(Vol. iv., pp. 49. 116.)
The productions of the writer known by the name of the Hermit of Hampole
have been hitherto much neglected: they afford copious illustrations of
ancient manners, and are very valuable in a philological point of view.
I would especially name the _Speculum Vitæ, or Mirrour of Life_, of
which I possess two MSS. in entirely distinct dialects.
Your Cambridge correspondent has shown that the Metrical Sermons contain
interesting passages also illustrative of manners and as the extracts he
has made have given occasion to some glossarial Queries from an Oxford
correspondent, J. E., should they not be more satisfactorily answered by
C. H., to whom they are addressed, perhaps the following attempt to
resolve them may not be unacceptable.
1. By the _devenisch_ most probably the _Danish_ is meant, which we find
elsewhere written _Deniske_, _Daniske_, and _Danske_.
2. _Guystroun_ should be _quystroun_, which is used by Chaucer in the
_Romaunt of the Rose_, and signifies a _scullion_, as is evident from
this passage. It is from the O. Fr. _quistron_ or _cuistron_. Thus in K.
Alisaunder (Weber's _Metr. Rom._), v. 2511.:
"Ther n'as knave no _quistron_
That he no hadde gôd waryson."
3. By _Chaunsemlees_ we may probably understand _schoon-semeles_,
signifying, no doubt, _sandals_.
4. "Hir chere was ay _semand_ sori," which your correspondent says is
"an expression very strange to English verse," is nothing more than the
old form of _seeming_: her cheer was ever sorrowful or _sad-seeming_.
The termination _and_ or _ande_, as well as _inde_, was formerly used
where we now have _ing_. Examples are numerous of this form; as _semand_
and _semynd_, _spekand_, _strikinde_, &c. &c.
In Gawin Douglas, _Eneados_, we have _glaidsembland_ for an appearance
of joy or gladness, a _cheerful countenance_; and in b. ii. v. 159.:
"As that drery unarmyt wicht was sted
And with _eine_[8] blent about _semyn ful red_."
[Footnote 8: Your correspondent's extract has _ane_; but _eyes_
are evidently meant.]
There are other words which appear in an uncommon form in these
extracts, for instance, _telid_ and _telith_, _hirched_ and _hirching_;
and the following plural form I do not recollect to have observed
elsewhere:
"For ser deyntes and many _mes_
Make men falle in many _sicknes_."
In the last line of the first page, _Salhanas_ should be _Sathanas_:
"And so slew Jesu Sathanas,"
reminding us of the tradition mentioned by DR. RIMBAULT, "the Devil died
when Christ _suffered_," not when he was _born_.
S. W. Singer.
Mickleham, Aug. 18. 1851.
Replies to Minor Queries.
_Lady Flora Hastings' Bequest_ (Vol. iii., pp. 443. 522.; Vol. iv., pp.
44. 92. 108.).--ERZA regrets extremely the mistake she has made with
regard to the above poem. The person from whom, and the circumstances
under which she received it, all tended to confirm her in her error till
the last moment--with which, if the authoress of this beautiful poem
were acquainted, ERZA is sure she would be forgiven.
[To these regrets on the part of ERZA we have to add the
expression of our own that our columns should have been made the
medium of a statement which it is obvious originated in error. We
regret also that, after the contradictions given to the first
statement, ERZA should, without a positive knowledge of the real
facts of the case, have reiterated in such strong terms the claims
of Lady Flora Hastings to the authorship of a poem which it is now
quite clear is really the production of Miss Barber.]
"_The Right Divine of Kings to govern wrong_" (Vol. iv., p. 125).--I
cannot concur in MR. CROSSLEY'S conjecture that the _marks of quotation_
affixed to this line in the eighteenth book of the _Dunciad_ may have
been a mere _error of the press_; because, in the first place, I do not
find that the _Dunciad_ is more negligently printed than other works of
the day. I should say rather less so; but (which is more important) any
one who will look at the successive editions will, I think, be satisfied
that the _remarkable typography_ of the line, carefully reproduced in
_all_, could not be accidental. This matter is less trifling than it at
first sight may seem, because there are several lines in Pope's works
similarly marked as quotations, on which questions have arisen; and my
belief is that everything so marked will turn out to have really been a
_quotation_, though in this case, and in that other,
"No Lord's anointed but a Russian bear,"
we have, as yet, failed to find the original.