Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851

Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune
A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god,
Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain,
As I seem now. Their transformations
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,
Nor in a way so chaste.'

"'This,' says Malone, 'is taken almost literally from the novel'—when, in fact, the resemblance merely consists in the adoption by Shakspeare of part of the mythological knowledge supplied by Greene. 'The gods above disdaine not to love women beneath. Phœbus liked Daphne; Jupiter Io; and why not I then Fawnia?' The resemblance is anything but literal."

It would appear, however, that the passage cited by Mr. Collier is not the one referred to by Malone. Mr. Collier's passage is at p. 34. of his edition of the novel; the one Malone evidently had in view is at p. 40., and is as follows:—

"And yet, Dorastus, shame not at thy shepheard's weede: the heavenly godes have sometime earthly thoughtes. Neptune became a ram, Jupiter a bul, Apollo a shepheard: they Gods, and yet in love; and thou a man, appointed to love."

    E. L. N.

Inscribed Alms-dish.—There is an alms-dish (?) in the possession of a clergyman near Rotherham, in this county, with the following inscription:—

"VREEST . GODT . ONDERHOVEDT . SYN . GEBOEDT . ANNO . 1634."

[Fear God (and?) keep his commandments.]

Having so lately been so justly reproved by your correspondent, Mr. Janus Dousa, for judging of Vondel's Lucifer by an apparently unjust review rather than by perusal,—and his beautiful chorus having so fully "established his case,"—I am rather shy of making any remarks upon this inscription: otherwise I would venture (errors excepted) to observe that there may be a mistake in the position of the last three letters of the third word.

If Mr. Dousa would kindly inform a very imperfect Dutch scholar whether this sentence is intended as a quotation from Ecclesiastes xii., 13th verse,—

"Vreest Godt ende hout sÿne geboden;"

or whether the third word is from the verb "onder houden,"—as looks probable, I shall be greatly obliged to him. The Bible to which I refer is dated 1644.

Being neither a scholar nor a critic, but only a lover of books and languages, I hope Mr. Dousa will accept my apology for the affront offered to his countryman, Vondel. Your publication has been a great temptation to people with a few curious books around them to set sail their little boats of inquiry or observation for the mere pleasure of seeing them float down the stream in company with others of more importance and interest. I confess myself to have been one of the injudicious number; and having made shipwreck of my credit against M. Brellet's Dictionnaire de la Langue Celtique, and also on Vondel's Lucifer, I must here apologise and promise to offend no more. If Mr. Dousa will not be appeased, I have only to add that I "send him my card." As Mrs. Malaprop said to Sir Lucius O'Trigger—

"Spare my blushes—I am Delia."

    Hermes.
P. S. Can Mr. Dousa fix a positive date to my undated History of Dr. John Faustus?

Landwade Church.—It appears to me that an important service would be rendered to posterity, if a full account were taken of all the monuments and inscriptions in such deserted churches as Landwade appears to be. Such records may ere long become invaluable, and every day is hastening them to oblivion. Already hundreds of such churches, with the several monuments and inscriptions they contained, have entirely passed away. I have been making some investigation into the demolished and desecrated churches of Buckinghamshire, and am astonished at the number of monumental records which have thus perished. Thirty-one churches at least have been lost to the county, and some of them were rich in monumental memorials.

Other counties, doubtless, have equally suffered. Would it not, therefore, be well to collect accounts of the memorials they contained, so far as they can be obtained, and have them recorded in some publication, that they may be available to future historians, genealogists, and antiquaries? Is there any existing periodical suitable for the purpose?

