Books Received.

Sin scire labores,Quære, age: quærenti pagina nostra patet.

All communications must be accompanied by the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for publication.

HERALDIC QUERY.

Sir,—Can any of your readers kindly inform me what family bears or bore the arms “Ermine, on a bend azure three lions rampant or”?

T. J. H.

ISLE D’ECOSSE.

Sir,—In Aytoun’s “Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers,” there is a ballad entitled the “Island of the Scots,” setting forth that in 1697, France and Germany being at war, an island in the Rhine, strongly garrisoned by German troops under General Stirke, was attacked and taken in a most gallant manner by a company of Scotsmen, exiles from their own country, and in the service of the King of France; and that this island has ever since been known by the name of Isle d’Ecosse. Can you inform me where this isle is situated, and where I can see a detailed account of the above passage of arms? The isle, I may add, is not mentioned by Murray.

R. M. B.

MINING IN THE HOME COUNTIES.

Sir,—In the Lansdowne MSS. (57, fol. 146) in the British Museum, may be seen a copy of a licence granted in December, 1588, by Queen Elizabeth, to one John Nicholls, for a term of six months, to dig for “mynes or myneralls of golde, silver, tynne, or leade, hidden within the earth, in the counties of Middlesex, Hertford, Buckingham, and Kent.”What success may have attended his searches in the other counties I know not; but as I searched in vain for any notice to the effect of a renewal of the grant so far as concerns Hertfordshire, it is more than probable that Master John Nicholls did not find “myning” a very profitable occupation in that county. Can any of your readers throw light upon the subject?

Fossor.

THE NAME OF FOSTAL.

Sir,—Can you, or any of your readers, kindly assist me in throwing light on the derivation of Fostal, a commonplace name in Kent? I believe there are some dozen places bearing the name, but variously spelled as Fostal, Fostalls, Forstals, and Forstalls. In Herne parish, not far from Herne Bay, there is a Fostall and Fostall Farm, and in Ospringe parish, near Faversham, a place called Painter’s Forstal. Prof. Skeat, I believe, explains it as “Fore” and “Stall” (= Stead), a place in front of a farm (?). There are generally trees near at hand, and the people in this locality connect the word with forest-alling and regrating—most absurdly as I think.

H. F. Woolrych.

Oare Vicarage, Faversham.

RICHARD, ARCHBISHOP OF MESSINA.

Sir,—Can any of your readers give me some account of the Archbishop of Messina, an Englishman, the subject of the accompanying paragraph, which I have translated from an Italian paper, theItalia, of May 31:—

“At the Villa Guzzi, near Messina, the interesting discovery has been made of the sarcophagus of Richard, English Archbishop of Messina, who diedA.D.1195. The sarcophagus is decorated with a bas-relief in the Byzantine style, having for its subject, the Saviour seated; on His right is shown the Virgin Mary standing, whilst on His left is the Archbishop, likewise in a standing position. There is also an inscription on each corner.”

This account is meagre as far as it goes; and I should feel interested in learning something more about this English Archbishop of Messina.

M. H. C.

Spezia, Italy.

“THE SENTENCE OF PONTIUS PILATE.”

(See vol. v. pp. 80, 217.)

Sir,—Since writing the note at the second reference, I have ascertained that the alleged death-warrant of Jesus Christ appeared in theNational Magazine(published in Liverpool) for Oct. 1877. In this version only three names are appended to the sentence, and the phraseology is somewhat different.

But what I wish to point out at present is the glaring contradictions occurring in the three copies before me as to the date of the finding of this curiosity. According to the above-named magazine it was discovered “in the year 1825,” theCatholic Firesideaccount says 1820, while your version has “A.D.1280.” May not the latter date be a misprint for 1820? If not, were excavations in search of Roman antiquities made in Naples in the thirteenth century?

P. J. Mullin.

HELSTON FURRY DANCE.

Sir,—As the very interesting subject of the Helston Furry Day has been opened by Canon Boger (see vol. v. p. 251), may I add a few remarks on it?

1. As to the term Floralia or Flora Day, except from a descriptive standpoint I should demur to the theory that the Helston festival of May 8 is a continuation or survival of the Roman Floralia, although some persons may favour that view. It is probably in origin purely Celtic, and is connected with the Roman Floral festival only in that it also expresses the joy of May.

2. The origin of the custom may be held to be “lost in remote antiquity” solely in the sense that we cannot actually date its institution. The local legend relates that it was instituted in the middle ages as a rejoicing for the deliverance of Helston from the plague: a not improbable solution of the Helston myth that here St. Michael overcame Satan, and forced him to drop the “Hell stone,” still seen in the “Angel yard.” The parish church is dedicated to St. Michael, and May 8 is, I believe, the feast of the apparition of St. Michael on St. Michael’s Mount. It is not improbable that the deliverance of Helston from the plague was attributed to the patron of the town,i.e., St. Michael, who overcame the demon of the plague.

3. The Helston furry dance is a definite institution, unlike any other dance that I know. I do not know to what “various dances” Canon Boger refers; probably to the ball in the evening, which, I believe, is conducted in the modern fashion.

4. The ceremony is somewhat this: The party assemble at the Market House, the local aristocracy at 1 p.m. In 1883 there were thirty-one couples of the gentry, this year there were thirty-two couples. The tradesmen’s dance at 4 p.m. was not quite so numerously supported as the upper class one. The volunteer band marches to the gate with three javelin men with lances crowned with flowers. At the appointed time the band strikes up the Celtic Furry tune. The dancers then proceed, two and two, pirouetting and changing partners at certain places. They go into the houses, passing out of the back doors through the gardens, and then re-enter the houses from the back. As they leave the houses in some places they ring the bells. The effect is very singular, but to anyone fond of ancient customs is full of interest as a survival from mediæval times, and such a survival as could hardly have continued except in a remote part of England. Most of the Helston May customs belong to mediæval customs of Merrie England,e.g., the boughs outside the houses, the procession dance (though most of our English May dances were held round the May-pole), but the going in and out of the houses and also the music of the Furry tune are distinctively Cornish.

W. S. Lach-Szyrma.

PORTS AND CHESTERS.

(Seeante, p. 47.)

Sir,—I should not have thought it necessary to notice “A. H.’s” singular effusion in your last number (see p. 47), but for the welcome illustration it affords of what Mr. Allen has so happily termed that “easy off-hand theory,” which “shirks all the real difficulties of the question” (ante, v. 286). In trying to pursue his own more searching and scholarlymethod of dealing with these “interesting philological fossils,” I am only too glad that those who despise this method as “word-twisting,” and prefer to leap at conclusions, should expound, as a contrast, their views.

As to “A. H.’s” first point, it is based simply on mis-statements. I never used the word “borrowed” myself.Myexpression was: “incorporatedbefore the settlement” (ante, v. 286). Nor did I ever claim any of these words as “genericallyan English word,” or as “English forms of some Teutonic roots.” On the contrary, I gave “the Latin words” (v. 285) from which they were eachetymologicallyderived. My contention was that they had become “distinctly English words” by being

“Incorporatedbeforethe settlement, into the tongue of the English pirates, who brought with them, as part of their language, the forms which they had thus constructed for themselves.”

It is necessary to put this as strongly as possible in order to accentuate the distinction. Thus, when “A. H.” speaks of “lamentable confusion” (so well illustrated in his own letter), he is using “distinctly English words,” though they are derived from Latin originals. If I, on the other hand, should say “Naviget Anticyram,” I should be using distinctly Latin words. And, lastly, when “A. H.” seeks to “ramify” the “purport” of a paper (ante, p. 47), he is using an expression unknown, I believe, to any language, living or dead.

As to the Welshcaerorkair, I never said, or could have supposed, that it was derived from the Latincastrum. I merely quoted Mr. Allen’s reminder that, on the departure of the Romans, this native form supplanted theirs in place names, before the arrival of the English.Ergo, the erudition of “A. H.” is obviouslynihil ad rem.

As toport, what we have to account for is not, as “A. H.” crudely imagines, “the modern word Port,” but the Anglo-Saxonport, which can be conclusively shown to have been usednotin the sense of eitherportusorporta, but of a market (or trading) town. Leicester and Oxford were obviously not “ports” in our modern sense of the word, but theywere“ports” in the Anglo-Saxon sense of it, and, as such, had a “portmanmote” for their governing body. We know, as I have shown, from Domesday, that Port Meadow, so-called from belonging to the town (or “port”) of Oxford, was in existence then as the town meadow. “Port Meadow at Oxford,” says Mr. Olifant (“Old and Middle English,” p. 78), “speaks of ...port, used by our pagan forefathers as a name for town; indeed,portanduplandstood fortownandcountry.” To “Port Meadow” I may now add “Portmanseyt” (theeyotof the Portmen or Burgesses), which stood near it in the river (“Calendar of Bodleian Charters,” p. 312), and also “two pieces of land and marsh-landsometime called Portemarshe[cf. Portmeadow] and now being divided, called by the several names of the Easter Portemarche and the Wester Portemarche,” at Barnstaple, in 1610 (9th Rep. Hist. MSS. I. 214a).

“A. H.” defiantly inquires, how “can the prefix [in Portway] be of English origin, if it means ‘carry?’ ” ButI never said it did, or indeed mentioned it at all. A far simpler explanation of the word would be the “way” that led from one “port” to another.

The solution of “A. H.’s” irritation is of course to be found in his eagerness to contend that “port” (in “port-reeve”) was “not introduced as a new English word, but preserved by Celto-Romans from Latin usage,” and that, consequently, “our Lord Mayor” can be tracedthrough the Port-reeve to Roman times. This is the longed-for conclusion at which “A. H.” and Dr. Pring, though starting from opposite premisses, would arrive with equal confidence, the “dead certainty” on which “A. H.” so naturally dreads and so impatiently resents that discussion which it cannot stand.

J. H. Round.

A BIBLIOGRAPHIC CURIOSITY.

Sir,—In theN. B. Advertiser and Ladies’ Journalfor Jan. 12 is published a long but interesting letter from a Dundee correspondent, signing himself C. R. R., in which the writer makes known his discovery of the long-lost “lewd sang,” which was appended to an early edition of the psalm-book known as the “Guid and Godlie Ballattes.” To those of your readers south of the Tweed who take an interest in Scottish bibliography the following somewhat lengthy quotation from the letter mentioned can scarcely fail to be acceptable. I may remark further that Dr. Laing’s reprint, therein referred to, was issued in 1868:—

About thirty-five years ago the late Mr. Alexander Langlands, clerk in the Dundee Bank, purchased at the sale of thelares et penatesof a deceased teacher, for the sum of eightpence, a lot of literary scraps, among which the article about to be described was found, and which proved to be an imperfect copy of the “Guid and Godlie Ballattes.”

When Dr. Laing was engaged in the publication of his reprint, this was lent him, the price offered for its purchase being far below the rather extravagant value attached to it by its owner. It is evident the Doctor never examined it very carefully; he states in a biographical note attached to his reprint that he had once had a fragment of a smaller copy, but the leaves had fallen aside. The fact is, I think, pretty obvious that these leaves and the present copy were one and the same, as great difficulty was experienced by Mr. Langlands before it was returned, and it was only restored by the intervention of a personal friend of the Doctor’s after the lapse of many months; the gentleman’s name I do not feel at liberty to make public, but may say he has done good work in connection with Wedderburn’s memory, and holds a high position in a seat of learning. Mr. Langlands eventually parted with his valuable leaves to their present possessor for a sum which was considered an extremely liberal one. Mr. Langlands soon after passed from the scene, full of years, leaving many attached friends behind.

Herbert, in his edition of “Ames Typographical Antiquities,” part iii. p. 1491, states “that a ‘Psalm Buik’ was printed at Edinburgh by Thomas Bassendyne in 1568, at the end of which was printed ‘ane lewd sang,’ entitled ‘Welcum Fortoun.’ ” The book was ordered by the General Assembly to be called in, the title to be altered, that the “lewd sang be delete,” and the printer be subjected to penalties. No copy of the book or of the lewd song is now known to exist. (See also “Buik of the Universall Kirk.”) Dr. Laing adds his testimony to Herbert’s assertions.

The fragment referred to is printed in the black letter, the letterpress measures 4½ inches by 2½ inches. It commences on folio 4, the leaves, not the pages, being numbered, and by a printer’s error folio 112 is numbered 113. The signs run from A to O in eights, sign P having four leaves which are not numbered. The first three leaves of sign A are lost, and folio 4 commences with some short prayers. These missing leaves were doubtless occupied by the title, probably a short address to thereader, and the first portion of the above-mentioned prayers. Sign P 1 to 3 are occupied by a table, and on the obverse of P 4 is printed—“With The Haill hundredth and Fyftie Psalmis of David,” Sternhold and Hopkins’s Version. And beneath is the imprint thus—“Improntit at Edinburgh, be John Scot. Anno Do. 1567.” The reverse contains some doxologies, and, having no catch-word, has a finished appearance. Whether the above is to be considered as the title-page for the Psalms to follow, or as an advertisement for a separate book, I will not presume to decide, but at that time such advertisements were not common. On the reverse of O 8 the long-lost song, entitled “Welcum Fortoun,” is found, and is printed below. If ever the Scripture words, “Unto the pure all things are pure,” were applicable, it is in the present case, for it could only be by a far-fetched innuendo or a specious construing of words that the Assembly could have arrived at their decision and verdict. But I am rather inclined to think that the sin of the printer must have consisted more in the fact of his placing a secular song in conjunction with sacred hymns, and the more especially with the productions of the Divine Psalmist:—

WELCUM FORTOUN.

Welcum Fortoun, welcum againe,The day and hour I may weill blis,Thou hes exilit all my paine,Quhilk to my hart greit plesour is.For I may say, that few men may,Seing of paine I am ’trest,I haif obtenit all my pay,The lufe of hir that I lufe best.I knaw nane sic as scho is oneSa trew, sa kynde, sa luiffandlie,Quhat suld I do and scho war gone;Allace yet had I lever die.To me scho is baith trew and kynde,Worthie it war scho had the praise,For na disdane in hir I find,I pray to God I may hir pleis.Quhen that I heir hir name exprest,My hart for joy dois loup thairfoir;Abufe all uther I lufe hir best,Unto I die, quhat wald scho moir.

Welcum Fortoun, welcum againe,The day and hour I may weill blis,Thou hes exilit all my paine,Quhilk to my hart greit plesour is.

For I may say, that few men may,Seing of paine I am ’trest,I haif obtenit all my pay,The lufe of hir that I lufe best.

I knaw nane sic as scho is oneSa trew, sa kynde, sa luiffandlie,Quhat suld I do and scho war gone;Allace yet had I lever die.

To me scho is baith trew and kynde,Worthie it war scho had the praise,For na disdane in hir I find,I pray to God I may hir pleis.

Quhen that I heir hir name exprest,My hart for joy dois loup thairfoir;Abufe all uther I lufe hir best,Unto I die, quhat wald scho moir.

This unique edition, and certainly the earliest known, although I do not by any means consider it the first, in its contents other than the above, agrees with Dr. Laing’s reprint, and I only regret that he should have been removed by the grim tyrant demanding his heriot before the discovery was made. The fortunate owner of the precious brochure is Patrick Anderson, Esq., merchant, Dundee, who, by a curious coincidence, resides in the ancient home of Alexander Wedderburn, Town Clerk of Dundee, and who entertained his sapient Majesty James VI., of tobacco-defaming notoriety, on his visit to Dundee in 1617.

Leith, N.B.

P. J. MULLIN.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

TheEditor declines to pledge himself for the safety or return of MSS. voluntarily tendered to him by strangers.

1. Quads within Quads. Field & Tuer, Ye Leadenhalle Presse. 1884.

2. Johns Hopkins’ University Studies. Second Series, v.-vi. Baltimore. June, 1884.

3. English Etchings. Part xxxviii. D. Bogue, 3, St. Martin’s-place, W.C.

4. The Genealogist. No. 3. Bell & Sons. July, 1884.

5. Vico. By Robert Flint. Blackwood & Sons. 1884.

6. Palatine Note-book. July. Manchester: J. E. Cornish.

7. Western Antiquary. June. Plymouth: W. B. Luke.

8. Mr. William Shakespeare’s Tragedie of Hamlet. Reprint of 1623 folio. Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 1884.

9. Le Livre, No. 55. Paris, 7, Rue St. Benoit. July, 1884.

10. Archæological Journal, No. 162.

11. Old Nottinghamshire. Edited by J. P. Briscoe, F.R.H.S. Second Series. Hamilton, Adams & Co. 1884.

Works of Hogarth (set of original Engravings, elephant folio, without text), bound. Apply by letter to W. D., 56, Paragon-road, Hackney, N.E.

Original water colour portrait of Jeremy Bentham, price 2 guineas. Apply to the Editor of this Magazine.

A large collection of Franks, Peers, and Commoners. Apply to E. Walford, 2, Hyde Park Mansions, N.W.

Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer, several copies of No. 2 (February, 1882) are wanted, in order to complete sets. Copies of the current number will be given in exchange at the office.

Dodd’s Church History, 8vo., vols. i. ii. and v.; Waagen’s Art and Artists in England, vol. i.; East Anglian, vol. i., Nos. 26 and 29. The Family Topographer, by Samuel Tymms, vols. iii. and iv.; Notes and Queries, 5th series, vols. vi., vii. (1876-7); also the third Index. Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets” (Ingram and Cooke’s edition), vol. iii. A New Display of the Beauties of England, vol. i., 1774. Chambers’ Cyclopædia of English Literature, vol. i. Address, E. Walford, 2, Hyde Park Mansions, Edgeware-road, N.W.

GLOVES OF SHAKESPEARE, IN THE POSSESSION OF MISS BENSON. (From “Gloves: their Annals and Associations.”)GLOVES OF SHAKESPEARE, IN THE POSSESSION OF MISS BENSON.(From “Gloves: their Annals and Associations.”)

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[Image of decorative bar not available

By S. William Beck, F.R.H.S.

ENOUGH has been written of the calamities of authors, the mishaps which have befallen precious MSS., their unfortunate mistakes, their afflictions in many and various degrees of misery, but of their consolations, of their happy stumbling on the clue to some historical puzzle, the accidental discovery of some fresh information on a treasured subject, their reward in at last finding some long-sought facts—of all this we have heard little or nothing. But something of such pleasure comes to most students; not so often as could be wished, perhaps, but possibly quite as frequently as is good for study. And such good hap did I hold to have fallen to my lot, when, in the autumn of 1882, I casually came across the announcement in a newspaper that a pair of gloves, once the property of Shakespeare, were on loan to the Worcester Industrial Exhibition then open, to illustrate the oldest-established and yet the most considerable industry of the Fair City. Gloves, and their connection with ceremonials now obsolete, and customs only blindly followed, had long before been a favourite subject of mine; and as I found how it led farther and farther afield into history, and how closely it touched our national life, it became altogether fascinating, and I was even then preparing for publication a book upon it. If I held myself fortunate in chancing upon a reference to so interesting arelic, as these gloves promised to prove, still more cause did there seem for congratulation when a request to their owner for further information led to their being most courteously entrusted to my care to be photographed, and to my being furnished with the several facts relating to their identity narrated on p. 122 of my “Gloves: their Annals and Associations.” I “enthoozed” over these gloves not a little, with no small reverence and half a hope that some reflected inspiration might follow on what many people would regard as little short of sacrilege, I ventured to put them on my hands, holding myself in great measure excused by a very fair descent of them from the keeping of Garrick to their present possessor, and by the undoubted fact that they were at least attributable to the period from which they were said to date. They are, at any rate, relics of undoubted age and value, apart from any other considerations; not like those with which Mr. Black invests “Judith Shakespeare,” in the novel with that title, now appearing inHarper’s Magazine. Here the young lady at one time wears, correctly and properly, a fine pair of gloves, scented and embroidered, that her father had brought her from London, but when (on p. 541) one of her lovers has departed from her in dudgeon, she very prettily—for she is a charming young lady—looks “after him for a moment or two, as she fastened a glove button that had got loose.” This is very unfortunate, for people did not wear buttoned gloves then, nor for a long time after, until it was desired to make them fit closely and display, rather than merely cover, the hand, whereas it was the glove, and not the proportions of the hand, that was made most conspicuous in Shakespeare’s day.

In January of this year I received from Mr. Horace Howard Furness, of Philadelphia, the eminent Shakespearian scholar, the following letter:—

Sir,—In a review of your admirable book in theSpectatorfor November 24, 1883, mention is made of a pair of Shakespeare’s gloves now in the possession of Miss Benson, which the reviewer states you incline “to consider genuine relics.” (I quote the review and the reviewer, because I have not yet seen your book. I ordered it from London through my bookseller some time ago, but it has not yet arrived.)Am I too bold in asking you to be kind enough, sometime at your leisure, to send me some of the grounds on which you have reached the conclusion that these gloves are those which were presented to Garrick in 1769? For several years past I have flattered myself that I was the fortunate owner of these gloves.The pedigree of mine will be found—First, in the letter of John Ward to Garrick in 1769. (See Garrick’s “Correspondence, &c.,” vol. i. p. 352.)Second, Mrs. Garrick’s bequest of them to Mrs. Siddons in her will dated 1822. See Campbell’s “Life of Mrs. Siddons,” p. 369, where is also to be found theformal note of Mrs. Garrick’s executors to Mrs. Siddons, requesting an interview, for the purpose of presenting these gloves to her.Third, Mrs. Siddons’ bequest of these gloves to her daughter Cecilia, Mrs. Geo. Combe, of Edinboro’.Fourth, Mrs. Combe’s bequest of them to her cousin, Mrs. Fanny Kemble.Lastly, the gift of these gloves in the very box in which Mrs. Siddons kept them, with her writing on the cover, “Shakespeare’s Gloves, left by Mrs. Garrick to Sarah Siddons,” and by my dear and venerated friend, Mrs. Kemble, to their present possessor.At any rate these gloves of mine were once Garrick’s, Mrs. Siddons’, and Mrs. Kemble’s. I am almost content to rest there.Should it interest you, I will send you a photograph of them.

Am I too bold in asking you to be kind enough, sometime at your leisure, to send me some of the grounds on which you have reached the conclusion that these gloves are those which were presented to Garrick in 1769? For several years past I have flattered myself that I was the fortunate owner of these gloves.

The pedigree of mine will be found—

First, in the letter of John Ward to Garrick in 1769. (See Garrick’s “Correspondence, &c.,” vol. i. p. 352.)

Second, Mrs. Garrick’s bequest of them to Mrs. Siddons in her will dated 1822. See Campbell’s “Life of Mrs. Siddons,” p. 369, where is also to be found theformal note of Mrs. Garrick’s executors to Mrs. Siddons, requesting an interview, for the purpose of presenting these gloves to her.

Third, Mrs. Siddons’ bequest of these gloves to her daughter Cecilia, Mrs. Geo. Combe, of Edinboro’.

Fourth, Mrs. Combe’s bequest of them to her cousin, Mrs. Fanny Kemble.

Lastly, the gift of these gloves in the very box in which Mrs. Siddons kept them, with her writing on the cover, “Shakespeare’s Gloves, left by Mrs. Garrick to Sarah Siddons,” and by my dear and venerated friend, Mrs. Kemble, to their present possessor.

At any rate these gloves of mine were once Garrick’s, Mrs. Siddons’, and Mrs. Kemble’s. I am almost content to rest there.

Should it interest you, I will send you a photograph of them.

Before proceeding further, let us bring in evidence the extracts adduced to establish the authenticity of these gloves.

(Private Correspondence of David Garrick, vol. i. p. 352.)Mr. John Ward[22]toMr. Garrick.Leominster, May 31st, 1769.

Dear Sir,—On reading the newspapers, I find you are preparing a grand jubilee, to be kept at Stratford-upon-Avon, to the memory of the immortal Shakespeare. I have sent you a pair of gloves which have often covered his hands. They were made me a present by a descendant of the family, when myself and company went over there from Warwick in the year 1746, to perform the play of “Othello” as a benefit, for repairing his monument in the great church, which we did gratis, the whole of the receipts being expended upon that alone.

The person who gave them to me, William Shakespeare by name, assured me his father had often declared to him they were the identical gloves of our great poet, and when he delivered them to me, said, “Sir, these are the only property that remains of our famous relation; my father possessed, and sold the estate he left behind him, and these are all the recompense I can make you for this night’s performance.”

The donor was a glazier by trade, very old, and, to the best of my memory, lived in the street leading from the Townhall down to the river. On my coming to play in Stratford about three years after, he was dead. The father of him and our poet were brothers’ children.

The veneration I bear to the memory of our great author and player makes me wish to have these relics preserved to his immortal memory, and I am led to think I cannot deposit them for that purpose in the hands of any person so proper as our modern Roscius.

I am, Sir,Your most obedient humble servant,John Ward.[23]

P.S.—I shall be glad to hear you receive them safe, by a line directed for me in the Bargate, Leominster, Herefordshire.

(Campbell’s Life of Mrs. Siddons, vol. ii. pp. 369-370.)

