Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851

I regret that the nature of your publication does not admit the introduction of woodcuts, which would have enabled me to present your readers with the best of all demonstrations for what I advance. In default of that I have endeavoured to point out the most compendious and accessible sources where the figures I refer to may be seen in engravings. But if any reader of "Notes and Queries" should not have an opportunity of consulting the books cited, and is desirous of pursuing the investigation to satisfy himself, I would willingly transmit to him a drawing of the objects mentioned through Mr. Bell, or any other channel deemed more convenient.

    A. Rich, junr.

The Episcopal Mitre (Vol. iii., p. 62.)—Godwyn, in his Moses and Aaron, London, 1631, b. i., c. 5., says that—

"A miter of fine linnen sixteene cubits long, wrapped about his head, and a plate of purple gold, or holy crowne, two fingers broad, whereon was graven Holinesse to the Lord, which was tied with a blew lace upon the forefront of the miter,"

was that "which shadowed and signified the kingly office of our Saviour Christ," in the apparel of the Jewish high priest, and ordered (Lev. xvi. 4.): and again, in his Romanæ Historiæ Anthologia, Oxford, 1631, lib. iii. sec. 1. cap. 8., he says that the

"Mitra did signifie a certaine attire for women's heads, as a coife or such like."

For further illustration see Virgil's Æneid, lib. iv. l. 216.:

"Mæoniâ mentum mitrâ crinemque madentem."

Again, lib. ix. l. 616.:

"Et tunicæ manicas et habent redimicula mitræ."

During the ennobling of the clergy by the Roman emperors, in the seventh and eighth centuries, a crown was found necessary, and anciently cardinals wore mitres; but, at the council of Lyons, in 1245, they were appointed to wear hats.

    Blowen.

The Episcopal Mitre (Vol. iii., p. 62.).—An Inquirer will find much curious matter respecting the mitre, collected both from classical writers and antiquaries, in Explications de plusieurs Textes difficiles de l'Ecriture par le R. P. Dom. [Martin], 4to., à Paris, 1730. To any one ambitious of learnedly occupying some six or seven columns of "Notes and Queries" the ample foot references are very tempting; I content myself with transcribing two or three of the entries in the index:

"Mitre des anciens, leur nature, et leur forme; était la marque du Sacerdoce; se portait ordinairement à la tête, et quelquefois aux mains. Forme des mitres dans leur origine, et dans les tems postérieurs," &c.

This dissertation, which is illustrated by several plates, will repay for the time spent in reading it. I presume Inquirer is acquainted with Godwyn's Moses and Aaron, where he will find something.

    W. Dn.

Episcopal Mitre.—The origin of the peculiar form of the episcopal mitre is the cloven tongues which descended on the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, with the gift of the Holy Spirit. Of this the mitre is an emblem.

    L. M. M. R.

DRYDEN'S ESSAY UPON SATIRE

(Vol. ii., pp. 422. 462.)

The Query proposed by your correspondent, as to the authorship of the Essay on Satire, is a very interesting one, and I am rather surprised that it has not yet been replied to. In favour of your correspondent's view, and I think it is perhaps the strongest argument which can be alleged, is Dean Lockier's remark:—

"Could anything be more impudent than his (Sheffield's) publishing that satire, for writing which Dryden was beaten in Rose Alley (and which was so remarkably known by the name of the 'Rose Alley Satire') as his own? Indeed he made a few alterations in it, but these were only verbal, and generally for the worse."—Spence's Anecdotes, edit. Singer, p. 64.

Dean Lockier, it must be observed, was well acquainted with Dryden from 1685 to the time of his death; and appears to speak so positively that he would seem to have acquired his knowledge from Dryden's own information. His first introduction to that great poet arose from an observation made in Dryden's hearing about his Mac Fleckno; and it is therefore the more likely that he would be correctly informed as to the author's other satires. Dean Lockier was, it may be added, a good critic; and his opinions on literary subjects are so just, that it is to be regretted we have only very few of them.

I confess I do not attach much weight to the argument arising from the lines on the Earl of Mulgrave himself contained in the poem. To transfer suspicion from himself, in so general a satire, it was necessary to include his own name amongst the rest; but, though the lines are somewhat obscure, it is, after all, as respects him, compared with the other persons mentioned, a very gentle flagellation, and something like what children call a make-believe. Indeed Rochester, in a letter to his friend Henry Saville (21st Nov. 1679), speaks of it as a panegyric.

