This awful being was no doubt in the mind of those who originated the name grendles mere, before quoted from Kemble. The name is applied to a locality quite in keeping with the ancient mythological character of Grendel, who held the moor and the fen. Most strikingly does the same sentiment appear in the name of that strange and wildering valley of the Bernese Oberland, in Switzerland:—I mean the valley of Grindelwald, with its two awful glaciers.

But when we come to consider the etymology of the name, we are led to an object which seems inadequate, and incapable of acting as the vehicle for these deep and natural sentiments of the inhuman and the horrible.

Grendel means, originally, no more than a bar or rod, or a palisade or lattice-work made of such bars or rods. Also a bar or bolt for fastening a door, or for closing a harbour. Middle-aged people at Zurich recollect when the old "Grindel" was still standing at the mouth of their river. This was a tremendous bar, by which the water-approach to their town could be closed against an enemy; who might otherwise pass from the Lake of Zurich down the river Limmat, into the heart of the town of Zurich.

It was in Germany that this word lived longest as a common substantive. There is no known instance of it in Anglo-Saxon, other than in proper names, and of these I know no more than are already enumerated above; whereas, in the Middle High German, it is by no means uncommon. It occurs in a mystery on the resurrection preserved in this dialect, and edited by Ettmüller, 1851 (Dat Spil fan der Upstandinge). I cannot now find the line, but it is used there for "the gates of hell." Cf. also Ziemann's Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, voc. Grindel.

Grimm, in his Mythology, establishes a connexion between Grendel and Loki, the northern half-deity half-demon, the origin of evil. He was always believed to have cunningly guided the shaft of Flöder the Blind, who, in loving sport, shot his brother Balder the Gay, the beloved of gods and men. So entered sorrow into the hitherto unclouded Asaland.

Grimm draws attention to the circumstance that Loki is apparently connected with the widespread root which appears in English in the forms lock and latch. Here is a very striking analogy, and it is supported by an instance from the present German: Höllriegel = vectis infernalis, brand of hell, is still recognised as = teufel; or for an old witch = devil's dam.

And even in Latin documents we find the same idea represented. Thus, in a charter of King Edgar (Cod. Dipl., No. 487.), which begins with a recital of the fall of man, and the need of escaping the consequent misery, we have the following:

"Quamobrem ego Eadgar, totius Britanniæ gubernator et rector, ut hujus miseriæ repagulum quam protoplastus inretitus promeruit ... evadere queam, quandam ruris particulam ... largitus sum," &c. &c.

As to the application of this name to localities, it seems to represent the same sentiment as the prefix of Giant, Grim, or Devil: and this sentiment would be that of the grand or awful in Nature, and mysterious or unaccountable in artificial works. I think we may then safely conclude, that all dikes, ditches, camps, cromlechs, &c., which have such titles attached to them, date from an age previous to the Saxons being in England. For example, if we did not know from other sources the high antiquity of Wayland Smith's Cave in Berkshire, we might argue that it was at least pre-Saxon; from the fact that the Saxons called it by the name of their Vulcan, and therefore that it appeared to them so mysterious as to be dignus vindice nodus.

If your correspondent C. G., or any of your readers, can, either from their reading or from local knowledge, add any further illustrations or examples of this ancient heathen word, I, for one, shall receive them gratefully.

I. E.

Oxford.

MUMMIES OF ECCLESIASTICS.

(Vol. vi., pp. 53. 110. 205. 328.)

Although I have myself seen the natural mummies preserved at Kreuzberg on the Rhine, I can say nothing more with regard to them, than vouch for the accuracy of the accounts transmitted by your various correspondents under this head. Your Querist A. A. however may, if curious on this subject, be referred with advantage to Mr. T. J. Pettigrew's interesting History of Egyptian Mummies. In chap. xvii. of this work, many instances are adduced of the preservation of bodies from putrefaction by the desiccating properties of the natural air of the place in which they are contained. He says:

"In dry, and particularly calcareous vaults, bodies may be preserved for a great length of time. In Toulouse, bodies are to be seen quite perfect, although buried two centuries ago. In the vaults of St. Michael's Church, Dublin, the same effect is produced; and Mr. Madden says he there saw the body of Henry Shears, who was hanged in 1798, in a state of preservation equal to that of any Egyptian mummy."

