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on his imitations of the high priests of that worship; but I must now content myself with a single illustration: "There's Ensign Rennell, tall and proud, Doth stand upon the hill,

And waves the flag to all the crowd,

Who much admire his skill.

And here I sit upon my ass,

Who lops his shaggy ears;

Mild thing! he lets the gentry pass,

Nor heeds the carriages and peers."

He was once infected (but it was a venial sin) by the heresies of the cockney school; and was betrayed, by the contagion of evil example, into the following conceits: "Behold Admiral Keate of the terrestrial crew,

Who teaches Greek, Latin, and likewise Hebrew; He has taught Captain Dampier, the first in the race, Swirling his hat with a feathery grace, Cookson the Marshal, and Willoughby, of size, Making minor Sergeant-Majors in looking-glass eyes." But he at length returned to his own pure and original style; and, like the dying swan, he sings the sweeter as he is approaching the land where the voice of his minstrelsy shall no more be heard. There is a calm melancholy in the close of his present Ode which is very pathetic, and almost Shaksperian:

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"Farewell you gay and happy throng! Farewell my Muse! farewell my song! Farewell Salthill! farewell brave Captain! Yet, may it be long before he goes hence and is no more seen! May he limp, like his rhymes, for at least a dozen years; for National Schools have utterly annihilated our hopes of a successor !'

"Paterson finished his apostrophe at a lucky juncture; for the band struck up, and the procession began to move."]

THE PENINSULA.-The application of this name universally to the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal seems to me sufficiently curious to justify a query as to its date. It is an obviously handy and comprehensive term, and one that would commend itself readily enough for general adoption when once made public. But who did make it public

first?

I presume it became a common representative term during the occupation of Spain by the French and English armies; and it would have an obvious fitness which the names of the two countries would not possess, as being both terse and expressive.

It could scarcely be correct to say, "Wellington's army in Spain and Portugal," unless that army happened to be stationed on the confines of both countries at the same time. But the simple word, the Peninsula, avoids that difficulty, and is sufficiently definite for popular use.

But the question recurs, Who first commended it to popular acceptance ?-for its use is universal. No soldier speaks of the campaign in Portugal: he says he was in the Penin-soola.

Did it originate in ministerial despatches, in the House of Commons, or in the columns of some journal? Perhaps it came from our French neighbours. O. T. D.

[It seems probable that the expression, "The Peninsula," began to be used, without addition, to signify "The Iberian Peninsula," or Spain and Portugal, by the French; and was adopted from them by us. Bonaparte began to operate on Spain some little time before England put her spoke in his wheel. Peninsula, in old French, is simply Péninsule, Chersonèse, presqu'île.” Peninsula in more recent French, is not only that, but also, in addition, it is used to express Spain-"Il s'emploie quelquefois absolument pour désigner l'Espagne."

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No similar change occurring in connection with the Peninsular struggle can be traced in the Spanish language itself: "Peninsula. La tierra que está casí cercada del mar" (1798). And again, Peninsula Española, as the title of a Spanish periodical, commenced in 1860.]

DUC DE VALOIS.-Can you inform me why the title of Duc de Valois, formerly that of the eldest son of the Orleans family, has never been borne since about the end of the seventeenth century? I remember reading of some story of an apparition which Madame (Henrietta of England), or some later Duchess of Orleans, saw while walking in the dusk about the palace; and in consequence of which the above title was abandoned, as destined to bring some terrible evil on its bearer. I am curious to know more of the story, but I cannot remember where I saw it touched upon. H. L.

[The origin of the change of the title was this:-The Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV., married for his first wife our English princess Henrietta, the sister of Charles II. This unhappy lady, it is too well established, was poisoned. The Duke, who probably was no party wife Elizabeth Charlotte, a daughter of the Bavarian to the murder of his young wife, married for his second Elector. This lady, walking one evening through the apartments of the palace, met at a remote quarter of the reception rooms something that she conceived to be a spectre. What she fancied to have passed on that occa

sion, was never known except to her nearest friends; and if she made any explanations in her Memoirs, the editor has thought fit to suppress them. She mentions only, that in consequence of some ominous circumstances relating to the title of Valois, which was the proper second title of the Orleans family, her son, the Regent, had assumed in his boyhood that of Duc de Chartres. His

elder brother was dead, so that the superior title was open to him; but in consequence of those mysterious omens, whatever they might be, which occasioned much whispering at the time, the great title of Valois has since been laid aside as of bad augury.]

