Dead, a letter from a correspondent was read in which it was stated
that, whilst on an architectural tour, he found a register book open in
the church and the leaves blown on the floor, or at least, such of them
as dampness and the mice had not obliterated. Although the living had
been held by one family for nearly 300 years, and is a very rich one,
the writer adds: “I venture to affirm that a family could not prove its
descent for three generations from its parish register.” It is also
stated that parchment registers, having one side vacant, were sometimes
cut up for directions for game!
A REPORT has been received from the committee appointed with reference
to the preservation of the ancient records of the county of Middlesex.
The index of these valuable historical documents is very nearly
completed, and they have all been properly classified and housed, so
that they will be preserved from any damage in the future. The documents
altogether number 16,000 separate records. The money allotted for the
purpose of classifying them not being found sufficient, it has been
decided, on the motion of Mr. Basil Woodd Smith, that a further sum of
£200 be granted for the completion of the fittings of the new record
room and the sorting and calendaring of the records.
MESSRS. CHRISTIE, MANSON & WOODS lately disposed of the collection of
old Sèvres and Chelsea porcelain, old French decorative furniture,
snuff-boxes, and other decorative objects, the property of the late Mr.
W. King. Among the best prices obtained were: A statuette of a nymph, by
Falconet, in statuary marble, 400 gs.; a Louis XVI. clock, in case of
gros-bleu Sèvres porcelain, surmounted by a mask of Apollo, 215 gs.; a
pair of Louis XVI. ormolu candelabra, with large Dresden figures of a
shepherd and shepherdess, 165 gs.; an oblong bloodstone box, carved with
hunting subjects, the lid studded with diamonds, £270; a fine oblong
double box, formed of slabs of agate, set with diamonds, £205. The sale
realised over £4,600.
_On_ Saturday, June 28, Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods sold at their
rooms the splendid collection of paintings by the old masters, the
property of Sir Philip Miles, M.P., known as the Leigh Court Gallery.
Five pictures were purchased for the National Gallery--the grand upright
landscape by Gaspar Poussin, “The Calling of Abraham,” “The Adoration of
the Magi,” by Bellini; the two Hogarths, portrait of Miss Fenton,
afterwards Duchess of Bolton, as “Polly Peachum,” and “The Shrimp Girl;”
and Stothard’s “Canterbury Pilgrims.” The total paid for these pictures
was under £4,000. The two Alfieri Claudes were purchased by Messrs.
Agnew--the “Apollo Sacrifice” for 5,800 guineas, and the “Landing of
Æneas” for 3,800 guineas--while the little picture of the “Herdsman at
the Ford” was bought by the same firm for 1,950 guineas, and the Murillo
“Holy Family” for 3,000 guineas. The little predella panel by Raphael,
“Christ bearing His Cross to Calvary,” was also purchased by Messrs.
Agnew for 560 guineas, and has passed into the collection of Lord
Windsor. Several important pictures were bought in. The sale realised
nearly £44,300.
AMONG the later additions to that most interesting corner in the Health
Exhibition where Old London is reproduced is a collection of views and
etchings of Old Southwark, shown by Mr. S. Drewet (F. S. Nichols & Co.)
in the Guard Chamber over the Bishop’s Gate. Old London Bridge as it
appeared in the time of Henry VIII. and at several periods since until
its demolition may here be seen, as well as some of the historic
buildings of Southwark--Winchester Palace, &c., and its famous hostels,
the old Tabarde and the White Hart, of which the picturesque
characteristics have been preserved in etchings by Mr. Percy Thomas.
Some reproductions of old maps and a small collection of pottery,
weapons, and coins found in the borough of Southwark, and most of them
during the progress of excavations on the site of the old Tabarde Inn,
should not be passed unnoticed. The rooms over the workshops on the
north side of the Old London street at the Exhibition have been filled
with furniture of antique form, and the walls hung with tapestries from
the Royal Tapestry Works at Windsor. Along the south side a very fine
collection of armour, arms, and ancient and mediæval ironwork has been
arranged by Messrs. Stark & Gardner, among the contributors being Lady
Dorothy Nevill, Sir Coutts Lindsay, the Rev. Canon Harford, Mr. J. G.
Litchfield, and Mr. J. E. Gardner, F.S.A.
THE sale of the first portion of the extensive library of the late Mr.
James Crossley, President of the Chetham Society, took place at the
rooms of Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, on Monday, July 21, and six
following days. Many of the books were in an imperfect and stained
condition, which considerably affected the prices realised. Ainsworth’s
Memorials, described by the owner as “by far the rarest book connected
with Halifax,” being stained, sold for only £3 3s.; and Brown’s Religio
Medici, the 1642 surreptitious impression, £6 10s. Byron’s Hours of
Idleness, first published edition, brought £4 6s. Milton’s Paradise
Lost, first edition, with first title-page, £25; and other copies, with
second, third, fourth, seventh, and eighth title-pages, £16 18s.;
Paradise Regained, first edition, £3 17s. 6d. The Philobiblon Society’s
Publications, £25. Miscellanies, 20 vols., £21. Miscellanies, in one
stout volume, £51. Shelley’s Queen Mab, first edition, wanting title, £4
6s. Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions, £49. Camden Society’s
Publications, £10 10s. Chetham Society’s Publications, £25 10s.
Abbotsford Club Publications, £15 10s. Spenser’s Fairie Queene, first
edition, £12 10s.; second edition, £10 10s.; and 1617 edition, with
autograph of Ben Jonson, £10 10s. Shakespeare’s Plays, Second Folio,
£17; Third Folio, imperfect, £12; Fourth Folio, £9 10s. Tracts and
Pamphlets, £16, £60, £39. Watson’s Halifax, £9 9s.; and a copy with
Canon Raines’s MS. notes, £37. The 2,824 lots realised nearly £3,600.
DR. SCHLIEMANN has been in London for a week or two. He has in
preparation a book on his discoveries at Tiryns. The _Academy_
communicates the following details with regard to these discoveries:
“The walls of the prehistoric palace which Dr. Schliemann has
disinterred at Tiryns are formed of limestone and clay; the latter has
been turned into brick by the action of fire, while the stone has been
burnt into lime. In some places the surface of the walls had been coated
with stucco, on which traces of painting can still be observed. The
colours used in these paintings are black, red, blue, yellow, and white;
and Professor Virchow has pointed out that the blue is composed of
pulverised glass mixed with copper, but without cobalt. One of the
paintings represents the same pattern as that found on the roof of the
thalamos attached to the Treasury of Minyas at Orchomenos. Another
depicts a man riding on an ox, whose tail he holds. The artist has made
three attempts to draw the tail, and has forgotten to obliterate the two
unsuccessful ones. The paintings have been carefully removed and sent to
Athens. Among the ruins of the palace twenty-seven bases of limestone
columns have been discovered, but no drums, besides a sandstone capital
in the old Doric style. The chambers of the building were full of
objects of all kinds, including pottery, obsidian knives, rude hammers
of diorite, and grape-stones. No iron has been met with, and but little
metal of any sort, though lead is relatively plentiful. All traces of
writing are equally absent. The pottery resembles that of Mycenæ, but
the presence of obsidian and the scarcity of metal imply that Tiryns was
the older city of the two.”
