Notes and Queries, Number 09, December 29, 1849

And spread it with a cloth,
Bring us out a mouldy cheese,
And some of your Christmas loaf.

"God bless the master of this house,
Likewise the mistress too,
And all the little children,
That round the table go.

"Good master and mistress,
While you'r sitting by the fire,
Pray think of us poor children,
Who are wand'ring in the mire.

"Cho.—Love and joy come to you,
And to your wessel to,
And God send you a happy new year,
A new year,
And God send you a happy new year.

Our wessel cup is made of the rosemary tree,
So is your beer of the best barley."

It is a song of the season which well deserves to be preserved. Its insertion will at least have that effect, and may be the means of our discovering an earlier and purer text.

    AMBROSE MERTON.

Portrait of Charles I.—In Sir Henry Ellis's Original Letters, 2d series, vol. iii. p. 254., amongst the prefatory matter to the reign of Charles I., there is a notice of a sermon, entitled "The Subject's Sorrow, or Lamentations upon the Death of Britaine's Josiah, King Charles."

Sir Henry Ellis says it is expressly stated, in this Sermon, that the King himself desired "that unto his Golden Manual might be prefixed his representation, kneeling; contemning a temporal crown, holding our blessed Saviour's crown of thorns, and aspiring unto an eternal crown of happiness."

Note b. upon this passage is as follows:—

"This very portrait of King Charles the First, engraved by Marshall, adorned the original edition of the [Greek: Eikon Basilikae]. 8vo. 1648. The same portrait, as large as life, in oil painting, was afterwards put up in many of our churches."

When I was a boy, such a portrait, in oil painting, hung upon the south wall of the body of St. Michael's Church, Cambridge, between the pulpit and a small door to the west, leading into the south aisle.

Out of the window of the chamber in which the King was kneeling was represented a storm at sea, and the ship being driven by it upon some rocks.

A few years ago, upon visiting Cambridge, I went purposely to St. Michael's Church to see this picture, which had been so familiar to me in my boyhood. The clerk told me it had been taken down, and was in the vestry. In the vestry I found it, on its side, on the floor against the wall.

You are probably aware that this St. Michael's Church was nearly destroyed by fire not many weeks since; that a committee is established to arrange its restoration.

Would it not be worth while that some inquiry should be made about the fate of this picture?

    R.O.

Dec. 17. 1849.

P.S.—I may add, that there was affixed to the bottom of the frame of the picture a board, on which was painted, in conformably large letters—

"LORD, remember David and all his trouble."
Psalm cxxxii. 1.

The italics in part of the Note above quoted are mine.

Autograph Mottoes of Richard Duke of Gloucester, and Henry Duke of Buckingham.—In the volume of the Cottonian MSS. marked Vespasian F. XIII., at fol. 53., is a slip of parchment, upon which is written by the hands of Richard Duke of Gloucester, and Henry Duke of Buckingham, the following couplet:—

"Loyaulte me lie
Richard Gloucestre

"Souente me souène
Harre Bokingh'a'm."

A fac-simile is engraved in Autographs of Royal, Noble, Learned, and Remarkable Personages in English History, engraved by C.J. Smith, and edited by Mr. John Gough Nichols, 1829, 4to., where the editor suggests that this slip of parchment was "perhaps a deceitful toy," or it may have been attached to some present offered by the Duke of Gloucester to his royal nephew Edward the Fifth. The meaning of Gloucester's motto is perfectly free from misapprehension; but he asserts his fidelity to the crown, which he soon so flagrantly outraged—"Loyalty binds me." In the work above mentioned, the motto of Buckingham is interpreted by these words, in modern French:—"Souvent me souviens." This does not appear to me perfectly satisfactory; and I have to request the opinions of such as are conversant with old manuscripts, whether the true meaning, or even the true reading, of the Duke of Buckingham's motto has as yet been ascertained?

    H.

NOTES IN ANSWER TO QUERIES

Lord Erskine's Brooms.—"G.B." informs us, that the anecdote about Lord Erskine's brooms, and the apprehension of his servant for selling them without a licence, will be found in his Life by Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vi. p. 618.). Erskine himself attended the sessions to plead the man's cause, and contended that the brooms were agricultural produce, or, as he jocosely observed, "came under the sweeping clause." The when is about 1807, and the where an estate in Sussex, which proved rather an unprofitable speculation to its owner, as it produced nothing but birch trees, and those but stunted ones. To which information "W.J." adds, that about the same period Lord Erskine printed, for private circulation, An Appeal in favour of the agricultural Services of Rooks; a production probably scarce now, but full of humanity, and very characteristic.

Scarborough Warning.—In a postscript to a letter written from court on the 19th January, 1603, by Toby Matthew, Bishop of Durham, to Hutton, Archbishop of York, I find the term Scarborough warning. Can any of the correspondents of your valuable paper inform me of the origin and prevalence of this saying? The postscript is—

"When I was in the middest of this discourse, I received a message from my lord chamberlaine, that it was his majesty's pleasure that I should preach before him upon Sunday next; which Scarborough warning did not perplex me, but so puzzled me, as no mervail if somewhat be pretermitted, which otherwise I might have better remembered."

Quoted in Caldwell's Conferences, p. 166.

    W.M.C.

[NARES tells us, that Ray, on the authority of Fuller, states that this saying took its origin from "Thomas Stafford, who, in the reign of Mary, A.D. 1557, with a small company, seized on Scarborough Castle (utterly destitute of provision for resistance), before the townsmen had the least notice of their approach;" but shows that it was probably much older, as, in a ballad written by J. Heywood on the taking of that place by Stafford, the following more probable origin is given to the proverb:—

"This term Scarborow warning grew (some say),
By hasty hanging for rank robbery theare.
Who that was met, but suspect in that way,
Straight he was trust up, whatever he were."

This implies that Scarborough imitated the Halifax gibbet law. Is any thing known of such a privilege being claimed or exercised by the men of Scarborough? We should be glad to hear from any local antiquary upon this point.]

Gray's Elegy.—In answer to your correspondent, J.F.M. (p. 101.), who asks for information respecting the competition for the best translation of Gray's Elegy, in which Dr. Sparke was a candidate, I would beg to refer him to the satirical poem attributed to Mr. T.J. Matthias, formerly Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, entitled The Pursuits of Literature, in which a ludicrous account is given of the affair. It does not appear who offered the prize, but Mr. Nares, the editor of The British Critic, was the judge, and the place of meeting "The Musical Room in Hanover Square," which was decorated for the occasion with appropriate scenery—at least so says The Critic. He thus describes the solemnity (p. 174 8th edit. 1798):—

"Lo, learned clerks in sable stole,
Graceful in years, pant eager for the goal.
Old Norbury starts, and, with the seventh-form boys,
In weeds of Greek the church-yard's peace annoys,
With classic Weston, Charley Coote and Tew,
In dismal dance about the mournful yew.
But first in notes Sicilian placed on high,
Bates sounds the soft precluding symphony;
And in sad cadence, as the bands condense,