Notes and Queries, Number 21, March 23, 1850

"When found, make a note of."—CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

EARLY STATISTICS.—CHART, KENT

Perhaps some one of your numerous readers will be good enough to inform me whether any general statistical returns, compiled from our early parish registers, have ever been published. An examination of the register of Chart next Sutton Valence, in Kent, which disclosed some very curious facts, has led me to make this inquiry. They seem to point to the inevitable conclusion that the disturbed state of England during the period of the Great Rebellion retarded the increase of population to an extent almost incredible—so as to suggest a doubt whether some special cause might not have operated in the parish in question which was not felt elsewhere. But, as I am quite unable to discover the existence of any such cause, I shall be glad to learn whether a similar result appears generally in other registers of the period above referred to.

The register-book of Chart commences with the year 1558, and is continued regularly from that time. During the remainder of the sixteenth, and for about the first thirty-five years of the seventeenth century, the baptisms registered increase steadily in number: from that period there is a very marked decrease. For the twenty years commencing with 1600 and ending with 1619, the number 260; for the twenty years 1620 to 1639, the number is 246; and for the twenty years 1640 to 1659, the number is only 120.

No doubt this diminution must be attributed partly to the spread of Nonconformity; but I believe that during the Protectorate, the registration of births was substituted for that of baptisms, and therefore the state of religious feeling which then prevailed bears less directly on the question. And even after the Restoration the register exhibits but a small increase in the number of baptisms. For the various periods of twenty years from that event up to 1760, the numbers range from 152 to 195. And pursuing the inquiry, I find that the number of marriages, for any given time, varies consistently with that of baptisms. If any of your reader can clear up the difficulty, I shall feel much obliged for any information which may tend to do so.

Are the following extracts from the register above referred to of sufficient interest to merit your acceptance?

"1648.—Richard, the son of George Juxon, gent., and Sarah, his wife, who was slayne 1º Junii at Maydestone Fight, was buryed on the third daye of June, anno predicto."

"Joseph, the son of Thomas Daye, and An, his wife, who was wounded at Maydestone Fight 1º Junii, was buryed the eleventh daye of June."

It is hardly necessary to mention, that the fight here referred to took place between the parliamentary forces under Fairfax, and a large body of Kentish gentlemen, who had risen, with their dependants, in the hope of rescuing the king from the hands of the army. After an obstinate engagement, in which the Kentish men fully maintained their character for gallantry, they were defeated with great slaughter.

"1653.—The third of March, Mr. John Case of Chart next Sutton Clarke, being chosen by the parishioners of the said Chart, to be the Register of the said parish according to the Act touching marriages, births, and buryalls, was this day sworne before me, and I do allow and approve of him to be Register accordingly. As witness my hand.

"1660.—Marye, the daughter of John Smith, Esq. was baptized on the thirteenth daye of Januarie, 1660, by John Case, Vicar. The first that hath been baptized at the font since it was re-erected by the appoynm't of the said Mr. Smith, being full sixteene yeers paste. One Thomas Scoone, an elder, having, out of his blinde zeale, defaced and pulled it downe, w't other ornaments belonging to the churche."

Chancery Lane, 7th March.

BIS DAT QUI CITÒ DAT

Inquiry has been often made as to the origin of this proverb. Alciatus is referred to generally as the authority whence it was derived. I think, however, it may be traced to Publius Syrus, who lived about forty-four years before Christ. It is equally probable, from the peculiar species of composition in which the thought, if not the exact words are found, that the proverb was derived from another and an earlier source. The object of mimic exhibitions is to impress the mind by imitation. Human life is burlesqued, personal defect heightened and ridiculed; character is never represented in degree, but in extremes. The dialogue of satirical comedy assumes naturally the form of the apophthegm—it is epigrammatic and compressed that it may be pungent and striking. Hence, no species of writing is more allied to or more likely to pass into household words, and to become proverbs among a people of quick retentive powers, such as the Greeks were, to whom we are perhaps indebted for this. I send you the extract from Alciatus; Emblemata, No. 162. Antverpiæ, 18mo. 1584. Apud Christophorum Plantinum.

Now here we have the proverb clearly enough.

I subjoin the note upon the lines in which it appears.

"Bis dat qui cito dat," in Mimis Publii. "Beneficium inopi bis dat, qui dat celeriter." Proverb, Bis dat, &c.

Referring to the Sentences of Publius Syrus, published, with the additional Fables of Phædrus, from the Vatican MSS., by Angelo Mai, I found the line thus given:

The same idea, I believe, occurs in Ovid. Query whether it is not a thought naturally presenting itself to the mind, reflected by memory, confirmed by experience, and which some Mimic author has made proverbial by his terse, gnomic form of expression.

PARALLEL PASSAGES

I take the liberty of sending you several parallel passages, which may probably appear to you worthy of insertion in your valuable paper.

Greenock.

ERRORS CORRECTED

I.—Sharon Turner's Hist. of England (Lond. 1814. 4to.), i. 332.

"The Emperor (Henry VI.) determined to extort an immoderate ransom; but, to secure it, had him (Richard Coeur de Lion) conveyed to a castle in the Tyrol, from which escape was hopeless."—Note "104. In Tiruali. Oxened. MS."

Ibid. p. 333:

"He (Richard) was removed from the dungeon in the Tyrol to the emperor's residence at Haguenau."—Note "109. See Richard's Letter to his Mother. Hoveden, 726."

The fortress, here represented to be in the Tyrol, is about 220 miles distant ("as the crow flies") from the nearest point in that district, and is the Castle of Trifels, which still crowns the highest of three rocky eminences (Treyfels = Three Rocks), which rise from the mountain range of the Vosges, on the southern side of the town of Annweiler. In proceeding from Landau to Zweibrücken (Deux-Ponts), the traveller may see it on his left. The keep is still in good preservation; and it was on account of the natural strength of its position that the imperial crown-jewels were formerly preserved in it.

I am unable to refer at present to the MS. of Oxenedes (Cotton, Nero, D 2), which appears to give the erroneous reading of Tirualli for Triualli or Trivalli; but Mr. Turner might have avoided the mistake by comparing that MS. with the printed text of Hoveden, in which Richard is represented as dating his letter "de Castello de Triuellis, in quo detinebamur."

II.—Wright's S. Patrick's Purgatory (Lond. 1844. 8vo.), p. 135.:

"On the patent rolls in the Tower of London, under the year 1358, we have an instance of testimonials given by the king (Edward III.) on the same day, to two distinguished foreigners, one a noble Hungarian, the other a Lombard, Nicholas de Beccariis, of their having faithfully performed this pilgrimage."

In a note on this passage, Mr. Wright reprints one of the testimonials from Rymer (Foedera, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 174.), in which is the following passage:

In the original deed, the text must have been de Arimino (of Rimini); for the person here referred to was a natural son of Malatesta de' Malatesti, Lord of Rimini and of Pesaro, and took the name of L'Ungaro in consequence of his having been knighted by Louis, King of Hungary, when the latter passed through the Malatesta territory, when he was going to Naples for the purpose of avenging his brother Andrew's death. In the Italian account of the family (Clementini, Raccolto Istorico della Fondazione di Rimino. Rimino, 1617-27. 2 vols. 4to.), L'Ungario is said have been a great traveller, to have visited England, and to have died in 1372, at the age of 45. (See also Sansovino, Origine e Fatti delle Famiglie Illustri d'Italia. Venetia, 1670. 4to. p. 356.)

DIRECT AND INDIRECT ETYMOLOGY

I have just been exceedingly interested in reading a lecture on the Origin and Progress of the English Language, delivered at the Athenæum, Durham, before the Teachers' Society of the North of England, by W. Finley, Graduate of the University of France.

The following passage well expresses a caution that should be always kept in mind by the literary archæologist:

"In the orthography of English words derived from the Latin, one great and leading principle must be kept in view. If the word is of new adoption, it is certain that its spelling will be like that which appears in the original word; or if it has come to us through the French, the spelling will be conformable to the word in that language; thus, persecution from persequor, pursue from poursuivre. Again, flourish from fleurir, efforescent, florid, &c., from floreo. And to establish our orthography on certain grounds, it ought to be the business of the lexicographer to determine the date of the first appearance of an adopted word, and thus satisfactorily determine its spelling." (Lecture, p. 20. footnote.)

Home, March 2.

ERRORS IN POPE'S HOMER'S ODYSSEY

In all the editions I have seen of this translation, the following very palpable errors exist, which I do not remember to have seen noticed. The first of these errors is contained in book ix. lines 325, 326, 463, and 533,

and consists in Mr. Pope having bestowed two organs of sight on the giant Polypheme.

The second occurs in line 405 of the same book;

and is owing to the inadvertency of the translator, who forgets what he had previously written in lines 342 to 348.

And in lines 368 and 369;

by which it distinctly appears that line 405 has a reference to the third "dire repast" of the Cyclops, instead of the second.

Perhaps you will not deem me presumptuous in offering an amendment of these passages by the following substitutions:—

For lines 325 and 326,

for line 463,

for line 405,

and for line 533,

Godalming, Feb. 10. 1850.

PROVERBIAL SAYINGS AND THEIR ORIGINS—PLAGIARISMS AND PARALLEL PASSAGES

In a note to Boswell's Life of Johnson (Lond. 1816. 8vo.), iv. 196., the following lines are ascribed to their real authors:—

To Joh. Baptista Mantuanus (Leipz. 1511. 4to), Eclog. i.:—

To Philippe Gaultier, who flourished in the last half of the 12th century (Lugduni, 1558. 4to. fol. xlij. recto):—

At the conclusion of the same note, the authorship of

is said to remain undiscovered; but it appears to be a corrected form of a line in Albertus ab Eyb's Margarita Poetica (Nuremberg, 1472. Fol.), where, with all its false quantities, it is ascribed to Ovid:—

In the same page (fol. 149. rect.),

is transferred from Horace to Ovid; while, on the reverse of the same fol., Æsop has the credit of

Of the first line of the couplet, Ménage says (Menagiana, Amstm. 1713. 12mo.), iii. 132., that it is "de la fable du 3'e Livre de ce même Poëte à qui nous avons dit qu'appartenoit le vers

But I cannot find the reference to which he alludes.

In the same fol. (149 rect.) is perhaps the earliest quotation of

which occurs also in Menagiana (Amstm. 1713. 12mo.), i. 209.:—

The parallel passages in Ovid are in Epist. ex Pont. iv. x. 5.:—

and in Art. Amat. l. 475, 476.:—

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