Читать книгу: «Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853», страница 5
YEW-TREES IN CHURCHYARDS
(Vol. viii., p. 346.)
This has long been to me a vexed question, and I fear that none of your correspondents have given a satisfactory answer.
I have seen in London sprigs of yew and palm willow offered for sale before Palm Sunday. At this period they may, I think, be always found in Covent Garden Market. I saw them last year also in the greengrocers' shops at Brighton. To me these are evident traces of an old custom of using the yew as well as the willow. The origin is to be found in the Jewish custom of carrying "branches of palm-trees, and boughs of thick trees, and willows from the brook" (Leviticus xxiii. 39, 40.).
Wordsworth alludes to this in his sonnet on seeing a procession at Chamouny:
"The Hebrews thus carrying in joyful state
Thick boughs of palm and willows from the brook,
March'd round the altar—to commemorate
How, when their course they from the desert took,
Guided by signs which ne'er the sky forsook,
They lodged in leafy tents and cabins low,
Green boughs were borne."
In A Voyage from Leith to Lapland, 1851, vol. i. p. 132., there is an account of the funeral of the poet Oehlenschläger. The author states,—
"The entire avenue was strewn, according to the old Scandinavian custom, with evergreen boughs of fir, and bunches of fir and box, mingled in some instances with artificial flowers. It is customary at all funerals to strew evergreens before the door of the house where the body lies, but it is only for some very distinguished person indeed they are strewn all the way to the burial place."
Forby, in his East Anglican Vocabulary, says it is a superstitious notion that—
"If you bring yew into the house at Christmas amongst the evergreens used to dress it, you will have a death in the family before the end of the year."
I believe the yew will be found generally on the south side of the church, but always near the principal entrance, easy of access for the procession on Palm Sunday, and perhaps for funerals, and that it was used as a substitute for the palm, and coupled with "the willow from the brook," hence called the palm willow.
A Holt White.
P. S.—I cannot agree with your correspondent J. G. Cumming, that the yew is one of "our few evergreens." I doubt our having in England any native evergreen but the holly.
The etymology of the name of the yew-tree clearly shows that it was not planted in churchyards as an emblem of evil, but one of immortality. The name of the tree in Celtic is jubar, pronounced yewar, i. e. "the evergreen head." The town of Newry in Ireland took its name from two yew-trees which St. Patrick planted: A-Niubaride, pronounced A-Newery, i. e. "the yew-trees," which stood until Cromwell's time, when some soldiers ruthlessly cut them down.
In the Note by Mr. J. G. Cumming, a derivation is evidently required for the English word yeoman, which he suggests is taken from "yokeman." Yeoman is from eō, pronounced yo, i. e. free, worthy, respectable, as opposed to the terms villein, serf, &c.; so that yeoman means a freeman, a respectable person.
Fras. Crossley.
OSBORN FAMILY
(Vol. viii., p. 270.)
Mr. H. T. Griffith asks where may any pedigree of the Osborne family, previous to Edward Osborne, the ancestor of the Dukes of Leeds, be seen. In reply, I am in possession of large collections relating to the Norman Osbornes, from whom I have reasons to believe him to have been descended. Those Osbornes can be proved to have been settled in certain of the midland counties of England from the time of the attainder and downfall of the son of William Fitzosborne, Earl of Hereford and premier peer, down to a comparatively late period. A branch of them was possessed of the manor of Kelmarsh in Northamptonshire; and their pedigree, beginning in 1461, may be seen in Whalley's Northamptonshire: but this is necessarily very imperfect, on account of the author's want of access to documents which have subsequently been opened to the public.
I may here notice that an inexcusable error has been committed and repeated in several of the collections of records published by the Parliamentary Commission, who have, in numerous instances, and without any warrant, interpreted Osb. of the MSS. as "Osbert." Thus they have deprived Fitzosborne, Bishop of Exeter (A.D. 1102), of some of his manors, and within his own diocese, and conferred them on Osbert the Bishop, although there never was a bishop of that name in England. I took the liberty of pointing out this error to one of the chief editors concerned in these works; but as he has taken no notice of my observations, I must infer that he thinks it most prudent to excite no farther inquiry.
The Osborns, now so numerous in London, appear to have come from the Danish stem from which the Norman branch was originally derived. Their number, which has increased even beyond the ordinary ratio of the population, may perhaps be dated from the wife of one of them who (temp. Jac. I.) had twenty-four sons, and was interred in old St. Paul's.
I shall be very happy to afford any assistance in my power to the gentleman who has occasioned these remarks.
Omicron.
INSCRIPTIONS ON BELLS
(Vol. vi., p. 554.; Vol. vii., pp. 454. 603.; Vol. viii., pp. 108. 248.)
Many thanks are due to your correspondent Cuthbert Bede, B.A., for his interesting series of inscriptions on bells. The following are, I think, sufficiently curious to be added to your collection:—
Rouen Cathedral:
"In the steeple of the great church, in the citie of Roane in Normandy, is one great bell with the like inscription." [Like, that is, to the inscription at St. Stephen's, Westminster: see "N. & Q." Vol. viii., p. 108.]
"Je suis George de Ambois,
Qui trente-cinque mille pois;
Mes luis qui me pesera,
Trente-six mille me trouvera."
"I am George of Ambois,
Thirtie-five thousand in pois;
But he that shall weigh me,
Thirty-six thousand shall find me."
—Weever, Fun. Mon., edit. fol. 1631, p. 492.
St. Matthew, Great Milton, Oxfordshire:
1. "I as treble begin.
3. "I was third ring.
8. (Great bell) "I to church the living call, and to the grave do summons."
Inscription suggested as being suitable for six bells, in the Ecclesiologist (New Series), vol. i. p. 209.:
1. "Ave Pater, Rex, Creator:
2. Ave Fili, Lux, Salvator:
3. Ave Pax et Charitas.
4. Ave Simplex, Ave Trine;
5. Ave Regnans sine fine,
6. Ave Sancta Trinitas."
Inscriptions are often to be found in Lombardic characters, and on bells of great antiquity. Can any of your ecclesiological correspondents furnish me with the date of the earliest known example?
W. Sparrow Simpson.
On bells in Southrepps Church, Norfolk:
"Tuba ad Juditium. Campana ad Ecclesiam, 1641."
"Miserere mei Jhesus Nazarenus Rex Judæorum."
J. L. Sisson.
LADIES' ARMS BORNE IN A LOZENGE
(Vol. viii., pp. 37. 83. 277. 329.)
I broached a theory with a concluding remark that it would give me great pleasure to see one more reasonable take its place. I fear that, if all your readers anxious to clear up an obscure point in an interesting science take no more trouble than P. P., we shall find ourselves no nearer our object in the middle of your eightieth volume than we are now in your eighth.
What P. P. is pleased to term the "routine" reason is after all but one among many, and is not better substantiated than some of the others quoted by me; for though the lozenge has a "supposed" resemblance to the distaff or fusil, heraldically it is but a supposed one, and by most writers the difference is very distinctly indicated.
Boyer says:
"A fusil is a bearing in heraldry made in the form of a spindle, with its yarn or thread wound about it. Fusils are longer than lozenges, and taper or pointed at both ends."
The same author thus describes a lozenge:
"A Rhimbus, in geometry, is a figure of four equal and parallel sides, but not rectangular."
Robson says:
"Fusil, a kind of spindle used in spinning. Its formation should be particularly attended to, as few painters or engravers make a sufficient distinction between the fusil and lozenge."
Nisbet describes a lozenge to be—
"A figure that has equal sides and unequal angles, as the quarry of a glass window placed erect pointways."
He adds:
"The Latins say, 'Lozengæ factæ sunt ad modum lozangiorum in vitreis.' Heralds tell us that their use in armories came from the pavement of marble stones of churches, fine palaces and houses, cut after the form of lozenges, which pavings the French and Italians call loze and the Spaniards loza."
Sylvester de Petra-Sancta of the lozenge says much the same:
"Scutulas oxigonias scu acutangulus erectas, et quasi gradiles, referri debere ad latericias et antiquas domus olim, viz. Nobilium quia vulgus, et infamiæ sortis homines, intra humiles casus, vet antra inhabitantur."
