Notes. PROCLAMATIONS OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES, AND THEIR VALUE AS HISTORICAL EVIDENCES. The work that is now going on at the Society of Antiquaries in reference to the collection of royal proclamations in their library, is one in which not merely the Fellows of that Society, but all historical students, are deeply interested. The Society possesses one of the three known largest collections of these public documents. They were formerly bound up in volumes of several different sizes, intermixed with a variety of fugitive publications, such as ballads and broadsides, which formed altogether a very incongruous collection. A short time since it was found that the binding of many of the volumes was very much worn, and that some of the documents themselves had been considerably torn and damaged. Under these circumstances, Mr. Lemon, of the State Paper Office, offered his services to the Council to superintend an entire new arrangement, mounting, binding, and calendaring, of the whole series of proclamations. His offer was of course gratefully accepted, and the work is now in active progress. The collection is certainly the most important that is known, and is especially so in the reign of Elizabeth; in reference to which there is no collection at all approaching to it, either in completeness or value. Still there are many proclamations wanting several of the Fellows of the Society have come forward most liberally to fill up gaps. MR. PAYNE COLLIER led the way in a contribution of great value; MR. SALT followed MR. COLLIER with a munificent donation of a whole collection relating to Charles II. and James II.; and upon Mr. Lemon's suggestion, and with the joint concurrence of Mr. Secretary Walpole and the Keeper of the State Paper Office, an interchange of duplicates has been effected between that office and the Society of Antiquaries, which has added forty proclamations to the Society's collection. My principal reason for addressing you upon this subject is to ask you to suggest to your readers that a similar interchange of duplicates might be effected between the Society and any persons who chance to have duplicate proclamations in their possession. It is of the very highest literary and historical importance that we should get together, in some accessible place, a collection of proclamations, which if not actually complete (a consummation hardly to be expected), shall yet approach to completeness. The collection at Somerset House offers the best opportunity for forming such a collection. It is by far the most nearly complete in existence, and is strong in that particular part of the series in which other collections are most defective, and in which missing proclamations are the most difficult to be supplied. At the Society of Antiquaries the collection will be accessible to all literary inquirers, and no doubt the Society will publish a proper catalogue, which is already in preparation by Mr. Lemon. It is obvious that any person who chooses to contribute such stray proclamations, or copies of proclamations, as he may chance to have in his possession, will be helping forward a really good work, and the possessor of duplicates may not only do the same, but may benefit his own collection by an interchange. The value of proclamations as historical authorities, and especially as authorities for the history of manners, and of our national progress, is indisputable. As I write, I have before me the Booke of Proclamations of James I. from 1603 to 1609; and the page lying open affords a striking illustration of what I assert. It gives us a CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF Our post-office. Immediately on the accession of James I., the high north road from London to Edinburgh was thronged with multitudes of pilgrims hastening to the worship of the newly risen sun. Robert Carey became, in the words of Cowper's enigma, "the parent of numbers that cannot be told." Scotland has never poured into the south more active or more anxious suppliants than then traversed the northward road through Berwick. All ordinary accommodation soon fell short of the demand. Messengers riding post from the council to the king were stayed on the road for want of the ordinary supply of post-horses, all which were taken up by lords and gentry-rushing northward in the fury of their new-born loyalty. As a remedy for these inconveniences, the lords of the council issued a proclamation, calling upon all magistrates to aid the postmasters "in this time so full of business," by seeing that they are supplied with "fresh and able horses as necessitie shall require." Of course the supply was merely of horses. Travellers could not in those days obtain carriages of any kind. The horses were directed to be "able and sufficient horses, and well furnished of saddles, bridles, girts and stirropes, with good guides to looke to them; who for their said horses shall demand and receive of such as shall ride on them, the prices accustomed." The new state of things became permanent. London, after James's removal from Edinburgh, being really the seat of government for the whole island, the intercourse both ways was continuous, and further general orders for its management were published by proclamation. There were at that time, on all the high roads through the country, two sorts of posts:-1. Special messengers or couriers who rode " thorough post," that is, themselves rode through the whole distance, "with horn and guide." Such persons carried with them an authentication of their employment in the public service. In 1603, they were charged "twopence halfe-peny the mile (raised in 1609 to threepence) for the hire of each horse, "besides the guide's groats." The hire was to be paid beforehand. They were not to ride the horses more than one stage, except with the consent of "the post of the stage" at which they did not change. Nor were they to charge the horse "with any male or burden (besides his rider) that exceedeth the weight of thirtye pounds." Nor to ride more than seven miles an hour in summer or six in winter. 