Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851

Cooper then praises the poem, and prints it at length.

5thly. In 1765, Dr. Percy first published his Reliques, with the song, as copied from Lewis.

6thly. We find an engraved song, entitled "Winifreda, an Address to Conjugal Love," translated from the ancient British language; set to music by Signor Giordani, 1780. The air begins, "Away, &c."

7thly. In Ritson's printed Songs as by Gilbert Cooper, Park's edition, 1813, vol. i., p. 281., with a note by the editor referring to Aikin's Vocal Biography, p. 152.; and mentioning that in the Edinburgh Review, vol. xi., p. 37. "Winifreda" is attributed to the late Mr. Stephens, meaning George Steevens.

8thly. In Campbell's British Poems, 1819, vol. vi., p. 93., with a Life of John Gilbert Cooper, to whom Campbell attributes the authorship, stating that he was born in 1723, and died in 1769; he was, consequently, only three years old when the poem was printed, which would settle the question, even if his disclaimer had been merely a trick to deceive his friend.

Lord Chesterfield's claim is hardly worth notice; his name seems to have been used to promote the sale of the "Engraven old Song;" and no one can doubt that he would gladly have avowed a production which would have added to his literary fame.

Whether the problem will ever be solved, seems very doubtful; but I am disposed to think that the song belongs to a much earlier period, and that it should be looked for amongst the works of those poets of whom Izaak Walton has left us such agreeable reminiscences; and whose simplicity and moral tone are in keeping with those sentiments of good feeling to which "Winifreda" owes its principal attraction.

    Braybrooke.

Audley End.

Winifreda (Vol. iii., p. 27.).—Lord Braybrooke has revived a Query which I instituted above forty years ago (see Gent.'s Magazine for 1808, vol. lxxviii., Part I. p. 129.). The correspondent, C. K., who replied to my letter in the same magazine, mentioned the appearance of this song in Dodsley's Letters on Taste (3rd edition, 1757.) These letters, being edited by John Gilbert Cooper, doubtless led Aikin, in his collection of songs, and Park, in his edition of Ritson's English Songs, to ascribe it to Cooper. That writer speaks of it as an "old song," and with such warm praise, that we may fairly suppose it was not his own production. C. K. adds, from his own knowledge, that about the middle of the eighteenth century, he well remembered a Welsh clergyman repeating the lines with spirit and pathos, and asserting that they were written by a native of Wales. The name of Winifreda gives countenance to this; and the publication by David Lewis, in 1726, referred to by Bishop Percy, as that in which it first appeared, also connects the song with the principality. An Edinburgh reviewer (vol. xi. p. 37.) says that it is "one of the love songs" by Stephens (meaning George Steevens), a strange mistake, as the poem appeared in print ten years before Steevens was born.

I notice this error for the purpose of asking your readers whether many poems by this clever, witty, and mischievous writer exist, although not, to use the words of the reviewer, "in a substantive or collective form?" "The Frantic Lover," referred to in the Edinburgh Review, and considered by his biographer as "superior to any similar production in the English language," and the verses on Elinor Rummin, are the only two poems of George Steevens which now occur to me; but two or three others are noticed in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes as his productions.

    J. H. M.

Replies to Minor Queries

Did St. Paul's Clock strike Thirteen? (Vol. iii., p. 40.).—Mr. Campkin will find some notice of the popular tradition to which he refers, in the Antiquarian Repertory, originally published in 1775, and republished in 1807; but I doubt whether it will satisfactorily answer his inquiries.

    I. H. M.

By the bye (Vol. ii., p. 424.).—As no one of your correspondents has answered the Query of J. R. N., as to the etymology and meaning of by the bye and by and by, I send you the following exposition; which I have collected from Richardson's Dictionary, and the authorities there referred to.

Spelman informs us, that in Norfolk there were in his time thirteen villages with names ending in by: this By being a Danish word, signifying "villa." That a bye-law, Dan. by-lage, is a law peculiar to a villa. And thus we have the general application of bye to any thing; peculiar, private, indirect, as distinguished from the direct or main: as, bye-ways, bye-talk, &c. &c. In the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, State Trials, James I., 1603, are these words:—

"You are fools; you are on the bye, Raleigh and I are on the main. We mean to take away the king and his cubs."

Here the contradistinction is manifest. Lord Bacon and B. Jonson write, on the by; as if, on the way, in passing, indirectly:—

"'There is, upon the by, to be noted.'—'Those who have seluted poetry on the by'—such being a collateral, and not the main object of pursuit."

This I think is clear and satisfactory.

By and by is quite a different matter. Mr. Tyrwhitt, upon the line in Chaucer,—

"These were his words by and by."—R. R. 4581.

interprets "separately, distinctly;" and there are various other instances in Chaucer admitting the same interpretation:—

"Two yonge knightes ligging, by and by."—Kn. T., v. 1016.
"His doughter had a bed all by hireselve,
Right in the same chambre by and by."—The Reves T., v. 4441.

So also in the "Floure and the Leafe," stanzas 9 and 24. The latter I will quote, as it is much to the purpose:—

"The semes (of the surcote) echon,
As it were a maner garnishing,
Was set with emerauds, one and one,
By and by."

But there are more ancient usages, e.g. in R. Brunne, bearing also the same interpretation. "The chartre was read ilk poynt bi and bi:" William had taken the homage of barons "bi and bi." He assayed (i.e. tried) "tham (the horses) bi and bi."

Richardson's conception is, that there is a subaudition in all these expressions; and that the meaning is, by point and by point; by baron and by baron; by horse and by horse: one and one, as Chaucer writes; each one separately, by him or it-self. And thus, that by and by may be explained, by one and by one; distinctly, both in space or time. Our modern usage is restricted to time, as, "I will do so by and by:" where by and by is equivalent to anon, i.e. in one (moment, instant, &c.). And so—

    Good B'ye.

Bloomsbury.

Clement's Inn (Vol. iii., p. 84.).—This inn was neither "a court of law" nor "an inn of court," but "an inn of chancery;" according to the distinction drawn by Sir John Fortescue, in his De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, chap. xlix., written between 1460 and 1470.

The evidence of its antiquity is traced back to an earlier date than 1486; for, according to Dugdale (Orig., p. 187.), in a Record of Michaelmas, 19 Edward IV., 1479, it is spoken of as then, and diu ante, an Inn "hominum Curiæ Legis temporalis, necnon hominum Consiliariorum ejusdem Legis."

The early history of the Inns of Court and Chancery is involved in the greatest obscurity; and it is difficult to account for the original difference between the two denominations.

Any facts which your correspondents may be able to communicate on this subject, or in reference to what were the ten Inns of Chancery existing in Fortescue's time, but not named by him, or relating to the history of either of the Inns, whether of Court or Chancery, will be most gratefully received by me, and be of important service at the present time, when I am preparing for the press my two next volumes of The Judges of England.

    Edward Foss.

Street-End House, near Canterbury.

Words are men's daughters (Vol. iii., p. 38.).—I take this to be a proverbial sentence. In the Gnomologia of Fuller we have "Words are for women; actions for men"—but there is a nearer approach to it in a letter written by Sir Thomas Bodley to his librarian about the year 1604. He says,

"Sir John Parker hath promised more than you have signified: but words are women, and deeds are men."

It was no doubt an adoption of the worthy knight, and I shall leave it to others to trace out the true author—hoping it may never be ascribed to an ancestor of

    Bolton Corney.

Passage in St. Mark (Vol. iii., p. 8.).—Irenæus is considered the best (if not the only) commentator among the very early Fathers upon those words in Mark xiii. 32. "οὐδὲ ὁ υἱὸς;" and though I cannot refer Calmet further than to the author's works, he can trust the general accuracy of the following translation:—

"Our Lord himself," says he, "the Son of God, acknowledged that the Father only knew the day and hour of judgment, declaring expressly, that of that day and hour knoweth no one, neither the Son, but the Father only. Now, if the Son himself was not ashamed to leave the knowledge of that day to the Father, but plainly declared the truth; neither ought we to be ashamed to leave to God such questions as are too high for us. For if any one inquires why the Father, who communicates in all things to the Son, is yet by our Lord declared to know alone that day and hour, he cannot at present find any better, or more decent, or indeed any other safe answer at all, than this, that since our Lord is the only teacher of truth, we should learn of him, that the Father is above all; for the Son saith, 'He is greater than I.' The Father, therefore, is by Our Lord declared to be superior even in knowledge also; to this end, that we, while we continue in this world, may learn to acknowledge God only to have perfect knowledge, and leave such questions to him; and (put a stop to our presumption), lest curiously inquiring into the greatness of the Father, we run at last into so great a danger, as to ask whether even above God there be not another God."

    Blowen.

"And Coxcombs vanquish Berkeley by a Grin" (Vol. i., p. 384.).—This line is taken from Dr. Brown's Essay on Satire, part ii. v. 224. The entire couplet is—

"Truth's sacred fort th' exploded laugh shall win,
And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley by a grin."

Dr. Brown's Essay is prefixed to Pope's "Essay on Man" in Warburton's edition of Pope's Works. (See vol. iii. p. 15., edit. 1770, 8vo.)