THE name of John Payne Collier has been so long known to all those
persons who take an interest in literature, that the recent sale of the
first portion of the books and manuscripts which had belonged to the
editor of “Shakespeare” by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, was
certain to excite much attention. The second portion of the library is
reserved for a future sale. Of those just sold, the more interesting
lots were: Ballads, &c., an interesting manuscript of the seventeenth
century, including a period of about sixty years, a most curious
collection of ballads, quotations from Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Sir
W. Raleigh, and summary of its contents by J. P. Collier, who gave Hoope
£25 for the volume--£52 (Quaritch); Cartwright (W.), Comedies, &c.,
portrait by Lombart, manuscript note by J. P. Collier, with the rare
cancelled leaves “On the Queen’s Return from the Low Countries,” and the
uncancelled leaves on the same, £5 15s. (Quaritch); Cibber (C.), “Tony
Aston’s Brief Supplement to C. Cibber, his lives, &c., notes by Collier,
extremely rare--£2 15s. (Westell); Collier, J. P., Punch and Judy
coloured etchings by G. Cruikshank, notes by author among others--“The
plates in this volume were coloured by Cruikshank; he gave it to me”--£5
10s.; Collier, J. P., “Notes and Emendations to the Text of
Shakespeare’s Plays,” with a great mass of manuscripts, notes by
Collier, 1853--£40 15s. (A. R. Smith); Cruikshank, 24 illustrations of
“Punch and Judy,” India proofs, with a portrait of the artist himself
etched at the bottom of one of the plates, and a view on another, &c.,
S. Prowett, 1828--£19 5s. (Richardson); Baxter (N.), Sir P. Sydney’s
“Ourania,” autograph signature, and manuscript corrections by author,
1606--£9. (Stevens); Collier, J. P., “History of English Dramatic
Poetry,” profusely illustrated by rare portraits, autograph letters, and
manuscript notes by Collier, 1879--£59 (Stevens); Collier, J. P., “An
Old Man’s Diary Forty Years Ago,” 1832-33, only 25 copies printed,
illustrated like the last named, 1871-72--£150. (B. F. Stevens);
Cooperi, T., “Thesaurus Linguæ Romanæ et Britannicæ,” “This book before
it was rebound belonged to John Milton, as is testified in his own
handwriting in more than 1,500 places,” manuscript note by Collier--£3
11s. (Quaritch); “Miltoni pro Populo Anglicano Defensio,” with autograph
of O. Cromwell--£8 15s. (Quaritch); Shakespeare’s works, 1844-53, Mr.
Collier’s working copy, manuscript notes, and letters from his
friend--£10 (Ellis); Peckham, Sir G., “A True Reporte of the late
Discoveries, &c., of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Kt.,” very curious and rare,
John Charlewood for John Hinde, 1583, and many other rare tracts, in one
volume, with manuscript notes by Collier--£210 (Quaritch). The entire
proceeds of the sale were a little over £2,100.
Antiquarian Correspondence.
Sin scire labores,
Quære, age: quærenti pagina nostra patet.
_All communications must be accompanied by the name and address of the
sender, not necessarily for publication._
DR. FRANCIS MALLETT.
SIR,--Dr. Francis Mallett, Vicar of Rothwell, near Leeds, instituted 7
January, 1533, is styled in the church register, “Magister Franciscus
Malett: Sacre Theologie Doctor.” He resigned this living before 1547. In
the catalogue of vicars, he is designated “Mr. Francis Malett, cap.”
(capellanus or chaplain).
In a sketch of the life of Arthur Yeldard, one of the first Fellows of
Trinity College, Oxford, founded by Sir Thomas Pope, it is stated that
Mr. Yeldard, while at Cambridge (in 1553) for his better support in
study, received an annual exhibition from the Princess, afterwards
Queen, Mary, by the hands of Dr. Francis Mallet, her chaplain and
confessor, the last master of Michael House in Cambridge, and dean of
Lincoln.
Again, I find that a Dr. Francis Mallett, as master of St. Katherine’s
Hospital,[34] offered to resign the mastership in 1559.
On December 18, 1573, a “Dr. Mallett” was buried at Normanton, and it is
remarked in the parish register that there remained unpaid for his
burial in the church, 3s. 4d.
I wish to ascertain, if possible, whether the instances given refer to
one and the same man or no; and if so, whether he was a member of the
ancient family of the Mallets of Normanton, in Yorkshire.
JOHN BATTY.
_East Ardsley, near Wakefield._
ARMS OF JOSUAH BARNES.
SIR,--I send you a description of the armorial plate, dated 1700, of
Josuah Barnes, who was appointed Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge
in 1695, and of whom Bentley said that he knew as much Greek as an
Athenian cobbler. (1) For Greek Professor--Argent and sable, party per
chevron: in first, the letters Alpha and Omega sable; in second, a
grasshopper argent. On a chief gules a lion passant guardant or,
impaling (2) Barnes--Argent, a lion rampant gules, crowned; in dexter
chief a mullet; a chief or. The crown and mullet have no tincture
marked.
The crest over a healm (an owl argent on a wreath argent and sable) and
the mantelling (gules doubled argent) are those of the Greek Professor.
Below is the motto--
“Hæc mihi musa dedit
Vix ea nostra voco;”
and under this--
“Josua Barnes, S. T. B. Græc. Ling. Cantab.
Prof. Reg. Eman. Coll. Soc. 1700.”
According to grant of arms to the five Regius Professors, the lion
passant guardant is marked in his side with the letter G sable, and the
owl has its legs, ears, and beak or.
J. HAMBLIN SMITH.
_Woodbridge, Suffolk._
PORTS AND CHESTERS.
(See _ante_, pp. 47, 96.)
SIR,--Mr. Round adds nothing of value to what has gone before.
(1) As to the alleged “borrowing,” the word port must, on Mr. Round’s
own showing, have been taken up, adopted, or _borrowed_ by the so-called
English pirates, before they incorporated it into their language; the
question is, when?
Bosworth says that A.S. port means town in English, but that scholar has
now fallen into discredit, for others doubt or deny his accuracy;
further, we find it used as a compound, thus: portreeve, portsoken,
portman. Portreeve is, I affirm, by transition from the Latin _portus_.
The port of London extends from Yanlett Creek to Staines, so that the
“city” itself is dwarfed by the larger jurisdiction appended to it; we
can readily explain the anomaly, but the usage appears to have extended
to other places where the hythe or haven, _i.e._, boat-shelter, is not
so clearly marked and then the word is thrust back upon us in a sense
that we repudiate.
It is further complicated with “gate” or “doorway”; portsoken, for,
instance, means a liberty outside the gate or port of Aldgate, and in
many northern towns where the Danes settled in force, we find the word
port used for gate, as thus: Westport, Eastport, but it is not to be
read as west or east-_town_; so the portman might mean a burgess told
off to keep watch and ward over any particular gate of his own town;
just as we have “wards,” _i.e._ guards, in London, originally confined
to gates but extended to intermediate parts of the entire wall, for that
was the primitive arrangement.
The Viking invaders used boats that could be pushed up comparatively
narrow streams, and it might be contended that any inland place thus
reached would be a _port_ of debarkation.
(2) My word “ramify” expresses a real difficulty; I did try to spread
out or extend Mr. Round’s argument under its different heads and
branches, _i.e._, to follow up the various _ramifications_ of his
literary matter, with a view to the extraction of a tangible meaning;
and I still contend that his words _do_ imply that caer was put for
castrum; but it is certain that this “native form” was unknown on the
south-eastern coast, for the transliteration shows that the Romans met
with dune or dinas, not caer or ker.
A. HALL.
A BAKER BLESSED.
(See _ante_, p. 44.)
SIR,--Will Mr. Hussey take a suggestion for a half-answer to his query?
