Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851 - Various 2 стр.

MINOR NOTES

Kentish Town in the last Century

"Thursday night some villains robbed the Kentish Town Stage, and stripped the passengers of their money, watches, and buckles. In the hurry they spared the pockets of Mr. Corbyn, the druggist; but he, content to have neighbour's fare, called out to one of the rogues, 'Stop, friend, you have forgot to take my money'."Morning Chron. and Land Advertiser, Jan. 9. 1773.

Murray's Hand-book for Devon and Cornwall.The author does not mention Haccombe Chapel or the Oswell Rocks, both near Newton; the latter is a most picturesque spot, and the view near and far most interesting!A notice of the tiles, and of the 2ft. 2in effigy at Haccombe, appears in the Arch. Journal, iii. 151. 237.The monuments are in fine preservation up to the last of the "Haccombes" ante 1342, which is perfect. The chapel would be improved by the removal of the two pews and of the family arms from the velvet cloth on the communion-table!Tavistock Church has an east window by Williment; pattern, and our Saviour in the centre.The church by Dartmouth Castle contains a brass and armorial gallery; the visitor should sail round the rock at the harbour entrance, it's appearance from seaward is fine.Littleham Church has a decorated wooden screen, very elegant.A work on the Devonshire pulpits and screens would be valuable.

Judges Walk, Hampstead.A friend of mine, residing at Hampstead, has communicated to me the following information, which I forward to you as likely to instruct your readers.

He states that the oldest inhabitant of Hampstead, Mr. Rowbotham, a clock and watchmaker, died recently, at the age of ninety. He told his son and many other persons, that in his youth the Upper Terrace Avenue, on the south-west side of Hampstead Heath was known by the name of "The Judges' Walk," from the circumstance of prisoners having been tried there during the plague of London. He further stated, that he had received this information from his grandmother.

Somerset House.

Gray's Alcaic Ode.A question asked in Vol. i., p. 382, whether "Gray's celebrated Latin Ode is actually to be found entered at the Grande Chartreuse?" is satisfactorily answered in the negative at p. 416. of the same volume, and its disappearance traced to the destructive influence of the first French Revolution.

It may not, however, be without interest to some of your readers to know, that this elegant "Alcaic" was to be found at the Chartreuse not very long before the outbreak of that great political tempest, proof of which will be found in the following extract taken from the 9th volume of Malte-Brun's Annales des Voyages, Paris, 1809. It is found in a paper entitled "Voyage à la Grande Chartreuse en 1789. Par M. T*******," and is in p. 230:

"L'Album, ou le grand livre dans lequel les étrangers inscrivent leurs noms, présente quelquefois une lecture intéressante. Nous en copiâmes quelques pages. Le morceau le plus digne d'être conservé est sans doute l'Ode latine suivante du célèbre poëte anglais Gray. Je ne crois pas qu'elle ait été publiée encore."

Then follows the ode, as usually printed, excepting that in the third line,

the words "nam certe" are transposed.

Fleet Marriages.The General Evening Post, June 27-29, 1745, contains the following singular Note of a Fleet Marriage:

"Yesterday came on a cause at Doctors' Commons, wherein the plaintiff brought his action against the defendant for pretending to be his wife. She in her justification pleaded a marriage at the Fleet the 6th of February, 1737, and produced a Fleet certificate, which was not allowed as evidence: she likewise offered to produce the minister she pretended married them, but he being excommunicate for clandestine marriages, could not be received as a witness. The court thereupon pronounced against the marriage, and condemned her in 28l., the costs of the suit."

QUERIES

HISTORIE DES SÉVARAMBES

The authorship of Gaudentio di Lucca has recently been discussed by some of your correspondents, and it has been shown that this Voyage Imaginaire was written by Simon Berington, a Catholic priest, and the member of a family resident for many years in Herefordshire. The following Query will relate to another work of the same class, but of an earlier date.

The Histoire des Sévarambes is a fictitious account of a nation in the Southern Ocean, visited by a supposed navigator named Siden. It's first appearance was as an English work, with this title:

"The History of the Sevarites or Sevarambi, a nation inhabiting part of the third continent, commonly called Terræ Australes Incognitæ; with an account of their admirable government, religion, customs, and language. Written by one Captain Siden, a worthy person, who, together with many others, was cast upon those coasts, and lived many years in that country. London: printed for Henry Brome, at the Gun, at the west end of St. Paul's Churchyard, 1675. 12mo. pp. 114." No preface.

There is a second part, "more wonderful and delightful than the first," published in 1679 (pp. 140.). The licence by Roger Lestrange bears date Feb. 25. 1678/9. There is a short preface, without signature, arguing that the country of the Sevarites is not fabulous.

A copy of the original edition of these two parts is in the British Museum.

Shortly after its publication in England, this work appeared in France with the following title:

"Histoire des Sévarambes, peuples qui habitent une partie du troisième continent ordinairement appellé Terre Australe, contenant un compte exact du gouvernement, des mœurs, de la réligion et du langage de cette nation, jusques aujourd'hui inconnue aux peuples de l'Europe. Traduite de l'Anglois." First Part, Paris, 1677. 2 vols. 12mo. Second Part, 1678-9. 3 vols. 12mo.

Both parts are dedicated to Monsieur Riquet, Baron de Bonrepos; and the dedications are both signed with the initials D.V.D.E.L.

The British Museum contains no French edition of this work earlier than an Amsterdam reprint of 1716. The above account of the early French edition is taken from the Dictionnaire Historique of Prosper Marchand (La Haye, 1758), tom. i. p. 11., art. ALLAIS. This article (which may be cited as a model of bibliographical research) attributes the authorship of the Histoire des Sévarambes

Various

Notes and Queries, Number 62, January 4, 1851

OUR THIRD VOLUME

The commencement of our Third Volume affords an opportunity, which we gladly seize, of returning our best thanks to those kind friends and correspondents to whom we are indebted for our continued success. We thank them all heartily and sincerely; and we trust that the volume, of which we now present them with the First Number, will afford better proof of our gratitude than mere words. Such improvements as have suggested themselves in the course of the fourteen months during which NOTES AND QUERIES has been steadily working up its way to its present high position shall be effected; and nothing shall be wanting, on our part, which may conduce to maintain or increase its usefulness. And here we would announce a slight change in our mode of publication, which we have acceded to at the suggestion of several parties, in order to meet what may appear to many of our readers a trivial matter, but which is found very inconvenient in a business point of viewwe allude to the diversity of price in our Monthly Parts.

To avoid this, and, as we have said, to meet the wishes of many of our friends, we propose to publish a fifth or supplementary number in every month in which there are only four Saturdays, so as to make the Monthly Parts one shilling and threepence each in all cases, with the exception of the months of January and July, which will include the Index of the preceding Half-yearly Volume, at the price of one shilling and ninepence each. Thus the yearly subscription to NOTES AND QUERIES, either in unstamped weekly Numbers or Monthly Parts, will be eighteen shillings.

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NOTES

OLD BALLAD UPON THE "WINTER'S TALE."

Some of your correspondents may be able to give me information respecting an old ballad that has very recently fallen in my way, on a story similar to that of Shakspeare's Winter's Tale, and in some particulars still more like Greene's novel of Pandosto, upon which the Winter's Tale was founded. You are aware that the earliest known edition of Greene's novel is dated 1588, although there is room to suspect that it had been originally printed before that year: the first we hear of the Winter's Tale is in 1611, when it was acted at court, and it was not printed until it appeared in the folio of 1623.

The ballad to which I refer has for title The Royal Courtly Garland, or Joy after Sorrow: it is in ordinary type, and was "Printed and sold in Aldermary Churchyard, London." It has no date, and in appearance does not look older than from perhaps, 1690 to 1720; it may even be more recent, as at that period it is not easy to form a correct opinion either from typography or orthography: black-letter has a distinguishing character at various periods, so as to enable a judgment to be formed within, perhaps, ten years, as regards an undated production: but such is not the case with Roman type, or white-letter. What I suspect, however, is that this ballad is considerably older, and that my copy is only a comparatively modern reprint with some alterations; it requires no proof, at this time of day, to show that it was the constant habit of our old publishers of ephemeral literature to reprint ballads without the slightest notice that they had ever appeared before. This, in fact, is the point on which I want information, as to The Royal Courtly Garland, or Joy after Sorrow. Can any of your correspondents refer me to an older copy, or do they know of the existence of one which belongs to a later period? I cannot be ignorant of DR. RIMBAULT'S learning on such matters, and I make my appeal especially to him.

It is very possible that it may bear a different title in other copies, and for the sake of identification I will furnish a few extracts from the various "parts" (no fewer than six) into which the ballad is divided; observing that they fill a closely printed broadside, and that the production is entirely different from Jordan's versification of the Winter's Tale, under the title of The Jealous Duke and the injured Duchess, which came out in his Royal Arbor of Loyal Poesie, 8vo. 1664. It is singular that two ballads, hitherto wholly unknown, should have been written upon the same incidents of the same drama, although we are yet without evidence that Jordan's effusion was ever published as a broadside.

Not a single name is given to any of the persons in my Royal Courtly Garland, but the places of action are reversed exactly in the same way as in Greene's novel of Pandosto, where what Shakspeare represents as passing in Sicily occurs in Bohemia, and vice versa; moreover, the error of representing Bohemia as a maritime country belongs to my ballad, as well as to the novelist and the dramatist. The King of Bohemia, jealous of an "outlandish prince," who he suspected had intrigued with his queen, employs his cup-bearer to poison the prince, who is informed by the cup-bearer of the design against his life.

Not long after his departure, the queen, "who had never conceived before" (which varies both from Greene and Shakspeare), produces a daughter, which the king resolves to get rid of by turning it adrift at sea in "a little boat." He so informs the queen, and she in great grief provides the outfit for the infant voyager:

It is revealed to the king in a dream that his wife is innocent, but she soon dies of a broken-heart. Meanwhile, the prince, on his return to his own dominions, marries, and has a son. The infant princess is driven on shore in his kingdom, and is saved by an old shepherd, and brought up by him and his wife as their own child, they carefully concealing the riches they had found in the "little boat."

"Her" is misprinted him in the original, and the whole, as may be expected, is not a first-rate specimen of typography. The son of the prince sees and falls in love with the supposed shepherd's daughter, and, to avoid the anger of the prince his father, he secretly sails away with her and the old shepherd. By a storm they are driven on the coast of Bohemia:

Here we arrive at an incident which is found in Greene, but which Shakspeare had the judgment to avoid, making the termination of his drama as wonderful for its art, as delightful for its poetry. Greene and my ballad represent the king of Bohemia falling in love with his own daughter, whom he did not recognise. She effectually resisted his entreaties, and he resolves "to hang or burn" the whole party; but the old shepherd, to save himself, reveals that she is not his daughter, and produces "the mantle of gold" in which he had found her: