Replies.
WINCHESTER EXECUTION.
(Vol. iv., pp. 191. 243. 284.)
The pathetic story of a person sentenced to death for sheep-stealing, winning the heart of the gaoler by a long course of good conduct, and executed at last on the "death-warrant" being found in the office, is utterly apocryphal. There has not been such a thing as a death-warrant in England for centuries, except in London and Middlesex (where the recorder communicated the pleasure of the crown to spare certain prisoners, and leave others to their fate, in an instrument improperly so called), and in the special case referred to hereafter. It was necessary, when sentence was pronounced by Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer, that a precept under their hands and seals should be made out; but in the case of Commissioners of Gaol Delivery the entry on record of the judgement of the court is sufficient; and though a calendar is now made out, and delivered to the sheriff, specifying the several sentences or acquittals of all the prisoners in gaol, yet it is not necessary. Lord Hale says:
"Rolle would never subscribe any such calendar, but would command the sheriff openly in court to take notice of the judgments and orders of what kind soever, and command the sheriff to execute them at his peril."
And, until a few years ago (when the law requiring murderers to be executed the day next but one after sentence was repealed), murderers were executed on verbal authority only, as no calendar was made out until the close of the assizes, some time after the execution. The special case above referred to is, when a person was tried by the Court of Peers before the Lord High Steward, in which case that officer issued a precept for execution. But if the trial be in parliament, a writ for execution issues under the Great Seal, as in the case of Lord William Russell.
Having demolished one story, I feel bound to give you another.
The Crown never directs execution, but respites it either to a day fixed, or during her Majesty's pleasure, which last is what is commonly called a reprieve. A late learned Baron is said to have respited an unlucky criminal on whose fate he hesitated, once, twice, thrice, till, having lost his reckoning, he wrote to this effect:
"I do not know whether John Smith's respite has expired; if it has, it is no matter; if not, let the execution be further respited until the —— day of —— next."
A. B.
I have seen in an Exeter paper an article taken from "NOTES AND QUERIES," entitled "Execution under singular Circumstances," the writer of which is in manifest error. There is no such thing as a warrant for execution; I will venture to say it could not have happened as is therein stated. I have been repeatedly undersheriff of Devon, and therefore beg to state the mode in which executions take place.
At the end of the assizes the crown-bar judge and the clerk of assize sit down quietly together, and go over the sentences of the prisoners, after which they are classed, and a fair copy signed by the clerk of the assize—not the judge—is delivered to the undersheriff, which is his only authority for carrying the different sentences into execution. If a man is to be hung, opposite his name is written, "Let him be hanged by the neck," and an asterisk is added to draw the undersheriff's attention. Should the man afterwards be respited, the judge, or the clerk of assize, writes to the undersheriff, and also (ex abundanti cautelâ) to the gaoler, to say so. Should the undersheriff hear nothing further, he hangs the man at the end of the respite, as a matter of course. A reprieve comes from the secretary of state's office. At the end of the shrievalty this list of sentences is sent to the Court of Exchequer, as forming part of what is called the Bill of Cravings, and in which the sheriff is allowed a certain sum towards the expenses of the execution. What may be the practice in London I do not know, but the above would be the practice at Winchester.
P. J.
Exeter, Sept. 15. 1851.
COCKNEY.
(Vol. iv., p. 237.)
Halliwell illustrates this word by a quotation from Nash's Pierce Penilesse, 1592:
"A young heyre or cockney, that is his mother's darling, if hee playde the waste-good at the innes of the court, or about London, falles in a quarrelling humor with his fortune, because she made him not king of the Indies."
Richardson gives the following quotation from Fuller's Worthies:
"I meet with a double sense of this word cockeney.... 1st, One coaks'd or cockered, made a wanton or nestle-cock of.... 2nd, One utterly ignorant of husbandry and housewifery, such as is practised in the country...."
Webster gives the following derivation, &c.:
"COCKNEY, n. [Most probably from L. coquina, a kitchin, or coquino, to cook; Fr. coquin, idle; Fr. cocagne, It. cuccagna, an imaginary country of idleness and luxury.... Hence, a citizen who leads an idle life, or never leaves the city.]
"1. A native of London, by way of contempt. Watts. Shak.
"'And yet I say by my soul I have no salt bacon
Ne no cokeney by Christe coloppes to make.'
"'At that feast were they served in rich array;
Every five and five had a cokeney.'"
Chaucer, in the above lines quoted by Webster, probably refers to any substantial dish of fresh meat, which might be cut in collops; possibly, however, to young roasted pigs, which, as every one knows, are continually running about, all over the land of cockaigne, with knives and forks stuck into them, crying, "Come eat me, come eat me."