THE LARGEST BELL IN THE UNITED STATES is

at Notre Dame University, Indiana, and was manufactured in France. It is seven feet high, twenty-two in circumference at the base, weighs

13,200 lbs. nett, and cost about 16007. Might I ask how this bell compares in size and weight W. W. with the largest bells in England?

Malta.

[We have at least three church bells in England exceeding the weight of that at Notre Dame University, namely, Oxford, 1680, 7 tons; York, 1845, 10 tons 15 cwt.; Westminster, Big Ben, 1856, 15 tons 184 cwt.; but Young Big Ben, 1858, was above two tons lighter. The diameter of the latter is 9 ft. 6 in.; the height, 7 ft. 10 in.: the clapper weighs 6 cwt. This bell was found to be cracked on Oct. 1, 1859.]

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HISTORIANS. Can you direct me where I may find a list of historians arranged chronologically according to the periods of which they treat? G. W.

[The list required may be found in the Appendix to August Potthast's Bibliotheca Historica Medii Aevi, Berlin, 1862, 8vo, "Sources of Knowledge for the History of the European States during the Middle Age." For the Early English historians there is a list prefixed to Bohn's edition of Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History, 1849. Dufresnoy, in his Chronological Tables of Universal History, ed. 1762, i. 236-259, gives a Chronological Table of Learned Men and their Works from the Deluge until the fifth century of the Christian era. ]

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[Three different versions of this old song appeared in The Critic newspaper of Jan. 15, 1857. It is also printed in Dr. Rimbault's Nursery Rhymes, 1849, and a version of eight stanzas in Gammer Gurton's Garland, edit. 1810, 8vo.]

THE SUBLIME AND RIDICULOUS.-Napoleon's saying, "Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas," was evidently derived from Paine:

“The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again."

Tom Paine, Age of Reason, Part 2. Did any earlier author suggest the idea to Tom Paine? HENRY F. PONSONBY.

[Tom Paine borrowed the remark from Hugh Blair, and Hugh Blair from his brother rhetorician Longinus, Treatise on the Sublime, at the beginning of sect. iii. See "N. & Q." 1st S. v. 100.]

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Replies.

ANOTHER NOTE FOR OLIVER CROMWELL. (3rd S. xii. 322.)

Some five-and-twenty years ago, I paid my first visit to Westminster Abbey, and after due delays found myself with a very miscellaneous party, under the conduct of an antique, not-too-wellinformed, and very short-tempered guide. In the course of our round, he pointed out to us a whitish mark in a black-marble mural monument of the seventeenth century, and told us that it was caused by a pistol-shot fired by Oliver Cromwell, when he turned the monks out of the Abbey. I ventured to inform him that it was Thomas, Lord Cromwell, a century earlier than Oliver Cromwell, who had had a hand in the dissolution of the monasteries; to which he replied, "If you think you know better than I do, you had better do the talking yourself!" And he certainly was remarkably concise in the rest of his descriptions. Now it would not signify very much if only poor mechanics" and crabbed Abbey-guides were ignorant (in regard to the matter in hand) of the difference between the famous Malleus Monachorum and the great Protector of the Commonwealth of England. Their ignorance would soon be enlightened if others, who have no such excuses as they have for ignorance, had not chosen to remain in the dark. The most careless perusal of Dowsing's Journal will show that, with all his zeal for the destruction of the vestiges of popery, the fiery Presbyterian found (on the whole) very little to destroy; and was often constrained to remove the steps between the nave and the chancel of a church, because there was nothing else to do. And any one who has read much in the numerous churchwardens' account books of the time of the Reformation, which have been preserved to this day, knows that the destructive energy of the Commissioner of the Long Parliament pales when compared with the fierce and unrelenting spirit of those who were sent out by the king's authority after the year 1534, and during the reign of Edward VI. And yet the miserable Dowsing's name is always held up exclusively to odium, while they who effected so much more completely this kind of desecration of our English churches are not even referred to. Quite recently a work has been published which showed that in Northamptonshire it was the Reformers, not the Presbyterians, who were the great destroyers. But this is almost a solitary case.

One word more. Dowsing and the powers that sent him out to do as much mischief as he could were Presbyterians; Oliver Cromwell was an Independent, and he was in no slight degree stimulated to seize on the supreme power in the country, and in a far greater degree enabled to do so, because he and the religionists he was associated

with were opposed, to the extremity of mortal hatred (as was afterwards proved), to these and the like proceedings of the Presbyterians.