It may possibly put him on the track of the origin of the lines that he
quotes:--
In “Hamlet,” Ophelia says: “The owl was a baker’s daughter.” The ideas
floating through her mind are connected with St. Valentine’s Day.
Grimm gives a story that “the cuckoo was a baker’s (or miller’s) man,
and that is why he wears a dingy meal-sprinkled coat. In a dear season
he robbed the poor of their flour, and when God was blessing the dough
in the oven, he would take it out, and pull lumps out of it, crying
every time, ‘Guk-guk,’ look, look; therefore the Lord punished him by
changing him into a bird of prey, which incessantly repeats that cry.”
This story, Grimm says, is doubtless very ancient, and was once told
very differently. “That ‘dear season’ may have to do with the belief
that when the Cuckoo’s call continues to be heard after midsummer, it
betokens dearth.”
Again Grimm alludes to one of the many superstitions concerning the
cuckoo in spring, and says that in some districts a rhyme runs thus:
“Kukuk _beckenknecht_
Sag mir recht,
Wie viel jar (jahr) ich leben soll.”
Here the idea of the baker is brought in.
Grimm gives a story of the woodpecker, which has also to do with the
baking element. A combination of the Scandinavian with the
saint-legendary element.
In Norway the red-hooded blackpecker is called Gertrude’s fowl, and the
origin is thus explained. The story will be found in Mr. Stallybrass’
translation of Grimm’s “Teutonic Mythology” (see vol. ii. p. 673),
together with much curious information concerning rhymes and charms,
which may possibly be of some help to Mr. Hussey in his researches for
origins of curious old rhymes and verses.
J. G.
AN ARCHÆOLOGICAL DISCOVERY.
SIR,--A find of some archæological interest was made a few days ago in
the churchyard of Hitcham, Bucks. In digging a grave on the south side
of the (Norman) nave, a stone cist, or sarcophagus, was discovered 4 ft.
6 in. from the present surface. Fourteen years ago a similar cist was
found; with the remains were a quantity of iron rings, 1¼ in. diameter,
and iron nails, but no other indication of there having been a coffin.
The head of the present cist was then brought to view, but not
disturbed. The inside dimensions of the present cist were 6 ft. in
length, 12 in. wide at the head, and 8 in. at the foot; 19 in. at its
greatest width. The south side was composed of 5 slabs, the north side
of 6; the covering slabs were 5 in number; also 1 at the head and
foot--18 stones in all, 13 in. deep at the head and 12 in. at the foot;
the side stones averaging 4 in. and the covering stones 5½ in. in
thickness. The chalk or claunch stones of which the cist is composed
were rudely squared and hewn or axed on all sides with a tool 1 in.
wide, and rounded on the edge; one other tool 3 in. in width, the axe
marks being sharp and clearly defined. A large and perfect skeleton was
enclosed, but no trace of a coffin, wood or metal. The bed or floor of
the grave was composed of fine gravel-pit sand. The bones were
considerably crystallised; probably the body was covered with carbonate
of lime. The skull bore traces of having lain in a liquid; it was very
friable, and crumbled at the touch; the femur measured 18½ in. in
length. Llewellyn Jewitt says: “The mode of burial seems this: when the
body was placed in the stone cist, or sarcophagus, it was fully draped
in its usual dress. It was laid flat upon its back, at full length, at
the bottom of the cist; any relics intended to be buried with it were
placed by its side. Liquid lime or gypsum was then poured in, upon, and
around it, the face alone being left uncovered by the liquid. The body
was thus completely (with the exception of the face) encased in liquid
lime, which, when it became set, formed a solid mass. When these are
brought to light and opened, a perfect impression or mould of the figure
of the deceased appears on the bed of plaster or lime in which it had
been enclosed, and, in some instances, the texture, and even the colours
of the dress is clearly defined. Some years ago a cist was opened at
York, in which the body of a woman clothed in rich purple, with a small
child laid upon her lap, was clearly discernible in the plaster.”
Whether this was an interment of the Roman-British or Anglo-Saxon period
the orientation was very decided in this case, as in the five others I
have seen in this spot, they all lying due east and west. Two-thirds in
length of this very interesting relic had to be removed to obtain the
depth required for the new grave. I collected the bones and placed them
in the remaining third portion left undisturbed.
JAMES RUTLAND,
Hon. Sec. Berks Archæological and Architectural
Society, and Maidenhead Field
Club and Thames Valley Antiquarian
Society.
HANG
_The Gables, Taplow_,
_August, 1884._
_TO CORRESPONDENTS._
THE Editor declines to pledge himself for the safety or return of MSS.
voluntarily tendered to him by strangers.
THE continuation of Mr. J. H. Round’s paper on “Port and Port-Reeve” is
unavoidably postponed to our next.
Books Received.
1. History of the Parish of Ruardyn. By Sir John Maclean, F.S.A.
2. History of the Wrays of Glentworth. By Charles Dalton.
3. Northamptonshire Notes and Queries. Part iii. Northampton: Taylor &
Son. July, 1884.
4. English Etchings. Part xxxix. D. Bogue, 3, St. Martin’s-place, W.C.
5. Johns Hopkins University Studies. Second Series, vii. Baltimore.
July, 1884.
6. New England Historical and Genealogical Register. No. cli. Boston,
July, 1884.
7. Western Antiquary. Part ii. Plymouth. July, 1884.
8. Journal of the British Archæological Association. Vol. xl. Part ii.
June, 1884.
9. Poems. By Lewis Gidley. (2nd Edition). Parker & Co. 1884.
10. Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Notes. Part iv. _Chronicle_
Office, Leigh.
11. The Hull Quarterly and East Riding Portfolio. No. iii. Hall, Brown &
Sons.
12. Ye Historical Sketch of ye Olde London Streete. By T. St. Edmund
Hake. Waterlow & Sons. 1884.
13. “Aberdeen Printers.” By J. P. Edmond. Parts i. & ii. Aberdeen:
Edmond & Spark. 1884.
Books, etc., for Sale.
Works of Hogarth (set of original Engravings, elephant folio, without
text), bound. Apply by letter to W. D., 56, Paragon-road, Hackney, N.E.
Original water-colour portrait of Jeremy Bentham, price 2 guineas. Apply
to the Editor of this Magazine.
A large collection of Franks, Peers, and Commoners. Apply to E. Walford,
2, Hyde Park Mansions, N.W.
Books, etc., Wanted to Purchase.
_Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer_, several copies of No. 2
(February, 1882) are wanted, in order to complete sets. Copies of the
current number will be given in exchange at the office.
Dodd’s Church History, 8vo., vols. i. ii. and v.; Waagen’s Art and
Artists in England, vol. i.; East Anglian, vol. i., Nos. 26 and 29. The
Family Topographer, by Samuel Tymms, vols. iii. and iv.; Notes and
Queries, the third Index. Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets” (Ingram and
Cooke’s edition), vol. iii. A New Display of the Beauties of England,
vol. i., 1774. Chambers’ Cyclopædia of English Literature, vol. i.
Address, E. Walford, 2, Hyde Park Mansions, Edgeware-road, N.W.
[Illustration: SEAL OF THE BOROUGH OF SEAFORD.
_W. Dampier, del._]
[Illustration]
_The Antiquarian Magazine & Bibliographer._
Our Old County Towns.
_NO. II.--SEAFORD, SUSSEX._
ON the Sussex coast, between Newhaven and Eastbourne, stands the
“ancient town and port” of Seaford, a place which was formerly of some
importance--seeing that it could boast of returning two Members to
Parliament, and that it contained no less than seven churches; but,
having been disfranchised under the Reform Act of 1832, it degenerated
into an obscure fishing village, from which condition, like many other
places on the southern coast, having felt the impulse of fashion, it is
now rising to the dignity of a watering-place.
