Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850

"For us to count we give what's gain'd by thefts."

The original is one of the few passages which, as it seems to me, must be left to the reader's sagacity, and of the difficulties attending which we cannot arrive at any satisfactory solution."

Mr. Collier's better judgment has here given way to his deference for the opinion of his worthy friend; the deviation from the old copy being quite as violent as any that he has ever quarrelled with in others.

Bearing in mind Mr. Hickson's valuable canon (which should be the guide of future editors), let us see what is the state of the case. The line is a nonsensical jumble, and has probably been printed from an interlineation in the manuscript copy, two words being evidently transposed, and one of them, at the same time, glaringly mistaken. The poet would never have repeated the word count, which occurs in the first line, in the sense given to it either by Mr. Collier or by Mr. Knight.

Preserving every word in the old copy, I read the passage thus:—

"O! be persuaded. Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just: it is as lawful as
(For we would give much) to commit violent thefts
And rob in the behalf of charity."

"To count violent thefts" here would be sheer nonsense; and when we recollect how easy it is to mistake comit for count, the former word being almost always thus written and often thus printed, we must, I think, be convinced that in copying an interlineated MS., the printer misplaced and misprinted that word, and transposed as, if the repetition of it be not also an error.—"For," commencing the parenthesis, "we would give much" stands for cause. The emphasis should, I think, be laid on for; and commit be accented on the first syllable. Thus the line, though of twelve syllables, is not unmetrical; indeed much less prosaic than with the old reading of count.

This correction, upon the principle which governs Messrs. Collier and Knight, and which indeed should govern all of us,

"To lose no drop of that immortal man,"

ought to be satisfactory; for it is effected without taking away a letter. The transposition of two evidently misplaced words, and the correction of a letter or two palpably misprinted in one of them, is the whole gentle violence that has been used in a passage which has been, as we see, considered desperate. But, as Pope sings:

"Our sacred Shakspeare,—comprehensive mind!
Who for all ages writ, and all mankind,
Has been to careless printers oft a prey,
Nor time, nor moth e'er spoil'd as much as they;
Let the right reading drive the cloud away,
And sense breaks on us with resistless day."

    Periergus Bibliophilus.

October, 1850.

MASTER JOHN SHORNE

If proof were wanted how little is now known of those saints whose names were once in everybody's mouth, although they never figured in any calendar, it might be found in the fact that my friend, Mr. Payne Collier, whose intimate knowledge of the phrases and allusions scattered through our early writers is so well known and admitted, should, in his valuable Extracts from the Registers of the Stationers' Company (1557-1570), have illustrated this entry,—

"1569-70. Rd. of Thomas Colwell, for his lycense for the pryntinge of a ballett intituled 'Newes to Northumberlande yt skylles not where, to Syr John Shorne, a churche rebell there' … iiij

."

by a note, from which the following is an extract:—

"Sir John Shorne no doubt is to be taken as a generic name for a shaven Roman Catholic priest."

Reasonable, however, as is Mr. Collier's conjecture, it is not borne out by the facts of the case. The name Sir John Shorne is not a generic name, but the name of a personage frequently alluded to, but whose history is involved in considerable obscurity. Perhaps the following notes may be the means, by drawing forth others, of throwing some light upon it. In Michael Wodde's Dialogue, quoted by Brand, we read—

"If we were sycke of the pestylence we ran to Sainte Rooke; if of the ague, to Sainte Pernel or Master John Shorne."

Latimer, in his Second Sermon preached in Lincolnshire, p. 475. (Parker Society ed.), says,—

"But ye shall not think that I will speak of the popish pilgrimages, which we were wont to use in times past, in running hither and thither to Mr. John Shorn or to our Lady of Walsingham."

On which the editor, the Rev. G. E. Corrie, remarks that he was—

"A saint whose head quarters were probably in the parish of Shorn and Merston near Gravesend, but who seems to have had shrines in other parts of the country. He was chiefly popular with persons who suffered from ague."

Mr. Corrie then gives an extract from p. 218. of the Letters relating to the Suppression of Monasteries, edited by Mr. Wright for the Camden Society; but we quote from the original, Mr. Corrie having omitted the words given in our extract in Italics:—

"At Merston, Mr. Johan Schorn stondith blessing a bote, whereunto they do say he conveyd the devill. He ys moch sowzt for the agou. If it be your lordeschips pleasur, I schall sett that botyd ymage in a nother place, and so do wyth other in other parties wher lyke seeking ys."

In that extraordinary poem The Fantassie of Idolatrie, printed by Fox in his edition of 1563, but not afterwards reprinted until it appeared in Seeley's edition (vol. v. p. 406.), we read—

"To Maister John Shorne
That blessed man borne;
For the ague to him we apply,
Whiche jugeleth with a bote
I beschrewe his herte rote
That will truste him, and it be I."