Whether the word cockney be derived from the the land of cockaigne, or the legend of cockaigne arise from cockney, it appears probable that both words have their origin in the same root with the verb to cook, and that the epithet originally conveyed the imputation to citizens, of a superfluous consumption of cooked meat; inasmuch as the inhabitants of large cities generally consider the daily use of fresh meat almost as a necessary of life, while the provincial population is content to exist on less nutritious food.
Whatever may be the original import of the epithet, the modern application of it is, I believe, confined to the natives of the metropolis, and it corresponds in use and signification with the terms rustic and chaw-bacon, which distinguish the natives of the provinces; the latter term being exclusively appropriated to agriculturalists. Epithets, apparently of similar origin, exist in the seaman's land-lubber, the landsman's jack-tar, the Englishman's froggy, and the Frenchman's ros-bif.
Londoners themselves appear to have a theoretical notion that the inhabitants of Belgravia, and other enlightened metropolitan districts, are strictly entitled to the designation cockney, in virtue of their birth and residence within the sound of Bow-bells; but practically limit its application to those members of the lower, and more ignorant classes of the community, who traditionally retain some of the obsolete idioms, and other peculiarities of speech, of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers.
A LONDONER.
SIR EDMUND PLOWDEN OR PLOYDEN.
(Vol. iv., p. 58.)
For the information of your correspondent A TRANSATLANTIC READER, I beg to inform him that Sir Edmund Plowden or Ployden was 2nd son of Francis Plowden of Plowden, Salop, and Shiplake in Berks: a family which can claim its descent from the Saxon kings of England; and by a Saxon charter, granting lands in Salop to the family, that the family had large estates in that remote period. The Saxon derivation of the name (from the Saxon Plean deen, or kill the Dane) alone shows the great antiquity of the family; and there are few, if any, families in England who have retained their ancestral property so direct in the male line as this family. It is also connected with some of the oldest and noblest families in England—the Howards and Staffords are allied to this family by intermarriages. In the reign of Richard I. Sir Roger de Plowden was a crusader; and for his heroic conduct at the siege of Acre, was knighted, and also permitted by the king to bear on his shield the royal arms, the fleur de lis, which is retained to this day. In 9 Edward II., John de Plowden was by parliamentary writ, signed at Clopstow 5th March, called to parliament as one of the lords of the township of Plowden, Salop. Edmund Plowden, the great lawyer in Edw. VI. and Elizabeth's reigns, who was in those times called the oracle of the law, was enrolled among Fuller's Worthies of England, with Camden's Latin verses on him: "Vitæ integritati inter homines suæ professionis nulli secundus."
He was offered by Elizabeth, whose autograph letter was until recently in the possession of the family, the Lord Chancellorship of England, with a peerage, if he would give up his creed as Catholic and turn Protestant; which he declined, preferring to abide by his moral convictions of the truthfulness of what he deemed his faith to worldly honour and aggrandisement. Sir Edmund died at Wanstead, county of Southampton, in 1659; and in possession of large estates in eleven parishes in England, besides his American province of New Albion. To each of these parishes he leaves by his will of 1655 a sum of money to be paid "eight days after his demise, and directs to be buried in the chapel of the Plowdens at Lydbury, in Salop; a stone monument, with an inscription in brass bearing the names of his children, and another with his correct pedigree as drawn out at his house in Wanstead." He appears to have gone to America about the year 1620, and remained there, in Virginia and New England, till about 1630. While there, his sister Ann was married to Sir Arthur Lake, son of Sir Thomas Lake, then Secretary of State to James I.; and through whose influence, we presume, on his return to England he was introduced to the great Lord Strafford, with whom it is believed he proceeded to Ireland; for in the Heralds' Visitation of Salop, 1632, (vide Sims' H. Vist., Brit. Mus.), he is entered in the Plowden pedigree as being then in Ireland. By the Strafford State Papers it appears that in this year he made petition to Charles I. through Lord Strafford, then Lieut. and Capt.-General of Ireland, for the colonising of New Albion:—
"Near the continent of Virginia, sixty leagues N. from James City, without the Bay of Chesapeake, there is a habitable and fruitful island, named Isle Plowden, otherwise Long Isle, with other small isles between 30° and 40° of lat., about sixty leagues from the main, near De la Warre Bay, where Your Majesty, nor any of your Progenitors, were ever possessed of any estate, &c ... to enable the petitioners, their heirs and assigns, for ever to enjoy the said Isle, and forty leagues square of the adjoining continent, as in the nature of a County Palatine or Body Politick, by the name of New Albion, to be held of your Majesty's Crown of Ireland, exempt from all appeal to the Governor of Virginia, and with such other additions, privileges, and dignities therein, to be given to Sir Edmund Plowden, like has been heretofore granted to Sir George Calvert, Knight, late Lord Calvert, in Newfoundland, together with the usual grants and privileges that other Colonies have for governing, &c., and we agree to settle with 500 inhabitants."
The king's warrant was given at Oatlands 24th July, 1632, granting the whole asked for, under the Great Seal of Ireland, signed by John Coke. Between this period and 1634, Sir Edmund was engaged in fulfilling the conditions of the warrant by carrying out the colonisation by indentures, which were executed and enrolled in Dublin, and St. Mary's in Maryland in America. In Dublin the parties were Viscount Musherry, 100 planters; Lord Monson, 100 planters; Sir Thomas Denby, 100 planters; Captain Clayborne (of American notoriety) 50; Captain Balls; and amounting in all to 540 colonisers, beside others in Maryland, Virginia, and New England. The parties who joined in the petition were Sir John Lawrence, Knight and Baronet, who died in America; Sir Bowyer Worstley, Knight, and Charles Barrett, Esq.,—both died there in 1634; George Noble, Gent., Thomas Ribread, Roger Packe, William Inwood, and John Trustler. Having completed the conditions he was granted a charter, bearing date Oatlands, 21st June, 1634; and enrolled in Dublin in 17 pages folio; and confirmed 24th July, 1634, in the eighth year of the reign of Charles I., running thus:
"And according to the tenour and effect of certain of our letters, signed with our proper hand, and sealed with our seal now enrolled in the Rolls of our Chancery of the said Kingdom of Ireland, We have given, granted, and confirmed, and by this our present Charter, for Us, our heirs, and successors, do give, grant, and confirm such the before said Sir Edmund Plowden, Knight, his heirs and assigns, for ever, all that entire island near the continent of Terra Firma of North Virginia, called the Island of Plowden, or Long Island, and lying near and between the 39° and 40° of N. lat.; together with part of the continent or Terra Firma aforesaid near adjoining, described to begin from the point of an angle of a certain promontory called Cape Cod, from thence to the westward for the space of 40°, running by the river Delaware, closely following its course by the N. lat. into a certain rivulet there arising from a spring of Lord Baltimore in the lands of Maryland, and the summit aforesaid to the south, where it touches, joins, and determines in all its breadth, from thence takes its course into a square leading to the north by a right line for the space of 40° to the river and port of Reachu Cod, and descends to a savannah, touching and including the top of Sand Bay, where it determines, and from thence towards the south by a square, stretching to a savannah which passes by and washes the shores of the Plowden aforesaid to the point of the promontory of Cape May above mentioned, and determines where it begins." And p. 4. continues: "Therefore We, for Us, our heirs, and successors, do give unto the aforesaid Sir Edmund Plowden, and his heirs and assigns, free and full power graciously to confer favours and honours upon the well-deserving citizens and inhabitants within the province aforesaid with whatever titles and dignities he shall choose to decorate them with (in such a manner as they may but now be usurped in England), and to cut and stamp different pieces of gold such as shall be lawful, current, and acceptable to all the inhabitants; and We command all, and enjoin other things to be done in the premises which to him or them shall be seen to be proper, in as free and ample a manner and form as by the Society of Newfoundland and East Indies, Island of Bermuda, Bishop of Durham within the Bishoprick or County Palatine of Durham; or Lord Baltimore within his lands and premises of Maryland and Glastonbury; or James Earl of Carlisle within the island of St. Christopher and Barbadoes; or any other Governor or Founder of a Colony."