Garcilasso de la Veya, and more recent historians, may be referred to for accounts of the mummy-pits of Peru, the dry air of which country is an effectual preventive of the process of putrefaction. One of the most curious spectacles, however, of this nature is to be found in the Catacombs of Palermo, where the traveller finds himself in the midst of some thousands of unburied bodies, which, suspended mostly by the neck, have become so distorted in form and feature in the process of desiccation, as to provoke an irrepressible smile in the midst of more solemn and befitting contemplations. (Sonnini's Travels, vol. i. p. 47.; Smyth's Memoirs of Sicily and its Islands, p. 88.)

Similar properties are also attributed to the air of the western islands of Scotland. "To return to our purpose," says P. Camerarius (The Living Librarie, translated by Molle, folio, London, 1625, p. 47.),—

"That which Abraham Ortelius reporteth after Gyrald de Cambren is wonderfull, that the bodies of men rot not after their decease, in the isles of Arran; and that therefore they bee not buried, but left in the open ayr, where putrefaction doth them no manner of hurt; whereby the families (not without amazement) doe know their fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and a long race of their predecessors. Peter Martyr, a Milannois, saith the same of some West Indians of Comagra. These bee his words: 'The Spaniards being entered the lodgings of this Cacick, found a chamber fulle of dead bodies, hanging by ropes of cotton, and asking what superstition that was, they received this answer, That those were the fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers of the Cacick of Comagra. The Indians say that they keep such relikes preciously, and that the ceremonie is one of the points of their religion. According to his qualities while he lived, his bodie, being dead, is richly decked with jewels and precious stones.'"

Many other instances might be adduced, but you will now think that at least enough has been said on this subject.

William Bates.

Birmingham.

VICARS-APOSTOLIC IN ENGLAND.

(Vol. vi., pp. 125. 297. 400.; Vol. vii., pp. 242. 243.)

Your correspondent A. S. A. seems very anxious to possess a complete list of the vicars-apostolic of England. With their names, and the date of their consecration and death, collected from various sources, I am able to supply him.

The last survivor of the Roman Catholic bishops consecrated in England prior to the reign of Elizabeth was Dr. Thomas Watson, appointed bishop of Lincoln in 1557 by Queen Mary, and deprived (on the accession of Elizabeth) in 1559.

Upon his death, in 1584, the Catholic clergy in England were left without a head, and the Pope some time after appointed an arch-priest, to superintend them, and the following persons filled the office:

On the death of the latter the episcopate was revived by the pope in England, and one bishop was consecrated as head of the English Catholics.

In 1840, England and Wales were divided among eight vicars-apostolic, and from that time until the year 1850 the following was the arrangement:

In 1850 came another change, and one archbishop and twelve bishops were appointed to rule over the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales:

The foregoing I believe to be, in the main, a correct account of the Roman Catholic episcopate in England and Wales from the accession of Elizabeth down to the present year.

J. R. W.

Bristol.

BANBURY ZEAL, ETC.

(Vol. vii., p. 106.)

I have no doubt that the particular instance of Zeal in the cause of the Church at Banbury, which Addison had in mind when he wrote No. 220. of the Tatler, published Sept. 5, 1710, was a grand demonstration made by its inhabitants in favour of Dr. Sacheverell, whose trial had terminated in his acquittal on March 23 of that year. And my opinion is strengthened by the introduction almost immediately afterwards of a passage on the party use of the terms High Church and Low Church.

On June 3, 1710, the High Church champion made a triumphal entry into Banbury, which is ridiculed in a pamphlet called The Banb..y Apes, or the Monkeys chattering to the Magpye; in a Letter to a Friend in London. On the back of the title is large woodcut, representing the procession which accompanied the doctor; among the personages of which the Mayor of Banbury (as a wolf), and the aldermen (as apes), are conspicuous figures. Dr. Sacheverell himself appears on horseback, followed by a crowd of persons bearing crosses and rosaries, or strewing branches. The accompanying letter-press describes this procession as being closed by twenty-four tinkers beating on their kettles, and a "vast mob, hollowing, hooping, and playing the devil." There is another tract on the same subject, which is extremely scarce, entitled—

"An Appeal from the City to the Country for the Preservation of Her Majesty's Person, Liberty, Property, and the Protestant Religion, &c. Occasionally written upon the late impudent Affronts offer'd to Her Majesty's Royal Crown and Dignity by the People of Banbury and Warwick: Lond. 8vo. 1710."

