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NOTES AND QUERIES:

A

Medium of Entercommunication

FOR

LITERARY MEN, GENERAL READERS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of." -CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

FIFTH SERIES.-VOLUME SIXTH.

JULY-DECEMBER 1876.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED AT THE

OFFICE, 20, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.

BY JOHN FRANCIS.

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LONDON, SATURDAY, JULY 1, 1876.

CONTENTS.- N° 131.
NOTES:-The Story of "Notes and Queries," 1-The "Vaux-
de-Vire" of Oliver Basselin, the Dyer and Poet of Vire, 2-
The Writings of Charles Dickinson, D.D., Lord Bishop of
Meath, 3-Tithes of Fulburne, co. Cambridge, 1436, 4-
Wentworth MS.-Edwards of Somerset, Bristol, &c.—

"Club," 5-The Branks-Musical Canons-" Ramping in his
head"-The Cornish Language in 1616-"Terrified"-Lady-
Bird-Yorkshire Superstition, 6.
QUERIES:-Dante, 6-Authorship of Plays Wanted-Two
Tiny Volumes-The Baron Dembrowski-Heraldic: Eyre

Family, 7-Moated Parsonages-Medal and Tokens-
Shelley-Man's Duty to Animals-Dr. Schouler's MSS.-

"Thump Sunday"-Celtic, Saxon, and Danish Castrame-

tation-Hooker-Assart: Hoppit, 8.

if remembered at all-he is apt to be garrulous,
more especially

"When, musing on companions gone,

He doubly feels that he 's alone."

But I must tell my story in my own way if I
tell it at all.

A warmer hearted man than Thomas Amyot,
the secretary, friend, and biographer of Wind-
ham, never existed. Great was the encouragement
and many the kindnesses which I received at his
hands when I first began to dabble in literature.
Fifty years ago, when I was proposing to edit the
Early Prose Romances, he introduced me to that
ripe scholar, Francis Douce, who received me with
a warmth and cordiality which I could only attri-

REPLIES:-The Irish Peerage: The Irish Union Peers, 9-bute to his regard for Mr. Amyot. That warmth
"Garrt laidir aboo"-On some Obscure Words in Shak-
speare: Shakspeare accused of Provincialism, 10-The
Southern Cross, 11-A Folk-Lore Society, 12-The Regicides
-The Basques, 13—The Towns of Colon and Chagres
"Eryng":"Egging," 14-"Softa "-Early Stage Scenery—
Capital "I"-Horace: Virgil, 15-Tennyson's Early Publi-
cations-Old Coins-Derivation of "Cousin "-Coin-"The
Case is Altered"-William le Rus-The "Pokershippe" of
Boringwood" Humbug," 16-"Complement" for "Com-
pliment "—Initial Letters-English and French, 17-Seafoul
Gibson-"A borrowed day"-The Vulgate-"Talented," 18
-"Winchel Rod "-The late Bishop Forbes-Thomas, Earl
of Lancaster-A Manx Act of Parliament, 19.
Notes on Books, &c.

Notes.

THE STORY OF "NOTES AND QUERIES."
I have often been urged by old friends and
contributors to tell the story of the origin of
"N. & Q.," and have as often promised to do so
some day.

But when such an appeal as that of the REV.
RICHARD HOOPER (ante, v. 459) is publicly made
to me by an old friend who has been a contributor
to this journal from its first appearance, and that
appeal is backed by the courtesy of Dr. Doran, I
feel that the day has come for the fulfilment of my
promise. I feel this the more strongly because
MR. HOOPER gives me the sole credit of what he is
pleased to call the "happy thought"; and common
honesty demands that I should remove that im-
pression, and do justice to those dear friends, now
unhappily passed away, who had quite as much,
if not more to do with the establishment of this
journal than I feel justified in laying claim to.