In fact, the powers granted were never exceeded by any former charter of the Crown: they were all but regal. Under this charter a lease, enrolled in Dublin, was granted by Lord Plowden in 1634 to Sir Thomas Danby for 10,000 acres, and a release, dated 20th Dec. 1634, sealed and signed at St. Mary's, Maryland, and witnessed by Vall Havord and Richard Benham, by R. Packe for 200 acres; T. Ribread, 100; W. Inwood, 100; and John Trustler, 100; segregating 500 acres in trust for the "Earl of Albion, when they deliver up their claims or trusts in consideration for this grant of land; and confirmed unto Lord Francis Plowden, son and heir of Sir Edmund Plowden, Earl Palatine, and George and Thomas Plowden, two of the sons of the said Sir Edmund, Earl Palatine." Sir Edmund Plowden resided with his wife and family as Governor of New Albion six years; his eldest son, Francis, and Lady Plowden, returned to England to look after his father's estates in his absence: but Francis so abused the confidence reposed in him, as to oblige the Governor to return to England (leaving his sons George and Thomas as his locum tenens). On his arrival he was incarcerated in the Fleet Prison on a base charge emanating from his son, from which he was released by order of the Peers Committee, House of Lords; and likewise involved in a lawsuit to recover certain estates sold by his son, which cost him 15,000l. before he was clear. This unnatural and illegal conduct induced him to disinherit his son Francis; for, in the 15th of Charles I., 1st June, 1646, Sir Edmund obtained license from the Crown to alienate from his son the manors of Wanstead, Southwick, and many others in the county of Southampton, as is enrolled in the Rolls Chapel. By his will, in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, London, Sir Wm. Mason was in trust for Sir Edmund's second son and heir, Thomas Plowden; and also for the New Albion colony. And the will proceeds:
"And I think it fit that my English lands and estates shall be settled and united to my Honor, County Palatine, and Province of New Albion, for the maintenance of the same; and again, that all my lease lands in England be sold with all convenient speed by my executors and overseers herein named, and with the money arising therefrom to buy good freehold, to be settled and entailed as the rest of my lands are settled on my second son Thomas Plowden, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, or to be begotten; also my County Palatine of New Albion, and Peerage as a Peer of Ireland, as aforesaid, unto Thomas Plowden my son during his natural life, and after his decease, to the heirs male of my son Thomas, begotten or to be begotten; and again, I do enter and will that my son Thomas Plowden, and, after his decease his eldest heir in male, and, if he be under age, then his guardian, with all speed after my decease do employ by consent of Sir William Mason of Gray's Inn, Knight, whom I make a trustee of this my plantation of New Albion; and if my son Thomas shall by fail, defence, loose, agree, give, or alien any part of my estates, lands, or rents in England to Francis my son, or his issue, then my son shall forfeit and lose to his eldest son all lands and estates and rents in England herein settled, entailed, or given him, and to be forfeited during his life."
George either died, or was killed, in the massacres by the Indians; as was also Francis, third son of Thomas, along with his wife and family, as alluded to in his father's will, dated 1698.
These attacks on the infant colony were instigated by the Dutch and Swedes of the New Netherlands, as they called New Albion, and who did all they could to obstruct and thwart the Earl Palatine's plans, as is alluded to in The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain: Speed and Basset, 1676, dedicated to James I.; and recommended as a most authentic work by Sir Richard St. George, Norroy King of Arms.
"Moreover these proceedings, upon complaint made to his late Majesty, and by whom represented to the State of Holland, were absolutely disowned by them, and wholly laid upon the East India Company of Amsterdam. The most northerly part towards New England was by his Majesty granted by patent to Sir Edmund Plowden, by the name of New Albion. The most southerly towards Virginia to Sir George Calvert, now Lord Baltimore, by the name of Maryland. The Dutch, upon some consideration agreed on, were forthwith to have quitted the place; yet, for all this, as the custom of this people is never to let go any opportunity that serves their turn, whether by right or wrong, they took advantage of the unhappy dissentions and cruel wars that soon after happened within this nation: they not only stood upon higher demands than was at first agreed on, but also contrived to stir up the natives against the English, that they might have the better opportunity of fixing themselves. In this state things remained till his present Majesty, after his restoration, resolved to send three ships of war."
Charles II. most tyrannically, privately, without sanction from Parliament, and without even alluding to his father's charter to Sir Edmund Plowden, gave a charter of the Province to his brother James, at the same time creating him Duke of Albany. Before James was duly clothed with the powers of Governor, he sold a large portion of it to Lord Berkely for 65,000l. For years afterwards, the Duke of York's title was disputed, and many disturbances arose, and Chancery suits, as entered in the American chancery suits of that period. Lord Sutherland, as the colonial officer, disputed the validity of the Duke's claim. A greater act of injustice could hardly be perpetrated than this virtual abrogation of the original charter, after so many years of labour had been expended, charges incurred, loss of estates and relations, and the other evils attending planting this colony which absence from England gave rise to. Sir Edmund Plowden was not inferior to any of his co-governors in ability, fortune, position, or family. Though he made a greater sacrifice than any, he never