In very early times the site of the present town was doubtless chosen as
advantageous to the dwellers on the coast, and many traces of Roman
occupation have been discovered hereabouts, particularly near the cliff
overlooking the eastern part of the town, where is an extensive
earthwork, locally known as the Roman Camp. About the year 1820
evidences of a Roman cemetery were disclosed at Green-street, in this
neighbourhood: these included sepulchral urns and coins, among the
latter being one of Antonia, daughter of Marc Antony.
Somner has fixed upon Pevensey as the Anderida of the Romans; and a
great battle between the Saxons and Britons in 485, at Mereredesburn, is
thought to have been fought in this locality.
Seaford suffered considerably from the ravages of the French in their
“descents” on the English coast; and it was probably in the invasion in
1545 that the place was burnt, and its several churches and other public
buildings destroyed.
There is a tradition that the privileges of the borough were first
granted by Edward I., in consequence of its inhabitants having supplied
the king with the gift or loan of “five ships and eighty mariners;” the
said “privileges” comprised exemptions from toll and custom, namely,
“lastage, tollage, passage, rivage, appensage, wreck,” &c., and with
rights of “soc and sac and toll,” and freedom from “justices itinerant.”
The town received its charter of incorporation from Henry VIII. At that
time Hastings was in a pitiful state, as recited in the charter.
In the reign of Charles I. the town was made a member of the Cinque
Ports, which comprised Hastings, Sandwich, Dover, Romney, Hythe, Rye,
Winchilsea, Seaford, Pevensey, Fordwich, Folkestone, Feversham, Lydd,
and Tenterden; now, however, it is but a “member” of the first-named
port, though with “separate local jurisdiction.”
The government of the town is a municipal corporation, consisting of a
bailiff or mayor, jurats, and an indefinite number of freemen. The
bailiff is also (_ex officio_) coroner for the liberty; and the jurats,
who are local magistrates and may be twelve in number, are chosen by the
freemen, who were formerly styled “barons.” These “barons” of the Cinque
Ports possessed extensive and peculiar privileges under their charters,
and attended the Brotherhood and Guestling of the Cinque Ports
Parliament, the last of which was held at New Romney, in July, 1828. The
first bailiff, elected in 1541, was one John Ockenden.
The bailiff is annually elected on Michaelmas Day, with quaint
formalities, which are thus set forth by Mr. M. A. Lower in his
“Memorials of Seaford:” “At the summons of the church bell the assembly
of freemen takes place in the town-hall, and after the _pro formâ_
business has been gone through, the _freemen_--leaving the jurats behind
them on the bench--retire in a body to a certain gatepost near West
House, and there elect their chief officer for the year ensuing. The
motive for this singular proceeding seems to have been the prevention of
unfair influence on the part of the magisterial body. The townsmen are
attended on this occasion by the serjeant-at-mace in his proper costume,
bearing the ensign of the bailiff’s authority in the shape of a small
mace of silver, which is ornamented with the arms of Queen Elizabeth.
The procession commences at a place called the Old Tree, where it
appears the town pillory anciently stood, as it is called in old
documents ‘the Pillory Tree.’ The place of execution, or rather the
perquisite of the ‘finisher of the law,’ is still pointed to by the name
of a piece of land called ‘Hangman’s Acre.’” The Pillory Tree was
standing in 1578. The site is now marked by the “Old Tree” Inn.
In the 37th year of Elizabeth, the cucking-stool, the pillory, and the
butts are mentioned in a “presentment” by the jury as in a state of
decay. The pillory was an instrument of punishment to be met with in
former times in most old county towns; but the cucking or ducking-stool
was not so common, on account of its peculiar construction and use. It
could, of course, be used only in such places as had a convenient pond
or piece of water at hand wherein to “duck” its unfortunate occupant.
The cucking-stool is referred to by some of the older poets. Thus Gay
writes:--
“I’ll hie me to the pond, where the high stool
On the long plank hangs o’er the muddy pool,
That stool, the dread of every scolding quean.”
Down to the sixteenth century, Seaford had a harbour of its own. The
river Ouse flowed between the town and the shingly beach to find an
outlet at Seaford Head, or Cliff End, and ships floated up to the
houses, in much the same fashion as they do at Shoreham even to this
day; but by the accumulation of shingle through the action of the tides
its outlet was diverted, and the harbour destroyed. A grant of Queen
Elizabeth, dated 1592, speaks of the “decayed haven of Seaforth, called
Beame lands,” &c. This land, now used for the purposes of recreation,
but still retaining the corrupted name of the Bemblands, exhibits but
few traces of the river-bed which of old conferred upon the town the
distinction of a Cinque port. The haven in the end became a duck-pool.
Seaford is a borough by prescription, and from the end of the thirteenth
century, as stated above, returned two members to Parliament, and it was
at one time represented by the celebrated statesmen, the elder Pitt and
George Canning; this borough was long remarkable for the obstinate
election contests between the partisans of the two noble houses of
Lennox and Pelham, and also for the open display of “bribery and
corruption,” which formed perhaps the chief political interest of its
worthy burgesses.
Seaford gives the title of “Baron” to the family of Ellis, Lords Howard
de Walden; and it may be added that the custom of “Borough English”
prevails here, whereby property descends to the youngest son.
The arms of Seaford are (like those of the other Cinque Ports) the
dimidiated lions of England, with the three ships’ sterns. The town,
however, has an ensign peculiar to itself: “Or, an Eagle displayed
azure;” while the seal of Seaford, of which we give a representation,
bears on the obverse an eagle, and on the reverse an antique ship.
The lordship of the manor of Seaford has belonged successively to
families of historic fame, notably the Warrens, the Poynings, the
Howards, Dukes of Norfolk, the Monteagles (to whom it was granted as a
reward for valour), and the Pelhams. One member, at least, of this
last-named family exhibited bravery in the defence of the town, if we
may judge from the following verses which appear on the monument of Sir
N. Pelham at Lewes:--
“His valour’s proof his manly virtues prayse
Cannot be marshalled in this narrow roome,
His brave exploit in Great King Henry’s dayes
Among the worthye hath a worthier tomb;
What time the French sought to have sacked Sayfoord,
This Pelham did repell ’em back aboord.”
There are still to be met with in Seaford one or two old buildings which
would delight the antiquarian visitor. The Plough Inn possesses a fine
old chimney-piece; and the “Crypt House,” and the Court House with its
jail beneath--somewhat similar to the Tolhouse at Great Yarmouth,
already described in these pages[35]--will not prove uninteresting.
Among the old records of the town is one referring to a curious trial
which took place here in the reign of Elizabeth, in which the prisoner
claimed the “benefit of clergy.” The entry, which we quote from the
“Memorials of Seaford,” runs as follows:--
“Nich. Gabriell, a shepherd, was found guilty of stealing six shep,
(sheep) at Chintinge. On being asked by the bailiff if he had anything
to say why sentence of death should not be passed upon him, he claimed
_the benefit of the clergy_, which was granted by the Court. Robert
Hyde, Vicar of Seaford, and another clergyman, handed him a book to make
proof of his learning, whereupon he read it off like a clerk (_legebat
ut clericus_), and thus the heavier penalty was commuted for branding on
the hand.”
The parish church, dedicated to St. Leonard, exhibits marks of
considerable antiquity, being mostly of the Decorated period; the tower
dating back to the Norman era. It has been recently enlarged and
repaired, not in the best of taste; prior to that time the body of the
fabric had been “a vile piece of patchwork, to which painted shutters
on the outside of all the lower windows gave a truly grotesque
appearance.” The original chancel is supposed to have been burned down
in the general conflagration of the town already mentioned. In the nave,
opposite the south porch, is a curious piece of sculpture. A tablet in
the belfry records the recasting of the bells in 1807.
The bay of Seaford is one of the most dangerous parts along the coast,
in consequence of its numerous shoals and rocks, and consequently the
spot has become noted for its wrecks and “wreckers.” The latter are
referred to by Congreve in his epilogue to the “Mourning Bride:”--
“As Sussex men that dwell upon the shore
Look out when storms arise and billows roar;
Devoutly praying with uplifted hands
That some well-laden ship may strike the sands,
To whose rich cargo they may make pretence,
And fatten on the spoils of Providence;
So critics throng to see a new play split,
And thrive and prosper on the wrecks of wit.”
E. WALFORD, M.A.
“Port” and “Port-Reeve.”
BY J. H. ROUND, M.A.
_PART IV._
(_Completed from p. 24._)
TURNING now to _ceaster_, I claim it, as I claim _port_, as a
distinctively English word. Just as, ever on the same principle, I see
in the use of _weal_ (wall)--a word etymologically derived from
_vallum_--for a _stone_ wall (_murus_), an indication that the Teutonic
rovers, struck by a phenomenon to them so strange as a fortification
even of earth, formed for themselves, out of _vallum_, a word denoting a
barrier _irrespective of its material_, so I contend that they formed
for themselves, from a phenomenon so strange as that _castrum_ which
faced them on the border of “the Saxon shore,” the word _ceaster_ by
which to denote a walled enclosure, _irrespective of its size_. Is it
not a striking thought that, in these English rovers, we have the
forefathers of those to whom, as they gazed on the Norman donjon,--
“Both the name and the thing were new.... Such strongholds, strange
to English eyes, bore no English name, but retained their French
designation of _castles_.”[36]
Thus, to return, as when they made the acquaintance of a stone wall
(_murus_), they would apply their word _weal_ to it, so, when they
reached the large Roman towns of the interior they would apply to them,
as being walled enclosures, their own word “ceaster,” _totally
independent of the proper name by which they were known to Roman or
Briton_.
Now here we have an instance of the striking results that may follow
from minute analysis of “these interesting philological fossils.” For it
follows, as a corollary from the above proposition, that the point of
view from which all historians, whatever their school of thought may be,
have hitherto agreed to look at “-ceaster,” is entirely erroneous and
misleading. So far from being essentially a _Roman_, I shall prove it to
be essentially an _English_ termination. Thus, though in no way a
follower of Mr. Freeman’s sweeping theories, I go, it will be seen, in
this matter of fact, even beyond the exponent of the extreme “Teutonic”
view.
Let us ask ourselves, in the first place, what we mean when we talk of
towns with the _-ceaster_ termination having retained their “Roman
names.” Mr. Pearson, for instance, who is a follower of Mr. Coote,
asserts that--
“Roman local names were preserved by the conquerors as they found
them.”[37]
Even Mr. Allen, though an independent thinker, contends that--
“The English conquerors did not usually change the names of Roman
or Welsh towns, but simply mispronounced them about as much as we
habitually mispronounce Llangollen or Llandudno.”[38]
And he goes, indeed, so far as to assert that--
“There are nowhere any traces of clan nomenclature in any of the
cities. _They all retain their Celtic or Roman names._”[39]
Take, then, the case of Gloucester. Mr. Freeman and Prebendary Scarth
undoubtedly represent, on these questions, the opposite extremes of
thought. The former would minimise, and the latter would make the most
of the survival of “Roman names,” yet on this point they are at one. “A
few great cities,” says Mr. Freeman,
“and a few great natural objects, London on the Thames and
_Gloucester_ on the Severn, still retain names older than the
English Conquest.”[40]
“London and Lincoln,” says Prebendary Scarth,
“and _Gloster_ are noteworthy examples of places retaining, like
many others, the Latinised forms of still earlier names.”[41]
And yet, as Mr. Allen most truly observes--
“To say that Glevum is now Gloucester is to tell only half the
truth; until we know that the two were linked together by the
gradual steps of Glevum castrum, Gleawan ceaster, Gleawe cester,
Gloucester, and Gloster, we have not really explained the words at
all.”[42]
It is the advantage of an unflinching analysis such as this that we are
immediately confronted in black and white with a form of which the
existence is necessarily involved, though hitherto surely overlooked.
That form is “Glevum castrum.” This then is the question that we have to
ask: _was “Glevum castrum” ever the name of Gloucester?_ “Glevum” we
know, and “Gleawan ceaster;” but if we cannot demonstrate the existence
of a form “Glevum castrum,” the continuity of the chain is severed;
there is between them a missing link.
Now for this form, although, as I have said, it is a necessary postulate
to the accepted theory, there is absolutely, we may at once assert, no
evidence whatever. Indeed, as in this same article Mr. Allen has himself
observed,--
“The new comers could not have learned to speak of a ceaster or
chester from Welshmen who called it a caer; nor could they have
adopted the names Leicester or Gloucester from Welshmen who knew
those towns only as Kair Legion or Kair Gloui.”[43]
Thus, then, as the Roman name was “Glevum,” and _not_ “Glevum castrum,”
we see that “Gloucester,” the English name, is _not_ the “Roman name”
preserved--is not even, though Mr. Freeman would admit it, “older than
the English Conquest.”
But as yet we have only ascertained that “Gloucester” (that is to say,
“Gleawan Ceaster”) was a new, an English, name. We have still to learn
how it was evolved, and what the name really meant in the mouths of “the
English conquerors.”
To solve this further problem, there are two points that must be borne
in mind. The first of these points is that “ceaster,” though now only
found in place names, and therefore, naturally, to our ears, a
component of proper names, was, in the mouths of the earliest English,
not a proper but a common name. We are reminded, for instance, by Mr.
