W. SPARROW SIMPSON. RICHARD OF CIRENCESTER, CHARLES BERTRAM, AND WM. STUKELEY: MR. BRITTON'S MSS.-In his Memoirs of Henry Hatcher (Lond. 1847, 8vo, p. 9), Mr. Britton stated that he had in his possession Bertram's letters to Stukeley respecting the MS. of Richard of Cirencester, together with Stukeley's diaries. These MSS. were not sold with Mr. Britton's library in 1857. As I am engaged on an examination of the De Situ Britanniæ, I shall be very grateful to any of your readers who will enable me to examine papers of such importance for clearing up one of the most curious questions in literary history.

St. John's College, Cambridge.

JOHN E. B. MAYOR.

Queries with Answers.

THE BOOK-FISH.-Under this heading an account is given in Chambers's Book of Days, i. 811, of the curious discovery of a book in the maw of a cod-fish at Cambridge. The author states the volume to have been religious treatises by John Frith, and that a new edition was printed under the title of Vox Piscis. The description of this book is so clear that there can be no doubt of the correctness of the writer. My only reason for referring to it is this-that I have just come across a slight reference to it in the posthumous works of the celebrated Dr. William King, who died 1712:

"There is a book of Mr. Richard Tracey's, who flourished 1550, entitled-- A Preparation to the Cross,' found in the belly of a Cod-fish at Cambridge. Dr. Ward says it was to be printed there."-From remarks on books which he had read.

The title of the work and name of the author differ from Chambers. I turned to Lowndes and find Vox Piscis the last mentioned work under Frith, the martyr's name, with reference to Tracy, Richard. On applying there I find only William, and no mention of such a treatise; also John Gwynneth, another reference, but find nothing connected with the book in question, under either its original or second quaint title. J. A. G.

[This work, now before us, is entitled "Vox Piscis; or the Book-Fish; contayning Three Treatises which were found in the belly of a Cod-fish in Cambridge Market, on Midsummer Eve last, Anno Domini 1626. London, Printed for James Boler and Robert Milbourne. M.D.C.XXVII." The Three Treatises were, (1.) "The Preparation to the Crosse and to Death, and of the Comfort under the Crosse and Death. In Two Bookes. Being very fruitfull for all devoute, people to reade and meditate on." This is by Richard Tracy, and was first printed in 1510. (2. "A Mirrour or G'asse to know thyselfe.

soner in the Tower of London. Anno Domini M.D.XXXII." (3) A Briefe Instruction to teach a person willingly to die, and not to fear Death." The copy, it appears, in Downing College, Cambridge, has the following work as the Third Treatise: (3.) "The Treasure of Knowledge. Out of which doth spring most sweet Consolations, right necessarie for troubled consciences, to the intent that they shall not despair in adversity and trouble."

After the book was taken out of the belly of the fish, Benjamin Prime, the Bachelor's Bedel, had it conveyed to the Vice-Chancellor, who took special notice of it, and made inquisition into the truth of the matter. The book

was sent to a binder to be restored. It is related that

Abp. Ussher, hearing of the discovery, considered it as a warning from Providence to prepare for evil approaching.

The discovery of the book occasioned some excitement in the literary circles at Cambridge; some spoke in earnest, others in joke of it. "A younge scholar (who had in a stationer's shop peeped into the titles of the Civil Law), there viewing this unconcocted book in the codfish, made a quiblet thereupon, saying, 'That it might be found in the Code, but could never be entered into the

Digest." Another said or wrote, 'That he would hereafter never count it a reproach to be called codshead, seeing that fish is now become so learned, an heluo librorum, which signifieth a man of much reading, or skilful in many books."

Dr. Thomas Fuller (Worthies of England, i. 562, edit. 1840) has supplied the following interesting particulars of this learned fish: "Richard Tracy, Esquire, born at Todington in this county [Gloucestershire], was son to Sir William Tracy, confessor. ... He succeeded to his father's zeal; in the defence whereof he wrote several treatises in the English tongue; and that most remarkable, which is entitled, Preparation to the Cross (Bale, De Scrip. Brit. Cent. ix. num. 58.) This he wrote experimentally, having suffered much himself in his estate for his father's reputed heretical will: as also he wrote prophetically, anno 1550, a few years before the beginning of Queen Mary; many being forewarned, and so forearmed, by his useful endeavours.

"It must not be forgotten, how, during my abode in Cambridge, on Midsummer-eve, 1626, a book was found in the belly of a cod (brought into the market to be sold), containing therein three treatises; whereof the first and largest was entitled A Preparation to the Cross. It was wrapped about with canvass, and probably that voracious fish plundered both out of the pocket of some shipwrecked seaman. The wits of the university made themselves merry thereat, one making a long copy of verses thereon, whereof this distich I remember:

"If fishes thus do bring us books, then we
May hope to equal Bodlyes library.'
(Thomas Randolph.)

"But, whilst the youngsters disported themselves here. with, the graver sort beheld it as a sad presage: and some, who then little looked for the cross, have since found it in that place. This book was thereupon reprinted; and

the prefacer (p. 18) thereunto entitleth John Frith the author thereof. But no such book appears in Bale (though very accurate to give us a catalogue of his writings.) (Cent. viii. num. 71.) Whereby we conclude, it was the same made by this Richard Tracy, to which another treatise was annexed, 'To teach one to die,' made likewise by our Tracy, who himself died about a hundred years since."]

ELIZABETH ELSTOB.-I shall feel greatly obliged if any of your correspondents will inform me who the persons were who animadverted on Dr. Hickes, the friend and patron of Elizabeth Elstob, the Saxonist, and who were so severely criticised by that lady in the preface to her Anglo-Saxon Grammar. I suspect Swift to have been one of them, but am not certain. Also, if Rowe Mores's expression is to be accepted literally when he speaks of Elizabeth Elstob as the indefessa comes of her brother's studies, "a female student in the University." Could she have shared his rooms at Queen's College ?

Any information relative to this lady, apart from what is given in Nichols' Anecdotes, Ballard's Learned Ladies, and the Biographical Encyclopædia, or any allusions to her in the diaries and correspondence of her times, will be very thankfully received by

ENILORAC.

30, Blomfield Street, Upper Westbourne Terrace, W. [The principal writer on "The whole System of an English Education," noticed by Elizabeth Elstob in the Preface of 4 Grammar for the Anglo-Saxon Tongue, is John Brightland, the author of "A Grammar of the English Tongue, &c., for the Use of the Schools of Great Britain and Ireland. The Third Edition, 1714, 8vo." The quotations given by Miss Elstob at p. v., &c., are from the Preface of this work. We take the expression of Rowe Mores to mean that this learned lady resided within the precincts of the university, and not actually in Queen's College.

The best biographical account of William and Elizabeth Elstob will be found in the Newcastle Reprints of Rare Tracts," Biographical," vol. i., 1847. Consult also Pegge's Account of the Textus Roffensis in the Bibl. Topog. Britan., No. xxv. ; the Archæologia, vol. i. p. xxvi., Tindal's History of Evesham, and Ralph Thoresby's Diary and Letters.]

MELBOURNE HOUSE, NOW DOVER HOUSE, with the round dome and portico, facing the Banqueting House, Whitehall, is said to have been built by Payne for Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh and afterwards sold to Lord Melbourne, who exchanged it with the Duke of York for the residence in Piccadilly now occupied by the Albany Chambers. The writer is anxious to obtain the precise dates of the building for Sir M. Featherstonhaugh, and of the two occasions on which the house changed owners.

The site of Dover House was formerly occupied

by the "Cabinet Room" of Charles I., and the Holbein Gate branched across the roadway from the southern portion of it.

Whitelock (p. 375) says, in narrating the execution of the King, Jan. 30, 1648, "The King walked from St. James's to Whitehall. . . . They brought him to the Cabinet Chamber, where he continued at his devotion." CIVIS.

men's Houses, built by him (folio, 1767), we learn that the house built by him for Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh was begun in 1754, and finished in 1758, and that the whole expenses, including the value of the old ma

[From James Paine's Plans, Elevations, &c., of Noble

terials on the premises, did not amount to the sum of 10,4001. Lord Melbourne sold it to the Duke of York in

1789.]

"AGIOLOGIO LUSITANO."-Can any reader of "N. & Q." give me information concerning a work in 4 vols. fol., entitled

"Agiologio Lusitano dos Sanctos e varoens illustres em virtude do reino de Portugal e suas conquistas. Composto pelo Licenciado George Cardoso." Lisbon, 1652.

tano de Sousa, was not published until 1744; and The fourth volume, compiled by Antonio Caemonth of August. If I remember rightly, the the work remains imperfect, ending with the late Dr. Neale spoke of it as a valuable work and VILEC. very rare.

[Dr. Neale's notice of this work occurs in the Preliminary Remarks to Murray's Handbook for Travellers in Portugal, ed. 1864, p. 27. He states that "the Agiologio Lusitano of George Cardoso is a very valuable work. The first three volumes in folio appeared at Lisbon respectively in 1652, 1657, and 1666; a fourth, edited by Caetano de Sousa, in 1744, since which time the work has remained unfinished, and probably, since the suppression of monasteries, could not be completed. It is a calendar of such Portuguese as have been distinguished for sanctity or eminence. A short life of each is given in the text; then follows a commentary, enriched with the most copious ecclesiastical information as to the foundation of the monasteries, and the succession of prelates, &c.: cach volume contains two months."]

BEORNIA.-In Winchester Cathedral there is the tomb of Richard (a son of the Conqueror), who is called Dux Beornia. Where is Beornia?

B. B.

[This place is now known as Bernay, a town of France, in Upper Normandy, department of the Eure, and agreeably situated on the left bank of the Charentonne, twentysix miles W. N. W. of Evreux. It is a town of great

antiquity, and was at one time a fortified place. It was besieged by Duguesclin in 1378, taken by the English in 1418 and in 1421, and by the Admiral de Coligny in 1563.]

Replies.

DUKE OF ROXBURGHE: "FLOORS."

(3rd S. xii. 294, 422; 4th S. i. 60, 163.) RUSTICUS doubts the correctness of the term floors as a vernacular designation of meadow lands on banks of streams, and requires a quotation from one of our old Scottish writers to prove that it is not "one of that fanciful class of etymologies so much in vogue in Scotland" of late years.

I have certainly never met with the word in any Scotch classical writer; but I submit that the frequent local application of a particular term to similar localities over a large extent of country affords a sufficient proof of indigenous origin. It is not probable that the Norman immigrants would apply a French term to the many obscure spots which retain the name of floors,-spots, many of them in wild secluded districts, where probably no Norman ever set foot. I am confirmed in this view by the following note, with which I lately met when referring to Hodgson's History of Northumberland for a totally different subject:

"In 1267 Robert Monteford, a burgess of Newcastle, gave to Richard of Horton, son of Sir Walran, Knight, 12 acres of land as well in the field of Stikelan without the ville, as in toft and croft within the ville-namely, those 12 acres which Sir Hugh the Chaplain of Newcastle formerly held in the ville of Stikelen,-to wit, a toft and croft 1 acre, in the fleurs 3 acres, in Hewedis 2 acres, in Wellsyde 6 acres, by the payment of 9 shillings a year," &c. [And in a foot-note he adds] "This I apprehend means the floors or flats, as there are numerous fields and districts known by that name, which are flat lands or lying at the foot of slopes."-Hodgson's History of Northumberland (Morpeth Deanery), 4to, 1842, p. 263

The fact that many Scotch families are of Norman origin is undoubted, and the traces left by them in the nomenclature of places are numerous. If Floors had been an ancient seat of the noble family to which it belongs, and a solitary or rare instance of the use of the word, I should not have disputed its possible French derivation. But the Kers of Cessford were seated for several generations at Attonburn (Auld-toun-burn), near the Cheviots; they then acquired Cessford, but their principal residence was at Holydene, in the parish of Bowden, where an old deer park and considerable architectural remains are still to be seen. They did not remove to their present residence till the beginning of last century, when Sir John Vanbrugh erected Floors in the year 1718. Long previous to that time the site bore the same name as at present, when it was an open field paying rent to the abbey, as I have shown from the chartulary of Kelso* in a former note.

* "Rental of the Abbacie, A.d. 1567. The Fluris.

In quheit ii bo in beir v bo in meill viii bo

...

xv bo."

vol. ii. p. 508.

CALVIN AND SERVETUS.
(4th S. ii. 40.)

E. L.'s letter is so evidently the production of a lawyer practising himself in the art of special pleading, and not of one wishing to defend Calvin, that it would be mere waste of time to give it a serious answer.

If his object had been to defame Calvin under pretence of defending him, he could not have better fence had been already made by his latest biograaccomplished his purpose. A much better deof that work some years ago in the Spectator pher and translator, Bungener, and the reviewer newspaper. The question itself that E. L. proposes is a quibble. The only real question that any one cares about is not touched on by himand Calvin, and what is the moral judgment we that is, what were the respective acts of Servetus are authorised to pass on them? These will be referred to, to which E. L. has not added an found fully stated in the two publications above atom of information. I will only here mention the two most important facts, and which the did not deserve his fate morally, he did so in reader will most care to know. First, if Servetus another common sense of the word, inasmuch as he brought it entirely on himself by his inconceivable fatuity-not only in openly declaring himself a heretic, and that on so purely abstract and therefore wholly impractical a question as the Trinity (while yet one considered essential to all idea of religion by both Romanists and Protestants), but by repeatedly putting himself into

positions of danger again after narrow escapes, and even at the last going to Calvin's church at Geneva, and so getting recognised as he might have expected. Secondly, Calvin does not seem ever to have intended to have Servetus burned, or even to have expected it. He simply wished him to be put to death by being beheaded, and voted against his being burned. At the same time it seems evident that he made no effort to prevent it, as it can scarcely be doubted that he had influence enough to have obtained the more merciful sentence if he had urged it with earnest ness. Still it was better that he should have given even this lukewarm and barren support to the more humane course than that he should have instigated the other.

There seems also reason to believe, from the evidence adduced by Bungener and his reviewer, that Calvin was not guilty of the discreditable means of procuring the arrest and trial of Servetus of which he has been accused. On this im

portant point E. L. is silent, as also on what Calvin did recommend to be done with Servetus. W. D.

I have read that Calvin said, "I do approve myself unto God that I did burn Servetus," or words to that effect. Would any one of your readers oblige me by saying what authority there is for the statement? If Calvin did view with complacency the fact of Servetus's being burnt to death, probably E. L. might be satisfied concerning the part played by the Swiss reformer in the transaction; and, seeing that E. L. admits "it was true he (Calvin) was in earnest in having him (Servetus) punished, which is the worst that can be said against him," I do not think, considering the power held by Calvin in Geneva over the minds of the people, that E. L. can escape the conclusion of Calvin's complicity in the burning

of Servetus.

In the days when that event took place, Calvin would only be thought "in earnest" if he did pass sentence of death upon Servetus. Some men are only thought to be "in earnest" now when they consign a heretic to eternal perdition. Why be nice, then, about Calvin burning Servetus? The belief in Calvin's doctrines recognises the certain perdition of the majority of the human race: why be so fastidious in respect to the cineration of a single heretic who was troublesome? Calvin could scarcely, with any consistency, holding Servetus to be an arch-unbeliever, feel a qualm in passing sentence of death on him. The greater, of course, includes the less in this as in other respects. JAYTEE,

GOLDSMITH'S EPITAPH.

(4th S. i. 538, 571; ii. 34.)

In consequence of the loss of Dr. Johnson's MS. not long after it came from his hands, there is some ambiguity respecting the original Latiuity of his epitaph on Goldsmith. If the Doctor ever wrote the phrase "Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit," no wonder that he is charged by Dean Stanley with a slight mistake.' (Memorials of Westminster Abbey, note, p. 297.) I cannot, however, agree with the Dean's argument-"The slight mistake proves that it" [the passage in question] "is Johnson's own." Whether the passage, or the mistake either, is Johnson's own, is the very point to be now determined.

In Boswell's Life of Johnson, 4to, 1791, the passage, taken with its preceding context, stands thus:

"Qui nullum ferè scribendi genus non tetigit,
Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit."—(Vol. ii. 91.)

So it stands also in the 8vo edition of 1793, ii. 450; and so it stands also in the 8vo edition by Croker, 1848, p. 520.

These are all the editions that I have consulted; but, to cut the matter short, if any learned pundit who lives down Westminster way will only walk into the Abbey, he may there see on Goldsmith's tomb the line word for word as I have given it from Boswell

"Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit."

This is in all probability the line which Johnson really wrote; and this line I humbly submit, though in matters of such nicety but an outsider, is, as it stands, and taken with the context, unimpeachable.

The scriptural phrase, "He may run that readeth" (Hab. ii. 2), in our choice vernacular almost invariably appears as " He that runs may read." There are other changes of the same kind. In the case now before us, nihil seems to have been substituted for nullum for the convenience of "citation," and quod and tetigit to have been transposed, much as Shakespeare is altered by some modern critics, by way of "improvement.'

SCHIN.

where the parenthetic relative clause, "quod | tetigit," is entirely different in grammatical construction and in meaning from the words "tetigit quod," substituted for them.

A list of passages thus habitually misquoted would not be unworthy of a place in "N. & Q." T. C.

Durham.

I am disappointed by the criticism on Johnson's Latinity having elicited no further discussion than by a passage analogous to the sentence referred to, adduced from the Epistles of Pliny (lib. iii. ep. v.), not an author optimæ ætatis.

BIBLIOTHECAR. CHETHAM.

EARLIEST BIRD.

(4th S. ii. 47, 68.)

It was Theodore Hook (was it not?) who, when "pulled up" for non-attendance at his college chapel, excused himself by saying that he was really unable to sit up so late as seven o'clock in the morning, he being an early man who went to bed at five. In slang language, he may have an early bird.' But, I cannot think that the term "early bird" can be applied to the nightingale; or that "Philomel begins her song" at one o'clock in the morning, as stated by A. A. (p. 68). Milton, on the contrary, says of the nightingale

called himself 66

66

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day," are continued through the night; for "the wakeful nightingale,"

"All night long her amorous descant sung" over the bridal bed in Paradise. The nightingale, in fact, seems to be sleepless; and not only to sing throughout the whole day, but to continue her song through every hour of the night, without waiting for that "one o'clock in the morning," as mentioned by A. A.'s informant.

"Still her woes at midnight rise,"

said Lilly, speaking of the bird which Michael Drayton had called "the charmer of the night."

"Her mournful hymns did hush the night," says Shakspeare, in his Sonnets. And, when Romeo thought that he heard the earliest bird, Juliet pleaded

"It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thy ear." Thomson says of the nightingale — "She sings

Her sorrows through the night."

Cowper says

"Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one The livelong night."

Tennyson says

"The living airs of middle night

Died round the Bulbul as he sung."

Much more might be quoted to the same effect, to show that the nightingale sings through every hour of the night-and of the day also-and that it should, therefore, not be adduced as "the earliest bird" of the morning, unless that phrase be taken, after Theodore Hook's example, as meaning a bird who never goes to roost. Eliot Warburton, in describing his bivouac on the plain of Jordan, in The Crescent and the Cross, speaks of the nightingales "thrilling the dark groves with their songs "all through the night; but, at the approach of morning: "First the partridges all joined chorus with the nightingales, and, soon after, their dusky forms were seen darting through the bushes, and then bird after bird joined the chorus."

A singular fact came within my own knowledge. A housemaid gave notice to leave her place, and did actually leave it, "because she could not sleep for the nightingales." This was probably not the real reason for her leaving; but it was the only one that she assigned; and she, the nightingale began his song (and not her song, doubtless, could have borne full testimony that as the poets write) before "one o'clock in the CUTHBERT Bede. morning."

A. A. has placed too implicit confidence in the observing powers of his pottery-man. Those who have seen much of country folks, at least of the duller natives of the south of England, must have been struck with their want of observation of things constantly around them. In fact, your real southern "chawbacon" is a sad lout. It requires some refinement of the perceptive faculties, and a certain amount of education, to constitute a field-naturalist, even of the humblest kind. The power of appreciating peculiarities in the notes of birds is rarely vouchsafed to Hodge, whose "musical ear," if he be gifted with one, is often hard to reach through the imperfection of his external ear, dulled, as it so commonly is, by early disease and by want of cleanliness in adult life. If A. A.'s informant maintains that "from twelve to one o'clock all nature is silent," it must have been owing to his own "tired nature" indulging in a nap at that time. The warm and calm weather of this year's May was remarkably inspiriting to all song birds. In this neighbourhood both the nightingale and the cuckoo were in unusual song. During that month I was rarely in bed before two A.M., and can answer for it that the nightingales in my coppice, who had been singing at intervals all day long, were in full voice from sunset till two in the morning, without making any pause between twelve and one. The cuckoo also was often repeating his wearisome notes at ten, eleven, and