  (Vol. ii., p. 146.; Vol. viii., p. 237.) When I gave some account of La Tina of Antonio Malatesti, and its dedication to Milton, two years since, I was not aware that it had been printed, as I had no other edition of Gamba's Serie dell' Edizioni de' Testi di Lingua, than the first printed in 1812. That account was derived from the original MS. which formerly passed through my hands. I fear that my friend Mr. Bolton Corney will be disappointed if he should meet with a copy of the printed book, for the MS. contained no other dedication than the inscription on the title-page, of which I made a tracing. It represents an inscribed stone tablet, in the following arrangement: "LA Tina Equiuoci Rusticali di Antonio Malatesti co- posti nella sua Villa di Taiano il Settembre dell' L'Anno, 1637. Sonetti Ciquanta Dedicati all' Illmo Signore Et Padrone Ossmo Il Signor' Giouanni Milton Nobil' Inghilese." I copied at the time eight of these equivocal sonnets, and in my former notice gave one as a specimen. They are certainly very ingenious, and may be "graziosissimi" to an Italian ear and imagination; but I cannot think that the pure mind of Milton would take much delight in obscene allusions, however neatly wrapped up. Milton seems to have dwelt with pleasure on his intercourse with these witty, ingenious, and learned men, during his two-months' sojourn at Florence; and it is remarkable that Nicolas Heinsius has spoken of the same men, in much the same terms, in his dedication to Carlo Dati of the second book of his Italici Componimenti:
And, after mentioning others, he adds:
One feels some decree of disappointment at not meeting here with the name of Milton. Of the distinguished men mentioned by Milton, some interesting notices occur in that curious little volume, the Bibliotheca Aprosiana. Benedetto Buommattei and Carlo Dati are well known from their important labours; and of the others there are scattered notices in Rilli Notizie degli Uomini Illustre Fiorentine, and in Salvini Fasti Consolari dell' Accademia Fiorentina. I have an interesting little volume of Latin verses by Jacopo Gaddi, with the following title Poetica Jacobi Gaddii Corona e Selectis Poematiis, Notis Allegoriis contexta, BononiÆ, 1637, 4to. There is a good deal of ingenious and pleasing burlesque poetry extant by Antonio Malatesti. I have before mentioned his Sphinx: of this I have a dateless edition, apparently printed about the middle of the last century at Florence: the title is La Sfinge Enimmi del Signor Antonio Malatesti. Commendatory verses are prefixed by Chimentelli, Coltellini, and Galileo Galilei. The last, from the celebrity of the writer, may deserve the small space it will occupy in your pages. It is itself an enigma: "Del Signor Galileo Galilei Sonetto. Mostro son' io piÙ strano, e piÙ difforme, Che l'ArpiÀ, la Sirena, o la Chimera; NÈ in terra, in aria, in acqua È alcuna fiera, Ch' abbia di membra cosÌ varie forme. Parte a parte non hÔ che sia conforme, PiÙ che s' una sia bianca, e l' altra nera; Spesso di Cacciator dietro hÔ una schiera, Che de' miei piÈ van ritracciando l' orme. Nelle tenebre oscure È il mio soggiorno; Che se dall' ombre al chiaro lume passo, Tosto l' alma da me sen fugge, come Sen fugge il sogno all' apparir del giorno, E le mie membra disunito lasso, E l' esser perdo con la vita, È l nome." Three more sonnets by this illustrious man are printed by Salvini in his Fasti, of which he says:
Dr. Fellowes was not singular in confounding Dati and Deodati; it has been done by Fenton and others: but that Dr. Symmons, in his Life of Milton (p. 133.), should transform La Tina into a wine-press, is ludicrously amusing. La Tina is the rustic mistress to whom the sonnets are supposed to be addressed; and every one knows that rusticale and contadinesca is that naÏve and pleasing rustic style in which the Florentine poets delighted, from the expressive nature of the patois of the Tuscan peasantry; and it might have been said of Malatesti's sonnets, as of another rustic poet: "Ipsa Venus lÆtos jam nunc migravit in agros Verbaque Aratoris Rustica discit Amor." I may just remark that the Clementillo of Milton should not be rendered Clementini, but Chimentelli. As Rolli tells us,—
Mickleham. ATTAINMENT OF MAJORITY.(Vol. viii., pp. 198. 250.) I greatly regret that there should be anything in the matter or manner of my Query on this subject to induce Mr. De Morgan to reply to it more as if repelling an offence, than assisting in the investigation of an interesting question on a subject with which he is supposed to be especially conversant. I can assure him that I had no other object in writing ninth numerically instead of literally, or in omitting the words he has restored in brackets, or in italicising two words to which I wished my question more particularly to refer, than that of economising space and avoiding needless repetition; and in the use of the word "usage" rather than "law," of which he also complains, I was perhaps unduly influenced by the title of his own treatise, from which I was quoting. But however I may have erred from exact quotation, it is manifest I did not misunderstand the sense of the passage, since Mr. De Morgan now repeats its substance in these words,—
