham. I am not aware that his letter received any reply, either at the time or subsequently; but as it might possibly escape the attention of those who could have evidence" to which it alludes may yet be capable vindicated Wolfe's claim, and the "incontestable of production, I trust you will not think this copy unworthy of being noted in your widely circulated and useful publication.

Fall Croft, Ripon.

J. R. WALBRan.

"ODE ON THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

To the Editor of the Courier.

SIR, Permit me through the medium of your highly respectable journal (which I have chosen as the channel of this communication, from my having been a subscriber to it for the last fifteen years) to observe, that the statement lately published in the Morning Chronicle, the writer of which ascribes the lines on the burial of Sir John Moore to Woolf, is FALSE, and as were not written by barefaced a FABRICATION as ever was foisted on the public. The lines in question Woolf, nor by Hailey, nor is Deacoll the author, but I published them originthey were composed by me. ally some years ago in the Durham County Advertiser,

a journal in which I have at different times inserted several poetical trifles, as the Prisoner's Prayer to Sleep; Lines on the Lamented Death of Benjamin Galley, Esq.,' and some other little effusions.

"I should not, sir, have thought the lines on Sir John Moore's funeral worth owning, had not the false statement of the Chronicle met my eye. I can prove, by the most incontestable evidence, the truth of what I have asserted. The first copy of my lines was given by me to my friend and relation Captain Bell, and it is in his possession at present: it agrees perfectly with the copy now in circulation, with this exception, it does not contain the stanzas commencing with Few and short,' which I added afterwards at the suggestion of the Rev. Dr. Alderson, of Butterby.

I am, Sir, yours, &c.,

6

H. MARSHALL, M.D.

South Street, Durham, Nov. 1. 1824."

COKE AND COWPER, HOW PRONOUNced.

(Vol. v., passim.)

Notwithstanding the able treatment these questions have already received, I would venture to suggest that they may yet be discussed scientifically, if taken in an analogical point of view. Whatever the difference of opinion, or rather usage, that may exist on the correct pronunciation of either name, we can, I think, arrive at no certain result without tracing the foundation on which opinion or usage may rest, and the fixed laws that must inevitably govern their adoption. Heraldry, it seems to me, supplies the basis for those laws, if not the laws themselves; for by it our modern nomenclature is to a great extent supported, its errors modified or expunged, and anarchy and ruin diverted from sapping the bulwarks of English identity and English pride the good old names, still rife among us, in many instances the

stainless records of ancestral worth.

By a reference to the coat-armour of the various families of Cooper, Couper, and Cowper, as gathered from the pages of Burke, it will at once be seen that the same bearings are interchangeably used by all of them, with only slight variations,-the resemblance being sufficiently distinct to mark a common origin. The paternal coat of the ennobled name of Cowper, I would further remark, bears in some of its features a strong affinity with the arms of the "Coopers' Company" of London. The foregoing remark will also apply so Coke, Cook, and Cooke, the arms of Coke of Holkham (the present Earl of Leicester), being borne by several families of Cooke, with one or two differences of tincture; yet on the testimony of Wotton it would seem that the uniform spelling of the former name has been Coke from before the time of Edw. III. "Sir Thomas Coke, of Munteby, Lord of Dudlington" (a lineal ancestor of the great Sir Edward Coke, and also of the Leicester family), being the

first on record of that name in the pedigree given by Wotton of the Longford family, now extinct. I concur in the suggestion of MR. LAWRENCE (Vol. iv., p. 93.) that "Coke is the old English form of writing Cook, from the Anglo-Saxon Còc," or perhaps from the Norman-French Le Coq (a name still common in the Channel Islands; where, by the way, MR. LOWER may still find many compounds of Le (Vol. v., pp. 509. 592.) in almost pristine purity, such as Le Quesne, Le Bas, Le Febvre, Le Conteur, &c.), the primitive sound of o being perhaps short, and since softened into 00. Some confirmation of this may be traced in the fact that Burke gives Cock, Cocke, or Koke (alias Coke), as bearing for crest "an ostrich, in the beak a horse-hoe;" which is also borne by the Earl of Leicester, differenced on a chapeau. That the spelling of both Coke and Cowper was left very much to discretion has been shown by previous correspondents, and is further confirmed by Gwillim and other old writers. The former testifies in his usually quaint style:

"He beareth parted per pale gu. and az. 3 eaglets displayed argent by the name of Cooke of Norfolk. These were the armes of that great man and eminent lawyer, Sir Edward Cooke (or Coke), Knt., Lord Chief He was the Justice of King's Bench temp. Jac. I. only son of Robert Coke, of Milleham, in the said co.” &c. &c.-Vide Kent's Abridgment, p. 772. And again (Ib. p. 476.):

"He beareth azure, a tortoise erect (or) by the name of Cooper (alias Cowper) sic' of Nottinghamshire. Borne by Thomas Cowper, Esq., High Sheriff of that county 10 Eliz."

Sir Richard Baker, the "chronicler," speaks of Sir Edward Cook and Mr. Clement Coke, reversing the names in the index, and using each indiscriminately throughout the body of his (I am aware) usually inaccurate work; but being the testimony of a cotemporary, I thought it, on that account only, worth noting.

Glancing at the Peerage list of family names, I cannot forbear the thought that much of the confusion and irregularity attendant on the various spellings of one name may have arisen, in some cases at least, from a morbid propensity evinced in the desire to aristocratify (if I may be allowed the term) names of somewhat plebeian origin, so as to render them strictly admissible to patrician circles, witness Smythe, Taylour, Turnour*, and others; while many, such as Butler, Carpenter, Cooper, Smith, Gardiner, &c., still remain in almost primitive simplicity, and innocent of specious disguise.

I have somewhere seen the plea that this family derive their name from some Norman valiant yclept "De Tour Noir;" but the resemblance of both name "Turner" is too appaand arms to the commonplace rent to escape observation.

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