Replies to Minor Queries.
Lord Mayor not a Privy Councillor (Vol. iv., pp. 9. 137.).
—L. M. says that the precedent of Mr. Harley being sworn of the Privy Council does not prove the argument advanced by C., and "for this simple reason, that the individual who held the office is not Right Honorable, but the officer is." What he means by the office (of privy councillor) is not clear; but surely he does not mean to say that it is not the rank of privy councillor which gives the courtesy style of Right Honorable? If so, can a man be a member of the Council till he is sworn at the board?
Is the Lord Mayor a member of the Board, not having been sworn? Is he ever summoned to any Council? When he attends a meeting on the occasion of the accession, is he summoned? and if so, by whom, and in what manner? The Lord Mayor is certainly not a privy councillor by reason of his courtesy style of Lord, any more than the Lord Mayor of York.
The question is, whether the style of Right Honorable was given to the Lord Mayor from the supposition that he was a privy councillor, or from the fact that formerly the Lord Mayor was considered as holding the rank of a Baron; for if he died during his mayoralty, he was buried with the rank, state, and degree of Baron.
When does it appear that the style of Right Honorable was first given to the Lord Mayor of London?
E.
Did Bishop Gibson write a life of Cromwell? (Vol. iv., p. 117.).
—In the Life of the Rev. Isaac Kimber, prefixed to his Sermons, London, 1756, 8vo., it is stated that—
"One of the first productions he gave to the world was the Life of Oliver Cromwell in 8vo., printed for Messrs. Brotherton and Cox. This piece met with a very good reception from the public, and has passed through several editions, universally esteemed for its style and its impartiality; and as the author's name was not made public, though it was always known to his friends, it was at first very confidently ascribed to Dr. Gibson, Bishop of London."—P. 10.
The Life of Kimber appears to have been written by Edward Kimber, his son, and therefore the claim of Bishop Gibson to this work may very fairly be set aside.
The Short Critical Review of the life of Oliver Cromwell, by a Gentleman of the Middle Temple, has always been attributed to John Bankes, an account of whom will be found in Chalmers's Biog. Dict., vol. iii. p. 422., where it is confidently stated to be his. It was first published in 1739, 8vo. I have two copies of a third edition, Lond. 1747. 12mo. "Carefully revised and greatly enlarged in every chapter by the author." In one of the copies the title-page states it to be "by a gentleman of the Middle Temple;" and in the other "by Mr. Bankes." Bishop Gibson did not die till 1748, and there seems little probability that, if he were the author, another man's name would be put to it during his lifetime.
I conclude therefore that neither of these two works are by Bishop Gibson.
JAS. CROSSLEY.
Lines on the Temple (Vol. iii., pp. 450. 505.).
—In the Gentleman's Mag. (Suppl. for 1768, p. 621.), the reviewer of a work entitled "Cobleriana, or the Cobler's Miscellany, being a choice collection of the miscellaneous pieces in prose and verse, serious and comic, by Jobson the Cobler, of Drury Lane, 2 vols.," gives the following extract; but does not state whether it belongs to the "new" pieces, or to those which had been previously "published in the newspapers," the volume being avowedly composed of both sorts:—
"An Epigram on the Lamb and Horse, the two insignia
of the Societies of the Temple.
"The Lamb the Lawyers' innocence declares,
The Horse their expedition in affairs;
Hail, happy men! for chusing two such types
As plainly shew they give the world no wipes;
For who dares say that suits are at a stand,
When two such virtues both go hand in hand?
No more let Chanc'ry Lane be endless counted,
Since they're by Lamb and Horse so nobly mounted."
The Italics, which I have copied, were, I suppose, put in by the reviewer, who adds, "Q. Whether the Lamb and Horse are mounted upon Chancery Lane, or two virtues, or happy men?" Poor man! I am afraid his Query has never been answered; for that age was not adorned and illustrated by any work like one in which we rejoice,—a work of which, lest a more unguarded expression of our feelings should be indelicate, and subject us to the suspicion of flattery, we will be content to say boldly, that, though less in size and cost, it is cotemporaneous with the Great Exhibition.
A TEMPLAR.
These lines are printed (probably for the first time) in the sixth number of The Foundling Hospital for Wit, 8vo.: Printed for W. Webb, near St. Paul's, 1749 (p. 73.). The learned author of Heraldic Anomalies (2nd edit. vol. i. p. 310.) says they were chalked upon one of the public gates of the Temple; but from the following note, preceding the lines in question, in The Foundling Hospital for Wit, this statement is probably erroneous:
"The Inner Temple Gate, London, being lately repaired, and curiously decorated, the following inscription, in honour of both the Temples, is intended to be put over it."
A MS. note, in a cotemporary hand, in my copy of The Foundling Hospital for Wit, states the author of the original lines to have been the "Rev. William Dunkin, D.D." The answer which follows it, is said to be by "Sir Charles Hanbury Williams."
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.
Henry Headley, B.A. (Vol. iii., p. 280.).
—E. B. PRICE styles "Henry Headley, B.A., of Norwich, a now forgotten critic." He might have added, "but who deserved to be remembered, as one whose Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry, with Remarks, &c., in 2 vols., 1787, contributed something towards the revival of a taste for that species of literature which Percy's Reliques exalted into a fashion, if not a passion, never to be discountenanced again." The work of course is become scarce, and not the less valuable, though that recommendation constitutes its least value.
J. M. G.
Hallamshire.
Cycle of Cathay (Vol. iv., p. 37.).