“The widow of Garrick died in 1822, at a venerable age. She made the following bequest to the great actress, in a codicil to her will, dated August 15, 1822:—

“I give to Mrs. Siddons a pair of gloves which were Shakespeare’s, and were presented by one of his family to my late dear husband during the jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon.”

Information of the above reached Mrs. Siddons, with this note from Mrs. Garrick’s executors:—

“5, Adelphi Terrace, Oct. 30, 1822.

“Madam,—We beg leave to transmit to you the above extract from a codicil to Mrs. Garrick’s will, and to acquaint you that we will have the honour of waiting on you, for the purpose of delivering the relic therein mentioned, whenever you may be so good as to inform us that it may be convenient to you to receive our visit.

“We remain, with much respect, Madam,“Your most obedient humble servants,“Thos. Rackett, } Executors.”“G. F. Beltz, }

It is unfortunate that we have not the knowledge which led the editor of Garrick’s “Correspondence” to underwrite Ward’s letter with such a pithy postscript, and very regrettable that he should not have been brought to book for his pains, particularly as his name is not given on the title-page. The gloves, which may reasonably be referred to, bear, so far as I can judge from the photograph with which Mr. Furness has since favoured me, every mark of belonging to Shakespeare’s day, and were at any rate of some value, worth too much intrinsically to be lightly given away by an ordinary glazier; for, quoting the description of Mr. Furness, the embroidery upon them, “as well as the fringe is all in gold thread, still untarnished, the edging is of pink silk, which is continued in the inside, an inch and a half in width. They are about fourteen inches long, and six inches wide at the base of the gauntlet.”

There is no conflict of identity between these gloves and those pictured in my pages, for the latter are declared to have been given to Garrick by the Corporation of Stratford at the time of the Jubilee, in a finely carved box of the mulberry tree planted by Shakespeare, and to have been presented by the widow of Garrick to the direct relative of Miss Benson, who now holds them. It is very tantalising that I cannot find a precise testimony to this gift in any account of the Jubilee, although a friend of mine has searched diligently in all the contemporary accounts and county histories that can be thought of. There was, however, undoubtedly such a presentation, for Foote, when Garrick produced “The Jubilee” as an attraction at Drury-lane, determined to burlesque that and his rival together.In this very practical jest, an actor intended to personate Garrick—bearing on his breast a pair of white gloves and other articles presented at the Jubilee—was to be addressed in the very words of the panegyric pronounced on Garrick at Stratford—

“A nation’s taste depends on you,Perhaps a nation’s virtue too.”

when Garrick’s counterfeit presentment was to flap his arms as though they were wings, and crow—

“Cock-a-doodle-doodle-doo!”

It is pleasurable to write that this burlesque was never placed upon the stage, although Foote plainly had to be coerced into suppressing it, and was not to be hindered from writing “A Satirical Account of the Jubilee,” which may be found in the 39th vol. of theGentleman’s Magazine, p. 458. There is also no doubt of the freedom of Stratford having been presented to Garrick in a box made from the famous mulberry tree, for the resolution of the Common Council of the borough conferring this honour upon him particularly directs that it should be so conveyed (“Staffordshire and Warwickshire Past and Present,” vol. iii. p. 116).

The friend to whom I have already acknowledged my deep indebtedness in this quest, sends me from West’s “History of Warwickshire” trace of yet another pair of gloves associated, at least traditionally, with the Prince of Poets, and long kept on view in Anne Hathaway’s cottage at Shottery. There were several such articles there, and among them “achair, termed ‘Shakespeare’s courting chair,’ apurseabout four inches square, wrought with white and black bugles and beads; a small inkstand, and apair of fringed gloves. These articles were said to have been handed down from Shakespeare to his grand-daughterLady Barnard, and from her through the Hathaway family to those of the present day. Influenced by the currency of this tradition, Mr.Irelandpurchased the former two articles, and Mr.George Garrickthe latter.” Here again, however, we find a discordant doubt expressed, for the writer continues, “but these reliques will not bear examination. It will be uniformly found, by those who make enquiries, without an effort at self-deception,that there is not a single article of any nature extantthat has been proved to have belonged to Shakespeare. There is at present a bedstead with massive pillars, shewn as having belonged to Anne Hathaway, but we consider it in character with the articles attributed to Shakespeare.”

This scepticism and disbelief is doubtless honest enough, but it iscertainly too sweeping. These latter gloves are not now, within my knowledge, in existence; as for the other two pairs I leave your readers to judge whether these remarks apply to them, or whether one, or both, may not be fairly considered to be hallowed by the associations claimed for them.

By R. S. Ferguson, F.S.A.,Mayor of Carlisle 1881-2 and 1882-3.

PART II.

(Continued from p. 71.)

THE ordinary shape of a great mace is well known, and needs little description. A shaft and a bell-like head; on the base of the bell are the royal arms, and the bell is ornamented by an open-arched crown with orb and cross on the top. The sides of the bell are divided into four compartments by demi-female figures; and the rose, thistle, harp, and fleur-de-lis, each occupies a compartment, and is crowned. The shaft is divided into stages, and flying supports occur beneath the bell, and the shaft and base are covered with foliage. The heads frequently unscrew, and form loving cups. At Beaumaris the bells of the two maces contain drinking cups, and at Pwllheli the mace is nothing else but a two-handled drinking cup, with an oak pole stuck up its hollow foot.

The sergeants’ maces are simpler in form, and the crown is a mere open circle of fleur-de-lis and crosses.

At Nottingham the sheriff has a mace, and at one or two places there are maces for the mayoress.

When the Crown visits a town, the mayor should give up his staff of office to the king, or queen, and himself bear the mace before his sovereign. At Coventry, when William III. visited that city, the mayor carried the mace and an alderman the sword. To a royal personage other than his sovereign, the staff should not be given up, unless that personage be there to represent the sovereign, but the mayor should carry the mace. In 1503 the Lord Mayor of York himself carried the mace before the Princess Margaret. On the occasion of royal visits to the City of London, the Lord Mayor tenders to the sovereign his jewelled sceptre. Sometimes the maceitself is given up to the sovereign, as at Stafford, where the mayor kissed the mace and handed it to James I., who admired it greatly, and then returned it. At Cambridge the mayor delivered his mace to Queen Anne, who did the like.

Many corporations, in addition to their maces, possess swords of state or honour. According to the best authorities, the oldest symbols of municipal powers were the sword and the dragon, both of Roman origin, the one being the cohortal ensign of the Romans, the other the insignia of Supreme Justice.

“At Amiens (says Dr. Thompson in his Eng. Mun. Hist.), the insignia of Supreme Justice consisted of two swords of antique shape, carried in the hands of two officials, and a similar custom prevailed among almost all the great Corporations of France, which undoubtedly had a continuity from Roman time.”

The sword, then, is the symbol of criminal jurisdiction, as the mace is of civil. The County Palatinate of Chester had a state sword, which is figured in the Visitation of that county in 1580, published by the Harleian Society; while the Bishop of Durham, so long as he was a temporal power and had criminal jurisdiction, was presented with a sword on taking possession of his see.

The right to have a sword borne before a mayor was originally conferred either by charter, which may often have merely confirmed a previous practice, or by a royal present of a sword. Thus James I. gave the City of Canterbury a sword to be borne before the mayor. Hull has two swords, one given by Henry VIII., the other by Charles I. The authorities of Carlisle purchased a “Sword of Honour” in 1635-6 for £4 13s. The blade at least was second-hand, for it bears the date of 1509, and was made at Milan. The authority to bear it was given by royal charter in 1637, but it was probably purchased in London by a deputation who went there to arrange about procuring the charter. On the locket of the sheath is cut the letter S in great size, and I have never found a satisfactory account of what it means, unless it stands for sword. Our governing charter at Carlisle gives us the right to have a sword by authorising us to have an official “qui erit et vocabitur Portator Gladii nostri coram Mayore Civitatis prædictæ.”

The grant by charter of a sword differs in various places: at King’s Lynn the sword is to be sheathed, at Chester it is to be borne before the mayor “in our absence,” and point upright. I take it that the sword should always be point upright, and that the Corporations of London and York are wrong in putting it on their achievements of arms with the point down. I take it, it should never be lowered butin the presence of the Crown. The swords are generally sheathed, but the sword at Great Yarmouth is carried unsheathed in time of a European war. At Lichfield a sword is kept permanently fixed over the mayor’s pew, and sheathed, but the sheath is withdrawn when the mayor attends church. At Carmarthen the sword, by charter of Henry VIII., is ordered to be “freely and lawfully” borne before the “said mayor in manner as is accustomed to be done in our City of London.” A curious story comes from Coventry, that in 1384 the sword was carried behind the mayor because he had not done justice. The Corporation of Chester and the dean and chapter of that place fell out about the sword; the ecclesiastics objected to the mayor bringing his sword to church, but it was decided that

“As often as the mayor repaired to the church to hear divine service or sermon, or upon any just occasion, he was to be at liberty to have the sword of the city borne before him with the point upwards.”

The information I have before me only furnishes the names of five places as havingCaps of Estate or Maintenance, namely, London, York, Coventry, Exeter, and Waterford. They are generally worn by the swordbearer, and I imagine that many more places than I have mentioned provide their swordbearers with fur coverings for their heads; but it is not to be taken for granted that every fancy hat, whether of fur or not, worn by a swordbearer is aCap of Maintenance. Gwillim defines a cap of maintenance as a cap of dignity, worn by dukes in token of good government and freedom. Planché makes it the same as the “Abacot,” a cap worn during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and commencement of the sixteenth centuries by royal and noble personages, varying in form, and ultimately taking a shape not unlike a Glengarry cap, made of crimson velvet and lined with ermine, and occasionally placed by heralds beneath crests instead of the ordinary wreath. It appears of that shape as a crest to the arms of the City of York, but at London, both in the armorial bearings and on the swordbearer’s head, it is of fur, of the shape of an inverted flower-pot. At Coventry it is also of fur, and round, while at Exeter I believe it is of red velvet. The history of this is known: it was presented to the City of Exeter by Henry VII., and was worn by the swordbearer until lately, when, on the suggestion of Mr. Tucker (Somerset Herald), it was ordered to be carried before the mayor on a cushion. I do not know the history of the other fur caps of maintenance I have enumerated. If I did I might be able to throw some light on the matter, but I own to being a little in the dark as to caps of maintenance. If, as Gwillim says, the cap of maintenanceis a mark of freedom, its association with the swordbearer (the sword denoting criminal jurisdiction) may mean freedom from all extraneous criminal jurisdiction.

If this is so, I would suggest to the powers that be to lay down the following rules:—

That every mayor may and should have a mace; the mayor of a borough with a separate commission of the peace—a mace and a sword. If, in addition, his borough has quarter sessions of its own, then he should also have a cap of maintenance.

The Corporations of Colchester, Dover, Southampton, Norwich, Beaumaris, Preston, Great Yarmouth, Poole, Rochester, Boston, Waterford, &c., possessSilver Oars, the symbol of the maritime jurisdiction once enjoyed by those places, but abolished by the Act of 1840, placing all creeks and rivers in Great Britain under the High Court of Admiralty. The origin of this symbol is not known, but it is a natural one, and is, or was [for the Court is merged, I suppose, into the High Court of Justice] the badge or mace of the High Court of Admiralty, and was laid before the Judge, as the great mace used to be laid before the Chancellor, when he presided in Chancery. The one belonging to the High Court of Admiralty is said to be 130 years old, but an older one with the arms of Queen Elizabeth thereon was once in existence. That belonging to the Admiralty of the Cinque Ports is older still. One belongs to the Governor of Bermuda, who has Admiralty jurisdiction. These civic oars, like the maces, divide into two classes: large ones, like that formerly at Boston, or that now at Great Yarmouth, meant to be carried as maces before the mayor; small ones, as at Colchester and Dover, the badges of authority of the water-bailiffs, who showed them, when executing process, as the sergeants-at-mace did their maces. That at Dover is 6 in. long, and is contained in a brass cylindrical box. The Colchester one is 10 in. The one which was sold by Boston in 1832 is 3 ft. 3 in. long, and was carried as a mace; it is of the date of Queen Elizabeth, and is now in the possession of Lord Brownlow. That at Yarmouth is 4 ft. long, and has the Royal arms and those of the borough on the blade. It was presented in 1745, and is of silver gilt. It is carried before the mayor and behind the maces. Rochester possesses both a great and small silver oar.

Much information as to silver oars will be found in the 30th and 31st volumes of the Institute’s Journal.

By far the greatest part of the chains and badges worn by mayorsare modern, of various degrees of ugliness, and I certainly hope the antiquaries of a future age will not judge of the art of the nineteenth century from a collection of mayors’ chains. There are exceptions, such as the chain presented to Exeter by the Institute in 1874, which consists of sixteen main links, conjoined by small ones. Of the former, eight are castles, an idea taken from the arms of the city; seven are composed of the letter X, surmounted by a crown; the sixteenth is a cinquefoil, containing a representation of the hat presented to the mayor by Henry VII., and from the cinquefoil depends the badge on which is, in enamel, the arms of the city.

I do not know that a mayor’s chain and badge has any particular symbolism; I do not think that it is in the nature of a “collar.” It merely marks out its wearer as a man of importance, and requires no special authority to authorise its assumption. It is part of the idea of a mayor, inherent in him. But I must protest against some municipalities which have, without any right whatever, provided their mayors with collars of SS. The Lord Mayor of Dublin wears one, but the collar was given to the city by Charles II., so there is no doubt as to his right to wear it; but I think the Lord Mayor of London would find great difficulty in satisfying the College of Arms as to his right to a collar of SS, which was given him (temp. Henry VIII.), not by the Crown, but by a subject, Sir John Alleyne. The town council of Cork coolly ordered afac-simileof the Dublin one to be provided for their mayor. The council of Derby purchased Lord Denman’s collar of SS, and their mayor wears it. Coventry, Nottingham, Stamford, Kingston-on-Thames, and other places possess modern chains of the “SS pattern,” as the jewellers call it, and their mayors wear them. They might with equal propriety assume the insignia of the Order of the Garter.

The use of chains is not confined to mayors; several other civic dignitaries wear them—sheriffs, and aldermen in some instances. York provides a gold chain for its Lady Mayoress, and is ungallant enough to weigh the chain when it is handed to a new Lady Mayoress, and again when she gives it up; an old scandal asserts that a former Lady Mayoress appropriated some of the links. Hull, which, by the way, possesses a mayor’s chain of the date of 1564, sold its Mayoress’s chain. At many towns the waits, or town musicians, had badges with chains for suspension: these are generally of silver, and the badges bear the arms of the place. Several curious examples exist. Lincoln has a mayor’s ring, but whether it is ancient or not I do not know, nor do I know of any other place.

As to civic robes, I can give no information and lay down no rules. The mayor of Carlisle is one of the few mayors who possess no robe, and I rather congratulate myself thereon. I was utterly unprepared for the gorgeous spectacle presented by my brother mayors at the Mansion House in 1882. Every variety of material, of colour, and of pattern was to be seen that the wildest imagination of the tailor could devise.

Although the mayor of Carlisle has no gown, the unreformed corporation of Carlisle had them in the seventeenth century, as shown by the records of a Court Leet, held on Monday, October 22, 1649:—

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