Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 - Various 2 стр.

What struck me here was the omission of the only gate of Troy really known to fame, the Scæan, which looked on the tomb of the founder Laomedon; before which stood Hector, "full and fixed," awaiting the fatal onslaught of Achilles; where Achilles, in turn, received his death-wound from the shaft of Paris; and through which, finally, the wooden horse was triumphantly conveyed into the doomed city.

The six names are shown to be taken by Shakspeare in part from Caxton, and in part from Lydgate: and in Knight's edition we are told that they are "pure inventions of the middle age of romance-writers."

Let us examine this assertion. The names are to be found pretty nearly as above, but with one important difference, in Dares' History of the Trojan War. My authority is Ruæus, the Delphine editor of Virgil (see his note at Æn. II. 612.). Now Dares (perhaps the oldest of the profane writers whom we know) was a Phrygian, who took part in the Trojan war, and wrote its history in Greek: and the Greek original was still extant in the time of Ælian, from A.D. 80 to 140. Of this, now lost, a Latin translation still survives, by some attributed to Cornelius Nepos, and by some regarded as spurious; but, either way, its date must be long antecedent to "the middle age of romance-writers." It was doubtless from this Latin history that Caxton or Lydgate, or both, derived directly or indirectly the names they adopted; and yet it is to be noted that they give respectively the names of Chetas and Cetheas to one of their gates, and omit the well-known Scæan, which Dares expressly mentions; for I presume that no principle of philology will sanction the identification of Scæan with either of the terms used by these two writers.

I have trespassed somewhat on your space, but let me hope the subject may be farther elucidated. The points I wish to put forward are, Shakspeare's omission of the Scæan gate, and the proposition by Knight (for a proposition it is, though in a participular form), that these six names are "pure inventions of the middle age of romance-writers."

Hong Kong.

On the Word "delighted" in "Measure for Measure," &c. (Vol. viii., p. 241.).Inasmuch as the controversy respecting this word seems to be over, and no one of the critics and commentators on Shakspeare's text appears to have the slightest clue to the real meaning and derivation, I will enlighten them. But, first, I must say, I am surprised that Dr. Kennedy should (though he has certainly hit on the right meaning) be unable to give a better account of the word than that in Vol. ii., pp. 139. 250. And as to the passage quoted (Vol. ii., p. 200) by Mr. Singer from Sidney's Arcadia, I beg to inform him that the word delight, which occurs therein, is a misprint for daylight!

We find, in the Latin, the substantive deliciæ, delight, pleasure, enjoyment; and the adjective (derived from the same root, and guiding us to the original meaning of the substantive) delicatus, which amongst other meanings, has that of tender, soft, gentle, delicate, dainty.

As the early English scholars were not very particular about the form of the words they introduced from the Latin, or indeed of those which were purely English, for they changed them at their pleasure,and that this is the case, I presume no one at all versed in the literature of the time of Henry VIII. will dispute,it requires no great exertion of fancy to believe, that, finding the substantive deliciæ Englished delight, they rendered the adjective delicatus delighted. The fact that they did use the words delight and delicate as synonymous, is proved by a passage in "a boke named the Gouernour deuised by Syr Thomas Elyot, Knyght, Londini, 1557;" in which, at folio 203., p. 1., we find Titus, the son of Vespasian, who was ordinarily termed "the delight of mankind," called "the delicate of the world."

We are therefore to conclude that the words delicate and delighted were used indifferently by writers of the age of Shakspeare, as well as by those previous to him, to express the same thing; and that by the phrase "delighted spirit" in Measure for Measure, "delighted beauty" in Othello, "delighted gifts" in Cymbeline, we are to understand, exquisitely tender, delicate, or precious.

I cannot agree with Dr. Kennedy that deliciæ, delicatus come from deligere rather than delicere; since, if my memory does not deceive me, the former is as often, if not oftener, used by good writers to express to drive away, to upset, to remove from, or detachas to select or choosewhich is the only meaning the word has akin to deliciæ; whereas delicere is actually used by one of the earlier Latin poets for to delight.

The word dainty, I may inform Dr. Kennedy, is from the obsolete French dein or dain, delicate; which probably came from the still older Teut. deinin, minuta (vid. Schilter).

Rectory, Hereford.

Minor Notes

Epitaph from Stalbridge.The following epitaph from the churchyard of Stalbridge, Dorsetshire, may perhaps be thought worthy of preservation, if it be not a hackneyed one:

Curious Extracts.Dean NowellBottled Beer.I was somewhat hasty in assuming (see Vol. vii., p. 135.) that bottled beer was an unknown department in early times, as the following extract will show. It is from Fuller's Worthies of England, under "Lancashire," the subject of the notice being no less a person than the grave divine Alexander Nowell, dean of St. Paul's, author of the Catechism, whose fondness for angling is also commemorated by Izaak Walton. Fuller, having noticed the narrow escape which Nowell had from arrest by some of Bishop Bonner's emissaries in Queen Mary's reign, having had a hint to fly whilst fishing in the Thames, "whilst Nowell was catching of fishes, Bonner was catching of Nowell," proceeds to say,

"Without offence it may be remembered that, leaving a bottle of ale, when fishing, in the grass, he found it some days after no bottle, but a gun, such the sound at the opening thereof: and this is believed (casualty is the mother of more inventions than industry1) the original of bottled ale in England."Nuttall's edit., vol. ii. p. 205.

A Collection of Sentences out of some of the Writings of the Lord Bacon (i. 422. edit. Montagu), with the ensuing exceptions, is taken out of the Essays, and in regular order:

A Collection of Sentences out of some of the Writings of the Lord Bacon (i. 422. edit. Montagu), with the ensuing exceptions, is taken out of the Essays, and in regular order:

No. 1. p. 33. of the same volume.

No. 2. p. 21.

No. 3. p. 5.

No. 4. p. 8.

No. 51. My reference is illegible: the words are,"Men seem neither well to understand their riches nor their strength: of the former they believe greater things than they should; and of the latter, much less. And from hence, certain fatal pillars have bounded the progress of learning."

No. 68. pp. 173. 272. 321.

No. 69. p. 185.

No. 70. p. 176.

No. 71. Vol. vi., p. 172. The Charge of Owen, &c.

Nos. 72, 73. Vol. vii., p. 261. The Speech before the Summer Circuits, 1617.

Law and Usage.In The Times of September 1, the Turkish correspondent writes as follows:

"Mahmoud Pasha declared in the Divan of the 17th that 'he would divorce his wife, but would not advise a dishonourable peace with Russia.' This is an expression of the strongest kind in use amongst the Turks."

It is worth a Note that, in spite of polygamy and divorce, a common proverb is monogamic, and divorce is spoken of as the greatest of unlikelihoods.

Manichæan Games.Take any game played by two persons, such as draughts, and let the play be as follows: each plays his best for himself, and follows it by playing the worst he can for the other. Thus, when it is the turn of the white to play, he first plays the white as well as he can; and then the black as badly (for the other player) as he can. The black then does the best he can with the black, and follows it by the worst he can do for the white. Of course, by separating the good and evil principles, four persons might play.

Bohn's Hoveden.By way of expressing my sense of obligation to Mr. Bohn and his editors for the Antiquarian Library, perhaps you will suffer me to point out what appears to be an inaccuracy in the translation of Roger de Hoveden's Annals? At p. 123. of vol. ii., the word Suuelle (as it appears to stand in the original text) is translated into Swale: but surely no other place is here meant than the church of St. Mary's at Southwell2 (or Suthwell, Sudwell, Suwell, or Suell, as variously spelt, but never Swale), in Nottinghamshire.

I would also notice a trifling error (perhaps only a misprint) at p. 125.; where we are informed in a note, that the Galilee of Durham Cathedral is at the east end, whereas its real position is at the west.

Oxford.

Milton at Eyford House, Gloster.In the British Museum (says Wilson in his description of Christ's College, Cambridge) is the original proclamation for Milton's appearance after the Restoration. Where was he secreted? I find this note in my book:At Eyford House, Gloucestershire, within two miles of Stow-on-the-Wold, on the road to Cheltenham, a spring of beautiful water is called "Milton's Well," running into a tributary of the Thames. The old house, &c., at the time would be out of the way of common information.

Queries

EARL OF LEICESTER'S PORTRAIT, 1585

There is at Penshurst, among many other interesting memorials of the Dudleys, an original portrait of Elizabeth's Earl of Leicester, with the following painted upon it: "Robert, E. of Leicester, Stadtholder of Holland, A.D. 1585." After this comes the ragged staff, but without its usual accompaniment, the bear. Under the staff follow these enigmatical lines, which I request any of your correspondents to translate and explain. I send you a translation in rhyme; I should thank them the more if they would do the same: as to explanation, the longer the better.

Now for a word of commentary: and first as to "Stadtholder of Holland, A.D. 1585." The good woman who showed the picture informed us that it was painted by order of the stadtholder, and presented to Leicester; if so, there would have been a jussu provinciarum fœderatarum depictus, or something of that sort; but no such compliment was to be expected from the Dutch, for they hated him, complained of his conduct, memorialised the queen against him: see the pamphlets in the British Museum, 4to. 1587, C. 32. a. 2. But though it was most unlikely that the Dutch or their stadtholder should have presented this picture to Leicester, it well accorded with Leicester's vanity and presumption, and still more with that vanity and presumption as displayed in his conduct as commander-in-chief of the forces in Holland, to call himself The Stadtholder, and to order his painter to put that title under his portrait.

The verses may now be referred to in support of this view of the subject. Leicester therein represents himself as unhappy, because he had bestowed blessings on the ungrateful Dutch.

In conclusion, take the following full-length portrait of Leicester's indignation (Leicester, a Belgis vituperatus, loquitur):

Tunbridge Wells.

EARLY USE OF TIN

Mr. Layard, in his work upon Nineveh and Babylon, in reference to the articles of bronze from Assyria now in the British Museum, states, that the tin used in the composition was probably obtained from Phœnicia; and, consequently, that that used in the Assyrian bronze may actually have been exported nearly three thousand years ago from the British Isles.