FROM MR. URBAN, Lightcliffe, Dec. 30. ROM some papers in my possession, I gather that, in the year 1632 the Rev. William Ainsworth (before noticed in pp. 290, 498), was living at Crownest, in the chapelry of Lightcliffe, in the parish of Halifax. This appears to have been his own estate; but, in a few years afterwards, I find it in the hands of another possessor. "Res angusta domi" may probably have obliged him to dispose of his little property, and this circumstance may explain the use of the term "unfortunate," which he applies to himself in the conclusion of his dedication to his patron. In 1647 he was presented by the Vicar of Halifax to the Perpetual Incumbency of Lightcliffe, which he held until 1650. "Samuel Sunderland, Esq." one of Mr. Ainsworth's patrons, was born in this parish in 1600; he went to London, where he carried on the business of a Woollen-draper, in which he was eminently successful; and he was an Alderman, and paid the fine exempting him from serving the office of Sheriff. After he had relinquished his commercial pursuits, he resided at Harden near Bingley; and died in Feb. 1676, s. p. He was a great benefactor to public charities in this part of the county, and particularly to the Free Grammar-school at Hipperholme, in this parish, as will appear from the following inscriptions: "Libera Schola Grammaticalis Hipperhomiæ a Mattheo Broadley, armigero, primitùs fundata, post a Samuele Sunderland aucta, qui ambo patriæ chari, et pauperibus ~ benefici, hoc legatum famæ suæ monumentum posteris reliquêre, 1661." Over the entrance to the HeadMaster's house : "S1. Sunderland, Arm, dedit, 1671." Ainsworth's "Triplex Memoriale," contains several strong complaints of the poverty of the Clergy in those days; particularly at p. 78, where he says: "The Ministry in this Church of England is, for the most part, the poorest trade that any man drives, the inferiour sort of Ministers having neither a competency while they live, nor provision made for their families after their death, contrary to the practice of other reformed Churches. Every man thinks he is at liberty to pay to the Minister, or forbeare, though he be content to be bound in every thing else. Men would have Ministers to burne their lamps, but will afford them no oyle to keep in the light like Pharaoh's hard task-masters, they think we should make brick without straw. : And a little further: "The poorest Ballad-singer and Piper in the country live better of their trades than Ministers do." I shall only observe, that if this was the case in the succeeding reign, it is not to be wondered at that so many Curates suffered themselves to be ejected from the Chapels in this neighbourhoodt. It is said, that Mr. Ainsworth taught school, notwithstanding which he declares, that by reason of the late civil storms, he was as poorly provided of accommodations for study, as Cleanthes was for writing his philosophical notes, when, having wrought all day long in the vineyards, he wrote at night on bare bones instead of paper. Yours, &c. OLICANENSIS. In p. 498, for Rooker read Rookes. A. D. observes, "In a late highly improved edition of Debrett's Baronetage, the family of Strickland of Boynton, is deduced from a Roger Strickland of Marske, in the county of York. Any particulars of this On the façade of the present school, Roger would greatly oblige. William Strickerected in 1783: "Literarum ergo et virtutis scholam Hipperholmiæ, instituit et dotavit Mattheus Broadley, Armig.* 1661 ; stipendium auxit Samuel Sunderland, Armig. 1671; et quorundam benevolorum liberalitate hoc novum ædificium publicæ utilitati dedicatur, 1783." *Matthew Broadley was a native of Hipperholme. He lived in London, where he acquired a large fortune in trade. His will is dated Oct. 15, 1647. land, son of the above-named Roger, and said to be the first of the family who settled at Boynton, appears to have married a daughter of Sir Walter Strickland, of Sizergh in Westmoreland; what relations, if any, were they to each other? This William died at an advanced age in 1597." †There are twelve Perpetual Curacies in the parish of Halifax, of which the Vicar is the patron; and the Curates preach at the parish Church on the first Wednesday in every month, in rotation, in conformity with the will of Nathaniel Waterhouse. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. The History and Antiquities of the Conventual Church of St. James, Great Grimsby, with Notes illustrative and explanatory. By the Rev. G. Oliver, Curate, &c. 8vo. pp. 52. MR. Oliver is distinguished for la when he charitably adopts other people's illegitimate children. In his history of Initiation we had occasion to notice his patronage of the helio-arkite theory, and here again we have to particularize other erroneous premises, for which he is not to blame. In page 9 it is stated, "that with respect to the Saxon style it is asserted that there is not a single specimen of a complete Saxon church now in existence in this kingdom; but there are parts of religious structures, which were doubtless erected before the Conquest." Now we know, that the church of Kilpeck in Herefordshire is affirmed, in the Anglia Sacra, to have been consecrated in the time of the Conqueror, by Herwald, Bishop of Landaff, who also consecrated, in the time of Edward the Confessor and Harold, "Henullam, Dubric, and Lantilio, in uno cemeterio," (Anglia Sacra, ii. 671.) Kilpeck we have examined, and can safely allegate, that it has a quite different aspect from other churches, and has undergone no other alterations than perhaps a wooden porch, or some such trifling thing. If investigations were made of various Welch churches, mentioned in history, we are sure that several would be found anterior to the Conquest, which have undergone little or no change; and, oddly enough, the leading difference, viz. that the commencement of mullions in the windows marks an æra, has either not been noticed or very slightly. According to such observations as we have been able to make, the striking difference of the Saxon and Norman (though the rule may not be without exceptions) is, that in the former the arch is very lofty and the pillar short; and in the Norman vice versa. If in Domesday there frequently occurs the mention of priests, the existence of churches also follows of course; and if such churches exhibit GENT. MAG. Suppl. XCIX. Part II, D marks of the Saxon style, by what authority are they Normanized. We by no means blame Mr. Oliver; but we know the notion which has been inculcated, that every architectural remain is Norman, in defiance of authentic history, which gives us dates of the actual edification. It has been noted, that when power falls into the hands of the vulgar, it is exercised in a most violent pernicious manner. We venerate the memory of Gervase Holles, esq. more than once mayor of Grimsby, and one of its representatives in Parliament; for excellent are his collections still preserved in the British Museum.* It appears that his superior mind was intolerable to the lower orders of freemen, aud that a successor in the mayoralty, a Mr. Booth, was much influenced by him. An unfortunate fellow, named Proctor, who happened to be churchwarden, was mulcted in the enormous penalty of 201. merely for saying, "that there were two mayors." This happened in the year 1639, and "In the same year, Mr. Proctor, the churchwarden, informed the Court, upon his oath, that Mr. Paul Willet, minister and twelveman, required him, the sayd Samuel Proctor, to present William Booth, Maior, and Gervase Holles, esq. for laughing in the Church, or else he would present him. p. 22. We are inclined to suspect, from the ensuing ordinance, that the members of the Corporation were in the habit of attending church in their every day working dress; for, by an ordinance in 1592," the Bayliffes and Twelve are ordered to sytte where they are appoynted, and in decent apparell." The rank of the husband also extended to the wife; for in the same ordinance it is further commanded, that "the aldrisses, the wives of the Twelve and xxiiij, do syte according to the appoyntment." p. 23. In p. 28 Mr. Oliver quotes old Fuller's explanation of the collar of SSS, * Mr. Oliver quotes those in the Harleian department. There are others as valuable in the Lansdown collection. that it was derived from the initials of a Roman judge, "Sanctus Simon Simplicius;" although the subject has been so fully discussed since Fuller's time, and, we think, finally set at rest by Mr. Beltz, the present excellent herald, who explains the letter S as the repeated initial of Souvenez (see our last volume, i. 603). "In Fotherby's aisle on a fayre thicke marble, whereou is engraven a sword lengthwayes, with this inscription, in Saxon characters; Ici GIST SIR PIERS DE GONSELL LE FRERE SIR GILES. p. 29. French epitaphs were not used by the Saxons, and these pretended Saxon characters were no doubt Lombardic. "On a flat marble stone in the quire is the portrayture, in brasse, of a Judge in his robes, a girdle about his waiste, and a knife like a fawchion hanging in itt." * p. 30. We find from the epitaph annexed that it appertains to William Lodington, who we add from the Chronica Juridicalia was made king's sergeant in 1414 (p. 117), and a Justice of the Common Pleas 16 June 1416 (id. p. 119). The epitaph states that he died in 1419, 9 January. But the archæological curiosity remains to be explained. Upon the memorial figure of Judge Greville, (William Greville made Justice C. Pl. 21 May 1510, Chronica Juridicalia, p. 149,) at Campden in Gloucestershire, is, says Mr. Gough, (Sepulchr. Monum. Introd. i. clix) “ a good representation of the ancient anlace, which was a knife or dagger worn at the girdle." From this coincidence we are inclined to think, that a knife so worn was a costume of judges. It is known that the puisne judges are by ancient custom knighted; and we have no better explanation to offer, than that the dagger, anlace, or knife, was an allusion to that honour. The dagger itself was a plaything, worn behind the back, by a belt round the neck, and in various ways (see plates in Strutt's Dresses); but though the Frankeleyn of Chaucer wore an anlace, or knife, at his girdle (Strutt p. 299), yet the Judge in plate Lxxx has it only at his girdle, the more pacific accompaniment of an ink-horn, of the form of an ovo-conical powder-flask. In p. 36 we find a deprecation of the misnomer of Gothic architecture, as applied to that most beautiful style, * Engraved in Bigland's History. said to have been matured and invented in England, and therefore with more propriety denominated English. Were this the fact, we should not hesitate at the appellation; but it is untrue. The Gothic is quite a different style from the preceding Anglo-Saxon or Norman; and William de Seres, who gave (we speak from memory) the first complete specimen of pure Gothic, in the Cathedral of Canterbury, was not an Englishman. In France there are coetaneous, and we believe even earlier specimens; and the only assimilations are to be found in the East. Facile est addere inventis; and after introduction through the Crusades, it was easy to ameliorate the style, by rejecting the fantastic of the parent model, and bringing it into subjection to a homogeneous regularity. If these opinions be well founded, the Anglo-Saxon ought to be characterised as the debased Roman of the Gothic conquerors (unde, we presume, the term Gothic) and the succeeding pointed arch style, the Oriental, or Asiatic. That there is a superior taste in the English misnomered Gothic, we willingly admit. But that the style alluded to was matured and invented in England, is absurd, and to be classed with the Gundulphian origin of all our castles, and a foundationless Norman mania, a theory which has been formed without a requisite collection of facts and historical research, both of which will be found to overthrow it. It is therefore empiricism, not science. We dwell more particularly upon this subject, because it seems to be legitimated among numerous archæologists (we do not allude to Mr. Oliver, but his authorities), to advance mere opinions as scientific truths; and then controvert reading men and matter-of-fact people, who justly oppose them. Mr. Oliver's subsequent account of the church ends, as most church descriptions do, in the mutilations of church-wardenism. This is the dragon which St. George has not subdued, while all other beasts of monstrous forms have disappeared, as snakes have done, through St. Patrick, from Ireland. But church-wardens are fiends which defy exorcism, are invincible as hydrophobia, and only to be assimilated in their barbarous un-taste to school-boys scrawling figures of men, houses, and trees. How they have disfigured this unfortunate church, will appear from the following extract: "In ancient times, when the roof of this church was maintained at its primitive altitude, and the aisles of the nave and chancel were of their original magnitude and decoration, the structure would present the appearance of a small cathedral, and be at once the pride and ornament of the town. A tier of eight small windows in the recesses formed by the angles of the ancient roof in the lower part of the towers, are now closed up; and the turrets at each extremity of the nave and transept, which once measured the exact height of the roof, now appear to soar to the sky, when compared with its present elevation. The primitive position of the roof is designated by permanent marks; and the appearance of arches on the outside, plaistered up with mortar, which formerly stood boldly and independently in the interior of the edifice, look like muzzled giants placed as a perpetual indication of the depressed sense of religious feeling which, from motives of parsimony or avarice, as well as vitiated taste, has consigned to ruin and deformity a building which our ancestors erected in all the pride of architectural beauty to decorate the town." P. 40. Mr. Oliver deserves every praise for his patient industry, the true principle of archæological merit. King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon Version of Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ; with an English Translation and Notes. By J. S. Cardale. 8vo. pp. 425. Pickering. BOETHIUS was a noble Roman, who was born about the year 479. His talents being soon discovered, he was, after preparatory education at home, sent to Athens to study Greek and philosophy. Returning young to Rome, he was promoted to the principal dignities of the state; but by the machinations of political enemies he was banished to Ticinum, now Pavia, in Italy, where he was put to death in 526. During his exile he wrote this once famous work, which has often been a favourite study for persons in affliction, and was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred; and also by Queen Elizabeth when a Princess and prisoner. Warton, we think, says, that Boethius was the favourite author of the middle age. Considered as a system of philosophy, it is quite common-place and general; but even Cicero was not precise; and there is more valuable and profound instruction in the works of Dr. Johnson than in all the moralists of antiquity. Such aphorisms as—there is no cure of grief but time,-where there are two motives, the ostensible is not the real one, &c. are not to be found among the ancients: Boethius's work consists of querulous moralizing, of grief that is merely teasing, not destroying. Of the science of philosophy he was completely ignorant; for he did