Replies
HAYBANDS IN SEALS
(Vol. iii., pp. 186. 248. 291.)
I am sorry that in referring to a peculiarity in ancient seals under this title, Mr. Lower should have pinned to his notice a theory which I feel persuaded is quite untenable. It is surely something new to those who have directed their attention to the numerous devices upon seals to find that the husbandman had so low an opinion of his own social status as to reject the use of any emblematical sign upon his seal, when Thomas the smith, Roger the carpenter, and William the farrier, bore the elements of their respective crafts as proudly as the knight did his chevron or fess. But the question is one of facts. The following examples of the use of the "hayband" are now before me:—
6 June, 7 Henry IV. Grant by John Dursley, citizen and armorer of London, to William Serjaunt Taverner, of Stanes, and another, of a messuage, &c. in Westminster. Seal of dark red was, about 1½ inch in diameter; a hay-stalk twisted and pressed into the wax while hot, inclosing a space as large as a shilling, in which is a poor impression of a badly engraved seal; the whole very clumsy and rough.
26 November, 24 Henry VI. Grant by Maurice Brune, Knight, Robert Darcy, John Doreward, Henry Clovill, Esquire, John Grene, and Henry Stampe, to Richard Hill and others, of lands, &c., in Sprinfield, &c., in Essex. Each seal is round and thick, and has the impression of a small armorial bearing. The 1st, 2nd, and 5th seals have a small plaited coil of hay pressed into the wax, and inclosing the impression.
26 Henry VI. Receipt by Jane Grene for 10l. paid her by the Earl of Ormond. Seal of diminutive size, and the impression nearly defaced. Round the extreme edge is a "diminutive hayband."
2 January, 34 Henry VI. Grant by Thomas Tudenham, Knight, John Leventhorp, Esquire, and Thomas Radclyff, of the reversion of the manor of Newhall to John Neell and others. All the seals, which are large and thick and more than two inches in diameter, have the impression of a signet ring inclosed with a "hayband" of parchment pressed into them. One of these coils being loose shows itself to be a thin strip of the label itself brought through the wax.
10 February, 14 Edward IV. Lease by Sir Thomas Urswyk, Knight, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and Thomas Lovell, to John Morton and others, of the manor of Newhall, Essex, and other lands, &c. The seal of Lovell has his armorial bearings and legend; that of the Lord Chief Baron is the impression of a signet ring, being a classical bust. The seal itself is a thick ball of wax about two inches across, pressed into the face of which is a "hayband" or twisted coil of thin parchment inclosing the impression.
I am sure that I have seen many examples much earlier and later, but those given are merely in reference to the theory of your Lewes correspondent. Even they are surely inconsistent with the idea of the practice being peculiar to any locality or distinctive of any class. My recollection would lead me to assign the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries as the period of its use. But still the question remains—Has it any, and what signification? I have always considered it to have been a contrivance to strengthen the substance of the seal itself. The earliest instances I have seen were "appliqué" seals, such as the royal privy seals, and with these it would seem to have originated. Their frail nature suggested the use of some substance to protect the thin layer of wax from damage by the crumpling of the parchment on which they were impressed. For some time its use was confined to this kind of seal; and fashion may perhaps have extended the practice to pendent seals, where, however, it was often efficacious in neutralising the bad quality of the wax so general in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The plaiting of the hay or straw sometimes assumed a fanciful shape. Although the impressions of seals of the time of Henry VII. are often very bad, there are generally traces of their existence; these may perhaps be discovered in Mr. Lower's seals if he looks more to the enclosure than to the substance forming it.
Joseph Burtt.
Haybands in Seals.—M. A. Lower thinks that Mr. T. Hudson Turner has misapplied his description of the seals in his possession. The seals are not impressed upon haybands, neither do "some ends of the hay or straw protrude from the surface." The little fillet or wreath of hay, about equal in diameter to a shilling, is inlaid upon the pendent lump of wax, and forms the ornament or device of the seal, rather than an integral portion of it, like that in the specimens referred to by Mr. Turner.
M. A. Lower begs, under favour, to add, that the very fact of a Query being inserted in the pages of this invaluable—one might almost say indispensable—publication, implies a candid avowal pro tanto of ignorance on the part of the Querist, who might reasonably expect a plain answer, unaccompanied by any ungracious reflection on the side of the more highly-gifted savant that furnished the reply. As a simple matter of taste, many other correspondents besides Mark Antony Lower may probably object, like the latter's eminent namesake, Mr. Tony Weller, to being "pulled up so wery short," especially in cases where there is a clear misapprehension on the part of the respondent.
Haybands in Seals.—It is impossible for one moment to doubt the correctness of Mr. Hudson Turner's remarks on this question, and I hasten to retract my own suggestions, frankly acknowledging them to be erroneous.
I had always taken the same view as Mr. Turner (for it is very palpable to the eye, and speaks for itself), till diverted from it by one of those sudden fancies which, spite of all caution, will ever and anon unaccountably cross the mind and bewilder the better judgment. To have established my view, these rushes should have been proved to be affixed to deeds of feoffment alone; a point which, at the moment, I overlooked. Even while I write, I have before me a lease granted by the abbey of Denney in the fifteenth century, with a rush in the seal; and Mr. Turner's cited instances of royal charters put an end to all question.
Lest others be led astray by my freak of fancy, without an opportunity of correcting it by Mr. Turner's statement, the proper course for me is to acknowledge myself wrong—palpably, unmistakeably wrong,—Mr. Turner's explanation is the correct one; thanks to him for it—liberavi animam meam.
L. B. L.
NORTH SIDE OF CHURCHYARDS
(Vol. ii., pp. 93. 253.; Vol. iii., p. 125.)
Your correspondents on this subject have generally taken it as granted, that the prejudice against burying in this portion of the churchyard is almost universal. In a former communication (Vol. ii., p. 93.) I stated that there are at least some exceptions. Since that time I have visited perhaps a hundred churchyards in the counties of York, Derby, Stafford, Bucks, Herts, and Oxford, and in nearly half of these burial had evidently been long since practised on the north side of the several churches. The parish church of Ashby de la Zouch is built so near the south wall of the churchyard, that the north must clearly have been designed for sepulture. I was incumbent of an ancient village church in that neighbourhood, which is built in the same manner, with scarcely any ground on the south, the north being large and considerably raised by the numerous interments which have taken place in it. It has also some old tombs, which ten years ago were fast falling to decay. The part south of the church contains very few graves, and all apparently of recent date.
In my former communication I mentioned, that in this churchyard burial has been chiefly, till of late, on the north side of the church; and, since that communication, a vault has been made on the south side, which has convinced us the ground had never before been there broken up. The soil is chalk; whereas, whenever a grave is made on the north side, human dust and bones are so abundant, that the chalk soil has almost lost its nature.
Till more light can be thrown on the subject than what has yet appeared in "Notes and Queries," I cannot but retain my original opinion, viz., that the favourite part of interment, in earlier times, was that nearest the principal entrance into the church. The original object of burying in churches and churchyards was the better to insure for the dead the prayers of the worshippers, as they assembled for public devotion. Hence the churchyard nearest the entrance into church would be most in request. The origin of the prejudice for the south side, which I believe to be of recent date, may, I doubt not, be ascertained from any superstitious cottager who entertains it. "It would be so cold, sir," said one to me, "to be always lying where the sun would never shine on me."
If your correspondent on this subject in Vol. iii., p. 125., would ask an old inhabitant of his parish which is the backside of their church, and why it is so called? he would probably come at the fact. I would refer him to Burn's History of Parish Registers, page 96., foot-note, where he will find it stated that "a part of the churchyard was sometimes left unconsecrated, for the purpose of burying excommunicated persons."
W. Hastings Kelke.
Drayton Beauchamp.
North Side of Churchyards.—Your correspondents seem to be agreed as to the facts, not as to the origin of the objection. I suspect Mr. Hawker (Vol. ii., p. 253.) is nearest the truth; and the following, from Coverdale on Praying for the Dead, may help to strengthen his conjecture:
"As men die, so shall they arise: if in faith in the Lord towards the south, they need no prayers; they are presently happy, and shall arise in glory: if in unbelief without the Lord towards the north, then are they past all hope."
N. S.
North Side of Churchyards (Vol. ii., pp. 253. 346.).—The subjoined extract from Bishop Wilkins's Discourse concerning a New Planet, tending to prove that it is probable our Earth is one of the Planets, 8vo., 1640, pp. 64-66., will serve to illustrate the passage from Milton, of the north being "the devoted region of Satan and his hosts:"
"It was the opinion of the Jewish rabbies, that man was created with his face to the east; therefore the Hebrew word signifies ante, or the east; post, or the west; dextra, or the south; sinistra, or the north. You may see all of them put together in that place of Job xxiii. 8, 9.: 'Behold I go forward, and he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him. He hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him.' Which expressions are, by some interpreters, referred unto the four coasts of heaven, according to the common use of those original words. From hence it is that many of the ancients have concluded hell to be in the north, which is signified by the left hand; unto which side, our Saviour tells us, that the goats shall be divided. Which opinion likewise seems to be favoured by that place in Job xxvi. 6, 7., where it is said, "Hell is naked before God, and destruction hath no covering.' And presently it is added, 'He stretcheth out the north over the empty place.' Upon these grounds, St. Jerome interprets that speech of the Preacher, Eccles. xi. 3.: 'If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there shall it be,' concerning those who shall go either to heaven or hell. And in this sense also do some expound that of Zechariah (xiv. 4.), where it is said that 'the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst: half of it shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.' By which it is intimated, that amongst those Gentiles, who shall take upon them the profession of Christ, there are two sorts: some that go to the north, that is, to hell; and others to the south, that is, to heaven. And therefore it is, say they, that God so often threatens evil out of the north: and upon this ground it is, saith Besoldus, that there is no religion that worships that way. We read of the Mahometans, that they adore towards the south; the Jews towards the west; Christians towards the east; but none to the north."
J. Y.
Hoxton.
THE ROLLIAD, AND SOME OF ITS WRITERS
(Vol. iii., p. 276.)
Mr. Dawson Turner asks for information regarding three writers in the Rolliad, viz.: Tickell, Richardson, and Fitzpatrick. Memoirs of the first two are given in Chalmers's Dictionary; but in Moore's Life of Sheridan, Mr. Turner will find several notices of them, far more attractive than dry biographical details. They were both intimately associated with Sheridan; Tickell, indeed, was his brother-in-law. One would prefer calling them his friends, but steady friendship must rest upon a firmer basis than those gifts of wit, talent, and a keen sense of the ridiculous, which prevailed so largely amongst this clever trio.
Tickell's production, Anticipation, is still remembered from its cleverness and humour; but when every speaker introduced into its pages has long been dead, and some of them were little known to fame, the pamphlet is preserved by a few solely from the celebrity which it once possessed.
His death in 1793 was a most melancholy one. It is described by Professor Smyth in in his interesting Memoir of Sheridan, a book printed some years ago for distribution among his friends, and which well deserves publication.
Independent of his contributions to the Rolliad, Richardson did little as an author. His comedy of The Fugitive, acted and published in 1792, was well received, and is much praised. Why has this production so completely disappeared?
General Fitzpatrick was born in 1749, and died in 1815. He was the second son of John, Earl of Upper Ossory; twice Secretary-at-War; once secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Portland, but what he regarded as his highest distinction, and it is recorded on his tomb, was the friendship of Fox during forty years of their lives.
Some of his speeches on the union with Ireland will be found in the thirty-fourth volume of the Parliamentary History.
His epitaph, by himself, is inscribed on a sarcophagus in the church-yard at Sunning Hill, in which he describes himself—what his friends admitted to be truth—a politician without ambition, a writer without vanity.
Which is the true reading in the following lines by Fitzpatrick on Fox? In my copy the word "course" in the third line is erased, and the word "mind" is substituted.
"A patriot's even course he steered,
Mid Faction's wildest storms unmoved:
By all who marked his course revered,
By all who knew his heart beloved."
Sheridan says most justly:
"Wit being generally founded upon the manners and characters of its own day, is crowned in that day, beyond all other exertions of the mind, with splendid and immediate success. But there is always something that equalises. In return, more than any other production, it suffers suddenly and irretrievably from the hand of Time."
Still some publications, from their wit and brilliancy, are sufficiently buoyant to float down to posterity. The publication in question, the Rolliad, is one; the Anti-Jacobin another. You may not be unwilling, in your useful pages, to give a list of some of the writers in the latter publication. My own copy of it is marked from that belonging to one of the writers, and is as follows:—
Nos. 1. 4. 9. 19. 26, 27—33., by Mr George Ellis.
Nos. 6. and 7., by Messrs. Ellis and Frere.
Nos. 20, 21, 22. 30—36., by Mr. Canning.
No. 10. by M.; No. 13. by C. B.; No. 39. by N.
To the remaining numbers, neither names nor initials are affixed. Can any of your readers explain the initials, M., C. B., and N., and give us the authors of the remaining numbers?
In replying to Mr. Turner's Queries, I shall attend to the wish expressed by so old and so valued a friend, and substitute for initials, of which he disapproves, the name of
J. H. Markland.
RICHARDSON—TICKELL—FITZPATRICK
(Vol. iii., p. 276.)
I am much surprised at Mr. Dawson Turner's inquiry about these names. I will not say with him that, "not to know them argues himself unknown." On the contrary, my wonder is, that one, himself so well and so favourably known as Mr. Turner, should have need to ask such a question about men with whom, or, at least, with whose fame, he must have been a contemporary, presuming, as I do, that he is the same Mr. Dawson Turner with whose works we have been acquainted for above half a century. Since, however, he has made the Query, I will answer it as succinctly as I can.
The Right Honourable Richard Fitzpatrick was the only brother of the last Earl of Upper Ossory, and prominent in fashion, in politics, and in elegant literature, and not undistinguished as a soldier. He sat in nine successive parliaments (in two which I knew him). As early as 1782 he was Secretary for Ireland, and in 1783 Secretary-at-War, which office he again filled in 1806. In the galaxy of opposition wits, when opposition was wittiest, Fitzpatrick was generally admitted to be the first, and there were those who thought him in general powers superior even to Fox and Sheridan. His oratory, however, did not do justice to his talents, and he was both shy and indolent. His best speech was that in December, 1796, for the release of Lafayette, to which even the ridicule of the Anti-Jacobin allowed the merit of pathetic eloquence. His share in the Rolliad was considerable, and there are many other sprightly and some elegant specimens of his poetical talents scattered through various publications. I wish they were collected.
Richard Tickell, the grandson of Addison's friend, and brother-in-law to Sheridan, was the author of Anticipation, one of the liveliest political pamphlets ever written. He published many occasional poems, the best of which is a poetical "Epistle from Charles Fox, partridge shooting, to Lord John Townsend, cruising." Mr. Dawson Turner will find more about him in the Biographical Dictionary.
Joseph Richardson, who died in 1803, was M.P. for Newport in three parliaments. He was an intimate friend of Sheridan's, and partner with him in Drury Lane Theatre. He wrote a play, entitled The Fugitive; but he is only remembered for his contributions (whatever they were) to the Rolliad. In the Gentleman's Magazine (vol. lxxiii. p. 602.), Mr. Dawson Turner will find a longer notice of him.
There are a few remarks on the authors of the Rolliad in Moore's Life of Sheridan, i. 420.
C.
QUAKERS' ATTEMPT TO CONVERT THE POPE
(Vol. iii., p. 302.)
I have never met with any satisfactory account of this singular Quaker aggression. Perhaps it may be a contribution towards one if you can find room for some notice of a tract in my possession. It is entitled, A Narrative of some of the Sufferings of J. P. in the City of Rome. London, printed for Thomas Simmons, at the Bull and Mouth, near Aldersgate, 1661, 4to., pp. 16. This narrative of John Perrot's does not, however, give any particulars respecting his going to Rome, or the proceedings which led to his captivity there, but begins with the words—
"When I was cast into Prison, because I loved the souls of my enemies," &c.;
and after eight pages, chiefly occupied by inflated description of his sorrows, from which one obtains no facts, he tells us that God took pity on him,
"And raised up his little babe, my dear Brother Thomas Hart, to set his tender soul nearer unto my sufferings, and made him take my burdens on his back, and the yoak of my tribulation on his neck, and made him sup of my sore sorrows, and drink of the bleedings of my grief,'—
and so he goes on; but we do not learn what Thomas Hart did, except that he comforted John Perrot in his confinement.
"Moreover," he says, "the everlasting mercies of my God did stir up the bowels of other two of his tender babes, named in the tent Jane Stokes and Charles Baylie, to come to visit me whilest I was as forsaken of all men."
They persevered, he tells us,
"in their pilgrimage until they arrived to Rome, where C. B. offered his life to ransom me, and both of them entered into captivity for the love which they bore to my life."
His Narrative (strictly speaking) contains no further information, but that at the bottom of the tenth page it is dated and signed,
"Written in Rome Prison of Madmen. JOHN."
The remaining six pages of the pamphlet consist of a letter from Charles Baylie, giving an account of his pilgrimage with Jane Stokes, from Dover to Calais, Paris, Marseilles, Genoa, until
"Arriving," he says, "safe at Rome, we were drawn in our lives directly to the place where the dearly beloved J. P. was, and coming to the prison door, I enquired for him, and having answer of his being there, I desired for to speak with him, but it would not be permitted us; So it was said in me, Write unto him, which I did, the which he answered us in the fulness of love, which refreshed us after our weary steps; For our souls were refreshed one in another, though one another's faces we had never seen to the outward, and then we being kept in a holy fear not to do nor act one way nor other, but as we were moved of the Lord, least we should add to his bonds,—I say, being thus kept, we were delivered out of the snare of the fowler, who secretly lay in wait to betray our innocency; And after a little time the Lord showed me I should go to the inquisition, which I did, and enquired for the Inquisitor, as I was showed of the Lord I should do; and when I spoke to him I told him I was come from England for to see my brother J. P.; to which he answered, I should see him, and appointed me to come to a certain place called Minerva, and there, saith he, I will procure you the liberty of the Cardinalls to see him; he had me also to the Inquisition office, where he asked many questions of me concerning our religion, to which I answered in the simplicity of my heart in the fear of the Lord; and at the appointed time I came to the place aforesaid, and there I was showed what further I should do, which was to tender my body for my brother; and so from that time I hardly missed opportunity to speak to them as often as they met: for their manner was thus to meet twice a-week, the one time at Minerva, and the other time at Monte-Cavallo, where the Pope's own dwelling is, where I also did the like, more than once, which stirred them up against me, in great enmity," &c.
I am afraid I am trespassing on your overfilled columns; but—omitting his account of his going to the Jews' synagogue, and of the command which he received to fast twenty days as a testimony against those who falsely stated that John Luffe had fasted nineteen days and died on the twentieth—omitting this, I must give one more extract. Having been detained in one of his visits to the Minerva, he says:
"From thence I was carried to the Inquisition, where I was shut up close, and after I had been there 3 dayes the Lord said to me, Thou must go to the Pazzarella, which was the Prison or Hospital of mad men, where our dear brother was prisoner; and it was also said unto me, Thou shalt also speak to the Pope; And at the 17 dayes end, I was led from the Inquisition towards the other prison, and by the way I met the Pope carried in great pomp; as it was the good will of the Lord that I should speak unto him, men could not prevent it, for I met him towards the foot of a bridge, where I was something nigh him, and when he came against me, the people being on their knees on each side of him, I cried to him with a loud voice in the Italian tongue, To do the thing that was Just, and to release the Innocent; and whilest I was speaking, the man which led me had not power to take me away until I had done, and then he had me to prison where my endeared brother was, where I fasted about 20 dayes as a witness against that bloody generation," &c.
As to how they got out, he only says:
"Soon after my fast, the Lord, by an outstretched arm, wrought our deliverance, being condemned to perpetual galley-slavery, if ever we returned again unto Rome."
It appears, however, that though thus prevented from exercising his office of a missionary in Rome, Charles Baylie did not relinquish it. In the letter just quoted he informs his correspondent (who this was does not appear), that since he had seen his face, he had been several times (as he was while writing) shut up in strong prisons; and the letter is dated
"The third of the sixth month, 1661. From the Common Gaol in Burkdou, in France, about thirty leagues from Dover, where I am a sufferer for speaking the Word of the Lord to two Priests, saying, All Idols, all Idolatries, and all Idol Priests must perish."
John Perrot seems to have considered that his mission extended over all the world. While in Rome Prison of Madmen, he wrote an address "To all people upon the face of the Earth," which he "sent thence the 8th of the 10th month, 1660;" and he was, no doubt, the author of the tract which follows it (and precedes the narrative) in my volume, entitled "Blessed openings of a day of good things to the Turks. Written to the Heads, Rulers, Ancients, and Elders of their Land, and whomsoever else it may concern," though it is only signed "JOHN." To him also, I suppose, we must ascribe another tract, Discoveries of the Day-dawning to the Jewes. Whereby they may know in what state they shall inherit the riches and glory of Promise. "J. P." is all that is given for the author's name on the title-page, but the tract is signed יוהן, that is, John. He too, I presume, was the author of another of the tracts, An Epistle to the Greeks, especially to those in and about Corinth and Athens, &c. Written in Egripo in the Island of Negroponte, by a Servant of the Lord: J. P. He seems to have been at Athens on the 27th day of the 7th month, in the year accounted 1657, being the first day of the week, the day of Greek solemn worship, and to have been "conversant" with Carlo Dessio and Gumeno Stephaci, "called Greek doctors."
S. R. M.
Gloucester.