    W. Hastings Kelke.

The First Edition of the Second Book of Homilies, by Queen Elizabeth in 1563.—In the edition of the Homilies at the Oxford University press in 1822, and which from inspection, in the portion concerned, appear to be the same in the last, I find in the Advertisement, page iv. note d., that there exist four editions of the date 1563. Of these, I presume, are two in my possession, and I conclude one of them to be the first edition on the following grounds:—That one, printed by Richard Jugge and John Cawood, 1563, has in the last page and a half, "Faultes escaped in the printyng," which appear to have been corrected in all the subsequent editions, and are as they stand in the subsequent and modern editions, I presume, up to the present time. But the principal proof arises from a cancelled leaf in the Homily, "Of Common Prayer and Sacraments," as it stands in the Oxford edition of 1822, p. 329-331. The passage in question, as it there stands, and stands likewise in another edition of 1563, which I have, begins within three lines of the end of the paragraph, p. 329.,—"eth, that common or public prayer," &c., and ends at p. 331. line 13.,—"ment of baptism and the Lord's supper," &c. In my presumed first edition the original passage has been dismissed, and the substituted passage, being one leaf, in a smaller type, in order plainly to contain more matter, and it is that which appears, as I suppose, in all subsequent and the present copies. It would have been a matter of some curiosity, and perhaps of some importance, to have the original cancelled passage. But every intelligent reader will perceive that the subject was one which required both delicacy and judgment. Is any copy existing which has the original passage? My copy unfortunately is imperfect, wanting three leaves; and I apprehend this is an additional instance in which the first edition of an important work has been in a manner thrown aside for its imperfection; as was the case with the real first edition of the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, and the Execution of Justice given to Burghley. As the Oxford editor wished for information upon this subject, it is hoped that the present communication may not be unacceptable to him.

    J. M.

Jan. 23. 1851.

Queries

DUTCH TRANSLATION OF A TRACT BY ROBERT GREENE

I was thinking of sending you a note or two on an early Dutch translation of a very celebrated English tract when your last number came to hand, by which I find that so much interest has been produced by "Notes and Queries" in Holland, that certain literati are about to establish a similar work in that country. If I mistake not, what I now transmit will be acceptable to your Batavian friends, and not unwelcome to those who approve of your undertaking on this side of the water.

A good deal has been advanced lately regarding the interest taken by the inhabitants of Holland, Belgium, and Germany, in our ancient drama; and in consistency with what was said by Thomas Heywood more than 200 years ago, some new information has been supplied respecting the encouragement given to English players abroad. The fact itself was well-known, and the author last cited (Shakspeare Society's reprint of the Apology for Actors, 1841, p. 58.) furnishes the name of the very play performed on one occasion at Amsterdam. The popularity of our drama there perhaps contributed to the popularity of our lighter literature, (especially of such as came from the pens of our most notorious playwrights,) in the same part of Europe, and may account for the circumstance I am about to mention.

At this time of day I need hardly allude to the reputation the celebrated Robert Greene obtained in England, both as a dramatist and a pamphleteer; and although we have no distinct evidence on the point, we need hardly doubt that some of his plays had been represented with applause in Holland. The Four Sons of Aymon, which Heywood tells us was acted with such strange effect at Amsterdam, must have been a piece of precisely the same kind as Greene's Orlando Furioso, which we know was extraordinarily popular in this kingdom, and may have been equally so abroad. We may thus suppose that Greene's fame had spread to the Netherlands, and that anything written by him would be well received by Batavian readers.

His Quip for an Upstart Courtier, or, a Quaint Dispute between Velvet-breeches and Cloth-breeches, was published in London in 1592, and went through two, if not three, impressions in its first year. It was often reprinted, and editions in 1606, 1615, 1620, 1625, and 1635, have come down to us, besides others that, no doubt, have entirely disappeared. That the fame of this production extended to Holland, I have the proof before me: it is a copy of the tract in Dutch, with the following imprint—"Tot Leyden. By Thomas Basson. M.D.CI." A friend of mine writes me from Rotterdam, that he has a copy, without date, but printed about twenty or five-and-twenty years after mine of 1601, which shows how long the popularity of the tract was maintained; and I have little doubt that mine is not by any means the earliest Dutch impression, if only because the wood-cut of the Courtier and the Countryman (copied with the greatest precision from the London impression of 1592) is much worn and blurred. The title-page runs as follows, and the name of Robert Greene is rendered obvious upon it for the sake of its attraction:—

"Een Seer vermakelick Proces tusschen Fluweele-Broeck ende Laken-Broeck. Waer in verhaldt werdt het misbruyck van de meeste deel der Menschen. Gheshreven int Engelsch door Robert Greene, ende nu int Neder-landtsch overgheset. Wederom oversien."