But before proceeding, I must be permitted two
words of warning. The first is that the idea of
"N. & Q." was not an inspiration, but rather a
development. It did not spring, like Minerva in
full panoply, from the brain of its progenitor, but,
like Topsy, it "growed." The second, that when
an old gossip of threescore and twelve is asked to
narrate the circumstances of the one event of his
life by which he is ever likely to be remembered

and cordiality never abated. The day when I
entered the cell of Prospero-my older readers
will remember that Mr. Douce was the Prospero
of the Bibliomania, &c.-that library which was
dukedom large enough for the most voracious
helluo librorum that ever breathed—was a happy
day for me. He encouraged me in every way:
lent me books-aye, and MSS.; answered all my
inquiries, poured out his stores of learning, en-
Couraged my visits, and, only a few weeks before
his death, told me that, when a young man, he,
at Bindley's special request, had regularly spent
one evening every week with him at Somerset
House, and urged me to do him what he was
pleased to call the same kindness.

But more of dear old Francis Douce elsewhere
and hereafter. I will only add that it was in his
charming library at Gower Street that I first met,
amongst others, James Heywood Markland and
the accomplished author of The Curiosities of
Literature, Isaac D'Israeli-two ripe scholars and
good men whom it is at once a pride and a pleasure
to have known.

But the greatest kindness I ever received from
Mr. Amyot was about the year 1837, when one
evening, at the Society of Antiquaries, he led me
up to a gentleman, saying, "You two should know
each other, for I am sure you will be friends." The
gentleman put out his hand to me with that frank
courtesy which was so characteristic of him; and
thus commenced an acquaintance, which soon
ripened into a more than brotherly affection, between
my ever-lamented friend John Bruce and myself.

What an advantage this intimacy with a man of
such varied acquirements and such high intellectual
and moral excellence was to me, perhaps I never
fully appreciated until his sudden death in October,
1869, startled and shocked the large number of
attached friends to whom his high character,
talents, and kindliness had endeared him, and in
whose memory he still holds a foremost place.

It was in one of our pleasant gossips on books
and men, and while feeling the want of some infor-
mation of which we were in search, and lamenting

the difficulty of bringing such want under the notice of those who might be able to supply it, that the idea of starting a small paper with such special object was struck out. Once started, it was never lost sight of; and about the year 1841 our plan had so far been matured that some specimen pages of The Medium, for so our projected journal was named, were set up in type by Mr. Richards, of St. Martin's Lane, the printer for the Percy Society. But The Medium was never destined to appear. The state of his wife's health compelled Mr. Bruce to reside for some years in the country; and for those years an incessant and confidential correspondence was my only compensation for the loss of those instructive interchanges of thought and talk which I had so much enjoyed.

for two or three hours on Weybridge Common, while he poured out his learning on the ancient Mark, land boundaries, and land tenures, in a manner to make me regret that we had not a shorthand writer with us. He told me that he never wrote down any part of a book or essay he was going to publish until the whole was actually composed in his mind, and that the greater portion of his Saxons in England was actually completed in his head before a single line of it was committed to paper.

But enough for this week; for though, like honest Dogberry, I can find it in my heart to bestow all my tediousness upon my readers, I have just enough discretion left not to bestow it all at once. WILLIAM J. THOMS.

But it may be asked why I could not as well undertake the sole management of the projected THE "VAUX-DE-VIRE” OF OLIVER BASSELIN, paper in 1841 as in 1849. I can only answer that the idea of taking upon myself the responsibility of conducting the proposed paper, except in conjunction with my accomplished friend, never once entered my head. The scheme had fallen to the ground, and but for an incident which I shall mention presently, I don't believe "N. & Q." would ever have appeared.

By the year 1849, when Rowland Hill's great scheme of postal reform was beginning to bear fruit, the share which I had taken in the organization of some, and in the management of others, of many "co-operative literary societies" (Camden, Percy, Shakespeare, Elfric, Granger, &c.) had so increased the number of my literary friends, that I felt I could venture to introduce to their notice a plan for turning those reforms to good account in the publication of works of interest to scholars, but not of a nature to remunerate publishers.

The

THE DYER AND POET OF VIRE. On September 24 last, a friend and myself spent a delightful day at the ancient town of Vire, in the Norman Bocage, famous since the fifteenth century for its manufactures of paper and cloths. It happened to be a great market day, and we were charmed by the picturesque sights. booths for the sale of gay-coloured cloths; the various shapes of the women's caps, some like a jockey's, but with a bow tied behind, instead of in front, others, the bonnet de coton, like the Kilmarnock nightcap celebrated by Burns; the curious clock-tower over the town gate, the latter surmounted by the statue of the Virgin, and the legend "Marie protège la Ville"; the old town walls, capped at intervals by drum towers, finally dying away at the scarped rocky promontory whereon stand the remains of the keep, encircled by the little stream of the Vire, a-all in turn excited our interest. Nor are the ecclesiastical remains to be passed over. The curious church of St. Thomas outside of the wallsa relic of very remote antiquity, to which tradition records a visit by Archbishop Becket-with the cathedral-like parish church of Notre Dame de Vire, and the fine modern one of St. Anne, were each carefully examined. But Vire has a wider fame from its local poet, the jolly dyer Basselin, whose chansons, said to have been composed early in the fifteenth century, and sung to his neighbours in his native valley, are generally reputed to have given name to the modern vaudeville. The site of Basselin's mill is still pointed out, at the foot of the slope below the castle. French critics have long been sceptical, not only as to the existence of the poet, but also as to the antiquity assigned to his verses. They were first collected in an authentic form by an advocate of Vire, Maistre Jean le Houx, who published them about the end of the sixteenth century, along with some of his own. The freedom of their sentiments excited the displeasure of the clergy of Vire, who

I need not fill space with an account of scheme which was never carried out, but of which I may say that when I called upon John Mitchell Kemble, and we talked it over from "noon to dewy eve," he spoke in such terms of approval as surprised me; for, in his opinion, I was about to effect a revolution scarcely less important than that which had been brought about by the invention of printing; and, with his characteristic impulsive kindliness, he would not let me go away without a contribution to the first number in the shape of a transcript of a small portion of an old English Metrical Chronicle from a MS. at Göttingen. The great Saxonist was at that time editing the British and Foreign Review, and deeply interested in the war then raging in Hungary-a map of the scene of it was spread on his table, on which the position and movements of the different armies were marked by coloured pins.

John Mitchell Kemble was not only a man of deep and varied learning, but a man of great genius and of great eloquence. I remember once visiting him at Addlestone, and walking with him

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"These Vaux-de-Vire are evidently of the middle or end of the sixteenth century. They have been dressed up (rajeunis) by Jean le Houx, who first recovered, if he did not compose them himself, under the name of Oliver Basselin, a name well known in Normandy, on account of the old chanson of Guillaume Cretin."

M. Lacroix refers here to a fragment of a song contained in a letter of Cretin's, who died in 1525, addressed to Francis Charbonnier, secretary to the Duc de Valois (afterwards Francis I.). It runs as follows:Olivier Bachelin,

Orrons-nous plus de tes nouvelles? Vous ont les Angloys mis à fin !" This Olivier Basselin lived towards the close of the fifteenth century, and was noted in the wars against the English. M. Lacroix, continuing his criticism on the Vaux-de-Vire, says :

"They recommend themselves by their incontestable antiquity and old reputation in Normandy. They are certainly the earliest types of the chanson bachique in France. It matters little whether Oliver Basselin and Jean le Houx are one and the same. He is a bon biberon who sings of cider and wine with French gaiety, in the good vulgar tongue which they spoke in Normandy at the end of the sixteenth century."

These acute conjectures of M. Lacroix are supported by the opinion of the learned editors of La Normandie Illustrée (Nantes, 1852), art. "Vire." Those gentlemen (with one of whose number, M. E. le Hericher, of Avranches, I have the honour of acquaintance) say "that they regard the dyerpoet of Vire as a myth. He could not have had the education to enable him to give the classical allusions which occur in them. Jean le Houx was most probably their author."

