Notes and Queries, Number 179, April 2, 1853.

Tee Bee has, by his Queries about Sir W. Hamilton, recalled some most painful reminiscences connected with our great naval hero. According to the statement in the New General Biographical Dictionary, Sir William Hamilton was married to his first wife in the year 1755; but although it is asserted that she brought her husband 5000l. a-year, her name is not given. She died in 1782, and in 1791 "he married Emma Harte, the fascinating, mischievous, and worthless Lady Hamilton." Pettigrew, in his Memoirs of Nelson, says, that this marriage took place at St. George's, Hanover Square, on the 6th of September, 1791. Tee Bee will find a full account of Lady H. in the above-mentioned work of Pettigrew.

    F. S. B.

THE WOOD OF THE CROSS

(Vol. vii., p. 177.)

I never heard of our Lord's cross having been made of elder wood. The common idea, legend, or tradition, that prevailed formerly was, that the upright beam of the cross was made of cedar, the cross-beam of cypress, the piece on which the inscription was written of olive, and the piece for the feet of palm.

The legend concerning the wood of the cross is very curious, and may be analysed as follows:—When Adam fell sick, he sent his son Seth to the gate of the garden of Eden to beg of the angel some drops of the oil of mercy that distilled from the tree of life. The angel replied that none could receive this favour till five thousand years had passed away. He gave him, however, a cutting from the tree, and it was planted upon Adam's grave. It grew into a tree with three branches. The rod of Moses was afterwards cut from this tree. Solomon had it cut down to make of it a pillar for his palace. The Queen of Sheba, when she went to visit Solomon, would not pass by it, as she said it would one day cause the destruction of the Jews. Solomon then ordered it to be removed and buried. The spot where it was buried was afterwards dug for the pool of Bethsaida, and the mysterious tree communicated the power of healing to the waters. As the time of the Passion of Christ approached, the wood floated on the surface of the water, and was taken for the upright beam of the cross. See this curious legend at greater length in the Gospel of Nicodemus; the Legenda Aurea at the feasts of the Discovery and Exaltation of the Cross; Curzon's Monasteries of the Levant, p. 163.; and Didron's Iconography, p. 367., Bohn's edition.

I think, however, that I can explain the origin of the question put to Rubi by his poor parishioner as to the cross having been made of elder wood. His question may have sprung from a corruption of an old tradition or legend regarding not our Saviour, but Judas his betrayer. Judas is said to have hanged himself on an elder tree. Sir John Maundeville, in his description of Jerusalem, after speaking of the Pool of Siloe, adds,

"And fast by is still the elder tree on which Judas hanged himself for despair, when he sold and betrayed our Lord."—P. 175., Bohn's edit.

To return to the wood of the cross. In Sir John Maundeville's time a spot was pointed out at Jerusalem as the spot where the tree grew:

"To the west of Jerusalem is a fair church, where the tree of the cross grew."—P. 175.

and he speaks of the wood of this tree as having once been used as a bridge over the brook Cedron (p. 176.). Henry Maundrell describes a Greek convent that he visited, about half an hour's distance from Jerusalem:

"That which most deserves to be noted in it, is the reason of its name and foundation. It is because there is the earth that nourished the root, that bore the tree, that yielded the timber, that made the cross. Under the high altar you are shown a hole in the ground where the stump of the tree stood."—P. 462.

These are some of the legendary traditions regarding the history and site of the wood of the cross, up to the time of the Passion of Christ.

    Ceyrep.

EDMUND CHALONER

(Vol. vi., p. 292.)

I have been waiting for several months in expectation of seeing some satisfactory reply to Ursula's Query. It seems, however, that, in common with myself, your numerous correspondents are quite at a nonplus. Wood, in his Athenæ Oxoniensis, vol. ii. p. 163., mentions this Edmund Chaloner as being about nineteen (Ursula says twenty-one) years old at the death of his father, James Chaloner, in 1660. Wood, Granger, as also Burke in his Extinct Baronetage, represent James as being the fourth son of Sir Thomas Chaloner of Gisborough, in the county of York, and this appears to be the general impression as to his parentage. In a History of Cheshire, however, written, I believe, by Cowdray, and published in 1791, the author claims him as a native of that county, and makes him to be of much humbler birth and descent than any of his other biographers. Hear him in his own words:

"Our succeeding (Cheshire) collectors form a family harmonic trio, a father, son, and grandson, of the surname of Chaloner, and of the several Christian names, Thomas, Jacob, and James. Thomas was an arms-painter in Chester about 1594; he knew the value of learning sufficiently to give his son a better education than he received himself. And this son followed the same occupation in Chester, and made collections, about the year 1620. But it was James, the grandson, who reflected the greatest credit upon his family, by a very concise, accurate, and sensible account of the Isle of Man, printed at the end of King's Vale Royal, in 1656. He laid the foundation of a learned education in our much honoured college (Brazennoze); and when the parliament invested Lord Fairfax with the Seignory of Man, he was one of his lordship's three commissioners for settling the affairs of that island. The antiquarian collections of all the three Chaloners are valuable."

Without specially binding myself to either one of these conflicting testimonies, I may be allowed to suggest that, apart from any proof to the contrary, the inference that he was a native of Chester is a perfectly fair and legitimate one. His Short Treatise of the Isle of Man, which was the only work he ever sent to press, was printed at the end of that famous Cheshire work, the Vale Royal of England, in 1656, and was illustrated with engravings by Daniel King, the editor of that work, himself a Cheshire man. Independent of this, his biographer Wood informs us that he was "a singular lover of antiquities," and that he "made collections of arms, monuments, &c., in Staffordshire, Salop, and Chester," the which collections are now, I believe, in the British Museum. He made no collections for Yorkshire, nor yet for London, where he is stated by Wood to have been born. One thing is certain, James Chaloner of Chester was living at the time this treatise was written, and was, moreover, a famous antiquary, and a collector for this, his native county; but whether he was, de facto, the regicide, or merely his cotemporary, I leave it to older and wiser heads to determine.

    T. Hughes.

Chester.

*[In the Harleian Collection, No. 1927., will be found "A paper Book in 8vo., wherein are contained, Poems, Impreses, and other Collections in Prose and Verse; written by Thomas Chaloner and Randle Holme, senior, both Armes-Painters in Chester, with other Notes of less value."—Ed.]

"ANYWHEN" AND "SELDOM-WHEN:" UNOBSERVED INSTANCES OF SHAKSPEARE'S USE OF THE LATTER

(Vol. vii., p. 38.)

Mr. Fraser's remark about the word anywhen has brought to my mind two passages in Shakspeare which have been always hitherto rendered obscure by wrong printing and wrong pointing. The first occurs in Measure for Measure, Act IV. Sc. 2., where the Duke says:

"This is a gentle provost: seldom-when
The steeled gaoler is the friend of men."

Here the compound word, signifying rarely, not often, has been always printed as two words; and Mr. Collier, following others, has even placed a comma between seldom and when.

The other passage occurs in the Second Part of King Henry IV., Act IV. Sc. 4.; where Worcester endeavours to persuade the king that Prince Henry will leave his wild courses. King Henry replies:

"'Tis seldom-when the bee doth leave her comb
In the dead carrion."

Here also the editors have always printed it as two words; and, as before, Mr. Collier here repeats the comma.

That the word was current with our ancestors, is certain; and I have no doubt that other instances of it may be found. We have a similar compound in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, v. 7958.:

"I me rejoyced of my lyberté,
That selden-tyme is founde in mariage."

Palsgrave, too, in his Eclaircissement de la Langue Françoise, 1530, has—

"Seldom-what, Gueres souvent."

Seldom-when, as far as my experience goes, seems to have passed out of use where archaisms still linger; but anywhen may be heard any day and every day in Surrey and Sussex. Those who would learn the rationale of these words will do well to consult Dr. Richardson's most excellent Dictionary, under the words An, Any, When, and Seldom.

This is at least a step towards Mr. Fraser's wish of seeing anywhen legitimatised; for what superior claim had seldom-when to be enshrined and immortalised in the pages of the poet of the world?

    S. W. Singer.

Manor Place, South Lambeth.

CHICHESTER: LAVANT

(Vol. vii., p. 269.)

Your correspondent C. affirms, as a mark of the Roman origin of Chichester, that "the little stream that runs through it is called the Lavant, evidently from lavando!" Now nobody, as old Camden says, "has doubted the Romanity of Chichester;" but I am quite sure that the members of the Archæological Institute (who meet next summer upon the banks of this same Lavant) would decidedly demur to so singular a proof of it.

C. is informed that, in the fourth volume of the Archæologia, p. 27., there is a paper by the Hon. Daines Barrington, on the term Lavant, which, it appears, is commonly applied in Sussex to all brooks which are dry at some seasons, as is the case with the Chichester river.

"From the same circumstance," it is added, "the sands between Conway and Beaumaris in Anglesey, are called the Lavant sands, because they are dry when the tide ebbs; as are also the sands which are passed at low water between Cartmell and Lancaster, for the same reason."

To trace the origin of the term Lavant, we must, I conceive, go back to a period more remote than the Roman occupation; for that remarkable people, who conquered the inhabitants of Britain, and partially succeeded in imposing Roman appellations upon the greater towns and cities, never could change the aboriginal names of the rivers and mountains of the country. "Our hills, forests, and rivers," says Bishop Percy, "have generally retained their old Celtic names." I venture, therefore, to suggest, that the British word for river, Av, or Avon, which seems to form the root of the word Lavant, may possibly be modified in some way by the prefix, or postfix, so as to give, to the compound word, the signification of an intermittent stream.

The fact that, amidst all the changes which have passed over the face of our country, the primitive names of the grander features of nature still remain unaltered, is beautifully expressed by a great poet recently lost to us:

"Mark! how all things swerve
From their known course, or vanish like a dream;
Another language spreads from coast to coast;
Only, perchance, some melancholy stream,
And some indignant hills old names preserve,
When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!"