If I knew where to address Mr. G.L. Craik, I should send him the
following "Note:" if you think it deserves a place in your columns, it
may probably meet his eye.
In the article on the Lady Arabella Stuart (_Romance of the Peerage_,
vol. ii. p. 370.), a letter of Sir Ralph Winwood, dated 1610, is quoted,
in which he states, that she is "not altogether free from suspicion of
being collapsed." On this Mr. Craik observes, "It is difficult to
conjecture what can be here meant by _collapsed_, unless it be fallen
off to Romanism." Now it is not a little curious, and it proves Mr.
Craik's capability for the task of illustrating family history from the
obscure allusions in letters and documents, that there exists
cotemporary authority for fixing the meaning Mr. Craik has conjectured
to be the true one, to the word _collapsed_. A pamphlet, with the title
_A Letter to Mr. T.H., late Minister, now Fugitive_, was published in
1609, with a dedication to all Romish _collapsed_ "ladies of Great
Britain;" which bears internal evidence of being addressed to those who
were converts from the Church of England to Romanism. {395}
Theophilus Higgons, whom the above initials represent, was himself a
convert to the Church of Rome.
It may be worth while making a further note, that the copy of the
pamphlet before me belonged to Camden, and is described in his
autograph, _Guil. Camdenj. Ex. dono Authoris_. It forms one of a large
collection of tracts and pamphlets, originally the property of Camden,
which are now in the library of the dean and chapter here.
It is curious that another document quoted by Mr. Craik in the same
volume (p. 286 _note_), seems to fix the meaning of a word or
expression, of obscure signification, in the authorised translation of
the Bible. In Judges, ix. 53., we read, "A certain woman cast a piece of
a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all tobrake his skull." I have
heard some one, in despair at the grammatical construction of the latter
clause, suggest that it might be an error for "_also_ brake his skull;"
and I have been told, that some printer or editor solved the difficulty
by turning it into "and all to _break_ his skull." But in the Lieutenant
of the Tower's marginal notes on an inventory of the Countess of
Hertford's (Lady Katherine Grey) furniture, quoted by Mr. Craik from
Lands. MS. 5. art. 41., he described the _sparrer_ for the bed as "_all
to-broken_, not worth ten pence." There seems, therefore, to have been a
compound, "to-breck, to-brake, to-broken" (_perfrango_), of which the
word in the "Book of Judges" is the preterite. I may be exposing my
ignorance, when I say, that the quotation in the _Romance of the
Peerage_ is the only other instance of its use I ever met with.
WILLIAM H. COPE.
Cloisters, Westminster
[The word "to-break," is not to be found in Nares.--Mr.
Halliwell, in his _Archaic Dictionary_, has TO-BROKE, broken in
pieces:
"The gates that Neptunus made
A thousand wynter theretofore,
They have anon _to-broke_ and tore."
From the _Gower MS_. Soc. Ant. 134, f. 46.