Replies to Minor Queries.
Penkenol (Vol. v., p. 490.).—Head of a family or tribe, from the Celtic: see penkenedl, Welsh; ceanncinnidh, or cineal, Gaelic; of which ken-kenal is a Lowland corruption. The inference drawn from the three crescents (borne as a difference) almost explains the meaning of the word. Aubrey was a Welshman.
De Cameron.
Penkenol was probably written in error for pencenedl, the head of a sept or family. Pennant so uses the word in his Whiteford and Hollywell, p. 33. The Welsh pronunciation of dl as thl will point to an obvious Greek analogy, which Davies's Dictionary carries to an earlier source.
Lancastriensis.
Johnny Crapaud (Vol. v., pp. 439. 523.).—I cannot but think that the solution of Mr. Philip S. King's Query about "Johnny Crapaud" will be found in the circumstance that three frogs are the old arms of France, and I would refer him if he needs it, to the Rev. E. B. Elliott's Horæ Apocalypticæ, where the reasons for believing that such were the arms of France are fully given and illustrated by a plate, vol. iv. p. 64. ed. 1847. I may add that, for what reason I don't know, but perhaps Mr. Metivier does, the natives of Jersey are called crapauds by Guernsey men, who in return are honoured by the title of ânes, asses.
Perez.
Sir John Darnall (Vol. v., p. 489.).—Sir John Darnall, Serjeant-at-Law 1714, knighted 1724, died Sept. 5, 1731, and was buried at Petersham, leaving by Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Jenner, two daughters and coheirs: Mary the elder married in 1727 Robert Orde, Esq., Lord Chief Baron of Scotland; and Anne the younger married in 1728 Henry Muilman of London, Esq.,
whose only daughter and heir married John Julius Angerstein, Esq.
The above Sir John Darnall was the only surviving son of Sir John Darnall of the Inner Temple, King's Sergeant-at-law 1698, knighted at Kensington June 1, 1699, died in Essex Street 1706, and was buried in the chancel vault of St. Clement's Danes, co. Middlesex (see the English Post, Monday, Dec. 23, 1706). He was son of Ralph Darnall, of Loughton's Hope, co. Hereford, and his will was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury in Jan. 1707.
The arms assumed by Sir John Darnall, who died 1706, were—Gules on a pale argent, a lion rampant azure impaling Gules a boar passant.
G.
Bastides (Vol. v., pp. 150. 206.).—Dumas, in his Pictures of Travel in the South of France, says, that Louis XIV. while at Marseilles, observing the charming houses which surrounded the town, with their white walls, red tops, and green blinds, inquired by what name they were called in the language of the country: "They call them Bastides," replied Fostea de Piles. "Good!" says the King; "I will have a Bastide." He built a fort to check the Marseillaise.
Again, Tarver, in his Dictionary, has:
"Bastide, a small country house (this word is used in the south of France, in Provence especially.)"
Did Louis intend a pun between Bastide and Bastille?
E. H. B.
Demerary.
Compositions under the Protectorate (Vol. v., p. 68.).—Such is the name of a heading to one of your recent Notes; and such is the formula of the very common error that Dring's List, and the lists of his re-editors, represent the fines levied by Cromwell when he decimated the incomes (not the estates) of the Royalists, in consequence of Penruddock's rising. Dring's List has reference to the compositions during the years 1646-1648, when the fines were based on a totally different calculation. The error has arisen from Dring's catalogue having been published in 1655, the year after Penruddock's affair. I have compared a great number of the compositions as they are stated in the Lord's Journals, 1646, et seq., with Dring's account; and though there are discrepancies, their average resemblance is sufficient to show that they refer to one and the same affair. Indeed, any one acquainted with the actors in those events will see in a moment that Dring's List contains many who had repented of and acknowledged their "delinquency."
J. Waylen.
Hoax on Sir Walter Scott (Vol. v., p. 438.).—The reperusal of Mr. Drury's hoax upon Sir Walter reminds me of another, which having escaped the industry of, or been intentionally overlooked by Mr. Lockhart, may be appropriately noticed in your pages, as pleasantly showing that even "Anselmo's" black-letter sagacity might be deceived; and that, with the simple credulity of his own Monkbarns, he could mistake the "bit bourock of the mason-callants" for a Roman Pretorium.
I allude to a small stitchlet, or brochure, of five pages, entitled "The Raid of Featherstonehaugh: a Border Ballad." It was really written by Sir Walter's early friend, Mr. Robert Surtees of Mainsforth, author of the History of Durham, some of whose other impositions upon the poet were printed in the Border Minstrelsy, or inserted in notes to his Metrical Romances. Of this poem in particular, Sir Walter entertained so high an opinion, that he has incorporated a verse from it into Marmion, and given it entire in a note as a genuine relic of antiquity; gravely commenting upon it in the most elaborate manner, and pointing out its exemplifications of the then state of society. It will be found in Marmion, Canto I., verse 13.:
"The whiles a northern harper rude."
William Bates.
Birmingham.
Statute of Limitations abroad (Vol. iv., p. 256.).—In this colony, which is governed by the old Dutch law, the time at which prescription prevails is one-third of a century, but some Dutch authorities hold that thirty years is sufficient in personal actions. In Holland there were various charters respecting prescription, such as those of Alkmaar of 1254, Medemblik of 1288, Waterland of 1288, and others; these were cases of possession with the knowledge of the authorities. In Holland immovable property was acquired by prescription, without the knowledge of the authorities, in the third of a century. In Zealand it was twenty years. By the law of the Feudal Court, the period was a third of a century for any property; and in the territory of Voorn, from times of old, and classed among the laws of the year 1519, peaceable possession of any immovable property for thirty years was held good; but there was an exception in favour of minors and absentees.
E. H. B.
Demerary.
Lines on Crawfurd of Kilbirnie (Vol. v., p. 404.).—These lines are evidently merely an adaptation of the well-known epigram on Austria:
"Bella gerant alii—tu felix Austria nube,
Nam quæ Mars aliis dat tibi regna Venus."
S. L. P.
Swearing on a Skull (Vol. v., p. 485.).—In the "Historical Memoirs of the Clan M‘Gregor," prefixed to the Life of Rob Roy, by K. Macleay, M.D., Glasgow, 1818, is the following story:—On the arrival of Anne of Denmark in Scotland,
immediately after her marriage to James VI., the king ordered Lord Drummond of Perth, who was "principal forester of Glenartney," to provide venison for a feast. His deputy, Drummond of Drummondernoch, found in the forest some trespassers of clan Donald of Glenco, whose ears he cropped and let them go. The Macdonalds, however, returned with others of their clan, killed Drummond, and cut off his head. The atrocious acts of barbarism which followed need not be told here. They ultimately took the head with them, and proceeded to Balquhidder, among their friends the M‘Gregors, whose conduct is best described in the words of the king's proclamation against their clan, which, after denouncing the "manifest reifs, and stouths" committed by them, and the murder of Drummond, proceeds thus:
"Likeas after ye murther committed, ye authors yrof cutted aff ye said umqll Jo. Drummond's head, and carried the same to the Laird of M‘Gregor, who, and his haill surname of M‘Gregors, purposely conveined upon the next Sunday yrafter, at the kirk of Buchquhidder; qr they caused ye said umqll John's head be pnted to them, and yr avowing ye sd murder, laid yr hands upon the pow, and in Ethnic and barbarous manner, swear to defend ye authors of ye sd murder."
Henry G. Tomkins.
Weston super Mare.
Rhymes on Places (Vol. v., pp. 293. 374. 500.).—Roger Gale, in a letter dated August 17, 1739, states that he saw the following lines in a window at Belford (between Newcastle and Berwick):
"Cain, in disgrace with heaven, retired to Nod,
A place, undoubtedly, as far from God
As Cain could wish; which makes some think he went
As far as Scotland, ere he pitch'd his tent;
And there a city built of ancient fame,
Which he, from Eden, Edinburgh did name."
