Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853. Various
circum mortalia curas,
Et mecum ingentes cœli spatiare per auras."
Pope:
"Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things
To low ambition and the pride of kings;
Let us, since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us and to die,
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man."
I do not remember the comparison to have been made before.
University Club.
Scarce MSS. in the British Museum.—In Cotton MSS., Titus, B 1., will be found a curious and valuable collection of papers entitled "Cromwell's Remembrances." These comprise:
1. A period from about the death of Anne Boleyn to his attainder.
2. They are very miscellaneous, consisting of memoranda of subjects for conference with the king. Notices of persons to be remembered for offices. Sale of lands. Diplomacy, and various other particulars. Notes relative to the dissolution of monasteries; their riches, revenues, and pensions to abbots, &c. The reception of Anne Cleves, and the alteration of the royal household thereupon. Privy council and parliamentary notes. Foreign alliances. Scotch and Irish affairs, consequent on the dissolution of abbeys, &c.
These curious materials for history are in the rough and confused state in which they were left by their author, and, to render them available, would require an index to the whole.
The "Remembrances" are in some degree illustrated by Harl. MS. 604., which is a very curious volume of monastic affairs at the dissolution. Also by 605, 606, and 607. The last two belong to the reign of Philip and Mary, and contain an official account of the lands sold by them belonging to the crown in the third and fourth years of their reign.
The Royal Garden at Holyrood Palace.—I cannot help noticing a disgraceful fact, which has only lately come to my knowledge. There is, adjoining the Palace of Holyrood, an ancient garden of the old kings of Scotland: in it is a curious sundial, with Queen Mary's name on it. There is a pear-tree planted by her hands, and there are many other deeply interesting traces of the royal race, who little dreamed how their old stately places were to be profaned, after they themselves were laid in the dust. The garden of the Royal Stuarts is now let to a market gardener! Are there no true-hearted Scotchmen left, who will redeem it from such desecration?
The Old Ship "Royal Escape."—The following extract from the Norwich Mercury of Aug. 21, 1819, under the head of "Yarmouth News," will probably be gratifying to your querist Anon, Vol. vii., p. 380.:
"On the 13th inst. put into this port (Yarmouth), having been grounded on the Barnard Sand, The Royal Escape, government hoy, with horses for his royal highness at Hanover. This vessel is the same that King Charles II. made his escape in from Brighthelmstone."
Queries
"THE LIGHT OF BRITTAINE."
I should be glad, through the medium of "N. & Q.," to be favoured with some particulars regarding this work, and its author, Maister Henry Lyte, of Lytescarie, Esq. He presented the said work with his own hand to "our late soveraigne queene and matchlesse mistresse, on the day when shee came, in royall manner, to Paule's Church." I shall also be glad of any information about his son, Maister Thomas Lyte, of Lytescarie, Esq., "a true immitator and heyre to his father's vertues," and who
"Presented to the Majestie of King James, (with) an excellent mappe or genealogicall table (contayning the bredth and circumference of twenty large sheets of paper), which he entitleth Brittaines Monarchy, approuing Brute's History, and the whole succession of this our nation, from the very original, with the just observation of al times, changes, and occasions therein happening. This worthy worke, having cost above seaven yeares labour, beside great charges and expense, his highnesse hath made very gracious acceptance of, and to witnesse the same, in court it hangeth in an especiall place of eminence. Pitty it is, that this phœnix (as yet) affordeth not a fellowe, or that from privacie it might not bee made more generall; but, as his Majestie has granted him priviledge, so, that the world might be woorthie to enjoy it, whereto, if friendship may prevaile, as he hath been already, so shall he be still as earnestly sollicited."
These two works appear to have been written towards the close of the sixteenth century. Is anything more known of them, and their respective authors?
Minor Queries
Thirteen an unlucky Number.—Is there not at Dantzic a clock, which at 12 admits, through a door, Christ and the Eleven, shutting out Judas, who is admitted at 1?
Quotations.—
"I saw a man, who saw a man, who said he saw the king."
Whence?
"Look not mournfully into the past; it comes not back again," &c.—Motto of Hyperion.
Whence?
"Other-some" and "Unneath."—I do not recollect having ever seen these expressions, until reading Parnell's Fairy Tale. They occur in the following stanzas:
"But now, to please the fairy king,
Full every deal they laugh and sing,
And antic feats devise;
Some wind and tumble like an ape,
And other-some transmute their shape
In Edwin's wondering eyes.
"Till one at last, that Robin hight,
Renown'd for pinching maids by night,
Has bent him up aloof;
And full against the beam he flung,
Where by the back the youth he hung
To sprawl unneath the roof."
As the author professes the poem to be "in the ancient English style," are these words veritable ancient English? If so, some correspondent of "N. & Q." may perhaps be able to give instances of their recurrence.
Newx, &c.—Can any of your readers give me the unde derivatur of the word newx, or noux, or knoux? It is a very old word, used for the last hundred years, as fag is at our public schools, for a young cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. When I was there, some twenty-five or twenty-seven years ago, the noux was the youngest cadet of the four who slept in one room: and a precious life of it he led. But this, I hope, is altered now. I have often wanted to find out from whence this term is derived, and I suppose that your paper will find some among your numerous correspondents who will be able to enlighten me.
Malta.
"A Joabi Alloquio."—Who can explain the following, and point out its source? I copy from the work of a Lutheran divine, Conrad Dieteric, Analysis Evangeliorum, 1631, p. 188.:
"A Joabi Alloquio,
A Thyestis Convivio,
Ab Iscariotis 'Ave,'
A Diasii 'Salve'
Ab Herodis 'Redite'
A Gallorum 'Venite.'
Libera nos Domine."
The fourth and sixth line I do not understand.
Illuminations.—When were illuminations in cities first introduced? Is there any allusion to them in classic authors?
Heraldic