Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851

Verstegan.—A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Antiquities, concerning the most noble and renowned English Nation. By the Study and Travel of Richard Verstegan.—There is something so sonorous and stately in the very sound of the title of Master Richard Verstegan's etymological treatise, that any bibliographical notice of it, I am sure, will find a corner in "Notes and Queries." The following MS. note is on a fly-leaf of my copy, A.D. 1655:—

"The first edition was printed at Antwerp, in 1605. A full account of this work is given in Oldys's British Librarian, pp. 299 312. It concludes with suggestions for improving any future editions: namely, to add those animadversions, in their proper places, which have been since occasionally made on some mistakes in it; as those made by Mr. Sheringham on his fancy of the Vitæ being the ancient inhabitants of the Isle of Wight, &c. But more especially should be admitted the corrections of the learned Mr. Somner, he having left large marginal notes upon Verstegan's whole book, as we are informed by Bishop Kennett, the late accurate author of his Life. This advice has never been acted upon."

To this is subjoined a notice of Verstegan's Poems.

"There is a thin 12mo. volume of Poems by Richard Verstegan, of which only one perfect copy is known. Dr Farmer had it; then a Mr. Lloyd, who disposed of it, when it sold for 22l. 1s. Mr. Faber now has it. Another copy, completed by MS., had belonged to T. Park, which was sold at Sotheby's, March 11. 1821, for 1l. 19s., and bought by Triphook."

    J. Yeowell.

Hoxton.

George Herbert and the Church at Leighton Bromswold.—Little Gidding.—Some of your readers may not be aware that George Herbert built the church of Leighton Bromswold, Hunts as well as that of Bemerton. The church stands about three-quarters of a mile to the right of the road from Huntingdon to Thrapston, and a view of it is given in Zouch's 4to. edition of Isaac Walton's Lives; it is stated, in a note, to be near Spalding, for which read Spaldwick. Herbert desired the pulpit and reading-desk to be placed on opposite sides of the church, and of the same height; to show that "preaching ought not to be esteemed above praying, nor praying above preaching."

Query, What is the state of the interior now, as to pews, &c.?

The nuns, if I may so call them, in the monastery at Little Gidding, Hunts, employed themselves in covering or in ornamenting the covers of books, in patterns, with silver and coloured-silk threads: a friend of mine in Surrey has a small volume so ornamented by them.

    E. H.

Norwich, Jan. 20.

Etymology of Kobold.—At page 239. of Mr. Bohn's edition of Keightley's Fairy Mythology, we find that Mr. K., after heading a chapter with "Kobolds," says in a note:—

"This word is usually derived from the Greek κόβαλος, a knave, but as this is only found in lexicographers, it may in reality be a Teutonic word in a Greek form."

Surely, Mr. Keightley has forgotten the following passages—

1. Ar. Equites, 450. Dindf. [Conf. Ranæ, 1015.]

"ΚΛΕΩΝ: κόβαλος εἶ.
ΑΛΛ. πανοῦργος εἶ."

2. Ejusdem fab., 635.:

"Βερέσχεθοί τε καὶ κόβαλοι καὶ Μόθων."

3. Plutus, 279.:

"ὡς μόθων εἶ τε καὶ φύσει κόβαλος."

4. Aristotle, H. A. 8. 12. 12. [Bekker Oxon.] says of a bird,

"κόβαλος καὶ μιμητής."

In the 2nd passage Liddell and Scott call κόβαλοι "mischievous goblins," which is exactly equivalent to "kobolds."

The word is also used adjectively for "knavish tricks," "rogueries."

See Equites, 419.:

"Καὶ, νὴ Δι', ἄλλα γ' ἐστί μου κόβαλα παιδὸς ὄντος."

Ranæ, 104:—

""ἧ μὴν κόβαλα γ' ἐστὶν, ὡς καὶ σοὶ δοκεῖ."

In Equites, 332. we find κοβαλικέυματα, "the tricks of a κόβαλος."

    P. J. F. Gantillon.

Judas Cup (Vol. ii., p. 298.).—In the Ancient Monuments, Rites, and Customs of Durham, published by the Surtees Society, we have the following account of "Judas Cup" in the refectory, which is described as—

"A goodly great mazer, called Judas Cup, edged about with silver and double gilt, with a foot underneath it to stand on, of silver and double gilt, which was never used but on Maunday Thursday at night in the Frater House, where the prior and the whole convent did meet and keep their Maunday." (p. 68.)

I send this with reference to the mention of the "Judas Bell" and "Judas Candle" in your 2nd Volume, p. 298.

    Echo.

Essheholt Priory.—Esholt Hall (now in the possession of W. R. C. Stansfield, Esq.) is the same as the ancient priory of Essheholt, which was under the abbot of Kirkstall.

