ROY'S WIFE OF ALDIVALLOCH. YORKSHIRE FLINT ARROW HEADS. In January Current Notes, p. 8, it is stated, that a person in the East Riding of Yorkshire had employed himself in manufacturing imitations of ancient flint arrow-heads. The assertion had its rise at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, and has since been made current in various forms, but it is nevertheless wholly an error. None but a good workman could produce flint arrow heads with any approach to excellence as to deceive any one who had seen a genuine specimen, while the operation of fabrication would be so tedious, and the chances of sale so precarious, that no one, however dishonest, could possibly obtain any thing like remuneration. The paragraph in the Illustrated Times, Dec. 13, p. 395, which has occasioned all this stir, has been ably answered by Mr. Thomas Wright, whose sagacity as an antiquary had been rather cavalierly treated; in the same paper, for January 10, p. 27. Another reply, in reference to this controversy, has since appeared in the Hull Advertiser, in the following terms: Many of our most popular ballads have originated in the traditionary relation of some incident, the particulars of which have become mystified or forgotten, or have been based on rude fragmentary lyrics which have been transmitted by successive generations eternising some cherished memorial of events in local history, or celebrating some well known hill, or dale, or stream. Among these, none are better known than the song of Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch;' but the allusion to persons was without elucidation, and the name of the writer was become a matter of question. Allan Cunningham observes-Cromek, an anxious inquirer into all matters illustrative of northern song, ascribes Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch, to Mrs. Murray, of Bath; while George Thomson, and all other editors of Scottish song, impute it to Mrs. Grant, of Carron. I am not aware that the authorship has been settled.' The doubt rested with Cunningham, who appears to have not been aware that the writer married her cousin-Grant, of Carron, near Elchies; and upon his decease, married secondly Dr. As comparatively few of our Yorkshire friends may not Murray, a physician resident at Bath. Whether there either see that publication, or, seeing it, may not fully was some tradition in Aberlour, her native place, as to understand the subject, the writer of this, (who is in no wise the courtship and inconstancy of the bride, or that Mrs. connected with any of the parties concerned, nor in the Grant may have taken up the burden of some former, least interested in the matter, except for truth's sake, and but now forgotten ballad, is not known. Recently, on having some knowledge of the subject in dispute) begs to examining the parish register of Cabrach, Banffshire, for say that, independently of, and without any reference to what Mr. Wright has stated, the engravings above referred some other affair, the circumstances of the marriage of to, in the tract published by Mr. Wright, were taken from the veritable Roy of Aldivalloch and his once fickle wife, Flint Implements, now in the possession of Mr. Edward so famous in Scottish song, was discovered. They had Tindall, of Bridlington, and that all of them, with the exbeen previously contracted' on January 28, 1727; but ception of two, are of Mr. Tindall's own finding, chiefly on February 21, following, John Roy, lawful son of within short distances from Bridlington. In the museum Thomas Roy, in Aldivalloch, was married to Isabel, of Sir George Strickland, Bart., at Boynton Hall, near daughter of Alister Stewart, sometime resident in Bridlington, there is a small but fine collection of flint and Cabrach. The braes of Balloch are in the neigh- stone implements, consisting of a stone hammer, stone and bourhood of Aldivalloch, and possibly all the circum-flint celts, as they are called, and spear or arrow-heads of flint, which have been in the museum between thirty and stances were long the current gossip of the district, as forty years. Some of these articles were found on the Mrs. Grant was not born till 1745, and she died in 1814. estate at Boynton, and others on an estate belonging to the same gentleman, near Malton. Implements of flint, namely sling stones, knives, celts, spear and arrow heads, saws, drills, flat sling stones, and some round, size of a halfcrown; also, others of various shapes, the use of which cannot now be satisfactorily ascertained. Some of the flints are rounded, and