Of the fusil Nisbet writes:
"The fusil is another Rhombular figure like the lozenge, but more long than broad, and its upper and lower points are more acute than the two side points."
He adds that:
"Chassanus and others make their sides round, as in his description of them: 'Fusæ sunt acutæ in superiore et inferiore partibus, et rotundæ ex utroque latere;' which description has occasioned some English heralds, when so painted or engraven, to call them millers' picks, as Sir John Boswell, in his Concords of Armory, and others, to call them weavers' shuttles."
Menestrier says of lozenges:
"Lozange est une figure de quatre pointes, dont deux sont un peu plus étendues que les autres, et assise sur une de ces pointes. C'est le Rhomb des mathématiciens, et les quarreaux des vitres ordinaires en ont la figure."
Of fusils:
"Fusées sont plus étendues en longue que les lozanges, et affilées en point comme les fuseaux. Elles sont pièces d'architecture où l'on se sert pour ornement de fusées et de pesons."
The celebrated Boke of St. Albans (1486) thus describes the difference between a lozenge and fusil:
"Knaw ye ye differans betwix ffusillis and losyng. Wherefore it is to be knaw that ffusillis ar euermore long, also fusyllis ar strattyr ouerwart in the baly then ar mascules. And mascules ar larger ou'wartt in the baly, and shorter in length than be fusyllis."
The mascle is afterwards explained to be the lozenge pierced. Again:
"And ye most take thys for a general enformacion and instruccion that certanli losyng eu'more stand upright … and so withowte dowte we have the differans of the foresayd signes, that is to wete of mascules and losynges."
Dallaway, an elegant writer on Heraldry, says:
"Of the lozenge the following extraordinary description is given in a MS. of Glover, 'Lozenga est pars vitri in vitrea fenestra.' But it may be more satisfactory to observe that the lozenge, with its diminutive, are given to females instead of an escocheon for the insertion of their armorial bearings, one of which is supposed to have been a cushion of that shape, and the other is evidently the spindle used in spinning; both demonstrative of the sedentary employments of women. On a very splendid brass for Eleanor, relict of Thomas of Woodstocke, who died 1384, she is delineated as resting her head upon two cushions, the upper of which is placed lozenge-wise."—P. 140.
The above is taken from his Miscellaneous Observations on Heraldic Ensigns, the following from the body of his great work:
"Females being heirs, or conveying feodal lordships to their husbands, had, as early as the thirteenth century, the privilege of armorial seals. The variations were progressive and frequent; at first the female effigy had the kirtle or inner garment emblazoned, or held the escocheon over her head, or in her right hand; then three escocheons met in the centre, or four were joined at their bases, if the alliance admitted of so many. Dimidiation, accollation, and impalement succeeded each other at short intervals. But the modern practice of placing the arms of females upon a lozenge appears to have originated about the middle of the fourteenth century, when we have an instance of five lozenges conjoined upon one seal; that of the heir female in the centre impaling the arms of her husband, and surrounded by those of her ancestors."—P. 400.
I think this quotation from so learned a writer goes far towards settling the whole question. I confess myself willing to have my theory placed second to this, while I must discard the "distaff" notion, unless better substantiated than by the French saying from their Salique law, which I here give for P. P.'s information: "Nunquam corona a lance transibit ad fusum." I am willing to admit the antiquity of this notion; for while the shape of the man's shield is traced by Sylvanus Morgan to Adam's spade, he takes the woman's from Eve's spindle!
"When Adam delved, and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?"
In Geoffry Chaucer's time the lozenge appears to have been an ornament worn by heralds in their dress or crown. In describing the habit of one, he says:
"They crowned were as kinges
With crowns wrought full of lozenges
And many ribbons and many fringes."
As for the difference between the lozenge and fusil, I could multiply opinions and examples, but hope those given will be sufficient.
I cannot conclude these few hasty remarks without expressing a wish that one of your correspondents in particular would take up this subject, to handle which in a masterly manner, his position is a guaranty of his ability. I refer to the gentleman holding the office of York Herald.
Broctuna.
Bury, Lancashire.
