Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851

Replies

MEANING OF EISELL

(Vol. iii., p. 66.)

I must beg a very small portion of your space to reply to your correspondent H. K. S. C., who criticises so pleasantly my remarks on the meaning of "eisell." The question is: Does the meaning Mr. Singer attaches to this word require in the passage cited the expression of quantity to make it definite? I am disposed to think that a definite quantity may be sometimes understood, in a well-defined act, although it be not expressed. On the other hand, your correspondent should know that English idiom requires that the name of a river should be preceded by the definite article, unless it be personified; and that whenever it is used without the article, it is represented by the personal pronoun he. Though a man were able "to drink the Thames dry," he could no more "drink up Thames" than he could drink up Neptune, or the sea-serpent, or do any other impossible feat.

I observed before, that "the notion of drinking up a river would be both unmeaning and out of place." I said this, with the conviction that there was a purpose in everything that Shakspeare wrote; and being still of this persuasion, allow me to protest against the terms "mere verbiage" and "extravagant rant," which your correspondent applies to the passage in question. The poet does not present common things as they appear to all men. Shakspeare's art was equally great, whether he spoke with the tongues of madmen or philosophers. H. K. S. C. cannot conceive why each feat of daring should be a tame possibility, save only the last; but I say that they are all possible; that it was a daring to do not impossible but extravagant feats. As far as quantity is concerned, to eat a crocodile would be more than to eat an ox. Crocodile may be a very delicate meat, for anything I know to the contrary; but I must confess it appears to me to be introduced as something loathsome or repulsive, and (on the poet's part) to cap the absurdity of the preceding feat. The use made by other writers of a passage is one of the most valuable kinds of comment. In a burlesque some years ago, I recollect a passage was brought to a climax with the very words, "Wilt eat a crocodile?" The immediate and natural response was—not "the thing's impossible!" but—"you nasty beast!" What a descent then from the drinking up of a river to a merely disagreeable repast. In the one case the object is clear and intelligible, and the last feat is suggested by the not so difficult but little less extravagant preceding one; in the other, each is unmeaning (in reference to the speaker), unsuggested, and, unconnected with the other; and, regarding the order an artist would observe, out of place.

    Samuel Hickson.

St. John's Wood, Jan. 27. 1851.

P.S. In replying to Mr. G. Stephens, in reference to the meaning of a passage in the Tempest, I expressed a wish that he would give the meaning of what he called a "common ellipsis" "stated at full." This stands in your columns (Vol. ii., p. 499.) "at first," in which expression I am afraid he would be puzzled to find any meaning.

I might safely leave H. K. S. C. to the same gentle correction bestowed upon a neighbour of his at Brixton some time since, by Mr. Hickson, but I must not allow him to support his dogmatic and flippant hypercriticism by falsehood and unfounded insinuation, and I therefore beg leave to assure him that I have no claim to the enviable distinction of being designated as the friend of Mr. Hickson, to whom I am an utter stranger, having never seen him, and knowing nothing of that gentleman but what his very valuable communications to your publication conveys.

I have further to complain of the want of truth in the very first paragraph of your correspondent's note: the question respecting the meaning of "Eisell" does not "remain substantially where Steevens and Malone left it;" for I have at least shown that Eisell meant Wormwood, and that Shakspeare has elsewhere undoubtedly used it in that sense.

Again: the remark about the fashion of extravagant feats, such as swallowing nauseous draughts in honour of a mistress, was quite uncalled for. Your correspondent would insinuate that I attribute to Shakspeare's time "what in reality belongs to the age of Du Guesclin and the Troubadours." Does he mean to infer that it did not in reality equally belong to Shakspeare's age? or that I was ignorant of its earlier prevalence?

The purport of such remarks is but too obvious; but he may rest assured that they will not tend to strengthen his argument, if argument it can be called, for I must confess I do not understand what he means by his "definite quantity." But the phrase drink up is his stalking-horse; and as he is no doubt familiar with the Nursery Rhymes[1 - Nursery Rhymes, edited by James Orchard Halliwell, Esq., F. R. S., &c.], a passage in them—

"Eat up your cake, Jenny,
Drink up your wine."

may perhaps afford him further apt illustration.