about the size of a child's ball; some less, and some sharp pointed like a lance, and, at the same time, like a penknife blade in shape. These and many others, too numerous to mention or describe, are now in the possession of Mr. Tindall, who has been a most diligent gatherer of these things upwards of four years; he has, indeed, such a collection of these antiquities as probably is not to be found Bateman, Esq., of Youlgrave, Derbyshire. The writer has out of any museum in England, except that of Thomas also authority for saying, if any person wished to see Mr. Tindall's collection he may do so free of expense, by producing a letter of introduction from the secretary of any antiquarian society; or from the authorised officers of any scientific society in the kingdom. Feb. 8. ENGLISH EPISCOPAL CHAPEL, MONTROSE. St. Peter's English Episcopal Chapel, Montrose, was founded in 1722, and consecrated in 1724. Dr. Johnson, during his journey to Scotland, after inspecting these fragments of magnificence,' the ruins of the Abbey of Aberbrothoc, founded in 1178, proceeded on to Montrose, of which town and its buildings he speaks with much commendation We then went to view the English Chapel, and found a small church, clean to a degree, unknown in any other part of Scotland, with commodious galleries, and what was yet less expected, with an organ. The organ, in 1833, was replaced by one of superior construction, at a cost of three hundred pounds; and a new front to the chapel, with other improvements, were recently completed, but the whole was destroyed by fire on the evening of Saturday, 7th inst., the accident originated in the over heating of the flues of the stove. The curiously painted altar-piece of Moses and Aaron was also consumed. Large subscriptions have however already been effected for the rebuilding of the chapel. Brechin, Feb. 16. A. J. K. P. D. E. Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper, painted al fresco, is by order of the Emperor of Austria, to be restored. DERIVATION OF THE WORD COWARD. That Coward' is derived from Cow-heart, as Mr. PILSON thinks, is highly probable, though the popular etymology is cow-herd. Spencer writes cow-heard. Ogilvie, Imp. Dict. sub voce, says it has been supposed to be from culum vertere, to turn the tail, the old French being culvert, now couard. This suggestion receives countenance from the corresponding word in Italian, codardo, which would seem to be derived from coda, the tail; and it is confirmed by the use of the term in he raldry to signify a lion borne in the escutcheon with his tail doubled between his legs. The Spanish cobarde is a corrupt form, with b for d, or the French and Venetian u (comp. cul, queue, coua), while the Armoric couhard comes from the French. To cow is to depress with fear. The Scottish cowe, which is identical with the Icelandic Kuga or Kufra, to depress, signifies also to crop, to lop, to switch the head off. A cowed cou' is a hornless or dodded cow. I'll cowe yer lugs,' is a common tl reat held out to mischievous boys. A brume cowe' is a broom stalk, deprived of its leaves. To cuff, is an almost synonymous Scottish and English verb with core; and both cuff and cowe may be traced through many languages. The Scottish has cluff with a similar meaning. Compare the English clap, German klap-, klapf-, Swedish klapp, klepp-, Dutch klapp-, Spanish golp, Italian colp-, French coup, Latin culp-, colaph-, Greek kolap-, kolaph-, Hebrew or Arabic kaluf, Sanskrit klap. The Scottish cowie agrees in sense as in sound with the Latin ceva, a small hornless milch cow. South Shields, Feb. 2. W. B. Your Correspondent, Mr. JAMES A. PILSON, Current Notes, p. 7, might find another derivation for the word Coward than those of Cow-herd and Cow-heart, in the ancient Spanish word-Cobardia, Covardia, cowardice —and in the English word Cower, to crouch, to slink. B. B. W. Are not Messrs. Carrington and Pilson led too much by the ear in deriving Coward from Cow-herd or Cow. heart? Neither comparative philology nor antiquarian research offer anything in support of either of these derivations. The nouns cow, herd, and heart, are Germanic, and are found in all the different branches of the German language. But the word coward is found in none of these save the English. The modern German for coward Feigling, faint-heart, bears no relation to the English, and the substantive Kuhhirt, a cowherd, in common use, is applied exclusively to a keeper of cattle. Our chief authorities, Johnson and Richardson, differ in their derivation of the word in question. Johnson