Replies to Minor Queries.
Wood of the Cross (Vol. vii., pp. 177. 334.).—I find, in your 179th Number, p. 334., a communication on "The Wood of the Cross." Mention is made of the several kinds of wood of which the cross is said to have been made—elder, olive, &c. It is a somewhat curious coincidence, that yesterday I was with a farmer in his garden, and observing on several apple-trees some luxuriant mistletoe, I remarked that it was principally found on that tree, sometimes on the oak, but rarely on other trees. The farmer, after inquiring whether it could be propagated by cuttings, &c., asked if I had ever understood that our Saviour's cross was made of mistletoe? On replying in the negative, and remarking that it was altogether unsuitable for such a purpose, he rejoined, that, previously to that event, it was a large strong tree, but subsequently had been doomed to have only a parasitical (not that he used the term) existence.
As Ceyrep said "I never heard of our Lord's cross having been made of elder wood," so I would also add, I never heard before of its being made of mistletoe. Did any one else ever hear of this tradition?
S. S. S.
Bishops' Lawn Sleeves (Vol. vi., p. 271.).—J. G. T. has inquired concerning the date and origin of the present robes of Anglican bishops. Mr. Trevor thus describes the bishop's dress in Convocation, which is the proper dress of the episcopate:
"The chimere is the Convocation habit of a doctor of divinity in Oxford, made of silk instead of cloth, as the rochet is an alb of lawn in place of linen, honoris causâ: the detaching the sleeves from the rochet, and sewing them to the upper garment instead, is obviously a contrivance of the robe-makers. Dr. Hody says that the scarlet robe worn by the bishops in the House of Lords is the doctor's gown at Cambridge; the first archbishops after the Reformation being of that university. (Hody, 140.) At Parker's consecration he appeared first in a scarlet gown and hood; then at the Holy Communion he and two of the consecrating bishops wore white surplices, while the senior had a cope: and after his consecration he and the two diocesan bishops endued themselves in the now customary dress of a bishop, the archbishop having about his neck a collar of sables (Cardw. Doc. Ann., i. 243.). Before the Reformation, it was remarked as peculiar to the English bishops, that they always wore their white rochets, 'except when hunting.' (Hody, 141.)"—The Two Convocations, Note on, p. 195.
W. Fraser.
Tor-Mohun.
Inscriptions in Books (Vol. vii., pp. 127. 337.).—The two accompanying inscriptions in books were given to me the other day. The second is, I believe, much in vogue at Rugby.
"Si quis errantem
Videat libellum
Reddat, aut collo
Dabitur capistrum
Carnufex ejus
Tunicas habebit
Terra cadaver."
"Small is the wren,
Black is the rook,
Great is the sinner
That steals this book."
W. W.
As your correspondent Balliolensis inquires regarding inscriptions in books, perhaps the following may add to his proposed collection, being an old ditty much in use among schoolboys, &c.:
"Hic liber est meus,
And that I will show;
Si aliquis capit,
I'll give him a blow."
N. N.
Lines quoted by Charles Lamb (Vol. vii., p. 286.).—The author of the lines quoted—
"Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines;
Curl me about, ye gadding vines," &c.—
is Andrew Marvell. They are taken from his fine poem on Nun-Appleton, Lord Fairfax's seat in Yorkshire; and will be found in vol. iii. p. 198. of Marvell's Works, edit. 1776, 4to.
Jas. Crossley.
Parochial Libraries (Vol. vi., p. 432.; Vol. vii., pp. 193. 369.).—Upon visiting Cartmel in Lancashire ten years ago, I found a library in the vestry, and in my diary made the following entry:
"There is a small library in the vestry, of a very miscellaneous description, left by a former incumbent, two hundred years ago, to the vicar for the time being, to be kept in the vestry. There is a fine copy, in small quarto, of Spenser's Faery Queene in the collection, of the date 1560."
How I ascertained the date of the gift, or whether there were any other particulars worth recording, I do not remember. Since taking "N. & Q." I have learnt the benefit, I might say the necessity, of being more particular.
Brick.
To your list of parochial libraries may be added one in Swaffham Church, Norfolk, bequeathed to the parish by one of the Spelman family. It contains several hundred volumes, and among them some of the Elzevir classics. About seven years ago I visited Swaffham, and found this collection of books in a most disgraceful state, covered with dust and the dung of mice and bats, and many of the books torn from their bindings. It would afford me great pleasure to hear that more care is taken of such a valuable collection of books. There is also a smaller library, in somewhat better preservation, in the vestry of St. Peter's, Mancroft Church, in the city of Norwich.
E. G. R.
There are parochial libraries at Milden, Brent Eleigh, and at All Saints, Sudbury, Suffolk. See Rev. C. Badham's Hist. and Antiq. of All Saints, Sudbury, 8vo. London, 1852, pp. 105-109.
W. Sparrow Simpson, B.A.
Huet's Navigations of Solomon (Vol. vii., p. 381.).—In reply to Edina's Query, Huet's treatise De Navigationibus Salomonis was published in 1698, 12mo., at Amsterdam, and before his work on the Commerce of the Ancients was printed. Edina will find a short extract of its contents in vol. ii. p. 479. of Dr. Aikin's Translation of Huet's Autobiography, published in 1810 in two volumes 8vo. The subject is a curious and interesting one; but, from my perusal of the tract, I should scarcely say that Huet has treated it very successfully, or that the book is at all worthy of his learning or acuteness.
Jas. Crossley.
Derby Municipal Seal (Vol. vii., p. 357.).—The "buck in the park," on the town seal of Derby, is probably a punning allusion to the name of that place, anciently Deora-by or Deor-by, i. e. the abode of the deer.
C. W. G.
Annueller (Vol. vii., pp. 358. 391.).—Bishop Ergham founded St. Anne's College in Wells, for the maintenance of Societas (xiv.) Presbyterorum annuellarum Novæ Aulæ Wellensis. The annuellar was a secular conduct, receiving a yearly stipend. These priests, probably, served his chantry at Wells.
Mackenzie Walcott, M.A.
Reverend Richard Midgley, Vicar of Rochdale (Vol. vii., p. 380).—The collection of the lives of pious persons to which Dr. Whitaker refers, as containing a very interesting account of Midgley, will undoubtedly be Samuel Clarke's Lives of Thirty-two English Divines. The passage, which will scarcely be new to your correspondent, is at p. 68. of the life of "Master Richard Rothwell" (Clarkes's Lives, edit. 1677, fol.), and a very pleasing passage it is, and one that I might almost
be justified in extracting. Dr. Whitaker and Brook (Lives of the Puritans, vol. ii. p. 163.) seem to be at variance with regard to the Midgleys, the former mentioning only one, and the latter two, vicars of the family.
Jas. Crossley.
Nose of Wax (Vol. vii., p. 158.).—Allow me to refer to a passage in "Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks," by Lodowick Barry (which is reprinted in the fifth volume of Dodsley's Old Plays), illustrative of this term. In Act I. Sc. 1., Dash describes the law as
"The kingdom's eye, by which she sees
The acts and thoughts of men."
Whereupon Throate observes:
"The kingdom's eye!
I tell thee, fool, it is the kingdom's nose,
By which she smells out all these rich transgressors;
Nor is't of flesh, but merely made of wax,
And 'tis within the power of us lawyers,
To wrest this nose of wax which way we please."
This illustration was overlooked by Nares, to whose Glossary you refer.
C. H. Cooper.
Cambridge.
Canongate Marriages (Vol. v., p. 320.; Vol. vii., p. 67.).—The correspondent who expressed his surprise some time ago at his Query on this subject not having called forth any remark from your Scotch friends, will perhaps find the explanation of this result in the fact, that in Scotland we are guided by the civil or Roman law on the subject of marriage; and consequently, with us marriage is altogether a civil contract; and we need the intervention neither of clergyman, Gretna blacksmith, or the equally disreputable Canongate coupler. The services of the last two individuals are only sought for by you deluded southerns. All we require here is the agreement or consent of the parties ("consensus non concubitus facit matrimonium"); and the legal questions which arise have reference chiefly to the evidence of this consent. The agreement may be made verbally, or in writing, before witnesses or not, as the parties choose. Or a marriage may be constituted and proved merely by habit and repute, i. e. by the parties living together as man and wife, and the man allowing the woman to be addressed as his wife. A promise of marriage, followed by copula, also constitutes a marriage. But it would be out of place here to enter into all the arcana of the Scotch law of marriage: suffice it to say, that it prevails equally at John o' Groat's House and Aberdeen, as in the Canongate or at Gretna Green. A regular marriage requires certain formalities, such as the publication of banns, &c. An irregular one is equally good in law, and may be contracted in various ways, as above explained.
This law, though at first sight likely to lead to great abuses, really works well in practice; and prevents the occurrence of those distressing cases, which not unfrequently happen in England, of seduction under promise of marriage, and subsequent desertion.
Scotus.
Smock Marriages (Vol. vii., p. 191.).—According to Scotch law, the marriage of the father and mother legitimises all children previously born, however old they may be. This is called legitimisation per subsequens matrimonium, and is not unfrequently taken advantage of by elderly gentlemen, who, after having passed the heyday of youth, wish to give their children a position, and a legal right to inherit their property. Like the rule as to marriage above explained, it is derived from the Roman or civil law. There are very few, I should rather say no, legal fictions in the Scotch law of the nature alluded to by your correspondent.
Scotus.
Sculptured Emaciated Figures (Vol. v., p 497.; Vol. vi. passim).—In Dickinson's Antiquities of Nottinghamshire, vol. i. p. 171., is a notice with an engraving of a tomb in Holme Church, near Southwell, bearing a sculptured emaciated figure of a youth evidently in the last stage of consumption, round which is this inscription: "Miseremini mei, miseremini mei, saltem vos amici mei, quia manus Domini tetigit me."
J. P., Jun.
Do the Sun's Rays put out the Fire (Vol. vii., p. 285.).—It is known that solar light contains three distinct kinds of rays, which, when decomposed by a prism, form as many spectra, varying in properties as well as in position, viz. luminous, heating or calorific, and chemical or actinic rays.
The greater part of the rays of heat are even less refrangible than the least refrangible rays of light, while the chemical rays are more refrangible than either. The latter are so called from their power of inducing many chemical changes, such as the decomposition of water by chlorine, and the reactions upon which photographic processes depend.
The relative quantities of these several kinds of rays in sun-light varies with the time of day, the season, and the latitude of any spot. In general, where the luminous and heating rays are most abundant, the proportion of chemical rays is least; and, in fact, the two seem antagonistic to each other. Thus, near the equator, the luminous and calorific rays being most powerful, the chemical are feeble, as is shown by the length of time required for the production of photographic pictures. Hence, also, June and July are the worst months for the practice of photography, and better results are obtained before noon than after.
It is precisely for a similar reason that the combustion of an ordinary fire, being strictly a chemical change, is retarded whenever the sun's heating and luminous rays are most powerful, as during bright
sunshine, and that observe our fires to burn more briskly in summer than winter; in fact, that apparently "the sun's rays put out the fire."
A. W. W.
Univ. Coll., London.
Spontaneous Combustion (Vol. vii., p. 286.).—A most interesting discussion of this question is to be found in Liebig's Familiar Letters upon Chemistry.
That chemist proves conclusively:—1. That of the cases adduced none is well authenticated, while in most it is admitted that the victims were drunkards, and that generally a candle or lamp was in the room, and after the alleged combustion was found turned over. 2. That spontaneous combustion is absolutely impossible, the human frame containing 75 or 80 per cent. of water; and since flesh, when saturated with alcohol, is not consumed upon the application of a light, the alcohol burning off first, the causes assigned to account for the spontaneous ignition are à priori extremely improbable.
A. W. Wills.
Univ. Coll., London.
Ecclesia Anglicana (Vol. vii., p. 12.).—This has always been the appellation of the Church of England, just as much before the Reformation as after. I copy for G. R. M. one rather forcible sentence from the articles of a provincial synod, holden A.D. 1257:
"Et super istis articulis prænotatis fecit Bonifacius, Cant. Arch. suorum suffraganeorum sibi subditorum universorum, prælatorum pariter et cleri procuratorum, convocationem isto anno apud Londonias semel et secundo, propter gravamina et oppressiones, de die in diem per summum pontificem et D. Henricum Regem Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ irrogatas."—Wilkin's Concilia Mag. Brit. et Hib., vol. i. p. 726.
For other examples of the ante-reformational use of Ecclesia Anglicana, I can give him so large a reference as to Wilkins' book, passim; to the Writs for Parliament and Mandates for Convocation contained in the Appendix to Wake's State of the Church and Clergy; and to the extracts from The Annals of Waverley, and other old chronicles, quoted in Hody's History of English Councils and Convocations.
W. Fraser.
Tor-Mohun.
Wyle Cop (Vol. iv., pp. 116. 243. 509.; Vol. v., p. 44.; Vol. vi., p. 65.).—The summit of a steep hill in the town of Shrewsbury bears the name of The Wyle Cop. I think that these are two Welsh words, Gwyl Cop, meaning watch mound, slightly altered. Gop, near Newmarket in Flintshire, has a longer Welsh name, which is written by English people Coperleni. This, when correctly written, means, the mound of the light or fire-beacon. Mole Cop, the name of a lofty hill near Congleton, appears to be a slight corruption of the Welsh words Moel y Cop, the mountain of the mound. There is another lofty hill in Staffordshire called Stiles Cop. It seems probable that on both of these hills mounds may have been made in ancient times for the erection of fire-beacons. It would appear that Dr. Plot did not understand the Welsh language, as he has stated that he thought, in these instances, the word Cop meant a mountain.