To your correspondent H.'s (p. 222.) quotation from Braithwait's "Drunken Barnaby" may be added this extract from an earlier poem by the same writer, called "A Strappado for the Divell:"

A few words on "Banbury Cakes," and I have done. The earliest mention of them I am aware of (next to that in Camden's Britannia, published by Philemon Holland in 1608, and already referred to), is by Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair, written 1614; where he introduces "Zeal-of-the-Land Busy" as "a Banbury Man," who "was a baker—but he does dream now, and see visions: he has given over his trade, out of a scruple he took, that, in spiced conscience, those cakes he made were served to bridales, maypoles, morrisses, and such profane feasts and meetings." I do not know whether the sale of Banbury cakes flourished in the last century; but I find recorded in Beesley's Hist. of Banbury (published 1841) that Mr. Samuel Beesley sold in 1840 no fewer than 139,500 twopenny cakes; and in 1841, the sale had increased by at least a fourth. In Aug. 1841, 5,400 were sold weekly; being shipped to America, India, and even Australia. I fancy their celebrity in early days can hardly parallel this, but I do not vouch for the statistics.

J. R. M., M.A.

DR. SOUTH VERSUS GOLDSMITH, TALLEYRAND, ETC.

(Vol. vi., p. 575.)

This remarkable saying, like most good things of that kind, has been repeated by so many distinguished writers, that it is impossible to trace it to any one in particular, in the precise form in which it is now popularly received. I shall quote, in succession, all those who appear to have expressed it in words of the same, or a nearly similar, import, and then leave your readers to judge for themselves.

I cannot help thinking that the first place should be assigned to Jeremy Taylor, as he must have had the sentiment clearly in view in the following sentence:

"There is in mankind an universal contract implied in all their intercourses; and words being instituted to declare the mind, and for no other end, he that hears me speak hath a right in justice to be done him, that, as far as I can, what I speak be true; for else he by words does not know your mind, and then as good and better not speak at all."

Next we have David Lloyd, who in his State Worthies thus remarks of Sir Roger Ascham:

"None is more able for, yet none is more averse to, that circumlocution and contrivance wherewith some men shadow their main drift and purpose. Speech was made to open man to man, and not to hide him; to promote commerce, and not betray it."

Dr. South, Lloyd's cotemporary, but who survived him more than twenty years, expresses the sentiment in nearly the same words:

"In short, this seems to be the true inward judgment of all our politick sages, that speech was given to the ordinary sort of men, whereby to communicate their mind, but to wise men whereby to conceal it."

The next writer in whom this thought occurs is Butler, the author of Hudibras. In one of his prose essays on the "Modern Politician," he says:

"He (the modern politician) believes a man's words and his meanings should never agree together: for he that says what he thinks lays himself open to be expounded by the most ignorant; and he who does not make his words rather serve to conceal than discover the sense of his heart, deserves to have it pulled out, like a traitor's, and shown publicly to the rabble."

Young has the thought in the following couplet on the duplicity of courts:

From Young it passed to Voltaire, who in the dialogue entitled "Le Chapon et la Poularde," makes the former say of the treachery of men:

"Ils n'emploient les paroles que pour déguiser leurs pensées."

Goldsmith, about the same time, in his paper in The Bee, produces it in the well-known words:

"Men who know the world hold that the true use of speech is not so much to express our wants, as to conceal them."

Then comes Talleyrand, who is reported to have said:

"La parole n'a été donnée à l'homme que pour déguiser sa pensée."

The latest writer who adopts this remark without acknowledgment is, I believe, Lord Holland. In his Life of Lope de Vega he says of certain Spanish writers, promoters of the cultismo style:

"These authors do not avail themselves of the invention of letters for the purpose of conveying, but of concealing, their ideas."

From these passages (some of which have already appeared in Vol. i., p. 83) it will be seen that the germ of the thought occurs in Jeremy Taylor; that Lloyd and South improved upon it; that Butler, Young and Goldsmith repeated it; that Voltaire translated it into French; that Talleyrand echoed Voltaire's words; and that it has now become so familiar an expression, that any one may quote it, as Lord Holland has done, without being at the trouble of giving his authority.

If, from the search for the author, we turn to consider the saying itself, we shall find that its practical application extends not merely to every species of equivocation, mental reservation, and even falsehood; but comprises certain forms of speech, which are intended to convey the contrary of what they express. To this class of words the French have given the designation of contre-vérité; and, to my surprise, I find that they include therein the expression amende honorable. Upon this point the Grammaire des Grammaires, by Girault Duvivier, has these remarks:

"La contre-vérité a beaucoup de rapport avec l'ironie. Amende honorable, par exemple, est une contre-vérité, une vérité prise dans un sens opposé à celui de son énonciation; car, au lieu d'être honorable, elle est infamante, déshonorante."