2. The other sort of post was what was termed the "post for the packet." For this service every postmaster was bound to keep horses ready; and on receipt of a "packet" or parcel containing letters, he was to send it on towards the next stage within a quarter of an hour after its arrival, entering the transaction in "a large and faire ledger paper book." Two horses were to be kept constantly ready for this service, "with furniture convenient," and messengers at hand in areadinesse." The postmaster was also to have ready "two bags of leather, at the least, well lined with bayes or cotton, to carry the packet in." He was also to have ready "hornes to sound and blow, as oft as the post meets company, or foure times in every mile.” 66 The "post for the packet" was at first used only for the carriage of despatches for the government or for ambassadors, but a similar mode of conveyance soon began to be taken advantage of by merchants and private persons. Difficulty in obtaining posts and horses for the conveyance of private packets, led to the interference of "certain persons called hackney-men, tapsters, hostlers, and others, in hiring out their horses, to the hinderance of publique service, danger to our state, and wrong to our standing and settled postes in their several stages." The government of James I. thought, in its blindness, that it could put a stop to the dangerous practice of transmitting unofficial letters, by rendering it penal for private persons to carry them; that of Charles I., wiser, in this respect, in its generation, settled a scheme for their general conveyance through the medium of “ a letter office." But the "post for the packet," with his leathern bag and his twanging horn (the origin, of course, of our mail-coach horn), continued down to a late period, and probably still lingers in some parts of the kingdom. Cowper, it will be remembered, describes him admirably. JOHN BRUCE. CURIOSITIES OF ADVERTISING LITERATURE. We are all well acquainted with the ingenious artifices by which modern advertisers thrust their wares upon the attention of newspaper readers. We may, perhaps, have been betrayed into the expression of some rude Saxon expletive, when in the columns devoted to news and general information, we have in our innocence been tempted with a paragraph that commenced with "a clever saying of the illustrious Voltaire's," and dovetailed into a pane gyric of Messrs. Aaron and Son's Reversible Pale tots; or we may have applauded the clever logician who so clearly demonstrates, that as Napoleon's bilious affection frequently clouded his judgment in times of greatest need, the events of the present century, and the fate of nations, would have been reversed, had that great man only been persuaded to take two boxes of Snooks's Aperient Pill, price 1s. 1d., with the government stamp on a red ground (see Advt.). All these things we know very well; but, of the fugitive literature that does not find a place in the advertising columns of The Times, but flashes into Fame only in the pages of some local oracle, or in some obscurer broad-sheet, how often must it remain unappreciated, and doomed to "waste its sweetness on the desert air." That this may not be said of the following burst of advertising eloquence, I trust it may be found worthy a niche in the temple of "N. & Q." In its composition the author was probably inspired by the grand scenery of the Cheviots, in a village near to which his shop was situate. It was one of those generally useful shops where the grocer and draper held equal reign, and anything could be got, from silks and satins to butter and Bath bricks. The composition was printed and distributed among the neighbouring families, but shortly after, when the author heard that it had not produced the exact effect he had wished, he, with the irritability that often accompanies genius, resolved to get back and destroy every copy of his production, and deny to the world that which it could not appreciate. Fortunately for the world's welfare I preserved a copy of his hand-bill, of which this, in its turn, is a faithful transcript: 66 "To the Inhabitants of G. and its neighbourhood. "The present age is teeming with advantages which no preceding Era in the history of mankind has afforded to the human family. New schemes are projecting to enlighten and extend civilisation, Railways have been projected and carried out by an enterprising and spirited nation, while Science in its gigantic power (simple yet sublime) affords to the humane mind so many facilities to explore its rich resources, the Seasons roll on in their usual course producing light and heat, the vivifying rays of the Sun, and the fructifying influences of nature producing food and happiness to the Sons of Toil; while to the people of G. and its neighbourhood a rich and extensive variety of Fashionable Goods is to be found in my Warehouse, which have just been selected with the greatest care. The earliest visit is requested to convey to the mind an adequate idea of the great extent of his purchases, comprising as it does all that is elegant and useful, cheap and substantial, to the light-hearted votaries of Matrimony, the Matrons of Reflection, the Man of Industry, and the disconsolate Victims of Bereavement. J-M-." Car. "I do professe That for your Highnesse good, I euer labour'd