Grant Allen, that in Beowulf the city-folk are described as the
“dwellers in ceasters;” and even so late as the days of Alfred, Chester,
as Mr. Freeman loves to remind us, is spoken of as “a waste ceaster,”
that is a deserted city. How, then, did this English word _ceaster_, a
word formed to denote an object for which, being new to English eyes, a
new word had been added to their speech, pass out of use as a general
term, and become a component of certain proper names, embalmed in which
it has descended even to our own day? Mr. Allen contends (though the
suggestion surely is irreconcilable with his previous hypothesis of
_Glevum castrum_ having existed as a Latin form) that
“Sometimes they [_i.e._, the English] called the place by its
Romanised title alone, with the addition of _ceaster_; sometimes
they employed the servile British form; sometimes they even
invented an English alternative; but in no case can it be shown
that they at once disused the original, and introduced a totally
new one of their own manufacture,” &c.[44]
Now this brings me to the second of the two points of which I spoke;
this is, that in the names we are considering, such as Gloucester and
Doncaster, we have to deal with two component parts, and that the _nomen
ipsum_, the real English name, is always to be sought in the second
part, and not, as has hitherto, it would seem, thoughtlessly been
assumed, in the first. That is to say, that in _Gleawan ceaster_, as an
instance of the original form, we are to seek the true English name in
the _ceaster_, and not in the _Gleawan_. So far from seeing in this form
“the Romanised title alone, with the addition of ceaster,” we ought to
see the English word _ceaster_ imposed by the conquerors upon the city
of _Glevum_, a prefix to _ceaster_ being only added where necessary to
distinguish it from other _ceasters_. This is illustrated by the
parallel case of the three Romanised forms, _Venta Icenorum_, _Venta
Belgarum_, and _Venta Silurum_. In each of these three forms the true
place-name was _Venta_ (Gwent), and the tribal names are mere suffixes,
added for the sake of distinction. This parallel will also illustrate
the contrast between the Roman and the English Conquests. For whereas
the Romans were contented to Latinise “Gwent” as _Venta_, the English,
settlers rather than conquerors, acting as their descendants have done
in America, not as they have done in Hindostan, ignored the Roman or,
more accurately, the Latinised British name, and, in their own tongue,
called _Glevum_ “Ceaster.” Here I must again quote from Mr. Allen’s able
paper, as clearly establishing this proposition, although the inferences
we draw from it are not the same:--
“Thus, in the north, Ceaster usually means York, the Roman capital
of the province; as when the ‘Chronicle’ tells us that ‘John
succeeded to the bishopric of Ceaster;’ that ‘Wilfrith was hallowed
as Bishop of Ceaster;’ or that Æthelberht the Archbishop died at
Ceaster.’ In the south it is employed to mean Winchester, the
capital of the West Saxon kings and overlords of all Britain; as
when the ‘Chronicle’ says that ‘King Edgar drove out the priests at
_Ceaster_ from the Old Minster and the New Minster, and set them
with monks.’ So, as late as the days of Charles II., ‘to go to
town’ meant, in Shropshire, to go to Shrewsbury, and in Norfolk, to
go to Norwich. In only one instance has this colloquial usage
survived down to our own days in a large town, and that is at
Chester, where the short form has quite ousted the full name of
Lega Ceaster. But in the case of small towns, or unimportant Roman
stations, which would seldom need to be mentioned outside their own
immediate neighbourhood, the simple form is quite common, as at
Caistor in Norfolk, Castor in Hants, and elsewhere.”[45]
I must explain very carefully the difference between Mr. Allen’s point
of view and my own. While I see the true English name in the English
word “Ceaster,” and look upon its prefixes as merely added to
distinguish one “Ceaster” from another--just as in “East Bergholt”
(Suffolk) and “West Bergholt” (Essex), or in the widely separated “East
Grinstead” and “West Grinstead” of Sussex, we recognise the original
name of each village as “Bergholt” and “Grinstead” respectively--Mr.
Allen, by the absolutely converse process, would see the true English
name in the full compound, such as “Glewanceaster,” whether formed by
simply Anglicising a Latin “_Glevum castrum_” (see p. 423), or, as he
elsewhere holds (p. 434), by using the “Romanised title alone, with the
addition of ‘Ceaster.’” He consequently sees, in the simple “Ceaster,”
not the original form, but a corruption, a “colloquial usage:”--
“As a rule, each particular Roman town retained its full name (?),
in a more or less clipped form, for official uses; but in the
ordinary colloquial language of the neighbourhood they all seem to
have been described as ‘Ceaster’ simply, just as we ourselves
habitually speak of ‘town,’ meaning the particular town near which
we live, or, in a more general sense, London.”[46]
Let me take, as an illustration, a well-known passage, in which the
“Chronicle” tells how the West Saxons, in 577, “took three ceasters,
Gleawan ceaster and Ciren ceaster, and Bathan ceaster.” Now, each of
these cities would be severally known as a “ceaster,” and, in due
course, as _the_ “ceaster”--just as “forum” was developed by the Romans,
and as “market” has been by ourselves (_vide ante_, v. 250)--but when,
as here, mentioned together, they would have to be distinguished from
one another. The _hams_ and _tuns_ which covered the land were so
distinguished by prefixing to them the names of their English owners.
This could not be done with the _ceasters_, which did not become the
homesteads of English owners. The distinctive prefix was, therefore,
sought in some existing (although, to the invaders), meaningless name,
either that of the river on which it stood, as “Exan ceaster” (the
Chester on the Exe), or that of the place itself, “Glewan ceaster,” a
form which may be paralleled in the “Fort Chipewyan,” “Fort Winebago,”
&c., of their descendants in North America.[47] It is often, of course,
most difficult to say whether the prefix is derived directly from the
river, or indirectly, through the original place-name. But, in any case,
we must dismiss the hypothesis that the prefix was “the Romanised title”
of the town, for the termination “an” (“Ex_an_,” “Gleaw_an_”) is found
in cases where the Roman forms differed so widely as “Isc_a_” and
“Glev_um_.” We must guard against the idea that such prefix was ever the
“Roman name” itself, used in apposition to “ceaster.”
To resume, then, we have seen that there is no ground for supposing
“_castrum_” to have ever formed part of the “Roman names” of those
cities whose modern names end in “Chester,” &c. From this it has
followed that the terminal in question is the result and badge of the
English invasion, representing the English word “ceaster,” the invaders’
term for a walled town, and not the equivalent of a mere _castrum_,
though etymologically derived from it in the first instance. We have
also seen that the terminal in question was not a mere “addition” to the
“Roman name,” but was itself the new name imposed by the conquering
English, to which, when and where necessary, a prefix was in time
permanently added, for the sake of distinction. It is not, surely, too
much to say that if these conclusions were satisfactorily established,
they must gravely modify, if not revolutionise, the view which has
hitherto universally prevailed, and which is based, I think, on a too
hasty induction from the resemblance between the English and the Latin
words.
I shall not here pursue further the vicissitudes and the fate of “port”
and “chester,” but shall content myself with noticing the instructive
fact, that, while these words have come down to us, similarly, in
compound forms alone, “chester” is a component in the names of _places_,
and “port” in the names of _things_ (including, thereby, offices). Now,
if “a walled town” was the meaning of _ceaster_, and “a trading town”
the meaning of _port_, why should we find this marked difference in the
use of words which, in sense, appear to have differed so slightly? Why
does “chester” end words, and “port” begin them? Why is a town called a
“chester,” when its governor is a “_port_-reeve,” and its court a
“_port_-manmote?” The answer is to be found in this distinction: the
_ceaster_ was the town _objectively_, that is, viewed as a natural
object, a walled enclosure; the _port_ was the town _subjectively_, that
is, relatively to trade, “in its character of a mart or city of
merchants.”[48]
Thus it was that while _ceaster_ retained its sturdy objectivity, and
was merely qualified, as a place-name, by the addition of a distinctive
prefix, _port_, on the other hand, referring as it did to the town
viewed in a particular aspect, was only strong enough to become itself a
prefix, used, for the purpose of distinction, in a quasi-adjectival
sense. In _port-mote_ it served to distinguish the moot held in the
“port” from the _scir-mote_ and _tun-mote_; in _port-reeve_ it served to
distinguish the reeve of the “port,” or trading town, from the
_scir-reeve_, the _wic-reeve_, and reeves other innumerable.[49]
MESSRS. BURNS & OATES have announced the intended publication of a
series of reprints of scarce ascetical books, many of which exist in the
possession of private collectors, as heirlooms of old Catholic families,
and in the libraries of religious houses. Among them are “Three Ways of
Perfection,” (1663); “Sweet Thoughts of Jesus and Mary,” (1658);
“Memorial of a Christian Life,” (1688), &c. The works will be edited by
Mr. Orby Shipley, M.A.
The “Titurel” of Wolfram von Eschenbach.
TRANSLATED BY JULIA GODDARD.
