Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850

St. John Nepomuc (Vol. ii., pp. 209. 317.).—The statues in honour of this Saint must be familiar to every one who has visited Bohemia, as also the spot of his martyrdom at Prague, indicated by some brass stars let into the parapet of the Steinerne Brücke, on the right-hand side going from Prague to the suburb called the Kleinseite. As the story goes, he was offered the most costly bribes by Wenzel, king of Bohemia, to betray his trust, and after his repeated refusal was put to the torture, and then thrown into the Moldau, where he was drowned. The body of the saint was embalmed, and is now preserved in a costly silver shrine of almost fabulous worth, in the church of St. Veit, in the Kleinseite. In Weber's Briefe eines durch Deutschland reisende Deutschen, the weight silver about this shrine is said to be twenty "centener."

    C.D. LAMONT.

Satirical Medals (Vol. ii., p. 298.).—A descriptive catalogue of British medals is preparing for the press, wherein all the satirical medals relating to the Revolution of 1688 will be minutely described and explained.

    G.H.

Passage in Gray (Vol. i., p. 150.).—I see no difficulty in the passage about which your correspondent; A GRAYAN inquires. The abode of the merits and frailties of the dead, i.e. the place in which they are treasured up until the Judgment, is the Divine mind. This the poet, by a very allowable figure, calls "Bosom." Homer's expression is somewhat analogous.

"Ταδε παντα θειον εν γουνασι κειται."

    E.C.H.

Cupid Crying (Vol. i., pp. 172. 308.).—Another translation of the English verses, p. 172., which English are far superior to the Latin original:—

"Perchi ferisce Venere
Il filio suo che geme?
Diede il fanciullo a Celia
Le freccie e l'arco insieme.

Sarebbe mai possibile!
Ei nol voluto avea;
Ma rise Celia; ei subito
La Madre esser credea."

    E.C.H.
Anecdote of a Peal of Bells (Vol. i., p. 382.).—It is related of the bells of Limerick Cathedral by Mrs. S.C. Hall (Ireland, vol. i., p. 328. note).

    M.

[Another correspondent, under the same signature, forwards the legend as follows

"THOSE EVENING BELLS."

"The remarkably fine bells of Limerick Cathedral were originally brought from Italy. They had been manufactured by a young native (whose name tradition has not preserved), and finished after the toil of many years; and he prided himself upon his work. They were subsequently purchased by a prior of a neighbouring convent, and, with the profits of this sale, the young Italian procured a little villa, where he had the pleasure of hearing the tolling of his bells from the convent cliff, and of growing old in the bosom of domestic happiness. This, however, was not to continue. In some of those broils, whether civil or foreign, which are the undying worm in the peace of a fallen land, the good Italian was a sufferer amongst many. He lost his all; and after the passing of the storm, he found himself preserved alone, amid the wreck of fortune, friends, family, and home. The convent in which the bells, the chef-d'œuvre of his skill, were hung, was rased to the earth, and these last carried away to another land. The unfortunate owner, haunted by his memories and deserted by his hopes, became a wanderer over Europe. His hair grew gray, and his heart withered, before he again found a home and friend. In this desolation of spirit he formed the resolution of seeking the place to which those treasures of his memory had finally been borne. He sailed for Ireland, proceeded up the Shannon; the vessel anchored in the pool near Limerick, and he hired a small boat for the purpose of landing. The city was now before him; and he beheld St. Mary's steeple lifting its turreted head above the smoke and mist of the old town. He sat in the stern, and looked fondly towards it. It was an evening so calm and beautiful as to remind him of his own native haven in the sweetest time of the year—the death of spring. The broad stream appeared like one smooth mirror, and the little vessel glided through it with almost a noiseless expedition. On a sudden, amid the general stillness, the bells tolled from the cathedral; the rowers rested on their oars, and the vessel went forward with the impulse it had received. The old Italian looked towards the city, crossed his arms on his breast, and lay back on his seat; home, happiness, early recollections, friends, family—all were in the sound, and went with it to his heart. When the rowers looked round, they beheld him with his face still turned towards the cathedral, but his eyes were closed, and when they landed they found him cold in death."