The proverb tells us "It is dangerous playing with edge tools," and so it is with bad puns: he has shown himself an unskilful engineer in the use of Mr. Hickson's canon, with which he was to have "blown up" Mr. Hickson's argument and my proposition; with what success may be fairly left to the judgment of your readers. I will, however, give him another canon, which may be of use to him on some future occasion: "When a probable solution of a difficulty is to be found by a parallelism in the poet's pages, it is better to adopt it than to charge him with a blunder of our own creating."

The allusion to "breaking Priscian's head" reminds one of the remark of a witty friend on a similar occasion, that "there are some heads not easily broken, but the owners of them have often the fatuity to run them against stumbling-blocks of their own making."

    S. W. Singer.

DESCENT OF HENRY IV

(Vol. ii., p. 375.)

Under the head of "Descent of Edward IV.," S. A. Y. asks for information concerning "a popular, though probably groundless tradition," by which that prince sought to prove his title to the throne of England. S. A. Y., or his authority, Professor Millar, is mistaken in ascribing it to Edward IV.—it was Henry IV. who so sought to establish his claim.

"Upon Richard II.'s resignation … Henry, Duke of Lancaster, having then a large army in the kingdom … it was impossible for any other title to be asserted with safety, and he became king under the title of Henry IV. He was, nevertheless, not admitted to the crown until he had declared that he claimed, not as a conqueror (which he was much inclined to do), but as a successor descended by right line of the blood royal.... And in order to this he set up a show of two titles: the one upon the pretence of being the first of the blood royal of the entire male line; whereas the Duke of Clarence (Lionel, elder brother of John of Gaunt) left only one daughter, Philippa: the other, by reviving an exploded rumour, first propagated by John of Gaunt, that Edmond Earl of Lancaster (to whom Henry's mother was heiress) was in reality the elder brother of King Edward I., though his parents, on account of his personal deformity, had imposed him on the world for the younger."—Blackstone's Commentaries, book i. ch. iii. p. 203. of edit. 1787.

This Edmond, Earl of Lancaster, was succeeded by his son Thomas, who in the fifteenth year of the reign of Edward II. was attainted of high treason. In the first of Edward III. his attainder was reversed, and his son Henry inherited his titles, and subsequently was created Duke of Lancaster. Blanche, daughter of Henry, first Duke of Lancaster, subsequently became his heir, and was second wife to John of Gaunt, and mother to Henry IV.

Edward IV.'s claim to the throne was by descent from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III., his mother being Cicely, youngest daughter of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland. Lionel married Elizabeth de Burgh, an Irish heiress, who died shortly after, leaving one daughter, Philippa. As William of Hatfield, second son of Edward III., died at an early age, without issue, according to all our ideas of hereditary succession Philippa, only child of Edward III.'s third son, ought to have inherited before the son of his fourth son; and Sir Edward Coke expressly declares, that the right of the crown was in the descent from Philippa, daughter and heir of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. Henry IV.'s right, however, was incontestable, being based on overwhelming might. Philippa married Edward Mortimer, Earl of March. Roger, their son, succeeded his father in his titles, and left one daughter, Anne, who married Richard, Earl of Cambridge, son of Edmund Langley, Duke of York, which Edmund, Duke of York, was the fifth son of Edward III.; and thus the line of York, though a younger branch of the royal family, took precedence, de jure, of the Lancaster line. From this union sprang Richard, Duke of York, who was killed under the walls of Sandal Castle, and who left his titles and pretensions to Edward, afterwards the fourth king of that name.

The above is taken from several authorities, among which are Blackstone's Comm., book i. ch. iii.; and Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England, vols. ii. iii. iv.

    Tee Bee.

FOSSIL ELK OF IRELAND

(Vol. ii., p. 494.; Vol. iii., p. 26.)