(_Continued from p. 134._)
CONCLUSION OF PART I.--_Siguna and Schionatulander._
_Argument._--Schionatulander having made his confession of love,
Gahmureth, who has been in former times oppressed by love affairs
himself, compassionates the youth, and promises to help on his
cause with the young Duchess. We may here remark that Gahmureth
does not appear to have been constant in his attachments. After
having assisted Belakane, Queen of Zassamank, in the Moorish
regions, he married her, but deserted her before their son
Fierefiss was born. After that he married Herzeliede, whose son,
Parzival, was chosen to be King of the Grail. Gahmureth had also
been much in love with Anflisa, the French Queen, an episode, to
which Schionatulander here alludes; as does Herzeleide in her
conversation with Siguna, for she fears the French Queen has not
yet forgiven her successful rival, and may make her heart bleed
through the youthful lovers.
From the expedition in which Gahmureth was now engaged he never
returned, being treacherously killed by Ipomidon, one of the
Babylonian brothers. An account of his death, and of the
magnificent burial given to him by Baruch, is to be found in
“Parzival” (Book ii., Herzeleide).
“WHAT need to beat about the wood,
O fond, weak squire?
Thou, through thy skill at tilting, may
E’en the fair Duchess’ love acquire;
For love gives worthier reward
To those who arms with valour bear,
Than she to weaklings doth award.
Yet that thy heart aspires so high
Fills me with pride;
How has the tree its branches spread
Already out so far and wide.
Bloom finest flowers on meadow ground?
How has my cousin vanquished thee
With knowledge sweetest to be found.
Her mother, Schoisian, for joy
Was rightly named,
Since God’s creative power and skill
One of such loveliness had framed;
Her glance, clear, keen, as sunlight strong,
I hear all people soothly say
Doth also to her child belong.
And Kiot, who in fiercest fight
Aye glory won;
Before the death of his loved bride
Bowed down proud Catalonia’s son.
Daughter of both, Siguna sweet!
I greet thee, who must victor prove
Where maids for victory compete.
She o’er thee hath prevailed, and now
The task is thine
O’er her the victory to gain,
And to this end it shall be mine
To win her aunt for thee to speak;
So through Siguna’s glance once more
Shall bloom the colour in thy cheek.”
Schionatulander then with joy
Began his speech:
“So doth thy confidence in me
The burden of my sorrow reach,
For now with thy consent I may
Siguna love, who hath so long
Stolen my joy and peace away.”
Schionatulander’s hopes rose high
At the relief
That thus to him was measured out.
Yet let us not forget that grief
Fair Schoisian’s daughter too must bear
(Since she, too, is of joy bereft)
Ere happiness fall to her share.
For Catalonia’s princess now
Was pining sore,
Through the deep love within her heart,
Whose pain she long in silence bore;
The while the Queen, with fears oppressed,
Sad wondered what Siguna ailed,
And why the maid was so distressed.
Red as the heart of blooming rose
All steeped in dew,
So were the maiden’s tearful eyes,
Her face all of a blushing hue;
The bashful maid could not conceal
The love that for the youthful squire
She in her inmost heart did feel.
Then from true heart outspake the Queen,
With pitying love:
“It grieves me Schoisian’s child to see
In pain that once my heart did move,
When from the Angevin ’twas mine
To part; now wounds the thorn anew
To see the suffering that is thine.
Through country or through people, say,
Art thou distressed?
Or can the help of kith and kin,
Or mine bring comfort to thy breast?
Or will our efforts naught avail?
Say, whence hath gone thy sunny glance,
And wherefore is thy cheek so pale?
Now, orphaned child, upon my grief
Some pity take;
Though crowned with crowns of kingdoms three,
I count me poor for thy dear sake
Till I can make thy grief depart,
Until my searching eyes have found
The secret of thy sorrowing heart.”
“Then will I now my anxious fears
And cares confess;
’Twere sin a silence now to keep
Against thy loving tenderness,
And ’gainst thy teaching to rebel.
Do thou my constant soother be,
Dear mother, then will all be well.
May God reward thee! never yet
Did mother kind
Show to her child a greater love
Than ’tis my lot with thee to find;
With joy my tears might overflow.
No more an orphan here am I,
Such tender love is thine to show.
Thy consolation, and advice,
And help I need,
One with another, since my heart
For my dear absent friend must bleed;
My torments all too painful prove,
My rambling thoughts upon one chord
Are knitted through out-going love.
For him, my friend, for whom my looks
For ever stray
From window to the street, or o’er
The heath when light dews pass away.
Too seldom do I see his face,
And therefore must my weeping eyes
Bear of my pining love a trace.
From window to the battlements
I sadly turn;
I look to east, I look to west,
Hoping some tidings I may learn
Of him to whom my heart is bound.
One scarce can count me young in love;
Amongst the older I am found.
If o’er the wild and heaving flood
’Tis mine to glide,
My eyes are roving here and there
O’er thirty miles outspreading wide,
Hoping some tidings I may gain
Of that dear friend, who can alone
Release me from my load of pain.
Whither is all my joy now gone?
Wherefore should fade
The courage high that filled my heart?
Ah! sorrow doth one’s peace invade!
Yet willingly alone would I
The sorrow bear, but well I know
He longing would to me draw nigh.
Alas! too seldom doth he come,
Too long delays;
And now I shiver as with cold,
Now glow as with the fire’s fierce blaze.
Schionatulander warms my heart
As Salamander feels the glow.
That Agremontin doth impart.”
“Oh, woe! thy speech is far too wise,”
The Queen replied.
“Am I to thee betrayed? I fear
The Frenchwoman her power hath tried
O’er thee, through anger unto me;
Anflisa’s words are on thy lips,
For they are far too old for thee.
Schionatulander is a prince
From failings free!
But yet his kingdom or his rank
By him assumed will never be,
Since he, alas! thy love hath sought;
If the proud Queen Anflisa’s wrath
Hath not on me been fully wrought.
For he was given her when he left
His mother’s breast
Did malice not the counsel give
That brings to thee such sore unrest?
But joy may round ye both yet play;
And if he counts thee truly fair,
Let not thy beauty pass away.
Through love to him let once again
Thy beauty glow;
The colour in thy cheeks and eyes
Be such as youthful years should show:
If lightly thus thy looks can fade,
Thou hast had too short time for joy,
Too many cares are on thee laid.
Still if the youthful Dauphin hath
So marred thy joy,
He yet can give thee joy again;
For love and kindness by the boy
Have been inherited, I ween,
From mother fair and noble sire,
And kinswoman Schoiette the queen.
That thou so early cam’st to love,
Must I complain;
Thou wilt the grief Mahaute bore
For Gurzgri brave, live o’er again;
Her eyes confessed the secret wound,
Whilst victor he in far-off lands
Fresh trophies on his helmet bound.
To Schionatulander will praise
Ascend on high,
He comes of race to whom fair fame
Shall none e’er grudge or e’er deny,
But it shall far and wide increase;
Then let him chase thy grief away,
And bring instead blest joy and peace.
If at his glance sweet happy thoughts
Thy heart should yield,
I feel no wonder nor surprise.
How well he looks with shining shield,
Whilst round a firecloud seemed to glow,
Of sparks that fly from crested helms,
As his sharp sword deals out each blow.
Painter can’t paint him as he wields
The lance with grace:
There ne’er forgotten was before
So little in a manly face;
That thou should’st love him is to me
Not strange; in him thine eyes delight;
Thy love I grudge not unto thee.”
When thus was youthful love allowed
Between the twain,
Without a bar their love to cross
Their hearts might constant aye remain.
