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[Transcriber's note: Original spelling varieties have not been
standardized. Characters with macrons have been marked in brackets with
an equal sign, as [=e] for a letter e with a macron on top. Underscores
have been used to indicate _italic_ fonts. The index to Vol. III,
originally published with this number, is not included here. A list of
volumes and pages in "Notes and Queries" has been added at the end.]




NOTES AND QUERIES:

A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION

FOR

LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC.

"When found, make a note of."--CAPTAIN CUTTLE.

VOL. IV.--No. 89.

SATURDAY, JULY 12. 1851.

Price with Index, 9_d._ Stamped Edition, 10_d._




CONTENTS.


                                                                Page

      NOTES:--

      Privately printed Books and privately engraved Portraits,
      by J. Wodderspoon,                                          17

      Sardonic Smiles,                                            18

      Private Amours of Oliver Cromwell,                          19

      Spurious Editions of Baily's Annuities, by Professor
      De Morgan,                                                  19

      Minor Notes:--Les Anguilles de Melun--Derivation
      of Mews--Curious Monumental Inscriptions--First
      Panorama,                                                   20

      QUERIES:--

      Minor Queries:--Vermuyden--Portrait of Whiston--Charities
      for the Clergy and their Families--Principle of Notation
      by Coalwhippers--Kiss the Hare's Foot--Old Dog--"Heu
      quanto minus," &c.--Lady Russell and Mr. Hampden--Burton
      Family--"One who dwelleth on the castled Rhine"--Lady
      Petre's Monument--Dr. Young's Narcissa--Briwingable--Thomas
      Kingeston--Possession nine Points of the Law--Rev. H.
      Bourne--Prior Lachteim--Robert Douglas--Jacobus de
      Voragine--Peace Illumination, 1802--Planets of the
      Months--Family of Kyme--West of England Proverb--Coke
      and Cowper--Orinoco--Petty Cury--Virgil--Sheridan
      and Vanbrugh--Quotation from an old Ballad,                 20

      REPLIES:--

      Princesses of Wales,                                        24

      The late Mr. William Hone,                                  25

      Shakspeare's "Small Latin."--His Use of "Triple",           26

      Replies to Minor Queries:--Family of Etty,
      the Artist--Parish Register of Petworth--Death--"Lord
      Mayor not a Privy Councillor"--"Suum cuique tribuere,"
      &c.--Meaning of Complexion--Gillingham--Nao,
      a Ship--John Perrot--Sneck up--Meaning of Senage--Early
      Visitations--Rifles,                                        27

      MISCELLANEOUS:--

      Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c.,                     29

      Books and Odd Volumes wanted,                               30

      Notices to Correspondents,                                  30

      Advertisements,                                             31




Notes.


PRIVATELY PRINTED BOOKS AND PRIVATELY ENGRAVED PORTRAITS.

If the "NOTES AND QUERIES," in the course of its career, had only called
the attention of antiquaries to the necessities of collecting epitaphs
and inscriptions to the dead found in churches, and thus brought into
active exertion a large number of zealous and intelligent recorders of
monuments, its usefulness would have been fully established; but the
multitude of suggestive hints and recommendations constantly appearing
in its pages, added to the great amount of precise and unquestionable
knowledge given to the public through its means, have established the
publication as of the greatest importance to archaeologists, and literary
men generally.

A noble and highly regarded author (Lord Braybrooke) has recently shown
the necessity for recording the existence of painted historical
portraits, scattered, as we know they are, throughout residences of the
nobility and gentry, and from thence too often descending to the humble
dwelling or broker's warehouse, through the effluxion of time, the ill
appreciation, in some instances, of those who possess them, or the
urgencies of individuals: but there are other memorials of eminent
persons extant, frequently the only ones, which, falling into the
possession of but few persons, are to the seeker after biographical or
topographical knowledge, for the most part, as though they had never
existed. I allude to Privately Printed Books and Privately Engraved
Portraits. Surely these might be made available to literary persons if
their depository were generally known.

How comparatively easy would it be for the readers of the "NOTES AND
QUERIES," in each county, to transmit to its pages a short note of any
privately engraved portrait, or privately printed volume, of which they
may be possessed, or of which they have a perfect knowledge. Collectors
could in most instances, if they felt inclined to open their stores,
give the required information in a complete list, and no doubt would do
so; but still a great assistance to those engaged in the toils of
biographical or other study could be afforded by the transmission to
these pages of the casual "Note," which happens to have been taken at a
moment when the book or portrait passed under the inspection of a
recorder who did not amass graphic or literary treasures.

As respects some counties, much less has been done by the printing press
to furnish this desideratum; at least that of privately engraved
portraits. In Warwickshire, a list of all the portraits (with a few
omissions) has within a few years been brought before the public in a
volume. In Norfolk, the _Illustrations of Norfolk Topography_, a volume
containing an enumeration of many thousand drawings and engravings,
collected by Dawson Turner, Esq., of Great Yarmouth, to illustrate
Blomefield's History of the county, is also a repertory of this kind of
instruction, as far as portraits are concerned. Privately printed books
are entirely unrecorded in this and most other localities. Without the
publication now mentioned, persons having no personal knowledge of Mr.
Turner's ample stores would be not only unacquainted with that
gentleman's wonderful Norfolk collection, but also ignorant that through
his liberality, and the elegant genius and labours of several members of
his family, the portfolios of many of his friends have been enriched by
the addition of portraits of many persons of great virtues, attainments,
and learning, with whom he had become acquainted. In Suffolk, the
veteran collectors, Mr. Elisha Davy, of Ufford, and Mr. William Fitch,
of Ipswich, have compiled lists of portraits belonging to that county.
These are, however, in manuscript, and therefore comparatively useless;
though, to the honour of both these gentlemen let it be said, that no
one ever asks in vain for assistance from their collections.

I trust it can only be necessary to call attention to this source of
knowledge, to be supported in a view of the necessity of a record open
to all. I have taken the liberty to name the "NOTES AND QUERIES" as the
storehouse for gathering these scattered memorabilia together, knowing
no means of permanence superior, or more convenient, to literary
persons, although I am not without fears indeed, perhaps convictions,
that your present space would be too much burthened thereby.

As the volume of "NOTES AND QUERIES" just completed has comprised a
large amount of intelligence respecting the preservation of epitaphs,
the present would, perhaps, be appropriately opened by a new subject of,
I am inclined to think, nearly equal value.

    JOHN WODDERSPOON.

  Norwich.


SARDONIC SMILES.

A few words on the [Greek: Gelos sardanios], or Sardonius Risus, so
celebrated in antiquity, may not be amiss, especially as the expression
"a Sardonic smile" is a common one in our language.

We find this epithet used by several Greek writers; it is even as old as
_Homer's_ time, for we read in the _Odyssey_, [Greek: meidese de thymo
sardanion mala toion], "but he laughed in his soul a very bitter laugh."
The word was written indifferently [Greek: sardanios] and [Greek:
sardonios]; and some lexicographers derive it from the verb [Greek:
sairo], of [Greek: sesera], "to show the teeth, grin like a dog:"
especially in scorn or malice. The more usual derivation is from [Greek:
sardonion], a plant of Sardinia ([Greek: Sardo]), which was said to
distort the face of the eater. In the English of the present day, a
Sardonic laugh means a derisive, fiendish laugh, full of bitterness and
mocking; stinging with insult and rancour. Lord Byron has hit it off in
his portraiture of the Corsair, Conrad:

      "There was a laughing devil in his sneer,
      That rais'd emotions both of _rage_ and _fear_."

In Izaak Walton's ever delightful _Complete Angler_, Venator, on coming
to Tottenham High Cross, repeats his promised verse: "it is a copy
printed among some of Sir Henry Wotton's, and doubtless made either by
him or by a lover of angling." Here is the first stanza:--

          "Quivering fears, heart-tearing cares,
          Anxious sighs, untimely tears,
              Fly, fly to courts,
              Fly to fond worldlings' sports,
      Where strained _Sardonic_ smiles are glosing still,
      And Grief is forced to laugh against her will;
          Where mirth's but mummery,
          And sorrows only real be."

In Sir J. Hawkins's edition is the following note on the word "Sardonic"
in these lines:

  "Feigned, or forced smiles, from the word _Sardon_, the name of an
  herb resembling smallage, and growing in Sardinia, which, being
  eaten by men, contracts the muscles, and excites laughter even to
  death. Vide _Erasmi Adagia_, tit. RISUS."

_Sardonic_, in this passage, means "forced, strained, unusual,
artificial;" and is not taken in the worst sense. These lines of Sir H.
Wotton's bring to mind some of Lorenzo de Medici's in a platonic poem of
his, when he contrasts the court and country. I quote Mr. Roscoe's
translation:--

      "What the heart thinks, the tongue may here disclose,
      Nor inward grief with outward smiles is drest;
      Not like the world--where wisest he who knows
      To hide the secret closest in his breast."

The _Edinburgh Review_, July, 1849, in an article on Tyndale's
_Sardinia_, says:

  "The _Sardonic smile_, so celebrated in antiquity, baffles
  research much more than the _intemperie_, nor have modern
  physiologists thrown any light on the nature of the deleterious
  plant which produces it. The tradition at least seems still to
  survive in the country, and Mr. Tyndale adduces some evidence to
  show that the _Ranunculus sceleratus_ was the herb to which these
  exaggerated qualities were ascribed. Some insular antiquaries have
  found a different solution of the ancient proverb. The ancient
  Sardinians, they say, like many barbarous tribes, used to get rid
  of their relations in extreme old age by throwing them alive into
  deep pits; which attention it was the fashion for the venerable
  objects of it to receive with great expressions of _delight_:
  whence the saying of a Sardinian laugh (vulgo), laughing on the
  wrong side of ones mouth. It seems not impossible, that the
  phenomenon may have been a result of the effects of 'Intemperie'
  working on weak constitutions, and in circumstances favourable to
  physical depression--like the epidemic chorea, and similar
  complaints, of which such strange accounts are read in medical
  books."

    GERONIMO.


PRIVATE AMOURS OF OLIVER CROMWELL.

I know nothing more of the enclosed, than that I found it with the MS.
which I lately sent you on the subject of Cromwell's "Dealings with the
Devil" (Vol. iii., p. 282.).

I should conclude it to be a carelessly-made transcript of a
contemporary MS., the production, probably, of some warm royalist, who
may, or may not, have had some grounds for his assertions. At all
events, it gives a few curious details, and, in its general outline,
agrees singularly with the incidents on which Mrs. Behn's play, _The
Round Heads; or The Good Old Cause_, is founded: sufficiently so to give
it at least an air of authenticity, so far as the popular belief of the
day was concerned.

    S. H. H.

  "After Cromwell had been declared General of the Commonwealth's
  Forces, he seized the possessions of the Royalists, who had
  escaped his implacable resentment; and the New Hall fell to the
  share of the Usurper, who, flushed with the victory of Worcester,
  disposed at pleasure