I have some doubts as to whether this meaning of amende honorable be in accordance with our English notion of its import; and I shall be thankful to any of your readers who will help me to a solution. I always understood that the term honorable, in this expression, was to be taken in its literal sense, namely, that the person who made an open avowal of his fault, or tendered an apology for it, was acting, in that respect, in strict conformity with the rules of honour. It is possible that, at first, the amende honorable may have been designed as a "peine infamante;" but its modern acceptation would seem to admit of a more liberal construction.

There are other expressions, framed upon this "lucus a non lucendo" principle, which may fairly be classed among contre-vérités. The French say that a thing is à propos de bottes, when it is altogether inappropriate. We all use the formula of "your most obedient, humble servant," even when we intend anything but humility or obedience.

Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia.

IRISH RHYMES.

(Vol. vi., pp. 431. 539. 605.)

Mr. Cuthbert Bede (Vol. vi., p. 605.) says "he thinks A. B. R. would have to search a long time, before he found, in the pages of Pope, such brogue-inspired rhymes as rake well and sequel, starve it and deserve it, charge ye and clergy, and others quoted by him at p. 431." Among the latter, I presume he chiefly relies on the rhymes satire and hater, creature and nature.

Of all these I am able to adduce parallel instances both from Dryden and Pope. And first, as to rake well and sequel. Mr. Bede is, of course, aware that these are double rhymes; that quel and well are good English rhymes; and that the brogue betrays itself only in the first syllable of each, rake and se. It is, in fact, the same sort of rhyme as break and weak, which is of such frequent occurrence both in Dryden and Pope. Here is an example from each:

The next "brogue-inspired rhyme" is starve it and deserve it. Here, as in the former instance, the last syllables rhyme correctly, and the objection is confined to starve and deserve. Let us see what Dryden says to this:

And Pope:

Of this species of rhyme I have noted three other instances in Dryden, and two in Pope.

As regards the rhyme charge ye and clergy, no instance, in the same words, occurs in Dryden or Pope. They did not write much in that sort of doggerel. But the brogue, even here, is nothing more than the confounding of the sounds of a and e, which is so beautifully exemplified in the following couplet in Dryden:

Next, we have the rhyme satire and hater. The following in Dryden is quite as bad, if not worse:

Of this rhyme satire and nature, I can adduce two other instances from Dryden.

In the same category we must place nature and creature, nature and feature. Here is an example from Dryden; and I can bring forward two others:

And here is one from Pope:

Can Mr. Bede produce anything to match the following sample of the crater, to be found in our most polished English poet?

It will be seen, from the foregoing quotations, that the rhymes described as Irish were, a century and a half ago, common to both countries,—a fact which Mr. Bede was probably not sufficiently aware of when he introduced the subject in "N. & Q." For obvious reasons, the use of such rhymes, at the present day, would be open to the imputation of "Irishism;" but it was not so in the days of Swift.

Henry H. Breen.

St. Lucia.

In a former Number I drew attention to that peculiar fondness for "Irish rhymes" which is more evident in Swift than in any other poet; and another correspondent afterwards gave examples to show that "our premier poet, Pope," sometimes tripped in the same Hibernian manner. In looking over an old volume of the New Monthly Magazine, during the time of its being edited by the poet Campbell, I have stumbled upon a passage which is so apropos to the subject referred to, that I cannot resist quoting it; and independent of its bearing on our Irish rhyming discussion, the passage has sufficient interest to excuse my making a Note of it. It occurs in one of a series of papers called "The Family Journal," supposed to have been written by the immediate descendants of the "Will Honeycomb" of the Spectator. A dinner-party is assembled at Mr. Pope's, when the conversation takes this turn:

"Mr. Walscott asked if he (Dryden) was an Englishman or an Irishman, for he never could find out. 'You would find out,' answered Mr. Pope, 'if you heard him talk, for he cannot get rid of the habit of saying a for e. He would be an Englishman with all his heart, if he could; but he is an Irishman, that is certain, and with all his heart too in one sense, for he is the truest patriot that country ever saw.... You must not talk to him about Irish rhymes,' added Mr. Pope, 'any more than you must talk to me about the gods and abodes in my Homer, which he quarrels with me for. The truth is, we all write Irish rhymes, and the Dean contrives to be more exact that way than most of us.' 'What!' said Mr. Walscott, 'does he carry his Irish accent into his writings, and yet think to conceal himself?' Mr. Pope read to us an odd kind of Latin-English effusion of the Dean's, which made us shake with laughter. It was about a consultation of physicians. The words, though Latin in themselves, make English when put together; and the Hibernianism of the spelling is very plain. I remember a taste of it. A doctor begins by inquiring,

"'Is his Honor sic? Præ lætus felis pulse. It do es beat veris loto de.'

