(Vol. vii., pp. 206. 435.)

Having long felt a great respect for this person, and a great interest in all that concerns his history, I am induced to mention the grounds on which I have been led to doubt whether the letter in the Gentleman's Magazine, to which Mr. Crossley refers, is worthy of credit. When I first saw it, I considered it as so valuable an addition to the information which I had collected on the subject, that I was anxious to know who was the writer. It had no signature; but the date, "Sherdington, June, 1704," which was retained, gave me a clue which, by means not worth detailing, led me to the knowledge that what thus appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1765, had issued from "Curll's chaste press" more than thirty years before, in the form of a letter from the person now known in literary history as "Curll's Corinna," but by her cotemporaries (see the index of Mr. Cunningham's excellent Handbook of London) as Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, sometime of Dyot Street, St. Giles's, and afterwards of a locality not precisely ascertained, but within the rules of the Fleet, and possibly (though Mr. Cunningham does not corroborate this) at some period of her life resident in the more genteel quarters which Curll assigns to her. To speak more strictly, and make the matter intelligible to any one who may look at it in the Magazine, I should add that the first paragraph (seventeen lines, on p. 78., dated from "Sherdington," and beginning "I dined," says the letter writer, "last Saturday with Sir John Guise, at Gloucester") is part of a letter purporting to be written by her lover; while all the remainder (on pp. 79-81.) is from Corinna's answer to it.

The worthless and forgotten work of which these letters form a part, consists of two volumes. The copy which I borrowed when I discovered what I have stated, consisted of a first volume of the second edition (1736), and a second volume of the first edition (1732). The title of the second volume (which I give as belonging to the earlier edition) is:

"The Honourable Lovers: or, the second and last Volume of Pylades and Corinna. Being the remainder of Love Letters, and other Pieces (in Verse and Prose), which passed between Richard Gwinnett, Esq.; of Great Shurdington, in Gloucestershire, and Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, Jun., of Great Russel Street, Bloomsbury. To which is added, a Collection of familiar Letters between Corinna, Mr. Norris, Capt. Hemington, Lady Chudleigh, Lady Pakington, &c. &c. All faithfully published from their original Manuscripts. London: printed in the Year M.DCC.XXXII. (Price 5s.)"

The title-page of the first volume (second edition) differs principally in having the statement that the book was "printed for E. Curll" (whose name does not appear in the earlier second volume, though perhaps it may have done so in the first of that earlier edition), and an announcement that the fidelity of the publication is "attested, by Sir Edward Northey, Knight."

The work is a farrago of low rubbish utterly beneath criticism; and I should perhaps hardly think it worth while to say as much as I have said of it, had it not been that, in turning it about, I could not help feeling a suspicion that Daniel Defoe's hand was in the matter, at least so far as that papers that had belonged to him might have come into Curll's hands, and furnished materials for the work. It would be tedious to enter into details; but the question seemed to me to be one of some interest, because, in my own mind, it was immediately followed by another, namely, whether Daniel had not more to do than has been suspected with the History of Formosa? Those who are more familiar with Defoe than I am, will be better able to judge whether he was, as Psalmanazar says, "the person who Englished it from my Latin;" for the youth was as much disqualified for writing the book in English, by being a Frenchman, as he would have been if he had been a Formosan. He acknowledges that this person assisted him to correct improbabilities; but I do not know that he anywhere throws further light on the question respecting the help which he must have had. Daniel would be just the man to correct some gross improbabilities, and at the same time help him to some more probable fictions. Under this impression I recently inquired (see "N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 305.) respecting the authorship of Pylades and Corinna, and the possibility that it might be the work of Defoe; but I believe that my question has not been answered.

I have already trespassed unreasonably on your columns; but still I must beg, in justice to a man whose character, as I have said, I very highly respect, to add one remark. When his imposture is referred to, it is not always remembered that when he came to this country he was not his own master. It seems that he rambled away from his home in the South of France, when about fifteen years old; that he spent about two years in wandering about France and Germany, and astonishing people by pretending to be, at first a converted, and afterwards an unconverted, Formosan; that when performing this second, pagan, character, he arrived at Sluys, where a Scotch regiment in the Dutch service, under Brigadier Lauder, was stationed; that the chaplain, named Innes, detected the fraud, but instead of reproving the lad for his sin and folly, only considered how he might turn the cheat to his own advantage, and render it conducive to his own preferment. The abandoned miscreant actually went through the blasphemous mockery of baptizing the youth as a convert from heathenism; named him after the brigadier, who stood godfather: claimed credit from the Bishop of London for his zeal; and was by the kind prelate invited to bring his convert to London. The chaplain lost no time in accepting, was graciously received by the bishop and the archbishop, snapped up the first piece of preferment that would answer his views (it happened to be the office of chaplain-general to the forces in Portugal), and made off, leaving his convert to bear the storm which was sure to burst on him, as best he might. That a youth thus tutored and thus abandoned, before Johnson was born, should have lived to attract his society, and win from him the testimony that he was "the best man" whom he had ever known, gives him a claim to our respect, which seems to me to be strengthened by everything which I have been able to learn respecting him.

