Yett the Bonds they exact, destroy their own Act I believe this poem to be by Sir John Denham, for the following reasons: 1. John Denham was arrested with the persons mentioned here early in June, 1655. An order of the Council dated June 9, 1655, runs as follows:Order, on Lambert's report of the names of some persons apprehended last night in and about London, that Lord Newport, Andrew Newport his brother, Jeffrey Palmer, Francis, Lord Willoughby of Parham, and Henry Seymour be committed to the Tower. That Sir Frederick Cornwallis, Ed. Progers, Thos. Panton, and Maj.-Gen. Ayres be committed to the Serjeant at Arms, and that John Denham be confined to a place chosen by himself, not within twenty miles of London." -Calendar of State Papers (Domestic), 1655,' p. 204. 2. In the second place, it is exactly in the style of those occasional poems which Denham was fond of writing-full of the personal references in which he was accustomed to indulge. Compare the poems on Lord Crofts's Journey to Poland, on Killigrew's Return from his Embassy to Venice,' and on 'Sir John Mennis going from Calais to Boulogne to eat Roast Pig' (Denham's 'Poems,' ed. 1671, pp. 67-76). The metre of this poem-not a very common metre-is the same as that of the poem on Killigrew : Our Resident Tom, from Venice is come And hath left the Statesman behind him; Talks at the same pitch, is as wise, is as rich, And just where you left him you find him. 3. This poem is from a copy in the Clarendon MSS. in the Bodleian (Calendar,' vol. iii. p. 79). Mr. Macray cannot identify the hand, but thinks the poem to be a copy, and not an original. It is remarkable that a copy of Denham's poem on Killigrew is also to be found amongst Clarendon's papers ('Calendar,' ii. 143). 4. If it was not written by Denham, the absence of any allusion to so prominent a Cavalier as Denham is difficult to understand. C. H. FIRTH. THE DUKEDOM OF CLARENCE. The third holder of this title was George, sixth (and second surviving) son of Richard, Duke of York, and brother of Edward IV. He was born in Ireland in 1451, and through his grandmother, Anne Mortimer, was a lineal descendant of Lionel, the first duke, and his daughter, Philippa, the lady of Clare. (See 'N. & Q.,' 7th S. ix. 481; Dugdale, 'Baronage,' vol. ii. p. 162; and Sandford, 'Genealogy,' p. 436.) After his father's death in the battle of Wakefield he was sent with his brother Richard to Utrecht for safety, and there remained till Edward IV.'s accession in 1461. In that year he was created Duke of Clarence by his brother in the Parliament which met at Westminster on February 22. At the same time, in support of the dignity, he received the grant of several manors, the property of the attainted Earl of Northumberland, who fell at Towton. Shortly afterwards, like his predecessors in this title, he was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; but soon recalled. We next meet with him as present at the Council held at Reading, when Edward made public his already completed marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, the daughter of Lord Grey. Soon afterwards, at the coronation of the queen, the young duke officiated as high steward. For some time George was regarded as next male heir to the throne, for three princesses were born to Edward IV. before the Prince of Wales. This nearness to the crown was doubtless the motive of Warwick, the king-maker, in promoting a marriage between the duke and his daughter Isabella, which was completed in 1469, when Clarence was only eighteen. The earl would have been glad of the king's assent, but the suspicious king wrote angrily to Warwick forbidding the marriage. Notwithstanding this, the match, ill omened as it was, was celebrated in the church of St. Nicholas at Calais, with great pomp, on July 11, 1469, by the Archbishop of York, the bride's uncle. The king, in revenge, deprived the archbishop of his chancellorship. Little else than misfortune came of this union. The lady was haughty and ambitious, like her father; the bridegroom thoughtless, vain, and inconstant. Handsome in person and not without talent, his character was unstable and inconsistent. It is clear, however, that he had a difficult part to play, as the brother of the king and the son-in-law of the king's now bitter enemy. The quarrel between Warwick and Edward has been variously explained. It is said that Warwick had been deputed to the French court to negotiate a marriage between Edward and Bona of Savoy, but that in the interim the king met with Elizabeth Wood ville and made her his wife, which so incensed Warwick that he resolved upon revenge-even to the extent of deposing Edward from the throne. Clarence was also discontented at the favours heaped by the king upon the connexions of his wife, and Warwick did all in his power to foster the discontent. Hall, the chronicler, tells us that Clarence, while still undecided about taking sides with Warwick against his brother the king, exclaimed, "By St. George, if my brother of Gloucester would join me I would make Edward know that we are all one man's sons, which should be nearer to him than strangers of his wife's blood!" evidence. Still, envy, falsehood, and intrigue mark the entire history of the third Clarence; and his brother Edward had every reason to regard him with distrust and dread. He seems also to have had a bitter enemy in the queen. Edward does not appear to have been other than generously disposed towards both of his brothers, and he had forgiven a great deal before he accused Clarence of high treason and sentenced him to death. The particulars of the charge are given in Sandford, Genealogy of the Kings,' bk. v. p. 438. The king in person appears there as the sole accuser and Clarence as the sole defender. "This yere, that is to mean, ye xviiith day of Febuary, the Duke of Clarence and Warwick, brother to the King, thanne being prisoner in ye Tower, was secretly put to death and drowned in a barell of Malvesye, within the ayd Tower."-Fabyan, p. 666 of Ellis's edition. Miss Halstead, in her interesting 'Life of Richard III.,' vol. i. p. 322, successfully, I think, vindicates Richard from this charge :— From this time, about 1470, till his death in the Tower in 1478, the career of Clarence is so intimately connected with the history of his brother's reign that it need not be followed here in detail. No part of our history, perhaps, has been more fully treated than the brief period during which the House of York occupied the throne. At the same time no period, in regard to its treatment by chroniclers and early historians, has suffered more from misrepresentation and prejudiced tradition. How Clarence wavered between allegiance to his brother and co-operation with Warwick; how at length he deserted the latter and was the instrument of his ruin; how justly he earned the Some of the charges were ridiculous enough; titles of 66 false;" "fleeting," ""subtle," ," "treacher- but the picture drawn by Edward of the favours ous," and "perjured Clarence," is told with ample which he heaped upon his brother, and of the inconfirmation in all the histories, and by none gratitude with which he had been repaid, is not more graphically than Shakespeare. Of the three overdrawn. Clarence was condemned to die on brothers, Edward IV., Clarence, and Gloucester, Feb. 17, 1478, and the House of Commons petithe historians of the past have painted the last tioned for his immediate execution. The statein the blackest colours. Most moderns will agreement of the chroniclers that he was privately that this is undeserved, and that of the three murdered by his brother Richard, drowned in a Clarence was the worst. At any rate, Richard butt of malmsey, is unsupported by anything like was loyal to the king, his brother, and when he evidence. It may be remarked, however, that himself assumed the crown made a better ruler Fabyan, the sheriff chronicler of London, rethan most medieval kings. Much that appears cords :in the chroniclers respecting the House of York must be read with a large allowance. Those who wrote in Tudor times were under every temptation to blacken the characters of the princes of this house, and the same is true, in great measure, of Shakespeare. The Tudor chroniclers are more tender towards Edward than towards his brothers; this was due, perhaps, to the fact that Henry VII.'s queen, Elizabeth of York, was his daughter. Shakespeare spares neither Clarence nor Gloucester. The reader will recall the charges brought against Clarence by Shakespeare in Richard III., I. iv. I refer by Shakespeare in Richard III., I. iv. I refer principally to the supposed murder of young Edward of Lancaster by Clarence and Gloucester. The contemporary chroniclers, Warkworth the Lancastrian, and Fleetwood the Yorkist, assert that he was slain in the field, calling on his brother-in-law Clarence for help; but the generally received account is that he was slain in the king's tent by Edward's servants. None of the striking his vanquished rival with his gauntlet, earlier writers who record the king's brutality in mentions either of the king's brothers as the assassin. Hall, who wrote in Henry's VIII.'s time, is the first who brings forward this charge. Hol- that when any one solicited for the life of a condemned linshed repeats the words of Hall, and Shake-this exclamation; O unfortunate brother, for whose person he would with sorrow reproach his courtiers, in speare invariably follows him. Weight is due to life no one would make suit."-Fisher, 'Key to the the note of PROF. THOROLD ROGERS ('N. & Q.,' History of England,' p. 129. 