Replies to Minor Queries.
Portrait of Pope (Vol. vii., p. 180.).—I cannot at this movement reply to Mr. J. Knight's Query, but perhaps can correct an error in it. There was no White of Derby; but Edward[[9]] Wright of that city, was an artist of high repute. And I have in my possession a portrait of Pope done by him. On the back of this portrait is the following inscription:
"Edward Wright, the painter of this picture, was an intimate friend of Mr. Richardson, and obtained leave from him to copy the portrait of Mr. Pope; which Mr. R. was then painting, and had nearly finished. When the outline was sketched out by E. Wright, he happened to meet Mr. Pope at dinner, and on mentioning to him how he was employed, Mr. Pope said: 'Why should you take a copy, when the original is at your service? I will come and sit to you.' He did so, and this picture was finished from Mr. Pope himself. This account I had from the late William Wright, Esq., my honoured uncle, who had the picture from the painter himself. At Mr. Wright's death, it came to his widow, who gave it to my brother[[10]]; at whose decease, it came to me.
"William Falconer, M.D., F.R.S.
"Bath, March 21, 1803."
The size of the picture is two feet five inches and a quarter by two feet one-eighth of an inch. It is a profile. It has never been engraved, and is in good condition.
R. W. F.
Bath.
Footnote 9:[(return)]
[Joseph was the Christian name of the celebrated painter usually styled Wright of Derby.—Ed.]
Thomas Falconer, Esq., of Chester.
Conundrum (Vol. vi., p. 602.).—Though I cannot answer the Query of Rufus, as to the manner in which the species of conundrum communicated by him may be designated, I beg to inclose an answer to it, thinking you might perhaps deem it worthy of insertion:
Cold, sinful, sorrowful, this earth,
And all who seek in it their rest;
But though such mother gives us birth,
Let us not call ourselves unblest.
Though weak and earthly be our frame,
Within it dwells a nobler part;
A holy, heavenly, living flame
Pervades and purifies the heart.
To loving, glowing hearts in joy,
Shall not our hearths and homes abound?
May not glad praise our lips employ,
And, though on earth, half heaven be found?
E. H. G.
Herbé's "Costumes Français" (Vol. vii., p. 182.).—In answer to the Query by Pictor, Mr. Philip Darell begs to state, that in the library at Calehill there is a copy of M. Herbé's book. It is the last edition (Paris, 1840), and purports to be "augmentée d'un examen critique et des preuves positives," &c. It begins by owning to certain errors in the former edition; in consequence of which M. Herbé had travelled through all France to obtain the means of correcting them in various localities.
P. D.
Calehill, Kent.
Curious Fact in Natural Philosophy (Vol. vii., p. 206.).—In Young's Natural Philosophy it is said, that if the cup of a barometer is placed in a vessel somewhat larger than the cup, so contrived that the tube of the barometer may fit air-tight in the top of the vessel, and if two holes are made in the vessel on opposite sides, a current of air driven in at one hole will cause the mercury to fall. Is not the case of the cards analogous to this? and might not the cause be, that the current of air carries away with it some of that contained between the cards, and so that the air is sufficiently rarefied to cause a pressure upwards greater than that caused by the current downwards, and the effect of gravity? Might not the sudden fall of the barometer before storms be from a cause similar in some degree to this?
A. B. C.
Oxford.
"Haud cum Jesu itis, qui itis cum Jesuitis."—In "N. & Q." for Feb. 7, 1852, a correspondent, L. H. J. T., asks for some clue to the above. Last March a friend of mine purchased in Paris, at a book-stall on the Quai D'Orsay, a manuscript book, very beautifully written, and in the old binding of the time, which appears to be the transcript of a printed volume. Its title is Le Jésuit sécularisé. A Cologne: chez Jacques Milebram. 1683.
It is a dialogue between "Dorval, abbé et docteur en the, et Maimbourg, Jésuit sécularisé;" and at the end (p. 197.) is a long Latin ballad, entitled "Canticum Jesuiticum," filling eight small 8vo. pages, the opening stanza of which is
"Opulentas civitates
Ubi sunt commoditates
Semper quærunt isti patres."
And the conclusion of the whole is, in effect, the line of which your correspondent speaks:
"Vita namque Christiana
Abhorret ab hâc doctrinâ
Tanquam fictâ et insanâ.
Ergo
Vos qui cum Jesu itis,
Non ite cum Jesuitis."
I should be glad to be certified by any of your correspondents of the actual existence of the printed volume, which probably was sought for and destroyed by the authorities on account of its pestilent contents.
C. H. H.
Westdean, Sussex.
