REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.
Coleridge's Christabel and Byron's Lara (No. 17. p. 262.).—What Christabel saw is plain enough. The lady was a being like Duessa, a Spenser; a horrible-looking witch, who could, to a certain degree, put on an appearance of beauty. The difference is, that this lady had both forms at once; the one in her face, the other concealed. This is quite plain from the very words of Coleridge.
The lifting her over the sill seems to be something like the same superstition that we have in Scott's Eve of St. John:—
"But I had not had pow'r to come to thy bow'r,
If Though had'st not charm'd me so."
I have no doubt that Lara is the Corsair; and Kaled Gulnare, from the Corsair: the least inspection is enough to show this. Ezzelin must also be Seyd; but that does not answer quite so well. All that there is to prepare it is, that Seyd is only left for dead, in a great hurry, and therefore might recover; and that he drank wine, and therefore might be of Christian extraction. In Lara he is described as dark; but his appearance is rather confusedly related, as if he never appeared but once, and yet Otho knows him, and he has a dwelling. The shriek is more difficult. There could be no meeting, then, between Ezzelin and Lara, because Ezzelin is surprised by meeting him at Otho's. Whether the shriek may not be owing to a meeting between Kaled and Ezzelin, is in not so clear. From the splendid description of her looking down upon him, it is not proved that she there saw him first; and Ezzelin never sees her at all there.
Nothing is more interesting than these mysteries left in narrative fictions. The story of Gertude, in that first of romances, the Promessi Sposi, is a very great instance; and the bad taste, of bringing her up again to the subject of a story by another writer, is so extreme, that I never could look into the book. That Mazoni has left the character, whom he calls the Innominato, in mystery, is historical, and not of his own contrivance.
I used to think that Scott had left the part of Clara, in St. Ronan's Well, intentionally mysterious, as to a most important circumstance; but we learn, from his Life, that he meant to have made that circumstance a part of the story, but was prevented by the publisher. It is natural that the altered novel, therefore, should retain some impressions of it. I refer particularly to the latter part of the communications between her and her brother. But the meeting between her and Tyrell in the woods, and their conversation there, I now think, forbid the reader to suspect any thing like what I speak of. In such cases I do not myself wish to know too much about the matter. Sometimes the author wishes you to have the pleasure of guessing, as I think, in Lara; sometimes he means to be more mysterious; sometimes he does not know himself. It would have been idle to have asked Johnson where Ajeet went to.
Sir William Rider (No. 12. p. 186).—"H.F." will find some account of the acts and deeds of Sir Thomas Lake and Dame Mary Lake his wife in the 13th Report on Charities, p. 280, as to their gifts to Muccleston in Staffordshire. In the 24th Report, p. 300, as to Drayton in the same county. Dame Mary Lake was also a benefactor to the parish of Little Stanmore, see 9th Report, p. 271. See also Stow's Survey 593. (ed. 1633.)
H.E.
God tempers the Wind (No. 14. p. 211.; No. 15. p 236.).—The proverb is French: "A brebis tondue Dieu mesure le vent;" but I cannot tell now where to find it in print, except in Chambaud's Dictionary. That is why Sterne puts it into the mouth of Maria.
C.B.
Complutensian Polyglot.—"Mr. JEBB" asks (No. 14. p. 213.), "In what review or periodical did there appear a notice of the supposed discovery of the MSS. from which the Complutensian Polyglot was compiled?"
He will find an article on this subject in the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal for April, 1847; from which I learn that there was a previous article, by Dr. James Thomson, one of the agents of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in the Biblical Review, a London periodical publication. Dr. Thomson, if I understand the matter aright, professed to have found at Madrid the MSS., so long supposed to have been lost.
There is also an article on the same subject by Dr. Bowring, in the Monthly Repository, vol. xvi. (1821), p. 203.
Tickhill, God help me (No. 16. p. 247.).—Of Tickhill I know nothing; but Melverley in this county goes by the soubriquet of "Melverley, God help;" and the folk-lore on the subject is this:—Melverley lies by Severn side, where that river flows under the Breiddon hills from the county of Montgomery into that of Salop. It is frequently inundated in winter, and, consequently, very productive in summer. They say that if a Melverley man is asked in winter where he belongs, the doleful and downcast reply is, "Melverley, God help me;" but asked the same question in summer, he answers quite jauntily, "Melverley, and what do you think?" A friend informs me that the same story appertains to Pershore in the vale of Evesham. Perhaps the analogy may assist Mr. Johnson in respect to Tickhill.
Let me take this opportunity to add to my flim-flam on pet-names in your late Number, that Jack appears to have been a common term to designate a low person, as "every Jack;" "every man-jack;" "Jack-of-all-trades?" "Jackanapes;" &c.
B.H. KENNEDY.
Shrewsbury, Feb. 18.
Bishop Blaise (No. 16. p. 247.).—Four lives of the martyr Blasius, Bishop of Sebaste in Cappadocia, are to be found in the Bollandine Acta Sanctorum, under the 3rd of February. It appears that the relics and worship of this saint were very widely spread through Europe, and some places seem to have claimed him as indigenous on the strength merely of possessing one of his toes or teeth. The wool-comb was one of the instruments with which he was tortured, and having become a symbol of his martyrdom, gave occasion, it would seem, to the wool-combers to claim him as their patron, and to ascribe to him the invention of their art. See Ellis's Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. i. pp. 29, 30; and query whether the veneration of St. Blaise by these artizans were not peculiar to England. Blasius of Sebaste is said to have been a physician; in consequence of the persecution raised by Diocletian, he retired to a mountain named Argæus, whither all the wild beasts of the country resorted to him, and reverentially attended him. But there is a legend of another Blasius of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, who is represented as an owner of herds (βουκολος), and remarkable for his charity to the poor. His herdsman's staff was planted over the spot where he was martyred, and grew into an umbrageous tree.
This variation of legends favours the idea that the cultus of Blasius was founded upon that of some deity worshipped in Cappadocia, whose rites and attributes may have varied in different localities.
C.W.G.
Sangred—Judas Bell.—"BURIENSIS" inquires (p. 124.) what sangred is. This term is noticed in Rock's Church of Our Fathers, t. ii. p. 372. In the very interesting, "Extracts from Church-warden's Accounts," p. 195., it is asked what "Judas' bell" was. I presume it to have been a bell named after, because blessed in honour of the apostle St. Jude, who, in the Greek Testament, in the Vulgate, and our own early English translations, as well as old calendars, is always called Judas, and not Jude, as a difference from Judas Iscariot.
CEPHAS.
La Mer des Histoires.—"MR. SANSOM" (No. 18. p. 286.) has inquired, What is known of Columna's book, entitled Mare Historiarum? Trithemius has made mention of the work (De Script. Eccles. DL.), and two manuscript copies of it are preserved in the Royal Library at Paris. (B. de Montfaucon, Biblioth. Bibliothecar. MSS. tom ii. p. 751. Par. 1739.) Douce very properly distinguished it from La Mer des Histoires; but, if he wrote "Mochartus," he was in error; for Brochart was the author of the Latin original, called Rudimentum Novitiorum, and published in 1475. As to the statement of Genebrard, that Joannes de Columna was the writer of the "Mater Historiarum," I should say that the mistake was produced by confounding the words Mer and Mere. Mr. Sansom may find all the information that need be desired on this subject in Quetif et Echard, Scriptores Ord. Præd. tom. i. pp. 418-20. Lut. Paris, 1719. (Vid. etiam Amb. de Altamura, Biblioth. Dominican. p. 45. Romæ, 1677; Fabricii, Bibl. Med. et Inf. Latin. i. 1133. Hamb. 1734.)
R.G.
"What are depenings?" (No. 18. p. 277.)
The nets used by the Yarmouth herring busses were made in breadths of six feet. The necessary depth was obtained by sewing together successive breadths, and each breadth was therefore called a deepening.[[4]]
ED.
Footnote 4: [(return)]
From a pamphlet written about 1615, not now before us. ED.