Queries. [We must request correspondents desiring information on family matters of only private interest, to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.] OLD ENGRAVINGS.-I lately picked up two old engravings, concerning which I am desirous of knowing the names of the artist and engraver, date of publication, and any other particulars. The margins have been completely cut away. The paper has assumed, I suppose from age or neglect, a deep brown tint. Size of each, about sixteen inches long by fifteen inches high. No. 1. A kitchen in a farm-house, with some of the family seated round a table, enjoying a meal of some kind of porridge. A man with cropped head, stout legs, and bare feet, is busily employed with a bowl and spoon. Seated beside him is a young woman with a child on her knee; the child holds a spoon. An old woman, the grandmother probably, is pouring milk out of a jug, or jar, into another bowl. A shock-headed fellow stands in the background, busy with bowl and spoon. An elderly satyr sits at, or rather on, one end of the table, and is evidently making some pleasant speech to the young woman opposite. A large hound sits under the table close to the satyr's legs, and a cock is perched on the window shutter, inside the room, at the upper right-hand corner. No. 2. The same kind of scene, but with a different set of persons. The satyr, who now is well bearded, is standing, having upset his chair, and is addressing the rustics, who evidently listen to him with attention. The hound and cock are both larger than in No. 1, and the latter is perched on the top of a wickerbacked arm-chair, in which an old woman sits; a bare-footed girl, wearing a high-crowned hat, and holding a pitcher under her arm, leans against the arm-chair, with her back to a lattice window. The drawing in both is most life-like, and the engraving admirable. W. H. PATTERSON. ANCIENT ENGLISH EPISCOPAL SEES.-In the fac-simile of a decree of Aethelheard, Archbishop of Canterbury, which is dated A.D. 803, lately issued by the Palæographical Society, I notice that the Archbishop describes himself as "archiepiscopus dorobernensis civitatis." Will any of your correspondents be so good as to inform me when the Archbishops of Canterbury ceased thus to describe their see? Among other bishops subscribing the same document are "legorensis civitatis episcopus" and "dammucæ civitatis episcopus." What were the sees of those bishops? There are also "syddensis civitatis episcopus," "sciraburnensis civitatis episcopus," and "selesegi ecclesiæ episcopus." Am I right in supposing these bishops to be the bishops of Sidnacester, Sherborne, and Selsea? It may be well to add that the other subscribing bishops are the bishops of Lichfield (who signs next to the Primate), of Worcester, of Hereford, of Winchester, of Elmham, of London, and of Rochester. G. D. W. O. AUTHORS WANTED. I shall be glad to know where the following lines may be found in the literature of the seventeenth century; also to be favoured with some reference to where I can find notices of the personages whose merits and demerits are so characteristically depicted by the author : : "When York to Heaven shall lift one solemn eye, And love his wife beyond Adultery, When Godliness to Gain shall be prefer'd By more than two of the Right Reverend Herd, When Parker shall pronounce upright decrees, And Hungerford refuse his double fees, When honest Price shall trim and truckle under, And Powis give a Charge without a blunder, When Page one finger free from bribery shews, And Fortescue deserves a better hose, When Eyers his haughtiness shall lay aside, And Tracy's soul in generous acts take Pride, When Prat with Patience shall dispence the Laws, And King shall partially decide one cause, Then will I cease my Charmer to adore And think of Love and Politicks no more." T. W. W. S. "And wonder(s) with a face of foolish praise." SAM. M. HARRISON. watch running in her head. A lady of eighty-eight has these lines on a Can any of your correspondents help her to the rest of the words? "Little monitor, from thee Let me learn what I should be." Z. Z. "THERE IS NOTHING SO SUCCESSFUL AS SUCCESS." -I have heard it attributed to Napoleon I. Philadelphia. UNEDA. MARY OF BUTTERMERE.—I have hunted in vain through all the volumes of "N. & Q." for some account of this popular heroine of our youth. Antecedently to experience it is incredible that she should not be mentioned in your pages. I am desirous to know (1) what her real name was ; (2) when did she die; (3) did she marry again; (4) are any of her family still at Buttermere? De Quincey's account seems to be the only one easily accessible. It occurs in the second volume of his works, The Recollections of the Lakes. He, however, does not tell what Wordsworth does in his Prelude, B. 7, where he mentions that "Mary had a child, and that it died. Any particulars would greatly oblige FITZ REGINALD. EDWARD KING, OF "LYCIDAS": PORTRAIT OF SHELLEY.