Notes and Queries, Number 30, May 25, 1850

FOLK LORE

Easter Eggs (No. 25. p. 397.).—The custom recorded by Brande as being in use in the North of England in his time, still continues in Richmondshire.

A Cure for Warts is practised with the utmost faith in East Sussex. The nails are cut, the cuttings carefully wrapped in paper, and placed in the hollow of a pollard ash, concealed from the birds; when the paper decays, the warts disappear. For this I can vouch: in my own case the paper did decay, and the warts did all disappear, and, of course, the effect was produced by the cause. Does the practice exist elsewhere?

Charm for Wounds.—Boys, in his History of Sandwich, gives, (p. 690.) the following from the Corporation Records, 1568: a woman examined touching her power to charm wounds who—

"Sayesth that she can charme for fyer and skalding in forme as oulde women do, sayeng 'Owt fyer in frost, in the name of the Father, the Sonne, and the Holly Ghost;' and she hath used when the skyn of children do cleve fast, to advise the mother to annoynt them with the mother's milk and oyle olyfe; and for skalding to take oyle olyfe only."

    W. DURRANT COOPER.

Fifth Son.—What is the superstition relating to a fifth son? I should be glad of any illustrations of it. There certainly are instances in which the fifth son has been the most distinguished scion of the family.

    W.S.G.

Cwn Wybir, or Cwn Annwn—Curlews (No. 19. p. 294).—The late ingenious and well-informed Mr. William Weston Young, then residing in Glamorgan, gave me the following exposition of these mysterious Dogs of the Sky, or Dogs of the Abyss, whose aërial cries at first perplexed as well as startled him. He was in the habit of traversing wild tracts of country, in his profession of land surveyor and often rode by night. One intensely dark night he was crossing a desolate range of hills, when he heard a most diabolical yelping and shrieking in the air, horrible enough in such a region and at black midnight. He was not, however, a superstitious man, and, being an observant naturalist, had paid great attention to the notes of birds, and the remarkable variations between the day and night notes of the same species. He suspected these strange unearthly sounds to be made by some gregarious birds on the wing; but the darkness was impenetrable, and he gazed upwards in vain. The noises, meanwhile, were precisely those which he had heard ascribed to the Cwn Wybir, and would have been truly appalling to a superstitious imagination. His quick ear at length caught the rush of pinions, and, in a short time, a large flight of curlews came sweeping down to the heather, so near his head, that some of their wings brushed his hat. They were no sooner settled, than the Cwn Wybir ceased to be heard. Mr. Young then recollected having noticed similar nocturnal cries from the curlew, but had never before encountered such a formidable flying legion of those birds, screaming in a great variety of keys, amidst mountain echoes.

    ELIJAH WARING.

BARTHOLOMEW LEGATE, THE MARTYR

An erroneous date, resting on such authorities as Mr. Hallam and Mr. J. Payne Collier, deserves a note. The former in his Const. Hist. (ii. 275. note, second edition), and the latter in the Egerton Papers, printed for the Camden Society (p. 446.), assigns the date 1614 to the death of Bartholomew Legate at Smithfield. The latter also gives the date March 13. Now the true date is March 18, 1611-12, as will appear by consulting—1. The commissions and warrants for the burning of Legate and Wightman, inserted in Truth brought to Light, or the Narrative History of King James for the first Fourteen Years, 4to. 1651; 2. Chamberlain's Letters to Sir Dudley Carleton, dated Feb. 26, 1611 (1611-12), and March 25, 1612, printed in The Court and Times of James I., vol. i. pp. 136. 164.; and 3. Wallace's Antitrinitarian Biography, vol. ii. p. 534. Fuller, in his Church History, gives the correct date, and states that his "burning of heretics much startled common people;" "wherefore King James politicly preferred that heretics hereafter, though condemned, should silently and privately waste themselves away in the prison."

Legate and Wightman were, in fact, the last martyrs burnt at the stake in England for their religious opinions.

    A.B.R.

BOHN'S EDITION OF MILTON'S PROSE WORKS

Three volumes of this edition have already appeared, the last bearing the date of 1848, and concluding thus:—"End of Vol. III." In the latest Catalogue, which Mr. Bohn has appended to his publications, appears a notice of "Milton's Prose Works, complete in 3 vols." This word complete is not consistent with the words terminating the last volume, nor with the exact truth. For instance, the History of Britain does not find a place in this edition; and I can hardly believe that Mr. Bohn originally intended that the Prose Works of Milton should be issued from his press without a full index. Without such an index, this edition is comparatively worthless to the investigator of history. I would therefore suggest to Mr. Bohn (whose services to literature I most gratefully acknowledge), that he should render his edition of Milton's Prose Works really complete, by issuing a fourth volume, which inter alia, might contain the Latin prose works of Milton, reprinted in Fletcher's edition of 1834, together with any omitted English prose work of the author, and be terminated, as is usual in Mr. Bohn's publications, with a full alphabetical index, embracing both persons and things. The lover of historical pursuits would then have fresh reason to thank Mr. Bohn.

    N.

REPRINT OF JEREMY TAYLOR'S WORKS

A reprint being called for of vol. iv. of Bishop Jeremy Taylor's Works, now in course of publication, I would beg permission to make it known to your readers, that assistance in regard to any references which were not verified in the former edition of that volume would be very acceptable to me. They should be sent within the next fortnight.

    C. PAGE EDEN.

DR. THOMAS BEVER'S LEGAL POLITY OF GREAT BRITAIN

I do not know if such a notice as this is intended to be, is admissible into your publication.

