Curiosities of Literature Volume Ii Part 51

[Footnote 62: Dr. Burney subsequently observed, that "this rogue Autolycus is the true ancient Minstrel in the old Fabliaux;" on which Steevens remarks, "Many will push the comparison a little further, and concur with me in thinking that our _modern minstrels_ of the opera, like their predecessor Autolycus, are _pickpockets_ as well as singers of _nonsensical_ ballads."--_Steevens's Shakspeare_, vol. vii. p. 107, his own edition, 1793.]

[Footnote 63: Mr. Roscoe has printed this very delightful song in the Life of Lorenzo, No. xli. App.]

[Footnote 64: The late Rowland Hill constantly sang at the Surrey Chapel a hymn to the tune of "Rule Britannia," altered to "Rule Emmanuel."

There was published in Dublin, in 1833, a series of "Hymns written to favourite tunes." They were the innocent work of one who wished to do good by a mode sufficiently startling to those who see impropriety in the conjunction of the sacred and the profane. Thus, one "pious chanson"

is written to _Gramachree_, or "The Harp that once through Tara's Halls," of Moore. Another, describing the death of a believer, is set to "The Groves of Blarney."]

[Footnote 65: The festival of St. Blaize is held on the 3rd of February.

Percy notes it as "a custom in many parts of England to light up fires on the hills on St. Blaize's Night." Hone, in his "Every-day Book," Vol.

I. p. 210, prints a detailed account of the woolcombers' celebration at Bradford, Yorks.h.i.+re, in 1825, in which "Bishop Blaize" figured with the "bishop's chaplain," surrounded by "shepherds and shepherdesses," but personated by one John Smith, with "very becoming gravity."]

[Footnote 66: The custom was made the subject of an Essay by Gregory, in ill.u.s.tration of the tomb of one of these functionaries at Salisbury.

They were elected on St. Nicholas' Day, from the boys of the choir, and the chosen one officiated in pontificals, and received large donations, as the custom was exceedingly popular. Even royalty listened favourably to "the chylde-bishop's" sermon.]

[Footnote 67: Alexander Necham, abbot of Cirencester (born 1157, died 1217), has left us his idea of a "n.o.ble garden," which should contain roses, lilies, sunflowers, violets, poppies, and the narcissus. A large variety of roses were introduced between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Provence rose is thought to have been introduced by Margaret of Anjou, wife to Henry VI. The periwinkle was common in mediaeval gardens, and so was the gilly-flower or clove-pink. The late Mr. Hudson Turner contributed an interesting paper on the state of horticulture in England in early times to the fifth volume of the "Archaeological Journal." Among other things, he notes the contents of the Earl of Lincoln's garden, in Holborn, from the bailiff's account, in the twenty-fourth year of Edward I.--"We learn from this curious doc.u.ment that apples, pears, nuts, and cherries were produced in sufficient quant.i.ties, not only to supply the earl's table, but also to yield a profit by their sale. The vegetables cultivated in this garden were beans, onions, garlic, leeks, and others." Vines were also grown, and their cuttings sold.]

[Footnote 68: This is, however, an error. Mr. Turner, in the paper quoted, p. 154, says, "It may fairly be presumed that the cherry was well known at the period of the Conquest, and at every subsequent time.

It is mentioned by Necham in the twelfth century, and was cultivated in the Earl of Lincoln's garden in the thirteenth."]

[Footnote 69: The _quince_ comes from Sydon, a town of Crete, we are told by Le Grand, in his Vie privee des Francois, vol. i. p. 143; where may be found a list of the origin of most of our fruits.]

[Footnote 70: Peacham has here given a note. "_The filbert_, so named of _Philibert_, a king of France, who caused by arte sundry kinds to be brought forth: as did a gardener of Otranto in Italie by cloue-gilliflowers, and carnations of such colours as we now see them."]

[Footnote 71: The queen-apple was probably thus distinguished in compliment to Elizabeth. In Moffet's "Health's Improvement," I find an account of apples which are said to have been "graffed upon a mulberry-stock, and then wax thorough red as our queen-apples, called by Ruellius, _Rubelliana_, and _Claudiana_ by Pliny." I am told the race is not extinct; but though an apple of this description may yet be found, it seems to have sadly degenerated.]

