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DECAPITATED TREES: SCOTCH FIRS PLANTED IN ENGLAND BY JACOBITES.-It is said that trees were beheaded in many places in England, in memory of Charles I. and of the Duke of Monmouth. At Moor Park, near Rickmansworth, trees still standing are said to have been so treated in memory of the Duke of Monmouth. Are other instances known? At Miss Whitmore Jones's beautiful old house, Chastleton, near Moreton in Marsh, are Scotch firs known to have been planted by Henry Jones the Jacobite, in honour of the Young Pretender. Are other examples of this practice known? ALBERT HARTSHORNE.

SUPERSTITION ABOUT AMBER. -What is the origin of the superstition that amber is a concretion of birds' tears? Moore (Lalla Rookh') says:

Around thee shall glisten the loveliest amber
That ever the sorrowing sea-bird hath wept.
SYDNEY SCRope.

Tompkinsville, New York.

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SHENLEY.-There are two (if not more) places of this name, one in Buckinghamshire, the other in Hertfordshire. I wish to ascertain with certainty in which of these two Shenleys stood the famous image of St. Katherine which John, Earl of Salisbury (1396-1400), suffered to remain in his bakehouse, as recorded by Walsingham, when he destroyed the rest. In the Archeologia,' vol. xx., this is said to be Shenley in Buckinghamshire; and the Countess Maud, widow of this earl, bequeathed 40s. "to the fabric of the parish church of St. Botolph of Shanle," which must be in Buckinghamshire, since the parish church there is dedicated to St. Botolph, and that of Shenley in Hertfordshire to St. Mary. But the will of Maud's first husband, John Aubrey, is distinctly dated at Shenley in Hertfordshire. Walsingham speaks of the images in question as having been set up by John Aubrey and Sir Alan Buxhull, or some predecessor of

Maud. The estate therefore must have come to the

earl through her; yet there is no mention of either Shenley in her father's will or inquisition as having been his property. An attempt to trace the descent by inquisitions produces no further information, save to show that the Hertfordshire Shenley was held by Earl John and afterwards by his (and Maud's) son Earl Thomas. Neither estate seems ever to have been the property of Maud's

father, Sir Adam Francis, or of her earlier husbands, John Aubrey and Sir Alan Buxhull.

I have vainly consulted numerous authorities on this crux. Can any one kindly help me to discover how either of these Shenleys came into possession of the Countess Maud, and from which of the two churches the image of St. Katherine was removed by the earl? HERMENTRUDE.

"MISERICORD IN ST. MARY'S, LANCASTER.In my collection of the subjects of these curious carvings I have a list of those at Lancaster, said to have come from Cockersand Abbey, and should be obliged for an explanation of one. It is number three on the north side, commencing west-seven figures, male and female. Two on the sinister are kneeling at an altar (?). They are a man and woman; the man has on a hooded cape, the woman in front of him wears a wimple. The man has tight-fitting sleeves and a close-fitting robe. A large square pocket shows at each side of it. Next comes the altar. Then comes a group of three figures, two seated and one behind them; the lastmentioned is a man, he has his left hand on the head of the sinister figure, a gypeere at his girdle. Next comes a female figure standing by herself; on her head a wimple, and her dress buttoned up the front with large buttons; her hands are crossed in front of her, the arms hanging down. The last two figures are a man and woman, the latter wears wimple and gorget; the man with his right hand clasps her left, as represented in rite is the idea, but should be glad of suggestions. brasses to man and wife. I think the marriage

Inner Temple.

T. A. M.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY C. H. BENNETT.-Can you tell me the names of any works illustrated by the late C. H. Bennett? I should like to procure all his shadow pictures. In 'Fun for All,' July, 1880 (Ward, Lock & Co.), there were several. I should like to know if more are to be had; also if any other pictures, such as the 'Origin of Species,' dedicated by natural selection to Charles Darwin (Illustrated Times, I think I saw them), can be bought. R. W. I. LEICESTER.

Gawler, South Australia,

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RICHARD SAVAGE.-I should feel much obliged if you or any of your readers can inform me of any books in which there is reliable information about Richard Savage, besides his 'Life' by Dr. Johnson, Boswell, and Elwin's 'Pope.' H. S. C. M. G. SOMERSETSHIRE CHURCHES.-T. Warton states of the churches in Somersetshire :

"They are both very lofty and light. Most of the churches in Somersetshire, which are remarkably elegant, are in the style of the Florid Gothic. The reason is this: Somersetshire, in the civil wars between York and Lancaster, was strongly and entirely attached to the Lancastrian party. In reward for this service, Henry VII., when he came to the crown, rebuilt their churches."Observations on the "Fairy Queen" of Spenser,' Lond., 1762, vol. ii. p. 193.

Is there any earlier authority for, or other corroboration of, this statement?

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The slender debt to nature 's quickly paid,

Discharg'd, perchance, with greater ease than made. It would seem as if in the sixteenth century the phrase had not become crystallized. Lodge, in his Euphues Golden Legacie,' 1592, has (p. 29, Hazlitt's edition) ::

"At last Rosader......rowsed himself and threw the Norman against the ground, falling uppon his chest with so willing a weight, that the Norman yelded nature her due, and Rosader the victorie."

F. C. BIRKBECK TERRY. 'DREAM OF GERONTIUS.'-Cardinal Newman dedicates this work to J. J. Gordon, "Cujus anima in refrigerium." What does this signify? W. T. R. [Refrigerium, see Psalm lxv. v. 12, "eduxisti in refrigerium," and elsewhere in the Vulgate=solatium, quies. See Ducange.]

LETTER OF SPENCER PERCEVAL.-I have in my possession a letter of Spencer Perceval, dated January 14, 1805, to Lord Redesdale, then Chancellor of Ireland, in which he says,— "You will find him a man of sterling worth as a man of business as well as a gentleman. I don't think the House of Commons holds a man who would under the circumstances suit the situation so well." Could any reader throw light on this letter? I am anxious, if possible, to ascertain who the person in question might be. SYDNEY SCROPE.

MRS. NISBETT.-The original representative of the character of Julia in 'The Hunchback' was Miss Fanny Kemble, and that of Mariana in 'The Wife,' another play of Sheridan Knowles, was Miss Ellen Tree, who spoke the Epilogue, which was written by Charles Lamb. But both parts were taken by Mrs. Nisbett a short time after their first the dates between which Mrs. Nisbett acted the representation. I should be very glad to learn parts respectively of Julia and Mariana. to Lamb's authorship of the little jeu d'esprit Some doubts have been expressed with regard 'Satan in Search of a Wife.' In a list of works published by Moxon which is prefixed to my copy of the first edition of 'The Hunchback' this little work is expressly stated to be by "the Author of Elia.' W. F. PRIDEAUX.

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SIBBERN FAMILY PORTRAITS.-The ancient family of Sibbern, now settled at Vorno Kloster, near Moss, in Norway, with a view to completing genealogical researches into the history of their family, are desirous to ascertain what portraits exist of two members of the family who settled in England. The first is Caius Cibber, a sculptor, who died in London in 1700, whose portrait is believed to have been painted by A. Baunerman. The other is his son, the author and actor, Colley Cibber, who died in 1757, and of whom many pictures are extant. The family is now represented by Major Sibbern, and by his uncle, Excellency Sibbern, who was ambassador at Washington and in several European capitals. FRANCIS BOND. The College, Hull.

CHIROPODIST.-I should be greatly obliged if you could inform me if there is any modern work the chiropodist and the anatomy and diseases of in English or French treating upon the science of

the foot.

R. M. NOEL.

'THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.'-The perusal, in the English Illustrated Magazine for October last, of Mr. Austin Dobson's interesting article on illustrated editions of Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield' again brought into my mind what has often struck me, viz., the unfortunate title which has been given to that work. Is it actually known, and capable of proof, that the author himself gave the name by which it has always been known? Mr. Dobson, in the first of his illustrative notes, to be found at the end of his own edition, very truly says: "Wakefield, in Yorkshire, plays but a small part in the story to which it lends its name," but gives no further information on the subject. As

every reader of the story knows, the Vicar of Wakefield was no longer the Vicar of Wakefield when the real interest of the narrative begins with the migration of the family to a distant cure, and it seems unaccountable to me that Goldsmith himself should have given such a slip-shod name to the book. Was it not rather given by Newbery or Collins ?

There is an interesting anecdote of Goldsmith, perhaps not generally known, to be found in Memorials of Mrs. Gilbert' (2 vols. 8vo., 1874), which shows at least that Goldsmith was alive to the necessity of giving to a book an appropriate title. It is as follows:

"Isaac Taylor, the father of Mrs. Gilbert, had become known as an art engraver, and was often visited, among others, by Goldsmith, and upon one occasion the latter was consulted upon the title of a book, with an apology for troubling him upon so trifling a matter; when he replied: "The title, sir; why, the title is everything.' J. J. L.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED.—
Blossom of hawthorn whitens in May,
Never an end to true lovers' sway.

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66

(7th S. x. 403.)

With his usual felicity, and with something more than his usual accuracy, Mr. Froude lately said that "the various occupations of the people" that is, of the English people-"have become a discipline of dishonesty." And the training of English children, especially of working folks' children, has become a discipline of irreverence and self-conceit. The English, Mr. Froude adds, are now peculiarly sensitive about the respect paid to their country abroad, because they feel that it is declining." Which things being duly considered, it is pleasant to hear of some one who can still hold on to the comfortable old doctrine that England and her sons and daughters are a superior race, visibly better than the rest of mankind, and most evidently better in commerce and mechanical science. Has MR. BOUCHIER ever been at Essen? Has he ever been at Creil, or at Seraing, or at Spezia? Does he know that even in such small matters as the making of lamp-globes and of lucifer matches English trade is driven hard by a little country like Sweden? But MR. BOUCHIER, the kindly optimist that he is, holds, moreover, that in the English race "an extraordinary capacity for commerce and mechanical science a combined in the highest degree with idealism and romanticism." And he wishes to know whether this remarkable and encouraging

* Lord Beaconsfield,' by J. A. Froude, p. 152.

combination has been discussed and explained in print. I should think that the discussion and explanation, if it exists, must be brief indeed; for it is all comprised in the single word Negatur. There is no such combination. One swallow does not make a summer: one Shakespeare, though he be the greatest of poets, and though he have all Miltons and all Wordsworths and Byrons and Shelleys thrown in with him, does not make the English race ideal or romantic. Is the British lawyer a romantic creature? Is the British stockbroker an idealist? How much less, then, the British small tradesman, the British artisan or labourer? And their wives and daughters are no better; and the aristocracy, with their wives and daughters, are no better.

Not long ago I was in Staffordshire, along with an intelligent young tradesman, whom I had engaged to drive me in his own dog-cart. We passed through Lord Bradford's country: I explained to my friend the rise of the Bridgman family, and told him of the romantic way in which the present Earl of Bradford was enabled to see with his own eyes the corpse of his ancestor Sir Orlando. As I was doing this, we met a cart laden with potatoes. "Uncommon fine taters, them, sir!" said the intelligent tradesman, gazing at them with eager interest. "Very," said I; and talked of taters for the rest of the journey.

Since then, and only the other day, I was in Kent, standing by the grave of a distinguished poet, and talking about him with the brisk and inquiring sexton of the parish. The sexton could not make out who that poet was, nor why such a fuss had been made over him at his funeral. "It made me quite ill," he said, "to see all them gentlemen come to the funeral, and us never expecting only a hearse and a mourning coach or two! You see, sir," he added, solemnly, "the worst of these here great men is, as you never know nothink about 'em till after they're dead." Thereupon I expounded to him the history of that poet; and he, having professional reasons for so doing, listened attentively, and did not talk about potatoes. "If the gentleman had lived," said I, "he might have succeeded Lord Tennyson; and he has a sister, who in my opinion is well worthy to represent her brother, and to be our next Laureate. You have heard of Lord Tennyson?" "Well, sir," said the intelligent sexton, after an awkward pause, "I'm not so sure as I have."

Here, then, are two illustrations, taken at random, of the idealism and romanticism of the English race. And they are quite fair illustrations; for if a race be idealist or romantic it is so in all the classes that compose it; it is not made so by the casual existence within it of a few isolated phenomena like Shakespeare, and Byron, and Wordsworth.

Throughout England, in the labourer's cottage,

in the artisan's dwelling, in the tradesman's back parlour, and in gentler abodes than these, not only are the very words "ideal" and "romantic" unknown, but all that is represented by them is also unknown and uncared for. Like Audrey, the English race thanks the gods that it is not poetical. It also thanks them that it is "practical"; which does not now mean that its workmanship is skilful and sound and its dealings honourable, but only that it knows how to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest.

fidently be asserted-though I have no statistics to give you that a much greater number of below-the-salt middle-class English people, male and female, can sing a page of music at sight than is the case in any other country, save perhaps Germany and German Switzerland. And I can testify that in the "land of song" it is far more common to hear a popular snatch of song howled audaciously out of tune than it is in "unmusical" England. But this, of course, refers to partially latent capabilities. And "painting"? Humph! Hogarth facile, and Turner not far from princeps

MR. BOUCHIER mentions the Greeks. Besides their incomparable sense of beauty, and their un-in sui generis. And surely, as regards delineators approachable power of expressing that sense, the Greeks had every intellectual endowment that England ever had-except one; that one which enabled the Romans to overthrow them. They could not hold together; they had no force nor aptness for central government. The "practical" English race had that faculty until lately. It seems to be passing away from them; and when it is gone there will be an end of MR. BOUCHIER'S dream. A. J. M.

of ocean in all its moods, "the sea, the sea is England's, and ever shall remain !" And let the exclusive too-too æsthetes tolerate the remark that music and painting do not exist for them, or even for the real masters in their respective arts, but for their power of addressing, influencing, and delighting the masses of mankind. And what about architecture? And so much for my second demurrer.

MR. BOUCHIER appositely quotes Leigh Hunt as saying of Spenser that he "is the farthest removed from the ordinary cares and haunts of the world of all the poets that ever wrote, except perhaps Ovid."

a praise, I hold that Spenser merits it in a far higher degree than the Latin poet. For it is not the unreality of the persons and subjects of which the poet treats, but the spiritualistic conceptions which underlie the treatment of them, to which "des nominis hujus honorem." Many of the wildest of the Arabian Night stories are by no means far removed from the cares and haunts of the readers for whom they were originally intended. And here ends my third and last demurrer.

MR. BOUCHIER's very interesting and highly suggestive note has set me thinking, at least II demur to the exception. If such remoteness be think I am thinking, but perhaps only dreaming! First for one or two mild demurrers. The English race, says MR. BOUCHIER, facile princeps in all practical matters, is also the first in poetry "since the Greeks in their glory,' if we need make even that exception." Surely we need not! Shakespeare-Eschylus! It seems to me "Lombard Street to a China orange"-to use a once current phrase, now pretty well obsolete. For the question is not of a lark-like soaring to a height beyond the ordinary power of vision from one point to another, however exalted, but of the eagle strength of pinion floating perennially at an altitude which commands and truly sees "Mare velivolum, terrasque jacentes, litoraque et latos populos," and not only sees but illumines them. Of Milton, as compared with Homer and Eschylus, perhaps not quite so much is to be said, -though enough for the purpose of my demurrer.

MR. BOUCHIER Continues," Mr. Saintsbury, in a very interesting passage in his 'Short History of French Literature,' ed. 1884, in speaking of classicism and romanticism, says that in English all, without exception, of our greatest masterpieces have been purely romantic' (i.e., in treatment, not necessarily in subject), and that the sense of the vague is, among authors of the highest rank, rarely present to a Greek, always present to an Englishman, and alternately present and absent, but oftener absent, to a Frenchman."" An admirable dictum! But I should say always (though Mr. Saintsbury knows far better than I) absent from a Frenchman, had not Victor Hugo ever written. Vide especially 'Chants de Crepuscule.'

My second demurrer is of the same character as my first. MR. BOUCHIER writes modestly, "In music, painting, and sculpture we have been surpassed by other nations." I am admonished by MR. BOUCHIER's modesty not to indulge the temptation of a bold negatur. But with regard to the first-mentioned art I must express a very But my principal object for troubling you and strong doubt. What were other nations-any of MR. BOUCHIER with this reply is to suggest to them-doing when English composers of the days him a reference to Taine's French Revolution,' of Elizabeth and James and Charles I. were writ- and especially to an admirable and masterly chapter ing (and England was singing) the glees and mad-on French classicism of language and expression. rigals which are still-let our modern æsthetes, I cite from memory, not having the book unhappily, who sneer at Mozart for being "tuny," say what and am unable to be more precise. But I think they will-among the most delicious combinations that a perusal of the whole of that long chapterof sounds ever put together? I think it may con- or perhaps it may be two-will suggest a reply to

·

a great portion of MR. BOUCHIER'S query (a very interesting one I agree with MR. BOUCHIER in thinking it, and, as he says, looking at it largely, "perhaps to us as Englishmen few questions are more interesting"), "How is it that the English race, facile princeps in all practical matters,......are also the first in poetry?" Taine, I think, in a great measure supplies an answer to the question "how it has come to pass." I conceive that the answer to the "why it has so come to pass" must be sought in an ethnological consideration of the characteristics of the various "brands" which have gone to the composition of that "very superior and unique blend" (tea-dealer's circular passim) which constitutes our race.

