Five-and-fifty months takes us back to December, 1642. During the year 1641 and 1642 there are only three letters, one only of which (the one above alluded to of Sept. 7, 1641) alludes to political matters; he therefore could not or would not print any of his correspondence of those years; the first most probably being the case, from the fact of his papers being under the control of superior power. As my copy is considerably earlier than those alluded to by your correspondents, I may, perhaps, be permitted to describe its contents. It consists of four volumes bound in one: the title-page of the first is missing. It is dedicated to his Majesty, but there is no date to the dedication. The letters are in six sections, sect. i. contains 44, sect. ii. 25, sect. iii. 38, sect. iv. 28, sect. v. 43, and sect. vi. 60. The title-page of the second volume is "A New Volume of Familiar Letters, &c. The Third Edition with Additions, 1655." The dedication, as above stated, May-day, 1647. I find one letter dated Aug. 5, 1648, and another Feb. 3, 1649. I suppose these are the "Additions." It contains eighty letters: the last letter is (dated Jan. 3, 1641) to Sir K. D., and relates to a poem, a copy of which accompanied the letter: after the index to the volume follows a poem which, I suppose, is the one alluded to (dated Calendis Januarii, 1641); it extends to eight pages, not numbered, entitled "The Vote; or, a Poem-Royal presented to His Majesty for a New Year's Gift by way of Discourse twixt the Poet and his Muse." The next volume is entitled "A Third Volume of Familiar Letters of a fresher Date, &c. Never Published before, 1655," and contains twenty-six letters. The last volume is entitled "A Fourth Volume of Familiar Letters upon Various Emergent Occasions, &c. By James Hovvell, Esq., Clerk of the Councell to his late Majestie. Never published before, 1655." It contains fifty letters; there is no year stated to any of these letters (except two, Nos. 5. and 10.), only the month and the day of the month. The latest date is Feb. 18. (1654-5 ?); the Epistle Dedicatory, to Thomas Earl of Southhampton, is dated March 12th; in the dedication the year is mentioned as follows: year sixteen hundred fifty-five (which begins but now, about the Vernal Equinoctial).” 66 "the I would suggest to your correspondents and others the much better practice of citing (in such works as the one above), instead of the page, the number of the letter or the date, and the person to whom it is addressed, as where a book has gone through several editions, it very rarely happens that the same page answers to the same matter.* JAMES BLADON. [It may not be generally known that Howell's scattered poems were collected into a volume, and published by Payne Fisher. It bears the following title: Poems on several Choice and Various Subjects, occasionally composed by an Eminent Author. Collected and published by Sergeant-Major P. F., Lond. 1663. See Censura Literaria, iii. 259-267.-ED.] CHATTERTON'S PORTRAIT. (2nd S. iii. 492.) MR. FULCHER'S courteous notice of my communication on this subject demands an early reply, particularly as MR. FULCHER has now obtained from Mr. Naylor a more copious description of that it is not a portrait of Chatterton painted by the portrait. I am more convinced than before Gainsborough. I wish I could think that it was: for every admirer of the talents of the wonderful boy would be glad to study the lineaments of his countenance. Mr. Naylor describes him as dressed "in a green, apparently a charity coat." And MR. for it is well-known that Chatterton was placed at FULCHER says, that such a dress "is noteworthy, Colston's charity school, and that he remained there till July 1, 1767." This period is three years, within a month, before he committed suicide, and when Chatterton was in his fourteenth year. In reply, I may be allowed to say, that the dress of the boys at Colston's school is similar to that of the boys at Christ's Hospital,—blue, and not green. Further, it was not until Chatterton was clerk to Mr. Lambert, that any event had occurred in his life to attract public attention to his superior talents; for it was not until Sept. 1768, that he sent to Felix Farley's Bristol Journal his account of the opening of Bristol Bridge, which first brought him into notice. Was it probable, therefore, that Gainsborough had any inducement, until Chatterton's name had acquired celebrity, to have taken his portrait? Again, was it probable, after it was taken, that it would not have been presented to his mother, or to one of his family? But there is no allusion in any life of Chatterton, or in any letter that has been preserved, that any portrait was taken of him. I may add, that there is another charity school in Bristol, where the dress of the boys is green. May not Mr. Naylor's portrait represent one of them? Mr. Naylor says, "that several persons from Bristol have seen the [* Our correspondent's suggestion respecting citations from Howell's Letters would only increase the difficulty of verifying passages, as the earlier editions are without dates, and in the later ones the numberings have been altered, e.g. the letter quoted in the first paragraph of this article as No. 46. is No. 54. of the first edition, 1645, and undated. - ED.] The great soldier, Anne de Montmorency, was so named after his godmother, the good Anne de Bretagne. Then, there was the fourth son of the first Earl Poulett, who was named Anne in honour of his godmother, Queen Anne. He was born in 1711 and died in 1785. J. G. N. will find a notice of him in Wraxall's Memoirs of his Own Times. Several of Queen Anne's godsons bore her Christian name. With regard to Lord Anne Hamilton, there is a tradition respecting the cause of his having the Queen for a sponsor, which may lead to a knowledge of the year of his birth. After the union, Anne created the Duke of Hamilton Duke of Brandon in England; but the House of Lords resolved (in Dec. 1711) that "no peer of Scotland could, after the union, be created a peer of England." This resolution remained in force till 1782. The tradition is, that the Queen stood godmother to Lord Anne, as some compensation for the Duke losing his seat as an English peer. If this be true, the christening could not have taken place earlier than the close of 1711, The Duke himself fell in the famous duel with Lord Mohun, in Hyde Park, 1712. The Duchess of Marlborough ridiculed the custom of giving the Queen's name to her godsons, by proposing once, at the christening of a girl, to follow the example of confusion, by calling the little lady “George." That name, it will be remembered, was one of the baptismal appellations of the celebrated actress, George Anne Bellamy, who was born on St. George's Day, 1733. In Roman Catholic countries it is not unusual for a boy to have the appellation of a female saint among his names, particularly Mary, as it ensures for the wearer of the name the protection of the saint. So with women: I have known a Mary George. When the old Trappist Abbey was flourishing, every new member abandoned his worldly, and took up a new name. Sometimes the recluse took a Pagan name: Achilles is an instance; but some, carrying their singularity in another direction, adopted a female name; - for instance, Francis Carret (1685), John Colas (1690), and John de Vitry (1693), surrendered their baptismal and family names; and each was known during his sojourn in the monastery by the appellation of Brother Dorothy! Why they did not prefer to be called "Theodore" (the male form of "Dorothée "), is not explained by the author of Relations de la Vie et de la Mort de quelques Religieux de l'Abbaye de la Trappe. No Pope, I think, ever adopted a female name on assuming the tiara. Pagan names were sometimes given at baptism, and changed at confirmation. Thus, the two sons of Henry II. of France were originally Alexander and Hercules. At their confirmation they became Henry and Francis. Our own bishops still possess the right of changing at confirmation improper names conferred at baptism. The prelates no longer address each candidate by name, and therefore do not exercise, but they are in legal possession of the right. Montaigne, in his essay, Sur la Force de l'Imagination, has a story apt to this subject, showing how, and why, a bishop changed a girl's name into that of a boy: "Passant à Vitry le François, je pus voir un homme que l'Evêque de Soissons avait nominé Germain en confirmation; lequel tous les habitants de là ont connu et vue fille, jusqu'à l'âge de 22 ans, nommée Marie. Il Faisant, dit-il, quelques efforts en sautant, ses membres étoit à cette heure là fort barbu, et vieil, et point marié. virils se produisirent; et est encore en usage entre les filles de là une chanson, par laquelle elles s'entre-avertissent de ne faire point de grandes enjambées de peur de devenir garçon comme Marie Germain." Can this have been more than a satirical legend levelled at a boyish-girl or a girlish-boy who bore names belonging to both sexes? J. DORAN. made, he had a daughter Jane, who died; he therefore renewed the name that there might be no loss for an heir, male or female, P-B―Y. PORTRAITS OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. (2nd S. iii. 448. 511.) In the list of portraits of Mary Queen of Scots given by your correspondent EDWARD F. RIMBAULT, p. 511., he has omitted one of at least local celebrity. In the absence of a copy of the inscription, the following translation from an accomplished author must suffice to explain the little that is known of this portrait. From repeated inspection there can be no hesitation in characterising the picture as a pretty and wellpainted likeness of a beautiful woman. Edmond Le Poittevin de la Croix, in his Histoire, Physique, et Monumentale de la Ville D'Anvers, speaking of the monument and portrait in the church of St. André, at p. 498., says: "Le monument le plus intéressant que possède cette église est le mausolée en marbre élevé à la mémoire de deux dames d'honneur de Marie Stuart, Reine d'E'cosse. Le portrait de cette infortunée princesse lequel surmonte l'épitaphe, est d'une bonne ressemblance; il est dû au pinceau de Porbus et peint dans le style de Van Dyck. "Le monument funéraire est décoré des statuettes de Ste Barbe et de Ste Elizabeth et porte deux inscriptions latines en lettres d'or, sur un fond de marbre noir. En voici la traduction : "Marie Stuart, Reine D'E'cosse et de France, mère de Jacques I., Roi de la Grande-Bretagne, chercha en 1568 un asile en Angleterre, où, par la parfidie