W. R. C. states that he is anxious to collect all possible information as to this once noble animal. I would have offered the following notes and references sooner, but that I was confident that some abler contributor to the pages of "Notes and Queries" would have brought out of his stores much to interest your natural history readers (whose Queries I regret are so few and far between), and at the same time elucidate some points touched upon by W. R. C., as to the period of its becoming extinct. Perhaps he would favour me with the particulars of "its being shot in 1553," and a particular reference to the plate alluded to in the Nuremberg Chronicle, as I have not been able to recognise in any of its plates the Cervus Megaceros, and I am disposed to question the correctness of the statement, that the animal existed so lately as the period referred to.

There is in the splendid collections of the Royal Dublin Society (which, unfortunately, is not arranged as it should be, from want of proper space), a fine skeleton of this animal, the first perfect one possessed by any public body in Europe:

"It is perfect" [I quote the admirable memoir drawn up for the Royal Dublin Society by that able comparative anatomist Dr. John Hart, which will amply repay a perusal by W. R. C., or any other naturalist who may feel an interest in the subject] "in every single bone of the framework which contributes to form a part of the general outline, the spine, the chest, the pelvis, and the extremities are all complete in this respect; and when surmounted by the head and beautifully expanded antlers, which extend out to a distance of nearly six feet on either side, form a splendid display of the reliques of the former grandeur of the animal kingdom, and carries back the imagination to the period when whole herds of this noble animal wandered at large over the face of the country."

Until Baron Cuvier published his account of these remains, they were generally supposed to be the same as those of the Moose deer or elk of N. America. (Vide Ann. du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, tom. xii., and Ossemens Fossiles, tom. iv.) This error seems to have originated with Dr. Molyneux in 1697. (Vide Phil. Trans., vol. xix.)

The perforated rib referred to was presented to the society by Archdeacon Maunsell, and

"contains an oval opening towards its lower edge, the long diameter of which is parallel to the length of the rib, its margin is depressed on the outer and raised on the inner surface; round which there is an irregular effusion of callus.... In fact, such a wound as would be produced by the head of an arrow remaining in the wound after the shaft had broken off."—Hart's Memoir, p. 29.

There are in the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin, a very complete and interesting series of antlered skulls of this animal. Should W. R. C. or any other reader of "Notes and Queries," desire further information on this subject, I will gladly, if in my power, afford it.

    S. P. H. T. (a M. R. D. S.)

Replies to Minor Queries

Coverdale Bible (Vol. iii., p. 54.).—Your correspondent Echo is quite right in declaring Mr. Granville Penn's statement, that Coverdale used Tyndale's New Test. in his Bible of 1535, to be quite wrong. Mr. Penn very probably took his statement from the Preface to D'Oyley and Mant's Bible, as published by the Christian Knowledge Society, which contains a very erroneous account of the earliest English versions.

Tyndale's version of the New Testament was not incorporated in any version of the whole Bible till the publication of what is called Matthewe's Bible in 1537.

For more particular statements confirmed by proofs, your correspondent may consult Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, under the dates of the respective editions, or his appendix to vol. ii., pp. viii., ix.; or Mr. Pearson's biographical notice of Coverdale, prefixed to the Parker Soc. edit. of his Remains; or the biographical notice of Tyndale, prefixed to the Parker Soc. edit. of his Works, pp. lxxiv., lxxv.; or Two Letters to Bishop Marsh on the Independence of the Authorised Version, published for me by Hatchard in 1827 and 1828.

    Henry Walter.

Epitaph (Vol. iii., p. 57.).—The name of the "worthie knyght" is Sir Thomas Gravener, as A. B. R. might have seen in the printed Catalogue of the Harleian MSS. Who he was, is a more difficult question to answer; but there was a family of that name settled in Staffordshire, as appears from MS. Harl. 1476. fol. 250. The epitaph in question (at fol. 28 b of the old numbering, or 24 b of the new, not fol. 25 b.) is inserted among several short poems written by Sir Thomas Wyatt; and the epitaph itself has a capital W affixed to it, as if it were also of his composition: but I do not find it inserted in Dr. Nott's edition of his poetical works, in 1816; nor does this MS. appear to have been consulted by Dr. Nott. And here I may take the liberty of remarking, how desirable it is that your correspondents, in sending any extracts from old English MSS. to the "Notes and Queries," should adhere strictly to the original orthography, or else modernise it altogether. A. B. R. evidently intends to retain the ancient spelling; yet, from haste or inadvertence, he has committed no less than forty-four literal errors in transcribing this short epitaph, and three verbal ones, namely, itt for that (l. 11.), Hys for The (l. 14.), and or for and (l. 17.). Another curious source of error may here be pointed out. Nearly all the MSS. contained in the British Museum collections are not only distinguished by a number, but have a press-mark stamped on the back, which is denoted by Plut. (an abbreviation of Pluteus, press), with the number and shelf. Thus the Harleian MS. 78., referred to by A. B. R., stands in press (Plut.) LXIII. shelf E. In consequence of the Cottonian collection having been originally designated after the names of the twelve Cæsars (whose busts, together with those of Cleopatra and Faustina, stood above the presses), it appears to have been supposed that other classical names served as references to the remaining portions of the manuscript department. In A. B. R.'s communication, Plut. is expressed by the name of Pluto; in a volume of Miss Strickland's Lives of the Queens of Scotland, lately published, it is metamorphosed into Plutus; and the late Dr. Adam Clarke refers to some of Dr. Dee's MSS. in the Sloane (more correctly, Cottonian) library, under Plutarch xvi. G! (See Catalogue of his MSS., 8vo., 1835, p. 62.) The same amusing error is more formally repeated by Dr. J. F. Payen, in a recent pamphlet, entitled Nouveaux Documents inédits ou peu connus sur Montaigne, 8vo., 1850, at p. 24. of which he refers to "Bibl. Egerton, vol. 23., Plutarch, f. 167.," [Plut. CLXVII. F.], and adds in a note:

"On sait que dans nos bibliothèques les grandes divisions sont marquées par les lettres de l'alphabet; au Musée Britannique c'est par des noms de personnages célèbres qu'on les designe."

    μ.

Probabilism (Vol. iii., p. 61.).—Probabilism, so far as it means the principle of reasoning or acting upon the opinion of eminent teachers or writers, was the principle of the Pythagoreans, whose ipse dixit, speaking of their master, is proverbial; and of Aristotle, in his Topics.

But probabilism, in its strict sense, I presume, means the doctrine so common among the Jesuits, 200 years ago, and so well stated by Pascal, that it is lawful to act upon an opinion expressed by a single writer of weight, though contrary to one's own opinion, and entirely overbalanced, either in weight or numbers, by the opinion of other writers.

Jeremy Taylor, in his Ductor Dubitantium, tells us that this doctrine, though very prevalent, was quite modern; and that the old Casuists, according to the plain suggestions of common sense, held directly the contrary, namely, that the less probable opinion must give way to the more probable.

All this may be no answer to the deeper research, perhaps, of your enquirer,—but it may possibly be interesting to general readers, as well as the following refined and ingenious sophism which was used in its support:—They said that all agreed that you could not be wrong in using the more probable, best supported, opinion of the two. Now, let that in the particular case in question be A, and the less probable B. But the doctrine that you may lawfully take the less probable in general is the more probable doctrine; meaning at that time the doctrine of the greater number of authorities: therefore they said, even upon your principles it is lawful to take B.

    C. B.

Old Hewson the Cobbler (Vol. iii., pp. 11. 73.).—The most satisfactory account of "old Hewson" is the following, extracted from The Loyal Martyrology, by William Winstanley, small 8vo. 1665, (p. 123.):—

"John Hewson, who, from a cobbler, rose by degrees to be a colonel, and though a person of no parts either in body or mind, yet made by Cromwell one of his pageant lords. He was a fellow fit for any mischief, and capable of nothing else; a sordid lump of ignorance and impiety, and therefore the more fit to share in Cromwell's designs, and to act in that horrid murther of his Majesty. Upon the turn of the times, he ran away for fear of Squire Dun [the common hangman], and (by report) is since dead, and buried at Amsterdam."