Читать книгу: «Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853», страница 3
T. J. Buckton.
Birmingham.
Life of Savigny.—Is there in French or English any life or memoir of Savigny?
C. H.
Picture by Hogarth.—Some years since a gentleman purchased at Bath the first sketch of a picture said to be by Hogarth, of "Fortune distributing her favours." Shortly afterwards a gentleman called on the purchaser of it, and mentioned to him that he knew the finished painting, and that it was in the panelling of some house with which he was acquainted.
I am desirous of finding out for the family of the purchaser, who died recently, 1st, whether there is any history that can be attached to this picture and 2ndly, to discover, if possible, in whose possession, and where, the finished painting is preserved.
J. K. R. W.
Minor Queries with Answers
Glossarial Queries.—In a Subsidy Roll of 25 Edward I., in an enumeration of property in the parish of Skirbeck, near Boston, Lincolnshire, upon which a ninth was granted to the king, I find the following articles and their respective value. What were they?—
"3 alece, 18s.
1 bacell cum arment. 15s."
In the taxation of Leake I find—
"9 hocastr. 6s."
In that of Leverton—
"4 hocastr. 4s."
In Butterwick—
"1 pull. 12d."
In Wrangle—
"1 stagg. 2s."
Pishey Thompson.
Stoke Newington.
[It is very desirable that in all cases Querists desirous of explanations of words, phrases, or passages, should give the context.
3 Alece, were it not for the price, one would render "herrings;" but the price, 18s., forbids such interpretation. Perhaps alece is a misreading for vacce, cows; which might well occur in a carelessly written roll temp. Edward I.
1 bacell cum arment. is 1 bacellus cum armamentis, one ass (or pack-horse) with its furniture.
9 hocastr. is 9 pigs. "Hogaster, porcellus."—Du Cange.
1 pull. (i.e. pullulus), 1 colt.
1 stagg., a yearling ox.]
Military Knights of Windsor.—I shall feel obliged to any of your correspondents who will furnish some account, or refer me to any work in which notices may be found of this foundation, its statutes, mode of appointment, endowments, &c.? Up to the reign of William IV. they were known, I believe, as Poor Knights of Windsor.
Y. B. N. J.
[Consult Ashmole's History of the Order of the Garter, pp. 99-104., edit. 1715. Among the Birch and Sloane MSS. in the British Museum are the following articles: No. 4845. Statutes for the Poor Knights of Windsor, 1 Eliz. Orders and rules for the establishment and good government of the said thirteen poor knights. The Queen's Majestie's ordinances for the continual charges. No. 4847. Articles of complaint exhibited by the Poor Knights (to the Knights of the Garter) against the Dean and Canons. The Dean and Canons' answer to the Poor Knights' second replication. The complaint of the Poor Knights to King Richard II. A petition of the Poor Knights to the king and parliament for a repeal of the act of incorporation, A. 22 Edw. IV. The petition of the Poor Knights of Windsor to George II., Jan. 28, 1735. This petition was drawn up by Mr. Fortescue, afterwards Master of the Rolls. The Poor Knights' rejoinder to their former petition. The memorial of the Poor Knights to John Willes, Esq., Attorney-General. Another petition to J. Willes, Esq. Copy of an indenture between Queen Elizabeth and the Dean and Chapter of Lands, to the value of 600l. a year and upwards, for the maintenance of the Poor Knights, 1 Eliz. Orders and rules for the establishment and good government of the said thirteen Poor Knights. The case of the Poor Knights (printed), with several other papers relating to them.]
"Elijah's Mantle."—Who was the author of Elijah's Mantle? And are there any grounds for ascribing it to Canning?
W. Fraser.
Tor-Mohun.
[This poem was attributed to Canning, as noticed by Mr. Bell, in his Life of George Canning, p. 206. He says, "Mr. Canning's reputation was again put into requisition as sponsor for certain verses that appeared at this time in the public journals. The best of these is a piece called Elijah's Mantle."]
Replies
MILTON AND MALATESTI
(Vol. ii., p. 146.; Vol. viii., p. 237.)
When I gave some account of La Tina of Antonio Malatesti, and its dedication to Milton, two years since, I was not aware that it had been printed, as I had no other edition of Gamba's Serie dell' Edizioni de' Testi di Lingua, than the first printed in 1812. That account was derived from the original MS. which formerly passed through my hands. I fear that my friend Mr. Bolton Corney will be disappointed if he should meet with a copy of the printed book, for the MS. contained no other dedication than the inscription on the title-page, of which I made a tracing. It represents an inscribed stone tablet, in the following arrangement:
"LA
Tina Equiuoci Rusticali
di Antonio Malatesti cō-
posti nella sua Villa di
Taiano il Settembre dell'
L'Anno, 1637.
Sonetti Ciquanta
Dedicati all' Illmo Signore
Et Padrone Ossmo Il Signor'
Giouanni Milton Nobil'
Inghilese."
I copied at the time eight of these equivocal sonnets, and in my former notice gave one as a specimen. They are certainly very ingenious, and may be "graziosissimi" to an Italian ear and imagination; but I cannot think that the pure mind of Milton would take much delight in obscene allusions, however neatly wrapped up.