THE MYRTLE BEE
(Vol. viii., p. 173.)
From a very early period, and throughout life, I have been accustomed to shooting, and well remember the bird in question, but whether the term was local or general, I am unable to state, never having met with it save in one locality; and many years have elapsed since I saw one, although in the habit of frequenting the neighbourhood where it was originally to be seen. I attribute its disappearance to local causes. I met with it during a series of years, ending about twenty-five years since, at which period I lost sight of it. It was to be met with during the autumn and winter in bogs scattered over with bog myrtle, on Chobham and the adjacent common; I never met with it elsewhere. It is solitary. I am unacquainted with its food, and only in a single instance had I ever one in my hand. Its tongue is pointed, sharp, and appearing capable of penetration. Its colour throughout dusky light blue, slightly tinged with yellow about the vent. Tail about one inch, being rather long in proportion to the body, causing the wings to appear forward, with a miniature pheasant-like appearance as it flew, or rather darted, from bush to bush, with amazing quickness, its wings moving with rapidity, straight in its flight, keeping near the ground, appearing loth to wing, never passing an intervening bush if ever so near; and I never saw one fly over eight or ten yards, and never wing a second time, which induced our dogs (using a sporting phrase) to puzzle them, causing a belief that they were in most instances trodden under the water and grass in which the myrtle grew, and which nothing but a dog could approach. I never saw one sitting or light on a branch of the myrtle, but invariably flying from the base of one plant to that of another. I am not aware that any cabinet contains a preserved specimen, or that the bird has ever been noticed by any naturalist as a British or foreign bird.
Should W. R. D. S. covet farther information as to the probable cause of its disappearance, and my never having met with it elsewhere, perhaps he will favour me with his address. I cannot think the bird extinct.
C. Brown.
Egham, Surrey.
CAPTAIN JOHN DAVIS
(Vol. viii., p. 385.)
The earliest memoir of captain John Davis, the celebrated arctic navigator, is that given by the reverend John Prince in his Danmonii orientales illustres, or the worthies of Devon, Exeter, 1701, folio. It is, however, erroneous and defective in important particulars, and has misled some eminent writers, as Campbell, Eyriès, Barrow, &c.
Despite the assertions of master Prince, I question if captain Davis married a daughter of sir John Fulford; I am sure he was not the first pilot who conducted the Hollanders to the East-Indies; I am sure the journal of the voyage is not printed in Hakluyt; I am sure the narrative of his voyage with sir Edward Michelborne is neither dedicated to the earl of Essex nor printed in Hakluyt; I am sure he did not write the Rutter, or brief directions for sailing into the East-Indies; I am sure he wrote two works of which Prince says nothing; I am sure he did not make five voyages to the East-Indies; and I am sure, to omit other oversights, that he did not "return home safe again." To the latter point I shall now confine myself.
In 1604 king James, regardless of the charter held by the East-India company, granted a license to sir Edward Michelborne, one of his gentlemen-pensioners, to discover and trade with the "countries and domynions of Cathaia, China, Japan," &c. This license, preserved in the Rolls-chapel, is dated the twenty-fifth of June. On the fifth of December sir Edward set sail from Cowes with the Tiger, a ship of 240 tons, and a pinnace—captain Davis being, as I conceive, the second in command. In December 1605, being near the island of Bintang, they fell in with a junk of 70 tons, carrying ninety Japanese, most of them "in too gallant a habit for saylers:" in fact, they were pirates! The unfortunate result shall now be stated in the words of the pirate Michelborne:
"Vpon mutuall courtesies with gifts and feastings betweene vs, sometimes fiue and twentie or sixe and twentie of their chiefest came aboord: whereof I vould not suffer aboue sixe to have weapons. Their was neuer the like number of our men aboord their iunke. I willed captaine John Dauis in the morning [the twenty-seventh of December] to possesse himselfe of their weapons, and to put the companie before mast, and to leave some guard on their weapons, while they searched in the rice, doubting that by searching and finding that which would dislike them, they might suddenly set vpon my men, and put them to the sword: as the sequell prooued. Captaine Dauis being beguiled with their humble semblance, would not possesse himselfe of their weapons, though I sent twice of purpose from my shippe to will him to doe it. They passed all the day, my men searching in the rice, and they looking on: at the sunne-setting, after long search and nothing found, saue a little storax and beniamin: they seeing oportunitie, and talking to the rest of their companie which were in my ship, being neere to their iunke, they resolued, at a watch-word betweene them, to set vpon vs resolutely in both ships. This being concluded, they suddenly killed and droue ouer-boord, all my men that were in their ship; and those which were aboord my ship sallied out of my cabbin, where they were put, with such weapons as they had, finding certaine targets in my cabbin, and other things that they vsed as weapons. My selfe being aloft on the decke, knowing what was likely to follow, leapt into the waste, where, with the boate swaines, carpenter and some few more, wee kept them vnder the halfe-decke. At their first comming forth of the cabbin, they met captain Dauis comming out of the gun-roome, whom they pulled into the cabbin, and giuing him sixe or seuen mortall wounds, they thrust him out of the cabbin before them. His wounds were so mortall, that he dyed assoone as he came into the waste."—Purchas, i. 137.
