Replies to Minor Queries.
"Theophania" (Vol. i., p. 174.).
—An inquiry is made by your correspondent as to the author of this romance, printed in 4to. in 1655, to which no answer has yet been returned. In my copy, under "By an English Person of Quality," in the title-page, is written, in a contemporary handwriting, "Sr. W. Sales." In the same handwriting is a MS. key, annexed to the book, to all the names. This is too long to copy here, but if your correspondent wishes for a transcript I shall be happy to supply him with one.
JAS. CROSSLEY.
Royal Library (Vol. iv., p. 446.).
—I cannot let GRIFFIN'S observation on my contradiction of the fable about an intended sale of the library to Russia pass unanswered, as it might seem as if I acquiesced in his criticism, and so leave a doubt on the point. He asks, "Must the story be false because the Princess de Lieven never heard of it? that is, must a whole story be untrue if a part of it is?" To which I answer, Yes, when the part refuted is the sole evidence for the rest. The story of the sale to Russia stood on the sole alleged evidence of the Princess de Lieven. I had myself good reason to believe that the story was false, but I delayed contradicting it on general grounds, till I had obtained the direct testimony of the Princess that she had not only not said or done what had been imputed to her, but that she had never before heard of any such proposition. Those who know anything of the English Court and Russian Embassy of those days, will acknowledge that this is also a complete refutation of GRIFFIN'S new, but still more vague, version, that perhaps it was "the Russian ambassador, or some distinguished Russian," that was engaged in the matter. I believe that I know as much about it as any one now alive, and though I cannot trust my memory to state all the details, I can venture to assert that I never heard of any Russian proposition, and that I am confident that there never was one.
C.
Reichenbach's Ghosts (Vol. iv., p. 5.).
—DR. MAITLAND asked what "thousands of ghost-stories" Reichenbach thought he had disproved. Certainly those by which it is said "the spirits of the departed wander over their graves" (Ashburner's Reichenbach, p. 177.). He shows that superstition to be popular in Germany. The weakness of the Baron's tirade (a bad style, in which he rarely indulges,) lies in this, that the best class of ghosts is an entirely different class. So that enlightenment and freedom, superstition and ignorance, have not yet wound up their accounts. See Gregory's Letters to a Candid Enquirer, p. 277., where enlightenment and freedom get a slap on the face. He maintains that even grave-lights (probably) humaniform apparitions; and that all other ghost-stories, not connected with the place of interment, equally belong to bi-od or animal magnetism.
A. N.
Marriage Tithe in Wales (Vol. v., p. 29.).
—It is well known to your readers that the whole of the tithes in England and Wales have recently been commuted for rent-charges; and the present writer can confidently affirm that, throughout the commutation, no tithe of marriage goods has been admitted to be valid, nor does he believe that any such tithe has been claimed. Tithes in Wales have not differed in any material respect from those payable in England: an excessive subdivision of ownership being the only circumstance which is remarkable in regard to them. As each article of titheable produce is capable of becoming a separate property, and this property may again become divided amongst an indefinite number of owners, the complexity occasioned by such minute interests may be imagined. The bee, for instance, produces three distinct titheable articles,—honey, wax, and swarms,—and a case actually occurred in Wales, in which the honey belonged to one class of owners, and the wax and swarms to another class, one of the classes owning in undivided eighty-eighth parts. There have also been some curious cases of modus in Wales, of which the following may be taken as a specimen:—In a parish on the sea-coast in Pembrokeshire, an estate was exempt from tithes by a modus of a cup of ale and an egg, rendered by way of refreshment to the parson, whenever, in consequence of the state of the tide, he was compelled to pass the house of the landowner on his way to perform divine service in the parish church.
H. P.
Paul Hoste (Vol. iv., p. 474.).
—I would recommend your correspondent ÆGROTUS to examine the new edition of P. Paul Hoste's Treatise on Naval Tactics, translated with Notes and Illustrations, by Captain J. Donaldson Boswall, a 4to. vol. published in 1834, when, I have no doubt, he will there find the information he is in quest of.
T. G. S.
Edinburgh.
John of Halifax (Vol. iii., p. 389.; Vol. v., p. 42.).