has "Coward; (couard Fr. of uncertain derivation.)" Richardson, "Coward, French, Couard; Spanish, Cobarde; Italian, Codurdo, Coward, i.e. conred, cowered, cower'd. One who has cower'd before an enemy. It has the same import as supplex. Coward is the past part of the verb, to cowre, 66 or to cower, a word formerly in common use." (see Tooke.) Thus Johnson derives the word directly from the old French noun couard; Richardson, following Tooke, from the English verb to cower. I believe Johnson is right. That a word similarly spelt, and identical in meaning with the word coward, is found in French. Spanish, and Italian, and is not found in any German dialect, is strong proof of its Latin origin, and the fact that it did not become a portion of the English language until after the diffusion of the Norman literature points out the way by which it was introduced. Couard is a word of frequent recurrence in old French writings, both verse and prose. It was variously spelt coard, coars, coart, couurd, coward. I am disposed to consider coard the earliest spelling, but about the middle of the fourteenth century couard became the usual orthography and remained so until the time of Louis XIV., when the word fell into disuse. That the word couard was not employed in France in writing only, but was made use of in common conversation is shewn by its being found in many proverbs of that country. Cotgrave gives four of these" Plus couard qu'un lieure," "Le couard n'aura belle amie," "Hardie langue, couarde lance;" Mieux vaut couard que trop hardi." 66 To which may be added: "A horions et escarmouche Le couard se cache, au se couche." "Avec le renard on renarde Avec le couard on couarde." Johnson appears not to have known the derivation of couard, and possibly the French philologists had not in his time agreed upon it. Nevertheless it was known to the Italians, for in Antonini's Italian and French dictionary, published in 1749, I find after the word Codardo "Alcuni credono codardo derivarsi dalla coda, che frà le gambe portans i cani paurosi." This deriva tion has been generally accepted by the French lexicographers. Roquefort, after giving the meaning of coardise, goes on to derive it from "coue, cauda, parceque les animaux qui craignent portent la queue entre les jambes." Bescherelle at the word couard says barb. codardus, même signif., formá de cauda, queue parceque les animaux timides laissent pendre leur queue entre les jambes." "du lat. In old French the modern word queue was variously These observations spelt coe, coue, coua, cowe, etc. suffice to shew that coward is not formed from the verb to cower, nor is it a compound of the German words cow, herd, or heart, but that it is a French word derived from the Latin cauda or coda, a tail. Salisbury, Feb. 10. J. W. The Abbé Chatel, founder of the French Evangelical Church, died at Paris, on Friday the 13th inst., in the sixty-second year of his age. He was so reduced in circumstances, that to obtain a subsistence he for some years past gave lessons of instruction to young children. SCOTTISH OVER DOOR INSCRIPTIONS. Upon the burial aisle of the noble family of Ruthven at Forgandenny, Perthshire, are the following apparently renewed lines— ALL. MEN. THINK. ON. ZOVR. DYING DAY 1369. Over the small gateway to the Grey Friars' burial ground, in Perth, are these lines HOC GENITOR GENETRIXQVE SITI, NVMEROSA VTRIVSQUE THIS HOVSE LOVES PEACE, HATES KNAVES, CRIMES PRESERVES THE LAWS, AND GOOD MEN HONOVRETH. Since the publication of the inscriptions on Mar's Wark, a building at the head of the Broad street in Stirling, begun by the Regent Earl of Mar, but now a ruin; in Current Notes, July 1855, p. 53, I have had full opportunity of comparing the printed versions with the originals, and finding them incorrect, I forward the following, which considering the decayed state of the letters are as near to the original as it is possible to render them. The first two couplets are on the front of Mars Wark. THE. MOIR. I. STAND. ON. OPPIN. HITHT Lord Mayor of the City of London, and to the Right Wor To the Right Honourable Sir Robert Beachcroft, Knt. shipfull, the Aldermen, his brethren. The humble petition of the Masters or Governors and Assistants of the Mystery and Commonalty of Barbers and Surgeons of London. Sheweth, That by Charter granted to your Petitioners by King Edward the Fourth, no Surgeon within this City could The third is on the back of Mar's Wark, within exercise his art unless he was first approved and admitted the garden ESSPY. SPEIK. FVRTH. AND. SPAIR. NOTHT The