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"When found, make a note of."—CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

EARLY STATISTICS.—CHART, KENT

Perhaps some one of your numerous readers will be good enough to inform me whether any general statistical returns, compiled from our early parish registers, have ever been published. An examination of the register of Chart next Sutton Valence, in Kent, which disclosed some very curious facts, has led me to make this inquiry. They seem to point to the inevitable conclusion that the disturbed state of England during the period of the Great Rebellion retarded the increase of population to an extent almost incredible—so as to suggest a doubt whether some special cause might not have operated in the parish in question which was not felt elsewhere. But, as I am quite unable to discover the existence of any such cause, I shall be glad to learn whether a similar result appears generally in other registers of the period above referred to.

The register-book of Chart commences with the year 1558, and is continued regularly from that time. During the remainder of the sixteenth, and for about the first thirty-five years of the seventeenth century, the baptisms registered increase steadily in number: from that period there is a very marked decrease. For the twenty years commencing with 1600 and ending with 1619, the number 260; for the twenty years 1620 to 1639, the number is 246; and for the twenty years 1640 to 1659, the number is only 120.

No doubt this diminution must be attributed partly to the spread of Nonconformity; but I believe that during the Protectorate, the registration of births was substituted for that of baptisms, and therefore the state of religious feeling which then prevailed bears less directly on the question. And even after the Restoration the register exhibits but a small increase in the number of baptisms. For the various periods of twenty years from that event up to 1760, the numbers range from 152 to 195. And pursuing the inquiry, I find that the number of marriages, for any given time, varies consistently with that of baptisms. If any of your reader can clear up the difficulty, I shall feel much obliged for any information which may tend to do so.

Are the following extracts from the register above referred to of sufficient interest to merit your acceptance?

"1648.—Richard, the son of George Juxon, gent., and Sarah, his wife, who was slayne 1º Junii at Maydestone Fight, was buryed on the third daye of June, anno predicto."

"Joseph, the son of Thomas Daye, and An, his wife, who was wounded at Maydestone Fight 1º Junii, was buryed the eleventh daye of June."

It is hardly necessary to mention, that the fight here referred to took place between the parliamentary forces under Fairfax, and a large body of Kentish gentlemen, who had risen, with their dependants, in the hope of rescuing the king from the hands of the army. After an obstinate engagement, in which the Kentish men fully maintained their character for gallantry, they were defeated with great slaughter.

"1653.—The third of March, Mr. John Case of Chart next Sutton Clarke, being chosen by the parishioners of the said Chart, to be the Register of the said parish according to the Act touching marriages, births, and buryalls, was this day sworne before me, and I do allow and approve of him to be Register accordingly. As witness my hand.

Richa. Beale."

"1660.—Marye, the daughter of John Smith, Esq. was baptized on the thirteenth daye of Januarie, 1660, by John Case, Vicar. The first that hath been baptized at the font since it was re-erected by the appoynm't of the said Mr. Smith, being full sixteene yeers paste. One Thomas Scoone, an elder, having, out of his blinde zeale, defaced and pulled it downe, w't other ornaments belonging to the churche."

E.R.J.H.

Chancery Lane, 7th March.

BIS DAT QUI CITÒ DAT

Inquiry has been often made as to the origin of this proverb. Alciatus is referred to generally as the authority whence it was derived. I think, however, it may be traced to Publius Syrus, who lived about forty-four years before Christ. It is equally probable, from the peculiar species of composition in which the thought, if not the exact words are found, that the proverb was derived from another and an earlier source. The object of mimic exhibitions is to impress the mind by imitation. Human life is burlesqued, personal defect heightened and ridiculed; character is never represented in degree, but in extremes. The dialogue of satirical comedy assumes naturally the form of the apophthegm—it is epigrammatic and compressed that it may be pungent and striking. Hence, no species of writing is more allied to or more likely to pass into household words, and to become proverbs among a people of quick retentive powers, such as the Greeks were, to whom we are perhaps indebted for this. I send you the extract from Alciatus; Emblemata, No. 162. Antverpiæ, 18mo. 1584. Apud Christophorum Plantinum.

"Tres Charites Veneri assistunt, dominamque sequuntur:
Hincque voluptates, atque alimenta parant;
Lætitiam Euphrosyne, speciosum Aglaia nitorem;
Suadela est Pithus, blandus et ore lepos.
Cur nudæ? mentis quoniam candore venustas
Constat, et eximia simplicitate plucet.
An quia nil referunt ingrati, atque arcula inanis
Est Charitum? qui dat munera, nudus eget.
Addita cur nuper pedibus talaria? Bis dat
Qui citò dat—Minimi gratia tarda pretî est.
Implicitis ulnis cur vertitur altera? gratus
Fenerat: huic remanent una abeunte duæ.
Jupiter iis genitor, coeli de semine divas
Omnibus acceptas edidit Eurynome."

