Various

“ Can any of your correspondents who may have in their possession any old Greek, or Latin, or other versions, of the Book of Common Prayer, kindly inform me how the word after is rendered in the rubrics of the General Confession, the Lord's Prayer in the Post Communion, and the last prayer of the Commination Service? Is it in the sense of post or secundum?
2. Where can any account of the translation of the Canons of 1604 into English be found? It is apprehended the question is one more difficult to answer than might be supposed. ”

“ Respecting Samuel Rowlands it may be regarded as extraordinary that no account has been discovered; and though his pamphlets almost rival in number those of Greene, Taylor, and Prynne, their prefaces—those fruitful sources of information—throw no light upon the life or circumstances of their author. The late Mr. Octavius Gilchrist considered that "Rowlands was an ecclesiastic [?] by profession;" and, inferring his zeal in the pulpit from his labours through the press, adds, "it should seem that he was an active servant of the church." ”

“ The Long Parliament, although it dissolved the Star Chamber, seems to have had no more enlightened views as respects the freedom of the press than Queen Elizabeth or the Archbishops Whitgift and Laud; for on the 14th June, 1643, the two Houses made an ordinance prohibiting the printing of any order or declaration of either House, without order of one or both Houses; or the printing or sale of any book, pamphlet, or paper, unless the same were approved and licensed under the hands of such persons as both or either House should appoint for licensing the same. ”

“ It has been remarked that his muse is seldom found in the best company; and to have become so well acquainted with the bullies, drunkards, gamesters, and cheats, whom he describes, he must have frequented the haunts of dissipation in which such characters are to be found. But the humorous descriptions of low-life exhibited in his satires are more precious to antiquaries than more grave works, and those who make the manners of Shakspeare's {420} age the subject their study may better spare a better author than Samuel Rowlands. ”

“ On the 12th November, 5 & 6 Philip and Mary, 1558, a bill "That no man shall print any book or ballad, &c., unless he be authorized thereunto by the king and queen's majesties licence, under the Great Seal of Englande," was read for the first time in the House of Lords, where it was read again a second time on the 14th. On the 16th it was read for the third time, but it did not pass, and probably never reached the Commons; for Queen Mary died on the following day, and thereby the Parliament was dissolved. ”

“ On the 23d June, 28 Eliz. 1586 (not 1585, as in Strype) , {426} Archbishop Whitgift and the Lords of the Privy Council in the Star Chamber made rules and ordinances for redressing abuses in printing. No printing-press was to be allowed elsewhere than in London (except one in each University) ; and no book was to be printed until first seen and perused by the Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of London; with an exception in favour of the queen's printer, and books of the common law, which were to be allowed by the Chief Justices and Chief Baron, or one of them. ”

“ If there is something droll in the notion of such an affidavit, there is, assuredly, something to move our respect in the earnestness and love of truth which led the bailie to make it, and to prove him a good honest man, as we have no doubt, "his father, the deacon, was before him." ”

“ The affinity which exists between such of the vernacular languages of India as are offshoots of the Sanscrit, as the Hindostanee, Mahratta, Guzeratee, &c., and the Greek, Latin, German, and English languages, is now well known to European scholars, more especially since the publication of the researches of Vans Kennedy, Professor Bopp of Berlin, &c. Indeed, scarcely a day passes in which the European resident in India may not recognise, in his intercourse with the natives, many familiar words in all those languages, clothed in an oriental dress. ”

“ And because many pamphlets, plays, and ballads be oftentimes printed, wherein regard would be had that nothing therein should be either heretical, seditious, or unseemly for Christian ears; Her Majesty likewise commandeth that no manner of person shall enterprise to print any such, except the same be to him licensed by such Her Majesty's commissioners, or three of them, as be appointed in the city of London to hear and determine divers clauses ecclesiastical, tending to the execution of certain statutes made the last parliament for uniformity of order in religion. ”

“ While on the subject of foreign works of interest to English readers, we may mention two or three others which we have been for some time intending to bring under the notice of those who know how much light may be thrown upon our early language and literature by a study of the contemporary literature of the Low Countries. ”

“ Offending hawkers, pedlars, and ballad-chappers were to be whipped as common rogues. (Parliamentary History, xvi. 309.) We get some insight into the probable cause of this ordinance from a letter of Sir Thomas Fairfax to the Earl of Manchester, dated "Putney, 20th Sept., 1647." He complains of some printed pamphlets, very scandalous and abusive, to the army in particular, and the whole kingdom in general; and expresses his desire that these, and all of the like nature, might be suppressed for the future. ”

“ The Spaniards must have had the fruit in Martial's time, but they do not take the name immediately from the Latin, but through the Arabic, and call it albaricoque. The Italians, again, copy the Spanish, not the Latin, and call it albicocco. The French, from them, have abricot. The English, though they take their word from the French, at first called it abricock, then apricock (restoring the p) , and lastly, with the French termination, apricot. ”

“ Again, the range of thought is not high and difficult, but level and easy for the wayfaring man to follow. It is quite evident that the author's mind was able and cultivated; yet as a teacher to men of low estate, he makes no displays of eloquence or argument. ”

“ Those who are accustomed to the interpretation of mythological fictions will at once recognise in this story an explanatory legend, invented for the purpose of giving an interest to a valuable drinking-horn, of ancient work, which belonged to the Counts of Oldenburg. ”

“ NEW ENLARGED EDITION OF HUGHES'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, IN 8vo.
In Seven Volumes, 8vo., price 3l. 13s. 6d. boards.
HISTORY OF ENGLAND, FROM THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III., TO THE ACCESSION OF QUEEN VICTORIA, BY THE REV. T.S. HUGHES, B.D., CANON OF PETERBOROUGH.
"To produce a Literary Work, justly deserving the name of National, is a rare contribution to our Literature. This MR. HUGHES has done in a conscientious and able manner."—Literary Gazette.
London: GEORGE BELL, 186. Fleet Street.
CHRONICLES OF THE ANCIENT BRITISH CHURCH, prior to the Arrival of St. Augustine, A.D. 596. Second Edition. ”

“ I beg to encloze ðe following scraps, purposely written on slips, ðat ðe one may be destroyed and not ðe oðer if you should þink fit so to do, and for eaze ov printing.
Pleaze to respect my orþography—a beginning to a better system—if you can and will. Ðe types required will only be ðe Ð, ð, and Þ, þ, ov our noble Anglo-Saxon moðer-tongue, letterz in common use almost down to ðe time ov Shakspeare!
If you will not be charmed, ov course you are at liberty to change it.
I have a large work in ðe press (translationz from ðe A.-Saxon) printed entirely in ðis orþography. ”

“ These, and similar expressions in the same writer, without reference to any text upon the subject, seem to show, that men loving their pigs more than God, was a theological phrase of the day, descriptive of their too great worldliness. ”

“ A field near the house is pointed out as the site of Steele's garden, in the bower of which he is said to have written his "Conscious Lovers." The Ivy Bush, formerly a private house, and said to be the house where Steele died, is now the principal inn in Caermarthen.
WM. SPURRELL.
Caermarthen.
Cure for Warts (Vol. i., p. 482.) — In Buckinghamshire I have heard of the charming away of warts by touching each wart with a separate green pea. Each pea being wrapped in paper by itself, and buried, the wart will vanish as the pea decays. ”

“ The ordinary books of reference do not contain the painter's name.
The same legend as that contained in this inscription, though with fuller details, is given by the brothers Grimm, in their collection of Deutsche Sagen, No. 541. vol. ii. p. 317., from two Oldenburg chronicles. According to this version Otto was Count of Oldenburg in the year 990 or 967. [The chronicles appear to differ as to his date: the inscription of the Combe Abbey picture furnishes a third date.] ”

“ To all and singular as well nobles and gentills as others to whom these presents shall come, we, Sir Gilbert Dethicke, knight, alias Garter, principall kinge of armes for the Order of the Garter, Robte. ”

“ Mr. JONES'S dictum, that the letters "S.R.," on the title-page "are the well-known initials of Samuel Rowlands," may well, I think, be questioned. Great caution should be used in these matters. Bibliographers and catalogue-makers are constantly making confusion by assigning works, which bear the initials only, to wrong authors.
The Choise of Change may with much more probability be given to a very different author. I have a copy of the edition of 1598 now before me, in which the name is filled up, in a cotemporary hand, S [imon] , R [obson] . ”

“ Sir Walter Scott (Preface to his reprint of The Letting of Humours Blood in the Head Vaine) gives us a very different idea of the nature of his calling. His words are:
"Excepting that he lived and wrote, none of those industrious antiquaries have pointed out any particulars respecting Rowland [s] . ”

