Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853

Translation

The magistrates, on the command of his Excellence, and on the request of John Woodtss, an Englishman, have permitted and consented that he, with his company, during the approaching fair, may play certain decent pieces for the amusement of the people, provided he take no more than twelve pennings from each person coming to see, and, above all, pay to Jacob van Noorde four guilders, to be applied to the use of the poor.

And again:

Jan. 6, 1605.—"Op't versouck aen die van de Gerechte gedaen by de Engelsche Comedyanten om te mogen spelen: staet geappostilleert. Die van de Gerechte deser stadt Leyden gesien in haer vergaderinge opt Raedthuys der voors. stede, de favorable brieven van Recommandatie ende testimoniael vanden Forst van Brandenburch van de X Augustij des jaers XVI

vier, mitsgaders t consent by Zyne Ex

van Nassau verleent den xxij Decembris laest verleden, Es disponerende opt versouc int blanc van dezen, hebben voor zoo veel in hem is, de Engelsche Commedianten ende musicyns toonders in dezen, conform haer versouc toegelaten binnen deser stede te mogen spelen en haer consten doen ouffenen ende vertoonen ter gewoenlycke plaetse te weten opten groten hoff onder de bibliotecque, dewelcke hem toonders mits dezen ten eynde voorseyt, belast wert te werden ingeruymt, Ende dit al voor den tyt van veertien dagen eerstcomende, en mits, voor den jegenwoordige gracieuse toelatinge, gevende ten behouve van de gemeene huysarmen dezer stede een somme van twaelf gulden van xl groot tstuck. Aldus, gedaen opten vi January XVI

en̄ vyff. My jegenwoordich en is get. J. van Hout."

Translation

On the request to the magistrates of the English comedians to be allowed to perform, was decided: The magistrates of this city of Leyden, having seen in their assembly in the Town-House of the aforesaid city, the favourable letters of recommendation and testimonial of the Prince of Brandenberg of the 10th Aug., 1604, as well as the consent granted by his Excellence of Nassau, the 22nd of Dec. last, have permitted the English comedians and musicians, according to their request, to perform and exercise and exhibit their arts in the accustomed place, namely, in the great court under the library; and this for the space of fourteen days, provided they, for this gracious permission, give twelve guilders of forty groats a-piece to the poor of this city. Done on the 6th Jan., 1605. Me present; and signed "J. van Hout."

    Elsevier.

Constanter has communicated the following lines of G. A. Brederode, confirming the statements of Heywood and Tieck:

"Ick mach soo langh oock by geen reden-ryckers zijn:
Want dit volckje wil steets met allen menschen gecken,
En sy kunnen als d'aep haer afterst niet bedecken;
Sy seggen op haer les, soo stemmigh en soo stijf,
Al waer gevoert, gevult met klap-hout al haer lijf!
Waren 't de Engelsche, of andere uytlandtsche
Die men hoort singen, en soo lustigh siet dantse
Dat sy suyse-bollen, en draeyen als een tol:
Sy spreken 't uyt eaer geest, dees leeren 't uyt een rol.
't Isser weer na (seyd ick) als 't is, sey Eelhart schrander,
Dat verschil is te groot, besiet men 't een by 't ander!
D'uytheemsche die zijn wuft, dees raden tot het goedt,
En straffen alle het quaet bedecklelijck en soet."

Translation

To stay with rhetoricians I've no mind:
The fool they'll play with men of every kind,
And, like the ape, exhibit what's behind.
With gests so stiff their lesson they repeat,
You'd swear with staves their bodies were replete!
Heard you the men from merry England sing?
Saw you their jolly dance, their lusty spring?
How like a top they spin, and twirl, and turn?
And from the heart they speak—ours from a roll must learn....

    —From the Navorscher.

THE SWEET SINGERS

(Vol. v., p. 372.)

A. N. asks for some historical notices of the above fanatics: as he may not be satisfied with Timperley's meagre allusion, allow me to refer him to the Memoirs of the Lord Viscount Dundee: London, 1714. The author of this, "An Officer of the Army," speaking of the stiff-necked Presbyterians, says:

"At this time (1681), about thirty of these deluded people left their families and business, and went to the hills, where they lived in rocks and caves for some weeks. John Gib, sailor in Borrowstowness, Walter Ker, in Trafritham, – Gemmison, in Linlithgow, were their chief leaders. They called themselves the Sweet Singers of Israel, eat nothing that there was salt in or paid tax to the king, blotted the name of king out of their Bibles, and cohabited all together. When a party of dragoons took them at the Ouffins, in Tweeddale, they were all lying on their faces, and jumped up in a minute, and called out with an audible voice, that God Almighty would consume the party with fire from heaven, for troubling the people of God. On the road, as they went to Edinburgh, when any of their relations or acquaintances came to visit them, they spit at them, and threw themselves on their faces, and bellowed like beasts, whereof his Highness (the Duke of York, then in Scotland) being informed, ordered them immediately to be set at liberty."

