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REPLIES

FRENCH POEM BY MALHERBE

The two stanzas your correspondent E.R.C.B. has cited (Vol. ii., p. 71.) are from an elegiac poem by MALHERBE (who died in 1628, at the good old age of seventy-three), which is entitled Consolation à Monsieur Du Perrier sur la Mort de sa Fille. It has always been a great favorite of mine; for, like Gray's Elegy and the celebrated Coplas of Jorge Manrique on the death of his father, beside its philosophic moralising strain, it has that pathetic character which makes its way at once to the heart. I will transcribe the first four stanzas for the sake of the beauty of the fourth:—

 
"Ta douleur, Du Perrier, sera done éternelle,
Et les tristes discours
Que te met en l'esprit l'amitié paternelle
L'augmenteront toujours.
 
 
"Le malheur de ta fille au tombeau descendue,
Par un commun trépas,
Est-ce quelque dédale, où ta raison perdue
Ne se retrouve pas?
 
 
"Je sai de quels appas son enfance estoit pleine;
Et n'ay pas entrepris,
Injurieux ami, de soulager ta peine
Avecque son mépris.
 
 
"Mais elles estoit du monde, où les plus belles choses
Ont le pire destin:
Et Rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses,
L'espace d'un matin."
 

The whole poem consists of twenty-one stanzas and should be read as a whole; but there are several other striking passages. The consolation the poet offers to his friend breathes the spirit of Epictetus:—

 
"De moy, déjà deux fois d'une pareille foudre
Je me suis vu perclus,
Et deux fois la raison m'a si bien fait resoudre,
Qu'il ne m'en souvient plus.
 
 
"Non qu'il ne me soit grief que la terre possède
Ce qui me fut si cher;
Mais en un accident qui n'a point de remède,
II n'en faut point chercher."
 

Then follow the two stanzas cited by your correspondent, and the closing verse is:—

 
"De murmurer contre-elle et perdre patience,
Il est mal-à-propos:
Vouloir ce que Dieu veut, est la seule science
Qui nous met en repos."
 

The stanza beginning "Le pauvre en sa cabane," is an admirable imitation of the "Pallida mors æquo pulsat pede," &c. of Horace, which a countryman of the poet is said to have less happily rendered "La pâle mort avec son pied de cheval," &c.

Malherbe has been duly appreciated in France: his works, in one edition, are accompanied by an elaborate comment by Menage and Chevreau: Racan wrote his life, and Godeau, Bishop of Vence, a panegyrical preface. He was a man of wit, and ready at an impromptu; yet it is said, that in writing a consolotary poem to the President de Verdun, on the death of his wife, he was so long in bringing his verses to that degree of perfection which satisfied his own fastidious taste, that the president was happily remarried, and the consolation not at all required.

Bishop Hurd, in a note on the Epistle to Augustus, p. 72., says:

"Malherbe was to the French pretty much what Horace had been to Latin poetry. These great writers had, each of them, rescued the lyric muse of their country out of the rude ungracious hands of their old poets. And, as their talents of a good ear, elegant judgment, and correct expression, were the same, they presented her to the public in all the air and grace, and yet severity, of beauty, of which her form was susceptible."

S.W. SINGER.

Mickleham, July 2. 1850.

"DIES IRÆ, DIES ILLA."

In reply to the first of Mr. SIMPSON's Queries (Vol. ii., p. 72.) relative to the magnificent sequence Dies iræ, I beg to say that the author of it is utterly unknown. The following references may be sufficient:—Card. Bona, Rer. Liturgic. lib. ii. cap. vi. p. 336., Romæ, 1671; or, if possible, Sala's edition, tom. iii. p 143., Aug. Turin. 1753; Gavantus, tom. i. pp. 274-5., Lugd. 1664; and the Additions by Merati, i. 117-18., Aug. Vindel, 1740; Zaccaria, Biblioth. Ritual. tom. i. p. 34., Romæ, 1776; Oldoini Addit. ad Ciaconii Vit. Pontiff. et Cardd., tom. ii. col. 222., Romæ, 1677.

Mr. SIMPSON's second question is, "In what book was it first printed?" Joannes de Palentia, in his notes upon the Ordinarium PP. Præd., asserts that this celebrated prose was first introduced into the Venice editions of the Missals printed for the Dominicans. The oldest Missale Prædicatorum which I possess, or have an opportunity of seeing, is a copy of the Parisian impression of the year 1519; and herein the Dies iræ is inserted in the Commemoratio Defunctorum; mens. Novemb. sig. M. 5.

An inquiry remains as to the date of the general adoption of this sequence by the Roman Church. In Quetif and Echard (Scriptt. Ord. Præd. i. 437.), under the name of Latinus Malabranca, we read that it certainly was not in use in the year 1255; and there does not appear to be the slightest evidence of its admission, even upon private authority, into the office for the dead anterior to the commencement of the fifteenth century.

Your correspondent was not mistaken in his belief that he had met with an imperfect transcript of this prose, for the original consists not of "twenty-seven," but of fifty-seven lines. I may add that I do not remember to have found the text more correctly given than in the beautiful folio missal of the church of Augsburg, partly printed on vellum in 1555 (fol. 466. b.).

R.G.

The Dies Iræ is truly said by Mr. SPARROW SIMPSON (Vol. ii., p. 72.) to be an extremely beautiful hymn. Who was its author is very doubtful, but the probabilities are in favour of Thomas de Celano, a Minorite friar, who lived during the second half of the fourteenth century. It consists of nineteen strophes, each having three lines. Bartholomew of Pisa, A.D. 1401, in his Liber Conformitatum, speaks of it; but the earliest printed book in which I have ever seen this hymn, is the Missale Romanum, printed at Pavia, A.D. 1491, in 8vo., a copy of which I have in my possession.

D. ROCK.

Buckland, Faringdon.

DR. SAMUEL OGDEN

In reply to your correspondent TWYFORD (Vol. ii., p. 73.), the original of the common surname Ogden is doubtless Oakden. A place so called is situated in Butterworth, Lancashire, and gave name to a family,—possibly extinct in the sixteenth century. A clergymam, whose name partook both of the original and its corruption, was vicar of Bradford, 1556, viz Dus Tho. Okden. The arms and crest borne by the Oakdens were both allusive to the name, certainly without any reference to King Charles's hiding-place.

Dr. Samuel Ogden, born in 1716 at Winchester, was the son of Thomas Ogden, a man of very humble origin: but he had the merit of giving a liberal education to one whose natural talents well deserved culture; and both his parents, in the decline of life, owed their support to Ogden's filial piety and affection. Cole is quite mistaken in fixing the father's residence at Mansfield, and in stating that he had been in the army. The monument, spoken of by Cole, is not at Mansfield, but in the cathedral of Manchester: nor is it a memorial of Dr. Ogden. It was placed by him in memory of his father. Ogden was buried in his own church, St. Sephlchre's, Cambridge.

The following epigram, it is believed, has not been printed. It is transcribed from a letter in my possession, addressed by the first Lord Alvanley, when at college, to his former tutor, Mr. Thyer, editor of Butler's Remains:—

 
"When Ogden his prosaic verse
In Latin numbers drest,
The Roman language prov'd too weak
To stand the Critic's test.
 
 
"To English Rhyme he next essay'd,
To show he'd some pretence;
But ah! Rhyme only would not do—
They still expected Sense.
 
 
"Enrag'd, the Doctor said he'd place
In Critics no reliance,
So wrapt his thoughts in Arabic,
And bad them all defiance."
 

J.H. MARKLAND.

Ogden Family (Vol. ii., p. 73.).—Perhaps the representatives of the late Thomas Ogden, Esq., and who was a private banker at Salisbury previous to 1810 (presuming he was a member of the family mentioned by your correspondent TWYFORD), might be able to furnish him with the information he seeks.

J.R. FOX.

Replies to Minor Queries

Porson's Imposition (Vol. i., p. 71.) is indeed, I believe, an imposition. The last line quoted (and I suppose all the rest) can hardly be Porson's, for Mr. Langton amused Johnson, Boswell, and a dinner party at General Oglethorpe's, on the 14th of April, 1778, with some macaronic Greek "by Joshua Barnes, in which are to be found such comical Anglo-hellenisms as [Greek: klubboisin ebagchthae] they were banged with clubs." Boswell's Johnson, last ed. p. 591.

C.

The Three Dukes (Vol. ii., pp. 9, 46, 91.).—Andrew Marvel thus makes mention of the outrage on the beadle in his letter to the Mayor of Hull, Feb. 28, 1671 (Works, i. 195.):—

"On Saturday night last, or rather Sunday morning, at two o'clock, some persons reported to be of great quality, together with other gentlemen, set upon the watch and killed a poor beadle, praying for his life upon his knees, with many wounds; warrants are out for apprehending some of them, but they are fled."

I am not aware of any contemporary authority for the names of the three dukes; and a difficulty in the way of assigning them by conjecture is, that in the poem they are called "three bastard dukes." Your correspondent C. has rightly said (p. 46.) that none of Charles II.'s bastard sons besides Monmouth would have been old enough in 1671 to be actors in such a fray. Sir Walter Scott, in his notes on Absalom and Achitophel, referring to the poem, gives the assault to Monmouth and some of his brothers; but he did so, probably, without considering dates, and on the strength of the words "three bastard dukes."

Mr. Lister, in the passage in his Life of Clarendon referred to by Mr. Cooper (p. 91.), gives no authority for his mention of Albemarle. I should like to know if Mr. Wade has any other authority than Mr. Lister for this statement in his useful compilation.

Were it certain that three dukes were engaged in this fray, and were we not restricted to "bastards," I should say that Monmouth, Albemarle, and Richmond (who married the beautiful Miss Stuart, and killed himself by drinking) would probably be the three culprits. As regards Albemarle, he might perhaps have been called bastard without immoderate use of libeller's licence.

If three dukes did murder the beadle, it is strange that their names have not been gibbeted in many of the diaries and letters which we have of that period. And this is the more strange, as this assault took place just after the attack on Sir John Coventry, which Monmouth instigated, and which had created so much excitement.

The question is not in itself of much importance; but I can suggest a mode in which it may possibly be settled. Let the royal pardons of 1671 be searched in the Rolls' Chapel, Chancery Lane. If the malefactors were pardoned by name, the three dukes may there turn up. Or if any of your readers is able to look through the Domestic Papers for February and March, 1671, in the State Paper Office, he would be likely to find there come information upon the subject.

Query. Is the doggerel poem in the State Poems Marvel's? Several poems which are ascribed to him are as bad in versification, and, I need not say, in coarseness.

Query 2. Is there any other authority for Queen Catharine's fondness for dancing than the following lines of the poem?

 
"See what mishaps dare e'en invade Whitehall,
This silly fellow's death puts off the ball,
And disappoints the Queen's foot, little Chuck;
I warrant 'twould have danced it like a duck."
 

CH.

Kant's Sämmtliche Werke.—Under the head of "Books and Odd Volumes" (Vol. ii., p. 59.), there is a Query respecting the XIth part of Kant's Sämmtliche Werke, to which I beg to reply that it was published at Leipzig, in two portions, in 1842. It consists of Kant's Letters, Posthumous Fragments, and Biography. The work was completed by a 12th vol., containing a history of the Kantian Philosophy, by Carl Rosenkranz, one of the editors of this edition of Kant.

J.M.

Becket's Mother (Vol. i., pp. 415. 490.; vol. ii., p. 78.).—Although the absence of any contemporaneous relation of this lady's romantic history may raise a reasonable doubt of its authenticity, it seems to derive indirect confirmation from the fact, that the hospital founded by Becket's sister shortly after his death, on the spot where he was born, part of which is now the Mercers' chapel in Cheapside, was called "The Hospital of St. Thomas the Martyr of Acon." Erasmus, also, in his Pilgrimages to Walsingham and Canterbury (see J.G. Nichol's excellent translation and notes, pp. 47. 120.), says that the archbishop was called "Thomas Acrensis."

Edward Foss.

"Imprest" and "Debenture."—Perhaps the following may be of some use to D.V.S. (Vol. ii., p. 40.) in his search for the verbal raw material out of which these words were manufactured.

Their origin may, I think, be found in the Latin terms used in the ancient accounts of persons officially employed by the crown to express transactions somewhat similar to those for which they appear to be now used. Persons conversant with those records must frequently have met with cases where money advanced, paid on account, or as earnest, was described as "de prestito" or "in prestitis." Ducange gives "præstare" and its derivatives as meaning "mutuo dare" with but little variation; but I think that too limited a sense. The practice of describing a document itself by the use of the material or operative parts expressing or defining the transaction for which it was employed, is very common. In legal and documentary proceedings, it is indeed the only one that is followed. Let D.V.S. run over and compare any of the well-known descriptions of writs, as habeas corpus, mandamus, fi. fa.: or look into Cowell's Interpreter, or a law dictionary, and he will see numerous cases where terms now known as the names of certain documents are merely the operative parts of Latin formulæ. "Imprest" seems to be a slightly corrupted translation of "in prestito;" that part of the instrument being thus made to give its name to the whole. Of "debenture" I think there is little doubt that it may be similarly explained. Those Record Offices which possess the ancient accounts and vouchers of officers of the royal household contain numerous "debentures" of the thirteenth, but far more of the fourteenth, century. In this case the initial is the chief operative word: those relating to the royal wardrobe, commencing "Debentur in garderoba domini regis," being in fact merely memorandums expressing or acknowledging that certain sums of money "are owing" for articles supplied for the use of that department. It is well known that the royal exchequer was, at the time these documents were executed, often in great straits; and it seems to me scarcely doubtful that these early "debentures" were actually delivered over to tradesmen, &c., as security for the amount due to them, and given in to be cancelled when the debts were discharged by the Exchequer officers.

There is a remarkable feature about these ancient "debentures" which I may perhaps be permitted to notice here, viz., the very beautiful seals of the officers of the royal household and wardrobe which are impressed upon them. They are of the somewhat rare description known as "appliqué;" and at a time when personal seals were at the highest state of artistic developement, those few seals of the clerks of the household which have escaped injury (to which they are particularly exposed) are unrivalled for their clearness of outline, design, delicacy, and beauty of execution.