[Footnote 72: The Court of Wards was founded in the right accorded to the king from the earliest time, to act as guardian to all minors who were the children of his own tenants, or of those who did the sovereign knightly service. They were in the same position, consequently, as the Chancery Wards of the present day; but much complaint being made of the private management of themselves and their estates by the persons who acted as their guardians, and who were responsible only to the king's exchequer, King Henry VIII., in the thirty-second year of his reign, founded "the Court of Wards" in Westminster Hall, as an open court of trial or appeal, for all persons under its jurisdiction. In the following year, a court of "liveries" was added to it; and it was always afterwards known as the "Court of Wards and Liveries." By "liveries" is meant, in old legal phraseology, "the delivery of seisin to the heir of the king's tenant in ward, upon suing for it at full age," the invest.i.ture, in fact, of the ward in his legal right as heir to his parents' property. This court was under the conduct of a very few officers who enriched themselves; and one of the first acts of the House of Lords, when the great changes were made during the troubles of Charles I., was to suppress the court altogether. This was done in 1645, and confirmed by Cromwell in 1656. At the restoration of Charles II. it was again specially noted as entirely suppressed.]

[Footnote 73: D'Ewes's father lost a manor, which was recovered by the widow of the person who had sold it to him. Old D'Ewes considered this loss as a punishment for the usurious loan of money; the fact is, that he had purchased that manor with the _interests_ acc.u.mulating from the money lent on it. His son entreated him to give over "the practice of that _controversial sin_." This expression shows that even in that age there were rational political economists. Jeremy Bentham, in his little treatise on Usury, offers just views, cleared from the indistinct and partial ones so long prevalent. Jeremy Collier has an admirable Essay on Usury, vol. iii. It is a curious notion of Lord Bacon, that he would have interest at a lower rate in the country than in trading towns, because the merchant is best able to afford the highest.]

[Footnote 74: In Rowley's "Search for Money," 1609, is an amusing description of the usurer, who binds his clients in "worse bonds and manacles than the Turk's galley-slaves." And in Decker's "Knights'

Conjuring," 1607, we read of another who "cozen'd young gentlemen of their land, had acres mortgaged to him by wiseacres for three hundred pounds, payde in hobby-horses, dogges, bells, and lutestrings; which, if they had been sold by the drum, or at an outrop (public auction), with the cry of 'No man better,' would never have yielded 50."]

[Footnote 75: "The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie, or the Walkes in Powles," 1603, is the t.i.tle of a rare tract in the Malone collection, now in the Bodleian Library. It is a curious picture of the manners of the day.]

[Footnote 76: Games with cards. Strutt says _Primero_ is one of the most ancient games known to have been played in England, and he thus describes it:--"Each player had four cards dealt to him, the 7 was the highest card in point of number that he could avail himself of, which counted for 21; the 6 counted for 16, the 5 for 15, and the ace for the same; but the 2, the 3, and the 4 for their respective points only. The knave of hearts was commonly fixed upon for the quinola, which the player might make what card or suit he thought proper; if the cards were of different suits, the highest number won the _primero_; if they were all of one colour, he that held them won the flush." _Gleek_ is described in "Memoirs of Gamesters," 1714, as "a game on the cards wherein the ace is called _Tib_, the knave _Tom_, the 4 of trumps _Tiddy_. _Tib_ the ace is 15 in hand and 18 in play, because it wins a trick; _Tom_ the knave is 9, and _Tiddy_ is 4; the 5th _Towser_, the 6th _Tumbler_, which, if in hand, _Towser_ is 5 and _Tumbler_ 6, and so double if turned up; and the King or Queen of trumps is 3. Now, as there can neither more nor less than 3 persons play at this game, who have 12 cards a-piece dealt to them at 4 at a time, you are to note that 22 are your cards; if you win nothing but the cards that were dealt you, you lose 10; if you have neither _Tib_, _Tom_, _Tiddy_, _King_, _Queen_, _Mournival_, nor _Gleek_, you lose, because you count as many cards as you had in tricks, which must be few by reason of the badness of your hand; if you have _Tib_, _Tom_, _King_ and _Queen_ of trumps in your hand, you have 30 by honours, that is, 8 above your own cards, besides the cards you win by them in play. If you have _Tom_ only, which is 9, and the King of trumps, which is 3, then you reckon from 12, 13, 14, 15, till you come to 22, and then every card wins so many pence, groats, or what else you play'd for; and if you are under 22, you lose as many."]

[Footnote 77: A note to Singer's edition of "Hall's Satires," says the phrase originated from the popular belief that the tomb of Sir John Beauchamp, in old St. Paul's, was that of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester.

Hence, to walk about the aisles dinnerless was termed _dining with Duke Humphrey_; and a poem by Speed, termed "The Legend of his Grace," &c., published 1674, details the popular idea--

Nor doth the duke his invitation send To princes, or to those that on them tend, But pays his kindness to a hungry maw; His charity, his reason, and his law.

For, to say truth, _Hunger_ hath hundreds brought _To dine with him_, and all not worth a groat.

[Footnote 78: Let not the delicate female start from the revolting scene, nor censure the writer, since that writer is a woman--suppressing her own agony, as she supported on her lap the head of the miserable sufferer. This account was drawn up by Mrs. Elizabeth Willoughby, a Catholic lady, who, amidst the horrid execution, could still her own feelings in the attempt to soften those of the victim: she was a heroine, with a tender heart.

The subject was one of the executed Jesuits, Hugh Green, who often went by the name of Ferdinand Brooks, according to the custom of these people, who disguised themselves by double names: he suffered in 1642; and this narrative is taken from the curious and scarce folios of Dodd, a Roman Catholic Church History of England.

"The hangman, either through unskilfulness, or for want of sufficient presence of mind, had so ill-performed his first duty of hanging him, that when he was cut down he was perfectly sensible, and able to sit upright upon the ground, viewing the crowd that stood about him. The person who undertook to quarter him was one Barefoot, a barber, who, being very timorous when he found he was to attack a living man, it was near half an hour before the sufferer was rendered entirely insensible of pain. The mob pulled at the rope, and threw the Jesuit on his back.

Then the barber immediately fell to work, ripped up his belly, and laid the flaps of skin on both sides; the poor gentleman being so present to himself as to make the sign of the cross with one hand. During this operation, Mrs. Elizabeth Willoughby (the writer of this) kneeled at the Jesuit's head, and held it fast beneath her hands. His face was covered with a thick sweat; the blood issued from his mouth, ears, and eyes, and his forehead burnt with so much heat, that she a.s.sures us she could scarce endure her hand upon it. The barber was still under a great consternation."--But I stop my pen amidst these circ.u.mstantial horrors.]

[Footnote 79: Harl. MSS. 36. 50.]

[Footnote 80: This pathetic poem has been printed in one of the old editions of Sir Walter Rawleigh's Poems, but could never have been written by him. In those times the collectors of the works of a celebrated writer would insert any fugitive pieces of merit, and pa.s.s them under a name which was certain of securing the reader's favour. The entire poem in every line echoes the feelings of Chidiock t.i.tchbourne, who perished with all the blossoms of life and genius about him in the May time of his existence.]

[Footnote 81: Foreign authors who had an intercourse with the English court seem to have been better informed, or at least found themselves under less restraint than our home-writers. In Bayle, note x. the reader will find this mysterious affair cleared up; and at length in one of our own writers, Whitaker, in his "Mary Queen of Scots Vindicated," vol. ii.

p. 502. Elizabeth's Answer to the first Address of the Commons, on her marriage, in Hume, vol. v. p. 13, is now more intelligible: he has preserved her fanciful style.]

[Footnote 82: A curious trait of the neglect Queen Mary experienced, whose life being considered very uncertain, sent all the intriguers of a court to Elizabeth, the next heir, although then in a kind of state imprisonment.]

