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BISHOP BARNABY

Mr. Editor,—Allow me, in addition to the Note inserted in your 4th Number, in answer to the Query of LEGOUR, by your correspondent (and I believe my friend) J.G., to give the following extract from Forby's Vocabulary of East Anglia:—

"Bishop Barnabee-s. The pretty insect more generally called the Lady-bird, or May-bug. It is one of those highly favoured among God's harmless creatures which superstition protects from wanton injury. Some obscurity seems to hang over this popular name of it. It has certainly no more relation to the companion of St. Paul than to drunken Barnaby, though some have supposed it has. It is sometimes called Bishop Benebee, which may possibly have been intended to mean the blessed bee; sometimes Bishop Benetree, of which it seems not possible to make any thing. The name has most probably been derived from the Barn-Bishop; whether in scorn of that silly and profane mockery, or in pious commemoration of it, must depend on the time of its adoption, before or since the Reformation; and it is not worth inquiring. The two words are transposed, and bee annexed as being perhaps thought more seemly in such a connection than fly-bug or beetle. The dignified ecclesiastics in ancient times wore brilliant mixtures of colours in their habits. Bishops had scarlet and black, as this insect has on its wing-covers. Some remains of the finery of the gravest personages still exist on our academical robes of ceremony. There is something inconsistent with the popish episcopal character in the childish rhyme with which Bishop Barnabee is thrown up and dismissed when he happens to light on any one's hand. Unluckily the words are not recollected, nor at present recoverable; but the purport of them is to admonish him to fly home, and take care of his wife and children, for that his house in on fire. Perhaps, indeed, the rhyme has been fabricated long since the name by some one who did not think of such niceties."

G.A.C.

Sir,—In the explanation of the term Bishop Barnaby, given by J.G., the prefix "Bishop" seems yet to need elucidation. Why should it not have arisen from the insect's garb? The full dress gown of the Oxford D.D.—scarlet with black velvet sleeves—might easily have suggested the idea of naming the little insect "Dr. Burn bug," and the transition is easy to "Dr. Burnabee," or "Bishop Burnaby." These little insects, in the winter, congregate by thousands in barns for their long slumber till the reappearance of genial weather, and it is not impossible that, from this circumstance, the country people may have designated them "Barn bug," or "Barn bee."

L.B.L.

Sir,—I cannot inform LEGOUR why the lady-bird (the seven-spotted, Coccinella Septempunctata, is the most common) is called in some places "Bishop Barnaby." This little insect is sometimes erroneously accused of destroying turnips and peas in its larva state; but, in truth, both in the larva and perfect state it feeds exclusively on aphides. I do not know that it visits dairies, and Tusser's "Bishop that burneth," may allude to something else; still there appears some popular connection of the Coccinellidæ with cows as well as burning, for in the West Riding of Yorkshire they are called Cush Cow Ladies; and in the North Riding one of the children's rhymes anent them runs:—

 
"Dowdy-cow, dowdy-cow, ride away heame,
Thy¹ house is burnt, and thy bairns are tean,
And if thou means to save thy bairns
Take thy wings and flee away!"
 

The most mischievous urchins are afraid to hurt the dowdy-cow, believing if they did evil would inevitably befall them. It is tenderly placed on the palm of the hand—of a girl, if possible—and the above rhyme recited thrice, during which it usually spreads its wings, and at the last word flies away. A collection of nursery rhymes relating to insects would, I think, be useful.

W.G.M.J. BARKER.

MATHEMATICAL ARCHÆOLOGY

Sir,—I cannot gather from your "Notes" that scientific archæology is included in your plan, nor yet, on the other hand, any indications of its exclusion. Science, however, and especially mathematical science, has its archæology; and many doubtful points of great importance are amongst the "vexed questions" that can only be cleared up by documentary evidence. That evidence is more likely to be found mixed up amongst the masses of papers belonging to systematic collectors than amongst the papers of mere mathematicians—amongst men who never destroy a paper because they have no present use for it, or because the subject does not come within the range of their researches, than amongst men who value nothing but a "new theorem" or "an improved solution."