On the other hand, Mulgrave expressly denied Dryden's being the author, in the lines in his Essay on Poetry,—

"Tho' praised and punished for another's rhymes."

and by inference claimed the poem, or at least the lines on Rochester, as his own. Dryden, in the Preface to his Virgil, praises the Essay on Poetry in the highest terms; but says not a word to dispute Mulgrave's statement, though he might then have safely claimed the Essay on Satire, if his own; and though he must have been aware that, by his silence, he was virtually resigning his sole claim to its authorship. It was subsequently included in Mulgrave's works, and has ever since gone under the joint names of himself and Dryden.

On the question of internal evidence critics differ. Your correspondent can see in it no hand but Dryden's; while Malone will scarcely allow that Dryden made even a few verbal alterations in it (Life, p. 130.); and Sir Walter Scott is not inclined to admit any further participation on the part of the great poet than "a few hints for revision," and denies its merit altogether—a position in which I think very few, who carefully peruse it, will agree with him.

I am disposed to take a middle course between your correspondent and Dryden's two biographers, and submit that there is quite sufficient internal evidence of joint ownership. I cannot think such lines as—

"I, who so wise and humble seem to be,
Now my own vanity and pride can't see;"

or,—

"I, who have all this while been finding fault,
E'en with my master who first satire taught,
And did by that describe the task so hard,
It seems stupendious, and above reward."

or,—

"To tell men freely of their foulest faults,
To laugh at their vain deeds and vainer thoughts:"

would proceed from Dryden, while it is to be noticed that the inharmonious rhymes "faults" and "thoughts" were favourites of Mulgrave, and occur twice in his Essay on Poetry.

Neither can I doubt that the verses on Shaftesbury,—the four "will any dog;" the four "For words and wit did anciently agree," the four "Mean in each action;" the two "Each pleasure has its price"—are Dryden's additions, with many others, which a careful reader will instantly appropriate.

I can find no sufficient authority for the statement of Malone and Sir W. Scott, that Pope revised the Essay on Satire. It is well known he corrected that on Poetry.

    Jas. Crossley.

Manchester, Feb. 10. 1851.

FOUNDATION-STONE OF ST. MARK'S AT VENICE

(Vol. iii., p. 88.)

I recollect having seen the stone in question in the collection of the late Mr. Douce, in whose possession it had been for some years before his communication of it to the Society of Antiquaries. It is quite evident that he was satisfied of its authenticity, and it was most probably an accidental purchase from some dealer in antiquities, who knew nothing about it. I happen to know that it remained in the hands of Sir Henry Ellis at the time of Mr. Douce's death, and your correspondent H. C. R. will most probably find it among the other collections of Mr. Douce now in the museum at Goodrich Castle.

The doubt expressed by your correspondent is evidently founded upon the engraving and accompanying paper in the 26th volume of the Archæologia; and as it conveys such a grave censure of the judgment of the director of the council and secretaries of the Antiquarian Society, it appears to me that it is incumbent upon him to satisfy his doubts by seeing the stone itself, and, if he should be convinced of his error, to make the amende honorable.

It is to be regretted that he did not state "the points which have suggested this notion of its being a hoax." For my own part, I cannot see the motive for such a falsification; and if it is one, it is the contrivance of some one who had more epigraphic skill than is usually found on such occasions.

There is nothing in the objection of your correspondent as to the size and form of the stone which would have any weight, and it is not necessary to suppose that it "must have been loose in the world for 858 years." On pulling down the old church, the foundation-stone in which this was imbedded may have been buried with the rubbish, and exhumed in comparatively recent times. It had evidently fallen into rude and ignorant hands, and suffered by being violently detached from the stone in which it was imbedded.

Every one who knew the late Mr. Douce must have full confidence in his intimate knowledge of mediæval antiquity, and would not easily be led to imagine that he could be deceived on a point like this; but are we to presume, from a vague idea of your correspondent's, that the executive body of the Society of Antiquaries would fail to detect a forgery of this nature?

    S. W. S., olim F. S. A.