Notes:— | Page |
Latin Drinking Song by Richard Braithwait, by S. W. Singer | |
Strange Appearances in the Sky, by Rev. A. Gatty | |
"After me the Deluge," by Douglas Jerrold | |
Bishop Thornborough's Monument | |
Minor Notes:—King Richard III.—Shakspeare a thorough Sailor—"A fellow-feeling." &c.—Early Instances of the Word "News"—Under the Rose | |
Queries:— | |
Portraits of Spenser | |
The Vendace | |
Minor Queries:—Ex Pede Herculem—"To-day we purpose"—"God takes those soonest whom He loves the best"—Quakers' Attempt to convert the Pope —Whychcote of St. John's—Meaning of Rechibus—Family of Queen Katherine Parr—Skort—Religious Teaching in the German Universities—Epigram by Dunbar—Endymion Porter—Sathaniel—The Scoute Generall—Anthony Pomeroy, Dean of Cork | |
Minor Queries Answered:—Civil War Tract—Trisection of the Circle—Wolsey's Son—Cardinals and Abbots in the English Church | |
Replies:— | |
Sir Balthazar Gerbier, by J. Crossley | |
The Travels of Baron Munchausen | |
Replies to Minor Queries:—Tobacco in the East—Captain John Stevens—MS. Catalogue of Norman Nobility—Illustrations of Chaucer, No. III.—Comets—Pope Joan—Abbot Euctacius—The Vellum-bound Junius—Meaning of Waste-book—Cowdray—Solemnisation of Matrimony—Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke—Scandal against Queen Elizabeth—The Tanthony—The Hippopotamus —Tu autem—Places called purgatory—Swearing by Swans, &c.—Edmund Prideaux and the Post-office —Small Words and "Low" Words—Lord Howard of Effingham—Obeahism, &c. | |
Miscellaneous:— | |
Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. | |
Books and Odd Volumes wanted | |
Notices to Correspondents | |
Advertisements |
Notes.
LATIN DRINKING SONG BY RICHARD BRAITHWAIT.
I have been surprised, from the facility with which the author of "Drunken Barnaby" seems to pour out his Leonine verse, that no other productions of a similar character are known to have issued from his pen. I am not aware that the following drinking song, which may fairly be attributed to him, has ever appeared in print. It was evidently unknown to the worthy Haslewood, the crowning glory of whose literary career was the happy discovery of the author, Richard Braithwait. I transcribe it from the MS. volume from which James Boswell first gave to the world Shakspeare's verses "On the King." Southey has somewhere said that "the best serious piece of Latin in modern metre is Sir Francis Kinaston's Amores Troili et Cressidæ, a translation of the two first books of Chaucer's Poem[[1]]; but it was reserved for famous Barnaby to employ the barbarous ornament of rhyme, so as to give thereby point and character to good Latinity."
Southey does not seem to have known those remarkable productions of the middle ages, which have been made accessible to us by the researches of Docen, of Grimm, of Schmeller, and of Mr. Wright; and, above all, of that exquisite gem, "De Phyllide et Flora," first printed by Docen[[2]], and since given by Mr. Wright in his collection of Poems attributed to Walter de Mapes. We have, however, a much better text from the hand of Jacob Grimm, in the Memoirs of the Academy of Berlin for 1843, p. 239. Of this poem it is perhaps not exaggeration to say, that it is an Idyll which would have done honour to the literature of any age or country; and if it is the production of Walter de Mapes, we have reason to be proud of it. It is a dispute between two maidens on the qualities of their lovers, the one being a soldier, the other a priest. It breathes of the spring, of nature, and of love:
"Erant ambæ virgines et ambæ reginæ
Phyllis coma libera Flora comto crine,
Non sunt formæ virginum sed formæ divinæ,
Et respondent facies luci matutinæ.