At the back of this title is printed a short address from the translator to the Edele ende welghesinde Leser, which states little more than that the original had been received from England, and concludes with the subsequent quatrain:—

"Ghemerckt dit Dal vol van ydelheyt
Soo lachet vrij als Democritus dede:
Doch zy gheraeckt met vvat Barmherticheyt:
Als Heraclyt, bevveen ons qualen mede."

The spelling and punctuation are the same as in the original, and the body of the tract follows immediately:

"Staende eens smorghens op van eene onrustige nacht rust, ende vindende mijn ghemoet noch wat onstelt, gingh ick wandelen nae de vermacklyche velden, om mijn Gheest wat te vermacken, dan wesende noch in een Melancholijcke humeur, seer eensaem sonder eenighe gheselschap, worde ick seer slaperich: alsoo dat ick droomde. Dat iek een Dal sach wel verceirt, &c."

As few of your readers will have the means of referring to the original English, I quote Greene's opening words from an edition of 1592:—

"It was just at that time when the Cuckoulds quirister began to bewray Aprill, Gentlemen, with his never-changed notes, that I, damped with a melancholy humor, went into the fields to cheere up my wits with the fresh aire: where solitarie seeking to solace my selfe, I fell in a dreame, and in that drowsie slumber I wandered into a vale, &c."

The Dutch version fills thirty-two closely printed pages, and ends with the succeeding literal translation of Greene's last sentence:—

"Tot dese Sententie (aldus by de Ridder ghepronuncieert) alle de omstaende Stemde daer toe, ende klapten in haere handen, ende maeckte een groot geluyde, waer door eck waeker worde, ende schoot uyt mynen Droom, soo stout ick op, ende met een vrolijck ghemoet, gingh ick schryven, al her gene, dat ghy hier ghehoort hebt."

The above is one of the few books I purchased when I was in Holland some thirty years ago; and as I have quoted enough for the purpose of identification, I may conclude with asking some of your Dutch correspondents, whether the tract, in this or in any other edition, is of considerable rarity with them? In England I never saw a copy of it but that in my possession. I may add that every paragraph is separately numbered from 1 to 110, as if the production were one of importance to which more particular reference might be made than even by the pagination.

    The Hermit of Holyport.

THE BLACK ROOD OF SCOTLAND

(Vol. ii., pp. 308. 409.)

I am not satisfied with what W. S. G. has written on this subject; and as I feel interested in it, perhaps I cannot bring out my doubts better than in the following Queries.

1. Instead of this famous cross being destined by St. Margaret for Dunfermline, was it not transmitted by her as an heir-loom to her sons? Fordun, lib. v. cap. lv. "Quasi munus hæreditarium transmisit ad filios." Hailes (Annals, sub anno 1093) distinguishes the cross which Margaret gifted to Dunfermline from the Black Rood of Scotland; and it is found in the possession of her son David I., in his last illness. He died at Carlisle, 24th May, 1153. (Fordun, ut supra.)

2. Is not W. S. G. mistaken when, in speaking of this cross being seized by Edward I. in the Castle of Edinburgh in 1292, he says it is in a list of muniments, &c., found "in quadam cista in dormitorio S. Crucis." instead of in a list following, "et in thesauria castri de Edinburgh inventa fuerunt ornamenta subscripta?" (Ayloffe's Calendars, p. 827.; Robertson's Index, Introd. xiii.)

3. When W. S. G. says that this cross was not held in the same superstitious reverence as the Black Stone of Scone, and that Miss Strickland is mistaken when she says that it was seized by King Edward, and restored at the peace of 1327, what does he make of the following authorities?—

(1.) Fordun, lib. v, cap. xvii:

"Illa sancta crux quam nigram vocant omni genti Scotorum non minus terribilem quam amabilem pro suæ reverentia sanctitatis."