then was the great mode unperfect, and the small mode tion was invented, they have set a pointe in the circle or Allow me to add, in conclusion, that Alsted and Solomon de Caus are no authorities in musical matters. If your correspondent wishes to know more about our early musical symbols, I beg to refer him to Thomas Ravenscroft's Briefe Discourse of the true but neglected use of charactring the Degrees by their Perfection, Imperfection, and Diminution in Measurable Musicke, 4to. Printed EDWARD F. RIMBAULT. by E. Allde, 1614. 66 THE TWO PASSAGES IN KING LEAR." In the passage from Act II. Sc. 1., Mr. Singer would change and found into unfound; but he makes no remark upon the object of the word dispatch. MR. COLLIER, on the other hand, would retain and found, but he understands the object of "dispatch" to be Edgar, who is to be first caught and then dispatched! Our modern binary and ternary times were formerly reversed. The ancients called the binary measure imperfect, and the ternary perfect time. For this reason they expressed the latter by a circle, as the most perfect of all figures. Binary, In such a dilemma, it is surely excusable, in this as we have seen, was expressed by a demi or imcase at least, to be a "rigid stickler for the inteperfect circle, which is our sign for common time.grity of the old copies." I, and doubtless nineThe reason why the ternary or triple time was called perfect may perhaps be traced back to very ancient opinions among the Pythagoreans, who held the number three to be perfect, while they considered the number two to be connected with the evil principle, and as the indication of mischief and confusion: hence the second month of the year dedicated to Pluto by the Romans. In all The signs thus invented for musical purposes, were afterwards applied to a different use. the old dance-books (vide Playford's English Dancing Muster, 1651, &c.), men and women are distinguished by the circle, with the central point, and the demi or half circle. This use of the early musical character was evidently founded upon the ideas of perfection and imperfection above alluded to; the circle, which is a perfect figure, denoting the man, and the semicircle, which is imperfect, the woman. Your correspondent's suggestion as to the origin of the crossed C is entirely wrong, as I shall now proceed to show. The "vertical line impaling the two lozenges, with a third lozenge between them, but on one side," which is found in old (not the oldest) church music, relates to the pitch, and has nothing whatever to do with the time. It is the old F clef, -a compound character, formed of three notes, one placed on the line, and two others in the adjoining spaces. The vertical line may be added or not. The C clef was distinguished from the F by having only the two notes in the spaces. These clefs are common to the Gregorian music. A full account of them may be found in Gafurius, Practica Musica, lib. i. cap. iii. fol. 4. b, edit. 1496. The G clef, a compound character of the letters G and S, for the syllable Sol, was invented by Lampadius about 1530. tenths of the readers of Shakspeare, understand the passage in this way: "Let him fly far; Not in this land shall he remain uncaught; Here there is an expressive pause after found, as though the punishment consequent upon Edgar's capture were too terrible and indeterminate for immediate utterance. Dispatch is addressed to Edmond, and simply means, "Get on with your story," which in fact he does at the conclusion of Gloster's speech. As to the second proposed correction (first line in Act IV.), I protest against it also. It would be injurious to the true sense, which requires the opposition of known (or open) contempt, to contempt concealed by flattery. Sir Joshua Reynolds has so well explained this passage that to say anything more would be to repeat him. Leeds. AMBER WITCH. (Vol. v., pp. 510. 569.) A. E. B. Your inquirer on this subject will find his doubts resolved by referring to a review of the books in question in vol. lxxiv. of the Quarterly; where (p. 223.) it is stated, that in consequence of a controversy respecting its authenticity, which had arisen in the German newspapers, the editor, Dr. Meinhold, published in the Allgemeine Zeitung a letter claiming the authorship; and it appears that his design in practising this deception was to mystify the "school of Strauss and Co.," in which he seems amply to have succeeded. E. H. Y. Dr. Meinhold, the professed editor of the "Amber Witch," is himself the author. Some controversy in the German newspapers as to whether it was an authentic history or not was put an end to by a letter from Dr. Meinhold (which appeared in the Allgemeine Zeitung) distinctly avowing himself as the author. I have heard that Dr. Meinhold, being dissatisfied with the percmptory manner with which the Tubingen reviewers, Strauss and his followers, professed the unerring certainty with which they could discover, from internal evidence, the degree of credulity to be attached to any narrative whatever, determined to put their infallibility to the test, by writing the "Amber Witch." His success was complete. The Straussites were completely taken in, and pronounced in favour of the authenticity of the "Amber Witch" with as little hesitation as they had previously shown in deciding against the authenticity of great portions of the sacred writings. Oxon. R. C. C. MR. STRICKLAND will find in L'Univers Pittoresque, under the head "Iles de L'Afrique," the question of the discovery of the Mauritius, and ad LINES ON SUCCESSION OF THE KINGS OF ENGLAND. jacent islands, by the Portuguese, ably, and perhaps as fully discussed as can be at present, until the archives containing the hydrographical records of the early Portuguese voyagers are opened to the savans of Europe. A collection of old Portuguese and other charts edited by Eugene de Froberville, and published at Paris a few years ago, are well worthy of the attention of those curious on the subject. They are in the British Museum, may be found under "Africa, East Coasts," and their press or table mark is— 69295. T. 20. 