The editor, Mr. Cattley, having explained bote "a recompense or fee," Dr. Maitland, in his Remarks on Rev. S. R. Cattley's Defence of his Edition of Fox's Martyrology, p. 46., after making a reference to Nares, and quoting his explanation, proceeds:

"The going on pilgrimage to St. John Shorne is incidentally mentioned at pages 232. and 580. of the FOURTH volume of Fox, but in a way which throws no light on the subject. The verse which I have quoted seems as if there was some relic which was supposed to cure the ague, and by which the juggle was carried on. Now another passage in this same fifth volume, p. 468., leads me to believe that this relic really was, and therefore the word 'bote' simply means, a boot. In this passage we learn, that one of the causes of Robert Testwood's troyble was his ridiculing the relics which were to be distributed to be borne by various persons in a procession upon a relic Sunday. St. George's dagger having been given to one Master Hake, Testwood said to Dr. Clifton,—'Sir, Master Hake hath St. George's dagger. Now if he had his horse, and St. Martin's cloak, and Master John Shorne's boots, with King Harry's spurs and his hat, he might ride when he list.'"

That there is some legend connected with Master John Shorne and "his bote, whereunto they do say he conveyd the devill," is evident from a fact we learn from the Proceedings of the Archæological Institute, namely, that at the meeting on the 5th Nov. 1847, the Rev. James Bulwer, of Aylsham, Norfolk, sent a series of drawings exhibiting the curious painted decorations of the rood screen in Cawston Church, Norfolk, amongst which appears the singular saintly personage bearing a boot, from which issues a demon. An inscription beneath the figures gives the name "Magister Johannes Schorn." It is much to be regretted that fuller details of this painting have not been preserved in the Journal of the Institute.

The earliest mention of Master John Schorne is in the indenture for roofing St. George's Chapel at Windsor, dated 5th June, 21 Henry VII. (1506), printed in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. ii. p. 115., where it is covenanted

"That the creastes, corses, beastes, above on the outsides of Maister John Shorne's Chappell, bee done and wrought according to the other creastes, and comprised within the said bargayne."

    William J. Thoms.

CORRIGENDA OF PRINTER'S ERRORS

In my note on Conjectural Emendation (Vol. ii., p. 322.), your printer, in general so very correct, has by a fortunate accident strengthened my argument, by adding one letter, and taking away another. Should my note be in existence, you will find that I wrote distinctly and correctly Mr. Field's prænomen Barron, and not Baron. And I have too much respect for my old favourite, honest George Wither, to have written Withers, a misnomer never used but by his adversaries, who certainly did speak of him as "one Withers." I should not have thought it necessary to notice these insignificant errata, but for the purpose of showing Printer's errors do and will occur, and that Shakspeare's text may often be amended by their correction. You will recollect honest George's punning inscription round his juvenile portrait:

"I grow and Wither both together."

    Periergus Bibliophilus.

FOLK LORE OF WALES

No. 3. Meddygon Myddvai.—On the heights of the Black Mountains, in Caermarthenshire, lies a dark-watered lake, known by the name of Lyn y Van Vach. As might be predicated, from the wild grandeur of its situation, as well as from the ever-changing hues which it takes from the mountain shadows, many a superstition—gloomy or beautiful—is connected with its history. Amongst these may be reckoned the legend of the Meddygon Myddvai or "surgeons of Myddvai." Tradition affirms that "once upon a time" a man who dwelt in the parish of Myddvai led his lambs to graze on the borders of this lake; a proceeding which he was induced to repeat in consequence of his visits being celebrated by the appearance of three most beautiful nymphs, who, rising from the waters of the lake, frequently came on shore, and wandered about amongst his flock. On his endeavouring, however, to catch or retain these nymphs, they fled to the lake and sank into its depths, singing—

"Cras dy fara,
Anhawdd ein dala!"

which may be rendered [eater of] "hard baked bread, it is difficult to retain us!" Difficulties, however, but increased the determination of the shepherd; and day after day he watched beside the haunted lake, until at length his perseverance was rewarded by the discovery of a substance resembling unbaked bread, which floated on the water: this he fished up and ate, and on the following day he succeeded in capturing the nymphs: on which he requested one of them to become his wife; to this she consented, on condition that he should be able to distinguish her from her sisters on the following day. This was no easy task, as the nymphs bore the most striking resemblance to each other; but the lover noticed some trifling peculiarity in the dress of his choice, by means of which he identified her. She then assured him that she would be to him as good a wife as any earthly maiden could be, until he should strike her three times without a cause. This was deemed by the shepherd an impossible contingency, and he led his bride in triumph from the mountain; followed by seven cows, two oxen, and one bull, which she had summoned from the waters of the lake to enrich her future home.