last couplet reminds me of an inscription upon an old house in Dunfermline, which proffers more cautious advice, dictated, no doubt, by the discretion of the erector, who was Robert Pitcairn, Commendatory of Dunfermline, and Secretary of State to Queen Mary. The lines are engraved over the chief entrance door to Pitcairn's house in Maygate Street SEN. VORD. IS. THRALL. AND. THOCT. IS. FRE Over the door of the farm house of Cossins, parish of Glamis is the following inscription. The stone taken from the castle of Cossins in its demolition, bears the arms of the Lyon and Young families. Prior to the lands of Cossins becoming the property of the noble i.e. Judgment, or opinion. thereto by your petitioners, and all the rights and privileges granted by such Charter were afterwards confirmed to your petitioners, by Act of Parliament passed in the thirtyof King James and King Charles the First, the examinasecond year of King Henry the Eighth. And by Charters tion and approbation of all Surgeons within seven miles of London is likewise placed in your petitioners. That by the said Act of Parliament made in the thirtysecond year of King Henry the Eighth, intituled an Act for Barbers and Surgeons, it is among other things enacted that No manner of person after the feast of St. Michael then next ensuing [Sept. 29, 1540] should presume to keep any shop of Barbery or Shaving within the City of London, except he be a Freeman of your petitioners' Company, upon pain that every person who should offend against the said Clause should forfeit five pounds per month, one half to the King, and the other half to the Informer. That Perukes not being in use at the time when your petitioners were incorporated by the said act, in the manuer that they are now made, It has been doubted whether the making the same be a part of Barbery within the meaning of the said Act of Parliament. And upon that presumption great numbers of persons, Foreigners, have of late years exercised the said Art of Peruke making within this City, privately in chambers, and without the freedom of your petitioners' Company, or indeed of this Honourable City, to the great prejudice and impoverishment of the several members of your petitioners' Corporation, who pay all public taxes and duties, and bear all offices in their respective Parishes, Companies and Wards, whereas these unfreemen neither do one nor the other, and this notwithstanding that the Art of Peruke making is an improvement from, if not a part of your Petitioners trade of Barbery, and your Petitioners' own invention, and has always been exercised by them as a branch of the Burbers' trade. Nor have such unfreemen any skill therein but what they have learned in their employment under your petitioners. That your Lordship and Worships together with the Common Council of this Honourable City, have in order to redress grievances of this kind, been lately pleased to pass an Act, That no person not free of the City shall occupy any Art, Manual Occupation, or Handicraft, or keep any shop, room, or place inward or outward for sale of any wares or merchandises upon pain of Five Pounds for every time that he shall do contrary to the said Act. THE RAMBLER AND THE ADVENTURER. The secret history of any popular work, periodicals more especially, as to who were the contributors, and in reference to the appropriation of the papers to their respective authors, has always been matter of interest and moment with the public. The Rambler, by Dr. Johnson, revigorated the taste for that species of reading, which had been dormant from the period of the Spectator, the Tatler, and the Guardian; but the Adventurer, as started by Dr. Hawkesworth, from its pleasing variety, became at once more popular than the Rambler; the sale in numbers was considerable, and four large editions were published in less than nine years. The elegance, indeed, of the composition, the charms of the narrative part, and its evident tendency to promote piety and virtue, are recommendations which, it is hoped, can never lose their effect. debted for his high literary character and fame. Among To the Adventurer, Dr. Hawkesworth is chiefly inhis early associates in this paper, the first number of which appeared on Tuesday, November 7, 1752, continued on Saturdays and Tuesdays, to the one hundred and fortieth number; was Bonnell Thornton, whose contributions are marked with the signature A, but his accustomed indolence occasioned irregularity in his communications, and we find but eight papers, nos. 3, 6, 9, 19, 23, 25, 35, and 43, bearing that