N. W. S. (2.)
Chaucer (Vol. vii., p. 356).—No foreign original has ever been found for Chaucer's "House of Fame." Warton fancied that it had been translated or paraphrased from the Provençal, but could adduce no proof that it had. Old Geoffrey may have found the groundwork somewhere, in the course of his multifarious reading; but the main portion of the structure is evidently the work of his own hands, as the number of personal details and circumstances would tend to indicate. The forty lines comprising the "Lai of Marie," which Chaucer has worked up into the "Nonnes Preestes Tale" of some seven hundred lines, are printed in Tyrwhitt's Introductory Discourse to the Canterbury Tales, and will be sufficient to show what use he made of the raw material at his disposal. We may fairly presume that Emerson never took the trouble to investigate the matter, but contented himself with snatching up his materials from the nearest quarry, and then tumbling them out to the public.
J. M. B.
Tunbridge Wells.
Campvere, Privileges of (Vol. vii., p. 262.).—J. D. S. asks, "What were these privileges, and whence was the term Campvere derived?"
In Scotland there exists an ancient institution called "The Convention of Royal Burghs," which still meets annually in Edinburgh, under the fixed presidency of the Lord Provost of that city. It is a representative body, consisting of delegates elected by the town councils of the royal burghs (not boroughs) of Scotland; and their business is to attend to such public measures as may affect the general interests of their constituents. In former times, however their powers and duties were of far more importance than they are now. The Convention seems to have exercised a general superintendence of the foreign trade of the kingdom. With a view to the promotion of that trade, they used to enter into commercial treaties, or staple contracts as they were called, with the commercial cities of the Continent; and I have now before me one of these staple contracts, made with the city of Antwerp in 1540; and another with the city of Middleburg, in Zeeland, in 1541; but latterly they seem to have confined themselves to the town of Campvere, in Zeeland (island of Walcheren). In all these contracts it was stipulated
that the Scottish traders should enjoy certain privileges, which were considered of such importance that the crown appointed a conservator of them. The last of these staple contracts was made with Campvere in the year 1747; but soon afterwards the increasing prosperity of Scotland, and the participation of its burgesses in the foreign trade of England, rendered such partial arrangements useless, and the contracts and the privileges have long since been reckoned among the things that were. The office of conservator degenerated into a sinecure. It was held for some time by the Rev. John Home, author of the tragedy of Douglas, who died in 1808; and afterwards by a Sir Alex. Lenier, whose name is found in the Edinburgh Almanack as "Conservator at Campvere" till 1847, when the office and the officer seem to have expired together.
J. L.
Sir Gilbert Gerard (Vol. v., pp. 511. 571.).—In addition to the information I formerly sent you in answer to Mr. Spedding's inquiry, I am now enabled to state two facts, which greatly reduce the period within which the date of Sir Gilbert Gerard's death may be fixed. Among the records in Carlton Ride, is an enrolment of his account as Custos Domûs Conversorum from January 29, 34 Eliz. (1592) to January 29, 35 Eliz. (1593). And a search in Doctors' Commons has resulted in the discovery, that Sir Gilbert's will was proved, not, as Dugdale states, in April, 1592, but on April 6, 1593. He died therefore between January 29 and April 6, 1593.
Dugdale mentions that there is no epitaph on his monument.
Edward Foss.
Mistletoe (Vol. vii., p. 270.).—I wish to mention that the mistletoe has been tried at the Botanic Gardens belonging to Trinity College, Dublin; and, after flourishing for some years, it died away. Indeed, I think it has been repeatedly tried there, but without eventual success.
Y. S. M.
Dublin.
Wild Plants and their Names (Vol. vii., p. 233.).—Cowslip, "Palsy Wort." Culpepper says:
"Because they strengthen the brain and nerves, and remedy palsies, the Greeks gave them the name paralysis." "The flowers preserved, or conserved, and the quantity of a nutmeg taken every morning, is a sufficient dose for inward disorders."
For the ointment he gives the following receipt:
"Bruise the flowers; and to two handfuls of these, add a pound of hog's grease dried. Put it in a stone pot, covered with paper, and set it in the sun or a warm place three or four days to melt. Take it out and boil it a little; strain it out when hot; pressing it out very hard in a press. To this grease add as many herbs as before, and repeat the whole process, if you wish the ointment strong.—Yet this I tell you, the fuller of juice the herbs are, the sooner will your ointment be strong; the last time you boil it, boil it so long till your herbs be crisp, and the juice consumed; then strain it, pressing it hard in a press; and to every pound of ointment, add two ounces of turpentine, and as much wax."
Ceridwen.
Coninger or Coningry, Coneygar or Conygre (Vol. vii., pp. 182. 241. 368.).—There are many fields in the midland counties which bear the name of conigree. In some instances they are in the vicinity of manor-houses. The British name of a rabbit is cwningen, plural cwning. That of a rabbit warren is cwning-gaer, that is, literally, rabbits' camp. The term coneygar is so like this, that it may be supposed to have been derived from it.
N. W. S. (2)