Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853

Replies to Minor Queries

Pilgrimages to the Holy Land (Vol. v., p. 289.).—I beg to inform W. M. R. E. (Vol. vii., p. 341.) that, though I have never met with a printed copy of the "Itinerary to the Holy Land" of Gabriele Capodilista (the Perugia edition of 1472, mentioned by Brunet, being undoubtedly a book of very great rarity, and perhaps the only one ever printed), I have in my possession a very beautiful manuscript of the work on vellum, which appears to have been presented by the author to the nuns of St. Bernardino of Padua. It is a small folio; and the first page is illuminated in a good Italian style of the fifteenth century. It is very well written in the Venetian dialect, and commences thus:

"Venerabilibus ac Devotissimis Dne Abbatissæ et Monialibus Ecclesiæ Sancti Bernardini de Padua salute in Dno].—Ritrovandomi ne li tempi in questa mia opereta descripti, Io Gabriel Capodelista Cavalier Padoano dal sumo Idio inspirato et dentro al mio cor concesso fermo proposito di vistare personalmente el Sanctissimo loco di Jerusalem," &c.

This MS., which was formerly in the library of the Abbati Canonici, I purchased, with others, at Venice in 1835.

If W. M. R. E. has any wish to see it, and will communicate such wish to me through the medium of the publisher of "N. & Q.," I shall be happy to gratify his curiosity. I do not know whether there is any MS. of Capodilista's Itinerary in the British Museum.

    W. Sneyd.

"A Letter to a Convocation Man" (Vol vii., p. 358.).—The authorship of the tract concerning which Mr. Fraser inquires, is assigned to Sir Bartholomew Shower, not by the Bodleian Catalogue only, but also by Sir Walter Scott, in his edition of the Somers' Tracts (vol. ix. p. 411.), as well as by Dr. Watt, in his Bibliotheca Britannica. The only authorities for ascribing it to Dr. Binckes which I have been able to discover, are Dr. Edmund Calamy, in his Life and Times (vol. i. p. 397.), and the Rev. Thomas Lathbury, in his History of the Convocation of the Church of England (p. 283.); but neither of those authors gives the source from which his information is derived: and Mr. Lathbury, who appears perfectly unaware that the tract had ever been ascribed to Sir Bartholomew Shower, a lawyer, remarks: "It is worthy of observation that the author of the letter professes to be a lawyer, though such was not the case, Dr. Binckes being a clergyman." Dr. Kennett also, in his Ecclesiastical Synods, p. 19., referred to by Mr. Lathbury, speaking of Archbishop Wake's reply, says: "I remember one little prejudice to it, that it was wrote by a divine, whereas the argument required an able lawyer; and the very writer of the Letter to a Convocation Man suggesting himself to be of that profession, there was the greater equity, there should be the like council of one side as there had been of the other."—It has occurred to me that the mistake of assigning the tract to Dr. Binckes may possibly have been occasioned by the circumstance that another tract, with the following title, published in 1701, has the initials W. B. at the end of it,—A Letter to a Convocation Man, by a Clergyman in the Country. I have examined both tracts, and they are quite different, and leave no appearance of having proceeded from the same hand.

    Tyro.

Dublin.

King Robert Bruce's Coffin-plate (Vol vii., p. 356.) was a modern forgery, but not discovered to be so, of course, until after publication of the beautiful engraving of it in the Transactions of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, which was made at the expense of, and presented to the Society by, the barons of the Exchequer.

I believe that a notice of the forgery was published in a subsequent volume.

    W. C. Trevelyan.

Eulenspiegel or Howleglas (Vol. vii., p. 357.).—The following extract from my note-book may be of use:

"The German Rogue, or the Life and Merry Adventures, Cheats, Stratagems, and Contrivances of Tiel Eulenspiegle.

'Let none Eulenspiegle's artifices blame,
For Rogues of every country are the same.'

London, printed in the year MDCCIX. The only copy of this edition I ever saw was one which had formerly belonged to Ritson, and which I purchased of Thomas Rodd, but afterwards relinquished to my old friend Mr. Douce."

This copy, therefore, is no doubt now in the Bodleian. I have never heard of any other.

While on the subject of Eulenspiegel, I would call your correspondent's attention to some curious remarks on the Protestant and Romanist versions of it in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxi. p. 108.

I may also take this opportunity of informing him that a very cleverly illustrated edition of it was published by Scheible of Stuttgart in 1838, and that a passage in the Hettlingischen Sassenchronik (Caspar Abel's Sammlung, p. 185.), written in 1455, goes to prove that Dyll Ulnspiegel, as the wag is styled in the Augsburgh edition of 1540, is no imaginary personage, inasmuch as under the date of 1350 the chronicler tells of a very grievous pestilence which raged through the whole world, and that "dosulfest sterff Ulenspeygel to Möllen."

I am unable to answer the Query respecting Murner's visit to England. The most complete account of his life and writings is, I believe, that prefixed by Scheible to his edition of Murner's Narrenbeschwörung, and his satirical dissertation Ob der König von England ein Lügner sey, oder der Luther.

    William J. Thoms.