Budleigh Salterton.

T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.

It does not seem to me that Mr. Saintsbury is very happy in talking of "a sense of the vague" as characterizing Englishmen in contrast to the old Greek. I do not think he means vague. Is he not rather alluding to those immensities of eternity and space which are not otherwise vague than as being measureless,-indefinite only because not limited.

We are more Eastern than the ancient Greek, because we are more Western, and, having reached the ocean wall which for many thousand years was impervious, as if cyclopean-built, it throws back the echoes in us of the eastern wind that swept over Greece and did not tarry there. Our Biblical literalism in the civil ferment of the seventeenth century brooded on the Hebraic cosmogony, and kindled again the spirits of men at the furnace of Isaiah. The Puritan hypocrisy and narrowness Is not the pre-eminence of the English race, could not stifle wholly, but you can see what alike in poetry and in practical matters, sufficiently it, combined with loss of sight, could ruin in our accounted for by the abounding energy which is great Milton by comparing Paradise Lost' with one of our chief national characteristics? This idea Comus.' That is large, bald, bleak, and dogmatic, is well handled by Matthew Arnold in his famous in place of growing, as the latter might, rich and essay on 'The Literary Influence of Academies.' full of colour, mellow, exquisite, and rythmic, like Genius, he says, is mainly an affair of energy, and a summer prospect of beauty or a fine mood in poetry is mainly an affair of genius; and again, nature itself. Extremes meet, and so doing reconthe highest reach of science is an inventive power, cile contradictories wherever spheroidal or circular a faculty of divination, akin to the highest power motion prevails. I have my own opinion about exercised in poetry; therefore, a nation whose our English excellence in government, colonization, spirit is characterized by energy may well be and commerce, but I will suppress it for the preeminent in science. He goes on to contrast the sent moment. I may conclude, however, these creative energy manifested in our poetry with the remarks by pointing out another contradiction flexibility of intelligence shown in French prose, on a large scale, not in our own, but in a foreign and then occurs the well-known dictum: "The nation. Germany, that used to be the land of power of French literature is in its prose-writers, thought, has given up castle-building in the air. the power of English literature is in its poets." She has now taken to practice, and to government, C. C. B. colonization, and commerce, and when she has been How poets should come to excel in a country so engaged a little longer will laugh, as practical which has designated itself practical, and which pre-people do here, at patriotism, principle, and tends to excel in government, commerce, mechanics, C. A. WARD. and colonization is an excellent subject to discourse upon. MR. BOUCHIER deserves credit for starting the theme, and I hope the contributors to 'N. & Q.' will discuss it thoroughly. I shall at the present stage say very little. Milton evidently thought we were rather a hidebound people, and that poetry was somewhat apt to freeze at fifty-two degrees north latitude. There is always this to be said,that extremes meet. If a huge population be miserably mediocre, the exceptions will there probably be of extraordinary brilliancy. Epaminondas was of Boeotia. Upon the principle that "who aspires must down as low as high he soared," whilst "lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds," the most beaver-like practicality will in revulsion stir the heaven-born to wing its highest flight away in scorn, and beat, like the early lark, its wing against the golden gate of heaven "when Phoebus 'gins arise." The contrariety in things will help to bring such opposites about.

imagination.

Walthamstow.

Matthew Arnold attempted to answer MR.
BOUCHIER'S question in his 'Lectures on Celtic
Literature.'
J. M. RIGG.

9, New Square, Lincoln's Inn.

PRIEST IN DEACON'S ORDERS (7th S. x. 368, 478).-MR. TROLLOPE is quite correct in his statement that the country folk in Cumberland used to call, and probably still call, a clergyman a priest. This term was familiar to me in my Cumberland days (1847-1861). I never thought of its being a survival from pre-Reformation times, but it no doubt is so. The following story-which I heard, I think, in 1856-in which the word occurs, may amuse MR. TROLLOPE. A certain clergyman, who had been accustomed to deliver written sermons, took to extempore preaching. A parishioner, with the sometimes rather uncomfortable outspokenness of the Cumberland farmer class, one day said to

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