signature; the last being dated April 3, 1753, refutes the assertion of That the said Law may have its due effect against such persons as exercise the respective Arts of Surgery and Peruke making, your petitioners are very willing to putt the said late Act of Common Council in suit at their own expense against all such persons as use either of the said Arts without being Free of this Honourable City, by which means your petitioners do not doubt but to bring more advantage to the City from the said Act than most other Com-Alexander Chalmers, that Thornton quitted the Adpanies. But that your petitioners may not fail of reaping the benefit thereof in some measure themselves, and for as much as Borders of Hair were made and worn, and were a part of Barbery and the Perukes at the time of passing your petitioners' incorporation Act of Parliament, whereby all Barbers are obliged to be of their Company, and that the laws of your petitioners' Company are best contrived for the government of the said Art, and a very few if any persons are now admitted into your petitioners' Company except Barbers and Surgeons, so that your petitioners do no waies interfere with the other Companies of this Honourable City. Your petitioners do humbly pray That your Lordship and Worships will be pleased to order that from hence. forward No Surgeon or Peruke maker shall be admitted into the freedom of this Honourable City by redemption, unless he has been first admitted into the freedom of your petitioners' Company of Barbers and Surgeons. LOCALITY OF THE ABDUCTION OF MARY. Miss Strickland, in following the Act of Parliament by which Bothwell was forfeited, has stated that the precise scene of the abduction of Mary, Queen of Scots, in April, 1567, was at Foulbriggs, now known as Fountainbridge, a western suburb of Edinburgh; considerable doubt has, however, recently arisen, and it is now contended from contemporary historians and the Privy seal record, that Miss Strickland's is an erroneous assertion, and that the real spot was at the two bridges across the Almond, on the borders of Edinburghshire and Linlithgowshire. venturer to become a joint partner with Colman, in the Connoisseur, which did not appear till February, 1754. Hawkesworth has himself stated, the contributions from this channel "soon failed," and its causes have here been explained on good grounds. The stipulated price which all the authors received from Payne, the publisher, was two guineas for each paper; this was advanced by the bookseller, who risked all expenses, and was soon amply remunerated by a more rapid and extensive sale than the Rambler ever obtained. Another of Hawkesworth's associates was Dr. Richard Bathurst, a physician of considerable skill, but without much practice, and a member of the Johnsonian Ivy-lane Club of Literati. He was the son of Colonel Bathurst, a West India planter, from whoi Johnson received his black servant, Francis Barber. The colonel left his affairs on his death in absolute ruin, and the doctor's emolument arising from his contributions to these papers were, it is believed, of considerable service to him in a pecuniary view-his papers have no distinctive marks; those with the signature A are, in the late editions of the British Essayists, improperly appropriated to him-these were, indisputably, from style and subject, Thornton's; nor is there any memorandum extant by which those of Bathurst's can be separated from those given to Dr. Hawkesworth. Employment abroad in his profession being proffered him, Dr. Bathurst readily accepted it, and in the expedition against the Havannah, he fell a sacrifice to the climate. Dr. Johnson, by whom he was, by reason of his amiable manners, highly esteemed, in a letter to Bennet Langton, thus tenderly lamented his demise-"The Havannah is taken, a conquest too dearly obtained, for Bathurst died before it Vix Priamus tanti totaque Troja fuit." Chalmers, quoting Boswell, says, "It cannot be known how much Dr. Bathurst actually contributed We have, however, the express authority of Sir John Hawkins that Dr. Bathurst wrote the papers signed A; and without depending implicitly on this authority, which is certainly wrong, we may safely assert, that if Dr. Bathurst did not write these papers, he did not write any part of the work, for all the other papers are appro priated, upon undoubted authority, to Dr. Hawkesworth, Johnson, and Warton, with the exception of two or three, the authors of which were unknown to the Editor, are pointed out in this edition." That Boswell blundered egregiously cannot be