MR. H. EDWARDS informs us it appeared in an early number of Chambers' Journal. J.G.A.P. kindly refers us to the Dublin Penny Journal, vol. i. p. 48., where the story is also told; and to a poetical version of it, entitled "The Bell-founder," first printed in the Dublin University Magazine, and since in the collected poems of the author, D. H. McCarthy.]

Codex Flateyensis (Vol. ii., p. 278.).—Your correspondent W.H.F., when referring to the Orkneyinga Saga, requests information regarding the Codex Flateyensis, in which is contained one of the best MSS. of the Saga above mentioned. W.H.F. labours under the misapprehension of regarding the Codex Flateyensis as a mere manuscript of the Orkneyinga Saga, whereas that Saga constitutes but a very small part of the magnificent volume. The Codex Flateyensis takes its name, as W.H.F. rightly concludes, from the island of Flatey in the Breidafiord in Iceland, where it was long preserved. It is a parchment volume most beautifully executed, the initial letters of the chapters being finely illuminated, and extending in many instances, as in a fac-simile now before me, from top to bottom of the folio page. The contents of the volume may be learned from the following lines on the first page; I give it in English as the original is in Icelandic:—

"John Hakonson owns this book, herein first are written verses, then how Norway was colonised, then of Erik the Far-travelled, thereafter of Olaf Tryggvason the king with all his deeds, and next is the history of Olaf Haraldson, the saint, and of his deeds, and therewith the history of the earls of Orkney, then is there Sverrers Saga; thereafter the Saga of Hakon the Old, with the Saga of Magnus the king, his son, then the deeds of Einar Sokkeson of Greenland, and next of Elga and Ulf the Bad; and then begin the annals from the creation of the world to the present year. John Thordarson the priest wrote the portion concerning Erik the Far-travelled, and the Sagas of both the Olaves; but Magnus Thorhallson the priest has written all that follows, as well as all that preceded, and has illuminated all (the book). Almighty God and the holy virgin mary give joy to those who wrote and to him who dictated."

A little further on we learn from the text that when the book began to be written there had elapsed from the birth of Christ 1300 and 80 and 7 years. The volume was, therefore, commenced in 1387, and finished, as we judge from the year at which the annals cease, in 1395. The death of Hakon Hakonson is recorded in the last chapters of the Saga of that name, which we see is included in the list of those contained in the Codex Flateyensis.

    E. CHARLTON.

Newcastle-on-Tyne, Oct. 6. 1850.

Paying through the Nose, and Etymology of Shilling (Vol. i., p. 335.).—Odin, they say, laid a nose-tax on ever Swede,—a penny a nose. (Grimm, Deutsche Rechts Alterthümer, p. 299.) I think people not able to pay forfeited "the prominence on the face, which is the organ of scent, and emunctory of the brain," as good Walker says. It was according to the rule, "Qui non habet in ære, luat in pelle." Still we "count" or "tell noses," when computing, for instance, how many persons of the company are to pay the reckoning. The expression is used in England, if I am rightly informed, as well as in Holland.

Tax money was gathered into a brass shield, and the jingling (schel) noise it produced, gave to the pieces of silver exacted the name of schellingen (shillings). Saxo-Grammaticus, lib viii. p. 267., citatus apud Grimm, l. 1. p. 77. The reference is too curious not to note it down:—

"Huic (Fresiæ) Gotricus nom tam arctam, quam inusitatam pensionem imposuit, de cujus conditione et modo summatim referam. Primum itaque ducentorum quadraginta pedum longitudinem habentis ædificii structura disponitur, bis senis distincta spatiis, quorum quodlibet vicenorum pedum intercapedine tenderetur, prædictæ quantitatis summam totalis spatii dispendio reddente. In hujus itaque ædis capite regio considente quæstore, sub extremam ejus partem rotundus e regione elipeus exhibetur. Fresonibus igitur tributum daturis mos erat singulos nummos in hujus scuti cavum conjicere, e quibus eos duntaxat in censum regium ratio computantis eligeret, qui eminus exatoris aures clarioris soni crepitaculo perstrinxissent quo evenit, ut id solum æs quæstor in fiscum supputando colligeret, cujus casum remotiore auris indicio persensisset, cujus vero obscurior sonus citra computantis defuisset auditum, recipiebatur quidem in fiscum (!!!), sed nullum summæ præstabat augmentum. Compluribus igitur nummorum jactibus quæstorias aures nulla sensibili sonoritate pulsantibus, accidit, ut statam pro se stipem erogaturi multam interdum æris partem inani pensione consumerent, cujus tributi onere per Karolum postea liberati produntur."

