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SHAKESPEARE AND CAMDEN SOCIETIES.

IN Current Notes, 1852, pp. 31, 39, were notices of the termination of the Percy Society, and the final adjustment of its pecuniary affairs, honourable to all parties by whom they had been conducted.

There are, or were, two other similar Societies; the Shakespeare Society and the Camden Society, concerning which little officially has been heard recently, so as to learn whether they are defunct, or only in a state of suspended animation. As regards the Shakespeare, it has certainly been stated in several booksellers' catalogues that it is closed, and the stock of books and the Shakespeare portraits sold off; but I am not aware that any announcement of such being the case, has been officially made, or any account of the funds furnished to It would be satisfactory to the subscribers to receive any information or explanation regarding these matters, through the medium of your useful and entertaining

the members.

Current Notes.

F. R. A.

PHOENICIAN PALEOGRAPHY AND LITERATURE.

lean to the general opinions of Oriental scholars, on the ON the observations of the Editor, who appears to subject of Paleography and Phoenician literature, but on in Current Notes, vol. iii. p. 73, I proffer the followwhich a volume might be written; attached to the article ing remarks:

nists to the Syrian coasts from the Erythræan seas. First. Herodotus says the Phoenicians came as coloStrabo, that they came from the Persian gulf. Vallancey, that the Phoenicians and the Persians were of the I can assert it was used over a much wider extent of same family; and as to the language called Phoenician, In this language, which in fact resembles the Chinese, country than was occupied by the Arabians and Persians. in its almost total absence of grammatical inflections, are written those ancient remains which have of late caused considerable sensation throughout the literary world, viz., the cuneiform monuments of Babylon, Nithe pillar of Alahabad, we find, in a character not as yet neveh, Persepolis, and Behistan. On the north part of deciphered, as I am aware by any but myself, a history which appears to be an account of the deluge, and describing the spot where Noah was buried. See Asiatic Researches, vol. vii. p. 180, pl. 6. All these writings are to be read from left to right. May not this Phoenician language, this older dialect of the Arabic have been almost universal in the days of Heber? Again, may it not have been remodelled about six hundred years after, Our Correspondent may rest assured hopes are enter- in the days of Ishmael, to somewhat in its present form? tained, that the CAMDEN SOCIETY is about recovering from Secondly, Gesenius in his Monumenta Phoenicia, has its supposed state of suspended animation, by the following signs. During 1854, the members have received the "Letters numerous specimens of this language; and the Sinaic of Lady Brilliana Harley," and the first part of "Bp. Swin-Valley has supplied 178 inscriptions in the same ford's Household Roll." Some Extracts from Grants temp. Edward the Fifth, are promised during this month, January 1855; and also, the Report of the Council elected May 2, 1853, with the report of the Auditors upon the Society's receipts and expenditure" from the 1st of April, 1853, to the 31st March, 1854."

The SHAKESPEARE SOCIETY ceased at the close of 1853; the reason stated, that the Honorary Officials were desirous of retiring. In March 1854, the entire stock of the works, printed at the expense of the members, was sold by public auction for about 4601., the disposal, to Mr. Skeffington, of the remaining impressions of the Ellesmere Shakspeare portrait was a private arrangement. No official account of the affairs of the Society, or its termination, has been prepared for the members, nor does it, on enquiry, appear that any such statement is contemplated.

The Camden Society appears to have lost of its phalanx of members, nearly one half. It is lamentable to reflect, how perverted have been the means and resources of this once leading and embodied power of deservedly distinguished men of all professions. Had the subscriptions and

the labours of the members, located as they were and are in all the counties, been devoted to the enlargement and reconstruction of Camden's Britannia, they would have conferred especial honour on the name of the Historian whose celebrity they usurped to emblazon a notoriety which they have but faintly attempted to maintain. Such a work would have resulted in establishing an eternal national monument, and created a halo of imperishable glory on the Society; or, had that been deemed too much, a republication of Horsley's Britannia Romana, with additions based upon the annotated copies, by Professor Ward and others, in the British Museum Library, would really have rendered an important service in aid of Historical Literature, while on the contrary, many of their distributed emanations are found on book-stalls neglected and unheeded, a memorable memento of the mischiefs of inefficient or misdirected talent, and ample pecuniary means.

language. See Trans. of Royal Society of Literature, vol. ii. part 1, plates. In these inscriptions, written some before, and others soon after the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, one word occurs more than one hundred and forty times, a sufficient evidence to prove that for the most part, I speak cautiously, and think I may say altogether, Phoenician inscriptions must be read from left to right. The one word alluded to is in numb. 142, sna, Mount Sina. The first letter is the Hebrew, samech, or s; the second is the Syriac and Arabic, nun or n; and the third, is the Samaritan and Runic alaph, or a; sometimes the letters are joined as in numb. 2, where it occurs three times; and at others, the letters are somewhat altered in form, but always distinguishable, even to a tyro. Surely, this word proves that all the sentences must be read from left to right; and also, that the writing is made up of MIXED ALPHA

BETS.

et soubmersæ Atlantidis Reliquiem, called Phoenician, Thirdly, I have a printed copy of the Magni Atlantis but which I think to be Runic. The heading "Atlan," is from right to left, but the narrative is alternately up and down, in eighteen lines of two feet one inch in length. This professes to have been written seven hundred years after the deluge, which it describes in most poetical language, and in which are mentioned as

situated in the mountain passes of the Atlantic range, inns for the refreshment and rest of travellers. The writing on this Atlantic monument has been considered to be "pseudophoenicia et spuria," but those, who with the late E. H. Barker, considered it as a forgery, knew not how to decypher it. See Gesenii Scripturæ Linguæque Phoeniciæ, cap. ix., where the first sign on the right hand at the lower end of the inscription, being a hieroglyph, is read as a letter, and some few of the letters themselves not being understood, no sense has been made of the whole inscription, but its internal evidence is quite sufficient to prove it not a forgery. Southwick, near Oundle, Jan. 15.

T. R. BROWN.

MISQUOTATION.-Butler makes the knight while reasoning with his lady love, observe,

For what is worth in any thing,

But so much money as 'twill bring? Hudibras, Part II. Canto i., Edit. 1678, p. 219. This couplet has since undergone a slight change, For what's the worth of any thing,

But so much money as 'twill bring.

Athenian Sport, 1724, 8vo. p. 154.

But a more recent adaptation in the Gentleman's Magazine, Sept. 1854, p. 262, exhibits a phraseology widely differing from the original.

The value of a thing
Be just so much as it will bring.

Dublin, Jan. 1.

ABUSES IN THE ARMY.

A. S.

Cradock, in his Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs, vol. i. p. 171, referring to Lord Chancellor Erskine, says, "Erskine sent me his pamphlet on the Abuses of the Army, and we afterwards examined together his Remarks on Annuities, they were both printed by Tom Davies of Russell Street, Covent Garden."

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AMBRY AND EFFIGY IN AIRLIE KIRK,

THE Ambry, scot., almerie, or almorie, a recess in churches for depositing the alms for the poor, is of considerable antiquity. Du Cange defines it "the Cape-hus of Elfric; a cupboard, storehouse, cabinet, etc.," in that sense, closets, or presses, for containing food and articles for domestic uses are generally known. Every church or chapel in the days of Papal domination, had its ambry; and were frequently hewn from one stone,

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The front, decorated with the sculptured denotations of the five Passion wounds of Christ, shows by the broken moulding, the former sockets for the embedding of the iron fastenings. On the wall within, cut into the stone, are the initials a. f. with three crescents, the armorial bearings of the family of Fenton, originally from the border, but who were the lords of the lands and barony of Baikie, in the parish of Airlie, in 1291, if not before, and were extinct in the male line about the middle of the fifteenth century.*

Possibly the ambry was made at the expense of one of the lords of Baikie; or, during the incumbency of one of the family, as parson of this kirk, the initials and arms being intended to denote the period.

The same symbols of our Lord's Passion, represented on the ambry, are also found on the coping stone of an old burying aisle, with the addition of the Scourge, the pillar to which Christ was bound, holy lance, and the pincers; with carvings of the fleur-de-lis, surmounted by a coronet. These, I infer, from their superior delicacy of execution, are of later date to the emblems on the front of the ambry. The coping stone is said to have

Nisbet, referring to Haddington's Collections from the

Registers, describes the arms of Fenton of Baiky, arg. three crescents, gules. William Fenton, Lord Baiky, is so designated in a perambulation with Alexander Ogle, Sheriff of Angus, in 1410. By their arms in our old registers being arg., three crescents gules, Fenton of Ogile, Fenton of Carden, and Fenton of Kelly, were cadets of Fenton of Baikey. System of Heraldry, edit. 1804, vol. i. p. 92.

been taken from the old kirk, which was demolished in 1783.

Built into the west gable of the kirk is a gaunt human effigy, about three feet in height, but much mutilated. The writer of the New Statistical Account of the Parish, 1843, describes it as a representation of St. John the Baptist, to whom, he adds, the church was originally dedicated. The idea is certainly erroneous, for apart from a small hamlet of houses, with a i ne spring and knoll, close to the kirk, known by the name of St. Madden, there is extant in the charter-chest at Cortachy Castle, a document bearing date 1447, in which mention is made of the bell of the Kirk of St. Madden of Airlic," and he doubtless was the patron saiut of the kirk. His festival is held on May 17, and as he is specially said to have devoted certain days to the celebration of the Eucharist and the Passion of Christ, the emblems on the ambry and coping-stone have most probably reference to that tradition. It may, however, be noticed, though the parish kirk was dedicated to St. Madden, there was formerly, about a mile to the south-west a chapel, which had for its patron saint, St. John, and to which William de Fenton, in 1362, presented the adjoining lands of Lunross; yet to this, the statue cannot by the most distant probability have any reference.

No description, or print of ancient armour, known to the writer, represents the peculiarity observable in the singularly formed apron of plate mail, as shewn on this figure. The carving appears to indicate scale armour, small roud plates of iron, lapping one over the other like fish scales, and terminating in a point, to which is pendant an oval or heart-shaped ornament. Some Correspondent of Current Notes may possibly be able to explain this curious appendage of old costume. The animal on the book is possibly intended to represent a lamb; hence, it may be inferred, the fore finger of the right hand points to "the Lamb's book of life," an allegory not unworthy of a much later time than that to which the statue appears to belong.

The Fenton estate in the fifteenth century became the property of the younger sons of Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, and Halkett of Pitfirran. Baikie Castle stood on a rising ground, near the west side of the loch of Baikie, but has long been demolished, and a new mansion, a little to the south, erected some years since. Brechin. A. J.

MEN often make others unfaithful by thinking them so.-Seneca.

Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. iv. p. 118. Reg. Mag. Sigilli, p. 25.

PAISLEY BLACK BOOK.

CAN any of the readers of Current Notes furnish particulars as to the authorship, contents, and present place of deposit of this book? It is not mentioned under the head of "Paisley" in Bishop Nicolson's Historical Library, Macray's Manual of British Historians, or in the Cottonian, Harleian, or Lansdowne Catalogues. Ashton-under-Lyne, Jan. 15. J. R. C.

Refer to Crawford's History of the Shire of Renfrew, first printed in 1710, continued by William Semple, printed at Paisley, 1782, 4to. p. 281, where it is said, "the monks of the abbey of Paisley wrote a Chronicle of Scotland, called the Black Book of Paisley, of which an authentic copy was burned in the Abbey of Holyrood House, during the English usurpation." This assertion is derived from Dunlop's Description of the Shire of Renfrew. Another copy is noticed in Sibbald's Theatrum Scotia, as having been in the President Sir Robert Spottiswood's library, him to Colonel, afterwards Thomas, Lord Fairfax. There whence it was taken by General Lambert, and presented by are here also other references respecting this supposed record, of which after all, Chalmers, in his Caledonia, vol. III., p. 125, quoting Bp. Nicolson's Scottish Historical Library, p. 93, thus summarily disposes-"The monks of Paisley are said to have written a Chronicle of Scotland, which was called the Black Book of Paisley, from the colour of its cover; but this like the Black Book of Scone, appears to have been merely a transcript of Fordun's Scotichronicon." ED.

WEIGHT OF TOBACCO SMOKE DETERMINED.

HOWELL in his Letters, Book III. Letter 7, tells the story of Sir Walter Raleigh winning a wager of Queen Elizabeth, by ascertaining the weight of smoke in a pound of tobacco. The incident was recently noticed in an hebdomadal contemporary, but neither the communicant, nor the editor allude to the fact of the trick having been practised more than a thousand years before, as we find in the Dialogues of Lucian, who died in the year 180.

In Franklin's translation, 1781, 8vo. vol. III. p. 88, we read, "Somebody asked him (Demonax) one day in a scoffing manner, this question-Pray, if you burn a thousand pounds of wood, how many pounds will there be of smoke? Weigh the ashes, said he, and all the rest will be smoke." F. R. A.

Howell's Letters are fictions, written by him while confined in the Fleet Prison for debt, and the story of the wager with the Queen doubtless originated in one of his literary embellishments. Lucian's Dialogues were translated by Hickes, and printed at Oxford in 1634, where possibly Howell met with the jocosery, or, as he was quite capable, he read it in one of the Latin versions, and, adopting the tradition of Raleigh's being the introducer of tobacco from Virginia, made it an illustration of his intimacy with her Majesty, in compliment to whom that country was 80 named. ED.

THE following beautiful lines, as yet unpublished, are written by that eminent servant of God, and friend of man, WILLIAM BENGO COLLYER. They are in his own autograph, on the fly leaf of Cowper's Table Talk and other Poems, a volume in my possession, and highly prized by me.

Canonbury, Jan. 18.

GEORGE DANIEL.

THE DEATH OF COWPER.

The swan, 'tis fabled, sweetly sings

With her expiring breath

O Cowper! had'st thou touch'd the strings
Of music in thy death!

What glorious, what mellifluous strains
Of harmony were there,
Instead of agonising pains,
The horrors of despair.

And was it then indeed despair,
O'erthrew that noble mind?
Ah no! insanity was there,

With genius high combin'd.

O had the darkness pass'd away,
Before the final scene,
What glimpses of eternal day,
Had then reflected been.

Then how his raptur'd soul of fire

Had kindled into praise;

And struck while here an angel's lyre,
And learn'd a seraph's lays!

This was denied-to mental gloom
An unresisting prey,

Thro' midnight shadows of the tomb,
His trackless journey lay.

A death that wore so stern a frown,
Then why should we deplore;
The sun that went in darkness down,
Hath risen to set no more.

Peckham, Dec. 1841.

W. B. COLLYER.

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD, born at Alresford, in Hampshire, Dec. 16, 1786, authoress of Our Village, and other popular works, died at Swallowfield, near Reading, on Wednesday, the 10th inst., in her sixtyninth year. These dates are based on the beginning of a letter addressed to one of her most intimate friends"Swallowfield, Dec. 16, 1854. "My dear Friend. This is a day I never thought to see again-my 68th birth-day."

GARRICKIANA.-Mr. O. Smith, the eminent comedian, having been obliged by deafness and declining health, to relinquish his connection with the stage, which he has trodden with so much credit for upwards of half a century, his library and choice collection of MSS. and Engravings illustrative of the Drama, will be sold by auction by Messrs. Puttick and Simpson, at the close of next month. His GARRICKIANA, illustrative of Garrick and his contemporaries, comprising almost every known engraving connected therewith, will form one of the most interesting features.

ROSEMARY BLOSSOMS.

Let some kindly hand make up a gathering. My thoughts have been wandering in scented chambers, and I wish some one would edit on paper of appropriate blush, the association of Rosemary, Lavender, and Rue-three favourites, long popularly united. In the old music books, of an elementary character, the air of "Lavender's blue," is frequently found, but it has grown vulgar, and both the words and tune are descending into mere traditionary matters-

Lavender's blue, diddle, diddle, rosemary's green,
When you are king, diddle, diddle, I shall be queen.
Who told you so, diddle, diddle, who told you so?
'Twas my own heart, diddle, diddle, that told me so.
Call up your men, diddle, diddle, set them to work,
Some with a rake, diddle, diddle, some with a fork,
Some to make hay, diddle, diddle, some to grind corn,
Whilst you and I, diddle, diddle, keep ourselves warm.
If you should die, diddle, diddle, as it may hap,
You shall be buried, diddle, diddle, under the tap.
Who told you so, diddle, diddle, pray tell me why?
Because you may drink, diddle, diddle, when you are dry.
The last stanza seems to have been suggested by the
old monkish rhymes, ascribed to Walter de Mapes, the
boosey Archdeacon of Oxford-

Mihi est propositum in taberna mori;
Ut cum venerint Angelorum chori,
Dicant, Deus, propitius huic potatori!

which may be thus rendered

May it be my good hap,
To die close by the tap!
That when call'd away,
Sweet cherubs may say,
God, be kind to this fellow !

For he lived and died mellow.

Gerard, gardener to Lord Burleigh, notices in his Herbal, Rosemary grew in Languedoc in such plenty that the inhabitants burned scarcely any other fuel. In the gardens of Italy and England, he adds, they made hedges of it as an ornament, and it was called Rosemarinus Coronaria, "because women have been accustomed to make crowns and garlands thereof." Hence the propriety of its standing for the queen's emblem in the old oral stanzas. Gerard, moreover, mentions it serving as spice in German kitchens and in other cold countries, in his day, as well as used in wine for inebriating, and as oil for medicinal purposes. And hereupon follows another enumeration of blessings:

Rosemary green,

And Lavender blue,

Thyme and sweet Margerum,

Hyssop and rue.

Rosemary has long been considered as a symbol of remembrance, and was anciently supposed to strengthen the memory; prescriptions are found in the old medicinal treatises for that purpose. Perdita, in Shakespeare's Winter's Tale, act iv. sc. 3; with the flowers

presented to Polyxenes and the guests, as a welcome to the sheep-shearing, adds—

For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
Seeming and savour all the winter long.

Ophelia, too, presents Laertes a sprig of rosemary, observing

There's rosemary, that's for remembrance ;*
Pray you love remember!

Hamlet, act iv. sc. 5. So Drayton, in his ninth eclogue, has lines to the same purpose

Him rosemary his sweetheart [sent], whose intent
Is that he her should in remembrance have.

On the festive occasion at Christmas, of bringing in the boar's head, at Queen's College, Oxford, and elsewhere, various carols were sung. One printed by Wynkyn de Worde, in 1521, commences thus

Caput afri defero,

Reddens laudes domino.

The bore's head in hand bring I, With garlands gay, and rosemary; I pray ye all sing merrily,

Qui estis in convivio.

At weddings it was usual to dip the rosemary in the wine cup, and drink to the health of the newly married couple. So in Jaspar Mayne's City Match

Before we divide

Our army, let us dip our rosemaries

In one rich bowl of sack, to this brave girl,
And to the gentleman.

And in Killigrew's Parson's Wedding, is a similar allusion

Go, get you in there, and let your husband dip the rosemary.

Sometimes it made a garnish for the meats. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, 1613, 4to. it is said

I will have no great store of company at the wedding, a couple of neighbours and their wives; and we will have a capon in stew'd broth with marrow, and a good piece of beef, stuck with rosemary.

Act v. sc. 1.

In the first volume of Evans's Collection of Old Ballads, edit. 1810, is reprinted from "a Handeful of pleasant Delites, 1584," duod., a ballad entitled, "A Nosegaie alwaies sweet for Lovers to send for Tokens of Love at New Yeare's Tide." The third verse commences

Lavender is for Lovers true;

but the lines in the fourth, beginning

Rosemary is for remembrance,
Between us day and night,

Wishing that I might always have

You present in my sight.

are supposed to have been suggestive of the poetry in Ophelia's plaintive ditty.

Rosemary was also adopted as an essential at funerals, possibly for its odour, and as a token of remembrance of the deceased

And lavender is passing sweet,

And so's the rosemary;

And yet they deck the winding sheet,
Beneath the dark yew-tree.

Friar Lawrence on the discovery of Juliet's the bystanders

corpse, bids

Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse; and as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church.

Romeo and Juliet, act iv. sc. v.

Shakespeare was here referring to the custom as observed in England. On some occasions rosemary was buried with the dead. When to make room for the burial of an ordinary gentlewoman, the body of William Parr, the brother of Queen Catherine, was dug up in the choir of the collegiate church at Warwick, "it was found perfect, the skin entire, dried to the bones, with rosemary and bays in the coffin, fresh and green."*

Cartwright also alludes to the custom, on the bearing of the body to the grave

Prithee see they have

A sprig of rosemary, dipp'd in common water,
To smell at as they walk along the streets.

The Ordinary, 1651, 8vo. act v. sc. 1.

The practice is noticed so late as the time of Gay, who in his Shepherd's Week, describing Blouselinda's funeral, says―

To show their love, the neighbours far and near
Follow'd with wistful look the damsel's bier.
Sprigg'd rosemary the lads and lasses bore,
While distally the Parson walked before.
Upon her grave the rosemary they threw,
The daisie, butter-flower, and endive blue.

Fifth Pastoral; The Dirge, lines 133-138. Henry Kirke White too, bade the rosemary "scatter about his tomb-a sweet decaying smell;" and the Rosemary Lane of Newcastle, anciently known as St. John's Chare, if in name only, keeps watch and ward over the graveyard of the beloved apostle.

During the civil commotions in the reign of King Charles the First, it appears to have escaped notice, a sprig of rosemary was the distinctive badge of the Parliamentarians. Baillie, in his diary, Dec. 2, 1640, writes

On Saturday, Burton and Prynne came through most of the City triumphantly; never here such a show; about a thousand horses, and above a hundred coaches, with a world of foot, every one with a rosemary branch.

Nathan Drake, in his manuscript Diary of the first siege of Pontefract, in 1644, in which he was a volunteer

Dugdale's Baronage, as quoted by Nicolson and Burn.

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