Bannatyne Poems, p. 159.
Skinner derives it from A.-S. feower, quatuor; and lot, hlot, portio (the fourth part); Teut. "viertel."
J.S.
Loscop (No. 20. p. 319).—To be "Louecope-free" is one of the immunities granted to the Cinque Ports in their charters of Liberties.
Jeakes explains the term thus:—
"The Saxon word Cope (in Low Dutch still Kope or Koope), for trade or merchandising, makes this as much as to trade freely for love. So that by no kind of monopoly patent, or company or society of traders or merchants, the portsmen be hindered from merchandising; but freely and for love, be permitted to trade and traffick, even by such company of merchants, whenever it shall happen their concerns lie together."
In my MSS., and in the print of Jeakes, it is "Louecope," with which "Lofcope" may be readily identified; and f may easily be misread for s, especially if the roll be obscured.
If Jeakes's etymology of the word be correct, the inference would rather be that "Lovecope" was a tax for the goodwill of the port at which a merchant vessel might arrive; a "port duty" in fact, independent of "lastage" &c., chargeable upon every trader that entered the port, whatever her cargo might be. And the immunities granted to the portsmen were that they should be "port duty free."
I do not venture to offer this as any thing more than a mere guess. Among your contributors there are many more learned than myself in this branch of antiquarian lore, who will probably be able to give a more correct interpretation, and we shall feel obliged for any assistance that they can give us in elucidating the question.
"Lovecope" might perhaps be the designation of the association of merchants itself, to which Jeakes alludes; and the liberty of forming such association, with powers of imposing port duties, may have been dependent on special grant to any port by royal charter, such as that which forms the subject of your correspondent's communication.
After all, perhaps, "Lovecope" was the word for an association of merchants; and "Louecope-free" is to be freed from privileged taxation by this body.
L.B.L.
Smelling of the Lamp (No. 21. p. 335.).—"X." will find the expression Ιλλυχνιων οζειν attributed to Pytheas by Plutarch (Vit. Demosth., c. 8.).
J.E.B. MAYOR.
Anglo-Saxon MS. of Orosius (No. 20. p. 313.).—It may gratify Mr. Singer to be informed that the Lauderdale MS., formerly in the library at Ham House, is now preserved, with several other valuable manuscripts and books, in the library at Helmingham Hall, Suffolk, the seat of the Tollemache family.
M.
Golden Frog.—Ingenious as is the suggestion of "R.R." (No. 18. p. 282.), that Sir John Poley stuck a golden frog in his ear from his affection for tadpoles, I think "R.R.'s" "Rowley Poley" may be dismissed with the "gammon and spinach" of the amorous frog to which he alludes.
Conceiving that the origin of so singular a badge could hardly fail to be commemorated by some tradition in the family, I have made inquiry of one of Sir John Poley's descendants, and I regret to hear from him that "they have no authentic tradition respecting it, but that they have always believed that it had some connection with the service Sir John rendered in the Low Countries, where he distinguished himself much by his military achievements." To the Low Countries, then, the land of frogs, we must turn for the solution of the enigma.
Gastras.
Cambridge, March 9.
Sword of Charles I.—Mr. Planché inquires (No. 12. p. 183.), "When did the real sword of Charles the First's time, which, but a few years back, hung at the side of that monarch's equestrian figure at Charing Cross, disappear?"—It disappeared about the time of the coronation of Her present Majesty, when some scaffolding was erected about the statue, which afforded great facilities for removing the rapier (for such it was); and I always understood it found its way, by some means or other, to the Museum, so called, of the notoriously frolicsome Captain D–, where, in company with the wand of the Great Wizard of the North, and other well-known articles, it was carefully labelled and numbered, and a little account appended of the circumstances of its acquisition and removal.
John Street.
[Surely then Burke was right, and the "Age of Chivalry is past!"—Otherwise the idea of disarming a statue would never have entered the head of any Man of Arms, even in his most frolicsome of moods.]
John Bull.—Vertue MSS.—I always fancied that the familiar name for our countrymen, about the origin of which "R.F.H." inquires (No. 21. p. 336.), was adopted from Swift's History of John Bull, first printed in 1712; but I have no authority for saying so.
If the Vertue MSS. alluded to (No. 20. p. 319.) were ever returned by Mr. Steevens to Dr. Rawlinson, they may be in the Bodleian Library, to which the Doctor left all his collections, including a large mass of papers purchased by him long after Pepys' death, as he described it, "Thus et odores vendentibus."
These "Pepys papers," as far as I can recollect, were very voluminous, and relating to all sorts of subjects; but I saw them in 1824, and had only then time to examine and extract for publication portions of the correspondence.
Braybrooke.
Audley End, March 25.
Vertue's Manuscripts.—The MS. quoted under this title by Malone is printed entire, or rather all of it which refers to plays, by Mr. Peter Cunningham, in the Papers of the Shakspeare Society, vol. ii. p. 123., from an interleaved copy of Langbaine. Since the publication of that paper, the entries relating to Shakspeare's plays have been given from the original MS. in the Bodleian Library, in Halliwell's Life of Shakspeare, p. 272.
S.L.