“Now cousin mine,” the maiden spake,
“For mine own love before the world
The heir of Graharz may I take.”
Johnson and Garrick.[50]
_AN UNPUBLISHED JEU D’ESPRIT._
BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
_PART I._
JOHNSON AGAINST GARRICK.
JOHNSON AND SIR J. REYNOLDS.
REYNOLDS.--Let me alone, I’ll draw him out (_aside_). I have been
thinking this morning, Dr. Johnson, on a matter which has puzzled me
very much; it is a subject that I daresay has often passed in your
thoughts, and though _I_ cannot, I daresay _you_ have made up your mind
upon it.
JOHNSON.--Tilly fally, what is all this preparation? what is all this
weighty matter?
R.--Why, it is a weighty matter; this subject I have been thinking upon,
is Predestination, and Free will, two things, which I cannot reconcile
together, for the life of me. In my opinion, Dr. Johnson, free will and
fore knowledge cannot be reconciled.
J.--Sir, it is not of very great importance, what your opinion is upon
such a question.
R.--But I meant only, Dr. J., to know your opinion.
J.--No, sir, you meant no such thing; you meant only to show these
gentlemen that you are not the man they took you to be, but that you
think of high matters sometimes, and that you may have the credit of
having it said, that you held an argument with Sam Johnson, on
predestination, and free will; a subject of that magnitude, to have
engaged the attention of the world, to have perplexed the wisdom of man,
for these 2,000 years; a subject on which the fallen angels who _had not
yet lost all their original brightness_ find themselves _in wandering
mazes lost_. That such a subject could be discussed in the levity of
convivial conversation, is a degree of absurdity beyond what is easily
conceivable.
R.--It is so, as you say, to be sure; I talked once to our friend
Garrick on this subject, but I remember we could make nothing of it.
J.--Oh noble pair!
R.--Garrick was a clever fellow, Dr. J.; Garrick, take him altogether,
was certainly a very great man.
J.--Garrick, sir, may be a great man in your opinion, as far as I know,
but he was not so in mine; little things are great to little men.
R.--I have heard you say, Dr. Johnson----
J.--Sir, you never heard me say, David Garrick was a great man. You may
have heard me say that Garrick was a good repeater of other men’s
words,--words put into his mouth by other men; this makes but a faint
approach towards being a great man.
R.--But take Garrick upon the whole; now in regard to conversation----
J.--Well, sir, in regard to conversation I never discovered in the
conversation of D. Garrick any intellectual energy, any wide grasp of
thought, any extensive comprehension of mind; or that he possessed any
of those powers to which _great_ could, with any degree of propriety, be
applied.
R.--But still----
J.--Hold, sir, I have not done--there are to be sure, in the laxity of
colloquial speech, various kinds of greatness. A man may be a great
tobacconist, a man may be a great painter, he may be likewise a great
mimick: now you may be the one, and Garrick the other, and yet neither
of you be great men.
R.--But, Dr. Johnson----
J.--Hold, sir. I have often lamented how dangerous it is to investigate,
and to discriminate character, to men who have no discriminative powers.
R.--Garrick as a companion, I heard you say--no longer ago than last
Wednesday, at Mr. Thrale’s table----
J.--You tease me, sir. Whatever you may have heard me say, no longer ago
than last Wednesday, at Mr. Thrale’s table, I tell you, I do not say so
now; besides, as I said before, you may not have understood me, you may
not have heard me.
R.--I am very sure, I heard you.
J.--Besides, sir, besides, besides--do not you know--are you so ignorant
as not to know that it is the highest degree of rudeness to quote a man
against himself?
R.--But if you differ from yourself, and give one opinion to-day----
J.--Have done, sir, the company are tired, you see, as well as myself.
T’OTHER SIDE.
DR. JOHNSON AND MR. GIBBON.
JOHNSON.--No, sir, Garrick’s fame was prodigious, not only in England
but over all Europe, even in Russia. I have been told he was a proverb;
when anybody had repeated well he was called a second Garrick.
GIBBON.--I think he had full as much reputation as he deserved.
J.--I do not pretend to know, sir, what your meaning may be by saying he
had as much reputation as he deserved; he deserved much, and he had
much.
G.--Why, surely, Dr. Johnson, his merit was in small things only; he had
none of those qualities that make a real great man.
J.--Sir, I as little understand what your meaning may be when you speak
of the qualities that make a great man: it is a vague term. Garrick was
no common man: a man above the common size of men, may surely, without
any great impropriety, be called a great man. In my opinion, he has very
reasonably fulfilled the prophecy which he once reminded me of having
made to his mother, when she asked me how little David got on at school,
that I should say to her, that he would come to be hanged, or come to be
a great man. No, sir, it is undoubtedly true that the same qualities,
united with virtue, or with vice, make a hero or a rogue, a great
general or a highwayman. Now Garrick, we are sure, was never hanged, and
in regard to his being a great man, you must take the whole man
together. It must be considered in how many things Garrick excelled in
which every man desires to excel, setting aside his excellence as an
actor, in which he is acknowledged to be unrivalled; as a man, as a
poet, as a convivial companion, you will find but few his equals, and
none his superior. As a man he was kind, friendly, benevolent, and
generous.
G.--Of Garrick’s generosity I never heard; I understood his character to
be totally the reverse, and that he was reckoned to have loved money.
J.--That he loved money nobody will dispute; who does not? But if you
mean by loving money he was parsimonious to a fault, sir, you have been
misinformed. To Foote and such scoundrels, who circulated those reports,
to such profligate spendthrifts, prudence is meanness, and economy is
avarice. That Garrick, in early youth, was brought up in strict habits
of economy, I believe, and that they were necessary, I have heard from
himself; to suppose that Garrick might inadvertently act from this
habit, and be saving in small things, can be no wonder, but let it be
remembered at the same time, that if he was frugal by habit, he was
liberal from principle; that when he acted from reflection, he did what
his fortune enabled him to do, and what was expected from such a
fortune. I remember no instance of David’s parsimony, but once, when he
stopped Mrs. Woffington from replenishing the teapot; it was already, he
said, as red as blood; and this is doubtful, and happened many years
ago. In the latter part of his life, I observed no blameable parsimony
in David; his table was elegant, and even splendid; his house both in
town and country, his equipage, and I think all his habits of life were
such as might be expected from a man who had acquired great riches. In
regard to his generosity, which you seem to question, I shall only say
there is no man to whom I would apply with more confidence of success,
for the loan of £200 to assist a common friend, than to David, and this
too with very little, if any, probability of its being repaid.
G.--You were going to say something about him as a writer. You don’t
rate him very high as a poet?
J.--Sir, a man maybe a respectable poet without being an Homer, as a man
may be a good player without being a Garrick. In the lighter kind of
poetry, in the appendages of the drama, he was, if not the first, in the
very first class. He had a readiness, and a facility, a dexterity of
mind that appeared extraordinary even to men of experience, and who are
not apt to wonder from ignorance. Writing prologues, epilogues, and
epigrams, he said he considered as his trade, and he was what a man
should be, always, and at all times, ready at his trade. He required two
hours for a prologue or an epilogue, and five minutes for an epigram.
Once at Burke’s table, the company proposed a subject, and Garrick
finished his epigram within the time: the same experiment was repeated
in the garden, and with the same success.
(_To be continued._)
[Illustration: text decoration]
The History of Gilds.
BY CORNELIUS WALFORD, F.S.S., _Barrister-at-Law_.
_PART IV._
(_Continued from p._ 76.)