7th S. ix. 423), but the evidence is far from clear. At any rate, there is little to connect Gloucester with the deed. All three brothers in turn have been charged with the murder of Henry VI. in the Tower, but upon nothing worthy of the name of "He was [she says] certainly absent from the scene that Clarence was found dead in the Bowyer Tower "He mourned the loss of his brother to that degree Hence there is great probability in the words Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death, Who sued to me for him? Who, in my wrath, That Clarence was acceptable to the common people may be admitted. His handsome person and plausible exterior would be likely to impress the crowd, as such endowments have done in all times. His untimely death has also led posterity, as well as many of his own contemporaries, to cast a veil over his numerous transgressions. That the estimate of Shakespeare respecting his general character, although some of the crimes laid to his charge may be said to be "non proven," is correct in the main may be fully accepted. He died at the age of thirty, and his wife Isabel is said to have died from poison administered (? wilfully) by a domestic during her confinement. They left issue, as is well known, a son and a daughter. To the daughter, Margaret, was allowed the earldom of Salisbury, which honour descended to her from her grandfather Warwick. The son was generally called "Earl of Warwick," although the attainder of his father was never reversed. The title of Clarence was suspended. The fate both of the son and of the daughter of this Clarence is known to history: the "Earl of Warwick was executed Nov. 21, 1499; and Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, May 27, 1541. With them, the "last of the Plantagenets," this royal race became in the direct line extinct. " The melancholy end of Clarence is commemorated in the Mirrour for Magistrates' (ed. of 1609, 4to., p. 380). Here the crime is directly attributed to the Duke of Gloucester : His purpose was with a prepared string To strangle me but I bestirred me so That by no force they could me thereto bring, Which caused him that purpose to forego; Howbeit they bound me whether I would or no, And in a but of Malmesey standing by, New christened me because I should not cry. The story as generally bruited abroad in England was evidently known and believed in France, but with a difference. See Martin, 'Histoire de la France,' tome vii. p. 1:— "La baine mutuelle d'Edouard et du duc de Clarence, fomentée par le troisième frère, Richard de Gloucester, venait d'aboutir à un fratricide: Edouard avait fait à condamner à mort et exécuter secrètement son frère Clarence pour crime et haute trabison. L'on prétende qu' Edouard ayant laissé au condamné le choix de son genre de morte l'ivrogne Clarence choisit d'être noyé dans un tonneau de Malvaise." This is taken from the contemporary French chronicler Jean Molinet, vol. ii. chap. xciv. p. 377 of the edition by Buchon, 8vo., Paris, 1828. Martin adds: "Edouard, après avoir fait arrêter son frère, avait demandé conseil à Louis XI., qui ne répondit que par ce vers de Lucain : Tolle moras; sæpe nocuit differe paratum." For the grave of Clarence and the Duchess Isabel, his wife, and for the fate of their supposed remains, see Blunt's 'Tewkesbury Abbey and its Associations,' 8vo., London, 1878, p. 74. J. MASKELL. (To be continued.) The writer, quoting a will (7th S. ix. 481) ascribed to Lionel of Antwerp, allots "to Edmund Mone that [golden circle] wherewith his father was created Duke of Cornwall." It is not clear whose father is meant, and the doubt implied involves a host of queries, so I merely ask for an explanation. A. H. ROBERT BROWNING'S CALIBAN UPON ing's Caliban upon Setebos,' and as I did not Two or three years ago I was reading Brownfollow the drift of the poem clearly, I asked lover of Browning and who is more accustomed to a very intelligent lady friend, who is a devoted his poetry than I am, if she would write me a little analysis of it. She did so; and as her analysis is very clear and to the point, and possesses the brevity which Polonius calls "the soul to other readers of Browning who, like myself, are of wit," I have thought that it may be interesting true admirers of the poet without always quite catching his drift. Speaking for myself, my friend's lucid comments have to a great extent removed the difficulties I found in clearly understanding this remarkable and interesting poem. If any of your readers should differ from any of my friend's conclusions, I need not say that both she and myself would be very glad to weigh their objections. As the manner of the notes may seem to be somewhat staccato, it must be borne în mind that they formed part of a private letter, and were written without any thought of publication. My friend, in reply to my request for permission to publish them, says that, if the Editor is willing, she has no objection at all to their appearing in 'N. & Q.,' but she does not wish her name to be mentioned. Browning's 'Caliban upon Setebos.' Possibly I may be "I feel half afraid to bore you with my views on quite mistaken as to the meaning, for I have read Browning entirely alone and without explanatory help. I take half beast, half man, lying in the mud, something after the first twenty-three lines to be descriptive of Caliban, the fashion of a lizard. He Feels about his spine small eft-things course, Run in and out each arm and make him laugh, their presence exciting no disgust in one so nearly akin to themselves. A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth, race, says Tennyson ('Maud,' part i. iv.). Through nearly the whole of the poem Caliban seems to speak of himself in the third person,-(he) hath spied an icy fish,' &c. This form strikes me as being peculiarly apposite, because I believe that the lowest type of savages-earth-eating tribes of South America use the third, and not the first person in speaking of themselves. The poem then proceeds to give, with consummate art and skill in word-painting, a description of the various creatures made by the great and powerful Setebos-the otter, badger, ant, &c.-and man, but "weaker in most points, stronger in a few. Caliban has no conception of God, or Setebos, as creating or injuring for any other purpose than the gratification of a whim or impulse Making and marring clay at will'; 'Such shows nor right nor wrong in Him'; 'He is strong and Lord.' Caliban can only recognize force as creative power, and as an evil strength who must be coaxed and bribed not to hurt, much in the same way that the lower class Chinese implore the evil spirits not to cross their luck, and make offerings of various kinds to them. "The something over Setebos'; 'The Quiet': Caliban means by this to imply Eternity. Then It pleaseth Setebos to work, Use all His hands most of the Indian and African idols are many-handed and exercise much craft, speare renders no help, and the other dramatists Then drew; and from his saddle bending low, It fell so quick, it did even death prevent, And made imperfect bellowings as it went. Though I do not remember any earlier mention of the English corn-poppy, except in our old books Caliban can comprehend only blind creative power, and of botany, I cannot doubt that it has been often so tries to imitate this by referred to by poets. By no means for the love of what is worked. Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights, Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh; and, if ever caught rejoicing, would make a sacrifice to appease the wrath of Setebos. At the end Caliban is supposed to crouch down in an ecstasy of terror at a thunderstorm and the 'white blaze.' "I shall be interested to know if my ideas on this wonderful poem and those of your other friend are alike." My "other friend," in alluding to the foregoing a few months ago, said, "I remember her admirable analysis of Browning's 'Caliban upon Setebos."" I am glad that my friend's notes should be preserved in the antiseptic pages of 'N. & Q.' Ropley, Alresford. JONATHAN BOUCHIER. THE CORN-POPPY.-I was conversing a few days ago with a friend who has a considerable knowledge of what I may call the historic botany of this island. He affirmed that the common corn-poppy (Papaver rhæas) is not a native plant, but has been imported in recent days with foreign seeds. I felt very doubtful of the truth of the allegation, but held my peace, not having at hand any evidence with which to refute him. Shake I may, perhaps, be permitted to mention something else in relation to this beautiful flower, which has no connexion with the above, but is curious as showing how notions of utility may blunt, or Some five-and-forty or fifty years ago, a lady who even destroy, the sense for beauty. had lived in a part of England where the cornpoppy was rarely seen went to dwell in a county where it was very abundant. She was much struck with its great beauty, and expressed her feelings to her friends and neighbours. Most of these people were the wives and daughters of persons whose occupation was the owning of land." They were not only puzzled, but horrified also, to find a woman seeing beauty in a noxious weed. I well remember a lady-a person of considerable intellectual cultivation-who expressed herself so strongly against the new-comer on that account, that it was evident she thought there was something sinful in the heart of one who could see loveliness in a plant which farmers and rentreceivers detested. EDWARD PEACOCK. Bottesford Manor, Brigg.... 'SING A SONG FOR SIXPENCE.'