Milton seems to have dwelt with pleasure on his intercourse with these witty, ingenious, and learned men, during his two-months' sojourn at Florence; and it is remarkable that Nicolas Heinsius has spoken of the same men, in much the same terms, in his dedication to Carlo Dati of the second book of his Italici Componimenti:
"Sanctum mehercules habebo semper Jo. Bapt. Donij memoriam, non tam suo nomine (et si hoc quoque) aut quod Frescobaldos, Cavalcantes, Gaddios, Cultellinos, alios urbis vestræ viros precipuos mihi conciliarit, quorum amicitiam feci hactenus, et faciam porrò maximi, quam quod tibi me conjunxerit, mi Date; cujus opera in notitiam, ac familiaritatem plurimorum apud vos hominum eximiorum mox irreperem."
And, after mentioning others, he adds:
"Quid de Valerio Chimentellio, homine omni literatura perpolita, dicam? Quid de Joanne Pricæo? qui ingens civitati vestræ ornamentum ex ultima nuper accessit Britannia."
One feels some decree of disappointment at not meeting here with the name of Milton.
Of the distinguished men mentioned by Milton, some interesting notices occur in that curious little volume, the Bibliotheca Aprosiana. Benedetto Buommattei and Carlo Dati are well known from their important labours; and of the others there are scattered notices in Rilli Notizie degli Uomini Illustre Fiorentine, and in Salvini Fasti Consolari dell' Accademia Fiorentina. I have an interesting little volume of Latin verses by Jacopo Gaddi, with the following title Poetica Jacobi Gaddii Corona e Selectis Poematiis, Notis Allegoriis contexta, Bononiæ, 1637, 4to.
There is a good deal of ingenious and pleasing burlesque poetry extant by Antonio Malatesti. I have before mentioned his Sphinx: of this I have a dateless edition, apparently printed about the middle of the last century at Florence: the title is La Sfinge Enimmi del Signor Antonio Malatesti. Commendatory verses are prefixed by Chimentelli, Coltellini, and Galileo Galilei. The last, from the celebrity of the writer, may deserve the small space it will occupy in your pages. It is itself an enigma:
"Del Signor Galileo Galilei
Sonetto.
Mostro son' io più strano, e più difforme,
Che l'Arpià, la Sirena, o la Chimera;
Nè in terra, in aria, in acqua è alcuna fiera,
Ch' abbia di membra così varie forme.
Parte a parte non hô che sia conforme,
Più che s' una sia bianca, e l' altra nera;
Spesso di Cacciator dietro hô una schiera,
Che de' miei piè van ritracciando l' orme.
Nelle tenebre oscure è il mio soggiorno;
Che se dall' ombre al chiaro lume passo,
Tosto l' alma da me sen fugge, come
Sen fugge il sogno all' apparir del giorno,
E le mie membra disunito lasso,
E l' esser perdo con la vita, è l nome."
Three more sonnets by this illustrious man are printed by Salvini in his Fasti, of which he says:
"I quali esendo parto di si gran mente, mi concederà la gloria il benigno lettore, che io, ad honore della Toscana Poesia, gli esponga il primo alla publica luce."
Dr. Fellowes was not singular in confounding Dati and Deodati; it has been done by Fenton and others: but that Dr. Symmons, in his Life of Milton (p. 133.), should transform La Tina into a wine-press, is ludicrously amusing. La Tina is the rustic mistress to whom the sonnets are supposed to be addressed; and every one knows that rusticale and contadinesca is that naïve and pleasing rustic style in which the Florentine poets delighted, from the expressive nature of the patois of the Tuscan peasantry; and it might have been said of Malatesti's sonnets, as of another rustic poet:
"Ipsa Venus lætos jam nunc migravit in agros
Verbaque Aratoris Rustica discit Amor."
I may just remark that the Clementillo of Milton should not be rendered Clementini, but Chimentelli. As Rolli tells us,—
"Clementillus fu quel Dottore Valerio Chimentelli di cui leggesi una vaghissima Cicalata nel sesto volume delle Prose Fiorentine."
S. W. Singer.
Mickleham.
ATTAINMENT OF MAJORITY
(Vol. viii., pp. 198. 250.)
I greatly regret that there should be anything in the matter or manner of my Query on this subject to induce Mr. De Morgan to reply to it more as if repelling an offence, than assisting in the investigation of an interesting question on a subject with which he is supposed to be especially conversant. I can assure him that I had no other object in writing ninth numerically instead of literally, or in omitting the words he has restored in brackets, or in italicising two words to which I wished my question more particularly to refer, than that of economising space and avoiding needless repetition; and in the use of the word "usage" rather than "law," of which he also complains, I was perhaps unduly influenced by the title of his own treatise, from which I was quoting. But however I may have erred from exact quotation, it is manifest I did not misunderstand the sense of the passage, since Mr. De Morgan now repeats its substance in these words,—
"I cannot make out that the law ever recognised a day of twenty-four hours, beginning at any hour except midnight."
This is clearly at direct issue with Ben Jonson, whose introduced phrases, "pleaded nonage," "wardship," "pupillage," &c., seem to smack too much of legal technology to countenance the supposition of poetic license.
But had I not accidentally met with an interesting confirmation of Ben Jonson's law of usage, or usage of law, I should not have put forth my Query at all, nor presumed to address it to Professor De Morgan; my principal reason for so doing being that the interest attaching to discovered evidence of a forgotten usage in legal reckoning, must of course be increased tenfold if it should appear to have been unknown to a gentleman of such deep and acknowledged research into that and kindred subjects.
In a black-letter octavo entitled A Concordancie of Yeares, published in and for the year 1615, and therefore about the very time when Ben Jonson was writing, I find the following in chap. xiii.:
"The day is of two sorts, natural and artificiall: the natural day is the space of 24 hours, in which time the sunne is carried by the first Mover, from the east into the west, and so round about the world into the east againe."
"The artificiall day continues from sunne-rising to sunne-setting: and the artificiall night is from the sunne's setting to his rising. And you must note that this natural day, according to divers, hath divers beginnings: As the Romanes count it from mid-night to mid-night, because at that time our Lorde was borne, being Sunday; and so do we account it for fasting dayes. The Arabians begin their day at noone, and end at noone the next day; for because they say the sunne was made in the meridian; and so do all astronomers account the day, because it alwayes falleth at one certaine time. The Umbrians, the Tuscans, the Jewes, the Athenians, Italians, and Egyptians, do begin their day at sunne-set, and so do we celebrate festivall dayes. The Babylonians, Persians, and Bohemians begin their day at sunne-rising, holding till sunne-setting; and so do our lawyers count it in England."
Here, at least, there can be no supposition of dramatic fiction; the book from which I have made this extract was written by Arthur Hopton, a distinguished mathematician, a scholar of Oxford, a student in the Temple; and the volume itself is dedicated to "The Right Honourable Sir Edward Coke, Knight, Lord Chiefe Justice of England," &c.
A. E. B.
Leeds, Sept. 10.
JOHN FREWEN
(Vol. viii., p. 222.)
He is supposed to have been the son of Richard Frewen, of Earl's Court in Worcestershire, and was born either at that place or in its immediate vicinity in the early part of the year 1558. Richard Frewen purchased the presentation to Northiam rectory, in Sussex, of Viscount Montague, and presented John Frewen to it in Nov. 1583; and he continued to hold that living till his death, which took place at the end of April, 1628. He was buried in the chancel of his own church, May 2nd; and a plain stone on the floor, with an inscription, marks the place of his interment. He was a learned and pious Puritan divine, and wrote:
1. "Certaine Fruitfull Instructions and necessary Doctrine meete to edify in the feare of God." 1587, 18mo.
2. "Certaine Fruitfull Instructions for the generall Cause of Reformation against the Slanders of the Pope and League, &c." 1589, small 4to.
3. He edited and wrote the preface to—
"A Courteous Conference with the English Catholickes Romane, about the Six Articles administered unto the Seminarie Priestes, wherein it is apparently proved by theire own divinitie, and the principles of their owne religion, that the Pope cannot depose her Majestie, or release her subjects of their alleageance unto her, &c.; written by John Bishop, a recusant Papist." 1598. Small 4to.
4. "Certaine Sermons on the 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 verses of the Eleventh chapter of S. Paule his Epistle to the Romanes." 1612, 12mo.
5. "Certaine choise Grounds and Principles of our Christian Religion." 1621, 12mo.
6. A large unpublished work in MS. entitled "Grounds and Principles of Christian Religion," left unfinished (probably age and infirmity prevented him from completing it): it consisted of seven books, of which two only (the fourth and fifth, of 95 and 98 folio pages respectively) have been preserved.
John Frewen had three wives, and by each of the first two several children, of whom the following lived to grow up, viz. by Eleanor his first wife, (1.) Accepted Frewen, Archbp. of York; (2.) Thankful F., Purse Bearer and Secretary of Petitions to Lord Keeper Coventry; (3.) John F., Rector of Northiam; (4.) Stephen F., Alderman of the Vintry Ward, London; (5.) Mary, wife of John Bigg of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; (6.) Joseph F. By his second wife, Helen, daughter of – Hunt, J. F. had (7.) Benjamin, Citizen of London; (8.) Thomas F.; (9.) Samuel, Joseph, Thomas, and Samuel joined Cromwell's army for invading Ireland; and one of them (Captain Frewen) fell at the storming of Kilkenny; another of them died at Limerick of the plague, which carried off General Freton; the other (Thomas) founded a family at Castle Connel, near Limerick.
John Frewen's Sermons in 1612 are in some respects rare; but the following copies are extant, viz. one in the Bodleian at Oxford; one in the University Library at Cambridge; one in possession of Mr. Frewen at Brickwall, Northiam; and one sold by Kerslake of Bristol, for 7s. 6d., to the Rev. John Frewen Moor, of Bradfield, Berks.
If R. C. Warde, of Kidderminster, has a copy which he would dispose of, he may communicate with T. F., Post-office, Northiam, who would be glad to purchase it.
J. F.