700. S. 1." Froberville, in his account of Rodriguez, in the Iles de L'Afrique (ut suprà), quotes freely from a MS. written by Pingré, which contained "longues descriptions des animaux et des plantes de Rodriguez;" and also states, apparently on the authority of this MS., that the Solitaire was in existence as late as the year 1761. MR. STRICKLAND, in his valuable work, The Dodo and its Kindred, speaking of the MS. journal of Sieur D. B., hopes it "will not be allowed to remain much longer unpublished. As MR. S. ("N. & Q.," Vol. i., p. 411.) again alludes to the MS. of D. B., I beg leave to mention that it was published at Paris, in 1694, under the following title, Les Voyages faits par le Sieur D. B. aux Isles Dauphine, ou Madagascar, & Bourbon, ou Mascarenne, ès années 1669, 70, 71, & 72. The dedication of this work is signed Dubois; and in the Bibliothèque Universelle des Voyages, by Richarderie, Paris, 1808, the author's name is W. PINKERTON. stated to be Dubois. Ham. BURIALS. (Vol. v., pp. 320. 549. 596. 613.) Will your correspondent ALFRED GATTY kindly point out any authority for his position, p. 613., "that a clergyman would render himself liable to suspension by his bishop, who either allowed interments to take place in the churchyard without the burial service, or, on the other hand, used the service in unconsecrated or unlicensed ground? The question of the use of the burial service by a clergyman in unconsecrated ground has become of great local interest in Birmingham, in consequence of the rector of St. Martin's having recently attended the funeral of a member of his congregation in the "unconsecrated and unlicensed ground" of a joint-stock cemetery in the town, and there officiated in his canonicals, using the whole Church of England service for the burial of the dead; although there is a Church of England cemetery, duly consecrated and established at great expense, immediately adjoining. The irregularity and impropriety of such conduct is indeed very glaring (Vol. v., p. 549.); but I can find neither canon, rubric, nor law of the church that makes it illegal. The 71st and 72nd appear to be the only canons bearing on the point; the rubrics for the Communion of the Sick and the Private Baptism of Children contain a stringent caution as to their use out of church, except in cases of sudden danger or inability to leave home; the Conventicle Act (22 Geo. II. c. 1.) only refers to the "exercise of religion in other manner than according to the Liturgy and practice of the Church of England;" and finally, the statutes of Elizabeth respecting attendance at church speak only of "their parish church or chapel accustomed, or upon reasonable let thereof, some usual place of common prayer." The whole matter, therefore, seems to resolve itself into a question of good taste and consistent churchmanship. It would be a great favour to obtain an early answer. BENBOW. Birmingham. DR. CUMMING ON ROMANS VIII. (Vol. vi., pp. 6, 7.) On the publication of my remarks, I thought it right to call Dr. Cumming's attention to them, and in reply I have received a private letter from him, with a request that I would communicate the substance of it to "N. & Q." 1. In speaking of "the poet who is supposed to tread nearest to the inspired," Dr. Cumming did not intend to point to any individual, but to the whole class of poets. The meaning, therefore, is not, as I supposed, "that poet who is generally regarded as approaching nearest to the inspired poets," but "a poet, aiter of that class whose genius is considered to approach nearer to inspiration than any other human talent or endowand can only plead in excuse my want of acquaintment." I have to beg pardon for my mistake, ance with the writer's style. 2. As to the quotations from Goethe and Luther, Dr. Cumming considers that, since they are avowedly quotations, it was needless to mention the work from which they were immediately derived. He states that the chapter on Romans viii. is the only part of his Voices of the Night in which he has made any use of Olshausen, and that in others of his works he has amply acknowledged his obliintention of "parading" the names of other comgations to that commentator. He disavows all mentators, and states that his acquaintance with the Fathers is derived from their own writings, not from secondary sources. And, generally, he is of opinion that express references are not required in religious books of a popular and practical character. 3. "It is perfectly true," writes Dr. Cumming, "that I did mistake Bettina for a creature of Goethe's imagination, and therefore supposed the noble and beautiful thought to be Goethe's own, and Bettina merely to be the organ of it." I am bound to acknowledge the candour and the good temper with which my remarks have been received; and having, as I trust, now fairly stated Dr. Cumming's side of the question, I shall not add any comment on those parts of it as to which I am unable to agree with him. N.B. In the sixth line of the poetry, page 7, from has been printed instead of for. J. C. ROBERTSON. ON SOME DISPUTED PASSAGES IN SHAKSPEARE. (Vol. vi., pp. 8. 