S. R. Maitland.

Gloucester.

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CONSECRATED ROSES, ETC.

(Vol. vii., p. 407.)

Had G.'s Query referred solely to the consecration of The Golden Rose, I might have given him a satisfactory answer by referring him to Cartari's essay on the subject entitled La Rosa d'Ora Pontificia, &c., 4to. 1681, and to the account (with accompanying engraving) of the Rose, Sword, and Cap consecrated by Julius III., and sent by him to Philip and Mary; and to Cardinal Pole's exposition of these Papal gifts, which are to be found in the 1st volume of F. Angeli Rocca, Opera Omnia (fol. Rome, 1719). In the authors to whom I have referred, much curious information will, however, be found. I take this opportunity of saying, that as I am about to submit a communication on the subject of The Golden Rose to the Society of Antiquaries, I shall feel obliged by any hints which may help me to render it more complete; and of putting on record in "N. & Q." the following particulars of the ceremonial, as it was performed on the 6th of March last, which I extract from the Dublin Weekly Telegraph of the 9th of April.

"On Sunday, the 6th [March, 1853], the Benediction of the Golden Rose, was, according to annual usage, performed by the Pontiff previously to High Mass, in the Sistine Chapel, celebrated by a cardinal, at which he assists every Sunday during Lent. To the more ancient practice of blessing, on the fourth Sunday of 'Quaresima,' a pair of gold and silver keys, touched with filings from the chains of St. Peter (which are still preserved in Rome), the Holy See has substituted that of the Benediction of the 'Rosa d'Oro,' to be presented, within the year, to some sovereign or other potentate, who has proved well deserving of the Church. The first positive record respecting the Golden Rose has been ascribed to the Pontificate of Leo IX. (1049-53); but a writer in the Civitta Catolica states that allusion to a census levied for its cost may be found in the annals of a still earlier period. The Pontiffs used formerly to present it annually to the Prefect of Rome, after singing Mass, on this Sunday, at the Lateran, and pronouncing a homily, during which they lifted the consecrated object in one hand whilst expounding to the people its mystic significance. Pius II. (1458) is the last Pope recorded to have thus preached in reference to and thus conferred the Golden Rose; and the first foreign potentate recorded to have received it from the Holy See is Fulk, Count of Anjou, to whom it was presented by Urban II. in 1096. A homily of Innocent III. also contains all explanation of this beautiful symbol—the precious metal, the balsam and musk used in consecrating it, being taken in mystic sense as allusion to the triple substance in the person of the Incarnate Lord—divinity, soul, and body. It is not merely a single flower, but an entire rose-tree that is represented—the whole about a foot in height, most delicately wrought in fine lamina of gold. This being previously deposited between lighted candelabra, on a table in the sacristy, is taken by the youngest cleric of the camera, to be consigned to his Holiness, after the latter has been vested for the solemnity, but before his assuming the mitre. After a beautiful form of prayer, with incense and holy water, the Pontiff then, holding the object in his hand, imparts the Benediction, introducing into the flower which crowns the graceful stem, and is perforated so as to provide a receptacle, balsam of Peru and powder of musk. He then passes with the usual procession into the Sistine, still carrying the rose in his left hand; and during the Mass it remains beneath the crucifix over the altar. If in the course of the year no donation of the precious object is thought advisable, the same is consecrated afresh on the anniversary following. Some have conjectured that the Empress of France will be selected by Pius IX. to receive this honour in the present instance; but this is mere conjecture. On a former occasion, it is true, the Golden Rose was conferred by him on another crowned head of the fairer sex—one entitled to more than common regards from the Supreme Pastor in adversity—the Queen of Naples."

William J. Thoms.

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CAMPBELL'S IMITATIONS.

(Vol. vi., p. 505.)

It is curious that two of the passages pointed out by Mr. Breen, as containing borrowed ideas, are those quoted by Alison in his recent volume (Hist. Eur., vol. i. pp. 429, 430.) to support his panegyric on Campbell, of whose "felicitous images" he speaks with some enthusiasm.

The propensity of Campbell to adapt or imitate the thoughts and expressions of others has often struck me. Let me then suggest the following (taken at random) as further, and I believe hitherto unnoticed, illustrations of that propensity:

Shakespeare has the hollow whistling of the southern wind.

Campbell thinks it necessary to explain this latter epithet in a note: "The moss of Switzerland, as well as that of the Tyrol, is remarkable for a bright smoothness approaching to the appearance of enamel." And yet was no one, or both, of the following passages floating in his brain when his pen traced the line?

W. T. M.

Hong Kong.

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"THE HANOVER RAT."

(Vol. vii. p. 206.)

An Essay on Irish Bulls is said to have found its way into a catalogue of works upon natural history; with which precedent in my favour, and pending the inquiries of naturalists, ratcatchers, and farmers into the history of the above-named formidable invader, I hope Mr. Hibberd will have no objection to my intruding a bibliographical curiosity under the convenient head he has opened for it in "N. & Q."

My book, then, bears the appropriate title, An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Hanover Rat, dedicated to P***m M******r, M.D., and S——y to the Royal Society, 8vo., pp. 24.: London, 1744.

The writer of this curious piece takes his cue from that remarkable production, An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Polype, 1743; in which the learned Mr. Henry Baker, in a letter to Martin Folkes, of 218 pages, 8vo., illustrated by a profusion of woodcuts, elaborately describes this link between the animal and vegetable creation, and the experiments he practised upon the same: commencing with "cutting off a polype's head," and so on through a series of scientific barbarities upon his little creature, which ended only in "turning a polype inside out!"

Following the plan of Mr. Baker, the anonymous author of The Hanover Rat tells us, that, after thirty years' laborious research, he had satisfied himself that this animal was not a native of these islands: "I cannot," he says, "particularly mark the date of its first appearance, yet I think it is within the memory of man;" and finding favour in its original mine affamÉe state with a few of the most starved and hungry of the English rats from the common sewer, he proceeds to show that it did extirpate the natives; but whether this is the best account, or whether the facts of the case as here set forth will satisfy your correspondent, is another thing. According to my authority, the aboriginal rat was, at the period of writing, sorely put to it to maintain his ground against the invading colonists and their unnatural allies the providers; and the present work seems to have been an effort on the part of one in the interest of the former to awaken them to a sense of their danger. In his laudable attempts to rally their courage, this advocate reminds them of a similar crisis when their country was infested with a species of frog called Dutch frogs: "which no sooner," says he, "began to be mischievous, than its growth and progress was stopped by the natives." "Had we," he continues, "but the same public spirit with our ancestors, we need not complain to-day of being eaten up by rats. Our country is the same, but alas! we feel no more the same affection for it." In this way he stimulates the invaded to a combined attack upon the common enemy, and we need not tell our readers how successfully, nor how desperate the struggle, the very next year; which ended in the complete ascendancy of the Hanover rat, or reigning family, over the unlucky Jacobite native. Under his figure of a rat, this Jacobite is very scurrilous indeed upon the Hanoverian succession; and, continuing his polypian imitations, relates a few coarse experiments upon his subject illustrative of its destructive properties, voracity, and sagacity, which set at nought "all the contrivances of the farmer to defend his barns; the trailer his warehouse; the gentleman his land; or the inferior people their cup-boards and small beer cellars. No bars or bolts can keep them out, nor can any gin or trap lay hold of them."

Luckily for us living in these latter days, we can extract amusement from topics of this nature, which would have subjected our forefathers to severe pains and penalties; and looking at the character and mischievous tendency of The Hanover Rat, I am curious to know if Mary Cooper, the publisher, was put under surveillance for her share in its production; for to me it appears a more aggravated libel upon the reigning family than that of the Norfolk Prophecy—for the publication of which, Boswell says, the great Samuel Johnson had to play at hide and seek with the officers of justice.

The advent of both Pretenders was preceded by straws like these cast out by their adherents, to try how the current set. The present jeu d'esprit, however, is a double-shotted one: for, not content with tampering with the public allegiance, this aboriginal rat seems more innocently enjoying a laugh at the Royal Society, and its ingenious fellow Mr. Baker, in as far as regards the aforesaid elaborate treatise upon polypes.

J. O.

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FONT INSCRIPTIONS.

(Vol. vii., p. 408.)

Mr. Ellacombe desires examples of these. I can supply the following:—

At Bradley, Lincolnshire, is a very large font, of the Decorated period, with this inscription round the bowl in black letter:

"Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and Criede, leren ye chyld yt es nede."

This is an early instance of the use of English for inscriptions. The sketch was engraved in the work on Baptismal Fonts.

At Threckingham, Lincolnshire, I believe I succeeded in deciphering an inscription round the font, which was said to have been previously studied in vain. It is somewhat defaced; but in all probability the words are,—

"Ave Maria gracia p... d... t..."

i.e. of course, "plena, dominus tecum." The bowl of the font is Early English; but the base, round which the inscription runs, appears to be of the fifteenth century.

At Burgate, Suffolk, an inscription in black letter is incised on the upper step of the font:

"[Orate pro an—b'] Will'mi Burgate militis et dne Elionore uxoris eius qui istum fontem fieri fecerunt."

Sir William Burgate died in 1409. It is engraved in the Proceedings of the Bury and West Suffolk ArchÆological Institute.

At Caistor, by Norwich:

"Orate pro animab ... liis ... ici de Castre."

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:

"QVI . CREDIDE RIT . ET . BAPTI ZATVS . FVERIT SALVVS . ERIT."	"VOCE . PATER NATUS . CORPORE FLAMEN . AVE. MAT. 3."
"CHRISTVM . IN DVISTIS . QVOT QVOT . BAPTI ZATI . ESTIS."	"I . AM . THY . GOD AND . THE . GOD OF . THY . SEEDE. GEN."

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^t."

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

The other at Swarby, in the same county:

C. R. M.

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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.

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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.

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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.]