—Since every country has its Holywood, and de Sacrobosco does not distinguish Holywood from Halifax, John of Halifax has been claimed both by Ireland and Scotland, and, if I remember right, by some foreign countries. The manuscripts of his works, as well as the earlier printed editions, call him Anglus or Anglicus; and he lived in a time at which the natives of the three countries were as distinct as Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Italians. Bale, quoting Leland, calls him Halifax; as does Tanner: Pits gives his birth to Halifax. He was buried in the Maturin convent at Paris, where his epitaph existed in the sixteenth century. Pits implies that it appears from the epitaph that he died in 1256: Mæstlinus expressly affirms that it can be collected from the epitaph, in the Ad Lectorem of his Epitome Astronomiæ. All the authorities believe him to be English; and Leland thought he traced him as a student at Oxford. But had the manuscripts called him anything but English, the other evidence would not have weighed them down; for there are plenty of Holywoods, and there was, notoriously, a press of foreign students to Oxford in the thirteenth century. But name and residence in England may come in aid of the manuscripts.
The statement that he died in 1244 probably arises as follows. In the epitaph, according to Pits, are the following lines:—
M. Christi bis C quarto deno quater anno
De Sacrobosco discrevit tempora Ramus
Gratia cui nomen dederat divina Johannis,
meaning that in 1244 a bough from the holy wood discrevit tempora. This Pits calls an obscure reference to the time of his death, in the same sentence in which he places that time in 1256. Very obscure indeed, if a reference to his death in 1256 be intended. But if discrevit tempora refer, not to death, but to the matter of his celebrated work de anni ratione, seu ... computus Ecclesiasticus, there is no obscurity at all. And at the end of a Merton manuscript of this computus, Tanner found the preceding lines inserted; the copyist taking them to allude, of course, to the date of the book.
M.
Age of Trees (Vol. iv., p. 401.).
—Your correspondent L. inquires after authentic evidence respecting the age of ancient trees:
"In the 12th vol. of Loudon's Gardener's Magazine, p. 588., the Cowthorpe Oak [standing at the extremity of the village of Cowthorpe, near Wetherby in Yorkshire], is said to be 'undoubtedly the largest tree at present known in the kingdom.'
"Professor Burnet says, 'the Cowthorpe Oak is sixteen hundred years old. We may ask, how is this ascertained? From tradition, or calculated on botanical data? If the latter, it is possibly far removed from truth. The method of calculating the age of dicotyledonous trees, with hollow trunks' [and he elsewhere says, so large is the hollow of the Cowthorpe Oak, that it is reported to have had upwards of seventy persons at one time therein assembled], 'is by multiplying the number of rings comprised in a given portion of the remaining wood, by the proportion which half the entire diameter of the trunk bears to the selected portion.... It is evident, however, that this calculation proceeds on the assumption of two circumstances, whose probable variations may seriously affect the result.
"'1st. That all the rings are of equal width.
"'2nd. That each ring is of uniform width on both sides of the tree.
"'It is known that the width of the rings diminishes with the age of the tree, until, at the latter part of its life, they are of very inconsiderable width, compared with those near the centre of the trunk.... Again, it is also known that the width of the rings differs according to season, being of course wider in those seasons most favourable to the action of the leaves, and the general processes of growth; but greatly diminished in seasons affected by blight, cold, or other causes of injury to the leaves. It also happens that the rings are often of unequal width on opposite sides of the trunk.... While, if the tree be so hollow as to have no portion of its centre remaining ... will expose the calculation to ... error. In reference, therefore, to the Cowthorpe Oak, we abandon all scientific pretension.'"
The foregoing is extracted from an account of the Cowthorpe Oak by C. Empson, Esq., 1842: Ackerman, Strand.
COKELY.
"Mirabilis Liber" (Vol. iv., p. 474.).
—I have a copy of this book, from which a "prophecy" is quoted in "N. & Q." p. 474., but the translation there given differs from the prophecy, as given in my book. I have therefore copied it out at length, and exactly as given in the original, with all the faults of barbarous Latin and want of stops.
My book is a small 8vo. without date: the first part in Latin, and the second in French, in Gothic characters. The colophon runs thus: "On les vend au roy David en la rue St. Jacques."[5]
[5] [For a notice of the various editions of this work, see Brunet, Manuel du Libraire, s. v. Mirabilis, tome iii. p. 401.—ED.]
The "prophet" is S. Severus not S. Cæsario.
"PROPHETIA SANCTI SEVERI ARCHIEPISCOPI.