"Here de spells day. An Englishman would have used the word da.

"'No,' says the second doctor; 'no, notis as qui cassi e ver feltu metri it,' &c.

"Metri for may try.

"Mr. Pope told us that there were two bad rhymes in the Rape of the Lock, and in the space of eight lines:

"'The doubtful beam long nods from side to side;

At length the wits mount up, the hairs subside.

But this bold lord, with manly strength endued,

She with one finger and a thumb subdued.'

"Mr. Walscott. 'These would be very good French rhymes.'

"Mr. Pope. 'Yes, the French make a merit of necessity, and force their poverty upon us for riches. But it is bad in English. However, it is too late to alter what I wrote. I now care less about them, notwithstanding the Doctor. When I was a young man, I was for the free disinvolte way of Dryden, as in the Essay on Criticism; but the town preferred the style of my pastorals, and somehow or other I agreed with them. I then became very cautious, and wonder how those lines in the Lock escaped me. But I have come to this conclusion, that when a man has established his reputation for being able to do a thing, he may take liberties. Weakness is one thing, and the carelessness of power another.'"—New Monthly Magazine, vol. xiii. (1825), pp. 551, 552.

With regard to the French rhyme, I see, in a note to Odes and other Poems, by Henry Neele, 1821, that he apologises for rhyming multitude with solitude, by saying:

"It is of that kind which is very common in French, but I fear hardly justified by English practice. Still, 'La rime est une esclave, et ne doit qu'obéir.'"

I would append to this Note a Query. Where in Swift's works is the "Latin-English effusion of the Dean's" to be met with?^[2] or is it composed for him by the writer of the article? I only know of two such effusions really written by Swift; the Love Song, "Apud in is almi des ire," &c., and the Epigram on Dic:

I should also like to know the author of the clever series of papers from which I have quoted.

Cuthbert Bede, B.A.

COUNT GONDOMAR.

(Vol. v., p. 489.)

Your correspondent W. Stanley Simmonds will find a lengthy account of this notable Spanish Don—Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Conde de Gondomar—in the Nobiliario genealogico de los Reyes y Titulos de España of Lopez de Haro, folio, Madrid, 1622, vol. i. pp. 236-238. In this notice he chiefly figures, strange to say, as a military character! At the ripe age of seventeen this "famous captain" is said to have chastised the insolence of that bold "English pirate, Francisco Draques," who in 1584 had had the temerity to land somewhere near Bayona, his sole object being of course plunder. Don Diego guarded well his territory of Tuy when the same formidable "dragon," in the year 1589, made his appearance before Coruña; and again in 1596, when the English Armada visited ill-fated Cadiz. Being a person of "great parts," the Count was despatched to England as ambassador in 1613, and during the five years that he resided in this country, "the king and his nobility showered upon him favours and honours innumerable." He once told James that the flour of England (meaning the gentry) was very fine, but the bran (meaning the common people) was very coarse; "La harina de Inglatierra es muy delgada y fina, pero el afrecho es muy grossero,"—for Gondomar, like the learned Isaac Casaubon, had been subject to the grossest insults from the London rabble. We next find ranked among his praiseworthy deeds the following atrocious one:

"Hizo cortar la cabeça al General Ingles Wbaltero Rale (Sir Walter Raleigh) por aver intentado descubrimiento en las Indias Occidentales de Castilla a su partida."

Another meritorious action is added:

"A su instancia perdonó la Magestad de aquel Rey (James I.) a sesenta sacerdotes que estavan presos condenados por causa de la religion, y a otros mucho Catolicos, passandolos todos consigo a Flandes."

The title of Count Gondomar was conferred upon him by Philip III. in 1617, but the date of his death is still a desideratum. Many anecdotes concerning him are to be seen scattered in Howel's Treatise of Ambassadors.

W. M. R. E.

DOOR-HEAD INSCRIPTIONS.

(Vol. vi., p. 543.)

B. B. Woodward (urged, probably, by R. Rawlinson's question in Vol. vi., p. 412.) sends you the following inscription,

copied from over the entrance to an old hostel in the town of Wymondham, Norfolk. He says he quotes from memory.

Vol. vii., p. 23., you give an English translation of the inscription:

but suggest that "hirudo" should be "hirundo," and produce some apt classical quotations supposing it may be so, requesting Mr. Woodward to look again at the original inscription.

In a recent Number (Vol. vii., p. 190.) Mr. Woodward appears to have done this, and sends you the inscriptions correctly (as I beg to vouch, having often read and copied it, and living within four miles of the spot), thus: