sibly the epitaph belongs to that time. But Gregorovius (Rome in the Middle Ages,' ii. 99 note, Eng. trans.) says: "A good inscription was later placed in his honour. This was composed by Petrus Oldradus, Archbishop of Milan and Secretary of Adrian I." Adrian was Pope 772-95, and therefore the epitaph (or inscription - assuming their identity), if composed by Oldradus, must have been written by him whilst quite a young ecclesiastic. Perhaps some reader of N. & Q' can say what Oldradus was doing about 730. C. S. WARD.

66

CONSTANTINE PEBBLE" (9th S. xii. 506).This is a name ironically applied to the enormous dolmen of granite, weighing 750 tons, which existed in the parish of St. Constantine, Cornwall, until (I think) the late seventies, when it was destroyed by operations in an adjacent quarry. It is minutely described and figured by Borlase in his quaint History of Cornwall'; and a description will be found also, with a woodcut, in Cyrus Redding's Illustrated Itinerary of the County of Cornwall,' 1842, p. 135.

JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS. [DR. FORSHAW sends a long extract from vol. ii. p. 453 of The Beauties of England and Wales' (Longman, 1801); and MR C. S. WARD refers to the inscribed Constantine Stone found at St. Hilary, Cornwall, in 1853.]

MARRIAGE HOUSE (9th S. xii. 428, 509). MISS POLLARD says that the Marriage House at Braughing has been pulled down. It is generally stated to have been destroyed some quarter of a century ago; but I do not think this was the case. The very interesting old half-timbered house on the south side of the churchyard, now divided into tenements, is, I feel certain, the original building.

Another Wedding House was at Anstey. It stood partly upon the lord's waste and partly in the churchyard. At an inquisition held at Hertford in 1630 it is stated that it was anciently given to the town of Anstey to keep the weddings of poor people who should be married in the said town. There had been therefore divers goods belonging to the said messuage and used at the said weddings, but of all such there remained only "four great spytts," all the rest having been consumed or lost. At that date it was apparently no longer used for weddings, but had become a poorhouse and was both " noysome and filthee." It was pulled down quite a century ago, but the site is pointed out by the old people. W. B. GERISH. [DR. FORSHAW notes that the National Gazet

teer,' 1868, states under 'Braughin' that the Marriage House was given by Mr. Jenyns.]

SHAKESPEARE'S SCHOLARSHIP (9th S. xii. 427).-It may be that my statement that "Mr. Churton Collins has proved that Shakespeare was one of the best Latin scholars who ever lived" needs qualification, and that the phrase "an excellent Latin scholar" should be substituted for the stronger expression. What Mr. Churton Collins says is :

"What has been demonstrated is that Shakespeare could read Latin, that in the Latin original he most certainly read Plautus, Ovid, and Seneca, that the Greek dramatists, and all those Greek authors, besides Plutarch, who appear to have influenced him, were easily accessible to him......in Latin translations.” And again :

"With some at least of the principal Latin authors he was intimately acquainted......and of the Greek classics in the Latin versions he had a remarkably extensive knowledge."

MR. HAINES maintains that Shakespeare's "knowledge of Latin cannot be properly tested until we can determine what part, if any, of 1 Henry VI.,' and what part of '2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI.,' 'Taming of the Shrew,' 'Timon of Athens,' and especially of. Titus Andronicus,' were his." I fail to see this reasoning. Why not take the accepted "Shakespeare" dramas, as Mr. Churton Collins does, and prove the Latinity therein displayed? In the Comedy of Errors' we find that the author of the dramas was acquainted with the Mostellaria,' 'Trinummus,' and 'Miles omitting Gloriosus,' and, the doubtful Titus Andronicus' and the three parts of Henry VI.' (which are tragedies of Seneca"), Mr. Collins proves that in the undoubted 'Richard III., "The Merchant of Venice,' and 'Much Ado' the dramatist shows a knowledge of Horace; and in Hamlet,' Lear,' 'Antony and Cleopatra,' Cymbeline,' and '1 Henry IV.,' a remarkable acquaintance with Juvenal. By unmistakable parallelisms Mr. Collins has proved that the dramatist had read-in Latin translations

·

"saturated with the

Plato's Alcibiades' and 'Republic,' and also the principal tragedies of Sophocles, Eschylus, and Euripides. Of these parallelisms it is of interest to note that Mr. Sidney Lee maintains that "such coincidences as have been detected between expressions in Greek plays and in Shakespeare seem due to accident," and that they are "no more than curious accidents-proofs of consanguinity of spirit." This Mr. Collins directly and successfully controverts. He says such a contention "is, of course, quite within the bounds of possibility," but that "it is not with possibilities but with probabilities that investigators of this kind are

"And still more characteristic of the individual is the change of 'rhime' into 'rime.' This is one of the corrections that the printers ignored, and Bishop Pearce, noticing that in the preface Milton spells the word 'rime 'six times without an h, conjectured that Milton had used the word where it occurs in the poem (1. 16) in a special sense. A reference to this manuscript would have shown him that the inconsistency was not the poet's." Would not Milton bid us write "poets"? Of what use is the apostrophe before the genitival or possessive s? E. S. DODGSON.

а

[MR. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL notes that "To Walsheman for making a ryme, 10s.," occurs among Henry VII.'s Privy Purse expenses (S. Bentley's "Excerpta Historica,' 1831, p. 101).]

"MAIS ON REVIENT TOUJOURS (9th S. xii 308). The words "On revient toujours à ses premières amours are quoted by several authorities as a French proverb, and probably Etienne, in 'Joconde,' merely intended to quote the proverb. The following lines, from an ode by Lebrun (died 1807) entitled 'Mes Souvenirs, ou les Deux Rives de la Seine,' are at all events of earlier date than 'Joconde':

Ce premier sentiment de l'âme
Laisse un long souvenir que rien ne peut user;
Et c'est dans la première flamme
Qu'est tout le nectar du baiser.

If the idea were taken literally, it might be referred perhaps to Pliny's Hist. Nat.,' x. 63, where he says: "Cervi vicissim ad alias transeunt, et ad priores redeunt"; but the French proverb is generally held to mean that one returns to one's first love en souvenir only. Another proverb has it that "Il ne faut pas revenir sur ses premières amours, ni aller voir la rose qu'on a admirée la veille." Probably this advice should be taken literally. Cf. "Toujours souvient à Robin de ces flûtes," another French proverb.

The first paragraph of ch. xii. of Scott's 'Peveril of the Peak' contains some remarks that are perhaps pertinent to the question.

EDWARD LATHAM.

THE OAK, THE ASH, AND THE IVY (9th S. xii. 328, 433, 492). To a Northerner "bonny ivy tree" is, as I have said, meaningless, simply because he would not say that the ivy, whether a tree or bush or what not, was "bonny," which the mountain ash is. The quotation given by C. C. B. from Wickliff's Bible is beside the question, as it is not an

MR. COLEMAN is, I think, mistaken. Nothing has been said, unless at other references than those given by him (9th S. xii. 433), concerning the lines in question. The references to which he directs attention relate to the question of the priority of the oak over the ash, or vice versa, in leafing.

of

It does not seem to have been noted by any your correspondents that the lines The oak, the ash, and the bonny ivy tree Flourish bravely at home in my own country, are the burden of an old ballad, a blackletter copy of which is in the Roxburghe collection (see Roxburghe Ballads,' 1893, ed. by J. Woodfall Ebsworth, vol. vii. p. 168). The proper title of the ballad is 'The Northern Lassie's Lamentation; or, the Unhappy Maid's Misfortune.' The whole of the verses will also be found in William

Chappell's Popular Music of the Olden Time, vol. ii. p. 457. Here also the burden of the ballad is

The oak, and the ash, and the bounie ivy tree.

Another black-letter ballad, in the Douce collection, p. 135, is entitled The Lancashire Lovers; or, the Merry Wooing of Thomas and Betty,' &c. (early Charles II.), and this also has the burden as first quoted above. (See Old English Music,' by William Chappell, new edition by H. Ellis Wooldridge, 1893, vol. i. pp. 276-7.)

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

DOROTHY NUTT (9th S. xii. 387).—Sir Henry Blunt, Bt., married, March, 1724, a Dorothy Nutt, daughter of William Nutt, of Walthamstow, Essex. Sir Henry was great-greatgrandfather of Major Edward Walter Blunt, who married the Countess of Cromartie.

H. S. V.-W.

RIDING THE BLACK RAM (9th S. xii. 483).— Collinson's History of Somerset' quotes this "ancient custom "in the manor of Kilmersdon; and I have an engraving of it which was given to me many years ago by the former steward of that manor. The widow in my print is seated astride in the orthodox fashion: she is attired in a dress which the artist evidently meant to represent as of the Elizabethan era, but I am pretty sure the date of the engraving is not earlier than the end of the seventeenth century. The name of the publisher has unfortunately

been cut off the print, below which appear the words Custom of Riding the Black Ram.' H-N.

This old manorial custom is probably of far higher antiquity than the illustrated broadside alluded to by L. L. K. would appear to indicate, for there is an account of it in Cowel's 'Interpreter; or, Law Dictionary,' the first edition of which appeared in 1607. Whether it is to be found in this first edition, however, I cannot with certainty say, but it probably is, and it certainly is in the edition of 1727. The passage referring to the widow should be: ་་ The widow shall have her Free bench in all [not "hall"] his Copyhold Lands" (i.e., in the lands of the customary tenant deceased). "The like custom," continues Cowel, "there is in the Manor of Chaddleworth in the same County; in that of Torre, in Devonshire, and other Parts of the West" (vide 'Free-Bench'); and in Blount's 'Law Dict.,' 1717, in the ReadingRoom copy at the British Museum, is what appears to be a contemporary MS. note, which is added to the article on Freebench,' stating that "in effect the same custom is in the manor of Leichland," in the county of "Gloucester" (query the chapelry of Leighland in Somersetshire, or Lechlade in Gloucestershire). See also Tomlins's 'Law Dict.,' and the Spectator, No. 614. Lysons says that "at every court the jury still present this as one of the ancient customs of the manor" (i.e., at East and West Enbourne): "The penalty has not been literally enforced within the memory of man, but it is said that a pecuniary commutation has been received in lieu of it, which perhaps may have been more readily accepted, from the difficulty of procuring a proper animal for the purpose."

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

A copper-plate engraving representing this ceremony will be found in the Wits' Magazine for April, 1785. The letterpress describing the picture is extracted from the Spectator, No. 623, Monday, 22 Nov., 1714. W. F. PRIDEAUX. Places and particulars of this custom арpear in connexion with the word 'Bench'in Barclay's English Dictionary,' 1808. H. J. B. MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS (9th S. xii. 148, 196, 238).-1 quote the following from Hill Burton's The Scot Abroad,' first edition, 1864, vol. i. p. 68:

"Most conspicuous and illustrious among the emigrants to France were those who belonged to the royal race of Stewart: and here let me offer an explanatory protest for spelling the name in this unfashionable manner. It is the old Scots spelling,

our ancestors."

The following order for the proclamation of the marriage between Darnley and the queen may be of interest in reference to above. It is taken from the 'Buik of the Kirk of the Canagait.'

"The 21 of July anno domini 1565. The quhilk day Johne Brand, Mynister, present it to ye kirk ane writting-written be ye Justice Clerk hand desyring ye kirk of ye cannogait ande Minister yareof to proclame harie duk of Albaynye Erle of Roise on ye one parte, And Marie by ye grace of God quene of Scottis Soverane on ye uyer part. The quilk ye kirk ordainis ye Mynister to do, wyt Invocatione of ye name of God."

THORNE GEORGE.

abounds in horticultural literature. Thus, This term is hardly a provincialism, for it "The top spit of an old pasture makes capital potting soil" (Sutton, Cult. Veget. and Flowers,' 1892, p. 311). To save the expense of removing it themselves, builders sometimes advertise "top spit given away." Only a day or two ago I noticed a board with this superscription. J. DORMER.

"AS MERRY AS GRIGGS" (9th S. xii. 506).— Griggs is a Staffordshire word for bantams, and Josiah Wedgwood, the Staffordshire potter, no doubt used it in this way.

W. HODGES.

My wife tells me that in Yorkshire she has often heard children called griggs-that is, when they are about four to eight years of age. W. H. M. G.

I have always understood that a grigg was a tadpole. As a youth I used to fish for them both under this name and that of "bullheads." CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D. Baltimore House, Bradford.

CANDLEMAS GILLS (9th S. xii. 430).-This custom was doubtless a survival of the once universal "church-ale." Church ales were when the people went from afternoon prayers on Sundays to their lawful sports and pas