Reliquiæ Galeanæ, 67*
Charles Mathews, in a letter directed to his son at Mold N. W., dated 4th November [1825], says:
"Lord Deerhurst, who franked this letter, laughed at the idea of your being condemned to be at Mold, and told me an impromptu of Sheridan's, upon being compelled to spend a day or two there:
"'Were I to curse the man I hate
From youth till I grow old,
Oh might he be condemn'd by fate
To waste his days in Mold!'"
Memoirs of Charles Mathews, v. 504.
C. H. Cooper.
Cambridge.
The Silent Woman (Vol. v., p. 468.).—A very similar sign to this is one called "The Honest Lawyer," who is represented in exactly the same position as "The Silent Woman." The interpretation seems tolerably obvious in both cases, such a state being one in which the lady could not be otherwise than silent, nor the gentleman than honest.
S. L. P.
Oxford and Cambridge Club.
Serpent with a human Head (Vol. iv., pp. 191. 331.).—Perhaps the most ancient representations of this figure are to be found in those papyri of the ancient Egyptians, called the Ritual, or prayers of the dead, in which are depicted the progress or peregrination of the soul through the regions of the nether world, or Hades, to a future state of existence. Fac-similes of the Ritual have been published in Rosellini's Monumenti dell' Egitto, Dr. Lepsius's Todten-Buch, the plates of Lord Belmore's Collection of Hieroglyphic Monuments, and in the great French work entitled Description de l'Egypte. A similar form occurs also in several of the woodcuts inserted in the prose version, (printed at Paris by Antoine Verard in 1499) of Guillaume de Guileville's poem entitled Le Pélerinaige de l'Ame, a monastic legend of the fourteenth century, evidently founded on the old Egyptian belief. At the end of the pilgrimage represented in the Egyptian papyri, the soul is conducted by her guardian angel into the great Hall of Judgment, where the deeds done in the body are placed in the balance in the presence of Osiris, the judge of the assize, who passes sentence. A representation of the same scene became a favourite decoration in mediæval Christian churches, of which many vestiges have been discovered of late years in this country; with this difference, that in these fresco-paintings St. Michael was substituted, as judge of the tribunal, for Osiris. In the woodcuts above mentioned, published by Verard, the woman-headed serpent pursues the soul, like an accusing spirit, into the Hall of Judgment, seats herself even in one of the scales of the balance to counterpoise the good deeds placed in the opposite scale by the soul, telling her at the same time that her name is Sinderesis, or the WORM of Conscience. Thus, by a circuitous route, we arrive at the signification of the original Egyptian symbol.
Nhrsl.
Poem on the Burning of the Houses of Parliament (Vol. v., p. 488.).—As this doggerel is written on the same plan as our old friend "This is the House that Jack built," it will be sufficient to give the last paragraph, which of course embraces the whole. I copy from a newspaper cutting, but from what newspaper I am ignorant. It is printed consecutively (as I send it), and not with reference to the metre.
"This is the Peer, who in town being resident, signed the report for the absent Lord President, and said that the history, was cleared of its mystery, by Whitbread the waiter, adding his negatur, to that of John Riddle, who laugh'd and said 'Fiddle!' when told Mr. Cooper of Drury Lane, had been down to Dudley and back again, and had heard the same day, a bagman say, that the house was a-blazing, a thing quite amazing, even to John Snell, who knew very well, by the smoke and the heat, that was broiling his feet, through his great thick boots in the Black Rod's seat, that Dick Reynolds was right, that the fires were too bright, heaped up to such an unconscionable height, in spite of the fright, they gave poor Mistress Wright, when she sent to Josh. Cross, so full of his sauce, both to her and to Weobly, who'd heard so feebly, the directions of Phipps, when he told him the chips, might be burnt in the flues, yet never sent the news, as he ought to Milne, who'd have burnt in a kiln, these confounded old sticks, and not heated the bricks, nor set fire to the house that Josh. burnt."
Cranmore.
Large Families (Vol. v., pp. 204. 357.).—In a MS. commonplace-book of the year 1787 et seq., I find two notes which may be added to your curious collection of large families.