-Can any one inform me if there exists any portrait, painted or engraved, of Edward King, J the Lycidas of Milton's poem; and if there exist such, where it is to be seen or heard of? Also, where the fullest account of his character and life and appearance is to be found? I am aware of the information to be derived from Thomas Warton's unequalled edition of Milton's Poems on Several Occasions, 1791, and other dates. I also wish to know if there is any engraved portrait of Shelley of a size larger than those prefixed to most editions of his poems. I have inquired hitherto without success, but perhaps "N. & Q" can help me. Exeter College, Oxford. H. S. SKIPTON. MARLBOROUGH FAMILY PICTURE.-In whose possession is the large picture of the Marlborough family, painted by Closterman about the beginning of the last century, in which were represented the Duke of Marlborough (in a corner behind a thin curtain), the Duchess, their son, the Marquis of Blandford, and their four daughters? This picture is mentioned by Boyer, in his History of Queen Anne. The Duchess, it seems, having been told of a sarcastic remark made upon it by the Countess of Dorchester, wished to have her own figure rubbed out, and a flower-pot placed instead of it; but at last she resolved to leave the picture on Mr. Closterman's hands, which he took so much to heart that he went melancholy mad and pined away. GEO. CLEGHORN. DRURY HOUSE.-I suppose that the Drury House, where the "Committee for the sale of sequestrated lands" sat during the Commonwealth, was the one in Beech Lane, Barbican. The house was either built by, or belonged to, Sir Drew Drury, and Prince Rupert resided there. I should be glad to have further authentic particulars about this house. Cunningham only slightly mentions it. I should also much like to know whether there is any print of it, temp. Charles I. or II. Did the house belong to Rupert when it was sequestrated by the Parliament ? HENRY W. HENFREY. 5, Queen Anne's Gate, S.W. THE BLESSED THISTLE.-In Switzerland the Carduus Beatus, or Blessed Thistle, is said to have obtained its white marks from the droppings of the Virgin's milk. Is this legend known in other parts? A. MURITHIAN. HERALDIC.-A (entitled to bear arms) leaves a son, B, and a daughter, C. B marries, and has an only daughter and heir, D, whose children are of course entitled to quarter their mother's arms. C also marries and has children. Can the children of C, after the death of B, also quarter their mother's arms, or do the heraldic honours descend to D.'s children only? E. WELSH SLATES.-The names given to the various sizes of slates in Wales are queens, duchesses, countesses, ladies, &c.; and I see, by a newspaper cutting of 1839, that these names "Drew from the pen of the late Mr. Leycester, who was many years a judge on the Welsh Circuit, a very witty poem, of which the following lines will serve as a specimen: "This countess or lady, though crowds may be present, Submits to be dressed by the hands of a peasant; And you'll see, when her grace is but once in his clutches, With how little respect he will handle a duchess.'' Will any one kindly give me, through the medium of "N. & Q.," or direct, the whole of the lines? A. R. MARY SOMERVILLE.-In the Personal Recollections of this admirable lady, at p. 140 (chap. ix.), she speaks of the Differential Calculus as being now superseded by the Higher Algebra." I wish to be informed what she meant by that expression. If the reference is to the new Algebra founded by Professors Cayley and Sylvester, and expounded by Dr. Salmon, I see no sense in the remark. But assuredly Mrs. Somerville was not a person to write nonsense on any mathematical question. JABEZ. Athenæum Club. "THE MILLENNIUM."-Can you inform me who is the author of this dramatic poem, 1847, by "Omicron," author of Elements of Truth, Paulus, Pride and Prejudice, &c.? R. INGLIS. PROAT, VERB NEUTER "Let not us now be like sullen chickens, which sit moping under a rotten hedge, or proating under an old Marlesford. EARLIEST WOODCUT WITH A DATE. What is known of the woodcut in the Bibliothèque de Bourgogne in Brussels, which bears the date 1418? H. FISHWICK, F.S.A. ROMAN CATHOLIC LANDED GENTRY, TEMP. CHARLES II. AND JAMES II.