Notes and Queries, Number 49, October 5, 1850

And Mr. Hunt concludes by observing,, that—

"This discovery was made by the Literary Gazette."

Will you permit me, through the medium of your useful publication, to solicit information of the number and date of the Literary Gazette which recalled public attention to this very remarkable fact?

    §N.

Coronet.—In Newbold Church, in the county of Warwick, is a monument to the memory of Thomas Boughton of Lawford, and Elizabeth his wife, representing him in a suit of armour, with sword and spurs, a coronet on his head, and a bear at his feet, chained and muzzled. Query.—Can any of your readers give an accurate description of this coronet? Or can any of them mention instances of the monuments of esquires having similar coronets? The date of his death is not given: his wife died in the year 1454.

    Z.

Cinderella.—Referring to Vol. ii., p. 214., allow me to ask in what edition of Perrault's Fairy Tales the misprint of verre from vair first occurs? what is the date of their first publication, as well as that of the translation under the title of Mother Goose's Tales? whether Perrault was the originator of Cinderella, or from what source he drew the tale? what, moreover, is the authority for identifying sable with vair for the employment of either in designating the highest rank of princesses?

    SANDVICENSIS.

Judas' Bell, Judas' Candle (Vol. i., pp. 195. 235. 357.).—Some time since I asked the meaning of a Judas' Bell, and your learned correspondent CEPHAS replied that it was only a bell so christened after St. Jude, the apostle. However, it may have been connected with the Judas' tapers, which, according, to the subjoined entries, were used with the Paschal candle at Easter. May I trust to his kindness to explain its purport?

"Reading Parish Accompts.

"1499. Itm. payed for making leng' Mr. Smyth's molde wt. a Judas for the Pascall—vJd."

"St. Giles' Parish Accompts.

"A.D. 1514. Paid for making a Judas for Pascall iiijd."

"Churchwardens' Accompts of S. Martin, Outwich.

"1510. Paid to Randolf Merchaunt Wex Chandiler for the Pascall, the tapers affore the Rode, the Cross Candelles, and Judas Candelles—viiijs. iiijd."

"St. Margaret's, Westminster.

"1524. Item payed for xij. Judacis to stand with the tapers—O ijd. O"

    MACKENZIE WALCOTT, M.A., Oxon.

Dozen of Bread; Baker's Dozen.—In the Chronicle of Queen Jane, and of Two Years of Queen Mary, lately printed for the Camden Society (Appendix iv. p. 112.), it is stated that, amongst other particulars in the accounts of the Chamberlain of Colchester, at which place Mary was entertained on her way to London, there is:—"For xxxviii. dozen of bread, xxxixs." In the language of the county from which I write, "a dozen of bread" was (and I believe is yet) used to express either one loaf, value twelvepence or two loaves, value sixpence each: and even when the sizes and price of the loaves varied, it was used to express the larger loaf, or the two smaller loaves. A dozen of bread was also divided into six twopenny, or twelve penny loaves.

But in the quotation above, thirty-eight dozen of bread are charged thirty-nine shillings; whereas the extra one shilling, cannot be divided into aliquot parts, so as to express the value of each of the thirty-eight dozen of bread.

What was a dozen of bread in 1553?

What is a baker's dozen, and why so called?

    P.H.F.

Kongs skuggsia.—Is anything, precise known of the date and origin of the Icelandic Kongs skuggsia.

    F.Q.

Coins of Gandophares.—Coins of Gandophares, an Indian prince, are described by Prinsep, Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, and in Wilson's Asiana. The name is met with in the legends of St. Thomas can it be found elsewhere?

    F.Q.

Satirical Medals.—Is any printed account to be found of a very elaborately executed series of caricature medals relating to the revolution of 1688?

    F.Q.

REPLIES

GAUDENTIO DI LUCCA

(Vol. ii., p. 247.)

The work entitled The Adventures of Sig. Gaudentio di Lucca was published at London in 1737, in 1 vol. 8vo. It purports to be a translation from the Italian, by E.T. Gent but this is a mere fiction. The work is evidently an English composition. It belongs to the class of Voyages Imaginaires, and its main object is to describe the institutions and manners of the Mezoranians, an Utopian community, supposed to exist in the centre of Africa. Sig. Gaudentio is able, by an accident, to visit this people, by the way of Egypt, and to return to Europe; he resides at Bologna, where he falls under the suspicion of the Inquisition, and having been brought before that tribunal, he describes his former life, and his adventures in the country of the Mezoranians.

A second London edition of this work, of the date of 1748, is mentioned in the Gentleman's Magazine for Jan. 1777. There is an edition in 12mo., printed at Edinburgh, 1761. And there is another London edition, in 8vo., of the year 1786. Copies of the editions of 1737 and 1786 are in the British Museum.