This priory fell, of course, with the smaller houses, and was valued at 19l. 0s. 8d. Essheholt remained in the crown till the first year of Edward VI., nine years after the dissolution, when it was granted to Henry Thompson, Gent., one of the king's gens-d'armes at Boulogne. In this family the priory of Esholt remained somewhat more than a century, when it was transferred to the neighbouring and more distinguished house of Calverley by the marriage of Frances, daughter and heiress of H. Thompson, Esq., with Sir Walter Calverley. His son, Sir Walter Calverley, Bart., built, on the site of the old priory, the house which now stands.

Over a door of one of the out-buildings is an inscription in ancient letters, from which may be traced—"Aleisbet. Pudaci, p–," with a bird sitting on the last letter p. (Elizabeth Pudsay, prioress).

The builder of the present house died in 1749; and, in 1755, his son of the same name sold the manor-house and furniture to Robert Stansfield, Esq., of Bradford; from whom the present owner is descended.[1 - Thoresby's History of Leeds.]

    Chas. W. Markham.

Jan. 10. 1851.

Crossing Rivers on Skins (Vol. iii., p. 3.).—Mr. C. M. G., a near relative of mine, who lately returned from naval service on the Indus, told me, last year, that he had often seen there naked natives employed in fishing. The man, with his fishing-tackle, launches himself on the water, sustained by a large hollow earthen vessel having a round protuberant opening on one side. To this opening the fisherman applies his abdomen, so as to close the vessel against the influx of water; and clinging to this air-filled buoy, floats about quite unconcernedly, and plies his fishing-tackle with great success. The analogy between this Oriental buoy and the inflated skins mentioned by Layard and by your correspondent Janus Dousa, is sufficiently remarkable to deserve a note.

    G. F. G.

Edinburgh.

Queries

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL QUERIES

(Continued from Vol. ii., p. 493.)

(31.) P. H. F. (Vol. iii., pp. 24, 25.) has described a 12mo., or rather an 8vo., copy of Latin Psalter in his possession, and he wishes to know whether Montanus had any connexion with one of the translations therein exhibited. The title-page of your correspondent's volume will tell him precisely what the book contains. He had better not rely too much upon MS. remarks in any of his treasures; and when a bibliographical question is being investigated, let Cyclopædias by all means not be disturbed from their shelves. Would it not be truly marvellous if a volume, printed by Robert Stephens in 1556, could in that year have presented, by prolepsis, to its precocious owner a version which Bened. Arias Montanus did not execute until 1571? But P. H. F.'s communication excites another query. He appears to set a special value upon his Psalter because that the verses are in it distinguished by cyphers; but Pagnini's whole Bible, which I spoke of, came thirty years before it, and we have still to go nearly twenty years farther back in search of the earliest example of the employment of Arabic figures to mark the verses in the Book of Psalms. The Quincuplex Psalterium, by Jacques le Fevre, is a most beautiful book, perhaps the finest production of the press of Henry Stephens the elder; and not only are the verses numbered in the copy before me, which is of the improved "secunda emissio" in 1513, but the initial letters of them are in red. At signature A iiij. there is a very handsome woodcut of the letter A., somewhat of a different style, from the larger (not the Ascensian) P., within the periphery of which St. Paul is represented, and which is so well worthy of notice in Le Fevre's edition of the Epistole diui Pauli Apostoli, Paris, 1517. The inquiry toward which I have been travelling is this, When did Henry Stephens first make use of the open Ratdoltian letter on dotted ground? (See Maitland's Lambeth List, p. 328. Dibdin's Typog. Antiq. vol. i., Prel. Disquis., p. xl.)

(32.) Is there extant any collation of the various exemplars of the Alphabetum divini Amoris? And has an incontrovertible opinion been formed as to the paternity of this tract? For the common error of ascribing it to Gerson is entirely inexcusable, as this Parisian chancellor is frequently alleged therein. The third volume of his works, set forth by Du Pin, in 1706, contains this "Treatise of the Elevation of the Soul to God," and the editor has left the blunder uncorrected in his Eccles. Hist. iii. 53. Again, can it be affirmed that the folio impression of Louvain, (Panzer, ix. 243.), in which Gerson's name occurs, was assuredly anterior to the small black-letter and anonymous editions, likewise without dates? Two of the latter (one much older than the other) are of 12mo. size, in 8vo., as is also Bonaventura's Stimulus divini Amoris, printed in 1510 and 1517.

(33.) In what way can we detect the propounder of the Notabilis expositio super canonem misse? His work is of small folio size without mention of place or year; but it certainly proceeded from Nuremberg, and was it not one of the primitiæ of Creusner?