Tradescant Family (Vol. iii., p. 393.).—In further illustration of this subject, and for the information of your correspondents who have taken an interest in the restoration of the tomb in Lambeth churchyard, I beg through you to say that I have found the will of the grandsire, "John Tradescant, of South Lambeth, co. Surrey, Gardener:" it is dated January 8, 1637, and proved May 2, 1638, so that the period of his death may be fairly placed in that year, as suggested by Mr. Pinkerton's extracts from the churchwardens' accounts (Vol. iii., p. 394.); and the defect in the parish register for some months following July, 1637, will account for no entry being found of his actual burial. The younger Tradescant was his only child, and at the date of the will he had two grandchildren, John and Frances Tradescant. His son was the residuary legatee, with a proviso, that if he should desire to part with or sell his cabinet, he should first offer the same to the Prince. His brother-in-law, Alexander Norman, and Mr. William Ward, were the executors, and proved the will. As Mr. Pinkerton stated that he was on the trace of new and curious matter respecting the Tradescants, he may find it useful to know that John Tradescant the elder held the lease of some property at Woodham Water in Essex, and two houses in Long Acre and Covent Garden.
G.
Arms of Joan d'Arc (Vol. vii., p. 210.).—I believe I can answer the inquiry of Bend. The family of Joan d'Arc was ennobled by Charles VII. in December, 1429, with a grant of the following magnificent armorial coat, viz. Azure, between two fleurs-de-lys, or, a sword in pale, point upwards (the hilt or the blade argent), in chief, on the sword's point, an open crown, fleur-de-lysé, or.
In consequence of the proud distinction thus granted, of bearing for their arms the fleur-de-lys of France, the family assumed the name of Du Lys d'Arc, which their descendants continued to bear, until (as was supposed) the line became extinct in the last century, in the person of Coulombe du Lys, Prior of Coutras, who died in 1760; but the fact is, that the family still exists in this country in the descendants of a Count Du Lys, who settled in Hampshire as a refugee at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (he having embraced the Protestant religion). His eldest male descendant, and (as I believe) the representative of the ancient and noble family of Du Lys d'Arc, derived from a brother of the Maid of Orleans, is a most worthy friend and neighbour of mine, the Rev. J. T. Lys, Fellow of Exeter College, whose ancestors, since the period of their settlement in England, thought proper to drop the foreign title, and to curtail their name to its present form.
W. Sneyd.
Denton.
Judæus Odor (Vol. vii., p. 207.).—The lines are to be found in the London Magazine, May, 1820, p. 504.:
"Even the notion, which is not yet entirely extinct among the vulgar (though Sir T. Browne satisfactorily refuted it by abundant arguments deduced from reason and experience)—the notion that they have a peculiar and disagreeable smell, is, perhaps, older than he imagined. Venantius, a bishop of Poictiers, in the sixth century, who holds a place in every corpus poetarum, says:
'Abluitur Judæus odor baptismate divo,
Et nova progenies reddita surgit aquis.
Vincens ambrosios suavi spiramine rores,
Vertice perfuso, chrismatis efflat odor.'
Venant. Poemat., lib. 4. xx.
"'Cosa maravigliosa,' says an Italian author, 'che ricevuto il santo Battesimo, non puzzano più.'"
I believe the reference "lib. 4. xx." is inaccurate. At least I have not succeeded in finding the lines. That may be an excusable mistake: not so the citing "an Italian author," instead of giving his name, or saying that the writer had forgotten it.
The power of baptism over the Judæus odor is spoken of familiarly in the Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum:
"Nuper quando unus dixit mihi quod non credit, quod Pfefferkorn adhuc est bonus Christianus: quia dixit quod vidit eum ante unum annum, et adhuc fœtebat sicut alius Judæus, et tamen dicunt communiter, quod quando Judæi baptizantur, non amplius fœtent; ergo credit quod Pfefferkorn habet adhuc nequam post aures. Et quando Theologi credunt quod est optimus Christianus, tunc erit iterum Judæus, et fides non est ei danda, quia omnes homines habent malam suspicionem de Judæis baptizatis. . . . Sed respondeo vobis ad illam objectum: Vos dicitis quod Pfefferkorn fœtet. Posito casu, quod est verum, sicut non credo, neque unquam intellexi, dico quod est alia causa hujus fœtoris. Quia Johannes Pfefferkorn, quando fuit Judæus, fuit macellarius, et macellarii communiter etiam fœtent: tunc omnes qui audierunt, dixerunt quod est bona ratio."—Ed. Münch: Leipzig, 1827, p. 209.
A modern instance of belief in the "odor" is in, but cannot decently be quoted from, The Stage, a Poem, by John Brown, p 22.: London, 1819.