These suppositions are probably confirmed by a work which, while writing some weeks ago, I saw in the advertisement sheets of the Quarterly: The Vaux-de-Vire of Maistre Jean le Houx, Advocate of Vire, translated and edited by James P. Muirhead, M.A. (Murray). I have not seen the book itself; but, by the light of its title, I should guess that the editor shares the views of MM. Lacroix and Le Hericher regarding the true poet of Vire. ANGLO-SCOTUS.

THE WRITINGS OF CHARLES DICKINSON, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF MEATH.

Bishop Dickinson was a native of Cork-"a city remarkable for having produced a large number of men of great energy of mind and distinguished attainments in every profession." He was born there in August, 1792, and was elected, in 1813, a scholar of Trinity College, Dublin. In

1820, on the retirement of the Rev. James Dunn, he became chaplain of the Magdalen Asylum, Leeson Street, Dublin. In 1822 he accepted the chaplaincy of the Female Orphan House, North Circular Road, having resigned the other towards the close of the preceding year. Early in 1833 he succeeded the Rev. Dr. Hinds (afterwards Bishop of Norwich) as domestic chaplain and secretary to the late Archbishop Whately, and a few months after was appointed by him to the vicarage of St. Anne's, Dublin, vacant by the death of Viscount Harberton; and, in 1840, having been promoted to the bishopric of Meath, he was consecrated, his friend the archbishop, who also preached the on December 27, in Christ Church Cathedral, by consecration-sermon. "Never, perhaps, was there a man less affected with the flush which so commonly attends upon sudden promotion." His writings are as follows:

1. A Letter to the Most Rev. Dr. Murray, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, and to the Right Rev. Dr.. Doyle, Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare, on the subject of their Pastoral Addresses, and the alleged [Hohenlohe] Miracles. By a Clergyman of the Established Church. Dublin, 1823. 8vo.

2. Obituary Notice of Alexander Knox, Esq., in the Christian Eraminer (July, 1831), vol. xi. pp. 562-564. 3. Observations on Ecclesiastical Legislature and Church Reform. Dublin, 1833. Svo.

4. Pastoral Epistle from His Holiness the Pope to some Members of the University of Oxford. Faithfully translated from the original Latin. [Anon.] London, 1836. Fourth edition, same year. 8vo.

perty in Ireland; together with the Memorial itself, and 5. Vindication of a Memorial respecting Church ProProtests against it. Dublin, 1836. 8vo.

6. The Permanent and the Temporary Commission of Christ to his Disciples Compared: a Sermon preached at the Consecration of the Bishop of Killaloe, at the Cathedral of Christ's Church, February 17, 1839. Dublin, 1839. 8vo.

7. An Appeal in behalf of Church Government: addressed to the Prelates and Clergy of the United Church of England and Ireland. By a Member of the Church. London, 1840. 8vo.

The present Dean of St. Patrick's, the Very Rev. John West, D.D. (at the time Vicar of St. Anne's, and subsequently Archdeacon of Dublin), published, in a thick octavo, the "Remains of the Most Reverend Charles Dickinson, D.D., Lord Bishop of Meath, being a Selection from his Sermons and Tracts, with a Biographical Sketch," London, 1845. Nos. 1, 3, 4, 6, and 7, in the foregoing list, have been reprinted in the volume, which contains likewise the following:

8. Ten Sermons (including No. 6).

9. Fragments of a Charge intended to have been delivered at the Visitation of the Clergy of the Diocese of Meath, appointed to be held on July 12, 1842.

10. Correspondence with the Rev. Maurice James, Rector of Pembridge, Herefordshire, respecting Church Endowments. [1833.]

11. Conversation with two Disciples of Mr. Irving. [1836.]

With many years of usefulness apparently be

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