    JANUS DOUSA.

Huis te Manpadt.

Small Words (Vol. ii., p. 305.).—Some of your correspondents have justly recommended correctness in the references to authorities cited. Allow me to suggest the necessity of similar care in quotations. If K.J.P.B.T. had taken the pains to refer to the passage in Pope which he criticises (Vol. ii., p. 305.), he would have spared himself some trouble, and you considerable space. The line is not, as he puts it, "And ten small words," but—

"And ten low words oft creep in one dull line."

a difference which deprives his remarks of much of their applicability.

    Φ.

Bilderdijk the Poet (Vol. ii., p. 309.).—There are several letters from Southey, in his Life and Correspondence, written while under the roof of Bilderdijk, giving a very agreeable account of the poet, his wife, and his family.

    Φ.

Fool or a Physician (Vol. i., p. 137.; vol. ii., p. 315.).—The writer who has used this expression is Dr. Cheyne, and he probably altered it from the alliterative form, "a man is a fool or a physician at forty," which I have frequently heard in various parts of England. Dr. Cheyne's words are: "I think every man is a fool or a physician at thirty years of age, (that is to say), by that time he ought to know his own constitution, and unless he is determined to live an intemperate and irregular life, I think he may by diet and regimen prevent or cure any chronical disease; but as to acute disorders no one who is not well acquainted with medicine should trust to his own skill."

Dr. Cheyne was a medical writer of the last century.

    A. G–T.

Wat the Hare (Vol. ii., p. 315.).—In the interesting, though perhaps somewhat partial, account of the unsuccessful siege of Corfe Castle, during the civil wars of the seventeenth century, which is given in the Mercurius Rusticus, there is an anecdote which will give a reply to the Query of your correspondent K. The commander of the Parliamentarian forces was Sir Walter Erle; and it was a great joke with his opponents that the pass-word of "Old Wat" had been given (by himself I believe) on the night of his last assault on the castle. The chronicler informs us that "Old Wat" was the usual notice of a hare being found sitting; and the proverbial timidity of that animal suggested some odious comparisons with the defeated general.

I have not the book at hand, but I am pretty sure that the substance of my information is correct.

    C.W. BINGHAM.

Bingham's Melcombe, Blandford.

Law Courts at St. Albans (Vol. i., p. 366.).—Although unable to answer Σ., perhaps I may do him service by enabling him to put his Query more correctly. The disease which drove the lawyers from London in the 6th year of Elizabeth (1563) was not the sweating sickness (which has not returned since the reign of Edward VI.), but a plague brought into England by the late garrison of Havre de Grâce. And it was at Hertford that Candlemas term was kept on the occasions. See Heylyn, Hist. Ref., ed. Eccl. Hist. Soc. ii. 401.

    J.C.R.

The Troubles at Frankfort (Vol. i., p. 379.).—In Petheram's edition of this work, it is shown that Whittingham, dean of Durham, was most likely the author. That Coverdale was not, appears from the circumstance that the writer had been a party in the "Troubles," whereas Coverdale did not reside at Frankfort during any part of his exile.

    J.C.R.

Standing during the Reading of the Gospel (Vol. ii., p. 246.).—

"Apostolica auctoritate mandamus, dum sancta Evangelia in Ecclesia recitantur, ut Sacerdotes, et cæteri omnes presentes, non sedentes, sed venerabiliter curvi, in conspectu Evangelii stantes Dominica verba intente audiant, et fideliter adorent."—Anastasius, i., apud Grat. Decret. De Consecrat. Dist., ii. cap. 68.

    J. BE.