not know that the love of pleasure and the love of action are the actuating principles of human conduct, and that he wrote this book merely pour se desennuyer. We shall not therefore make any long extracts, because all that is substantial in Boethius is to be found in the reflections of Solomon about the vanity of all pleasures, though many think with Lord Byron, that our pleasures would do well enough if they had but duration. He was a good judge; a Lord among voluptuaries, as well as a real Lord; the prodigal son of genius, husks with swine; the mixed deity, who feasted among harlots, but ate no the Apollo Priapus of profligate young men; but, though worshipped as an idol, never consulted as an oracle. Duration, in fact, can be predicated of deity only; but while man has passions he will not extirpate his desires; nor, in Swift's phrase, cut off his feet to save the cost of shoes. Indeed no waste of time can be more conspicuous for its folly than to persuade people not to be happy if they can, because the ingredients of that happiness consist of vanities. We shall therefore turn to other parts of this book. Dr. Hickes has made three dialects of the Anglo-Saxon, viz. (1.) the Britanno-Saxon, terminating with the Danish settlement in this country; (2.) the Dano-Saxon, subsisting till the Norman conquest; (3.) the Norman Dano-Saxon, spoken till the time of Hen. II. which might be termed SemiSaxon. Mr. Cardale contends, that Dr. Hickes has unnecessarily multiplied the dialects, and that there are only two, the pure Anglo-Saxon and the Dano-Saxon; the former being used in the southern and western parts of England, and the latter in the northern parts and the south of Scotland. Mr. Cardale therefore affirms that, although there might be intermixtures, "The Dano-Saxon never superseded the Anglo-Saxon. In a formal dissertation on this subject, citations might be made from the Saxon laws from Ethelbert to Canute, from the Saxon Chronicle, from charters, and from works confessedly written after the Norman conquest, to show that, whatever changes took place in the dialect of the southern and western parts of Britain, it never lost its distinctive character, nor be 6 came what can with any propriety be termed Dano-Saxon. After the Norman conquest both the dialects were gradually corrupted, till they terminated in modern English. During this period of the declension of the Saxon language nothing was permanent: and whether we call the mixed and changeable language Normanno-Dano-Saxon,' or Semi-Saxon,' or leave it without any particular appellation, is not very important. An additional proof that the two great dialects were not consecutive, but contemporary, might be drawn from early writings in English, and even from such as were composed long after the establishment of the Normans. We find traces of the pure Anglo-Saxon dialect in Robert of Gloucester, who wrote in the time of Edw. I. and whose works are now understood almost without the aid of a glossary; whereas the language of Robert Langland, who wrote nearly a century later, is more closely connected with the Dano-Saxon, and so different from modern English as to be sometimes almost unintelligible." Now, by dialects, we understand the same words, only differently spelt and pronounced not new, nor adopted words. According to this definition we find very few words indeed assimilating each other in the Welch and AngloSaxon; and it is plain that the Welch is a sealed language to the English, at the present day; and that in point of fact the Britanno-Saxon, as used by Dr. Hickes, implied no more than the Saxon used in Britain before the partial occupation of it by the Danes. As to the Dano-Saxon, there were certainly many terms derived from those pirates; but after the Norman invasion Mr. Tyrwhitt says, that though the form of our language was still Saxon, the matter was in a great measure French, many of the indeclinable parts of speech still remaining pure Saxon. After this influx of French came in another of Latin; and it is most certain that in interpreting mediæval English after, at least, the fourteenth century, more aid will be derived from Cotgrave and the Promptorium Parvulorum than from Lye, so corrupted had then become the old vernacular tongue, though it was, and still is, far more retained in colloquy than in writing. In the seventeenth century euphuism and The innovation has also extended to style. That of the present day is either Latin or French, but mostly the former; there is no such thing as an English or Anglo-Saxon style now existing. According to our cursory notices it disappeared with the gradual extension of classical education; and with it have been destroyed innumerable substantives, as those terminating in ness, for the ion of the Latin and French; the verbs with a qualifying adjunct, as fall back, for retire; the adjectives in ive, from the French if, as excessive from excessif; so that, in truth, except a few hacks, we have little or nothing left of the AngloSaxon stud. It was a rough-going language, but a capital trotter, a horse that had both bone and bottom. The double letter th, made it most cacophonous, by creating horrible hiatuses : |