-Can you give me any information respecting the property held by the Roman Catholic landed gentry about the time of Charles II. or James II.? In what counties were they most numerous, or held the greatest quantities of land? Is there any book published which gives an account of them at that time? M. Replies. "THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS." Amongst the numerous advantages which "N. & Q." offers to literary students, there is one which is very liable to abuse-I mean the opportunity afforded for resuscitating old and exploded fallacies from the limbo of oblivion, and galvanizing them into a temporary vitality. One such instance occurs in the number quoted above. It appears that some anonymous person has written (eight years ago) to a clergyman conveying the wonderful information that a certain Miss C- I can only say with Cowper "That e'en the child who knows no better Than to interpret by the letter This story of a cock and bull Must have a most uncommon skull." Seeing that the work in question was translated into English and printed by Caxton in 1483, one cannot understand why Miss C should have given herself the trouble of again translating it, particularly as her laudable design of proving Bunyan a plagiarist was to be limited to a "private circulation." This pretended discovery is merely the revival of an old fallacy which has been again and again disposed of. Dr. Dibdin, in his Typographical Antiquities (vol. i. p. 153), called attention to this volume, an extraordinary production, which, perhaps, rather than Bernard's Isle of Man, laid the foundation of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress." The learned Doctor apparently meant nothing more than that the idea of an allegory of the Christian's been suggested by the book in question. The pilgrimage might (though very improbably) have assertion that the Pilgrim's Progress is copied nearly verbatim from De Guilleville's work can only be accounted for on the charitable supposition that the anonymous Miss C- had never read Bunyan's immortal allegory. Any person who is curious on the subject will find the whole matter set out at length in Offor's edition of Bunyan's works (vol. iii., p. 33), where an analysis of the French work, with copious extracts, is given, which demonstrates that there is no foundation whatever for the charge of copyism or plagiarism. The basis of the older work is the adventures of the soul after death in purgatory and hell, with angels and personified attributes for the dramatis persona. The drift of the two works is utterly dissimilar. In the last number of "N. & Q." (p. 39) a letter is inserted copied from the Guardian, written by the Rev. W. J. Stracey, in which the ground is somewhat changed. It now appears that it is not the Pylgrimage of the Sowle but Le Pelerinage de 'Homme which is to prove Bunyan a plagiarist. Miss C- is turned adrift, with the remark that "to look for coincidences between the Pylgrimage of the Sowle and the Pilgrim's Progress is useless, as the latter ends where the former begins." Would it not have been as well to have ascertained this before rushing into print with so serious a charge against Bunyan as that of "nearly verbatim" copyism? The Booke of the Pylgrimage of Man is a small brochure, in the Library of Queen's College, Oxford, translated, it would appear, from the Pelerinage de l'Homme, which is stated to be in the University Library at Cambridge. I have not seen either of these works, but Mr. Offor has given the table of titles, with extracts from the English version, which enables the reader to judge pretty clearly of the contents. The scope of the tract for it is nothing more-is an account of Adam in Paradise, of the The story on the face of it is altogether absurd. building of Babel, of Moses and Solomon, of the coming of the Saviour. Then commences the pilgrimage of mankind, "which entereth the londe of June at the age of LX." Mankind are then paraded through the different months, and the book concludes with a battle between Justice and Vice, when Justice finally triumphs. How any resemblance can be found between this and the Pilgrim's Progress passes my comprehension. If the mere allusion to a pilgrimage, which almost necessarily includes an allegory, is to constitute plagiarism, there are a score of books which might equally involve Bunyan in the accusation. It is a singular fact that these charges all deal in vague generalities. When put to the test, I am not aware that a single passage in Bunyan has ever been traced to any other source. Shakspeare might equally be accused of plagiarism, because his plots were derived from the legendary chronicles of his time. If there had been any such close resemblance as is attempted to be shown, it is incredible that the older works, so long since translated into English, should have been allowed to sink into oblivion, whilst