This is clearly at direct issue with Ben Jonson, whose introduced phrases, "pleaded nonage," "wardship," "pupillage," &c., seem to smack too much of legal technology to countenance the supposition of poetic license. But had I not accidentally met with an interesting confirmation of Ben Jonson's law of usage, or usage of law, I should not have put forth my Query at all, nor presumed to address it to Professor De Morgan; my principal reason for so doing being that the interest attaching to discovered evidence of a forgotten usage in legal reckoning, must of course be increased tenfold if it should appear to have been unknown to a gentleman of such deep and acknowledged research into that and kindred subjects. In a black-letter octavo entitled A Concordancie of Yeares, published in and for the year 1615, and therefore about the very time when Ben Jonson was writing, I find the following in chap. xiii.:
Here, at least, there can be no supposition of dramatic fiction; the book from which I have made this extract was written by Arthur Hopton, a distinguished mathematician, a scholar of Oxford, a student in the Temple; and the volume itself is dedicated to "The Right Honourable Sir Edward Coke, Knight, Lord Chiefe Justice of England," &c. Leeds, Sept. 10. JOHN FREWEN.(Vol. viii., p. 222.) He is supposed to have been the son of Richard Frewen, of Earl's Court in Worcestershire, and was born either at that place or in its immediate vicinity in the early part of the year 1558. Richard Frewen purchased the presentation to Northiam rectory, in Sussex, of Viscount Montague, and presented John Frewen to it in Nov. 1583; and
3. He edited and wrote the preface to—
6. A large unpublished work in MS. entitled "Grounds and Principles of Christian Religion," left unfinished (probably age and infirmity prevented him from completing it): it consisted of seven books, of which two only (the fourth and fifth, of 95 and 98 folio pages respectively) have been preserved. John Frewen had three wives, and by each of the first two several children, of whom the following lived to grow up, viz. by Eleanor his first wife, (1.) Accepted Frewen, Archbp. of York; (2.) Thankful F., Purse Bearer and Secretary of Petitions to Lord Keeper Coventry; (3.) John F., Rector of Northiam; (4.) Stephen F., Alderman of the Vintry Ward, London; (5.) Mary, wife of John Bigg of Newcastle-upon-Tyne; (6.) Joseph F. By his second wife, Helen, daughter of —— Hunt, J.F. had (7.) Benjamin, Citizen of London; (8.) Thomas F.; (9.) Samuel, Joseph, Thomas, and Samuel joined Cromwell's army for invading Ireland; and one of them (Captain Frewen) fell at the storming of Kilkenny; another of them died at Limerick of the plague, which carried off General Freton; the other (Thomas) founded a family at Castle Connel, near Limerick. John Frewen's Sermons in 1612 are in some respects rare; but the following copies are extant, viz. one in the Bodleian at Oxford; one in the University Library at Cambridge; one in possession of Mr. Frewen at Brickwall, Northiam; and one sold by Kerslake of Bristol, for 7s. 6d., to the Rev. John Frewen Moor, of Bradfield, Berks. If R. C. Warde, of Kidderminster, has a copy which he would dispose of, he may communicate with T.F., Post-office, Northiam, who would be glad to purchase it. "VOIDING KNIFE," "VOIDER," AND "ALMS-BASKET."(Vol. vi., pp. 150. 280.; Vol. viii., p. 232.) In later times (the sixteenth century) the good old custom of placing an alms-dish on the table was discontinued, and with less charitable intentions came the less refined custom of removing the broken victuals after a meal by means of a voiding-knife and voider: the latter was a basket into which were swept by a large wand, usually of wood, or voiding-knife, as it was termed, all the bones and scraps left upon the trenchers or scattered about the table. Thus, in the old plays, Lingua, Act V. Sc. 13.: "Enter Gustus with a voiding-knife;" and in A Woman killed with Kindness, "Enter three or four serving men, one with a voider and wooden knife to take away." The voider was still sometimes called the alms-basket, and had its charitable uses in great and rich men's houses: one of which was to supply those confined in gaols for debt, and such prisoners as had no means to purchase any food. In Green's Tu Quoque, a spendthrift is cast into prison; the jailer says to him:
To which he replies:
