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NOTES

DOMINGO LOMELYN, JESTER TO HENRY VIII

Shakespeare, in the Second Part of Henry IV. act v. sc. 3 makes Silence sing the following scrap:—

"Do me right,
And dub me knight:
Samingo."

And Nash, in his Summer's Last Will and Testament, 1600 (reprinted in the last edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, vol. xi. p. 47.) has

"Monsieur Mingo for quaffing doth surpass,
In cup, in can, or glass;
God Bacchus, do me right,
And dub me knight,
Domingo"

T. Warton, in a note in vol. xvii. of the Variorum Shakespeare, says, "Samingo, that is San Domingo, as some of the commentators have observed. But what is the meaning and propriety of the name here, has not yet been shown. Justice Silence is here introduced as in the midst of his cups; and I remember a black-letter ballad, in which either a San Domingo or a Signior Domingo, is celebrated for his miraculous feats in drinking. Silence, in the abundance of his festivity, touches upon some old song, in which this convivial saint, or signior, was the burden. Perhaps, too, the pronounciation in here suited to the character." I must own that I cannot see what San Domingo has to do with a drinking song. May it not be an allusion to a ballad or song on Domingo, one of King Henry the Eighth's jesters?

"—Domyngo Lomelyn,
That was wont to wyn
Moche money of the kynge,
At the cardys and haserdynge."
Skelton's Why come ye not to Courte,
ed. Dyce, ii. p. 63.

None of the commentators have noticed this, but I think my suggestion carries with it some weight.

In the Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry the Eighth (published by Sir H. Nichols, in 1827), are many entries concerning this Domingo, most of which relate to payments of money that he had won from the king at cards and dice. He was evidently, as Sir Harris Nichols observes, one of King Henry's "diverting vagabonds," and seems to have accompanied his majesty wherever he went, for we find that he was with him at Calais in 1532. In all these entries he is only mentioned as Domingo; his surname, and the fact of his being a Lombard, we learn from Skelton's poem, mentioned above.

The following story, told of Domingo, occurs in Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Harington's Treatise on Playe, 1597, printed in the Nugae Antiquae, edit. Park, vol. i. p.222.:—

"The other tale I wold tell of a willinge and wise loss I have hearde dyversly tolde. Some tell it of Kyng Phillip and a favoryte of his; some of our worthy King Henry VIII. and Domingo; and I may call it a tale; becawse perhappes it is but a tale, but thus they tell it:—The kinge, 55 eldest hand, set up all restes, and discarded flush; Domingo or Dundego (call him how you will), helde it upon 49, or som such game; when all restes were up and they had discarded, the kinge threw his 55 on the boord open, with great lafter, supposing the game (as it was) in a manner sewer. Domingo was at his last carde incownterd flush, as the standers by saw, and tolde the day after; but seeing the king so mery, would not for a reste at primero, put him owt of that pleasawnt conceyt, and put up his cardes quietly, yielding it lost."

Park was not acquainted with any particulars of this Domingo Lomelyn, for he says, in a note, "Query, jester to the king?"

The first epigram in Samuel Rowland's entertaining tract, The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head-waine, &c. 1600, is upon "Monsieur Domingo;" but whether it relates to King Henry's jester is a matter of some question.

EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.

MARLOWE AND THE OLD "TAMING OF A SHREW."

Having only just observed an announcement of a new edition of the works of Marlowe, I take the earliest opportunity of calling the attention of the editor to a circumstance which it is important that he should know, and the knowledge of which,—should it have escaped his notice, as it has that of all other writers on the subject,—I trust may not be too late for his present purpose. Without farther preface, I will introduce the subject, by asking Mr. Dyce to compare two passages which I shall shortly point out; and, having done so, I think he will agree with me in the opinion that the internal evidence, relating to our old dramatic literature, cannot have been very much studied, while such a discovery as he will then make still remained to be made. The first passage is from the so-called old "Taming of a Shrew" (six old plays, 1779, p. 161.), and runs as follows:—

"Now that the gloomy shadow of the night,
Longing to view Orion's drisling looks,
Leaps from th'Antarctic world unto the sky,
And dims the welkin with her pitchy breath;"

the second is from Doctor Faustus (Marlowe's Works, vol. ii. p. 127.), which, however, I shall save myself the trouble of transcribing; as, with the exception of "look" for "looks," in the second line, and "his" for "her," in the fourth, the two passages will be found identical. Being, some years ago, engaged, in connection with the first of these plays, in the pursuit of a very different object,—in which I cannot say that I altogether failed, and the result of which I may take an opportunity of communicating,—I made a note of the above; and at the same time followed it up by a general examination of the style of Marlowe. And, to make a long matter short, I may say that in this examination, besides meeting with a dozen instances of the identity of the writer of passages in the Taming of a Shrew and of passages in Marlowe's two plays, Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine, I found such general resemblance in style as left no doubt upon my mind that, if one of these plays be his acknowledged work, as indisputable will be his claim to the other two. I was not aware at that time of the evidence, in Henslow's Diary, of Marlowe's authorship of Tamburlaine; but, so far from considering it inferior, I was inclined to place it, in some important respects, at the very head of his plays.