the glorious epic (it is worthy of being called such) of the inspired tinker has delighted successive generations for two hundred years, and bids fair to endure as long as the language in which it is written. J. A. PICTON. Sandyknowe, Wavertree. The poem of Guillaume de Guilleville was published in London by B. M. Pickering, 196, Piccadilly, 1858, and entitled, "Le Pelerinage de L'Homme compared with the Pilgrim's Progress of John Bunyan. Edited from Notes collected by the late Mr. Nathaniel Hill, of the Royal Society of Literature, with Illustrations and an Appendix." The Booke of the Pylgrimage of the Soule, translated from the French of G. de Guilleville, printed by W. Caxton in 1483, was published the year following by B. M. Pickering, edited by Katherine Isabella Cust. The MS. before me, from which the above was taken, is in excellent preservation. The date appears on the last folio (1413), in rubric :-"Here endith the dreem of the pilgrimage of the soule translated owt of frensch in to Englysch. The yeer of oure lord MCCCCXIIJmo. Verba translatoris." For a review of these works, see Gent. Mag., 1859, p. 582, and the Dublin Freeman's Journal. Waltham Abbey. found in Dr. Kitchener's Economy of the Eyes, Lond., 1824. He says, in pp. 15 and 16: "Spectacles are always preferable, because both eyes, by being kept in action, are kept in health. Vision is brighter and easier, and the labour of each eye is considerably lessened. If persons will have a single eyeglass, let them take care to use it without partiality, and put it to each eye alternately." A double eye-glass is better for the eyes, but rather cumbrous slung round the neck, and troublesome to open on every trifling occasion. Being very short-sighted, I use a single glass, but apply it to the left eye with the right hand, and vice versa. By so doing, the eye not used is covered by the wrist, and its focus is not disturbed. I believe the common practice of sticking a glass over one eye to be very injurious to both. U. U. Club. H. B. C. The following appeared in the Lancet of June 27th (p. 924), after MR. ELLIS's query was published in "N. & Q." It almost seems as if written as a reply to it :— "SINGLE EYE-GLASSES. Of all the follies of human fashion, perhaps none is more ridiculous than that of placing before one eye a circular piece of glass, through which the wearer cannot see, and which he cannot even hold in position without considerable facial distortion. If, however, no more harm were done than this, the foolish practice might be left to be dealt with by the caricaturist. Unfortunately there are persons, who really require the aid of lenses, who prefer a single eyeglass to ordinary spectacles. Speaking generally, the use of such glasses is to be condemned. With a single eye glass, most of the work is thrown on to one eye; while the opposite eye, from disuse or want of correction, becomes gradually deteriorated. The harmonious workings of the ocular muscles are interfered with, and weakness and deviations of the muscles ensue. even optically, single eye-glasses are bad, because it is not possible to properly adjust them, so that the retinal images are unfavourably affected. The popular fallacics concerning the use of eye-glasses and spectacles are innumerable; but none are more reprehensible than those concerning the single eye-glass and the ordinary pince nez. " But, SPARKS HENDERSON WILLIAMS. I have used a single glass for my left eye for more than a quarter of a century. I find the sight of that eye as good as ever it was; but the right eye has lost its power, and I cannot now read with it alone. I think it probable that this loss of seeing power results from non-use, and that the eye might improve if, from any cause, it were called on to supply the function now discharged by the left eye solely. I have tried double glasses, but without benefit. A. F. C. W. WINTERS, F.R.H.S. I shall be very glad to lend my copy of Le Pelerinage de l'Homme to MR. BLENKINSOPP, if he will write to me for it. Harrington Rectory, Carlisle. SINGLE EYE-GLASSES (5th S. i. 489.)