"In the church of Abberconway is a stone with this inscription: 'Here lyeth the body of Nichlas Hooker, who was the one and fortieth child of his father by Alice his only wife, and the father of seven and twenty children by one wife. He died the 20th of March, 1637.'"
The other entry is as follows:—
"The following well-attested fact is copied from Brand's History of Newcastle:—
"'A weaver in Scotland had by one wife (a Scotch-woman) sixty-two children, all living till they were baptized; of whom four daughters only lived to be women, and forty six sons attained to man's estate.'"
Anon.
The following instance of a large family by one woman is gravely related by Master Richard Verstegan, in his Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities, p. 3. edit. 1655; and which, it must be confessed, is enough to frighten any day labourer "out of his seven senses:"—
"There died in the city of Paris in the year of our Lord 1514, a woman named Yoland Baillie, at the age of eighty-eight years, and in the eighth year of her widowhood, who there lieth buried in the churchyard of St. Innocents; by whose epitaph it appeareth, that there were two hundred, fourscore and fifteen children issued from herself, while herself yet lived!"
J. Y.
Frebord (Vol. v., p. 440.).—Your correspondent P. M. M. desires information on this matter. He may be glad to know that, in the adjoining manor from whence I write, the claim is sixteen feet and a half from the set of the hedge; and this claim has been ever allowed, and is still enforced. It is supposed to depend on a right of free-warren which the manor in question possesses under a grant of Henry III. Is there any reason to believe that there is any connexion between frebord and free-warren? I have heard it explained as reserved for the use of the lord for the purpose of preserving the game.
Spes.
Milton's (?) Epitaph (Vol. v., p. 361.).—Your correspondent is possibly not acquainted with the Rev. Charles Wordsworth's very beautiful epitaph on his first wife. It is in the College Chapel at Winchester, and is remarkably similar in idea to the one he gives. The words are:
I nimiùm dilecta! vocat Deus: i bona nostræ
Pars animæ: mœrens altera disce sequi."
Both authors are doubtless indebted to Horace's—
"Ah! te meæ si partem animæ rapit
Maturior vis," &c.
S. L. P.
Oxford and Cambridge Club.
Can Bishops vacate their Sees? (Vol. iv., p. 293.)—As an instance of bishops vacating their sees I find in the account of Twysden's Hist. Anglicanæ Scrip. decem, that, speaking of the Epistle of Simeon Archbishop of York, it says, inter alia, "the names after Thurstan, who resigned A.D. 1139, must have been added," &c.
E. H. B.
Demerary.
Sleekstone, Meaning of (Vol. iii., p. 241.; Vol. iv., p. 394.; Vol. v., p. 140.).—I can confirm what R. C. H. says respecting this word, having had one in my possession. It was of glass, of the same shape as described by R. C. H., and was used for giving a gloss to silk stockings. It is called here (Demerary) a sleeking stone.
E. H. B.
Demerary.
Poems in the Spectator (Vol. v., p. 439.).—The three poems mentioned are unquestionably by Addison. Captain Thompson, in the Preface to his edition of Andrew Marvell's works in three vols. 4to., 1766, states that he found them in a manuscript collection of Marvell's poems; but the fact no doubt was, that the manuscript he refers to was a miscellaneous collection by different writers, and not by Marvell exclusively (see Preface, p. xiv.) Thus, "William and Margaret," Mallet's ballad, was found in the same manuscript, and is likewise ascribed by Capt. Thompson to Marvell, and with as little reason. Hartley Coleridge observes (Biog. Borealis, p. 64.) with respect to the three poems alluded to:
"As to their being Marvell's, it is just as probable that they are Chaucer's. They present neither his language, his versification, nor his cast of thought."
While on the subject of Marvell, let me express a hope that we may soon have a new and better edition of his works than the cumbrous but incorrect and incomplete edition published by Thompson. His admirable prose works deserve editing with care, and amongst them should be included the tract omitted in his works, but worthy of him in every respect, Remarks upon a late Disingenuous Discourse writ by one T. D. under the Pretence De Causa Dei, 1678, 8vo.; and which has now become exceedingly rare.