As a general rule I have always habituated myself to preserve every scrap of paper of any remote (and indeed recent) period, that had the appearance of being written by a literary man, whether I knew the hand, or understood the circumstance to which it referred, or not. Such papers, whether we understand them or not, have a possible value to others; and indeed, as my collections have always been at the service of my friends, very few indeed have been left in my hands, and those, probably, of no material value.

I wish this system were generally adopted. Papers, occasionally of great historical importance, and very often of archæological interest, would thus be preserved, and, what is more, used, as they would thus generally find their way into the right hands.

There are, I fancy, few classes of papers that would be so little likely to interest archæologists in general, as those relating to mathematics; and yet such are not unlikely to fall in their way, often and largely, if they would take the trouble to secure them. I will give an example or two, indicating the kind of papers which are desiderata to the mathematical historian.

1. A letter from Dr. Robert Simson, the editor of Euclid and the restorer of the Porisms, to John Nourse of the Strand, is missing from an otherwise unbroken series, extending from 1 Jan. 1751 to near the close of Simson's life. The missing letter, as is gathered from a subsequent one, is Feb. 5. 1753. A mere letter of business from an author to his publisher might not be thought of much interest; but it need not be here enforced how much of consistency and clearness is often conferred upon a series of circumstances by matter which such a letter might contain. This letter, too, contains a problem, the nature of which it would be interesting to know. It would seem that the letter passed into the hands of Dodson, editor of the Mathematical Repository; but what became of Dodson's papers I could never discover. The uses, however, to which such an unpromising series of letters have been rendered subservient may be seen in the Philosophical Magazine, under the title of "Geometry and Geometers," Nos. ii. iii. and iv. The letters themselves are in the hands of Mr. Maynard, Earl's Court, Leicester Square.

2. Thomas Simpson (a name venerated by every geometer) was one of the scientific men consulted by the committee appointed to decide upon the plans for Blackfriars Bridge, in 1759 and 1760.

"It is probable," says Dr. Hutton, in his Life of Simpson, prefixed to the Select Exercises, 1792, "that this reference to him gave occasion to his turning his thoughts more seriously to this subject, so as to form the design of composing a regular treatise upon it: for his family have often informed me that he laboured hard upon this work for some time before his death, and was very anxious to have completed it, frequently remarking to them that this work, when published, would procure him more credit than any of his former publications. But he lived not to put the finishing hand to it. Whatever he wrote upon this subject probably fell, together with all his other remaining papers, into the hands of Major Henry Watson, of the Engineers, in the service of the India Company, being in all a large chest full of papers. This gentleman had been a pupil of Mr. Simpson's, and had lodged in his house. After Mr. Simpson's death Mr. Watson prevailed upon the widow to let him have the papers, promising either to give her a sum of money for them, or else to print and publish them for her benefit. But nothing of the kind was ever done; this gentleman always declaring, when urged on this point by myself and others, that no use could be made of any of the papers, owing to the very imperfect state in which he said they were left. And yet he persisted in his refusal to give them up again."

In 1780 Colonel Watson was recalled to India, and took out with him one of the most remarkable English mathematicians of that day, Reuben Burrow. This gentleman had been assistant to Dr. Maskelyne at the Royal Observatory; and to his care was, in fact, committed the celebrated Schehallien experiments and observations. He died in India, and, I believe, all his papers which reached England, as well as several of his letters, are in my possession. This, however, is no further of consequence in the present matter, than to give authority to a remark I am about to quote from one of his letters to his most intimate friend, Isaac Dalby. In this he says:—"Colonel Watson has out here a work of Simpson's on bridges, very complete and original."

It was no doubt by his dread of the sleepless watch of Hutton, that so unscrupulous a person as Colonel Watson is proved to be, was deterred from publishing Simpson's work as his own.

The desideratum here is, of course, to find what became of Colonel Watson's papers; and then to ascertain whether this and what other writings of Simpson's are amongst them. A really good work on the mathematical theory of bridges, if such is ever to exist, has yet to be published. It is, at the same time, very likely that his great originality, and his wonderful sagacity in all his investigations, would not fail him in this; and possibly a better work on the subject was composed ninety years ago than has yet seen the light—involving, perhaps, the germs of a totally new and more effective method of investigation.

I have, I fear, already trespassed too far upon your space for a single letter; and will, therefore, defer my notice of a few other desiderata till a future day.

T.S.D.

Shooter's Hill, Dec. 15. 1849.