Even this poor allowance to the distressed prisoners passed through several ordeals before it came to them; and the best and most wholesome portions were filched from the alms-basket, and sold by the jailers at a low price to people out of the prison. In the same play it is related of a miser, that—
In the ordinances of Charles II. (Ord. and Reg. Soc. Ant. 367.), it is commanded—
The alms-basket was also called a maund, and those who partook of its contents maunders. Old Bond Street. THE LETTER "H" IN HUMBLE.(Vol. viii., p. 229.) The recent attempt to introduce a mispronunciation of the word humble should be resisted by every one who has learned the plain and simple rule of grammar, that "a becomes an before a vowel or a silent h." That the rule obtained a considerable time ago, we have only to look into the Book of Common Prayer to prove, where the congregation are exhorted to come "with an humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart," and I believe it will be admitted that the compilers of that work fully understood the right pronunciation. It may assist to settle the question by giving the etymology of the word humble. It is derived from the Celtic uim, the ground, Latin humus. Umal in Celtic is humble, lowly, obedient; and the word signifies the bending of the mind or disposition, just as a man would kneel or become prostrate before a superior. In the course of a somewhat long life I have resided in the North of England, in the West, and in London, upwards of twenty years each, and my experience is directly the reverse of that of Mr. Dawson. I have very rarely heard the h omitted in humble, and when I have heard it, always considered a vulgarity. The u at the beginning of a word is always aspirated. I believe the only words in which the initial h is not pronounced are derived from the Latin. If that were the general rule, which, however, it is not, as in habit, herb, &c., still, where h precedes u, it would be pronounced according to the universal rule for the aspiration of u. The letter "h" to be passed unsounded in those words which are of Latin origin.—Try it: "Ha! 'tis a horrible hallucination To grudge our hymns their halcyon harmonies, When in just homage our rapt voices rise To celebrate our heroes in meet fashion; Whose hosts each heritage and habitation, Within these realms of hospitable joy, Protect securely 'gainst humiliation, When hostile foes, like harpies, would annoy. Habituated to the sound of h In history and histrionic art, We deem the man a homicide of speech, Maiming humanity in a vital part, Whose humorous hilarity would treat us, In lieu of h, with a supposed hiatus." SCHOOL LIBRARIES.(Vol. viii., p. 220.) I have great pleasure in removing from the mind of your correspondent an erroneous impression which must materially affect his good opinion of a school to which I am sincerely attached. He asks if in any of the public schools there are libraries of books giving general information accessible to the scholars. Now my information only refers to one, that of Eton. There is a library at Eton consisting of some thousand volumes, filled with books of all kinds, ancient and modern, valuable and valueless. It is open to the 150 first in the school on payment of eighteen shillings per annum, and on their refusal the option of becoming subscribers descends to the next in gradation. The list, however, is never full. The money collected goes to the support of a librarian, and to buy pens, ink, and paper, and the surplus (necessarily small) to the purchase of books. The basis of the library is the set of Delphin classics, presented by George I. The late head master (now provost) has been a most munificent contributor; Prince Albert has also presented several valuable volumes. Whenever the Prince has come to Eton he has always visited the library, and taken great interest in its welfare; and on his last visit said to the provost that he should be quite ready and willing to obey the call whenever he was asked to lay the first stone of a museum in connexion with the library. The free grammar school at Macclesfield, Cheshire, has always had a library. It did contain some rare volumes of the olden time; it was at various times more or less supported by a small payment from the scholars. Some years since Mr. Osborn, the then head master, solicited subscriptions from former pupils, and with some success. Of the present state of the school library I know nothing. At Winchester there are libraries for the commoners and scholars containing books for general reading: they are under the several charge of the commoner-prefects and the prefect of library, who lend them on application to the juniors. Christ's Hospital has a library such as inquired after by Mr. Weld Taylor. The late Mr. Thackeray, of the Priory, Lewisham (who died about two years ago), bequeathed to this school his valuable library of books on general literature for the use of the boys. Previously to this bequest the collection of books was small. DR. JOHN TAYLOR.