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MISCELLANIES

Epigram by La Monnoye.—It has been ingeniously said, that "Life is an epigram, of which death is the point." Alas for human nature! good points are rare; and no wonder, according to this wicked, but witty,

EPIGRAM BY LA MONNOYE

The world of fools has such a store,
That he who would not see an ass,
Must bide at home, and bolt his door,
And break his looking glass.

S.W.S.

Mickleham, Dec. 10. 1849.

Spur Money.—Two or three years since, a party of sappers and miners was stationed at Peterborough, engaged in the trigonometrical survey, when the officer entered the cathedral with his spurs on, and was immediately beset by the choristers, who demanded money of him for treading the sacred floor with armed heels. Does any one know the origin of this singular custom? I inquired of some of the dignitaries of the Cathedral, but they were not aware even of its existence. The boys, however, have more tenacious memories, at least where their interest is concerned; but we must not look to them for the origin of a custom which appears to have long existed. In the Memorials of John Ray, published by the Ray Society, p. 131., there is the following entry in his second Itinerary:—

"July the 26th, 1661, we began our journey northwards from Cambridge, and that day, passing through Huntingdon and Stilton, we rode as far as Peterborough twenty-five miles. There I first heard the Cathedral service. The choristers made us pay money for coming into the choir with our spurs on."
East Winch.

[The following note from The Book of the Court will serve to illustrate the curious custom referred to by our correspondent:
"In The Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII. edited by Sir Harris Nicolas, there occur several entries of payments made to the choristers of Windsor 'in rewarde for the king's spurs'; which the editor supposes to mean 'money paid to redeem the king's spurs, which had become the fee of the choristers at Windsor, perhaps at installations, or at the annual celebration of St. George's feast.' No notice of the subject occurs in Ashmole's or Anstis's History of the Order of the Garter. Mr. Markland, quoting a note to Gifford's edition of Ben Jonson, vol. ii. p. 49., says, 'In the time of Ben Jonson, in consequence of the interruptions to Divine Service occasioned by the ringing of the spurs worn by persons walking and transacting business in cathedrals, and especially in St. Paul's, a small fine was imposed on them, called "spur-money," the exaction of which was committed to the beadles and singing-boys.' This practice, and to which, probably, the items in Henry's household-book bear reference, still obtains, or, at least, did till very lately, in the Chapel Royal and other choirs. Our informant himself claimed the penalty, in Westminster Abbey, from Dr. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and received from him an eighteenpenny bank token as the fine. He likewise claimed the penalty from the King of Hanover (then Duke of Cumberland), for entering the choir of the Abbey in his spurs. But His Royal Highness, who had been installed there, excused himself with great readiness, pleading 'his right to wear his spurs in that church, inasmuch as it was the place where they were first put on him!'—See further, European Mag., vol. iii. p. 16."]

MINIMUM DE MALIS

(From the Latin of Buchanan.)

Calenus owed a single pound, which yet
With all my dunning I could never get.
Tired of fair words, whose falsehood I foresaw,
I hied to Aulus, learned in the law.
He heard my story, bade me "Never fear,
There was no doubt—no case could be more clear:—
He'd do the needful in the proper place,
And give his best attention to the case."
And this he may have done—for it appears
To have been his business for the last ten years,
Though on his pains ten times ten pounds bestow'd
Have not regain'd that one Calenus owed.
Now, fearful lest this unproductive strife
Consume at once my fortune and my life,
I take the only course I can pursue,
And shun my debtor and my lawyer too.
I've no more hope from promises or laws,
And heartily renounce both debt and cause—
But if with either rogue I've more to do,
I'll surely choose my debtor of the two;
For though I credit not the lies he tells,
At least he gives me what the other sells.

Rufus.

Epigram on Louis XIV.—I find the following epigram among some old papers. The emperor would be Leopold I., the king Louis XIV.

Epigram by the Emperor, 1666, and the King of France

Bella fugis, sequeris bellas, pugnæque repugnas,
Et bellatori sunt tibi bella tori.
Imbelles imbellis amas, totusque videris
Mars ad opus Veneris, Martis ad arma Venus.

J.H.L.

Macaulay's Young Levite.—I met, the other day with a rather curious confirmation of a passage in Macaulay's History of England, which has been more assailed perhaps than any other.