Surely it is not too much to admit, that to call Dowsing as a witness in this case is hardly fair. Dowsing was one of the very men who lost his occupation through Cromwell's usurpation-one of the creatures whom he afterwards described in such biting words in his speeches,-and who therefore plotted against his life perpetually. And this is perfectly well known, that the confiscations and sales of royal, ecclesiastical, municipal, and private treasures, by which so many of the Presbyterian leaders had grown rich, ceased at once when Cromwell turned the Rumps out of the House of Parliament and put the key in his pocket.

B. B. WOODWARD.

It seems to be the day for rehabilitating damaged reputations; and CLARRY seeks to show that Cromwell was no iconoclast.

"Oliver Crummell

The nation did pummell,"

says the old rhyme-giving the proper pronunciation to the proper name; and he pummelled some of its ecclesiological glories most severely. Take Durham Cathedral for example. Who was it, after the battle of Dunbar, who shut up 4500 Scotch prisoners in the cathedral, and permitted them to burn the wood-work of the choir, and to damage the monuments? Who purloined the heads and hands of silver from the figures around the tombs of the Nevilles? Who danced upon the marble slab of the altar so as to leave thereupon the imprint of iron-heeled boots? Who totally destroyed the 107 statues, some of them life-size, that adorned the niches of the beautiful altar-screen? Who destroyed all other similar statues in the cathedral, excepting those in the trefoil-headed niches above the clerestory, which, being out of convenient reach, were spared? Cromwell and his soldiers must be the answer to these questions, and also to a long string of queries similar to this :-Who placed his cannon at Gattonside, on the Tweed, and, by their aid, pounded Melrose Abbey into a glorious ruin?

Hatfield's tomb, and (in the vigorous language of Mr. Raine), "unite the two by a sort of patchwork, which he alone could have devised, and which the period in which he was tolerated could alone have contemplated with satisfaction?" Who but James Wyatt the architect-the "restorer" of the western end of the nave of Hereford Cathedral ?

I have referred to Melrose Abbey. When public attention was drawn to it by Sir Walter Scott, its stones were being carried off in order that they might be cheaply worked in to the cowsheds and bullock-hovels of a neighbouring laird's farmstead. Of Saddell Abbey, Cantire, Mr. Macfarlane says:

"After it had for centuries withstood the violence of the solstitial rains and equinoctial gales, the hands of a modern Goth converted it into a quarry, out of which he took materials to build dykes and offices, paving some of the latter with the very gravestones. He did not, however, long survive this sacrilegious deed, as he soon afterwards lost his life by a trifling accident, which the country people still consider a righteous retribution, and the estate passed into other hands."

There is a sad significance in these remarks of Mr. Burns, in his Ecclesiastical Antiquities of

Scotland:

"To the last hundred years Scotland can trace more destruction among her antiquities than ever occurred before; and her own children, from no religious or party prejudices, but from sheer motives of gain, have been the despoilers. Did the magnates of the burgh want a few good feasts? the funds were at hand by an appropriation of dressed stone from the ready-made quarry presented by the old cathedral or abbey. Did the baronial leader, or the laird descended from him, want farm-steadings, stone walls, or cottars' houses built? the old abbey or castle wall was immediately made use of. Those who wish proof of this assertion may see its evidences, either at the village of New Abbey, near Dumfries, or in the dikes about Kildrummie, in Aberdeenshire. So strong, indeed, was the desire for appropriating such precious spoils in Scotland, that even in a report from a surveyor to the government, some few years back, upon the cost of some repairs to another building, the destruction of one of the most interesting baronial remains in the country (the Earl's Palace, at Kirkwall) was suggested, on account of the saving to be effected by using its materials.” CUTHBERT BEDE.

MARY MAGDALENE.

(2nd S. ii. 144.)

I join my protest with that of MR. THOMAS KEIGHTLEY "against the shameful manner in which the character of this most respectable woman has been taken away in making her, without even the shadow of proof, and against all evidence, to have been a woman of loose life."

