DEVONIANISMS

Miserable.—Miserable is very commonly used in Devonshire in the signification of miserly, with strange effect until one becomes used to it. Hooker the Judicious, a Devonshire man, uses the word in this sense in the Eccl. Polity, book v. ch. lxv. p. 21.:

"By means whereof it cometh also to pass that the mean which is virtue seemeth in the eyes of each extreme an extremity; the liberal-hearted man is by the opinion of the prodigal miserable, and by the judgment of the miserable lavish."

Few.—Speaking of broth, people in Devon say a few broth in place of a little, or some broth. I find a similar use of the word in a sermon preached in 1550, by Thomas Lever, Fellow of St. John's College, preserved by Strype (in his Eccles. Mem., ii. 422.). Speaking of the poor students of Cambridge, he says:

"At ten of the clock they go to dinner, whereas they be content with a penny piece of beef among four, having a few pottage made of the broth of the same beef, with salt and oatmeal, and nothing else."

Figs, Figgy.—Most commonly raisins are called figs, and plum-pudding figgy pudding. So with plum-cake, as in the following rhymes:—

"Rain, rain, go to Spain,
Never come again:
When I brew and when I bake,
I'll give you a figgy cake."

Against is used like the classical adversùm, in the sense of towards or meeting. I have heard, both in Devonshire and in Ireland, the expression to send against, that is, to send to meet, a person, &c.

The foregoing words and expressions are probably provincialisms rather than Devonianisms, good old English forms of expression; as are, indeed, many of the so-called Hibernicisms.

Pilm, Farroll.—What is the derivation of pilm=dust, so frequently heard in Devon, and its derivatives, pilmy, dusty: it pilmeth? The cover of a book is there called the farroll; what is the derivation of this word?

J. M. B.

Tunbridge Wells.

THE POEMS OF ROWLEY

The tests propounded by Mr. Keightley (Vol. vii. p. 160.) with reference to the authenticity of the poems of Rowley, namely the use of "its," and the absence of the feminine rhyme in e, furnish additional proof, if any were wanting, that Chatterton was the author of those extraordinary productions. Another test often insisted upon is the occurrence, in those poems, of borrowed thoughts—borrowed from poets of a date posterior to that of their pretended origin. Of this there is one instance which seems to have escaped the notice of Chatterton's numerous annotators. It occurs at the commencement of The Tournament, in the line,—

"The worlde bie diffraunce ys ynn orderr founde."

It will be seen that this line, a very remarkable one, has been cleverly condensed from the following passage in Pope's Windsor Forest:—

"But as the world, harmoniously confused,
Where order in variety we see;
And where, tho' all things differ, all agree."

This sentiment has been repeated by other modern writers. Pope himself has it in the Essay on Man, in this form,—

"The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life."

It occurs in one of Pascal's Pensées:

"J'écrirai ici mes pensées sans ordre, et non pas peut-être dans une confusion sans dessein: C'est le véritable ordre, et qui marquera toujours mon objet par le désordre même."

Butler has it in the line,—

"For discords make the sweetest airs."

Bernardin de St. Pierre, in his Etudes de la Nature:

"C'est des contraires que résulte l'harmonie du monde."

And Burke, in nearly the same words, in his Reflections on the French Revolution:

"You had that action and counteraction, which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers, draws out the harmony of the universe."

Nor does the sentiment belong exclusively to the moderns. I find it in Horace's twelfth Epistle:

"Nil parvum sapias, et adhuc sublimia cures,
· · · · · ·
Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors."

Lucan, I think, has the same expression in his Pharsalia; and it forms the basis of Longinus's remark on the eloquence of Demosthenes:

"Οὐκοῦν τὴν μὲν φύσιν τῶν ἐπαναφορῶν καὶ ἀσυνδέτων πάντῃ φυλάττει τῇ συνεχεῖ μεταβολῇ· οὑτως αὐτῷ καὶ ἡ τάξις ἄτακτον, καὶ ἔμπαλιν ἡ ἀταξια ποιὰν περιλαμβάνει τάξιν."

It may be said that, as Pope adopted the thought from Horace or Lucan, so a poet of the fifteenth century (such as the supposed Rowley) might have taken it from the same sources. But a comparison of the line in The Tournament with those in Windsor Forest will show that the borrowing embraces not only the thought, but the very words in which it is expressed.

Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia.

FOLK LORE

Legend of Llangefelach Tower.—A different version of the legend also exists in the neighbourhood, viz. that the day's work on the tower being pulled down each night by the old gentleman, who was apparently apprehensive that the sound of the bells might keep away all evil spirits, a saint, of now forgotten name, told the people that if they would stand at the church door, and throw a stone, they would succeed in building the tower on the "spot where it fell," which accordingly came to pass.

Ceridwen.

Wedding Divination.—Being lately present on the occasion of a wedding at a town in the East Riding of Yorkshire, I was witness to the following custom, which seems to take rank as a genuine scrap of folk-lore. On the bride alighting from her carriage at her father's door, a plate covered with morsels of bride's cake was flung from a window of the second story upon the heads of the crowd congregated in the street below; and the divination, I was told, consists in observing the fate which attends its downfall. If it reach the ground in safety, without being broken, the omen is a most unfavourable one. If on the other hand, the plate be shattered to pieces (and the more the better), the auspices are looked upon as most happy.

Oxoniensis.

SHAKSPEARE CORRESPONDENCE

Shakspearian Drawings.—I have very recently become possessed of some curious drawings by Hollar; those relating to Shakspeare very interesting, evidently done for one Captain John Eyre, who could himself handle the pencil well.

The inscription under one is as follows, in the writing of the said J. Eyre:

"Ye house in ye Clink Streete, Southwarke, now belonging to Master Ralph Hansome, and in ye which Master Shakspeare lodged in ye while he writed and played at ye Globe, and untill ye yeare 1600 it was at the time ye house of Grace Loveday. Will had ye two Rooms over against ye Doorway, as I will possibly show."

Size of the drawing, 12 × 7, "W. Hollar delin., 1643." It is an exterior view, beautifully executed, showing very prominently the house and a continuation of houses, forming one side of the street.

The second has the following inscription in the same hand:

"Ye portraiture of ye rooms in ye which Master Will Shakspeare lodged in Clink Streete, and which is told to us to be in ye same state as when left by himself, as stated over ye door in ye room, and on the walls were many printed verses, also a portraiture of Ben Jonson with a ruff on a pannel."

Size of the drawing 11⅝ × 6⅞, "W. Hollar delin., 1643:" shows the interior of three sides, and the floor and ceiling, with the tables, chairs, and reading-desk; an open door shows the interior of his sleeping-room, being over the entrance door porch.

The third—

"Ye Globe, as to be seen before ye Fire in ye year 1615, when this place was burnt down. This old building," &c.

Here follows a long interesting description. It is an exterior view; size of drawing 7¼ wide × 9⅞ high, "W. H. 1640."

The fourth shows the stage, on which are two actors: this drawing, 7⅞ × 6½, was done by J. Eyre, 1629, and on which he gives a curious description of his accompanying Prince Charles, &c.; at this time he belonged to the Court, as he also accompanied that prince to Spain.

The fifth, done by the same hand in a most masterly manner, pen and ink portrait of Shakspeare, copied, as he writes, from a portrait belonging to the Earl of Essex, with interesting manuscript notice.

The sixth, done also by J. Eyre:

"Ye portraiture of one Master Ben Jonson, as on ye walls of Master Will Shakspeare's rooms in Clinke Streete, Southwarke."—J. E. 1643.

The first three, in justice to Hollar, independent of the admirers of the immortal bard and lovers of antiquities, should be engraved as "Facsimiles of the Drawings." This shall be done on my receiving the names of sixty subscribers, the amount of subscription one guinea, for which each subscriber will receive three engravings, to be paid for when delivered.

P. T.

P. S.—These curious drawings may be seen at No. 1. Osnaburgh Place, New Road.

Thomas Shakspeare.—From a close examination of the documents referred to (as bearing the signature of Thomas Shakspeare) in my last communication to "N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 405.), and from the nature of the transaction to which they relate, my impression is, that he was by profession a money scrivener in the town of Lutterworth; a circumstance which may possibly tend to the discovery of his family connexion (if any existed) with William Shakspeare.

Charlecote.

Passage in Macbeth, Act I. Sc. 5.—

" · · · Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry, Hold, hold!"

In Mr. Payne Collier's Notes and Emendations, p. 407., we are informed that the old corrector substitutes blankness for blanket. The change is to me so exceedingly bad, even if made on some sort of authority (as an extinct 4to.), that I should have let it be its own executioner, had not Mr. Collier apparently given in his adhesion to it. I now beg to offer a few obvious reasons why blanket is unquestionably Shakspeare's word.

In the Rape of Lucrece, Stanza cxv., we have a passage very nearly parallel with that in Macbeth:

"O night, thou furnace of foul reeking smoke,
Let not the jealous day behold thy face,
Which underneath thy black all-hiding cloak,
Immodestly lies martyr'd with disgrace."

In Lucrece, the cloak of night is invoked to screen a deed of adultery; in Macbeth the blanket of night is invoked to hide a murder: but the foul, reeking, smoky cloak of night, in the passage just quoted, is clearly parallel with the smoky blanket of night in Macbeth. The complete imagery of both passages has been happily caught by Carlyle (Sartor Resartus, 1841, p. 23.), who, in describing night, makes Teufelsdröckh say:

"Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapours, and putrefactions, and unimaginable gases, what a fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid!"

C. Mansfield Ingleby.

Birmingham.

"Discourse of Reason" (Vol. vii., p. 497.).—This phrase, "generally supposed to be peculiarly Shakspearian," which A. E. B. has indicated in his quotation from Philemon Holland, occurs also in Dr. T. Bright's Treatise of Melancholy, the date of which is 1586. In the third page of the dedicatory epistle there is this sentence: