Читать книгу: «Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851», страница 6

LADY JANE OF WESTMORELAND

(Vol. i., p. 103.; Vol. ii., p. 485.)

Jane, Countess of Henry Neville, fifth Earl of Westmoreland, was daughter of Sir Roger Cholmley, of Kinthorpe and Roxby, co. York. (Vis. York. Harl. MS. 1487. fol. 354.) She is often confused with his other wife, Anne Manners, and also with her own sister, Margaret Gascoigne, both in the Neville and Cholmley pedigrees as printed. (Burke's Extinct Baronetage, art. Cholmley, and Extinct Peerage, art. Neville.) But while the Manners pedigree in Collins's Peerage (by Longmate, vol. i. p. 433.), as cited by Q. D., removes the former difficulty, that of Gascoigne is disposed of by the Cholmley pedigree in Harl. MS. above quoted, as well as by that (though otherwise very incorrect) in Charlton's Whitby, book iii. pp. 290, 291. 313., and by the Gascoigne pedigree in Whitaker's Richmondshire, vol. i. p. 77. Thus we possess legal and cotemporary evidence who Jane, Countess of Henry, fifth Earl of Westmoreland, really was, without any authentic obstacle or unremoveable contradiction to its reception, viz. that she was a Cholmley.

But I conceive your correspondent's identification is totally erroneous. It is true he only puts an hypothesis on the subject; but this hypothesis has no solid foundation. In the first place, Henry, fifth Earl of Westmoreland, died in 1549; and all authorities seem to agree that his first wife was Anne Manners, and his second Cholmley's daughter. Thus, if either of his countesses were living in 1585, it must have been the latter, by which means all chance of appropriation is removed from Manners to Cholmley. But I shall now give reasons for contending that neither of these ladies was your correspondent's Countess of Westmoreland, by referring him (2ndly) to Longmate's Collins's Peerage, vol. i. p. 96., where he will find that Jane, daughter of Henry Howard, the talented and accomplished Earl of Surry, married Charles Neville, sixth Earl of Westmoreland. He has evidently passed her over, through seeing her called Anne in the Neville pedigrees: "Anne" and "Jane" being often mutually misread in old writing, from the cross upon the initial letter of the last name.

I offer it to your correspondent's consideration, whether his "Jane, Countess of Westmoreland," was not wife of the said Charles Neville, sixth Earl of Westmoreland, who was attainted 18 Eliz. (1575-6). His date is evidently most favourable to this view. It is true the attainder stands in the way; but if even this affords an obstacle, the next candidate for appropriation would be Jane Cholmley. Assuming, however, that your correspondent allows this lady as a candidate for the appropriation, her pedigree corroborates the claim. I have found, by long and minute observation, that hereditary talent, &c. usually descends by the mesmeric tie of affection and favoritism, from fathers to the eldest daughter, and from mothers to the eldest son; and the pedigree of Jane, Countess of Charles, sixth Earl of Westmoreland, stands thus:—

 
Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham; great,
good, and accomplished, and fell a victim to envy.
=
|
|
1st Dau. Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Howard, third
Duke of Norfolk.
=
|
|
1st Son. Henry Howard, Earl of Surry, the poet;
great, good, and accomplished, and fell a victim to
envy
= as physical heir of his mat. grandfather.
|
|
1st Dau. Jane, wife of Charles Neville, sixth Earl of
Westmoreland (and qu. the authoress in question?).
 

Besides being eldest daughter of the celebrated poet, the said Jane, Countess of Westmoreland, was sister of Henry Howard, the learned Earl of Northampton, her father's younger son—(some younger son, like eldest daughters, generally inheriting, physically, in some prominent feature, from the father).

William D'Oyly Bayley.

Replies to Minor Queries

Ulm Manuscript (Vol. iii., pp. 60. 191.).—In addition to the information supplied by Mr. Foss, it may be mentioned that this manuscript is so called from having been referred to by Griesbach as the Codex Ulmensis apud Gerbert. This takes us to the Iter Alemannicum, Italicum et Gallicum of Martin Gerbert, published in 1765, at p. 192. of which work he informs us, that in the year 1760 this manuscript was preserved at Ulm in the library of the family of Krafft, which consisted of 6000 volumes, printed and manuscript. Of its history from this period till it came into Bishop Butler's hands, I am ignorant. Its reference at present in the British Museum is MSS. Add. 11,852.

μ.

Father Maximilian Hell (Vol. iii., p. 167.).—A querist is in conscience bound to be a respondent; I therefore hasten to tell you that Dr. Watt (Biblioth. Britan. iv. Magnetism, animal) should have written Hell instead of Hehl. It was that eminent astronomer, Maximilian Hell, who supposed that magnets affected the human frame, and, at first, approved of Mesmer's views. The latter was at Vienna in 1774; and perhaps got some parts of his theory from Father Hell, of whom he was afterwards jealous, and therefore very abusive. The life of Hell in Dr. Aikin's General Biography is an unsatisfactory compilation drawn up by Mr. W. Johnston, to whom we are indebted for the current barbarism so-called. In that account there is not one word on Hell's Treatise on Artificial Magnets, Vienna, 1763; in which the germ of animal magnetism may probably be found.

Engastrimythus.

Meaning of "strained" as used by Shakspeare (Vol. iii., p. 185.).—The context of the passage quoted by L. S. explains the sense in which Shakspeare used the word "strain'd:"

 
"Portia. Then must the Jew be merciful.
Shylock. On what compulsion must I? tell me that.
Portia. The quality of mercy is not strain'd," &c.
 

that is, there is nothing forced, nothing of compulsion in the quality of mercy.

Johnson gives: "To strain, to force, to constrain."

Q. D.

L. S. will find his difficulty solved by Johnson's Dictionary (a work to which he himself refers), if he compares the following quotation with Portia's reply to Shylock:—

 
"He talks and plays with Fatima, but his mirth
Is forced and strained," &c.
 

Egduf.

[We have also to thank, for replying to this Query, our correspondents R. F., R. T. G. H., P. K., J. H. Kershaw, C. M., Y., E. N. W., C. D. Lamont, and also Mr. Snow, who remarks that "actresses rarely commence this speech satisfactorily, or give, or seem to feel, the point of contrast between the must and no must, the compulsion and no compulsion. In fact, the whole of it is usually mouthed out, without much reference to Shylock or the play, as if it had been learned by rote from a school speech-book. Hazlitt says, in his Characters of Shakspeare's Plays, 'The speech about mercy is very well, but there are a thousand finer ones in Shakspeare.'"]

Headings of Chapters in English Bibles (Vol. iii., p. 141.).—The summaries of the contents of each chapter, as found in the authorised editions of our English Bible, were prefixed by Miles Smith, bishop of Gloucester, one of the original translators, who also wrote the preface, and, in conjunction with Bishop Bilson, finally reviewed the whole work. Your correspondent will find full answers to his other queries in Stackhouse and Tomlins; in Johnson's History of English Translations, &c.; and in T. H. Horne's Introduction.

Cowgill.

Miscellaneous

NOTES ON BOOKS, SALES, CATALOGUES, ETC

The author of The History of the Church of Rome to the end of the Episcopate of Damasus, A.D. 384, which has just been published by Messrs. Longman, well remarks, "that he is not aware that there is any account of the Church of Rome, framed on the simple and obvious principle of merely collecting and arranging the testimony of history with regard to facts, and so presented to the reader as that he should leave a right to believe that when he has read what is before him, he has learnt all that is to known. This is strange, considering the points at issue, and the extent, duration, and intensity of the controversies which have been carried on between that Church and the rest of Christendom." It is indeed strange, and it happens fortunately, looking at the all-important question which now agitates the public mind, that the subject should have engaged for some years the attention of a learned, acute, and laborious scholar like Mr. Shepherd, so that he is enabled to put forth the result of his inquiries upon this interesting topic at this moment. Mr. Shepherd's book is indeed a startling one: and when we tell our readers that he "has proved, or, to say the least, has given such indications as will lead to the proof that some documents which have been quoted as authorities in the History of the Early Christian Church, are neither genuine nor authentic;" that he has pretty well resolved St. Cyprian into a purely mythic personage; and shown that all the letters in his works passed between imagined or imaginary correspondents,—we think we are justified in pronouncing his History of the Church of Rome a work calculated to excite the deepest interest in all who peruse it (and by the omission of all long quotations in the learned languages, it is adapted for the perusal of all), to exercise great influence on the public mind, and to awaken a host of endeavours to combat and overthrow arguments which appear to us, however, to be irresistible.

The Council of the Shakspeare Society has just issued to the members the first volume for the present year. It contains Two Historical Plays on the Life and Reign of Queen Elizabeth, by Thomas Heywood, which are very ably edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Mr. Collier; and we have no doubt will be very acceptable; first, from the interest of the plays themselves, the second of which appears to have been extremely popular; and, lastly, as a further instalment towards a complete collection of Heywood's dramatic works.

Messrs. Sotheby and Wilkinson will sell on Tuesday and Wednesday next a valuable portion of the Library of a gentleman, including the late Charles Mathews' copy of the Second Shakspeare; a valuable series of works on Annuities, &c.; and another on the History and Antiquities of London.

Books Received.—Supplement on the Doctrine and Discipline of the Greek Church. We characterised Mr. Appleyard's interesting little volume, entitled, The Greek Church, as historical rather than doctrinal. The title of this Supplement shows that it expressly supplies the very material in which the original work was deficient.—Archæologia Cambrensis, New Series, No. VI. A very good number of this record of the Antiquities of Wales and its Marches, and in which are commenced two series of papers of great interest to the Principality: one on the Architectural Antiquities of Monmouthshire, by Mr. Freeman; the other on the Poems of Taliessin, by Mr. Stephens.

Catalogues Received.—W. Brown's (46. High Holborn) Catalogue Part 52. of Valuable Second-hand Books, Ancient and Modern;—Cole's (15. Great Turnstile, Holborn) List No. 33. of very Cheap Books; B. Quaritch's (16. Castle Street, Leicester Square) Catalogue No. 27. of Antiquarian, Historical, Heraldic, Numismatic, and Topographical Books; Charles Skeet's (21. King William Street, Strand) List No. 2. of Miscellaneous Books just purchased.