"Propter incohabitationem doni tertii reviviscet scisma in ecclesiâ Dei tunc erunt duo sponsi unus verus alter adulter. Adulter vero videlicet pars diabolica quæ ecclesia appellatur erit tanta strages et sanguinis effusio quanta nunquam fuit ex quo gigantes fuerunt. Legitimus sponsus fugiet, ecce leo surget et aquila nigra veniens ex liguriâ et quasi fulgens eradicabit nido suos sexatioribus pennis et tunc incipient tribulationes et prælia terrena et marina et clamabitur pax et non invenietur: blasphemabitur nomen domini et non erit ratio in terrâ unusquisque opprimabitur potentiam suam. Væ tibi civitas gentium et divitiarum in principio. Sed gaudebis in fine. Væ tibi civitas philosophorum gaudeas. O terra filii Noe edificata quia prefatum habebis gaudium et totam dominaberis romandiolam. Væ tibi civitas philosophorum subdita erit. Væ tibi lombardiæ gens turres etiam gaudii tui dirimentur. Ecce leo magnus et gallicus obviabit aquilæ: et feriet caput ejus eritque bellum immensum et mors valida unus eorum amittet fugietque in thuciam illic reassumet vires.
"Et Romandiolam quæ tunc caput italiæ erit in eurola civitate coronam accipiet ecce prælia et mortalitatis quæ non fuerunt ab origine mundi neque erunt usque in finem quia illic congregabuntur ab omni natione.
"Unus eorum vincet et ibit in elephantem: et ibi ponet sedem antiquam et declarabitur quia fiet postea unus pastor in ecclesia Dei recipiet utramque ecclesiam cardinalium cum maximâ pace et prædictus sponsus de dignitate columbinarum assumetur... Tunc temporanee ecclesie et civitatis et dignitati columbinarum in romandiola dabuntur et sua operatione fiet concorditer pax et unitas prædictorum. Et prædictus rex diu regnabit in regno suo: et deponentur omnes tyranni de ecclesia Dei et sub nomine regis gubernabuntur omnia: et universitas sanctorum credet in eligendum tanquam verum sponsum et pastorem prædictum. Et non erit amplius scisma usque ad tempora antichristi. Et fiet passagium per prædictum regem et gentes armorum quas secum ducet: et tunc fiet quasi conversio generalis ad fidem Christi per leonem magnum et regem prædictum quàm qui tunc in romandiola: et semper gaudebunt quia erunt amici et perpetui."
W. S.
Denton.
Cæsarius, &c.
—No facts have yet occurred to convince me but that all prophecies are stuff; by no means excepting those which Dr. Gregory printed in Blackwood for 1850, and from which (more strange) he is unweaned in 1851. Seeing that you have reprinted (Vol. iv., p. 471.) the prophecy falsely ascribed to that ancient Latin father, Cæsarius Arelatensis, I beg leave to mention that I published in the British Magazine for 1846 an historical and chronological explanation of that modern forgery, as well as of the far more ancient predictions ascribed to Queen Basina. Thomas of Ercildoun was anterior in date to the pseudo-Cæsarius, and borrowed the idea of his French revolution from Basina's, if, indeed, that prophecy be authentically from his pen, of which the proofs are very slender. See it quoted in Walter Scott's Poet. Works, vi. p. 236., ed. 1820.
I wish to be informed in what sense, and for what reason, Walter Scott in the same page calls the prophecy-man Robert Fleming, "Mass Robert Fleming."
A. N.
Tripos (Vol. iv., p. 484.).
—The original tripos, from which the Cambridge class lists have derived their names, was a three-legged stool, on which on Ash Wednesday a Bachelor of one or two years' standing (called therefrom the Bachelor of the Stool) used formerly to take his seat, and play the part of public disputant in the quaint proceedings which accompanied admission to the degree of B.A. In course of time the name was transferred from the stool to him that sat on it, and the disputant was called the Tripos; and thence by successive steps it passed to the day when the three-legged stool became "for the nonce" a post of honour; then to the lists published on that day, containing the seniority of commencing B.A.s arranged according to the pleasure of the Proctors; and ultimately it obtained the enlarged meaning now universally recognised, according to which it stands for the examination whether in mathematics, classics, moral or physical science, as well as the list by which the result of that examination is made known.
The Latin verses which do, or till very lately did, accompany the printed lists, and which it was expected were to partake more or less of a burlesque character, are the only existing relics of the functions of the Bachelor of the Stool (performed in 1556/7 by Abp. Whitgift), to whom, as to the Prævaricator at commencements, or the Terræ Filius at Oxford, considerable license of language was allowed; a privilege which, in spite of the exhortation of the Father (see Bedle Buck's book) "to be witty but modest withal," was not unfrequently abused.