received the slightest compensation like the other early colonisers. We conclude that family dissentions connected with the disinheritance of Francis Plowden, must have tended to facilitate Charles II.'s illegal conduct; for, in Thomas Plowden's Will, 1698, in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, he alludes to his son-in-law, Walter Hall, illegally and forcibly retaining papers connected with the estates: Province of New Albion Charter, the Patent for the Peerage of Ireland. The first cousin of the disinherited son was a Col. Plowden of the Life Guards, who followed James II.'s fortunes, and accompanied him on his leaving England, and died as his chamberlain at St. Germains in France. These documents may have come into his hands, and have been lost in France. It is quite clear that the only estate which came to Thomas's eldest son James of Ewhurst was Lassam in Southampton, and his son James also held it; he was married to Sarah Chichely, daughter of Sir John Chichely, son of Sir Henry Chichely, formerly Governor of Virginia, the lineal descendant of Thomas, Lord Mayor of London, and brother of Archbishop Chichely, founder of All Souls, Oxford. This family is now extinct in the male, but still exist in the female line in the Plowden family, which is the nearest of kin of any family, and consequently has a stronger claim to the Fellowships of that college as founder's kin. There can be no question but that the family have a legal claim against the government for the unjust alienation of that province to James II.; but the loss of the charter, and the ignorance of the family that it was enrolled in Ireland (now found), prevented the heir and representative of Sir Edmund from claiming compensation. Nothing but an act of parliament can nullify the sacred rights of a charter; if it were not so, no public or private right would be safe a day. As to his peerage, it was litigated at the time, and decided in his favour; but the Commonwealth did not favour the restoration of titles granted by Charles I., and on the Restoration, Sir Edmund's papers were lost to those to whom they would have been useful. Notwithstanding the sarcastic and bad spirit in which Beauchamp Plantagenet's New Albion of 1648 was reviewed by Mr. Pennington of Philadelphia, I trust that the Americans will treat the early pioneer of one of the best portions of America in a more liberal spirit, and do justice to his memory. We have now no new worlds to discover; and the present race of men can hardly appreciate the labours, dangers, and hardships our first colonisers had to endure—but they however know the value of their exertions. They have secured for America one of the finest countries in the world, which may one day be an empire of vast power. Its separation from the mother country was the greatest national calamity that ever befell her. How fatal has it been to France; first for abetting clandestinely the Americans against England, and at last throwing away the mask, openly assisting her with her arms. Since then, what calamities have befallen her, and may even yet befall her. Had we then, as Macaulay says, had a Clive at the head of our armies, and a Hastings in council, that separation might either have been deferred, or we might have parted friendly, instead of in enmity. Had I time to glean it, I have no doubt I could furnish much important matter connected with New Albion, derived from sources within my reach.
ALBION.
P.S. There are two seals attached to Sir Edmund Plowden's Will; his private seal of the Plowdens, and his Earl's with supporters, signed "Albion:" the same as is given in Beauchamp Plantagenet's New Albion, 1648 (King's Lib. B. Mus.).
GENERAL JAMES WOLFE.
(Vol. iv., p. 271.)
He was born in a house now inhabited by the vicar, at Westerham, Kent, on the 2d of January, 1727, and not, as the various notices of his life state, the 15th of January, 1726 (see Penny Cyclopædia and other works). His mother's Christian name was Henrietta, and she, I believe, came from or near Deptford, to which place in the latter years of her life, she again went to reside. Wolfe was an only child; the name is still to be found in the neighbourhood of Westerham. Shortly after his birth, his parents removed to a house at the extreme end of the town,—a picturesque mansion it is, and is named after him Quebec House. Under this roof Wolfe's happiest hours were spent.
Sir Jeffrey Amherst (a native of the same valley, Holmsdale), patronised him, but where first engaged I never could discover. His body was brought to England, and interred at Greenwich; monuments were erected to him in Westminster Abbey, Squerries Park, Westerham, and Westerham Church. The inscription on the marble tablet, erected in the latter, I subjoin:—
JAMES,
Son of Colonel Edward Wolfe, and Henrietta his Wife,
Was born in this parish, January 2d,
MDCCXXVII.
And died in America, Sept. 19th,
MDCCLIX.
Conqueror of Quebec!
"Whilst George in sorrow bows his laurelled head,
And bids the artist grace the soldier dead;
We raise no sculptured trophy to thy name,
Brave youth! the fairest in the list of fame.
Proud of thy birth, we boast th' auspicious year,
Struck with thy fall, we shed a general tear,
With humble grief, inscribe one artless stone,
And from thy matchless honours date our own."
His sword is preserved in the United Service Museum, and was engraved about two years since in the Illustrated London News. An old professed portrait of him dangles as the sign of a beer-shop in Westerham. Wolfe was ardently attached to Colonel Barré, whose portrait is introduced in West's celebrated picture of the Death of Wolfe; another head in the picture is, I have been told, a likeness of a person who had been captured by the Indians, and was about to be scalped, when his life was saved by the intercession of a chief Wolfe had formerly pardoned.
Wolfe was the youngest general ever entrusted with such a responsible command; but his bravery, his great humanity, his love to his troops, and above all, his glorious death, will render his name immortal in the page of British history.