On the other hand, there is certainly much to be said in confirmation of another point touched upon in CLARRY'S note-that of modern Vandalism. Here, again, we might go to Durham, and note the destruction of its chapter-house, in order that it might give place to a comfortable sash-windowed room. And who, too, was it that advised the demolition of the galilee-and had actually commenced it, by stripping the lead from its roof-in order that there might be a nice car- When the London asylum for penitent women riage-drive for the prebends up to the western of the "unfortunate class was about to be doorway? And who was it who proposed to re- established, and the present name for the institumove the altar-screen and the canopy over Bishoption was proposed, the learned and able author of

The Credibility of the Gospel History, Dr. Nathaniel Lardner, protested against the injustice, in a letter to Jonas Hanway, published in 1758, in which he showed how utterly groundless is the assumption which it implies. But prejudice prevailed, and "The Magdalen Hospital" became a standing libel on the memory of an illustrious woman of saintly character, who was one of our Saviour's most attached friends, and employed by Him as the first herald to proclaim his resurrection to the rest of his disciples.

The unjust and injurious opinion respecting her has chiefly prevailed in Western Europe. It sprung at first, as a mere conjecture, out of the several narratives in which mention is made, by the three Evangelists, of the anointing of Jesus. It is rejected, or mentioned with hesitation, by the Greek and Latin Fathers; but was taken up by Gregory the Great, and stamped with his authority. It is sanctioned by the Roman Breviary (July_22); and its truth was assumed by most of the Latin medieval writers. Painters and poets have described the supposed illustrious penitent, in loose array, without giving her costume the benefit of her conversion! By these means it became established in the popular mind. This was the more easy, as it supplied an agreeable and interesting contrast. It made one Mary serve as a foil to set off the excellencies of another. Mary, the mother of our Lord, became the type of feminine purity; but the leaders of opinion were not content with giving her those honours to which all Christians consider her justly entitled. To give it, however, the advantage of a striking contrast, and thus make it shine with greater splendour, a female character of an opposite description was wanted-a type of fallen womanhood, penitent and restored. And as 66 the woman which was a sinner," mentioned by St. Luke in the seventh chapter of his Gospel, is left by the historian strictly anonymous, Mary Magdalene, whose name occurs in the next chapter, was seized on for this purpose, and her character treated in a way which, by any honest woman, would be deemed worse than martyrdom. J. W. T.

Wigan.

DATES UPON OLD SEALS.

(3rd S. xii. 244, 297.)

The old seal described by W. C. B. is that of the borough of Hedon in Yorkshire, which is in the middle division of the wapentake of Holderness, and the matrix of which is still in use. The legend is "H. Camera: Regiis 1598." : Information as to most of the particulars wished by W. C. B. will be found in "N. & Q." 2nd S. viii. 523.

Several of the older municipal seals of England bear a date in their legends, but such is not the

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The double matrix of the large and striking chapter seal of Dunkeld Cathedral, and that of Francis Scott, second Earl of Buccleugh, 1648, were also both discovered at different times among lots of old broken metal, the latter at Stirling. The reverse of the chapter seal of Dunfermline Abbey (probably of the fourteenth century, the obverse being in the Library at Oxford) was picked up a few years ago from a barrowful of rubbish which a man was removing at Gateshead. The reverse of the ancient seal of the burgh of Rothesay was lost for more than a century, and was at last found in a field near Loch Fad, having, it is supposed, been carried out at one time with the refuse of the Town Clerk's office, and thence removed with the contents of the ash-pit. A full account of the singular manner in which the longlost seals of the borough of Great Grimsby were recovered is given in "N. & Q." 2nd S. xi. 46, 47, and a long and very interesting description of these seals and their singular devices will be found in the same volume, p. 216, 217. In the Archaological Journal, No. 47, the Rev. Frederick Spurrell has a very graphic and detailed account, illustrated with woodcuts, of seven medieval guild and other seals, of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, connected with Wisby in Gottland, and now preserved in the Museum there. Some of these most interesting examples of ancient art had only been kept from the melting-pot by their former peasant owners, as they had been found useful as stamps for butter and for ginger-bread cakes! About thirty years ago a bundle of matrices of the old burgh seals of Lanark was accidentally discovered in a long-unopened drawer; and about the same time the seal of the presbytery of Linlithgow, with date of 1583, was also found in a similar receptacle.