“ Could Mulgrave have so written of himself; or could he have allowed Dryden to interpolate the character. Earlier in the poem we meet with a description of Shaftesbury, which cannot fail to call to mind Dryden's character of him in Absalom and Achitophel; which, as we know, did not make its appearance, even in its first shape, until two years after Dryden was cudgelled in Rose Street as the author of the Essay upon Satire. Everybody bears in mind the triplet,
"A fiery soul, which working out its way,
Fretted his pigmy body to decay,
And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay;" ”

“ MORERI'S (Louis) GREAT HISTORICAL DICTIONARY of the Gods and Heroes, the Lives of the Patriarchs, Emperors, Princes, Popes, Saints, Fathers, Cardinals, Heresiarchs, the History of Sects, Councils, General and Particular Authors, Orders, Genealogies of Families, &c., (in French) , Paris, 1752, best edition, folio, 10 vols. calf, gilt, 4l. 14s.
NARES'S (Rob.) GLOSSARY of Words, Phrases, Names, Customs, Proverbs, &c., in the Works of English Authors, particularly Shakspeare and his Contemporaries, 1822, 4to., very scarce, handsomely bound in russia, gilt, gilt edges, 2l. 18s. ”

“ Sir John Newton, to whom the grant was made, lies buried at East Harptree; and on his tomb may be seen (besides his effigies as large as life) the twelve quarterings in their original (?) blazoning, impaled with those of his wife, one of the Pointz family. The same arms (of Newton) are still discernible on a beautifully wrought, though now much mutilated shield, over one of the doors of Barres Court, at East Hanham, in Bitton, Gloucestershire, where Newton also had a residence, where John Leland on his itinerary visited him, and says (Itin. vol. vii. p. 87.) ”

“ Three quarters length: a female figure, standing, with long curling light hair, and a wreath of flowers round the head. She wears a white satin gown, with a yellow edge; gold chain on the stomacher, and pearl buttons down the front. She has a pearl necklace and earrings, with a high plaited chemisette up to the necklace; and four rows of pearls, with a yellow bow, round the sleeve. She holds in her hands a large highly ornamented gold horn. The back-ground consists of mountains. Underneath the picture is this inscription ”

“ In witnesse whereof we, the said hinges and hereauldes of arms, have caused these letters to be made patentes, and set herevnto our common seale of corporation, given at the office of arms in London, the twelvethe of December, and in the tenthe yeare of the reigne of our sovereign {429} ladie Elizabeth, by the grace of God Queene of England, France and Ireland, defender of the faithe," &c. ”

“ It was this ordinance which occasioned the publication, in or about 1644, of Milton's most noble defence of the liberty of the press, entitled Areopagitica; a Speech for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing, To the Parliament of England. After setting out certain Italian imprimaturs, he remarks:
"These are the pretty responsories, these are the dear antiphonies that so bewitched of late our prelates and their chaplains with the godly echo they made and besotted, as to the gay imitation of a lordly imprimatur, one from Lambeth House, another from the west end of Paul's ”

“ DUCANGE ET CARPENTARII GLOSSARIUM Manuale ad Scriptores Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis, in Compendium redactum, multisque Verbis auctum, Halæ, 1772-87, 8vo, 6 vols. half calf, very neat, 3l. 3s.
ROBSON'S (Thos.) BRITISH HERALD, or Cabinet of ARMORIAL BEARINGS of the Nobility and Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, &c., 1830, with a volume of plates, 4to, 3 vols. half calf, gilt, 2l. 18s. (cost 11l.)
TIRABOSCHI (Girol.) STORIA DELLA LITERATURA ITALIANA, Roma, 1782-85, (best edition, with the notes of P. MAMACHI,) large 4to. 12 vols. vellum, gilt, neat, fine set, 3l. 10s. ”

“ Had not kind Brigham reared him cost,"
to know that there is evidence in Smith's Life of Nollekens, vol. i. p. 79., that remains of the painted figure of Chaucer were to be seen in Nolleken's times. Smith reports a conversation between the artist and Catlin, so many years the principal verger of the abbey, in which Catlin inquires,
"Did you ever notice the remaining colours of the curious little figure which was painted on the tomb of Chaucer?" ”