-Some good practical observation on the advantage of double over single eye-glasses and opera-glasses will be Belfast. F. D. F. BYRON'S "SIEGE OF CORINTH" (5th S. i. 465.) -The first quotation is not from the "Siege of Corinth," which thus begins : "Many a vanished year and age, And tempest's breath, and battle's rage," &c. -but from "Lines intended for the opening of the Siege of Corinth," which Byron wrote in imitation of Coleridge's "Christabel," of which he was a great admirer. These lines are given by Moore in his Life of Byron, "as too full of character and spirit to be lost," beginning as follows : "In the year since Jesus died for men, Riding o'er land, and sailing o'er sen. In a letter to Murray, after forwarding the MS. of the Siege of Corinth, referring to these lines, which were written in December, 1815-the poem as it was published dated 22nd January, 1816,he says:"I had forgotten them, and am not sure but they had better be left out now; on that you and your synod can determine." They were not inserted. It is, indeed, as MR. SMITH says, a strange blunder," this dating the Christian year from our Saviour's death instead of from the Nativity; but it is a still stranger blunder that he should have fixed his date at the 1810th year after the death of Our Lord, which would be the year A.D. 1843, or 19 years after Byron's own death! The date cannot have reference to the year when the siege of Corinth took place, namely, 1715; but the lines seem to allude to the poet's travels in Greece in 1810-11, in company of Mr. Hobhouse. "We were a gallant company," he says, " "of all tongues and creeds; Some were those who counted beads, Some of mosque, and some of church, And some, or I mis-say, of neither; Yet through the wide world ye may search, Nor find a motlier crew nor blither." This "motley crew were evidently his followers, amongst whom were some Arnaouts, to whom he makes reference in a foot-note. Apropos of this fine poem, it has been remarked that the lines in Coleridge's War Eclogue, Fire, Famine, and Slaughter, "I stood in a swampy field of battle, With bones and skulls I made a rattle, To frighten the wolf, and the carrion crow, And the homeless dog, but they would not go," may have suggested to Byron the well-known passage, "And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall, Glasgow. I doubt whether there be any mistake in the latter passage quoted from Lord Byron's Siege of Corinth. The custom of receiving communion in both kinds was kept up among Roman Catholics in the East long after it had been left off in the West. I have not the book at hand, but I think if your correspondent consults Webb's Continental Ecclesiology he will find a notice of some large chalices, which had been made for this purpose, that are still preserved at Venice. K. P. D. E. GRANTS OF NOBILITY TO FOREIGNERS (5th S. i. 447, 516.)--The Dutch family of Tulp, created baronets of England April 23, 1675, is, according to Rietstap, extinct. That of Speelman, created baronets June 4 and Sept. 9, 1686, appears to be yet flourishing; their family arms still bear, on a canton, the badge of Ulster, but I do not know of baronet, or is content with the rank of "Jonkwhether the present representative assumes the title heer," conferred on the family in September, 1817. His name does not appear in the latest baronetage I have at hand. The Dutch family of Senserf, now extinct, held an English baronetcy, and bore the badge of Ulster and as this indication of rank still ; appears in the arms of the family of Kievit, of Holland, I am led to believe that it was similarly dignified. baronets, and of these titles, Eneas, Baron Mackay The Mackays, Barons Reay of Scotland, are d'Ophemert, in the kingdom of the Netherlands, is the heir presumptive. The "grants of nobility" of the original query (5th S. i. 447) were what we should call "grants of arms," not of peerage nobility. Abroad, every armiger who can prove his right to use armorial bearings is a "noble." It is one of the modern popular errors of our own country to suppose that nobility is confined to members of the peerage and their children. This really utterly absurd and entirely insular notion has been most ably confuted in a little book which deserves to be much more widely known, especially in these days, when so many of our countrymen flock in search of health or recreation to the Continent,-I mean The Nobility of the English Gentry, by Sir James Lawrence. Many appointments at foreign courts, and most military commissions in foreign armies, could only be held by "nobles"; and the grants of nobility, which form the subject of the query, gave to their holders, whether foreigners or Englishmen, the right to use armorial bearings, and so qualified them for these offices. Similar certificates of "nobility" have, to my own knowledge, been required within a recent period from aspirants to commissions in the Austrian service. Any one who examines the lists of graduates at foreign universities (say at Padua or Heidelberg) will find many English and Scotch men correctly designated as nobiles whose parents had no pretensions to peerage dignity. Multitudes of foreign barons and counts are, in every respect, including nobility, the inferiors of an old English gentleman. JOHN WOODWARD. The Parsonage, Montrose. |