Notes and Queries, Number 185, May 14, 1853

At Walsoken, Norfolk:

"Remember the soul of S. Honyter and Margaret his wife, and John Beforth, Chaplain."

with the date 1544.

At Gaywood, Norfolk, is a font of Gothic design, lust probably of post-Reformation date. On four of the eight sides of the bowl are these inscriptions:

At Tilney, All Saints, Norfolk, is an inscribed font so similar to the one last mentioned that they are probably the works of the same designer.

On the cover of the font at Southacre, Norfolk, is this inscription:

"Orate p. aia. Mri. Rici. Gotts et dni Galfridi baker, Rectoris huj' [ecclīe qui hoc] opus fieri fece

."

I may take the opportunity of adding two pulpit inscriptions; one at Utterby, Lincolnshire, on the sounding-board:

"Quoties conscendo animo contimesco."

The other at Swarby, in the same county:

"O God my Saviour be my sped,
To preach thy word, men's soulls to fed."

    C. R. M.

IRISH RHYMES—ENGLISH PROVINCIALISMS—LOWLAND SCOTCH

(Vol. vi., pp. 605, 606.)

Mr. Bede, who first called attention to a class of rhymes which he denominated "Irish," seems to take it ill that I have dealt with his observations as somewhat "hypercritical." I acknowledge the justness of his criticism; but I did, and must still, demur to the propriety of calling certain false rhymes peculiarly Irish, when I am able to produce similes from poets of celebrity, who cannot stand excused by Mr. Bede's explanation, that the rhymes in question "made music for their Irish ear." If, as he tells us, Mr. Bede was not "blind to similar imperfections in English poets," I am yet to learn why he should fix on "Swift's Irishisms," and call those errors a national peculiarity, when he finds them so freely scattered through the standard poetry of England?

Your correspondent J. H. T. suggests a new direction for inquiry on this subject when he conjectures that the pronunciation now called Irish was, "during the first half of the eighteenth century, the received pronunciation of the most correct speakers of the day;" and Mr. Bede himself suggests that provincialisms may sometimes modify the rhymes of even so correct a versifier as Tennyson. I hope some of your contributors will have "drunk so deep of the well of English undefiled" as to be competent to address themselves to this point of inquiry. I cannot pretend to do much, being but a shallow philologist; yet, since I received your last Number, I have lighted on a passage in that volume of "omnifarious information" Croker's Boswell, which will not be deemed inapplicable.

Boswell, during a sojourn at Lichfield in 1776, expressed a doubt as to the correctness of Johnson's eulogy on his townsmen, as "speaking the purest English," and instanced several provincial sounds, such as there pronounced like fear, once like woonse. On this passage are a succession of notes: Burney observes, that "David Garrick always said shupreme, shuperior." Malone's note brings the case in point to ours when he says, "This is still the vulgar pronunciation in Ireland; the pronunciation in Ireland is doubtless that which generally prevailed in England in the time of Queen Elizabeth." And Mr. Croker sums up the case thus:

"No doubt the English settlers carried over, and may have in some cases preserved, the English idiom and accent of their day. Bishop Kearny, as well as his friend Mr. Malone, thought that the most remarkable peculiarity of Irish pronunciation, as in say for sea, tay for tea, was the English mode, even down to the reign of Queen Anne; and there are rhymes in Pope, and more frequently in Dryden, that countenance that opinion. But rhymes cannot be depended upon for minute identity of sound."—Croker's Notes, A.D. 1776.

If this explanation be adopted, it will account for the examples I have been furnishing, and others which I find even among the harmonious rhymes of Spenser (he might, however, have caught the brogue in Ireland); yet am I free to own that to me popular pronunciation scarcely justifies the committing to paper such loose rhymes as ought to grate on that fineness of ear which is an essential faculty in the true poet; "here or awa'," in England or Ireland, I continue to set them down to "slip-slop composition."

It may not be inappropriate to notice, that among Swift's eccentricities, we find a propensity to "out-of-the-way rhymes." In his works are numerous examples of couplets made apparently for no other purpose but to show that no word could baffle him; and the anecdote of his long research for a rhyme for the name of his old enemy Serjent Betsworth, and of the curious accident by which he obtained it, is well known; from which we may conclude that he was on the watch for occasions of exhibiting such rhymes as rakewell and sequel, charge ye and clergy, without supposing him ignorant that he was guilty of "lèse majesté" against the laws of correct pronunciation.

When I asked Mr. Bede's decision on a palpable Cockneyism in verse, I did so merely with a view, by a "tu quoque pleasantry," to enliven a discussion, which I hope we may carry on and conclude in that good humour with which I accept his parenthetic hint, that I have made "a bull" of my Pegasus. I beg to submit to him, that, as I read the Classical Dictionary, it is from the heels of Pegasus the fount of poetic inspiration is supposed to be derived; and, further, that the brogue is not so malapropos to the heel as he imagines, for in Ireland the brogue is in use as well to cover the understanding as to tip the tongue. Could I enjoy the pleasure of Mr. Bede's company in a stroll over my native mountains, he might find that there are occasions on which he might be glad to put off his London-made shoe, and "to wear the brogue, though speak none."

    A. B. R.

P.S.—The postscriptum of J. H. T. respecting the pronunciation of English being preserved in Scotland, goes direct to an opinion I long since formed, that the Lowland Scotch, as we read it in the Waverley Novels, is the only genuine unadulterated remains we have of the Saxon language, as used before the Norman Conquest. I formed this opinion from continually tracing what we call "braid Scotch" to its root, in Bosworth's, and other Saxon dictionaries; and I lately found this fact confirmed and accounted for in a passage of Verstegan, as follows:—He tells us that after the battle of Hastings Prince Edgar Atheling, with his sisters Margaret and Christian, retired into Scotland, where King Malcolm married the former of these ladies; and proceeds thus:

"As now the English court, by reason of the aboundance of Normannes therein, became moste to speak French, so the Scottish court, because of the queen, and the many English that came with her, began to speak English; the which language, it would seem, King Malcolm himself had before that learned, and now, by reason of his queen, did more affecte it. But the English toung, in fine, prevailed more in Scotland than the French did in England; for English became the language of all the south part of Scotland, the Irish (or Gaelic) having before that been the general language of the whole country, since remaining only in the north."—Verstegan's Restitution of Antiquities, A.D. 1605.

Many of your accomplished philological readers will doubtless consider the information of this Note trivial and puerile; but they will, I hope, bear with a tyro in the science, in recording an original remark of his own, borne out by an authority so decisive as Verstegan.

    A. B. R.

PICTURES BY HOGARTH

(Vol. vii., pp. 339. 412.)

In reply to Amateur, I can inform him that at the sale of the Marlborough effects at Marlborough House about thirty years ago, there were sold four or five small whole-lengths in oil of members of that family. They were hardly clever enough for what Hogarth's after-style would lead us to expect, but there were many reasons for thinking they were by him. They came into the possession of Mr. Croker, who presented them, as family curiosities, to the second Earl Spencer, and they are now, I presume, in the gallery at Althorpe. One of them was peculiarly curious as connected with a remarkable anecdote of the great Duchess. Horace Walpole tells us in the Reminiscences, her granddaughter, Lady Bateman, having persuaded her brother, the young Duke of Marlborough, to marry a Miss Trevor without the Duchess's consent:

"The grandam's rage exceeded all bounds. Having a portrait of Lady Bateman, she blackened the face, and then wrote on it, 'Now her outside's as black as her inside.'"

One of the portraits I speak of was of Lady Bateman, and bore on its face evidence of having incurred some damage, for the coat of arms with which (like all the others, and as was Hogarth's fashion) it was ornamented in one corner, were angrily scratched out, as with a knife. Whether this defacement gave rise to Walpole's story, or whether the face had been also blackened with some stuff that was afterwards removed, seems doubtful; the picture itself, according to my recollection, showed no mark but the armorial defacement.

I much wonder this style of small whole-lengths has not been more prevalent; they give the general air and manner of the personage so much better than the bust size can do, and they are so much more suited to the size of our ordinary apartments.

    C.

Referring to An Amateur's inquiry as to where any pictures painted by Hogarth are to be seen, I beg to say that I have in my possession, and should be happy to show him, the portrait of Hogarth's wife (Sir William Thornhill's daughter), painted by himself.

    Lyndon Rolls.

Banbury.

The late Bishop Luscombe showed me, at Paris, in 1835, a picture of "The Oratorio,"—a subject well known from Hogarth's etching. He told me that he bought it at a broker's shop in the Rue St. Denis; that, on examination, he found the frame to be English; and that, as the price was small—thirty francs, if I remember rightly—he bought the piece, without supposing it to be more than a copy. Sir William Knighton, on seeing it in the bishop's collection, told him that Hogarth's original had belonged to the Dukes of Richmond, and had been in their residence at Paris until the first Revolution, since which time it had not been heard of; and Sir William had no doubt that the bishop had been so fortunate as to recover it. Perhaps some of your readers may have something to say on this story.

    J. C. R.

PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE

Washing Collodion Process.—In "N. & Q.," No. 153., p. 320., your valued correspondent Dr. Diamond states "that up to the final period of the operation, no washing of the plate is requisite. It prevents, rather than assists, the necessary chemical action.".

Now, in all other instructions I have yet seen, it is directed to wash off the iron, or other developing solution, prior to immersing in the hypo., and after such immersion, again to wash well in water. I shall feel greatly obliged if Dr. D. will be kind enough to state whether the first-named washing is requisite, or whether the properties of the hypo., or the beauty of the picture, will be in any way injured by the previous solutions not having been washed off, prior to the fixings.

    C. W.

[We have submitted this Query to Dr. Diamond, who informs us that he never adopts the practice of washing off the developing fluid, and considers it not only needless, but sometimes prejudicial, as when such washing has not been resorted to, the hyposulphite solution flows more readily over the picture, and causes none of the unpleasant stains which frequently occur in pictures which have been previously washed, especially if hard water has been used. But besides this, and the saving of time, the doing away with this unnecessary washing economises water, which in out-door practice is often a great consideration. Dr. Diamond would again impress upon our readers the advantage of using the hyposulphite over and over again, merely keeping up its full strength by the addition of fresh crystals of the salt from time to time, as such practice produces pictures of whiter and softer tone than are ever produced by the raw solution.]

Colouring Collodion Pictures (Vol. vii., p. 388.)—A patent has just been taken out (dated September 23, 1852) for this purpose, by Mons. J. L. Tardieu, of Paris. He terms his process tardiochromy. It consists in applying oil or other colours at the back of the pictures, so as to give the requisite tints to the several parts of the photograph, without at all interfering with its extreme delicacy. It may even, in some cases, be used to remedy defects in the photographic picture. The claim is essentially for the application of colours at the back, instead of on the surface of photographs, whatever kind of colours may be used. It is therefore, of course, applicable only to photographs taken on paper, glass, or some transparent material.

    A. C. Wilson.

Wanted, a simple Test for a good Lens.—As all writers on Photography agree that the first great essential for successful practice is a good lens—that is to say, a lens of which the visual and chemical foci coincide—can any of the scientific readers of "N. & Q." point out any simple test by which unscientific parties desirous of practising photography may be enabled to judge of the goodness of a lens? A country gentleman, like myself, may purchase a lens from an eminent house, with an assurance that it is everything that can be desired (and I am not putting an imaginary case), and may succeed in getting beautiful images upon his focussing-glass, but very unsatisfactory pictures; and it may not be until he has almost abandoned photography, in despair at his own want of skill, that he has the opportunity of showing his apparatus, manipulation, &c. to some more practised hand, who is enabled to prove that the lens was not capable of doing what the vendors stated it could do. Surely scientific men must know of a simple test which would save the disappointment I have described; and I hope some one will take pity upon me, and send it to "N. & Q.," for the benefit of myself and every other

    Country Practitioner.

Photographic Tent—Restoration of Faded Negatives.—In Vol. vii., p. 462., I find M. F. M. inquiring for a cheap and portable tent, effective for photographic operations out of doors. I have for the last two years, and in mid-day (June), prepared calotype paper, and also the collodion glass plates, for the camera, under a tent of glazed yellow calico of only a single thickness: the light admitted is very great, but does not in the least injure the most sensitive plate or paper. It is made square like a large bag, so that in a room I can use it double as a blind; and out of doors, in a high wind, I have crept into it, and prepared my paper opposite the object I intended to calotype.

I should be glad it any of your readers would inform me how a failed negative calotype can be restored to its original strength. I last year took a great number, some of which have nearly faded away; and others are as strong, and as able to be used to print from, as when first done. The paper was prepared with the single iodide of silver solution, and rendered sensitive with aceto-nitrate sil. and gallic acid in the usual way. I attribute the fading to the hyposulphate not being got rid of; and the question is, Can the picture he restored?