Upon this Mason observes: "I can find no meaning in these words (that am, have, and will be), or see how they are connected with the rest of the sentence; and should therefore strike them out." Malone says: "I suppose the meaning is, 'that or such a man, I am, have been, and will ever be.' Our author has many hard and forced expressions in his plays; but many of the hardnesses in the piece before us appear to me of a different colour from those of Shakspeare. Perhaps, however, a line following has been lost; for in the old copy there is no stop at the end of this line; and, indeed, I have some doubt whether a comma ought not to be placed at it, rather than a fullpoint." Mr. Knight, however, places a fullpoint at will be, and says: "There is certainly some corruption in this passage; for no ellipsis can have taken this very obscure form. Z. Jackson suggests that aim has and will be.' This is very harsh. We might read That aim I have and will,' will being a noun." Mr. Collier has the following note: "In this place we can do no more than reprint exactly the old text, with the old punctuation; as if Wolsey, following that am, have, and will be' by a long parenthesis, had forgotten how he commenced his sentence. Something may have been lost, which would have completed the meaning; and the instances have not been unfrequent where lines, necessary to the sense, have been recovered from the quarto impressions. Here we have no quarto impressions to resort to, and the later folios afford us no assistance, as they reprint the passage as it stands in the folio 1623, excepting that the two latest end the parenthesis at 'break.'" I cannot think that the poet would have put a short speech into Wolsey's mouth, making him forget how he commenced it! Nor do I believe that anything has been lost, except the slender letter I preceding am. The printer or transcriber made the easy mistake of taking the word true for haue, which as written of old would readily occur, and having thus confused the passage, had recourse to the unconscionable long mark of a parenthesis. The passage undoubtedly should stand thus: Car. "I do profess That for your highness' good I ever labour'd This slight Here all is congruous and clear. correction of a palpable printer's error redeems a fine passage hitherto entirely unintelligible. I do not insist upon the correction in the fourth line of lack for crack, yet what can be meant by cracking a duty? The Duke, in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, speaks of his daughter as “lacking duty; and seeing how very negligently the whole passage has been given in the folio, I think there is good ground for its reception. With regard to the correction in the second line, I feel confident, and doubt not that it will have the approbation of all who, like myself, feel assured that most of the difficulties in the text of our great poet are attributable to a careless printer or transcriber. When I proposed (Vol. vi., p. 468.) to read "rail at once," instead of "all at once," in As You Like It, Act. III. Sc. 5., I thought the conjecture my own, having then only access to the editions of Mr. Collier and Mr. Knight; I consequently said, "It is somewhat singular that the passage should hitherto have passed unquestioned." My surprise was therefore great, on turning to the passage in the Variorum Shakspeare, to find the following note by Warburton, which had escaped my notice: If the speaker intended to accuse the person spoken to only for insulting and exulting, then, instead of all at once,' it ought to have been both at once. But, examining the crime of the person accused, we shall discover that the line is to be read thus: That you insult, exult, and rail at once,' for these three things Phoebe was guilty of. But the Oxford editor improves it, and, for rail at once, reads domineer." I have no recollection of having ever read the note before, and certainly was not conscious of it. The coincidence, therefore, may be considered (as Mr. Collier observed in respect to the reading of palpable for capable) as much in favour of this conjecture. NOTES ON BACON'S ESSAYS. As I find that the editor of Bacon's Essays for Bohn's Standard Library has not verified the quotations, I venture to send you a few "N. & Q." on them, which I hope to continue from time to time, if they prove acceptable. In compliance with the recommendation of MR. SYDNEY SMIRKE and the REV. H. T. ELLACOMBE (Vol. vi., p. 558.), I append my name and address. N.B. The paging and notes of Bohn's edition are followed throughout. Preface, p. xiii. note*. 66 'Speech on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings." See Burke's Works, vol. viii. p. 15. [ed. 1827.] Speech on the first day of reply. Ditto, p. xv. Letter to Father Fulgentio. See Montagu's Bacon, vol. xi. pref., p. vii.; vol. xii. p. 205. Ditto, ditto. Spenser's Faery Queene, &c. See preface to Moxon's Spenser (1850), p. xxix., where this story is refuted, and Montagu, xvi., note x. Ditto, p. xvi. "It was like another man's fair ground," &c. See Montagu, xvi. p. xxvii. Ditto, ditto. "I shall die," &c. Ditto, xxxiv. and note ww. Ditto, p. xvii. notet. Dugald Stewart. Supplement to Encycl. Brit., vol. i. p. 54. [ed. 1824.] Ditto, ditto. Hatton, not Hutton, as in Eliza Cook's Journal, vi. 235. Ditto, ditto. Love an ignoble passion. Essay x. ad init. Ditto, p. xviii. "Says Macaulay." Review of B. Montagu's Bacon Essays, p. 355. [ed. 1851.] Ditto, ditto. A pamphlet. Montagu, vi. 299. Ditto, p. xix. "A place in the Canticles." Cap. ii. 1. Bacon quotes, from memory it would appear, from the Vulgate, which has "Ego flos campi." By whom is the observation? See, for the story, Montagu, xvi. p. xcviii. Ditto, ditto. "Books were announced." What? Ditto, p. xx. "Cæsar's compliment to Cicero." Where recorded? Ditto, p. xxi. articles of trade." Ditto, p. xxii. p. 407. "The manufacture of particular Ditto, ditto. Ben Johnson. See Underwood's, lxix. lxxviii. [pp. 711. 713. ed. Moxon, 1851.] LATIN POEMS IN CONNEXION WITH WATERLO0. I send you two copies of Latin verses which They are however interesting, from the coincihave not, to my knowledge, appeared in print. dence of their both relating to elm-trees, and in loo," about which we never can hear too much. some measure belonging to the "Story of Waterand, as their authors were respectively distin The lines themselves possess considerable merit; guished alumni of Eton and Winchester, I hope to the columns of " N. & Q." see both compositions placed in juxtaposition in The first of these productions was written by Marquis Wellesley, as an inscription for a chair carved from the Wellington Elm (which stood near the centre of the British lines on the field of Waterloo), and presented to his Majesty King For the other verses subjoined, we are indebted to the late Rev. William Crowe, Fellow of New College, Oxford, and many years public orator in that university. It seems that he had planted an elm at his parsonage, on the birth of his son, afterwards killed at Waterloo, which sad event was commemorated by his afflicted father in the following touching monody, affixed to the same tree: Hanc Ego quam felix annis melioribus Ulmum Ipse manu sevi, tibi dilectissime Fili Te Consecro in æternum, Gulielme vocabitur Arbos Et quantum natura sinet, crescat monumentum BRAYBROOKE. SIR HENRY WOTTON AND MILTON. The letter which sir Henry Wotton addressed to Milton, on receiving the Maske presented at Ludlow-castle, appears to admit of an interpretation which has escaped the numerous editors of the works of Milton; and I resolve to put this novel conjecture on its trial in the critical court of facts and inferences held at No. 186. Fleet Street. Sir Henry Wotton thus expresses himself on the circumstance which I conceive to have been misinterpreted: "For the work itself [a dainty piece of entertainment, by Milton] I had viewed some good while before with singular delight, having received it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very close of the late R.'s Poems, printed at Oxford; whereunto [it] is added (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and to leave the reader con la bocca dolce." — Reliquia Wattonianæ, 1672. In the poems of Milton, as edited by himself in 1645, the date of this letter is "13th April, 1638;" and as the Poems of "Thomas Randolph, master of arts, and late fellow of Trinity colledge in Cambridge," were printed at Oxford in that year, in small quarto, it may be assumed that the gift of Mr. R. was a copy of that volume, with the addition of the Maske, as printed in the same size in 1637. Such was the conclusion of Warton, and such is mine. The question at issue is, Who was Mr. R. Warton says, "I believe Mr. R. to be John Rouse," the keeper of the Bodleian library. Is it not more probable that Mr. R. means Robert Randolph, master of arts, and student of Christchurch-a younger brother of Thomas Randolph, and the editor of his poems? I must first dispose of the assertion that the friendship between Rouse and Milton " appears to have subsisted in 1637." There is no evidence of their friendship till 1647; and that evidence is the ode to Rouse, to which this address is prefixed: "Jan. 23. 1646. Ad Joannem Rousium, Oxoniensis academiæ bibliothecarium. De libro poematum amisso, quem ille sibi denuo mitti postulabat, ut cum It seems that Milton did not send the volume of aliis nostris in bibliotheca publica reponeret, ode." 1645 till a copy of it had been requested; no evidence, certainly, of old friendship! I admit the probability that Wotton and Rouse were friends; but why should Rouse officiously stitch up, as Warton expresses it, the Mask of Milton with the Poems of Thomas Randolph, and present the volume to Wotton? Did he give away that which is still wanting in the Bodleian library? 66 Admit my novel conjecture, and all the difficulties vanish. Thomas Randolph, says Phillips, was one of the most pregnant young wits of his time;" and Robert, who was also noted as a poet, could scarcely fail to offer the poems of his brother to so eminent a person as sir Henry Wotton. As sir Henry yearly went to Oxford, he may have made acquaintance with Robert; and Robert may have been introduced to Milton by Thomas, who was for eight years his cotemporary at Cambridge, and in the enjoyment of much more celebrity. The Maske may have been added as an experiment in criticism. The rev. Thomas Warton was a man of extensive reading, an excellent critic, and a fascinating writer- but too often inattentive to accuracy of statement. He says that Randolph died the 17th March, 1634: Wood says he was buried the 17th March, 1634. He says it is so stated on his monument the monument has no date. He says the Poems of Randolph contain 114 pages: the volume contains 368 pages! He says the Maske is a slight quarto of 30 pages only: it contains 40 pages! Is it not fit that such carelessness should be exposed? BOLTON COrney. FOLK LORE. Unlucky to sell Eggs after Sunset.-The following paragraph is extracted from the Stamford Mercury of October 29, 1852: "There exists a species of superstition in north Not tinghamshire against letting eggs go out of a house after sunset. The other day a person in want of some eggs called at a farm-house in East Markham, and inquired of the good woman of the house whether she had any eggs to sell, to which she replied that she had a few scores to dispose of. Then I'll take them home |