There are two French translations of the work. One is of the date 1746, under the title of Mémoires de Gaudentio di Lucca. The second, of 1754, by M. Dupuy Demportes, speaks of the first having been made by an Englishman named Milts; but the person and name appear to be fictitious. The first translation is said by Barbier, Dict. des Anonymes, No. 11,409, to have been revised by the Chevalier de Saint Germain, who made additions to it of his own invention. The second translation is reprinted in the collection of Voyages Imaginaires, Amsterdam et Paris, 1787, tom. vi.

An anonymous writer in the Gent. Mag. for Jan. 1777, vol. xlvii., p. 13., speaking of Bishop Berkeley, says that "the Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca have been generally attributed to him." The writer of the note added to the Life of Berkeley in Kippis's Biogr. Brit., 1780, vol. ii. p. 261., quotes this statement, and adds that the work is ascribed to him by the booksellers in their printed catalogues. This writer thinks that the authorship of Bp. Berkeley is consistent with the internal evidence of the book but he furnishes no positive testimony on the subject.

In a letter from Mr. J.C. Walker to Mr. Pinkerton, of 19 Jan., 1799 (published in Pinkerton's Literary Correspondence, vol. ii., p. 41.), Lord Charlemont is referred to as believing that Gaudentio di Lucca is founded in fact; that Bishop Berkeley, when he was at Cairo, conversed with persons who had attended a caravan, and that he learned from them what he narrated in the account of Gaudentio. This passage is cited in Southey's Common-place Book, p. 204; but the work is manifestly fictitious, and it does not appear that Berkeley, though he twice visited the Continent, was ever out of Europe.

The date of the publication of Gaudentio is quite consistent with the authorship of Berkeley, who died in 1753; but the notice in the Gentleman's Magazine only proves the existence of a rumour to that effect; and the authentic Life of Berkeley, by Dr. Stock, chiefly drawn up from materials communicated by Dr. R. Berkeley, brother to the Bishop, and prefixed to the collected edition of his work (2 vols. 4to. Lond., 1784), makes no allusion to Gaudentio. There is nothing in the contents of this work which renders it likely that the authorship should have been carefully concealed by Bp. Berkeley and his family, if he had really been the author. The literary execution of Gaudentio is good; and it is probable that the speculative character of the work, and the fact that Berkeley had visited Italy, suggested the idea that he had composed it. The belief that Bishop Berkeley was the author of Gaudentio di Lucca may therefore be considered as unauthorised.

The copy of the edition of Gaudentio of 1786, which is preserved in the British Museum, contains in the title-page the following note, in pencil:

"Written originally in English by Dr. Swale of Huntingdon. See Gent. Mag. 1786."

The Gentleman's Magazine for 1786 does not, however, contain any information about the authorship of Gaudentio; and the name of Dr. Swale appears to be unknown in literary history. At the same time, a positive entry of this sort, with respect to an obscure person, doubtless had some foundation. On the authority of this note, Dr. Swale is registered as the author of Gaudentio in the printed catalogue of the British Museum Library, whence it has passed into Watt's Bibl. Brit. Perhaps some of your correspondents, who are connected with Huntingdon, may be able to throw some light on Dr. Swale.

Lastly, it should be added, that the writer of the article "Berkeley," in the Biographic Universelle, adverts to the fact that Gaudentio di Lucca has been attributed to him: he proceeds, however, to say that—

"The author of a Life of Berkeley affirms that Berkeley is not the author of that book, which he supposes to have been written by a Catholic priest imprisoned in the Tower of London."

I have been unable to trace the origin of this statement; nor do I know what is the Life of Berkeley, to which the writer in the Biogr. Univ. refers. The Life published under the direction of his family makes no allusion to Gaudentio, or to the belief that it was composed by Bishop Berkeley.

The Encyclopédie Méthodique, div. "Econ. pol. et dipl." (Paris, 1784), tom. I. p. 89., mentions the following work:—

"La République des Philosophes, ou l'Histoire des Ajaoiens, relation d'un voyage du Chevalier S. van Doelvett en Orient en l'an 1674, qui contient la description du Gouvernement, de la Religion, et des Moeurs des Ajaoiens."

It is stated that this romance, though composed a century before, had only been lately published. The editor attributed it to Fontenelle, but (as the writer in the Encycl. Méth. thinks) probably without reason. The title of Berkeley to the authorship of Gaudentio has doubtless no better foundation.

    L.

[Dunlop, Hist. Fiction, iii. 491., speaks of this romance as "generally, and I believe on good grounds, supposed to be the work of the celebrated Berkeley;" adding, "we are told, in the life of this celebrated man, that Plato was his favourite author: and, indeed, of all English writers Berkeley has most successfully imitated the style and manner of that philosopher. It is not impossible, therefore, that the fanciful republic of the Grecian sage may have led Berkeley to write Gaudentio di Lucca, of which the principal object apparently is to describe a faultless and patriarchal form of governnent." The subject is a very curious one, and invites the further inquiry of our valued correspondent.—ED.]

ON A PASSAGE IN "THE TEMPEST."