26.) After the apology which you have deemed it necessary to make to your readers for the large space occasionally occupied by Shakspearian criticism, I should have scrupled again to trespass in this way, but that I feel called upon to notice MR. COLLIER's very courteous appeal to me respecting my note on two passages in King Lear (Vol. vi., p. 8.), in which I have unwittingly misrepresented his reading of one of them. It is true that the absence of the capital letter at the word "dispatch," and the period after it, escaped my observation; but I must confess that I do not feel satisfied with the view MR. COLLIER takes of the passage, "that Gloster intends to say when Edgar is found he should be dispatched." The pointing of the old copies, in which a semicolon occurs after the words "And found," is in my mind decisively against it. It may be that Gloster merely is meant to say, that all possible dispatch shall be used in having the fugitive Edgar pursued. Being one of those who received with acclaim the emendation in Coriolanus found in MR. COLLIER's second folio, of bisson multitude for bosom multiplied, perhaps I may be allowed to add a few words in reply to your correspondent A. E. B. (Vol. vi., p. 26.), who, as he once designated himself" a charmed listener" to Shakspeare, will not listen approvingly to annotators "charm they never so wisely." On this occasion he dissents from the “general acclaim" with which this excellent conjectural emendation has been received, in a very elaborate and ingenious argument, which I regret to say has failed to convince me. I still think that had MR. COLLIER's second folio only afforded this one very happy correction, it would have done good service to the text of a play in which the printer's errors are numerous. To the argument of your excellent correspondent, it seems to me, one fatal objection offers itself: the context requires a plural noun to be in concord with they and their, and therefore "this bosome multiplied" cannot be right; for dare we say the poet was wrong? Think of the greatest master of language the world ever saw writing "this bosome multiplied. What's like to be their words: We did request it: ""&c. I submit that we may confidently read the passage thus: "Th' accusation Which they have often made against the senate, 66 Your correspondent will see that I adopt Mason's correction of motive for native, which he, I think unjustly, treats as meddling." At the risk of being placed in the same category, I will add that in the very next speech of Coriolanus we have another absurd printer's error. The first folio gives us To iumpe a body with a dangerous physic." The second folio improves this into jumpe. I read (meo periculo), To impe a body, i. e. restore or increase its power. This term from falconry was familiar to the poet. We have all the same object in view, I trust; that is, to restore, as far as it is possible, the text from the fatal injuries inflicted on it by careless printing and imprudent "meddling." I yield to no one in awful reverence for its integrity, but cannot persuade myself that the printers, or the player-editors of the old copy, have infallibly given what Shakspeare wrote, especially when it leads to absurdity or nonsense. "Oh! mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art; but are also like the phænomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,-like frost and snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert-but that, the farther we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement, where the careless eye had seen nothing but accident." * I conclude with these eloquent words, after the dry bones of our verbal disputes, that the accessory, as Sir Henry Wotton says, may help out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and to leave the reader con la bocca dolce. Mickleham. S. W. SINGER. Emaciated Monumental Effigies (Vol. v., p. 497.). -There is in Lichfield Cathedral an emaciated figure shown as part of the monument of Dean Heywood, who died October 25, 1492. Shaw (Staffordshire, vol. i. p. 249.) quotes the following account of the monument from Dugdale's Visitation in the Herald's College :— "In a south wall opposite the choir is a very elegant monument of a man in full proportion, with a red gown and white hood, and over that a red one: his hands are elevated as in prayer, and his head reclines upon a blue cushion, and under that is placed a red one. In the bottom of the monument immediately under him is the figure of a corpse laid out in its winding sheet, his arms crossed over his gown. sheet is tied at the top, and the head is laid upon a blue pillow." The Shaw gives an engraving of it in its complete state taken from Dugdale's Visitation; but I believe the bottom part is all that now remains. 30. Clarence Street, Islington. C. H. B. "La Garde meurt" (Vol. v., p. 425.; Vol. vi., p. 11.).