Jas. Crossley.
Line on Franklin (Vol. iv., 443.; Vol. v., p. 17.).—I have read, but do not remember where, that this line was immediately taken from one in the Anti-Lucretius of Cardinal Polignac:
"Eripuitque Jovi fulmen, Phœboque sagittas."
But it is obvious that the Cardinal must have, in turn, borrowed from Manilius.
J. S. Warden.
St. Christopher (Vol. v., p. 295.).—E. A. H. L., who asks "if there are any representations of St. Christopher in painted glass; and if so, where?" is informed that there is a picture of the Saint in a green vestment, painted on glass, in the window of the side chapel of King's Chapel, which is used as a vestry by the Conduct. The picture is on the internal, not the external window of the side chapel, in the western corner, upper compartment, about a foot in height.
F. H. L.
Lines on Woman (Vol. v., p. 490.).—The uxorious lines your correspondent J. T. is in search of, were written by Bird. They are copied from his "Poetical Memoirs" in Carey's Beauties of the Modern Poets, p. 284., London, 1826. From thence I extract them, and, by so doing, entitle myself to the good graces of the lady readers of "N. & Q."
"Oh, woman, woman! thou art formed to bless
The heart of restless man; to chase his care,
And charm existence by thy loveliness;
Bright as the sunbeam, as the morning fair,
If but thy foot fall on a wilderness,
Flowers spring, and shed their roseate blossoms there,
Shrouding the thorns that in thy pathway rise,
And scattering o'er it hues of paradise.
"Thy voice of love is music to the ear,
Soothing, and soft, and gentle as the stream
That strays 'mid summer flowers; thy glittering tear
Is mutely eloquent; thy smile a beam
Of life ineffable, so sweet, so dear,
It wakes the heart from sorrow's darkest dream,
Shedding a hallowed lustre o'er our fate,
And when it beams, we are not desolate.
"No, no! when woman smiles, we feel a charm
Thrown bright around us, binding us to earth;
Her tender accents, breathing forth the balm;
Of pure affection, give to transport birth;
There life's wide sea is billowless and calm.
Oh! lovely woman! thy consummate worth
Is far above thy frailty—far above
All earthly praise—thou art the light of love!"
Rt.
Warmington.
Burial (Vol. v., pp. 320. 404.).—Mr. Gatty says that a clergyman is inhibited from reading the burial service in unconsecrated ground. Is this so? Irregular as the practice would be, have not other irregularities equally glaring—baptisms, for instance—too often taken place in drawing-rooms? It might not be uninteresting, to have instances given of spots, not consecrated, which have been chosen for burial; as the individuals who selected them have possibly been marked by some peculiarities of character worthy of observation.
Baskerville, the celebrated printer, directed that he should be buried under a windmill near his garden; this direction proceeded, alas! from disbelief in Revelation. A few years previously (viz. in 1772) Mr. Hull, a bencher of the Inner Temple, was buried underneath Leith Hill Tower, in Surrey, which he had erected on that beautiful and commanding spot, shortly before his death.
In the Gentleman's Magazine of last month, we have a curious inscription on a monument, which once existed in a field or garden near Twickenham. Mrs. Joan Whitrow, to whom it was raised, though said to be "favoured with uncommon gifts," appears to have been very crazy.
Was not Mrs. Van Butchell, to whom Mr. Gatty refers, to be seen some years ago in her glass case in the College of Surgeons?
J. H. M.
Portrait of Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland (Vol. v., p. 490.).—There is a portrait of this nobleman in Petworth House, Sussex, representing him kneeling on a cushion before a low stand, on which is placed a missal, his hands joined as in prayer. Written on the canvas itself is the following, in capital letters:
"ESPERANCE—EN—DIEU
MA COMPHORT."
Again is written:
"Thomas, 7th Earl of Northumberland, Ætatis—suæ—38, Ano Dom. 1566, et Die Deco Juni."
This is copied word for word from the picture.
P. W.