Various
Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc

Notes

CORRECTIONS ADOPTED BY POPE FROM THE DUNCES

In Pope's "Letter to the Honourable James Craggs," dated June 15, 1711, after making some observations on Dennis's remarks on the Essay on Criticism, he says—

"Yet, to give this man his due, he has objected to one or two lines with reason; and I will alter them in case of another edition: I will make my enemy do me a kindness where he meant an injury, and so serve instead of a friend."

An interesting paper might be drawn up from the instances, for they are rather numerous, in which Pope followed out this very sensible rule. I do not remember seeing the following one noted. One of the heroes of the Dunciad, Thomas Cooke, the translator of Hesiod, was the editor of a periodical published in monthly numbers, in 8vo., of which nine only appeared, under the title of The Comedian, or Philosophical Inquirer, the first number being for April, and the last for December, 1732. It contains some curious matter, and amongst other papers is, in No. 2., "A Letter in Prose to Mr. Alexander Pope, occasioned by his Epistle in Verse to the Earl of Burlington." It is very abusive, and was most probably written either by Cooke or Theobald. After quoting the following lines as they then stood:

"He buys for Topham drawings and designs,
For Fountain statues, and for Curio coins,
Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone,
And books for Mead, and rarities for Sloane,"

the letter-writer thus unceremoniously addresses himself to the author:

"Rarities! how could'st thou be so silly as not to be particular in the rarities of Sloane, as in those of the other five persons? What knowledge, what meaning is conveyed in the word rarities? Are not some drawings, some statues, some coins, all monkish manuscripts, and some books, rarities? Could'st thou not find a trisyllable to express some parts of nature for a collection of which that learned and worthy physician is eminent? Fy, fy! correct and write—

'Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone,
And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane.'

"Sir Hans Sloane is known to have the finest collection of butterflies in England, and perhaps in the world; and if rare monkish manuscripts are for Hearne only, how can rarities be for Sloane, unless thou specifyest what sort of rarities? O thou numskull!"—No. 2., pp. 15—16.

The correction was evidently an improvement, and therefore Pope wisely accepted the benefit, and was the channel through which it was conveyed; and the passage accordingly now stands as altered by the letter-writer.

James Crossley.

NOTES ON SEVERAL MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS

(Continued from p. 522.)

Dare, to lurk, or cause to lurk; used both transitively and intransitively. Apparently the root of dark and dearn.

"Here, quod he, it ought ynough suffice,
Five houres for to slepe upon a night:
But it were for an olde appalled wight,
As ben thise wedded men, that lie and dare,
As in a fourme sitteth a wery hare."

Tyrwhitt's utterly unwarranted adoption of Speght's interpretation is "Dare, v. Sax. to stare." The reader should always be cautious how he takes upon trust a glossarist's sly fetch to win a cheap repute for learning, and over-ride inquiry by the mysterious letters Sax. or Ang.-Sax. tacked on to his exposition of an obscure word. There is no such Saxon vocable as dare, to stare. Again, what more frequent blunder than to confound a secondary and derivative sense of a word with its radical and primary—indeed, sometimes to allow the former to usurp the precedence, and at length altogether oust the latter: hence it comes to pass, that we find dare is one while said to imply peeping and prying, another while trembling or crouching; moods and actions merely consequent or attendant upon the elementary signification of the word:

"I haue an hoby can make larkys to dare."

Skelton's Magnifycence, vol. i. p.269. l. 1358., Dyce's edition;

on which line that able, but therein mistaken editor's note is, "to dare, i. e. to be terrified, to tremble" (he however also adds, it means to lurk, to lie hid, and remits his reader to a note at p. 379., where some most pertinent examples of its true and only sense are given), to which add these next:

"      ·       ·   let his grace go forward,
And dare vs with his cap, like larkes."

First Fol., Henry VIII., Act III, Sc. 2.

"Thay questun, thay quellun,
By frythun by fellun,
The dere in the dellun,
Thay droupun and daren".

The Anturs of Arthur at the Tarnewathelan,

St. IV. p. 3. Camden Society's Publications.

"She sprinkled vs with bitter juice of vncouth herbs, and strake
The awke end of hir charmed rod vpon our heades, and spake
Words to the former contrarie. The more she charm'd, the more
Arose we vpward from the ground on which we darde before."

The XIIII. Booke of Ouid's Metamorphosis,

p. 179. Arthur Golding's translation: London, 1587.

"Sothely it dareth hem weillynge this thing; that heuenes weren before," &c.

And again, a little further on:

"Forsothe yee moste dere, one thing dare you nougt (or be not unknowen): for one day anentis God as a thousande yeeris, and a thousande yeer as one day."—Cm 3m Petre 2., Wycliffe's translation:

in the Latin Vulgate, latet and lateat respectively; in the original, λανθάνει and λανθανέτω. Now the book is before me, I beg to furnish Mr. Collier with the references to his usage of terre, mentioned in Todd's Dictionary, but not given (Collier's Shakspeare, vol. iv. p. 65., note), namely, 6th cap. of Epistle to Ephesians, prop. init.; and 3rd of that to Colossians, prop. fin.

Die and live.—This hysteron proteron is by no means uncommon: its meaning is, of course, the same as live and die, i. e. subsist from the cradle to the grave:

"      ·       ·       ·   Will you sterner be.
Than he that dies and lives by bloody drops?"

First Fol., As You Like It, Act III. Sc. 5.

All manner of whimsical and farfetched constructions have been put by the commentators upon this very homely sentence. As long as the question was, whether their wits should have licence to go a-woolgathering or no, one could feel no great concern to interfere: but it appears high time to come to Shakspeare's rescue, when Mr. Collier's "clever" old commentator, with some little variation in the letters, and not much less in the sense, reads "kills" for dies; but then, in the Merry Wives of Windsor, Act II. Sc. 3., the same "clever" authority changes "cride-game (cride I ame), said I well?" into "curds and cream, said I well?"—an alteration certainly not at odds with the host's ensuing question, "said I well?" saving that that, to liquorish palate, might seem a rather superfluous inquiry.

"With sorrow they both die and live
That unto richesse her hertes yeve."

The Romaunt of the Rose, v. 5789-90.

"He is a foole, and so shall he dye and liue,
That thinketh him wise, and yet can he nothing."

The Ship of Fooles, fol. 67., by Alexander Barclay, 1570.

"Behold how ready we are, how willingly the women of Sparta will die and live with their husbands."—The Pilgrimage of Kings and Princes, p. 29.

Except in Shakspeare's behalf, it would not have been worth while to exemplify so unambiguous a phrase. The like remark may also be extended to the next word that falls under consideration.

Kindly, in accordance with kind, viz. nature. Thus, the love of a parent for a child, or the converse, is kindly: one without natural affection (ἄστοργος) is unkind, kindless, as in—

"Remorselesse, treacherous, letcherous, kindles villaine."

Hamlet, Act II. Sc. 2.

Thence kindly expanded into its wider meaning of general benevolence. So under another phase of its primary sense we find the epithet used to express the excellence and characteristic qualities proper to the idea or standard of its subject, to wit, genuine, thrifty, well-liking, appropriate, not abortive, monstrous, prodigious, discordant. In the Litany, "the kindly fruits of the earth" is, in the Latin versions "genuinus," and by Mr. Boyer rightly translated "les fruits de la terre chaqu'un selon son espèce;" for which Pegge takes him to task, and interprets kindly "fair and good," through mistake or preference adopting the acquired and popular, in lieu of the radical and elementary meaning of the word. (Anonymiana, pp. 380—1. Century viii. No. lxxxi.) The conjunction of this adjective with gird in a passage of King Henry VI. has sorely gravelled Mr. Collier: twice over he essays, with equal success, to expound its purport. First, loc. cit., he finds fault with gird as being employed in rather an unusual manner; or, if taken in its common meaning of taunt or reproof, then that kindly is said ironically; because there seems to be a contradiction in terms. (Monck Mason's rank distortion of the words, there cited, I will not pain the reader's sight with.) Mr. Collier's note concludes with a supposition that gird may possibly be a misprint. This is the misery! Men will sooner suspect the text than their own understanding or researches. In Act I. Sc. 1. of Coriolanus, dissatisfied with his previous note, Mr. Collier tries again, and thinks a kindly gird may mean a gentle reproof. That the reader may be able to judge what it does mean, it will be necessary to quote the king's gird, who thus administers a kindly rebuke to the malicious preacher against the sin of malice, i.e. chastens him with his own rod:

"King. Fie, uncle Beauford, I have heard you preach,
That mallice was a great and grievous sinne:
And will not you maintaine the thing you teache,
But prove a chief offender in the same?

Warn. Sweet king: the bishop hath a kindly gyrd."

First Part of King Henry VI., Act III. Sc. 1. 1st Fol.

A gird, akin to, in keeping with, fitting, proper to the cardinal's calling; an evangelical gird for an evangelical man: what more kindly? Kindly, connatural, homogeneous. But now for a bushel of examples, some of which will surely avail to insense the reader in the purport of this epithet, if my explanation does not:

"God in the congregation of the gods, what more proper and kindly"?—Andrewes' Sermons, vol. v. p. 212. Lib. Ang.-Cath. Theol.

"And that (pride) seems somewhat kindly too, and to agree with this disease (the plague). That pride which swells itself should end in a tumour or swelling, as, for the most part, this disease doth."—Id., p. 228.

"And so, you are found; and they, as the children of perdition should be, are lost. Here are you: and where are they? Gone to their own place, to Judas their brother. And, as is most kindly, the sons to the father of wickedness; there to be plagued with him for ever."—Id., vol. iv. p. 98.

"For whatsoever, as the Son of God, He may do, it is kindly for Him, as the Son of Man, to save the sons of men."—Id., p. 253.

"There cannot be a more kindly consequence than this, our not failing from their not failing: we do not, because they do not."—Id., p. 273.

"And here falls in kindly this day's design, and the visible 'per me,' that happened on it."—Id., p. 289.

"And having then made them, it is kindly that viscera misericordiæ should be over those opera that came de visceribus."—Id., p. 327.

"The children came to the birth, and the right and kindly copulative were; to the birth they came, and born they were: in a kind consequence who would look for other?"—Id., p. 348.

"For usque adeo proprium est operari Spiritui, ut nisi operetur, nec sit. So kindly (proprium) it is for the spirit to be working as if It work not, It is not."—Id., vol. iii. p. 194.

"And when he had overtaken, for those two are but presupposed, the more kindly to bring in επελάβετο, when, I say, He had overtaken them, cometh in fitly and properly επιλαμβάνεται."—Id., vol. i. p. 7.

"No time so kindly to preach de Filio hodie genito as hodie."—Id., p. 285.

"A day whereon, as it is most kindly preached, so it will be most kindly practised of all others."—Id., p. 301.

"Respice et plange: first, 'Look and lament' or mourn; which is indeed the most kindly and natural effect of such a spectacle."—Id., vol. ii. p. 130.

"Devotion is the most proper and most kindly work of holiness."—Id., vol. iv. p. 377.

Perhaps the following will be thought so apposite, that I may be spared the labour, and the reader the tedium of perusing a thousand other examples that might be cited:

And there is nothing more kindly than for them that will be touching, to be touched themselves, and to be touched home, in the same kind themselves thought to have touched others."—Id., vol. iv. p. 71.¹

W. R. Arrowsmith.

(To be continued.)

DEVONIANISMS

Miserable.—Miserable is very commonly used in Devonshire in the signification of miserly, with strange effect until one becomes used to it. Hooker the Judicious, a Devonshire man, uses the word in this sense in the Eccl. Polity, book v. ch. lxv. p. 21.:

"By means whereof it cometh also to pass that the mean which is virtue seemeth in the eyes of each extreme an extremity; the liberal-hearted man is by the opinion of the prodigal miserable, and by the judgment of the miserable lavish."

Few.—Speaking of broth, people in Devon say a few broth in place of a little, or some broth. I find a similar use of the word in a sermon preached in 1550, by Thomas Lever, Fellow of St. John's College, preserved by Strype (in his Eccles. Mem., ii. 422.). Speaking of the poor students of Cambridge, he says:

"At ten of the clock they go to dinner, whereas they be content with a penny piece of beef among four, having a few pottage made of the broth of the same beef, with salt and oatmeal, and nothing else."

Figs, Figgy.—Most commonly raisins are called figs, and plum-pudding figgy pudding. So with plum-cake, as in the following rhymes:—

"Rain, rain, go to Spain,
Never come again:
When I brew and when I bake,
I'll give you a figgy cake."

Against is used like the classical adversùm, in the sense of towards or meeting. I have heard, both in Devonshire and in Ireland, the expression to send against, that is, to send to meet, a person, &c.

The foregoing words and expressions are probably provincialisms rather than Devonianisms, good old English forms of expression; as are, indeed, many of the so-called Hibernicisms.

Pilm, Farroll.—What is the derivation of pilm=dust, so frequently heard in Devon, and its derivatives, pilmy, dusty: it pilmeth? The cover of a book is there called the farroll; what is the derivation of this word?

J. M. B.

Tunbridge Wells.

THE POEMS OF ROWLEY

The tests propounded by Mr. Keightley (Vol. vii. p. 160.) with reference to the authenticity of the poems of Rowley, namely the use of "its," and the absence of the feminine rhyme in e, furnish additional proof, if any were wanting, that Chatterton was the author of those extraordinary productions. Another test often insisted upon is the occurrence, in those poems, of borrowed thoughts—borrowed from poets of a date posterior to that of their pretended origin. Of this there is one instance which seems to have escaped the notice of Chatterton's numerous annotators. It occurs at the commencement of The Tournament, in the line,—

"The worlde bie diffraunce ys ynn orderr founde."

It will be seen that this line, a very remarkable one, has been cleverly condensed from the following passage in Pope's Windsor Forest:—

"But as the world, harmoniously confused,
Where order in variety we see;
And where, tho' all things differ, all agree."

This sentiment has been repeated by other modern writers. Pope himself has it in the Essay on Man, in this form,—

"The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life."

It occurs in one of Pascal's Pensées:

"J'écrirai ici mes pensées sans ordre, et non pas peut-être dans une confusion sans dessein: C'est le véritable ordre, et qui marquera toujours mon objet par le désordre même."

Butler has it in the line,—

"For discords make the sweetest airs."

Bernardin de St. Pierre, in his Etudes de la Nature:

"C'est des contraires que résulte l'harmonie du monde."

And Burke, in nearly the same words, in his Reflections on the French Revolution:

"You had that action and counteraction, which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers, draws out the harmony of the universe."

Nor does the sentiment belong exclusively to the moderns. I find it in Horace's twelfth Epistle:

"Nil parvum sapias, et adhuc sublimia cures,
      ·       ·       ·       ·       ·       ·
Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors."

Lucan, I think, has the same expression in his Pharsalia; and it forms the basis of Longinus's remark on the eloquence of Demosthenes:

"Οὐκοῦν τὴν μὲν φύσιν τῶν ἐπαναφορῶν καὶ ἀσυνδέτων πάντῃ φυλάττει τῇ συνεχεῖ μεταβολῇ· οὑτως αὐτῷ καὶ ἡ τάξις ἄτακτον, καὶ ἔμπαλιν ἡ ἀταξια ποιὰν περιλαμβάνει τάξιν."

It may be said that, as Pope adopted the thought from Horace or Lucan, so a poet of the fifteenth century (such as the supposed Rowley) might have taken it from the same sources. But a comparison of the line in The Tournament with those in Windsor Forest will show that the borrowing embraces not only the thought, but the very words in which it is expressed.

Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia.

FOLK LORE

Legend of Llangefelach Tower.—A different version of the legend also exists in the neighbourhood, viz. that the day's work on the tower being pulled down each night by the old gentleman, who was apparently apprehensive that the sound of the bells might keep away all evil spirits, a saint, of now forgotten name, told the people that if they would stand at the church door, and throw a stone, they would succeed in building the tower on the "spot where it fell," which accordingly came to pass.

Ceridwen.

Wedding Divination.—Being lately present on the occasion of a wedding at a town in the East Riding of Yorkshire, I was witness to the following custom, which seems to take rank as a genuine scrap of folk-lore. On the bride alighting from her carriage at her father's door, a plate covered with morsels of bride's cake was flung from a window of the second story upon the heads of the crowd congregated in the street below; and the divination, I was told, consists in observing the fate which attends its downfall. If it reach the ground in safety, without being broken, the omen is a most unfavourable one. If on the other hand, the plate be shattered to pieces (and the more the better), the auspices are looked upon as most happy.

Oxoniensis.

SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE

Shakspearian Drawings.—I have very recently become possessed of some curious drawings by Hollar; those relating to Shakspeare very interesting, evidently done for one Captain John Eyre, who could himself handle the pencil well.

The inscription under one is as follows, in the writing of the said J. Eyre:

"Ye house in ye Clink Streete, Southwarke, now belonging to Master Ralph Hansome, and in ye which Master Shakspeare lodged in ye while he writed and played at ye Globe, and untill ye yeare 1600 it was at the time ye house of Grace Loveday. Will had ye two Rooms over against ye Doorway, as I will possibly show."

Size of the drawing, 12 × 7, "W. Hollar delin., 1643." It is an exterior view, beautifully executed, showing very prominently the house and a continuation of houses, forming one side of the street.

The second has the following inscription in the same hand:

"Ye portraiture of ye rooms in ye which Master Will Shakspeare lodged in Clink Streete, and which is told to us to be in ye same state as when left by himself, as stated over ye door in ye room, and on the walls were many printed verses, also a portraiture of Ben Jonson with a ruff on a pannel."

Size of the drawing 11⅝ × 6⅞, "W. Hollar delin., 1643:" shows the interior of three sides, and the floor and ceiling, with the tables, chairs, and reading-desk; an open door shows the interior of his sleeping-room, being over the entrance door porch.

The third—

"Ye Globe, as to be seen before ye Fire in ye year 1615, when this place was burnt down. This old building," &c.

Here follows a long interesting description. It is an exterior view; size of drawing 7¼ wide × 9⅞ high, "W. H. 1640."

The fourth shows the stage, on which are two actors: this drawing, 7⅞ × 6½, was done by J. Eyre, 1629, and on which he gives a curious description of his accompanying Prince Charles, &c.; at this time he belonged to the Court, as he also accompanied that prince to Spain.

The fifth, done by the same hand in a most masterly manner, pen and ink portrait of Shakspeare, copied, as he writes, from a portrait belonging to the Earl of Essex, with interesting manuscript notice.

The sixth, done also by J. Eyre:

"Ye portraiture of one Master Ben Jonson, as on ye walls of Master Will Shakspeare's rooms in Clinke Streete, Southwarke."—J. E. 1643.

The first three, in justice to Hollar, independent of the admirers of the immortal bard and lovers of antiquities, should be engraved as "Facsimiles of the Drawings." This shall be done on my receiving the names of sixty subscribers, the amount of subscription one guinea, for which each subscriber will receive three engravings, to be paid for when delivered.

P. T.

P. S.—These curious drawings may be seen at No. 1. Osnaburgh Place, New Road.

Thomas Shakspeare.—From a close examination of the documents referred to (as bearing the signature of Thomas Shakspeare) in my last communication to "N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 405.), and from the nature of the transaction to which they relate, my impression is, that he was by profession a money scrivener in the town of Lutterworth; a circumstance which may possibly tend to the discovery of his family connexion (if any existed) with William Shakspeare.

Charlecote.

Passage in Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5.—

"      ·       ·       ·   Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, Hold, hold!"

In Mr. Payne Collier's Notes and Emendations, p. 407., we are informed that the old corrector substitutes blankness for blanket. The change is to me so exceedingly bad, even if made on some sort of authority (as an extinct 4to.), that I should have let it be its own executioner, had not Mr. Collier apparently given in his adhesion to it. I now beg to offer a few obvious reasons why blanket is unquestionably Shakspeare's word.

In the Rape of Lucrece, Stanza cxv., we have a passage very nearly parallel with that in Macbeth:

"O night, thou furnace of foul reeking smoke,
Let not the jealous day behold thy face,
Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak,
Immodestly lies martyr'd with disgrace."

In Lucrece, the cloak of night is invoked to screen a deed of adultery; in Macbeth the blanket of night is invoked to hide a murder: but the foul, reeking, smoky cloak of night, in the passage just quoted, is clearly parallel with the smoky blanket of night in Macbeth. The complete imagery of both passages has been happily caught by Carlyle (Sartor Resartus, 1841, p. 23.), who, in describing night, makes Teufelsdröckh say:

"Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapours, and putrefactions, and unimaginable gases, what a fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid!"

C. Mansfield Ingleby.

Birmingham.

"Discourse of Reason" (Vol. vii., p. 497.).—This phrase, "generally supposed to be peculiarly Shakspearian," which A. E. B. has indicated in his quotation from Philemon Holland, occurs also in Dr. T. Bright's Treatise of Melancholy, the date of which is 1586. In the third page of the dedicatory epistle there is this sentence:

"Such as are of quicke conceit, and delighted in discourse of reason in naturall things."

Here, then, is another authority against Gifford's proposed "emendation" of the expression as it occurs in Hamlet.

M. D.

Minor Notes

The MSS. of Gervase Hollis.—These were taken during the reign of Charles I., and continue down to the middle of Charles II. In Harl. MSS. 6829, will be found a most curious and valuable volume, containing the painted glass, arms, monuments, brasses, and epitaphs in the various churches and chapels, &c. throughout the county of Lincoln. The arms are all drawn in the margin in colours. Being taken before the civil war, they contain all those which were destroyed or defaced by the Parliament army. They were all copied by Gough, which he notices in his Brit. Top., vol. i. p. 519., but not printed.

His genealogical collections are contained in a series of volumes marked with the letters of the alphabet, and comprehended in the Lansdowne Catalogue under No. 207. The Catalogue is very minute, and the contents of the several volumes very miscellaneous; and some of the genealogical notes are simply short memoranda, which, in order to be made available, must be wrought out from other sources. They all relate more or less to the county of Lincoln. One of these, called "Trusbut," was presented to the British Museum by Sir Joseph Banks in 1817, and will be found in Add. MSS. 6118.

E. G. Ballard.

Anagrams.—The publication of two anagrams in your Number for May 7, calls to my mind a few that were made some years ago by myself and some friends, as an experiment upon the anagrammatic resources of words and phrases. A subject was chosen, and each one of the party made an anagram, good, bad, or indifferent, out of the component letters. The following may serve as a specimen of the best of the budget that we made.

1. French Revolution.
Violence, run forth!

2. Swedish Nightingale.
Sing high! sweet Linda. (q. d. di Chamouni.)

3. Spanish Marriages.
Rash games in Paris; or, Ah! in a miser's grasp.

4. Paradise Lost.
Reap sad toils.

5. Paradise Regained.
Dead respire again.

C. Mansfield Ingleby.

Birmingham.

Family Caul—Child's Caul.—The will of Sir John Offley, Knight, of Madeley Manor, Staffordshire (grandson of Sir Thomas Offley, Lord Mayor of London temp. Eliz.), proved at Doctors' Commons 20th May, 1658, contains the following singular bequest:

"Item, I will and devise one Jewell done all in Gold enammelled, wherein there is a Caul that covered my face and shoulders when I first came into the world, the use thereof to my loving Daughter the Lady Elizabeth Jenny, so long as she shall live; and after her decease the use likewise thereof to her Son, Offley Jenny, during his natural life; and after his decease to my own right heirs male for ever; and so from Heir to Heir, to be left so long as it shall please God of his Goodness to continue any Heir Male of my name, desiring the same Jewell be not concealed nor sold by any of them."

Cestriensis.

Numerous Progeny.—The London Journal of Oct. 26, 1734, contains the following paragraph:

"Letters from Holderness, in Yorkshire, mention the following remarkable inscription on a tombstone newly erected in the churchyard of Heydon, viz. 'Here lieth the body of William Strutton, of Padrington, buried the 18th of May, 1734, aged 97, who had by his first wife 28 children, and by a second wife 17; own father to 45, grandfather to 86, great-grandfather to 97, and great-great-grandfather to 23; in all 251.'"

T. B. H.

Queries

SMITH, YOUNG, AND SCRYMGEOUR MSS

Thomas Smith, in his Vitæ Illustrium, gives extracts from a so-called Ephemeris of Sir Peter Young, but which Sir Peter compiled during the latter years of his life. Thomas Hearne says, in a note to the Appendix to Leland's Collectanea, that he had had the use of some of Smith's MSS. This Ephemeris of Sir Peter Young may be worth the publishing if it can be found: can any of your readers say whether it is among Smith's or Hearne's MSS., or if it be preserved elsewhere? Peter Young, and his brother Alexander, were pupils of Theodore Beza, having been educated chiefly at the expense of their maternal uncle Henry Scrymgeour, to whose valuable library Peter succeeded. It was brought to Scotland by Alexander about the year 1573 or 1574, and was landed at Dundee. It was especially rich in Greek MSS.; and Dr. Irvine, in his "Dissertation on the Literary History of Scotland," prefixed to his Lives of the Scottish Poets, says of these MSS. and library, "and the man who is so fortunate as to redeem them from obscurity, shall assuredly be thought to have merited well from the republic of letters." It is much to be feared, however, that as to the MSS. this good fortune awaits no man; for Sir Peter Young seems to have given them to his fifth son, Patrick Young, the eminent Greek scholar, who was librarian to Prince Henry, and, after his death, to the king, and to Charles I. Patrick Young's house was unfortunately burned, and in it perished many MSS. belonging to himself and to others. If Scrymgeour's MSS. escaped the fire, they are to be sought for in the remnant of Patrick Young's collection, wherever that went, or in the King's Library, of which a considerable part was preserved. Young's house was burned in 1636, and he is supposed to have carried off a large number of MSS. from the royal library, after the king's death in 1649. If therefore Scrymgeour's MSS. were among these, it is possible that they may yet be traced, for they would be sold with Young's own, after his death in 1652. This occurred on the 7th of September, rather suddenly, and he left no will, and probably gave no directions about his MSS. and library, which were sold sub hastâ, probably within a few months after his death, and with them any of the MSS. which he may have taken from the King's Library, or may have had in his possession belonging to others. Smith says that he had seen a large catalogue of MSS. written in Young's own hand. Is this catalogue extant? Patrick Young left two daughters, co-heiresses: the elder married to John Atwood, Esq.; the younger, to Sir Samuel Bowes, Kt. A daughter of the former gave to a church in Essex a Bible which had belonged to Charles I.; but she knew so little of her grandfather's history that she described him as Patrick Young, Esq., library keeper to the king, quite unconscious that he had been rector of two livings, and a canon and treasurer of St. Paul's. Perhaps, after all, the designation was not so incorrect, for though he held so many preferments, he never was in priest's orders, and sometimes was not altogether free from suspicion of not being a member of the Church of England at all, except as a recipient of its dues, and of course, a deacon in its orders.

But it may be worthy of note, as affording another clue by which, perchance, to trace some of Scrymgeour's MSS., that Sir Thomas Bowes, Kt., who was Sir Symonds D'Ewes's literary executor, employed Patrick Young to value a collection of coins, &c., among which he recognised a number that had belonged to the king's cabinet, and which Sir Symonds had purchased from Hugh Peters, by whom they had been purloined. Young taxed Peters with having taken books, and MSS. also, which the other denied, with the exception of two or three, but was not believed. I do not know what relation Sir Thomas Bowes was to Sir Samuel, who married Young's second daughter, nor to Paul Bowes, who edited D'Ewes's Journals

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Kindly is quite a pet word with Andrewes, as, besides the passages quoted, he employs it in nearly the same sense in vol. iii., at pp. 18. 34. 102. 161. 189. 262. 308. 372. 393. 397.; in vol. i., at pp. 100. 125. 151. 194. 214.; in vol. ii. at pp. 53. 157. 307. 313. 338. The same immortal quibbler is also very fond of the word item, using it, as our cousins across the Atlantic and we in Herefordshire do at the present day, for "a hint."

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