H. G. D.
The inclosed lines were given to me some years since by an old lady, who stated that they came into her possession through some relatives of the lady to whom they were addressed. I now much regret that I did not hear (or if I heard it have forgotten) the lady's name. Perhaps in the last letter of the series now in the hands of Ʒ , some allusion may be found to one in whom the parting hero felt so deep an interest; at all events the lines may be acceptable to Ʒ or others of your readers desirous for some further knowledge of the private life of this "faithful soldier." Might not the parish register of Westerham in Kent, the birthplace of Wolfe, possibly supply his mother's maiden name, or some other particular as to his family connexions? His father, also General Wolfe, may perhaps have distinguished himself in "the 45," but James Wolfe was then barely nineteen years of age, and I have never met with any allusion to his taking part in that campaign. His appointment to the American service is said to have been the result of his display of military talent in Germany.
LINES WRITTEN AT PORTSMOUTH BY GENERAL
WOLFE, AND PRESENTED TO HIS LADY THE
EVENING BEFORE HIS EMBARKATION FOR THE
SIEGE OF QUEBEC.
"At length too soon, dear creature,
Receive my fond adieu,
Thy pangs, oh Love, how bitter!
Thy joys how short, how few!
No more those eyes so killing,
The melting glance repeat,
Nor bosom gently swelling,
With love's soft tumults beat.
"I go where glory leads me,
And dangers point the way,
Though coward love upbraids me,
'Tis honour's boasting stories,
My anxious fears reprove,
And point to wealth, fame, glories,
Ah, what are these to love?
"Two passions vainly pleading,
My beating heart divide,
Lo, there my country bleeding,
And here my weeping bride.
But ah, thy faithful soldier,
Can true to either prove,
Fame fires my soul all over,
While every pulse beats love.
"Then think where'er I wander,
The sport of seas and wind,
No distance hearts can sunder,
Whom mutual truth has joined.
Kind heaven the brave requiting,
Shall safe thy love restore,
With raptures crown our meeting,
And joys ne'er felt before."
Poor Wolfe, but poorer bride!
YUNAF.
I am enabled to reply to the third Query of Ʒ from papers in my possession. Wolfe's commission as second lieutenant in his father's (Col. Edward Wolfe's) regiment of marines,[3] is dated 3d November, 1741; as ensign in Col. Scipio Duroure's regiment, 27th March, 1742; as lieutenant in the same regiment, 14th July, 1743; as adjutant in the same regiment, 22d July, 1743; as captain in Barrell's regiment, 23d June, 1744; as major in Lord George Sackville's regiment,[4] 5th January, 1748-49; as lieut.-col. of the same regiment, 20th March, 1749-50, and colonel by brevet, 21st Oct. 1757; colonel of the 67th regiment, 21st April, 1758; brigadier in America, 23d July, 1758; killed at siege of Quebec.
[3] This regiment was afterwards numbered the 1st regiment.
[4] This regiment was afterwards numbered the 20th, and then the 67th.
Wolfe's father, Edward Wolfe, was appointed brigadier-general, 25th April, 1745; major-general, 27th May, 1745, and lieut.-general, 30th Sept. 1747.
If Ʒ will communicate with me personally, I may be able to furnish him with some other information relating to Wolfe.
ROBERT COLE.
The following memoranda from MSS. in my care, relative to this distinguished man, may, perhaps, be of use to your correspondent Ʒ .
Feb. 1746, a petition (dated Feb. 1746) to the Duke of Bedford for his interference relative to the pay due to him as Inspector of Marines.
Another letter, dated July 7, 1746, printed in the first volume of the Bedford Correspondence.
Another letter, dated Feb. 16, 1747, on the same subject as the first.
Another letter, dated Feb. 19, 1757, also printed in the Bedford Correspondence.
Another letter, dated July 22, 1767, relative to his embarkation of a regiment in which he was lieut.-col.
Another letter, dated Jan. 26, 1788, printed in the Bedford Correspondence.
Copy of a letter to Lord George Sackville, dated Halifax, May 12.
W. A.
Major-General Edward Wolfe resided in one of the villas in Montague Walk, on the west side of Greenwich Park; afterwards the residence of the Hon. Mr. Lyttelton, Henry Drax, Esq., Mr. Scott, and his widow.
In the register book of St. Alphege in Greenwich occurs this entry:
"Major-Genl James Wolfe, buried Nov. 20th 1759."
His body was brought to England from Quebec, and laid by the side of his father, Major-Gen. E. Wolfe, who was buried there on April 2, 1759.