I could easily add to the above many other instances of the singular manner in which ancient matrices, long lost, have been accidentally discovered; but this is needless, as those who, as I

am, are lovers of such things will doubtless already know of them. The first suggestion, however, which I wish to make is, that our town and city clerks should carefully examine their charter-chests and long-unopened drawers filled with official papers, as in all likelihood, in many instances, such as occurred at Lanark, the matrices of interesting old seals will be found amongst their contents. The second is, that any one who knows of the existence of matrices of old municipal seals in private hands, as was the case in those of Great Grimsby, should communicate the same through your columns. The third and last is, that all gatherings of old metals at the doors or windows of brokers' shops should be carefully examined by your readers, in case valuable but uncared-for matrices should be among them, as in the instances I have mentioned; and that, when ever they succeed in finding anything of historical value, information as to this should be given in your pages. I never pass such an assemblage of metal odds and ends" without examination; and although I have never as yet been so fortunate as to fall in with any prize, I still persevere, in the hope that I may yet thus rescue from destruction some interesting object of antiquity, as others have done before me. E. C.

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The fine seal of Thomas de Beauchamp, K.G., third Earl of Warwick, who died A.D. 1369, bears a dated inscription, which is commenced on the seal and continued on the counterseal, as follows: (Seal) S: THOE COMITIS: WARRWYCHIE: ANNO: REGIS: E: TCII:" (Counterseal), "POST: COQVESTV: ANGLIE: SEPTIO: DECIO: ET: REGNI: SVI: FRANCIE: QVARTO." Thus the date of the execution of this seal is the year 1344; and of the eighteen words which compose the inscription, fourteen are devoted to the date-four on the seal, and ten on the counterseal.

A good late example is the seal of the Hospital of the Holy Trinity, founded at Guildford by Archbishop Parker. This inscription reads: 66 SIGILLVM HOSPITALIS. BEATE. TRINITATIS IN. GVILDFORD. 1622." CHARLES BOUTELL.

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CORROSION OF MARBLE IN CATHEDRALS, ETC. (3rd S. xii. 307.)

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During the combustion of coal or coke, sulphuric and sulphurous acids ascend together with much aqueous vapour, and condense on the cold polished surfaces of marble, &c., but most on those which are turned downward or are vertical, because these catch the vapours most readily and retain them longest. When the marble has carbonate of lime for a main constituent, this is decomposed by the more powerful acid and converted into sulphate of lime, which encrusts the corroded surface. The corrosion of the magnesian

limestone of which the Houses of Parliament are built is mainly due to this cause, and the scrapings of the stone taste of sulphate of magnesia, or "Epsom salts," resulting from the action of the sulphuric acid on the carbonate of magnesia in the stone. Mr. Spiller has drawn particular attention to this in a paper read at the recent meeting of the British Association at Dundee. He states that a ton of coal evolves during combustion the astonishing quantity of 70 lbs. of oil of vitriol, so that we need not be surprised at the injury to stone and other things effected by the sulphurous vapours of smoky towns, especially where there are extensive vitriol works. I may state, however, for the benefit of the latter, that I know of a large town in which there was a remarkable immunity from infectious diseases in the neighbourhood of the vitriol works, although no plants would grow there. Mr. Spiller recommends the application of a solution of superphosphate of lime to porous building-stone likely to be corroded, having found by experiments that it hardens and protects the surface.

The fine sandstone which is the chief building material in the great manufacturing districts of Yorkshire is never corroded by the smoke, being of a siliceous nature, and containing no lime or magnesia in any amount to render it susceptible of such injury.

There is in the new chapel here a sumptuous and stately reredos constructed of alabaster and other "pleasant stones," with sculpture in Caen stone. While the chapel was temporarily heated by brasiers, the polished surfaces of marbles having carbonate of lime for their basis were quite dimmed by the Acherontic fumes that ascended from the open coke fires, and the gasstandards of "birnist lattoun" were so blackened that they had to be "purifyit" and "polist over again. The alabaster, fluor spar, lapis lazuli, &c. were not affected in the slightest degree.

The polish of the injured stones was restored, and in some measure protected, by a slight application of turpentine and wax, if I remember rightly; but they do not look so well as some which have been added since the building has primitive method of warming been continued, one been heated by hot-water pipes. Had the more

of the finest works of the kind ever erected would have been completely spoiled.

I have often seen coloured marbles in monuments so corroded as to look like common stone, but have not observed the preservation of upturned surfaces mentioned by J. II. B., though I think I can easily understand it, and shall look for it in future. J. T. F.

The College, Hurstpierpoint.

Carbonic acid would not affect marble, as that is already a carbonate of lime. Coke contains

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