-A note to A Voice from Waterloo, one of the most interesting and authentic and carefully compiled accounts of the battle which has yet appeared, written by Serjeant-Major Cotton of the 7th Hussars, who was orderly to Sir Hussey Vivian in the battle, tells us — "It was Halkett himself who marked out Cambronne, and, having ridden forward at full gallop, was on the point of cutting down the French general, when "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth," by Mr. De Quincey, in the London Magazine, vol. v *Note 1823, p. 356. the latter cried out for quarter and received it. This fact does not well agree with the words popularly ascribed to Cambronne, La garde meurt, et ne se rend pas.' After having surrendered, Cambronne tried to escape from Halkett, whose horse fell wounded to the ground. But, in a few seconds, Halkett overtook his prisoner, and seizing him by the aiguillette, hurried him to the Osnabruckers, and sent him in charge of a sergeant to the Duke of Wellington. Cambronne was subsequently sent to Ostend with Count Lobau and other prisoners. It was only the old guard that wore the aiguillette. "The words ascribed to Cambronne, the guard dies, it never surrenders,' of which we see such numbers of engravings, and which illustrates so many pocket handkerchiefs and ornaments so much of their crockery, &c., have, notwithstanding they were never uttered, made a fortune; all French historians repeat them. I am in possession of a letter, written to me by a friend of Cambronne's, and who asked the general whether it was true that he had uttered the words in question; the reply was (I quote Mr. E. G. Dickson's own words), Monsieur, on m'a debité cette réponse.' The gallant Sir Colin Halkett, I believe, still survives, and, if he be a reader of "N. & Q" may perhaps condescend to correct any misstatements that there may be in the above tale. L. I am surprised that two Numbers have appeared without R. C. B.'s having been apprised of his strange mistake of attributing to Murat the notorious myth which was invented for General Cambronne at Waterloo, and which have been, with true French modesty and veracity, inscribed on a monument erected to him (Cambronne) at Nantes, the fact being that he surrendered without resistance, and was taken to the village of Waterloo. The French, imagining that he was killed, invented this fine saying for him, while he himself was at the Duke of Wellington's quarters, making himself meanly remarkable by endeavouring to intrude himself at the duke's dinner table. C. Baxter's "Saints' Rest" (Vol. vi., p. 18.).—MR. BEALBY having spoken of the first impression of this work, may perhaps be able to verify the following severe criticism: "Mr. Baxter, in the two editions of his Saints' Everlasting Rest, printed before the year 1660, instead of the kingdom of heaven,' as it is in the Scripture, calls it 'parliament of heaven' (and, if like their own, it must have been a parliament without a king); and into this parliament he puts some of the regicides, and other like saints, who were then dead. But in the editions after the Restoration, he drops them all out of heaven again, and restores the kingdom of God to its place."The Scholar armed against the Errors of the Time, vol. ii. pp. 51-2., Lond. 1795. R. G. was there not an Irish goddess, with the attributes of Vesta, named Bridget, whose pyreum was transformed by Christianity into the fire of St. Bridget? The following account is given by Giraldus (Topog. Hibern. p. 729.): In Kildare of Leinster, which the glorious Bridget made illustrious, there are many wonders worthy of mention. Foremost among which is the Fire of Bridget, which they call unextinguishable; not that it cannot be extinguished, but because the nuns and holy women so anxiously and accurately cherish and nurse the fire with a supply of fuel, that during so many centuries from the time of the Virgin it has ever remained unextinguished, and the ashes have never accumulated, although in so long a time so vast a pile of wood hath here been consumed. Whereas, in the time of Bridget, twenty nuns here served the Lord, she herself being the twentieth, there have been only nineteen from the time of her glorious departure, and But as each they have not added to their number. nun in her turn tends the fire for one night, when the twentieth night comes, the last virgin having placed the wood ready, saith, Bridget, tend that fire of thine, for this is thy night. And the fire being so left, in the morning they find it unextinguished, and the fuel consumed in the usual way. That fire is surrounded by a circular hedge of bushes, within which a male does not enter; and if he should presume to enter, as some rash men have attempted, he does not escape divine vengeance." W. FRASER. Henry, Lord Viscount Dover (Vol. vi., p. 10.).— The following Notes may clear up MR. D'ALTON'S doubts as to this peer. The obscurity seems to have arisen from a confusion of titles. Henry Jermyn, younger brother of Thomas, Lord Jermyn of Bury, was created in 1683 (or 1685) Lord Jermyn of Dover; and, out of deference to his elder brother's title of Jermyn, he seems to have been called Lord DOVER, by which name he was sworn of the English Privy Council in 1686, and next year appointed a Lord of the English Treasury. He seems to have left England with James II., and accompanied him in 1689 to Ireland, where we find him under the title of Lord Dover, a Privy Councillor and Commissioner of the Treasury in Ireland; and some time after he appears as Earl of Dover. (King's Sate of the Protestants.) I presume that he was also created Viscount Dover; but the viscounty and earldom, Irish creations, after the Abdication, are nowhere recognised. This explanation, I think, clears up all MR. D'ALTON's difficulties, except that I do not find his name in the list of officers in King James's Guards, or even army. He seems to have been employed as a civilian. C. |
