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REPLIES:-The "Fetter-Lock "as a Cognizance of the Longs of Wraxall, 68-A Plagiarism, 69-Smijth, 70"Mémoires de Casanova," Ib.-" All-to," 71 Puritan Changes of Names, 72 - Plant Folk Lore- Cookes: Cookesey: Cooke-The Use of Whales' Ribs - The Origin of Archbishop Stafford-Sir Hudson Lowe-Quotation wanted-Sir John Boys-The Memory of Smells - Dedication of Churches-Heraldic-" Essays on the Sources of the Pleasures," &c. - Deritend, Birmingham-"Chalk for Cheese"-Dutch-English Phrase-book-Bonaparte's Coachmanship - Ladies on Horseback Ceremony Swallows formerly used in Medicine Planxty - Segdoune, Seggidun, &c.- Passion Plays - Lord Palmerston's Dismissal from Office-Cornell Family - Honourable Sir Thomas Lowe- What's his Name?"Thole and Thinkon"-"Rough," &c., 72. Notes on Books, &c. Notes. ROHESE, COUNTESS OF LINCOLN. There are some standing genealogical problems which have baffled successive generations of antiquaries, and therefore, in the absence of fresh evidence, their solution can only be attempted with diffidence. One of the best known of these genealogical "nuts to crack" is the question, who were the parents of that niece of the Earl of Chester who brought the earldom of Lincoln to her husband Gilbert de Gant, in the reign of Stephen? All authorities agree that the earldom of Lincoln was held after the death of the Countess Lucy by her two sons, William de Roumare and Ranulf, Earl of Chester, as coparceners. These two brothers surprised Lincoln Castle in 1141; and in the battle of Lincoln on Feb. 2, 1141-2, the Earl of Chester took King Stephen prisoner, with a young nobleman named Gilbert de Gant, whom he compelled to marry his niece, divesting himself at the same time of the earldom of Lincoln in their favour. Nothing more is known of this niece, except that her name was Rohèse, and that her seal, still extant, is chevrony (or perhaps five chevrons), with this inscription: "Sigillum Rohesie comitisse Lincolie." The problem then to be solved is, who were the parents of the Countess Rohese? Dugdale assumed that she was the daughter and heir of William de Roumare; but this is clearly a mistake, because it is certain that William had a son and a grandson of his own name, and we know that William and his grandson never relinquished their claims to be styled Earls of Lincoln. Besides, it can be proved that the earldom enjoyed by Gilbert de Gant reverted on the failure of his issue to the Earls of Chester. Stapleton perceived that Dugdale was wrong, and by pointing out that Earl Ranulf had a married brother Hugh, seems to suggest that Rohese was his daughter; but there is no evidence that any issue of this Hugh ever existed. The author of the elaborate article on, the earldom of Lincoln in the first volume of the Topographer and Genealogist (p. 303) contends that the word niece (neptis) must not be taken literally in this instance, and that the Countess Rohese was probably the daughter of Beatrix, the sister of the Countess Lucy, by Ribald of Middleham; but waiving the vexed question of the Countess Lucy's sisters, it is certain that Ribald was married before 1090; and therefore it is incredible that he had in 1142 a daughter young enough to marry Gilbert de Gant, who was then a mere youth (adolescentulus). No one, however, has hitherto remarked that the Countess Lucy had a granddaughter of a different line who fulfills all the conditions of the problem. She was the niece of Earl Ranulf; her hereditary arms were five chevrons. Rohese was the favourite name of the daughters of her house, and, as her father died in 1136, in her childhood, she might very probably be the ward of her uncle in 1142. I am referring to a daughter of Richard FitzGilbert of Clare by Adeliza, the sister of Earl Ranulf; and I am assuming that she would be named Rohese, because that name had been borne by the sister, aunt, and grandmother of her father. We know that Richard Fitz-Gilbert had by Adeliza both sons and daughters; but, considering their high rank, few particulars have been preserved respecting Adeliza and her children. Adeliza's christian name was unknown to Dugdale, and it is significant that our authority for it is a charter of Earl Ranulf to St. Peter's, Gloucester, whereby he confirms the grant of the mill of Tadwell, co. Lincoln, which his sister Adeliza had given, after 1148, for the soul of Richard Fitz-Gilbert her husband. We have further proof of Earl Ranulf's intimate relations with his sister's children in the fact that the young Gilbert de Clare was afterwards given as a hostage for his uncle. It may be objected that Rohese de Clare had brothers, and perhaps sisters, and therefore had no special claim to the earldom of Lincoln; but, on the other hand, the family of De Clare stood high in favour with Stephen, who had created Gilbert de Clare Earl of Pembroke, and the king would therefore willingly assent to the earldom of Lincoln being transferred by the rebellious Earl Ranulf to more loyal connections of his family. Moreover, such a transfer of the earldom would not be more irregular than that which undoubtedly took place in the next century, in the case of this very earldom of Lincoln. Ranulf, Earl of Chester and Lincoln, in 1232, shortly before his death granted to his youngest sister, Hawise de Quinci, the county of Lincoln "ut inde Comitissa existat." This grant took effect; and in the same year, within a month after her brother's death, the Countess Hawise again transferred the earldom of Lincoln to her daughter Margaret and her husband John de Lacy, Constable of Chester, who transmitted the same to their descendants. I submit these observations to the learned with some misgivings-not as a solution of this intricate problem, but as a conjecture open to fewer objections than any which has hitherto been offered. SHAKESPEARIANA.* TEWARS. "WHOSE LUNGS ARE TICKLED [TICKLE] O' THE SEAR." "Hamlet. the humorous man shall end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o' the sere; and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for 't."-Act II. Sc. 2. "That is," says Steevens, "those who are asthmatical, and to whom laughter is most uneasy. This is the case (as I am told) with those whose lungs are tickled by the sere or serum." And Mr. Singer, following Douce, explains it-"the clown shall make even those laugh whose lungs are tickled with a dry cough or huskiness convert even their coughing into laughter." It may be objected to these conjectures that Stee vens's sere for serum is unknown and most unlikely, while Douce's requires sere to be taken as a substantive instead of as an adjective. But the objections, fatal to both, are that neither explain, or are even applicable to, the examples of the same or a similar phrase collected by Mr. Halliwell, and that both give a meaning the very contrary to that intended by Shakespeare. A third explanation is by Mr. Halliwell, that the clown will only make those laugh who are wanton or immodest, and readily excited by coarse ribaldry. But, leaving aside other objections, he has been misinformed as to the primary meaning of sear, and hence has been misled as to its metaphorical use, which otherwise is clear enough. The sere, or, as it is now spelt, sear (or scear) of a gun-lock is the bar or balance-lever inter * Continued from p. 42. posed between the trigger on the one side, and the tumbler and other mechanism on the other, and is so called from its acting the part of a serre or talon in gripping that mechanism and preventing its action. It is in fact a paul or stop-catch. When the trigger is made to act on one end of it, the other end releases the tumbler, the mainspring acts, and the hammer, flint, or match falls. Hence Lombard (1596), as quoted in Halliwell's Archaic Dictionary, says: "even as a pistole that is ready charged and bent, will flie off by and by [that is, according to the old meaning of by and by, immediately or on the instant] if a man do but touch the seare." Now, if the lock be so made of purpose, or be worn, or faulty in construction, this sear or grip may be so tickle or ticklish in its adjustment that a slight touch or even jar may displace it, and then of course, and ofttimes ex improviso, the gun goes off. Hence, light or tickle of the sear (equivalent to like a hair-trigger), applied metaphorically, means that which can be started into action at a mere touch or on the slightest provocation, or what ought to be no provocation at all. In the quotation from the Commune Secretary, &c. (Halliwell, Archaic Dictionary), it is applied, as one may read, to a wanton woman; and in that from Howard's Defensative (1620), where Howard was probably imitating Shakespeare, it is applied to the loose-that is, easily excited and easily changed moods; or, as Ben Jonson has it, "warping condition" of the vulgar herd, "discovering the moods and humours of the vulgar to be so loose and tickle of the seare." * Thus it can be ascertained otherwise than from Shakespeare that his phrase refers to those of whose heads he seems to make no account, but whose lungs can be tickled into action by a mere nothing. And this makes the passage agree with other companion passages in the play. Doubtless it was under some desponding influences, and in some enduring fit of bitterness both of mind and heart that Shakespeare chose and worked out this plot; and besides the pervading feelings that well befit the subject, there are more bitter sayings inserted, and as it were let into it, than in any other or perhaps all other of his writings. Among these are his sarcasms on the vulgar ununderstanding herd, who only admire noise, shows, and professional fools, and on the professional fools themselves, though there be none such in the play. Thus we hear of a play that the best judges thought excellent, but which was not acted above once because it pleased not the million, was caviare to the general; and again, of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise; and of *It would be both satisfactory and interesting were some one to quote the full context of the passages from Lombard and Howard. 66 I; let me have a good ground [an equivoque on the ground or pit], no matter for the pen, the plot shall carry it." And in Act II. Sc. 3, which is in part at least by him, he says: "There are two sorts of persons that most commonly are infectious to a whole auditory one is the rude barbarous crew, a people that have no brains, and yet grounded judgements; these will hiss anything that mounts above their grounded capacities; . the other .... a few capricious gallants that have taken such a nothing," &c. Mr. Staunton would alter tickled to tickle. This I presume is from the analogy of Howard's saying, and I willingly follow him. Howard probably adopted it from Hamlet; and while either reading gives sense, tickle is stronger, fuller, and more sarcastic. (To be concluded in our next.) those unskilful, a whole theatre of whom ought to be outweighed by one judicious censurer— mere barren spectators, who laugh at the clown though some necessary question of the play or tragedy be then to be considered. And to the question, "But is this law ?" we get the answer, Ay, marry is't; crowner's quest law." So again of the clowns, who interrupt the course of the play by laughing to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too-a villanous trick that shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. And it is to be noted that, in the original habit of dislike in all things, that they will approve play, of which we get some knowledge from the quarto edition of 1603, this complaint is lengthened out into invectives againgst their would-be jests and stock sayings "though, God knows, the warm clown cannot make a jest unless by chance, as a blind man catcheth a hare." Now it will be found that there is an under layer of bitterness that crops out in various clauses of the speech of Hamlet that is under consideration. At first, as is fitting, it is the bitterness of Hamlet's own peculiar griefs: The king-the king shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me (the rightful heir or king), the lover shall not sigh gratis (neither for Ophelia nor any other). Afterwards comes Shakespeare's bitterness spoken by the refined mind of the prince: The humorous man shall end his part in peace (either by freedom from the mews and jocular interruptions of the gallery, or by the absence of the chatter and cracking of nuts among the pittites who are awaiting the sword and targetting, or the coming on of their favourite clown). And the clown; well, the clown shall please those whose brains are not capable of true humours, but whose tickle lungs laugh and explode into great throat guffaws at a mere grimace, at a blabbering of the lips, or at the looked-for jest of "Your beer is sour," or "Allow me to take off my gloves," or such like pitiful saying. Ben Jonson, writing within a year or two of this, but probably after it (for he certainly wrote the first scene of The Case is Altered, whoever wrote the rest), expresses similar opinions: “Ant. [Munday]. Why look you, sir, . . . . . I write so plain, and keep that old decorum, that you must of necessity like it; marry, you shall have some now [as for example in plays] that will have every day new tricks, and write you nothing but humours: indeed, this pleases the gentlemen, but the common sort they care not for't; they know not what to make on't; they look for good matter they, and are not edified with such toys. "Onion. You are in the right, I'll not give a halfpenny to see a thousand of 'em. I was at one the last term; but an ever I see a more roguish thing, I am a piece of cheese and no Onion; nothing but kings and princes in it; the fool came not out a jot. "Ant. True, sir; they would have me make such plays, but as I tell 'em, an they'll give me twenty pounds a play, I'll not raise my vein.. Tut, give me the penny, give me the penny, I care not for the gentlemen, LORD EYTHIN. The Memoirs of Prince Rupert and the Cavaliers, by Eliot Warburton, contain (vol. ii. Appendix B.) a report to the king on the state of the Northern Army, dated from Newcastle Feb. 13, 1644, and entitled "A True and perfect Representation of the State of your Majesty's Army under our Command, and the Condition we are in at this present." I should be glad to ascertain into whose possession this document has passed. It was, I presume, one of the "Benett MSS." a collection comprising upwards of one thousand original letters of the leading cavaliers, purchased by Mr. Bentley, the publisher, which supplied the chief materials for Mr. Warburton's work. The report is signed both by the General, the Marquis of Newcastle, and the Lieut.-General Lord Eythin. The latter's signature appears in The Memoirs &c. as "Ethyn." This may possibly be a misprint, since the only other specimen of his lordship's autograph extant which I have heard of-a letter to Montrose dated May 3, 1650 is signed "Eythin," the title having been erroneously so spelt in the English patent creating the barony, instead of Ythan or Ithan, the name of the river in Aberdeenshire whence it was taken. General under the various titles conferred on him As it is often very difficult to recognise this by different writers, it may be well to note a few of them. Queen Henrietta Maria, for instance, writes about "my Lord Ethen" to the Marquess of Newcastle (Harl. MS. 6966, fol. 172), which of Her Majesty's letters, to insert in the text, "My has led Mrs. Green, in her published collection Lord Ruthen (?)," and in a note "Ethen in MS." The "Earl of Elthyne," mentioned by Rushworth (vol. v. p. 637) is the same nobleman who died at Stockholm in 1652, leaving no surviving issue. C. S. K. 8, St. Peter's Square, Hammersmith. P.S. I omitted to mention that I have examined that portion of the "Benett collection of MSS." now in the British Museum, but have failed to discover the report on the "State of the Northern Army." WALTER DE BIBLESWORTH.-I wish to hazard the conjecture that Walter de Biblesworth, the author of the treatise printed in Mr. Thomas Wright's Volume of Vocabularies (p. 142), is the same as Sir Walter de Bibbesworth, or Bybbesworth, or Bibbysworth, whose family took their name from Bibbysworth Hall in the parish of Kimpton, Hertfordshire. He died possessed of the manor of Saling Hall in the parish of Great Saling, Essex, in the beginning of the reign of Edward I., and was buried at Little Dunmow (Morant's Essex, ii. 410). His family also held the manor of South House in the parish of Great Waltham, in the hundred of Chelmsford (id. p. 86). The treatise in question was written for the use of the Lady Dionysia de Montchensy, whose family was one of considerable importance in Essex in the thirteenth century. They were lords of the manor of Hanningfield in Chelmsford hundred (Morant, ii. 35), and of many others in the same county. They gave their name to Munchensies, a messuage near Halsted. William de Montchensy (died 1285), baron of Swainscamp, or Swanscombe, in Kent, married Dionysia, the daughter of Hubert de Anestie of Redgwell. She died in 1303, leaving only a daughter Dionysia, wife of Hugh de Vere; her son William having been killed in 1288 at the siege of Drossellan Castle in Wales (Morant, ii. 341). Whether, therefore, we take the treatise of Walter de Biblesworth to have been written for the benefit of the elder or the younger of these ladies, it is clear that they were contemporaries and neighbours of Walter de Bibbesworth; and I cannot help thinking it extremely probable that Biblesworth is a copyist's error for Bibbesworth. A pedigree of the Bibbesworth family will be found in Clutterbuck's History of Hertfordshire, under the head of "Kimpton"; and Morant's Essex will supply further information with regard to their property in that county. WILLIAM ALDIS WRIGHT. Trinity College, Cambridge. CURIOUS BAPTISMAL NAMES.-Epitaphs in St. Peter's church, Worcester, of Mrs. Tryphosa Sanders (ob. 1770, æt. seventy-two), daughter of Mrs. Tryphena Hester (ob. 1756, æt. eighty-eight.") S. * These are given in Green's Worcester. 66 Merie Tales of Skelton [Dyce's ed. i. lxv.] As Mad as a March Hare.— ARCHAIC WORDS.-I was amusing myself the other day in my college library with turning over the leaves of Golding's Ovid's Metamorphoses. I came upon a good many odd words; ex. gr.:— 1. "And Pseke [Psecas] that pretie Mops," bk. iii. "Moppet " I know, as also the slang term "Dolly-mop," but "Mops" is new to me, as an epithet for a girl. Wright gives Mopsey." which the old woman gave to Ceres, bk. v. 2. "A draught of merry-go-downe," the drink Wright gives it as a name of strong ale. 3. To perbrake up his meate agayne" (said of Tereus), bk. vi. 4. "And sear'd his dossers from his pate." It means, I suppose, his horns. I find in Halliwell "doss," to attack with the horns, but not "dossers." 5. "The krinkes of certain prophecies," bk. vii. "Krink" (Halliwell), a bend or twist. |