A more detailed account of these Gibbites will be found in the curious Presbyterian biographies "collected by, and printed for Patrick Walker, in the Bristo-Port of Edinburgh," the early part of last century. In that entitled "Some remarkable Passages in the Life, &c. of Mr. Daniel Cargill:" 12mo. Edin. 1732, A. N. will find the original story of the crazy skipper and his band of "three men and twenty-six women," whom worthy Mr. Cargill endeavoured unsuccessfully to reclaim. From this it would appear that the sweet singers went far greater lengths than above described, and that Gib, after the dispersion of his followers, took himself off to America, "where," says the aforesaid Patrick, "he was much admired by the blind Indians for his familiar converse with the devil." For the further information of your correspondent, I would add that Walker's account of the Gibbites is very well condensed in that more accessible book Biographia Scoticana, better known as the Scots Worthies, where the deluded Gib figures under the head of "God's Justice exemplified in his Judgments upon Persecutors."

    J. O.

EDMUND SPENSER

(Vol. vii., p. 303.)

Mr. F. F. Spenser published the results of his researches relative to Spenser in the Gentleman's Magazine for August, 1842; and towards the end of his communication promised to record "many further interesting particulars," through the same medium, but failed to do so. Mr. Craik has made special reference to Mr. F. F. Spenser's paper in a little work upon which he must have bestowed a vast deal of labour, and which contains the completest investigation of all that has been discovered concerning the life, works, and descendants of the poet that I have met with: I refer to Spenser and his Poetry: by George L. Craik, M.A.: 3 vols. London, 1845. The appendix to vol. iii., devoted to an account of the descendants of Spenser, among other interesting matter, contains the history of the family descended from Sarah Spenser, a sister of Edmund Spenser, which is still represented. To which I may add that Spenser's own direct descendants are living in the city of Cork, and, I regret to say, in reduced circumstances. This should not be. A pension might well be bestowed on the descendants of Spenser, the only one of our four great poets whose posterity is not extinct.

    J. M. B.

Tunbridge Wells.

I have read with much curiosity and surprise a paragraph engrafted into "N. & Q." (Vol. vii., p. 33.) from The Times newspaper, June 16, 1841, announcing that a Mr. F. F. Spenser, of Halifax, had ascertained that the ancient residence of his own family, at Hurstwood, near Burnley, Lancashire, was the identical spot where the great Elizabethan poet, Edmund Spenser, is said to have retired, when driven by academical disappointments to his relations in the north of England.

I confess all this appears to me very like a hoax, there is such a weight of negative testimony against it. Dr. Whitaker, the learned historian of Whalley, describes Hurstwood Hall as a strong and well-built old house, bearing on its front, in large characters, the name of "Barnard Townley," its founder, and that it was for several descents the property and residence of a family branched out from the parent stock of Townley, in the person of John Townley, third son of Sir Richard Townley, of Townley—died Sept. 1562. His son, Barnard Townley, died 1602, and married Agnes, daughter and coheiress of George Ormeroyd, of Ormeroyd, who died 1586.

It must be remembered that Hurstwood is in the immediate neighbourhood of Dr. Whitaker's ancient patrimonial estate of Holme; and he must have been familiar with all the traditionary history of that locality. Yet he is silent on this subject, and does not allude either to the occasional residence of the poet Spenser in those parts, or to the family of Spensers, who are stated in this paragraph to have resided at Hurstwood about four hundred years.

    Clivigee.

LAMECH KILLING CAIN

(Vol. vii., p. 305.)

Sir John Maundeville says:

"Also, seven miles from Nazareth is Mount Cain, under which is a well; and beside that well Lamech, Noah's father, slew Cain with an arrow. For this Cain went through briars and bushes, as a wild beast; and he had lived from the time of Adam, his father, unto the time of Noah; and so he lived nearly two thousand years. And Lamech was blind for old age."—Travels, chap. x., Bohn's Early Travels in Palestine, p. 186.

To which is appended the following note by Mr. Thomas Wright, the editor:

"This legend arose out of an interpretation given to Gen. iv. 23, 24. See, as an illustration, the scene in the Coventry Mysteries, pp. 44. 46.

    Zeus.

J. W. M. will find this question discussed at length in the Dictionnaire de Bayle, art. "Lamech," and more briefly in Pol. Synopsis Criticorum, Gen. iv. 23.

The subject has been engraved by Lasinio in his Pitture a fresco del Campo Santo di Pisa (tom. xvii.), after the original fresco by Buonamico Buffalmacco, whose name is so familiar to readers of the Decameron.

    F. C. B.