Bolton Corney.
PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE
Clouds in Photographs.—I wish one of your photographic correspondents would inform me, how clouds can be put into photographs taken on paper? Mr. Buckle's photographs all contain clouds?
Σ.
"The Stereoscope considered in relation to the Philosophy of Binocular Vision" is the title of a small pamphlet written by a frequent contributor to this journal, Mr. C. Mansfield Ingleby, in which he has "attempted to sketch out such modifications of the theory of double vision as appear to him to be entailed on the rationale of the stereoscope." The corroboration thus indirectly afforded to the principles of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy of Perception has induced Mr. Ingleby to dedicate his word to that distinguished metaphysician. The essay will, we have no doubt, be perused with great interest by many of our photographic friends, for whose gratification we shall borrow its concluding paragraph.
"In conclusion we must not forget to acknowledge our obligations to the photographic art, not merely as one of the most suggestive results of natural science, but as a means of the widest and soundest utility. To antiquaries the services of photography have a unique value, for, by perpetuating in the form of negatives those monuments of nature and art which, though exempt from common accident, are still subject to gradual decay from time, it places in the hands of us all microscopically exact antitypes of objects which, from change or distance, are otherwise inaccessible. To the artist they afford the means of facilitating the otherwise laborious, and often mechanical, task of drawing in detail from nature and from the human figure.
"To the physician, to the naturalist, and to the man of science, the uses of photography are various and important, and already the discoveries which have been directly due to this modern art are of stupendous utility.
"To the metaphysician, its uses may be sufficiently gleaned from the applications considered in the preceding pages. But to all these classes of men the photographic art derives its chief glory from its application to the stereoscope; and if, for elucidating the principles of vision by means of this application, we have in any degree given a stimulus to the practice and improvement of the photographic processes, our pains have been happily and fruitfully bestowed."
Muller's Processes.—Would you inform me, through the medium of "N. & Q.," what manufacture of paper is best adapted to the two processes of Mr. Muller? I have tried several: with some I find that the combination of their starch with the iodide of iron causes a dark precipitate upon the face of the paper; and with those papers prepared with size, there appears to me great difficulty (in his improved process after the paper is moistened with aceto-nitrate of silver) to procure an equal distribution of the iodide over its surface, as it invariably dries or runs off parts of the paper, or is repelled by spots of size on the paper when dipped in the iodide of iron bath.—A reply to the foregoing question would greatly oblige
A Constant Reader.
Essex.
Positives on Glass.—Sometimes, when your sitter is gone, and you hold your portrait up to the light to examine its density, you find in the face and other parts which are dark, so viewed, minute transparent specks, scarcely bigger than a pin's point. When the picture is backed with black lacquer, you have consequently small black spots, which deform the positive, especially when viewed through a lens of short focus. A friend of mine cures this defect very easily. After having applied the amber varnish, he stops out the spots with a little oil-paint that matches the lights of the picture; of course the paint is put upon the varnished side of the glass. When the paint is dry, the black lacquer is carried over the whole as usual.
T. D. Eaton.
Norwich.