Many years ago, I bought of a bookseller a MS. intitled "A Short History of the Legal and Judicial Polity of Great Britain, attempted by Thos. Bever, LL.D., Advocate in Doctor's Commons, and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, 1759." It is presented to Richard Pennant, Esq.; and there is a letter from Mr. Bever to Mr. Pennant wafered to the fly-leaf. At the close of the "Advertisement," the author "earnestly requests that it [the work] may not be suffered to fall into the hands of a bookseller, or be copied, without his consent: and whenever it shall become useless, and lose its value (if any it ever had) with the present owner, that he will be kind enough to return it to the author if living, or if dead, to any of his surviving family at Mortimer near Reading, Berks."

In pious sympathy with this wish, I more than thirty years since wrote a letter, addressed to "– Bever, Esq., Mortimer, near Reading, Berks," offering to give up the volume to any one entitled to it under the above description; but my letter was returned from the post office with the announcement "Not found" upon it. I make this other attempt, if you are pleased to admit it, through you; and immediate attention will be paid to any claim which may appear in your pages.

    J.R.

QUERIES

DR. RICHARD HOLSWORTH AND THOS. FULLER

Can any of your readers inform me who was the author of The Valley of Vision, published in 1651 as the work of Dr. Richard Holsworth, the Master of Emmanuel College, and Dean of Worcester. In a preface to the reader, Fuller laments "that so worthy a man should dye issulesse without leaving any books behind him for the benefit of learning and religion." He adds that the private notes which he had left behind him were dark and obscure; his hand being legible only to himself, and almost useless for any other. The sermon published as The Valley of Vision appears to have been prepared for publication from the notes of a short-hand writer. When Fuller published, about eleven years afterwards, his Worthies of England, he wrote thus:—

"Pity it is so learned a person left no monuments (save a sermon) to posterity; for I behold that posthume work as none of his, named by the transcriber The Valley of Vision, a Scripture expression, but here misplaced.... This I conceived myself in credit and conscience concerned to observe, because I was surprised at the preface to the book, and will take the blame rather than clear myself, when my innocency is complicated with the accusing of others."

If, as is probable, Dr. Holsworth, in this instance, preached other men's sermons, which the short-hand writer afterwards gave to the world as his, it is a singular fact, that in the preface of this supposititious volume, Fuller speaks of the abuse of printed sermons by some—

"Who lazily imp their wings with other men's plumes, wherewith they soar high in common esteeme, yet have not the ingenuity with that son of the Prophet to confesse, Alasse! it was borrowed."

    A.B.R.

QUERIES UPON CUNNINGHAM'S HANDBOOK OF LONDON

We promised to make a few QUERIES on this amusing volume, and thus redeem our promise.

Mr. Cunningham has been the first to point out the precise situation of a spot often mentioned by our old dramatists, which had baffled the ingenuity of Gifford, Dyce, and in fact of all the commentators,—the notorious Picthatch. He thus describes it:—

"Picthatch, or Pickehatch.—A famous receptacle for prostitutes and pickpockets, generally supposed to have been in Turnmill Street, near Clerkenwell Green, but its position is determined by a grant of the 33rd of Queen Elizabeth, and a survey of 1649. What was Picthatch is a street at the back of a narrow turning called Middle Row (formerly Rotten Row) opposite the Charter-house wall in Goswell Street. The name is still preserved in 'Pickax Yard' adjoining Middle Row."

Why then, among the curious illustrations which he has brought to bear upon the subject, has Mr. Cunningham omitted that of the origin of the name from the "picks upon the hatch?" which is clearly established both by Malone and Steevens, in their notes upon "'twere not amiss to keep our door hatch'd," in Pericles.

The following is an excellent suggestion as to the origin of the—

"Goat and Compasses.—At Cologne, in the church of Santa Maria in Capitolio, is a flat stone on the floor professing to be the Grabstein der Brüder und Schwester eines ehrbaren Wein-und Fass-Ampts, Anno 1693; that is, as I suppose, a vault belonging to the Wine Coopers' Company. The arms exhibit a shield with a pair of compasses, an axe, and a dray, or truck, with goats for supporters. In a country like England, dealing so much at one time in Rhenish wine, a more likely origin for such a sign could hardly be imagined. For this information I am indebted to the courtesy of Sir Edmund Head."

Can Mr. Cunningham, Sir E. Head, or any of our correspondents point out any German "Randle Holme" whose work may be consulted for the purpose of ascertaining the arms, &c. of the various professions, trades, &c. of that country?

Why has not Mr. Cunningham, in his description of St. James' Street, mentioned what certainly existed long after the commencement of the present century, the occasional "steps" which there were in the foot-path—making the street a succession of terraces. This fact renders intelligible the passage quoted from Pope's letter to Mr. Pearse, in which he speaks of "y'e second Terras in St. James' Street." Why, too, omit that characteristic feature of the street, the rows of sedan chairs with which it was formerly lined? The writer of this perfectly remembers seeing Queen Charlotte in her sedan chair, going from the Queen's Library in the Green Park to Buckingham House.

Mr. Cunningham states, we dare say correctly, that Sheridan died at No. 17 Saville Row. We thought he had died at Mr. Peter Moore's, in Great George Street, Westminster. Was he not living there shortly before his death? and did not his funeral at Westminster Abbey proceed from Mr. Moore's?

ON A PASSAGE IN MACBETH

If any of your correspondents would favour me, I should like to be satisfied with respect to the following passage in Macbeth; which, as at present punctuated, is exceedingly obscure:—

"If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,—
We'd jump the life to come."

Now, I think by altering the punctuation, the sense of the passage is at once made apparent, as thus,—

"If it were done when 'tis done then 'twere well.
It were done quickly, if the assassination