(Vol. i., p. 466.) My attention has been caught by some remarks in the early volumes of your work upon my learned ancestor Dr. John Taylor, minister at Norwich, and subsequently divinity tutor at Warrington. Whatever opinion may have been attributed to Dr. Parr concerning Dr. Taylor, this I know, that on revisiting Norwich he desired my father (the Dr.'s grandson) to show him the house inhabited by him while he was the minister of the Octagon Chapel. Dr. Parr looked serious and solemn, and in his usual energetic manner pronounced, "He was a great scholar." Dr. John Taylor was buried at Kirkstead[4], Lancashire, where his tomb is distinguished by the following simple inscription: "Near to this place lies interr'd The following inscription, in Latin, was composed by Dr. Parr for a monumental stone erected by grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the Octagon Chapel, Norwich: "Joanni Taylor, S.T.P. His first appointment, as minister of the Gospel, was at Kirkstead Chapel. PORTRAIT OF SIR ANTHONY WINGFIELD.(Vol. viii., p. 245.) It is most likely that Q., who inquired relative to a picture of Sir Anthony Wingfield, may occasionally meet with an engraving of this worthy, though the depository of the original portrait is unknown. The tale told Horace Walpole by the housekeeper at the house of the Nauntons at Letheringham, Suffolk, is not correct. Sir Anthony was a favourite of the monarch, and was knighted by him for his brave conduct at Terouenne and Tournay. A private plate of Sir Anthony exists, the original portrait from which it was taken being at Letheringham at the time the engraving was made. The position of the hand in the girdle only indicates the fashion of portraiture at the time, and is akin to the frequent custom of placing one arm a-kimbo in modern paintings. The Query of your correspondent opens a tale of despoliation perhaps unparalleled even in the days of iconoclastic fury, and but very imperfectly known. The estate of Letheringham devolved, about the middle of the last century, upon William Leman, Esq., who, being obliged to maintain his right against claimants stating they descended from a branch of the Naunton family who had migrated into Normandy at the end of the preceding century, was placed in a position of considerable difficulty to defend his occupation of the house and lands. I will not say by whom, but in 1770 down came the residence in which the author of the well-known Fragmenta Regalia had resided, and, what is far worse, the Priory Church, which, after the Dissolution, was made parochial, and which was filled with tombs, effigies, and brasses to members of the family—Bovilles, Wingfields, and Nauntons—was also levelled with the ground. It was stated at the time that the sacred edifice had only become dilapidated from age, and that the parishioners were therefore obliged to do something. What was done, however, was no re-edification of the fabric, but its entire destruction, and the erection of a new church. Fortunately, Horace Walpole saw the edifice before the contractor for the new building had cast his "desiring eyes" upon it, and has recorded his impressions in one of his letters. More fortunate still, the late Mr. Gough and Mr. Nichols visited it, and the former employed the well-known topographical draughtsman, the late James Johnson of Woodbridge, Suffolk, to copy some of the effigies, which were afterwards engraved and inserted in the second volume of the Sepulchral Monuments. The zeal of Johnson, however, led him to preserve, by his minute delineation, not only every monument (only two, I think, are given by Gough), but also the interior and exterior of the church, with the
Norwich. William Naunton, son and heir of Thomas Naunton (temp. Hen. VII.), and Margery, daughter and heiress of Richard Busiarde, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Anthony Wingfield. Their only child, Henry Naunton, was the father of two sons, viz. Robert the secretary (temp. James I.), whose son died unmarried, and daughter, married to Paul Viscount Bayning, died without issue; and William Naunton (fil. 2s). His son and heir, who married a Coke, had one daughter, Theophila, married to William Leman (ancestor of the family whose great estates are in search of an owner): their only issue, Theophila, married Thomas Rede, who thereby became possessed of Letheringham in Suffolk, and the whole of the Naunton property. His estates went to his son Robert, who, dying without issue in 1822, left them much diminished to his nephew, the Rev. Robert Rede Cooper, second son of the Rev. Samuel Lovick Cooper and Sarah Leman, youngest daughter, and eventually heiress, of the above Thomas Rede. The Rev. Robert Rede Rede (for he assumed that name) died a few years ago possessed of Ashmans Park, Suff., which was independent of the Naunton property, and of certain heir-looms, the sole remains of the great estates of the "Nauntons of Letheringham," which continue in the possession of the descendants of that family. It is at Ashmans that the portrait inquired for by your correspondent Q. will probably be found. Whether that estate has already been sold by the daughters of the late possessor (four co-heiresses) I am unable to say. BARNACLES.(Vol. viii., p. 223.) In reference to the article on the barnacle bird in "N. & Q." as above, I send you a paper which I lately put in our local journal (The Tralee Chronicle), containing a collection of notices of the curious errors and gradual correction of them, on the subject of the barnacle. I fear it may be long for your columns, but don't know how to shorten it; nor can I well omit another amusing notice of the subject, to which, since I published it, an intelligent friend called my attention; it is from the Memoirs of Lady Fanshaw:—
Belmont. As a tail-piece to the curious information communicated respecting these strange creatures in Vol. i., pp. 117. 169. 254. 340., Vol. viii., pp. 124. 223., may be added an advertisement, extracted from the monthly compendium annexed to La Belle AssemblÉe, or Bell's Court and Fashionable Magazine, for June, 1807, in the following terms:
PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE.Precision in Photographic Processes.—I have for a long period observed, and been much annoyed at the circumstance, that many of your photographic correspondents are very remiss when they favour you with recipes for certain processes, in not stating the specific gravity of the articles used; also, in giving the quantities, in not stating if it is by weight or measure. To illustrate my meaning more fully, I will refer to Vol. viii., p. 252., where a correspondent, in his albumen process, adds "chloride of barium, 7¼ dr." Now, as this article is prepared and sold both in crystals and in a liquid state, it would be desirable to know which of the two is meant before his disciples run the risk of spoiling their paper and losing their time. How easy would it be to prefix the letter f where fluid oz., dr., or other quantity is meant. Trusting that this hint may in future induce your correspondents to be as explicit as possible on all points, believe me to be an Tent for Collodion.—As I have frequently benefited from the hints of your correspondents, I in my turn hasten to communicate a very simple plan I have contrived for a portable tent for the collodion process, in the hope it may be found to answer with others as well as it has done with me: it is as follows. Round the legs of my camera stand (a tripod one) I have made a covering for two of the sides, of a double lining of glazed yellow calico, with a few loops at the foot to stake to the ground; the third side is made of thick dark cloth, much wider and larger than to cover the side, which is fastened at one leg of the stand to the calico. The other side is provided with loops to fasten to corresponding buttons on the other leg, and by bending on my knees I can easily pull the dark cloth over my head and back, fasten the loops to the buttons, and then I can perfectly perform any manipulation required, without the risk of any ray of white light entering; and certainly nothing can be more portable. The simplicity of the thing makes any farther description of it unnecessary, to say nothing of your valuable space. Mr. Sisson's Developing Solution.—The Rev. Mr. Sisson, in a letter I received from him a few days ago, stated that he had been trying, at the recommendation of a gentleman who had written to him upon the subject, a stronger developing solution than that the formula for which he published some time back in your pages, and that it gave splendid positive pictures with very short exposure in the camera. Since I received his letter I have been able to corroborate his testimony in favour of the stronger solution, and have much pleasure in sending you the formula for the benefit of your readers. It is this: 1½ drachms of protosulphate of iron in five ounces of water, 1 drachm of nitrate of lead, letting it settle for some hours; pour off the clear liquid, and then add to it 2 drachms of acetic acid. 20. Compton Terrace, Islington. Mr. Stewart's Pantograph.—Will some of your photographic readers, who may know the proper size of Mr. Stewart's pantograph, give a detailed description of it? We should have focal length of lens, size of box, and the length of the sliding, parts of it. Cannot the lens be made fast in the middle of the box, provided the frames can be adjusted for different-sized pictures? |
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