H. B. C.
U. U. Club.
Philip d'Auvergne (Vol. vii., p. 236.).—This cadet of a Jersey family, whose capture, when a lieutenant in our royal navy, led to his being in Paris as a prisoner on parole, and thereby eventually to his adoption by the last Prince of Bouillon, was a person of too much notoriety to make it necessary to tell the tale of his various fortunes in your columns; of his imprisonment in the Bastile, and subsequently for a short period in the Temple; his residence at Mont Orgueil Castle in Jersey, for the purpose of managing communications with royalists or other agents, on the opposite French coast; or the dates of his successive commissions in the navy, in which he got upon the list of rear-admirals in 1805, and was a vice-admiral of the blue in 1810.
I have not access at present to any list of the Lives of Public Characters, but think I can recollect that there was an account given of him in that publication; and there can be no doubt but that any necrology, of the date of his death, would contain details at some length.
I suspect there is mistake in Brooke's Gazetteer, as quoted by E. H. A., for I feel rather confident that the reigning duke had no son living when he made over the succession to one whom he did not know to be a relation, though bearing the family name.
As, however, this adopted representative of the Dukes De Bouillon has been mentioned, it may be a fit occasion to ask if any of your Jersey readers can tell what became, at his death, of a beautifully preserved and illuminated French translation of the Scriptures, which he showed to your correspondent in 1814, as having been the gift of the Black Prince's captive, King John of France, to the Duc De Berri, his son, from whom it had passed into the possession of the Ducs De Bouillon. His highness (for the concession of this style was still a result of his dukedom) said, that he had lent this Bible for a while to the British Antiquarian Society, which had engraved some costumes and figures from the vignettes which adorned the initials of chapters.
H. W.
Dr. Parr's A. E. A. O. (Vol. vii., p. 156.).—The learned doctor indulged in boundless exultation at the unavailing efforts of mankind to give significancy to the above cabalistical combination of vowels. The combination was formed in the following, manner:—S[a]muel P[a]rr engaged his friend H[e]nry H[o]mer to assist him in correcting the press; and so he took the "A. E." of their Christian names, and the "A. O." of their surnames, to form a puzzle which, like many other puzzles, is scarcely worth solution.
Œdipus.
Jewish Lineaments (Vol. vi., p. 362.).—Is this Query put in reference to the individual or the race? In either case the lineaments would wear out. In the first, intermarriage would soon destroy them, as I have an instance in my own family, wherein the person, though only three removes from true Jewish blood, retains only the faintest trace of Jewish ancestry. In the second instance, the cause of the change is more subtle. The Jew, as long as he adheres to Judaism, mingles with Hebrew people, adopts their manners, shares their pursuits, and imbibes their tone of thought. Just as the character is reflected in the countenance, so will he maintain his Jewish looks; but as soon as he adopts Christian views, and mingles with Christian people, he will lose those peculiarities of countenance, the preservation of which depended on his former career. We see examples of this in those Franks who have resided
for a long time in the East, adopting the dress and customs of the people they have mingled with. Such persons acquire an Eastern tone of countenance, and many have been mistaken by their friends for veritable Turks or Arabs, the countenance having acquired the expression of the people with whom they have mingled most freely. The same fact is illustrated in the countenances of aged couples, especially in country places. Frequently these, though widely distinct in appearance when first married, grow at last exactly like each other, and in old age are sometimes scarcely to be distinguished by the features.
If not quite to the purpose, these instances illustrate the correspondence of the life and the looks, which is the philosophy of the Query on Jewish lineaments.
Shirley Hibberd.
Sotadic Verses (Vol. vi., pp. 209. 352. 445.).—There is an English example of this kind of line, attributed, I think, to Taylor the Water Poet:
"Lewd did I live & evil I did dwel."
To make this perfect, however, "and" must not be written at full length, and "dwell" must be content with half its usual amount of liquid.
It is difficult to make sense of any of the Latin Sotadics quoted in "N. & Q.," except that beginning "Signa te," &c. Even the clue given by the mention of the legend in p. 209. does not enable one to find a meaning in "Roma tibi," &c.
Can any of your readers tell me whence comes the following Sotadic Elegiac poem, and construe it for me?
"Salta, tu levis es; summus se si velut Atlas,
(Omina ne sinimus,) suminis es animo.
Sin, oro, caret arcanâ cratera coronis
Unam arcas, animes semina sacra manu.
Angere regnato, mutatum, o tangere regna,
Sana tero, tauris si ruat oret anas:
Milo subi rivis, summus si viribus olim,
Muta sedes; animal lamina sede satum.
Tangeret, i videas, illisae divite regnat;
Aut atros ubinam manibus orta tua!
O tu casurus, rem non mersurus acuto
Telo, sis-ne, tenet? non tenet ensis, olet."
Harry Leroy Temple.