[Footnote 83: This despatch is a meagre account, written before the amba.s.sador obtained all the information the present letter displays. The chief particulars I have preserved above.]

[Footnote 84: By Sir Symonds D'Ewes's Journal it appears, that the French amba.s.sador had mistaken the day, Wednesday the 16th, for Thursday the 17th of October. The amba.s.sador is afterwards right in the other dates. The person who moved the house, whom he calls "_Le Seindicque de la Royne_," was Sir Edward Rogers, comptroller of her majesty's household. The motion was seconded by Sir William Cecil, who entered more largely into the particulars of the queen's charges, incurred in the defence of _New-Haven,_ in France, the repairs of her navy, and the Irish war with O'Neil. In the present narrative we fully discover the spirit of the independent member; and, at its close, that part of the secret history of Elizabeth which so powerfully developes her majestic character.]

[Footnote 85: The original says, "ung subside de quatre solz pour liure."]

[Footnote 86: This gentleman's name does not appear in Sir Symonds D'Ewes's Journal. Mons. Le Mothe Fenelon has, however, the uncommon merit, contrary to the custom of his nation, of writing an English name somewhat recognisable; for Edward Basche was one of the general surveyors of the victualling of the queen's s.h.i.+ps, 1573, as I find in the Lansdowne MSS., vol. xvi. art. 69.]

[Footnote 87: In the original, "Ils avoient le nez si long qu'il s'estendoit despuis Londres jusques au pays d'West."]

[Footnote 88: This term is remarkable. In the original, "La Royne ayant _impetre,"_ which in Congrave's Dictionary, a contemporary work, is explained by,--"To get by praier, obtain by suit, compa.s.s by intreaty, procure by request." This significant expression conveys the real notion of this venerable Whig, before Whiggism had received a denomination, and formed a party.]

[Footnote 89: The French amba.s.sador, no doubt, flattered himself and his master, that all this "parlance" could only close in insurrection and civil war.]

[Footnote 90: In the original, "A ung tas de cerveaulx si legieres."]

[Footnote 91: The word in the original is _insistance_; an expressive word as used by the French amba.s.sador; but which _Boyer_, in his Dictionary, doubts whether it be French, although he gives a modern authority; the present is much more ancient.]

[Footnote 92: The Duke of Norfolk was, "without comparison, the first subject in England; and the qualities of his mind corresponded with his high station," says Hume. He closed his career, at length, the victim of love and ambition, in his attempt to marry the Scottish Mary. So great and honourable a man could only be a criminal by halves; and, to such, the scaffold, and not the throne, is reserved, when they engage in enterprises, which, by their secrecy, in the eyes of a jealous sovereign, a.s.sume the form and the guilt of a conspiracy.]

[Footnote 93: Hume, vol, v. c. 39; at the close of 1566.]

[Footnote 94: Dr. Birch's Life of this Prince.]

[Footnote 95: Harleian MS., 6391.]

[Footnote 96: La Vie de Card. Richelieu, anonymous, but written by J. Le Clerc, 1695, vol. i. pp. 116-125.]

[Footnote 97: "A Detection of the Court and State of England," vol. i.

p. 13.]

[Footnote 98: Stowe's Annals, p. 824.]

[Footnote 99: I give the t.i.tle of this rare volume. "Finetti Philoxensis: Some choice Observations of Sir John Finett, Knight, and Master of the Ceremonies to the two last Kings; touching the reception and precedence, the treatment and audience, the punctilios and contests of forren amba.s.sadors in England. _Legati ligant Mumdum_. 1656." This very curious diary was published after the author's death by his friend James Howell, the well-known writer; and Oldys, whose literary curiosity scarcely anything in our domestic literature has escaped, has a.n.a.lysed the volume with his accustomed care. He mentions that there was a ma.n.u.script in being, more full than the one published, of which I have not been able to learn farther.--_British Librarian_, p. 163.]

[Footnote 100: Charles I. had, however, adopted them, and long preserved the stateliness of his court with foreign powers, as appears by these extracts from ma.n.u.script letters of the time: