REMARKS UPON SOME RECENT QUERIES.
1. Without wishing to protract the discussion about eisell, let me tell the correspondent who questioned whether wormwood could be an ingredient in any palatable drink, that crême d'absinthe ordinarily appears with noyau, &c. in a Parisian restaurateur's list of luxurious cordials. Whilst that eisell was equivalent to wormwood is confirmed by its being joined with gall, in a page of Queen Elizabeth's book of prayers, which caught my eye in one of those presses in the library of the British Museum, where various literary curiosities are now so judiciously arranged, and laid open for public inspection.
2. As a decisive affirmation of what rack meant, where the word was the derivative of the Saxon pecan, your correspondents may accept the following from our martyr, Frith's, Revelation of Antichrist. He renders the second clause of 2 Peter ii. 17., "And racks carried about of a tempest;" and he immediately adds, "Racks are like clouds, but they give no rain."
3. In answer to MR. BREEN'S inquiry where there is any evidence from the writings of Gregory I., that he could be so shameless as to panegyrise that female monster Queen Brunéhaut, he may read some of that Pope's flattering language in his letter addressed to her on behalf of that Augustine whom he sent to England, as contained in Spelman's Concilia. Epist. xvii. (Brunichildæ, Reginæ Francorum) begins as follows:
"Gratias omnipotenti Deo referimus, qui inter cætera pietatis suæ dona, quæ excellentiæ vestræ largitus est, ita vos amore Christianæ religionis implevit, ut quicquid ad animarum lucrum, quicquid ad propagationem fidei pertinere cognoscitis, devota mente et pio operari studio non cessetis.... Et quidem hæc de Christianitate vestra mirentur alii, quibus adhuc beneficia vestra minus sunt cognita; nam nobis, quibus experimentis jam nota sunt, non mirandum est, sed gaudendum."—Spelm. Concil. p. 82.
And in Epist. xi.:
"Excellentia ergo vestra, quæ prona in bonis consuevit esse operibus."—Id. p. 77.
4. The etymology of Fontainebleau (Vol. iv., p. 38.). I can only speak from memory of what was read long ago. But I think that in one of Montfaucon's works, probably Les Monumens de la Monarchie Française, he ascribed the origin of that name to the discovery of a spring amongst the sandy rocks of that forest by a hound called Bleau, to the great satisfaction of a thirsty French monarch who was then hunting there, and was thereby induced to erect a hunting-seat near the spring.
5. To A. B. C. (Vol. iv., p. 57.), your questionist about the marriage of bishops in the early ages of the Christian church, who has had a reply in p. 125., I would further say, that as we have no biographies describing the domestic life of any Christian bishop earlier than Cyprian, who belonged to the middle of the third century, it is only incidentally that anything appears of the kind which he inquires after. It would be enough for the primitive Christians to know that their scriptures said of marriage, that it was honourable in all; though such as were especially exposed to persecution, from their prominence as officers of the church, would also remember the apostle's advice as good for the present distress, 1 Cor. vii. As, however, your correspondent asks what evidence there is that Gregory Nazienzen's father had children after he was raised to the episcopate, this fact is gathered from his own poem, in which he makes his father say to him, "Thy years are not so many as I have passed in sacred duties." For though these sacred duties began with his admission into the priesthood, he was made a bishop so soon afterwards, that his younger son, Cæsarius, must at any rate be held to have been born after the elder Gregory became a bishop.
Curiously enough, however, good evidence appears in the papal law itself, that the marriages of ecclesiastics were not anciently deemed unlawful. In the Corpus Juris Canonici, or Decretum aureum, D. Gratiani, Distinctio lvi. canon 2., which professes to be a rescript of Pope Damasus (A.D. 366-84), says:
"Theodorus papa filius [fuit] Theodori episcopi de civitate Hierosolyma, Silverius papa filius Silverii episcopi Romæ—item Gelasius, natione Afer, ex patre episcopo Valerio natus est. Quam plures etiam alii inveniuntur: qui de sacerdotibus nati apostolicæ sedi præfuerunt."
To which Gratian attaches as his own conclusion:
"Hine Augustinus ait, Vicia parentum Filiis non imputentur."
Thereby throwing a slur on the said married bishops. But can. xiii., or Cænomanensem, of the same Distinctio, says:
"Cum ergo ex sacerdotibus nati in summos pontifices supra legantur esse promoti, non sunt intelligendi de fornicatione, sed de legitimis conjugiis."
I will only add that Athanasius mentions a Bishop Eupsychius (Primâ contra Arianos) who was martyred in the reign of Julian, and that the historian Sozomen says of him (Eccl. Hist., lib. v. ch. 11.), that when he suffered he had but recently married, καὶ οἷον ἔτι νυμφίον ὄντα.
H. WALTER.
DOMINGO LOMELYNE.
(Vol. i., p. 193.)
As it is not to be met with in a regular way, your correspondent may be ignorant that Domingo Lomelyne was progenitor of the extinct baronets LUMLEY, his descendants having softened or corrupted his name into an identity with that of the great northern race of the latter name. They, however, retained different coat-armour in the senior line, bearing in common with many other English families of Italian, Champaigne, and generally trans-Norman origin, "a chief." Guido de St. Leodigaro and one Lucarnalsus are the earliest heroes to whom I find it assigned; but Stephen, son of the Odo, Earl of Champaigne (whence Fortibus, Earl of Albemarle), also brought it to England at a very early period; and thence from the Holderness annex of de Fortibus (in spite of the allegations in Wott. Bar., i. 189.), Worsley perhaps copied it. The old Lumley or Lomelyne accounts connect it with the city of Naples. Your correspondent will find that Domingo Lomelyne was a Genoese, and of the bedchamber to Henry VIII.; that he maintained at his own cost, and commanded, a troop of horse at Boulogne in the same reign, and had a pension of 200l. per annum from Queen Elizabeth in 1560. If any of your corespondents can give me the junior ramifications of this family diverging from the son and grandson of Domingo, I shall feel much obliged, provided that James Lumley, living 1725, who married Catherine Hodilow, can be satisfactorily linked with James, the son of Domingo. James and Martin were the family names, and the family was settled in London and Essex.