—Without reflecting much on the matter, I have always supposed the "cycle" in Tennyson's line—
"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay"—
to be the Platonic cycle, or great year, the space of time in which all the stars and constellations return to their former places in respect of the equinoxes; which space of time is calculated by Tycho Brahe at 25,816 years, and by Riccioli at 25,920: and I understood the passage (whether rightly or wrongly I shall be glad to be informed) to mean, that fifty years of life in Europe were better than any amount of existence, however extended, in the Celestial Empire.
W. FRASER.
Proof of Sword Blades (Vol. iv., pp. 39. 109.).
—Without wishing to detract from the merits of an invention, which probably is superior in its effects to old modes of testing sword blades, I object to the term efficient being applied to machine-proved swords.
Because, after such proof, they frequently break by ordinary cutting; even those which have been made doubly strong and heavy—and hence unfit and useless for actual engagement—have so failed. And because machine-tried swords are liable to, and do, break in the handle.
For many reasons I should condemn the machine in question as inapplicable to its purposes. By analogous reasoning, it would not be wrong to call a candle a good thrusting instrument, because a machine may be made to force it through a deal plank.
The subject of testing sword blades is a very important one, although it has not received that degree of attention from those whom it more nearly concerns which it seems to demand.
The writer's experience has been only en amateur; but it has satisfied him how much yet remains to be effected before swords proved by a machine are to be relied upon.
E. M. M.
Thornhill Square, August 16. 1851.
Was Milton an Anglo-Saxon Scholar? (Vol. iv., p. 100.).
—Is it too much to suppose that the learned "Secretary for Forreigne Tongues" was acquainted with the Paraphrasis poetica Genesios ac præcipuarum sacræ Paginæ Historiarum, abhinc Annos MLXX. Anglo-Saxonicè conscripta, et nunc primum edita a Francisco Junius, published at Amsterdam in 1655, at least two years before he commenced his immortal poem? Hear Mr. Turner on the subject:
"Milton could not be wholly unacquainted with Junius; and if he conversed with him, Junius was very likely to have made Cædmon the topic of his discourse, and may have read enough in English to Milton, to have fastened upon his imagination, without his being a Saxon scholar."—Turner's Anglo-Saxons, vol. iii., p. 316.
Both Mr. Turner and Mr. Todd, however, appear to lean to the opinion that Milton was not unskilled in Saxon literature, and mention, as an argument in its favour, the frequent quotations from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle which occur in the History. It is also worthy of note that Alexander Gill, his schoolmaster, and whose friendship Milton possessed in no small degree, had pursued his researches somewhat deep into the "well of English undefiled," as appears from that extremely curious, though little known work, the Logonomia Anglica.
SAXONICUS.
English Sapphics.
—I admired the verses quoted by H. E. H. (Vol. iii., p. 525.) so much that I have had them printed, but unfortunately have no copy by me to send you. I quote them from memory:
"PSALM CXXXVII.
By a Schoolboy.
"Fast by thy stream, O Babylon! reclining,
Woe-begone exile, to the gale of evening
Only responsive, my forsaken harp I
Hung on the willows.
"Gush'd the big tear-drops as my soul remember'd
Zion, thy mountain-paradise, my country!
When the fierce bands Assyrian who led us
Captive from Salem
"Claim'd in our mournful bitterness of anguish
Songs and unseason'd madrigals of joyance—
'Sing the sweet-temper'd carols that ye wont to
Warble in Zion.'
"Dumb be my tuneful eloquence, if ever
Strange echoes answer to a song of Zion,
Blasted this right hand, if I should forget thee,
Land of my fathers!"
O. T. DOBBIN.
Hull College.
The Tradescants (Vol. iii., p. 469.).
—It is to be hoped that the discovery by C. C. R. of Dr. Ducarel's note may yet lead to the obtaining further information concerning the elder Tradescant. It may go for something to prove beyond doubt that he was nearly connected with the county of Kent, which has not been proved yet. Parkinson says that "he sometimes belonged to ... Salisbury.... And then unto the Right Honorable the Lord Wotton at Canterbury in Kent." See Parkinson's Paradisus Terrestris, p. 152. (This must be the same with DR. RIMBAULT'S Lord Weston, p. 353., which should have been "Wotton.") We may therefore, in the words of Dr. Ducarel's note, "consult (with certainty of finding information concerning the Tradescants) the registers of ——apham, Kent." I should give the preference to any place near Canterbury approaching that name.
It is worth noticing that the deed of gift of John Tradescant (2) to Elias Ashmole was dated in true astrological form, being "December 16, 1657, 5 hor. 30 minutes post merid." See Ashmole's Diary, p. 36.
BLOWEN.
Monumental Inscription, English Version (Vol. iv., p. 88.).
—I have a Note on this very epitaph, made several years since, from whence extracted I know not; but there is an English version attached, which may prove interesting to some readers, as it exactly imitates the style of the Latin:
cur- f- w- d- dis- and p-
"A -sed -iend -rought -eath ease -ain."
bles- fr- b- br- and ag-
E. S. TAYLOR.
Lady Petre's Monument (Vol. iv., p. 22.).
—Will the following passage, from Murray's Handbook to Southern Germany, throw any light on the meaning of the initials at the foot of Lady Petre's monument, as alluded to in your Number of July 12, 1851?
"At the extremity of the right-hand aisle of the cathedral of St. Stephen, is the marble monument of the Emperor Frederick III., ornamented with 240 figures and 40 coats of arms, carved by a sculptor of Strasburg, Nicholas Lerch. On a scroll twisted around the sceptre in the hand of the effigy, is seen Frederick's device or motto, the letters A. E. I. O. U., supposed to be the initials of the words Alles Erdreich Ist Oesterreich Unterthan; or, in Latin, Austriæ Est Imperare Orbis Universi."—Murray's Handbook to Southern Germany, pp. 135, 136.
C. M. G.