His mother's Christian name was Henrietta; she bequeathed 500l. to Bromley College at her death in 1765.
The short sword worn by General Wolfe at the time of his death is in the United Service Institution in Scotland Yard. His military cloak is, I believe, kept in the Tower.
MACKENZIE WALCOTT, M.A.
In the church of Westerham, the place of Wolfe's birth, as well as in Westminster Abbey, is a cenotaph. Is it well known who was the author of the pleasing lines inscribed at Westerham?
"While George in sorrow bows his laurel'd head."
May I also ask whether the packet of autograph letters in the possession of your correspondent was ever shown to Southey, and whether an intention was not entertained by him, at one period, of writing a memoir of Wolfe? If these letters were unknown to Southey, I have strong reasons for believing that another collection of General Wolfe's letters exists. Would not your correspondent's collection or a selection from it, form a very interesting publication?
J. H. M.
STANZAS IN CHILDE HAROLD.
(Vol. iv., pp. 223. 285.)
I am much obliged to your correspondents who have taken the trouble to answer my Query respecting the lines in Childe Harold; but I am sorry that you did not print one of the replies "at considerable length" to which you allude in your note to MR. CROSSLEY'S brief one: for MR. CROSSLEY'S settlement of the question will hardly, I think, appear so satisfactory to all readers as it evidently does to him. Will you allow me to explain the reasons for thinking so?
In his opinion it is quite transparent that Lord Byron meant to say, speaking to the Ocean of its shores:
"Thy waters wasted them when they were free,
And many a tyrant since" (has wasted them).
But in my former letter I quoted a German translator's version of the lines, and he did not understand them thus; and I have just referred to a French translator's, and he also differs from MR. CROSSLEY. In fact, his view of the matter so completely tallies with mine, that I will, with your permission, quote his words:
"Tes rivages sont des empires, où tout est changé, excepté toi. Que sont devenus l'Assyrie, la Grèce, Rome, Carthage? Tes flots battaient leurs frontières aux jours de la liberté, comme depuis sous le règne de plus d'un tyran."
This passage is taken from the complete translation of Lord Byron's Works, published at Paris in 1836, by M. Benjamin de Laroche, vol. i. p. 754.
M. de Laroche was no doubt led to form his opinion of the real meaning of these two lines from a careful consideration of those which immediately precede and immediately follow. The theme of the poet is the proud superiority of the ocean to human authority, and its insensibility to human vicissitude. He rebukes the haughty assumption that "Britannia rules the waves;" he refers in proof to the striking fact, that of the two most memorable tempests recorded in the naval history of Spain and England, the one aided our triumph, and the other tore the fruits of a triumph from us.
"The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the proud title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war,
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar."
And then he proceeds, according to my view of the passage, and according to the French translator's view, to point out, that while the shores of the ocean are changed, the action of the ocean continues the same; that it wasted the empires of the ancient world when they were free, and wasted them when they fell under the sway of tyrants:
"Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since their shores obey."
Here there seems to be a logical sequence, which is surely not to be found if the semicolon is kept, as MR. CROSSLEY wishes to keep it, after the word "since."
"Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since;"
meaning, as he declares, that many a tyrant since has wasted them. There may be grammatical construction here, but what becomes of the meaning? The direct force of the words would surely be, that the ocean was in the habit of ravaging its shores in times of liberty, but that it left off when the tyrants began. I suppose it will be admitted that this is not exactly what the poet wished to convey. To his real meaning it will, I hope, be allowed to be essential that the statement should be made, that the ocean's ravages continue; and if this is not done in the fourth line, it is done nowhere,—the chain of reasoning is left without a link. To say that the ocean wasted empires once, and tyrants did it afterwards, is as little to the purpose as it would have been to say, in the preceding stanza, that the ocean destroyed the Armada, but that Nelson won Trafalgar. The lines become incoherent.
I beg pardon for trespassing so long on your attention; but the question seems to have excited some interest, and I think the occasion may plead my excuse.
T. W.
There is no occasion to say any more on the subject of T. W.'s doubts (Vol. iv., p. 223.) as to the construction of certain lines in the 182nd stanza: but his remarks on the substitution of the word gush'd for rush'd, in the 141st stanza, induce me to offer a suggestion, or rather ask a Query, with respect to a word in another stanza (180th) of the same canto, which I shall quote entire.
"His steps are not upon thy paths—thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,—thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies;
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth:—there let him lay."