WM. D'OYLY BAYLEY.
PETTY CURY.
(Vol. iv., pp. 24. 120.)
Having noticed in a recent number some rather various derivations of the name "Petty Cury," which one of the streets in Cambridge bears, I have been led to examine the word "Cury," and think that a meaning may be given to it, preferable to any of the three mentioned in your paper. The three to which I refer connect the word with "cook-shops," "stables," or some kind of a court-house ("curia"). The arguments brought forward in their favour either arise from the similarity of the words (as "Cury" and "écurie"), or from the probability that either cook-shops, stables, or a court-house existed in the vicinity of the street, whence it might derive its name. With regard to the name "Cury" being derived from the cook-shops in the streets, this seems to have little to do with the question; for supposing there are some half dozen such shops there (which I do not know to be the case), it proves little as to what was the number three or four centuries ago. Secondly, "Cury" derived from "écurie:" this seems unsatisfactory, for, as nothing whatever is known about our former fellows' horses, the argument in its favour simply consists in "Cury" being similar to "écurie." The third derivation is, that "Cury" is taken from "curia," a senate or court-house. This falls to the ground from the considerations, that if it were derived from it we might expect the name to be Parva Cury and not Petty Cury; and if it be derived from it, it implies that there was some larger court existing at that time, in contradistinction to which this was called "Parva Curia." But no larger one (as the advocate of the derivation allows) did exist, so that this derivation meets the fate of the former ones.
The most probable derivation of the word is from the French "curie," a ward or district, which certainly possesses this advantage over the three former ones, that the word is exactly the same as that of the street. The arguments in its favour are these:—In referring to a map of Cambridge dated A.D. 1574, I find the town divided into wards, with different names attached to them. These wards are all larger than "Petty Cury:" in the same map the name is spelt "Peti Curie" (i.e. small ward), both words being French or Norman ones, and the word "peti" being applied to it from its being smaller than any of the other wards. In former times it was not unusual to give French names to the wards and streets of a town, as may be seen any day in London, or even in Liverpool, which is comparatively a modern place. Thus the word from which I propose to derive the name "Cury" being the very same, and not requiring us to form any vague suppositions either about cook-shops, stables, or court-houses, I conclude, may be considered preferable to the three before mentioned.
W. F. R.
Trinity College, Sept. 1. 1851.
THE DAUPHIN.
(Vol. iv., p. 149.)
The communication of your correspondent ÆGROTUS respecting the claims of an individual to be the Dauphin of France and Duke of Normandy, brought to my recollection pretensions of a similar nature made by a person who, about twenty years ago, was resident in London; and was a teacher of music, as I was informed. This person introduced himself to me, in a French house of business, as the genuine Dauphin of France, the second son of Louis XVI. In justice to the soi-disant Dauphin, I should state that he did not bring forward his claims abruptly, but in the course of a conversation held in his presence, relating to the claims of another pretender to the same honours. The communicator of this important intelligence of a new rival to the contested diadem, urged his claims with so much plausibility, and pressed me so earnestly to pay him a visit—seeing that I listened to his impassioned statement with decorous patience and real interest—in order that he might explain the matter more fully and at leisure—that I went to his house in the New Road, where I saw him more than once. He told me that the woman, who had all her life passed as his mother, informed him on her death-bed that he was the Duke of Normandy, and had been confided to her charge and care; and that she was told to make her escape with him by his true mother, Marie Antoinette, when that unfortunate queen eluded the murderous pursuit of her assailants in the furious attack made on the Tuileries on the 10th of August, 1792. So impressed was I by the earnestness of the narrator, and the air of truth thrown around his story—knowing also that some doubts had been started as to the death of the Dauphin in the Temple—that I offered, being then about to visit Edinburgh, which was at that time the residence of the exiled monarch Charles X. and his ill-starred family, to be the bearer to them of any memorial or other document, which the claimant to the rights of Dauphin might wish to submit to that illustrious body. A statement was accordingly drawn up, and sent by me when in Edinburgh, not to Charles X., but to her royal highness the Duchess of Angoulême; who immediately replied, requesting an interview on my part with one of the noblemen or gentlemen of her household, whom I met; and was informed by him from her royal highness, that such communications exceedingly distressed her, in recalling a past dreadful period of her life; for that there was no truth in them, and that her brother, the Duke of Normandy, died in the Temple. With deep and sincere protestations of regret at having been the cause of pain to her royal highness, and made the unconscious dupe of either a knave or a fool, instead of bringing forward an illustrious unknown to his due place in history, I took my leave; and think this account ought to scatter for ever to the winds all tales, in esse or posse, of pretended Dauphins of France and Dukes of Normandy.
I should mention, that in my interview with the soi-disant Dauphin, he showed me various portraits of Louis XVI., and then bade me look at his own features, in every attitude and form, and say if the likeness was not most striking and remarkable. I could not deny it; and in truth was so impressed with his whole account, that I began to look upon the humble individual before me with something of the reverence due to majesty, shorn of its glories.
J. M.
P.S.—I now recollect that the name of this pretended Dauphin was Mevis, and that he was said to have been seen in Regent Street by a friend of mine about five years ago; and may, for aught I know, be still living.
Oxford, Sept. 2.