Bells at Funerals (Vol. ii., p. 478.).—The following extract will doubtless be interesting to Mr. Gatty, if it has hitherto escaped his notice:
"June 27 (1648).—The visitors ordered that the bellman of the university should not go about in such manner as was heretofore used at the funeral of any member of the university. This was purposely to prevent the solemnity that was to be performed at the funeral of Dr. Radcliffe, Principal of B. N. C., lately dead. For it must be known that it hath been the custom, time out of mind, that when head of house, doctor, or master of considerable degree was to be buried, the university bellman was to put on the gown and the formalities of the person defunct, and with his bell go into every college and hall, and there make open proclamation, after two rings with his bell, that forasmuch as God had been pleased to take out of the world such a person, he was to give notice to all persons of the university, that on such a day, and at such an hour, he was solemnly to be buried, &c. But the visitors did not only forbid this, but the bellman's going before the corpse, from the house or college, to the church or chapel."—A. Wood, quoted in Oxoniana, vol. iv. p. 206.
E. H. A.
Collar of SS. (Vol. vi., pp. 182. 352.).—There is, in the church of Fanfield, Yorkshire, among other tombs and effigies of the Marmions, the original lords of the place, a magnificent tomb of alabaster, on which are the recumbent figures of a knight and his lady, in excellent preservation. These are probably effigies of Robert Marmion and his wife Lota, second daughter of Herbert de St. Quintin, who died in the latter part of the fourteenth, or early in the fifteenth century. The armour of the knight is of this period, and he is furnished with the SS. collar of Lancaster, which is developed in a remarkably fine manner. His juppon is furnished with the vaire, the bearing of the Marmion, whilst the chevronels of St. Quintin are evident on the mantle of the lady. Over the tomb is placed a herse of iron, furnished with stands for holding lighted candles or torches.
Wm. Procter.
York.
Dr. Marshall (Vol. vii., p. 83.).—I beg to inform U. I. S. that the King's chaplain and Dean of Gloucester in 1682 was not Anthony, but Thomas Marshall, D.D., Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, a great benefactor to his college and the university, and highly distinguished for his knowledge of the Oriental and Teutonic languages.
E. H. A.
Shelton Oak (Vol. vii., p. 193.).—Shelton Oak is a remarkable fine tree, and is still standing. It is apparently in a healthy state. The grounds and mansion (I believe) are in the possession of two maiden ladies, who allow visitors free access to this interesting object. In summer time its owners and their friends frequently tea within its venerable trunk.
The acorns are dealt out to those who may wish them at a trifling sum, and the money devoted towards the building of a church in the neighbouring locality. It is to be hoped that no innovation or local improvement will ever necessitate its removal.
H. M. Bealby.
North Brixton.
"God and the world" (Vol. vii., p. 134.).—Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, was the author of the lines quoted by W. H., but he has not given them correctly. They may be found in the LXVI.
and LXVII. stanzas of his Treatie of Warres, and are as follows:
LXVI.
"God and the world they worship still together,
Draw not their lawes to him, but his to theirs,
Untrue to both, so prosperous in neither,
Amid their own desires still raising fears:
Unwise, as all distracted powers be,
Strangers to God, fooles in humanitie.
LXVII.
"Too good for great things, and too great for good,
Their princes serve their priest, yet that priest is
Growne king, even by the arts of flesh and blood," &c.
Workes, p. 82.: London, 1633, 8vo.
As for the last line of the quotation:
"While still 'I dare not' waits upon 'I would,'"
it smacks very strongly of Macbeth (Act I. Sc. 7.), and "the poor cat i'th adage:"
"Catus amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantas."
Rt.
Warmington.
Dreng (Vol. vii., p. 39.).—Dreng is still the Danish term for a servant or a boy: their present station in society could perhaps be only found by a correspondence with Copenhagen; and would then possibly give as little elucidation of their former social position as an explanation of our modern villain would throw any light upon the villani of Domesday Book.
William Bell.
17. Gower Place.
Meals (Vol. vii., p. 208.).—In Celtic, the word Meall means any rising ground of a round form, such as a low hillock; and the name of Mealls may have been given to sand-banks from having a resemblance to small hills at low water.
Fras. Crossley.
Along the sea-margin of the tongue of land between the rivers Mersey and Dee, the sand has been thrown up in domes. Two little hamlets built among those sand-hills are called North and South Meols.
J. M. N.
Liverpool.
Richardson or Murphy (Vol. vii., p. 107.).—I possess a copy of Literary Relics of the late Joseph Richardson, Esq., formerly of St. John's College, Cambridge, &c., 4to.: London, 1807. Prefixed, is a line engraving by W. J. Newton, from a painting by M. A. Shee, Esq., R.A. This is a subscriber's copy, and belonged as such to one of my nearest relatives. The inscription at the bottom of the plate is the same as that mentioned by your correspondent; and I cannot but think the portrait is really that of J. Richardson. The book was published by Ridgway, No. 170. Piccadilly.
C. I. R.