questioned, both in this matter and the part Dr. Johnson took in the Adventurer, when, by the loss of Bathurst, and the uncertainty of Thornton, Johnson and Joseph Warton became Hawkesworth's coadjutors. Boswell has said Johnson began to write in the Adventurer on April 10, 1753, but the thirty-fourth paper, printed on Saturday, March 3, was certainly the production of his pen; and an unpublished letter of Payne, the publisher, to Dr. Warton, furnishes data and facts connected with the progress of the Adventurer, which show that no certainty of appropriation of the papers to Hawkesworth previous to that junction can be established at least as regards those which have no distinctive signature. Dr. Johnson asserted that the Hon. Hamilton Boyle wrote in the Adventurer; probably no. 33, that with the which in Chalmers' edition, is given to Hawkesworth, or one of the earlier papers which remain without assignment. Payne's letter is as follows: 133 Z. The paper I received yesterday. 134 H. 135 T 136 H. 137 Z. 138 H. 139 T. 140 H. By this disposition, which H. has given me, you will not have room for your criticism on Othello, unless you can inIt may, clude it in one paper, which is hardly possible. therefore, be useful to wind up your papers of that kind by some general subject; for Johnson says each must wind up sign till the last paper. his bottom, and not leave the world in ignorance of our de Of ninety-two members, since you began [amending the The three signed Y were submittted for his T. will have written for his own share Which is two above his number. Which is one above his number, for Hawkesworth should have written T. [Johnson] I have had no contents since no. 105. 39 3 43 23 25 24 I am, your's sincerely, J. PAYNE. 2 Feb. 2 [1754]. The words enclosed within a bracket [amending the whole] scored over by a pen in the letter, induces a supposition that Hawkesworth was faltering, and that to Warton was confided the strict revision of the whole; certain it is, that to him, in the conduct of the Adventurer, the province of criticism and literature was consigned, and most ably has Warton taught us how the be directed, notwithstanding her severity, to attract and brow of criticism may be sinoothed, and how she may to delight. Rev. Sir,-As your paper [on what Arts the Moderns excel the Ancients] will not be printed till Tuesday se'nnight, I was willing to gratify your curiosity by sending The Connoisseur to night. It is full of dull commonplace stuff, and is, I think, not worthy of Thornton. It is disgusting, I own, to give such imperfect translations of pasJohnson's letter to Dr. Warton, dated March 8, 1753, sages selected for the peculiar purposes of our papers, but apprising him of the part in The Adventurer that would the Spectator, etc., began it, the unlettered expect the con- be assigned to him, if he would accept of it, states, “ I tinuance of it, and we must gratify that expectation. The have no part in the paper beyond now and then a motto,” translation of the passage from Dr. M[usgrave?] which I―ques. what was meaned by part? The thirty-fourth sent you, is radically bad, and cannot be mended by altera- paper, with his signature, T., had been printed on the tion. We must take our chance for a translation from Mr. third of that month, and a conjecture arises that that Johnson, which you must help me to procure, and which I paper, the thirty-ninth and the forty-first, were really will print after the contents of the volume in which it occurs. Johnson's, but contributed by Dr. Bathurst, as Boswell, Last Saturday Mr. Hawkesworth got T. [Johnson] to supply in explanation, asserts "Mrs. Williams told me that as his place; he has begged the same favour of him for Tuesday, on account of a violent pain in his face; but he does he had given those essays to Dr. Bathurst, who sold them at two guineas each, he never would own them, nay, he used to say he did not write them; but the fact was, he dictated them, while Bathurst wrote. I read to him Mrs. Williams's account; he smiled and said nothing." Payne's letter speaks but of the twentythree Johnson had written under the signature T. for his own share; but there are twenty-eight papers with that distinctive mark, two having been written to assist Hawkesworth; Boswell was, therefore, possibly correct not mean that T. should lose his own turn; the state of our affairs, therefore, from last Tuesday se'nnight, stands thus: 127 Z. 128 T. for H[awkesworth.] 129 Z. Saturday, Feb. 2, these are published. 131 T. 130 H. British Essayists, 1817, duod. Vol. xxiii. p. 24. |