Those who desire further information on this subject may consult the appendixes to Dean Peacock's admirable work On the Statutes of the University, pp. ix. x. lxx.
E. V.
"Please the Pigs" (Vol. v., p. 13.).
—The editorial reply to my query about the origin of this expression is very ingenious, and appears at first sight to be very probable; and, of course, if it can be shown to rest upon authority, it will be accounted satisfactory. But [and here let me say, how conscious I am that it savours something of presumption to be butting my buts against editorial sapience which has been brought to the aid of my own confessed ignorance; yet, as that "purry furry creature with a tail yclept a cat" may with impunity cast its feline glances at a king, I am emboldened to hope that "a pig without a tail" may enjoy the immunity of projecting just one porcine squint at an editor. And so to my but right boldly, though perhaps as blunderingly as pigs are wont] the sound of the word "pyx" has suggested to my mind another solution which, while it is much less ingenious, appears to me to be much more probable. May not the saying be a simple corruption, all' allegria, of "please the pixies?" This would save the metonymy, and would also avoid what I conceive to be a more formidable difficulty attaching to the idea of "please the Host"—viz., the fact that, although I have travelled and resided not a little in Roman Catholic countries, in France, Italy, Spain, and the Mediterranean Islands, I never yet have heard any expression which could be supposed to involve the idea of favour or disfavour from the Host; albeit such expressions applying to the several persons of the blessed Trinity, and to every saint in the calendar, are rife in every mouth.
Having no authority, however, for my conjecture, I put it in the form of a Query, in the hope of provoking an authoritative decision.
PORCUS.
Basnet Family (Vol. iii., p. 495.; Vol. iv., p. 77.).
—My attention has been directed to the inquiries made touching this family, and I have looked into my Manuscript Collections for such as related to the name. I find them distinguished by me into Bassenet and Basnet, though the latter writer on the subject identifies them as one and the same. The classification in my books subdivides the notices I possess (as in the instance of other pedigrees, 3000 surnames, for which I have gathered illustrations), according to the localities where they fix the name. These references are numerous in Ireland, and far more in England; especially in Berkshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Essex, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, and Surrey; as well as in MSS. of rare access. These various notices would be too numerous, and, to the many, too uninteresting, to engross your pages, or I would gladly draw them out. Those who feel interested may receive further information on communicating their wishes to me by letter.
JOHN D'ALTON.
48. Summer Hill, Dublin, New Year's Day, 1852.
Serjeants' Rings (Vol. v., p. 59.).
—T. P. asks if the custom of serjeants-at-law presenting rings on taking the coif prevailed so long back as 1670-80; and in C. W. Johnson's Life of Sir Edward Coke, 1845 (vol. i. p. 217.), he will find as follows:
"On the rings given by Coke were inscribed, 'Lex est tutissima cassis'—the law is the safest helmet—a motto which has been thought very well to apply to his future fortunes.
"This custom of giving rings is of very old standing. Chancellor Fortescue, who wrote about 1465, tells us that all Serjeants, at their appointment, 'shall give rings of gold to the value of forty pounds at the least; and your Chancellor well remembereth that at the time he received this state and degree, the rings which he then gave stood him in fifty pounds.' (Laud. Leg., c. 59.) Dugdale also gives an account of the Serjeants' rings in 1556. Some rings given in 1669 were objected to as wanting weight."
I do not know where to refer T. P. for any record of the rings; but I think if the mottoes and names of donors could be obtained, a very amusing paper might be furnished; the variety would be great, some, as Coke's, alluding to the importance of law; some, as Serjeant Onslow's "Festina lente," punning on the name, &c.
E. N. W.
Southwark.
[We should be obliged by our correspondents furnishing any such particulars of the mottoes and donors of Serjeants' rings as they may meet with in their reading.]
"Crowns have their Compass" (Vol. iv., p. 428.).
—The author of these lines was Robert Barker, as is ascertained from a MS. in the Ashmolean Museum, quoted in Halliwell's Life of Shakspeare, p. 207., where they are entitled, "Certayne verses wrighten by Mr. Robert Barker, his Majestis printer, under his Majestis picture." This is quite confirmatory of, and is confirmed by, MARGARET GATTY'S communication.
R.
[A. GRAYAN, who refers us to Dibdin's Ames, vol. ii. p. 1090., for the foregoing information, adds, that the last line in the MS. reads—
"That knowledge makes the Kinge most like his Maker.">[
Hell paved with the Skulls of Priests (Vol. iv., p. 484.).
—The French priest referred to in this Query had most probably quoted, at second or third hand, and with rhetorical embellishment—certainly not from the original direct—an expression of St. Chrysostom, in his third homily on the Acts of the Apostles:
"οὐκ οἶμαι εἶναι πολλοὺς ἐν τοῖς ἱερεῦσι τοὺς σωζομένους, ἀλλὰ πολλῷ πλείους τοὺς ἀπολλυμένους."
"I know not if there be many in the priesthood who are saved, but I know that many more perish."
Gibbon has also quoted this passage at second hand (v. 399. note z.), for he says:
"Chrysostom declares his free opinion (tom. ix. hom. iii. in Act. Apostol. p. 29.) that the number of bishops who might be saved, bore a very small proportion to those who would be damned."
It may be safely asserted that the above expression of Chrysostom is the strongest against the priesthood to be found in any of the Christian Fathers of authority in the Church.
T. J. BUCKTON.
Lichfield.
Cooper's Miniature of Cromwell (Vol. v., p. 17.).
—The writer saw a beautiful miniature of this celebrated man by Cooper in the possession of Monckton Milnes, Esq., M.P.
W. A.
King Street Theatre (Vol. v., p. 58.).
—For the information of your correspondent B. N., I beg to suggest the "Bristol Theatre" as the one referred to on the silver ticket of admission; it having been situated in King Street in that city long before the days of Garrick, and there it now stands. And although silver is still the medium of admission to it, silver counters have ceased to exist in connexion with it. In its palmy days I doubt not it possessed such luxuries, it having been considered one of the best schools for actors out of London.
J. H.
Groom, Meaning of (Vol. v., p. 57.).
—Guma in Anglo-Saxon, and the Codex Argenteus, means simply man. Horne Tooke derives bridegroom from it.
"Consider groom of the chambers, groom-porter."—Nares.
Herd grooms, in Spenser's Pastorals, and a passage in Massinger: Gifford, vol. iii. p. 435.
Grome is quoted by Halliwell, as meaning a man. Also gome, which he says lasted till the civil wars.
C. B.
Schola Cordis (Vol. iv., p. 404.).
—MARICONDA asks for Mr. Tegg's authority for attributing the Schola Cordis to Quarles in his edition of 1845.
The following extract from a very interesting and characteristic note, dated November 24, 1845, that I received from Mr. Tegg in reply to my query of a similar description, will afford the information:—
"Quarles' works were originally printed for me by Mr. Whittingham of Chiswick, who, with my approbation, engaged the Rev. Mr. Singer to edit the works. It was from this edition I printed my books," [i.e. the edition of 1845.]
To show the energy of the publisher, and in justice to all the parties concerned, I may add, that four days later he wrote me word, that he "had begun to make inquiry and collate the various editions of Quarles" with his own; and adds, "I have the great satisfaction of saying that my editor has not omitted any article, however trivial, that was inserted in the original editions." He afterwards says that he has "seen seventeen" editions; and concludes by remarking, "that I consider no time or money lost when in pursuit of truth."
Will you allow me to suggest that few of your readers would regret to see some of your pages occupied with a correct bibliographical account of the various productions of both Quarles and Withers.
MATERRE.
Greek Names of Fishes (Vol. iv. p. 501.).
—The ὀρφὸς may perhaps be recognised by the zoologist from the following characteristics given by Aristotle in his history of animals:
"1. It is of speedy growth (b. v. c. 9.). 2. Keeps close in shore (b. viii. c. 13.). 3. Burrows in holes, as the lamprey and conger (b. viii. c. 15.). 4. Lives only on animal food like other cartilaginous fishes (b. viii. c. 2.)."
It is therefore of Cuvier's series, chondropterigii, of which the sturgeon is facile princeps.