Vertue's MSS. (No. 20. p. 319.) were in Horace Walpole's possession, bought by him, I think, of Vertue's widow; and his Anecdotes of Painting were chiefly composed from them, as he states, with great modesty, in his dedication and his preface. I do not see in the Strawberry-Hill Catalogue any notice of "Vertue's MSS.," though some vols. of his collection of engravings were sold.
C.
Lines attributed to Tom Brown.—In a book entitled Liber Facetiarum, being a Collection of curious and interesting Anecdotes, published at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, by D. Akenhead & Sons, 1809, the passage attributed to Tom Brown by your correspondent "J.T." is given to Zacharias Boyd.
The only reference given as authority for the account is the initials H.B.
"Zacharias Boyd, whose bust is to be seen over the entrance to the Royal College in Glasgow, while Professor in that university, translated the Old and New Testament into Scotch Metre; and, from a laudable zeal to disseminate religious knowledge among the lower classes of the community, is said to have left a very considerable sum to defray the expense of the said work, which, however, his executors never printed."
After a few specimens, the account goes on
"But the highest flight of his Muse appears in the following beautiful Alexandrine:
"And was not Pharaoh a saucy rascal?
That would not let the children of Israel, their wives
And their little ones, their flocks and their herds, go
Out into the wilderness forty days
To eat the Pascal.
"H.B."
Speaking of Zachariah Boyd, Granger says, (vol. ii. p. 379.):
"His translation of the Scripture in such uncouth verse as to amount to burlesque, has been often quoted, and the just fame of a benefactor to learning has been obscured by that cloud of miserable rhymes. Candour will smile at the foible, but applaud the man.
"Macure, in his account of Glasgow, p. 223., informs us he lived in the reign of Charles I."
H.I.
Sheffield, March 9. 1850.
Passage in Frith's Works (No. 20. p. 319).—This passage should be read, as I suppose, "Ab inferiori ad suum superius confuse distribui."
It means that there would be confusion, if what is said distributively or universally of the lower, should be applied distributively or universally to the higher; or, in other words, if what is said universally of a species, should be applied universally to the genus that contains that and other species: e.g., properties that are universally found in the human species will not be found universally in the genus Mammalis, and universal properties of Mammalia wil not be universal over the animal kingdom.
T.J.
Martins, the Louvain Printer.—Your correspondent "W." (No. 12. p. 185.) is informed, that in Falkenstein's Geschichte der Buchdrucherkunst (Leipzig, 1840, p. 257.), Theoderich Martens, printer in Louvain and Antwerp, is twice mentioned. I have no doubt but this is the correct German form of the name. Mertens, by which he was also known, may very possibly be the Flemish form. His Christian name was also written Dierik, a short form of Dietrich, which, in its turn, is the same as Theodorich.
NORTHMAN.
Master of the Revels.—"DR. RIMBAULT" states (No. 14. p. 219.), that Solomon Dayrolle was appointed Master of the Revels in 1744, but does not know the date of his decease. It may be unknown to Dr. Rimbault, that Solomon Dayrolles was an intimate friend and correspondent of the great Lord Chesterfield: the correspondence continues from 1748 to 1755 in the selection of Chesterfield's letters to which I am referring.
Dayrolles, during all that period, held a diplomatic appointment from this country at the Hague. See Lord Chesterfield's letter to him of the 22d Feb. 1748, where Lord C. suggests that by being cautious he (Dayrolles) may be put en train d'être Monsieur l'Envoye.
In several of the letters Chesterfield warmly and familiarly commends his hopeful son, Mr. Stanhope, to the care and attention of Dayrolles.
I have not been able to ascertain when Dayrolles died, but the above may lead to the discovery.
W.H. LAMMIN.
French Maxim.—The French saying quoted by "R.V." is the 223rd of Les Réflexions morales du Duc de la Rochefoucauld (Pougin, Paris, 1839). I feel great pleasure in being able to answer your correspondent's query, as I hope that my reply may be the means of introducing to his notice one of the most delightful authors that has ever yet written: one who deserves far more attention than he appears to receive from general readers in this degenerate age, and from whom many of his literary successors have borrowed some of their brightest thoughts. I need not go far for an illustration:
"Praise undeserved, is scandal in disguise,"
is merely a condensation of,
"Louer les princes des vertus qu'ils n'ont pas, c'est leur dire impunément des injures."—La Rochefoucauld, Max. 327.
I believe that Pope marks it as a translation—a borrowed thought—not as a quotation. He has just before used the words "your Majesty;" and I think the word "scandal" is employed "consulto," and alludes to the offence known in English law as "scandalum magnatum." Your correspondent will, of course, read the work in the original; in fact, he must do so per force. A good translation of Les Maximes is still a desideratum in English literature. I have not yet seen one that could lay claim even to the meagre title of mediocrity; although I have spared neither time nor pains in the search. Should any of your readers have been more fortunate, I shall feel obliged by their referring me to it.
MELANION.
Endeavour.—I have just found the following instance of "endeavour" used as an active verb, in Dryden's translation of Maimbourg's History of the League, 1684.
"On the one side the majestique House of Bourbon,… and on the other side, that of two eminent families which endeavour'd their own advancement by its destruction; the one is already debas'd to the lowest degree, and the other almost reduc'd to nothing." —p. 3.
C. FORBES.
Temple.