I will not take up your space now with the parallel passages which I noted; but, should you wish it, and be able to make room for them, I will furnish you with a list. It is, of course, obvious that the one I have quoted proves nothing by itself; accumulated instances, in connection with the general question of style, alone become important. I will conclude, by giving a list which I have made out of Marlowe's plays, in favour of which I conceive there to be either internal or external evidence:—

"Locrine.
Tamburlaine the Great (two parts).
Jew of Malta.
Doctor Faustus.
Edward the Second.
Massacre of Paris.
Taming of a Shrew.
Dido, Queen of Carthage (with Nash)."
SAMUEL HICKSON

St. John's Wood, Jan. 12. 1850

[We trust our correspondent will favour us with the further communications he proposes on this very interesting point.]

BEETLE MYTHOLOGY

Mr. Editor,—I never thought of asking my Low-Norman fellow-rustics whether the ladybird had a name and a legend in the best preserved of the northern Romance dialects: on the score of a long absence (eight-and-twenty years), might not a veteran wanderer plead forgiveness? Depend upon it, Sir, nevertheless, that should any reminiscences exist among my chosen friends, the stout-hearted and industrious tenants of a soil where every croft and paddock is the leaf of a chronicle, it will be communicated without delay. There is more than usual attractiveness in the astronomical German titles of this tiny "red chafer," or rother kaefer, SONNEN KAEFER and VNSER FRAWEN KVHLEIN, the Sun-chafer, and our Lady's little cow. (Isis or Io?)

With regard to its provincial English name, Barnabee, the correct interpretation might be found in Barn-bie, the burning, or fire-fly, a compound word of Low-Dutch origin.

We have a small black beetle, common enough in summer, called PÂN, nearly hemispherical: you must recollect that the â is as broad as you can afford to make it, and the final n is nasal. Children never forgot, whenever they caught this beetle, to place it in the palm of their left hand, when it was invoked as follows:—

"PÂN, PÂN, mourtre mé ten sang,
Et j'te doûrai de bouan vin blianc!"

which means, being interpreted,

"PÂN, PÂN, show me thy blood,
And I will give thee good white wine!"

As he uttered the charm, the juvenile pontiff spat on poor Thammuz, till a torrent of blood, or what seemed such, "ran purple" over the urchin's fingers.

Paul-Ernest Jablonski's numerous readers need not be told that the said beetle is an Egyptian emblem of the everlasting and universal soul, and that its temple is the equinoctial circle, the upper hemisphere.¹

As a solar emblem, it offers an instructive object of inquiry to the judicious gleaners of the old world's fascinating nursery traditions. Sicilian Diodorus tells us that the earth's lover, Attis (or Adonis), after his resuscitation, acquired the divine title of PAPAN.² To hazard the inoffensive query, why one of our commonest great beetles is still allowed to figure under so distinguished a name, will therefore reflect no discredit upon a cautious student of nearly threescore years. The very Welsh talked, in William Baxter's time, of "Heaven, as bugarth PAPAN," the sun's ox-stall or resting-place; and here you likewise find his beetle-majesty, in a Low-Norman collection of insular rhymes:—

"Sus l'bord piâsottaient, côte-à-côte,
Les équerbots et leas PAPANS,
Et ratte et rat laissaient leux crotte
Sus les vieilles casses et même dedans."³

By the help of Horapollo, Chiflet's gnostic gems, and other repertories of the same class, one might, peradventure, make a tolerable case in favour of the mythological identity of the legend of Ladybird—that is, the sun-chafer, or barn-bie, the fire-fly, "whose house is burnt, and whose bairns are ten," of course the first ten days of the Egyptian year⁴—with the mystical stories of the said black or dark blue lords of radiance, Pân and Papân.

The Egyptians revere the beetle as a living and breathing image of the sun, quoth Porphyry.⁵ That will account for this restless delver's extraordinary talismanic renown. I think the lady-bird is "the speckled beetle" which was flung in hot water to avert storms.⁶ Pignorius gives us the figure of the beetle, crowned with the sun, and encircled with the serpent of eternity; while another, an onyx in the collection of Abraham Gorlæus, threatens to gnaw at a thunderbolt.⁷

Reuven's book on the Egyptian Museum, which I have not seen, notices an invocation to "the winged beetle, the monarch ([Greek: tyrannos]) of mid-heaven," concluding with a devout wish that some poor creature "may be dashed to pieces."

Can any of your readers inform me what is meant by "the blood of the Phuôn?"

Yours truly,

?

St. Martin's, Guernsey, Jan. 9. 1850.

EXTRACTS FROM CHURCHWARDENS' ACCOUNTS OF ST. MARGARET'S, WESTMINSTER—WEIGHT OF BELLS IN ANCIENT TIMES—HISTORY OF A ROOD-LOFT

I send you a few Notes, collected out of the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster.

1stly. Some regarding the weight of bells in ancient days:—

"1526. The first bell weith                    ccccc lb.
The second bell weith               ccccccxxj lb.
The third bell weith                    ixCvj lb.
The fourthe bell weith                    M.x lb.
The fyfthe belonging to our grete Lady
Bretherhed                        MvjCxiiij lb.
The sume of all the weight          MMMMVIIC Li lb.
"1592. The broken Tennor waied               xvjCxxj lb.
The new tennor ys.                      xiijC di
The greatest bell ys     xxjC and di at lvjs. the C.
The iiij bell ys       xvijC and di and xiiij lb.
The xiiij bell taken awaie was         xiijC di.
The ij bell carried awaie was    viijCiij qters.
The new bell                           viijC di.
Som totall of the bells, yron, tymber, and
workmanshipp                     lxxvl. vs. vd."

This appears to have been a sorry bargain, for soon after occur sad complaints of these bells, "very falsly and deceytfully made by Valentyne Trever." Perhaps your correspondent "CEPHAS" may explain the following entry:—

"1846. Item, paid for makying of a newe clapper to
Judas bell xd."

2ndly. Some entries, which make up a little history of a rood-loft:—

"1460. Item, sol' pro le skoryng de la belles sup' le
Rode lofte                             iiijd.
"1480. Item, paide for a doore in the rode lofte to
save and kepe the people from the Orgayns
xijd.
Item, paide to a carpynter for makyng of the
Crucyfix and the beme He standeth upon   xls.
Item, paide for kervying of Mary and John
and the makyng newe         xxxiijs. iiijd.
Item, for gilding of the same Mary and John
and the Crosse and iiij'or Evangelysts
vjl. vjs. viijd.
"1530. Item, payd to a labourer for helpying up the
Roode Loft into the stepull          viijd.
"1534. Payd for a present for Mr. Alford and Mr.
Herytage for ther good wyll for tymber for
the newe Rode lofte              ijs. ijd."

The fickle tyrant Henry VIII. dies; a more consistent reign happily ensues.

"1548. Item, for the takying downe of the Roode, the
Tabernacle, and the Images iijs. vjd.
Also payd to Thomas Stokedale for xxxv ells
of clothe for the frunte of the Rode Lofte
whereas the x Commandements be wrytten,
price of the ell vjd. xxiijs. iiijd.
Also payd to hym that dyd wryght the said
x Commaundements and for ther drynking
lxvjs. ixd."

Queen Mary succeeds the boy-king Edward VI., and restores the Ritual of her Church.

"1566. Item, payed for the Roode, Mary and John xl.
"1557. Item, for peyntyng the Roode, Mary and John
xls.
For makyng xvij candilsticks for the roode-light
xjs. iiijd."

Upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth once more, and this time for ever, the rood was destroyed, and the loft, though "reformed," did not long survive it.

"1559. Payde to John Rialle for his iij dayse work
to take downe the Roode, Mary and John
ijs. viijd.
For clevying and sawyng of the Roode, Mary
and John                              xijd.
"1560. Rec'd for the beame the Roode stood on, for
boords and other tymber parcell of the
Roode loft                           xlijs.
For the rest of the stuf belongying to the
Roode lofte                            ixl.
For the great clothe that hong before the
Rode                                   xxs.
Item, paide to joyners and labowrers abowt
the takying downe and new reformyng of the
Roode Loft, &c.           xxxvijl. xs. ijd.
Item, paide for boordes, glew, nayles, and
other neccessaries belonging to the saide
loft                    xiiijl. xiijs. ixd.
Item, paide to a paynter for payntyng the
same                               xijd.
"1562. For bearinge stones for the muringe up of the
dore of the late rood lofte         viijd."

The rapacious Puritans, of course, did not suffer any portion of the church-goods to escape their sacrilegious and itching palms, if convertible into money, so we read—