In his character of the clergy, Macaulay says, they frequently married domestics and retainers of great houses—a statement which has grievously excited the wrath of Mr. Babington and other champions. In a little book, once very popular, first published in 1628, with the title Microcosmographie, or a Piece of the World discovered, and which is known to have been written by John Earle, after the Restoration Bishop of Worcester and then of Salisbury, is the following passage. It occurs in what the author calls a character of "a young raw preacher."

"You shall know him by his narrow velvet cape and serge facing, and his ruffe, next his hire, the shortest thing about him.... His friends, and much painefulnesse, may preferre him to thirtie pounds a yeere, and this meanes, to a chamber-maide: with whom we leave him now in the bonds of wedlocke. Next Sunday you shall have him againe."

The same little book contains many very curious and valuable illustrations of contemporary manners, especially in the universities.

That the usage Macaulay refers to was not uncommon, we find from a passage in the Woman-Hater, by Beaumont and Fletcher (1607), Act III. Sc. 3.

Lazarillo says,

"Farewell ye courtly chaplains that be there!
All good attend you! May you never more
Marry your patron's lady's waiting-woman!"

I.T.

Trin. Coll. Camb., March 16. 1850.

St. Martin's Lane.—The first building leases of St. Martin's Lane and the adjacent courts accidentally came under my notice lately. They are dated in 1635 and 1636, and were granted by the then Earl of Bedford.

Arun.

CHARLES DEERING, M.D

"Author of the Catalogue of Plants in the neighbourhood of Nottingham. 'Catalogus Stirpium, &c., or a Catalogue of Plants naturally growing and commonly cultivated in divers parts of England, and especially about Nottingham,' 8vo. Nottingh. 1738.

"He was in the suite of the English ambassador to Russia, returned and practised physic in London married unfortunately, buried his wife, and then went to Nottingham, where he lived several years. During his abode there he wrote a small Treatise on the Small Pocks, this Catalogue of Plants, and the History of Nottingham, the materials for which John Plumtre, Esq. of Nottingham, was so obliging as to assist him with. He also was paid 40l. by a London bookseller for adding 20,000 words to an English dictionary. He was master of seven languages, and in 1746 he was favoured with a commission in the Nottinghamshire Foot, raised at that time. Soon after died, and was buried in St. Peter's Churchyard.

"William Ayscough, father of the printer of this Catalogus Stirpium (G. Ayscough), in 1710, first introduced the art of printing at Nottingham.

"Mr. White was the same year the first printer at Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and Mr. Dicey at Northampton."—MS. Note in the Copy of the Cat. Stirpium, in the Library of the British Museum.

MISCELLANEOUS

NOTES ON BOOKS, CATALOGUES, SALES, ETC

Our advertising columns already show some of the good results of the Exhibition of the Works of Ancient and Mediæval Art. Mr. Williams announced last week his Historic Reliques, to be etched by himself. Mr. Cundall has issued proposals for Choice Examples of Art Workmanship; and, lastly, we hear that an Illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition, prepared by Mr. Franks, the zealous Honorary Secretary of the Committee, and so arranged as to form a History of Art, may be expected. We mention these for the purpose of inviting our friends to contribute to the several editors such information as they may think likely to increase the value of the respective works.

The second edition of our able correspondent, Mr. Peter Cunningham's Handbook of London, is on the eve of publication.

There are few of our readers but will be glad to learn from the announcement in a previous column, that the edition of the Wickliffite Versions of the Scriptures, upon which Sir Frederick Madden and his fellow labourers have been engaged for a period of twenty years, is just completed. It forms, we believe, three quarto volumes.

Messrs. Puttick and Simpson lately disposed of a most select and interesting collection of autograph letters. We unfortunately did not receive the catalogue in time to notice it, which we the more regret, because, like all their catalogues of autographs, it was drawn up with amateur-like intelligence and care; so as to make it worth preserving as a valuable record of materials for our history and biography.

We have received the following Catalogues of Books:—No. XXV. of Thomas Cole's (15. Great Turnstile): No. 2. for 1850, of William Heath's (29½ Lincoln's Inn Fields); and No. 15. of Bernard Quarritch's (16. Castle Street, Leicester Square) Catalogue of Oriental and Foreign Books.