The μέμβρας is classed by Aristotle (b. vi. c. 15.) under the general term ἀφύη, which appears to correspond well with Cuvier's genus clupea (including the herring, pilchard, sprat, white-bait, &c), and was taken, Aristotle says, all the year, except from autumn to spring, which corresponds with the migrations of this genus; the shad coming in May and departing in July, the anchovy appearing from May to July, the pilchard in July, the herring in October and beginning of November, and the sprat in November. The ἀφύη, he also says, were salted for keeping. The μέμβρας was obtained in the Phaleric harbour (b. vi. c. 15.), close to the marsh and street of the same name at Athens.[6] Aristotle also represents the τρίχιαι as coming from the τρίχιδες, and the latter from the μεμβράδες; hence it is to be inferred that the fishermen called this fish at different stages of its growth by different names, in mistake. The τρίχιδες appear also to have been as abundant at Athens as sprats are with us, the latter selling sometimes at sixpence the bushel, and being used for manure, whilst Aristophanes mentions the price of five farthings (one obolus) the hundred of τρίχιδες (Knights, 662.). The ἀφύη was obtained from the Attic shores of Salamine and Marathon (Aristot. H. A. b. vi. c. 15.), and the supply was stopped or much diminished by war (Knights, 644.). The ὀρφὸς was a more valuable fish than the μέμβρας, as the refusing the latter and buying the former furnished the next stallman with the opportunity of insinuating that the purchaser was forgetful of liberty, equality, &c. (Wasps, 494.; Knights, 851.). Theodore Gaza, the Latin translator of Aristotle's History of Animals, renders μέμβρας by cernua. Amongst his various banquets, Homer never mentions fish, afterwards admitted as a delicacy of the costliest kind at Grecian and Roman feasts.
[6] Not from a fish called Phalerica, as stated in Scapula's lexicon.
T. J. BUCKTON.
Lichfield.
Dutch Commentary on Pope (Vol. v., p. 27.).
—The passage in Pope has nothing to do with ducks and drakes.
"Verbum quo utitur Popius, monstrat, cogitâsse eum de quodam quod cadit, non quod jacitur. Sed neque est lapis. Cur de Hollandico loquitur? quia ut puto, latrinæ in Hollandiâ peditæ sunt aliquando super aquam, ibi abundantem, circuli sunt ii, quos omne quod cadit in aquam, naturâ facit."
There is the same idea, as Warburton observes, in the Essay on Man, ep. iv. 364.
C. B.
Sir William Hankford (Vol. v., p. 43.).
—I see that MR. FOSS (Judges of England, vol. iv. p. 325.) disbelieves the story of the suicide of Sir William Hankford, as told by Prince in his Worthies of Devon, because there was then nothing in the political horizon to justify the "direful apprehension of dangerous approaching evils," assigned by Prince as the judge's inducement for wishing to die. His death, however it occurred, happened in 1422.
MR. FOSS'S doubts seem in some measure to be warranted by the fact that Holinshed places the incident about half a century later, in 1470 or 1471; and he thinks it more probable (Ibid. p. 427.) that the suicidal story may apply to Sir Robert Danby, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, because that judge disappeared in the latter year; and the circumstances of the time were really such as were likely to excite the fears described as the cause of the catastrophe. Sir Robert Danby, who had been a judge of the Common Pleas under Henry VI., was made chief justice of that court by Edward IV. in 1461, the first year of that king's reign. On the restoration of Henry VI. in 1470, he was continued in his office, and the sudden return of Edward IV. in the following year might occasion an apprehension in a weak mind sufficiently strong to lead to the tragical result. Certain it is that a new chief justice, Sir Thomas Brian, was then appointed, and nothing more is told of Sir Robert Danby.
The Hankford's Oak at Annery, the remains of which were seen by Prince, was as likely to have received its name from its having been planted by Hankford, as from its being the spot where he died.
Perhaps some correspondents may be able to throw more light on the transaction, and assist in deciding which is the correct version.
R. S. V. P.
Abigail (Vol. iv., p. 424.; Vol. v., p. 38.).
—We are told in No. 115. that Abigail was a handmaid. The Bible, however, tells us, that she was the wife of Nabal, a rich man, as I pointed out in a letter which has not been printed. Speaking to David, no doubt, she repeatedly uses the common phrase in the Bible, "thine handmaid," which would equally prove that the Virgin Mary was a servant.
C. B.
Moravian Hymns (Vol. iv., p. 502.; Vol. v., pp. 30. 63.).
—With regard to Moravian hymns, it would be very valuable to know whether the little book by Rimius, London, 1753, is really honest, which contains such shocking and inconceivable extracts from them. It is a translation from a Dutch book by Stinstra.
C. B.