The blot which disfigures the last line of this fine stanza, in the use of the word lay for lie, has, I believe, been often observed; but the question I wish to throw out for the consideration of your readers is, whether it is quite certain that Lord Byron really wrote, or intended to write, the word lay. The following reasons appear to me to render it improbable that he did. 1. His lordship is admittedly, I believe, a great master of the English language, and would therefore be very unlikely to commit the somewhat vulgar blunder of writing lay for lie, whatever might be the requirements of the rhyme. 2. This improbability is rendered much stronger by his having used the word lies in the line next but one preceding; and therefore his attention could hardly have been averted from the distinction between the two words. 3. Though not professing to be a critic, it does appear to me that the sense itself of the line (taking the word lay in the sense of lie) is weak and unmeaning, or at least far from worthy of the former part of the stanza.
I am not perhaps bound to offer any emendation of the line, but in default of anything better I will venture to suggest that his lordship may have written, or intended to write, the word pray as the concluding word of the stanza. The sense, with pray instead of lay, would not, in my judgment, be inferior to that of the line in its present form; nor would it be in itself inappropriate, as allusion has just been made to man being sent "howling to his gods;" and, at all events, by the adoption of pray, an almost unpardonable grammatical error is avoided.
PRISCIAN.
I cannot agree with T. W. as to the stanza quoted from the Hymn to the Ocean.
"Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since" (has wasted them),
is very good sense, and much more Byronic than the cacophonous inversion T. W. proposes.
Blackwood's criticism of this hymn (probably by the Professor) is not at all too severe. Noble as are some parts of it, it is full of cockneyisms and platitudes. What can be worse than
"There let him lay."
Again:
"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!"
is most magnificent in its sonorous march: but the next line is equally absurd:
"Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain!"
In vain! Why, did not Columbus discover a world? Did not Nelson make England's fame eternal? Do not our tea, coffee, wine, and cotton cross the surging seas?
As to the "Gladiator" stanza, nobody can doubt that rushed is the right and most poetic reading. Rush is a strong word: gush a weak one, much hackneyed by neoteric poetasters. Byron never used gush in such a sense. Thoughts do not gush, though blood and water may. I therefore venture to differ from T. W. and his two illustrious friends.
MORTIMER COLLINS.
The difficulty which your correspondent T. W. finds in Lord Byron's celebrated Address to the Ocean is occasioned by his having taken up a wrong notion of the construction at the first reading; and the solution of his perplexity is so obvious, when this is once pointed out, that it must have already occurred to many of your readers, and very probably, by this time, to T. W. himself. The lines that puzzle him are—
"Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage."
"What!" exclaims T. W., "The waters wasted many a tyrant? How, in the name of wonder?" How indeed! Probably more readers at once caught the sense:—
"Thy waters wasted them while they were free And many a tyrant since—has wasted them."
The word "wasted" is used in a somewhat different sense in the two cases, but this is the price of the antithesis; and the result follows, that their shores now obey the stranger, the slave, or the savage, as exemplified in Greece, Asia and Africa respectively. And here we may observe, that the writer in Blackwood's Magazine, whom T. W. quotes, and who thinks the ocean appealed to is the world's ocean, and not the Mediterranean, has been just as blind to the train of thought in the other part as T. W. in this.
But in the way of doing something beyond the solution of this particular obscurity, so far as there is any, I would remark, that Byron's efforts at concentration and point not unfrequently give rise to an obscurity of this kind; which for a moment produces a perplexity that seems laughable as soon as the true sense occurs to us. For instance, on first reading these verses in the Corsair,—
"Be the edge sharpen'd of my boarding brand,
And give its guard more room to fix my hand.
This let the armourer with speed dispose;
Last time, it more fatigued my arm than foes:"
I exclaimed, like T. W., "What! his sword fatigued his foes? What a most absurd expression! To be sure, one may imagine that when Conrad was killing his enemies one after another without stopping, they would say, What a tiresome man he is! but this does not seem to be in the vein of the narration." And then, reading the passage again, and considering that the pirate complains of the guard of his sword being too narrow, I saw plainly that, with whatever damage to the rhythm, the verse was to be read—
"Last time, it more fatigued my arm than foes" (did).
My sword, by its not fitting to my hand, fatigued my arm more than all the resistance that foes could offer.
I will give another example of the same kind, again taken from the Pirate. In the enthusiastic description of a ship, he says:
"Who would not brave the battle-fire—the wreck—
To move the monarch of her peopled deck?"
"Who?" I exclaimed; "but who wants to move him? This monarch is, I suppose, the captain; but why should men in general wish to move him?" I suppose most of your readers see at the first what I saw at the second glance, that Byron meant "to move as the monarch of this deck," that is, to be the captain.
If I have satisfied T. W. and the rest of your readers of the construction of the first passage, I have, I think, also shown that the tendency to such transient mistakes in reading Byron is not uncommon.
W. W.