Now here we have the proverb clearly enough.

I subjoin the note upon the lines in which it appears.

"Bis dat qui cito dat," in Mimis Publii. "Beneficium inopi bis dat, qui dat celeriter." Proverb, Bis dat, &c.

Referring to the Sentences of Publius Syrus, published, with the additional Fables of Phædrus, from the Vatican MSS., by Angelo Mai, I found the line thus given:

"Inopi beneficium bis dat, qui dat celeriter."

The same idea, I believe, occurs in Ovid. Query whether it is not a thought naturally presenting itself to the mind, reflected by memory, confirmed by experience, and which some Mimic author has made proverbial by his terse, gnomic form of expression.

S.H.

PARALLEL PASSAGES

I take the liberty of sending you several parallel passages, which may probably appear to you worthy of insertion in your valuable paper.

1

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."

Shakspeare: Julius Cæsar.

"There is an hour in each man's life appointed
To make his happiness, if then he seize it."

Beaumont and Fletcher: The Custom of the Country.

"There is a nick in Fortune's restless wheel
For each man's good—"

Chapman: Bussy d'Ambois.

2

"The fann'd snow,
That's bolted by the northern blast thrice o'er."

Shakspeare: A Winter's Tale.

"Snow in the fall,
Purely refined by the bleak northern blast."

Davenport: The City Nightcap.

3

"Like pearl
Dropt from the opening eyelids of the morn
Upon the bashful rose."

Middleton: The Game at Chess.

"Together both, ere the high lawns appeared
Under the opening eyelids of the morn,
We drive afield."

Milton: Lysidas.

4

"Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That in a spleen enfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say—Behold!
The jaws of darkness do devour it up."

Shakspeare: Midsummer Night's Dream.

"Nicht Blitzen gleich, die schnell vorüber schiessen,
Und plötzlich von der Nacht verschlungen sind,
Mein Glück wird seyn."

Schiller: Die Braut von Messina.
G.

Greenock.

ERRORS CORRECTED

I.—Sharon Turner's Hist. of England (Lond. 1814. 4to.), i. 332.

"The Emperor (Henry VI.) determined to extort an immoderate ransom; but, to secure it, had him (Richard Coeur de Lion) conveyed to a castle in the Tyrol, from which escape was hopeless."—Note "104. In Tiruali. Oxened. MS."

Ibid. p. 333:

"He (Richard) was removed from the dungeon in the Tyrol to the emperor's residence at Haguenau."—Note "109. See Richard's Letter to his Mother. Hoveden, 726."

The fortress, here represented to be in the Tyrol, is about 220 miles distant ("as the crow flies") from the nearest point in that district, and is the Castle of Trifels, which still crowns the highest of three rocky eminences (Treyfels = Three Rocks), which rise from the mountain range of the Vosges, on the southern side of the town of Annweiler. In proceeding from Landau to Zweibrücken (Deux-Ponts), the traveller may see it on his left. The keep is still in good preservation; and it was on account of the natural strength of its position that the imperial crown-jewels were formerly preserved in it.

I am unable to refer at present to the MS. of Oxenedes (Cotton, Nero, D 2), which appears to give the erroneous reading of Tirualli for Triualli or Trivalli; but Mr. Turner might have avoided the mistake by comparing that MS. with the printed text of Hoveden, in which Richard is represented as dating his letter "de Castello de Triuellis, in quo detinebamur."

II.—Wright's S. Patrick's Purgatory (Lond. 1844. 8vo.), p. 135.:

"On the patent rolls in the Tower of London, under the year 1358, we have an instance of testimonials given by the king (Edward III.) on the same day, to two distinguished foreigners, one a noble Hungarian, the other a Lombard, Nicholas de Beccariis, of their having faithfully performed this pilgrimage."

In a note on this passage, Mr. Wright reprints one of the testimonials from Rymer (Foedera, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 174.), in which is the following passage:

"Nobilis vir Malatesta Ungarus de Arminio miles."

In the original deed, the text must have been de Arimino (of Rimini); for the person here referred to was a natural son of Malatesta de' Malatesti, Lord of Rimini and of Pesaro, and took the name of L'Ungaro in consequence of his having been knighted by Louis, King of Hungary, when the latter passed through the Malatesta territory, when he was going to Naples for the purpose of avenging his brother Andrew's death. In the Italian account of the family (Clementini, Raccolto Istorico della Fondazione di Rimino. Rimino, 1617-27. 2 vols. 4to.), L'Ungario is said have been a great traveller, to have visited England, and to have died in 1372, at the age of 45. (See also Sansovino, Origine e Fatti delle Famiglie Illustri d'Italia. Venetia, 1670. 4to. p. 356.)