-The beautifully illustrated editions of the old nursery rhymes which this generation is supplying to its children would alone serve to keep those rhymes alive. But as we pictorially improve let us not textually deform them. In the late Mr. Caldecott's 'Sing a Song for Sixpence' the very title contains an alteration quite new to my friends and myself. We always sang a song "of" sixpence. This is not all. The artist's ingenious interpretation shows an old woodcutter with one of his great-coat pockets full of rye. We always sang of a "poke." But even if it were a pocket, it would not necessarily be the pocket of a coat. Witness a pocket of hops. W. C. B. WHITSTER.-No doubt this good English word for washerwoman survives somewhere in the provinces, but it was not till lately that I came across it in official use. Among the salaries of Chelsea Royal Hospital appears 70%. per annum for the Whitster. It is the exact equivalent of blanchisseuse, the woman who makes white; for, as PROF. SKEAT points out in his 'Dictionary' (s.v. "Spinster"), "the A.-S. suffix -estre was used to denote the agent, and was conventionally confined to the feminine gender only, a restriction which was gradually lost sight of.". This suffix (irrespective of gender) is now more common in Lowland Scots than in English, e.g., baxter-baker, wabster weaver, &c. Anyhow, whitster is a good and useful word, by many degrees perferable to the polysyllabic washerwoman." HERBERT MAXWELL. = CAFE PROCOPE.-It may be worth while to record in N. & Q.' the closing of this famous café, situated in the Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie of Old Paris, and once patronized by Rousseau, Voltaire, and many others of note, on the closed shutters of which was to be seen recently the notice, "Matériel à Vendre"! T. F. F. THE BURIAL-PLACE OF SIR THOMAS MORE'S BODY.-Sir Thomas More's head we all know about. But the devout pilgrims who worshipped lately at St. Peter ad Vincula were paying their tribute to an empty sepulchre; and I do not think a trip up to Chelsea (a much more likely place) would have been more accurately historically comforting. The fact is, I believe, no one knows where the headless body of the now beatified chancellor was interred. H. PUGH. DAB.-In Barrère and Leland's Dictionary of Slang,' the only citation for dab, in the sense of an expert, is from an undated number of Punch, which appears to belong to some year in the forties, from its mention of Sir Peter Laurie (misspelt Lawrie). The word is, however, of much earlier date, as in a letter from Lord Chesterfield to Lady Suffolk, Aug. 17, 1733, that nobleman speaks of certain persons as being "known dabs at finding out mysteries" (Suffolk Correspondence,' 1824, ii. 64). The derivation of dab from the verb to dab, or to touch with a light and skilful hand, is probably correct. There is another signification of dab which is not given by Barrère and Leland. Horace Walpole, in asking Mann to negotiate for the purchase of four small rings, says "It will be a gentilezza to sell me these four dabs." In this place the word probably means a thing of trifling value. Mr. Farmer, in his most valuable work, 'Slang and its Analogues,' does not give an earlier date for the phrase "like anything" than 1840. Lady Mohun, in a letter to Mrs. Howard, which is ascribed by Mr. Croker to the year 1716, asks her to tell "dear Molly I like her like anything ('Suffolk Cor.,' i. 8). " An extensive storehouse of slang and strange proverbial expressions is a little book called 'A Collection of Welsh Travels,' London, 1738, which contains a frontispiece of Dean Swift setting out on his journey to Wales. I venture to invite Mr. Farmer's attention to this "pleasant relation." W. F. PRIDEAUX, Jaipur, Rajputana. UNIVERSITY CENTENARY MEDALS.-When, in 1884, the University of Edinburgh celebrated its tercentenary, a medal was struck in honour of the event. The obverse shows a shield bearing the university arms (Argent, on a saltire azure, between a thistle in chief proper and a castle in base sable, a book expanded or) within a quatrefoil, ornamented with thistles, and enclosed in a double circle, bearing the inscription "Vniversitas Academica Edinburgensis." On the reverse, within a raised circular border of thistles, is the legend "Vniversitas Academica Edinburgensis annvm trecentesimvm feliciter exactvm celebrat A.D. MDCCCLXXXIV." Diameter, two and a quarter inches. A larger and more artistic medal serves to recall the quincentenary of Heidelberg in 1886. On the obverse the inscription "Fridericvs D. G. Badarvm M. Dvx Rector Heid. Perp." surrounds the head of the reigning Grand Duke, finely executed in bold relief. On the reverse a female figure upholds two medallions, the dexter with the head of the founder of the university, the Elector Rupert I., the sinister with that of its reorganizer, the first Grand Duke, Charles Frederick. Behind, in faint outline, appears the castle of Heidelberg. Below |