Sir Edwin Sadleir (Vol. vii., p. 357.).—Sir Edwin Sadleir, of Temple Dinsley, in the county of Hertford, Bart., was the third son of Sir Edwin Sadleir (created a baronet by Charles II.), by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Walter Walker, Knt., LL.D. His elder brothers having died in infancy, he succeeded, on his father's death in 1672, to his honour and estates, and subsequently married Mary, daughter and coheiress of John Lorymer, citizen and apothecary of London, and widow of William Croone, M.D. This lady founded the algebra lectures at Cambridge, and also lectures in the College of Physicians and the Royal Society. (See Chauncy's Historical Antiquities of Hertfordshire, folio edit., 397, or 8vo. edit., ii. 179, 180.; Ward's Lives of the Gresham Professors, 322. 325.; Sir Ralph Sadler's State Papers, ii. 610.; Weld's History of the Royal Society, i. 289.) In the Sadler State Papers, Sir Edwin Sadleir is stated to have died 30th September, 1706: but that was the date of Lady Sadleir's death; and, according to Ward, Sir Edwin Sadleir survived her. He died without issue, and thereupon the baronetcy became extinct.

    C. H. Cooper.

Cambridge.

Belfry Towers separate from the Body of the Church (Vol. vii., p. 333.).—The tower of the parish church of Llangyfelach, in Glamorganshire, is raised at some little distance from the building. In the legends of the place, this is accounted for by a belief that the devil, in his desire to prevent the erection of the church, carried off a portion of it as often as it was commenced; and that he was at length only defeated by the two parts being built separate.

    Seleucus.

In addition to the bell towers unconnected with the church, noticed in "N. & Q." (Vol. vii., p. 333.), I beg to call the attention of J. S. A. to those of Woburn in Bedfordshire, and Henllan in Denbighshire. The tower of the former church stands at six yards distance from it, and is a small square building with large buttresses and four pinnacles: it looks picturesque, from being entirely covered with ivy. The tower, or rather the steeple, at Henllan, near Denbigh, is still more remarkable, from its being built on the top of a hill, and looking down upon the church, which stands in the valley at its foot.

    Cambrensis.

God's Marks (Vol. vii., p. 134.).—These are probably the "yellow spots" frequently spoken of in old writings, as appearing on the finger-nails, the hands, and elsewhere, before death. (See Brand's Popular Ant., vol. iii. p. 177., Bohn's edit.) In Denmark they were known under the name Döding-knib (dead man's nips, ghost-pinches), and tokened the approaching end of some friend or kinsman. Another Danish name was Dödninge-pletter (dead man's spots); and in Holberg's Peder Paars (book i. song, 4.) Dödning-knæp. See S. Aspach, Dissertatio de Variis Superstitionibus, 4to., Hafniæ, 1697, p. 7., who says they are of scorbutic origin; and F. Oldenburg, Om Gjenfærd ellen Gjengangere, 8vo., Kjöbenhavn, 1818, p. 23.

    George Stephens.

Copenhagen.

"The Whippiad" (Vol. vii., p. 393.).—The mention of The Whippiad by B. N. C. brought to my recollection a MS. copy of that satire in this library, and now lying before me, with the autograph of "Snelson, Trin. Coll. Oxon., 1802." There are notes appended to this copy of the verses, and not knowing where to look in Blackwood's Magazine for the satire, or having a copy at hand in order to ascertain if the notes are printed there also, or whether they are only to be found in the MS., perhaps your correspondent B. N. C. will have the goodness to state if the printed copy has notes, because, if there are none, I would copy out for the "N. & Q." those that are written in the MS., as no doubt they would be found interesting and curious by all who value whatever fell from the pen of the highly-gifted Reginald Heber.

Perhaps the notes may be the elucidations of some college cotemporary, and not written by Heber.

    J. M.

Sir R. Taylor's Library, Oxford.

The Axe that beheaded Anne Boleyn (Vol. vii., p. 332.).—In Britton and Brayley's Memoirs of the Tower of London, they mention (in describing the Spanish Armoury) the axe which tradition says beheaded Anne Boleyn and the Earl of Essex; but a foot-note is added from Stow's Chronicle, stating that the hangman cut off the head of Anne with one stroke of his sword.

    Thos. Lawrence.

Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

Palindromical Lines (Vol. vii., pp. 178. 366.).—Besides the habitats already given for the Greek inscription on a font, I have notes of the like at Melton Mowbray; St. Mary's, Nottingham; in the private chapel at Longley Castle; and at Hadleigh. At this last place, it is noted in a church book to be taken out of Gregory Nazienzen (but I never could find it), and a reference is made to Jeremy Taylor's Great Exemplar, "Discourse on Baptism," p. 120. sect. 17.

It may be worth noticing that this Gregory was, for a short time, in the fourth century, bishop of Constantinople; and in the Moslemised cathedral of St. Sophia, in that city, according to Grelot, quoted in Collier's Dictionary, the same words—with the difference that "sin" is put in the plural, sic:

"ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ"—

were written in letters of gold over the place at the entrance of the church, between two porphyry pillars, where stood two urns of marble filled with water, the use of which, when it was a Christian temple, must be well known. The Turks now use them for holding drinking water, and have probably done so since the time when the church was turned into a mosque, after the conquest of Constantinople by Mahomet II., in the fifteenth century. What could induce Zeus (p. 366.) to call this inscription "sotadic?" It may more fitly be called holy.

    H. T. Ellacombe.

Clyst St. George.

These lines also are to be found on the marble basins for containing holy water, in one of the churches at Paris.

    W. C. Trevelyan.

The Greek inscription mentioned by Jeremy Taylor is on the font in Rufford Church.

    H. A.

Heuristisch (Vol. vii., p. 237.).—In reply to H. B. C. of the U. U. Club, I beg to give the explanation of the word heuristisch, with its cognate terms, from Heyse's Allgemeines Fremdwörterbuch, 10th edition, Hanover, 1848: