Antiquarian Correspondence.
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“THE SENTENCE OF PONTIUS PILATE.”
(See vol. v. pp. 80, 217.)
Sir,—This document appeared in English in Galignani’s Messenger of March 23, 1859, copied from the Herald of about that date. D. K. T.
A BAKER BLESSED.
Sir,—Can you explain the origin of the blessing invoked on the baker in the following rhyme, sung by village children in Norfolk, and perhaps in other counties also, on St. Valentine’s Day?
Good-morrow, Valentine,
God bless the baker!
You be the giver,
And I’ll be the taker.
Haileybury College, Hertford.
John Hussey.
WESLEYANISM IN LONDON.
Sir,—Can you tell me who was the popular preacher at the Wesleyan Chapel in Great Queen-street, Lincoln’s-inn-fields, about 1811? Macready when first in London became acquainted with him, and was fascinated by his manners and learning, but was warned against him as a reprobate of most dangerous character. I fancy that he finally came to be publicly disgraced. The London Directories are useless at that date, and the Wesleyan Mission Books equally so. Do you know anything about him, or can you indicate where to search?
C. A. Ward.
159, Haverstock Hill, N. W.
HISTORICAL CHAIRS.
Sir,—Will you kindly enable me to ask through your columns for descriptive particulars, with engravings, drawings, or photographs, of celebrated chairs in family residences, or in cathedrals, churches, colleges, town-halls, and public institutions at home or abroad? I am preparing an illustrated account of Historical Chairs from available literary sources; but as many interesting examples have escaped my search, and as I wish to make the proposed work as copious as possible, I thus beg your assistance.
C. B. Strutt.
34, East-street, Red Lion-square, London, W.C.
THE VISCOUNTY OF CULLEN.
Sir,—In reply to the inquiry of Heraldicus Mus, I beg to inform him that the limitation of this dignity is correctly given in Sir Bernard Burke’s new “Extinct Peerage,” and included, as he suggests, a remainder to the Berties, but that the original patent of creation being lost (and having, unfortunately, never been enrolled), the Earl of Lindsey cannot prove his right, unless the patent should yet be discovered. The second Viscount having taken his seat, no difficulty could arise so long as there remained male issue of his body; but when that became extinct, the special remainder would have to be established by proof. I speak, of course, of England or Ireland, for, in the anomalous chaos beyond the Tweed, it is possible to take a remainder for granted, as in the Ruthven case, at one’s own sweet will.
J. H. Round.
Brighton.
VISCOUNT HAMPDEN’S ANCESTRY.
(See vol. v. pp. 197, 331.)
Sir,—If your correspondent “Trombone” will re-peruse my letter on this subject, which appears at the first-named reference, he (or she) will see that whatever faults there may be of omission, there are none of commission, in regard to the families of Trevor and Hampden.
Nothing is certainly said concerning the bequest of the Glynde estates to the Honourable Richard Trevor, afterwards Bishop of Durham; but it is probable that he devised them on his decease to his brother Robert, then Baron Trevor, afterwards Viscount Hampden of Hampden. On the death of the last Viscount in 1824, the extensive estates were divided amongst co-heirs, from one of whom the present Viscount Hampden of Glynde is descended.
My first curacy was Bromham, in Bedfordshire, and I have, as the guest of George, Lord Dynevor, to whose daughters that estate belonged, sat at dinner under the portraits, in the dining-room at Bromham Hall, of the Lords Trevor and Hampden.
Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.
John Pickford, M.A.
WAS MILTON A PAINTER?
(See vol. ii. p. 1.)
Sir,—The following passage from the pen of the greatest critic of modern times, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, seems rather to militate against the argument in a former number of the Antiquarian Magazine, that the portrait of Milton there spoken of might have been painted by the poet himself: “It is very remarkable that in no part of his writings does Milton take any notice of the great painters of Italy, nor, indeed, of painting as an art, whilst every other page breathes his love and taste for music. Yet it is curious that in one passage of the “Paradise Lost” Milton has certainly copied the fresco of the Creation in the Sistine Chapel at Rome. I mean those lines—
“Now half appeared
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts; then springs as broke from bonds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane,” &c.;
an image which the necessities of the painter justified, but which was wholly unworthy, in my judgment, of the enlarged powers of the poet. Adam bending over the sleeping Eve in the “Paradise Lost” (book vii. 463), and Delilah approaching Sampson in the “Agonistes” (book v. 8), are the only two proper pictures I remember in Milton.
F. H.
OLD BELLMEN’S BROADSIDES.
(See vol. v. p. 221.)
Sir,—It may be interesting to some of your readers to know that these quaint poetical productions continued to be issued by the bellmen of the city of Hereford down to the year 1835, and perhaps even later.
I have in my collection of Herefordian matters a series of six of them as follows:
(1) A copy of verses | for 1811 | Humbly presented to all my worthy Masters and Mistresses | in the City of Hereford | by James Lingham | Bellman and Crier of the said City. This has a quaint 17th century woodcut of the bellman, with bell in right hand, staff and lanthorn in left, accompanied by his dog. In background to left a house, with cock crowing on roof, to right a church, probably intended to represent St. Peter’s. The bellman wears a three-cornered hat, a long-skirted coat, confined at waist with belt, with a short coat underneath, embroidered down the front. Street shown as paved in chequers, as in the engraving in your Antiquarian Magazine. W. H. Parker, printer, Hereford.
(2) Another copy of verses for 1824, by same bellman, with a later woodcut of bellman, in cocked hat and cloak with cape, in the act of proclaiming in the High Town, with view of old town-hall and St. Peter’s Church. W. H. & J. Parker, printers, 4, High Town, Hereford.
(3) A copy of verses for 1826, by Richard Jones, with a woodcut of bellman, similarly equipped to last, but the town-hall is shown on larger scale, and the church does not appear. W. H. Vale, printer, 5, Eign-street, Hereford.
(4) Another similar copy of verses for 1827, by Thomas Hall, and the same woodcut as last.
(5) Another for 1830, by James Davies, with woodcut as No. 2. John Parker, printer, High Town, Hereford.
(6) Another copy of verses for 1835, by James Davies, with same woodcut as last.
They all bear verses in same style as those quoted in the Antiquarian Magazine, viz., Prologues, Epilogues, and on the various Saints, Festivals, addresses to the King, Queen, Princes, Masters, Mistresses, Young Men and Maidens, &c., but no two are alike.
In the Hereford Permanent Library is a copy of verses for 1822, by James Langham (?), City Crier.
James W. Lloyd.
Kington, Herefordshire.
PORTS AND CHESTERS.
Sir,—Mr. Round (see vol. v. p. 282) claims “Port as an English word, in itself distinct from the Latin porta or portus;” later on (p. 283), “Port was in itself essentially an English word;” yet at p. 286 we read, “The English borrowed it ... after the settlement ... or before the settlement.” How can it be generically an English word, yet borrowed from Latin? There is lamentable confusion throughout this paper, truly distressing confusion, and the little bits of assertion and argument are so cut into slices and sandwiched between slips of quotation and extract, that it is like dissecting a Chinese puzzle to ramify its purport.
We have the words ‘castor,’ ‘port,’ ‘street,’ and ‘wall;’ now, if these words were English forms of some Teutonic roots, they will have analogues in the allied tongues: where are those analogues?
(1) Castor, Caster, Caister, Ceaster, Chester, are all from the Latin castrum, as muddled by alien tongues; yet, at p. 285, we are told that the “English would presumably have only met, not with the Latin castrum, but the Welsh caer or kair.” Why so? As a fact, the Welsh forms are not borrowed from Latin, but come from an independent Celtic root—as I think, direct from the Hindu gir, giri, and far older than Latin. We find Keir in Dumfriesshire; Cardiff in Glamorganshire; Carhaix, Kersanton, Kervrin, Kerentrec, Plessis-Kaer, all in Brittany; Caerleon and Caerwent, both famous places in Monmouthshire, pronounced, the former, Karleen, the latter, Kerwent, thus showing the affiliation with Armorican forms.
(2) Port: note that “port” is the equivalent of hithe or haven; thus we have Hythe in Kent, as a substitute for Portus Lemanis; at Oxford, the Port-meadow adjoins Hythe Bridge, and was evidently the town haven. The conditions are similar at Gloucester, where certain meadows, inundated at floods, are called the Portham; adjoining we find Dockham, and Dockham ditch, which is a reduplicated name. The port-walls of Chepstow are the harbour defences on the land side, it being the port or gate of Wye River. Newport, Mon., is in succession to Caerleon, the old port of River Usk. It follows, as a dead certainty, that the modern word port as used at London, where Port reeve was the precursor of our Lord Mayor, is in succession to the Latin portus, not introduced as a new English word, but preserved by Celto-Romans from Latin usage. Let Mr. Round study the course of those old English roadways throughout England, known as Portways, and called Roman; can the prefix be of English origin if it means “carry,” i.e., the portage of merchandise, from the Latin portare, to bear?
(3-4) Street and wall speak for themselves, and their plain facts will survive any amount of word-twisting.
A. H.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
The Editor declines to pledge himself for the safety or return of MSS. voluntarily tendered to him by strangers.