de la Reine Elizabeth, sa parente et l'inimitié d'un Parlement hérétique, elle fut décapitée après une captivité de 19 années, et y souffrit le martyre, en 1587, la quarante-cinquième année de son règne et de son âge. 666 E'tranger, tu vois ici le monument où reposent en attendant la résurrection des justes, les restes mortels de deux nobles dames Anglaises, dont l'attachement à la religion orthodoxe leur fit abandonner leur patrie, pour venir se placer sous la protection de Sa Majestie Catholique. "La première, Barbara Maubray, fille du Baron John Maubray, Dame d'honneur de Sa Gracieuse Majesté, Marie Stuart, Reine d'E'cosse, épousa Gilbert Curle, qui, pendant plus de vingt ans, fut Secrétaire du Roi. Ils vécurent ensemble pendant 24 ans dans l'union la plus parfaite, et elle donna le jour à huit enfans, dont six ont déjà été appelés au Seigneur. Les deux fils qui ont survécu furent élevés dans la carrière des lettres; Jacques, l'aîné, entra dans la Société de Jésus à Madrid. Hyppolite, le cadet, devint également membre de la milice du Christ en se faisant membre de la même Société dans la province de la Gaule Belgique. "Ce dernier, pleurant la perte de le meilleure des mères, qui quitta cette existence terrestre pour une vie éternelle, le 31 Juillet, 1616, âgée 57 ans, a fait élever ce monument. "La seconde, Elizabeth Curle, descendant de la même illustre famille de Curle, était aussi Dame d'honneur de la Reine Marie Stuart, et, après avoir été pendant huit ans sa campagne fidèle dans la captivité, ce fut elle qui peu d'instants avant l'exécution de la Reine reçut son dernier baiser. "C'est également en l'honneur et à la mémoire de cette Dame, sa tante, que Hyppolite Curle, fils de son frère, a érigé ce monument, comme un témoignage de sa piété et de sa reconnaissance. "Elle quitta cette vie le 29 Mai, 1620, âgée de 60 ans. "Qu'elles reposent en paix!" HENRY D'AVENEY. In one of the churches of Antwerp, I believe St. Jaques, there is a portrait of Mary Queen of Scots, painted on stone and placed over the memorial tablet of one of her maids of honour. The tablet, so far as I remember, is near the southwest corner of the transept arch of the church, and the portrait is well known to the Swiss. W. B. Warrington. TO BE WORTH A PLUM. (2nd S. iii. 389.) I respectfully submit for consideration, to your learned correspondent who hails from Leatherhead, an explanation of this phrase, which is not of great antiquity, though it has now passed into disuse. The expression is Spanish, and was probably borrowed by our London merchants from those of Spain. Pluma, which in Spanish signifies plumage, bears also in that language the metaphorical and colspeaking of a man who has acquired riches, and loquial signification of wealth. The Spaniards, of whom we should say that he had "feathered his nest," use the expression "tiene pluma" (he has got plumage). Hence our English expression, he has got a plum. The case, however, is one of those, many of which will occur to the experienced etymologist, in which a phrase, adopted from without, adjusts itself the more readily to our vernacular, because it falls in with some native term or form of speech. Plume, in old English, stands for the prize of a Thus struggle or contest, the emblem of success. Milton speaks of winning a plume. We may suppose, then, that from this English use of the word plume, as well as from the Spanish phrase, the London merchant who by honourable enterprise had realised 100,000l., the prize of mercantile success being set at that amount, was said to have got a plume, or plum; while the man who had realised 50,000l. was said to be worth half a plum. But here the question may be asked, "What, after all, has the term plum to do with 100,000l., more than with any other amount?" To this we might reply that few, perhaps none, of the cant terms for money, adopted in our language, originally signify the exact sum for which we employ them. Thus, neither a pony (which is properly a deposit or the guardian of a deposit, for a stakeholder is also sometimes called a pony), nor a tanner (Ital. danaro, small change), nor a bob (baubee), nor a bull (bulla, a great leaden seal), strictly expresses the amount for which the term passes current in our elegant vernacular. And therefore much as a bull (or a hog) stands arbitrarily for a five-shilling-piece, half a bull for half-a-crown, a bob for a shilling, a tanner for sixpence, &c., with equal propriety might a plum stand for 100,000l. A fortune of this amount, acquired in trade, was considered say at the beginning of the last century - a great success. Hence the phrase, “Such an one has got a plum," when adopted into our language from the Spanish "Fulano tiene pluma," would gradually attach itself to the sum acquired in trade to that amount. This, then, we might answer. But before we quite abandon the inquiry, ought we not to look a little closer at the word "plum," and to ascertain, if possible, whether there exist not some specific reason for connecting it with 100,000%.? The letters of the word plum express that amount. P stands for pounds. U is the old Gothic form for double I. And therefore "plum" is 100,000l. literally expressed. Thus : Plum P. lum. LETHREDIENSIS does not seem to have been aware that Richardson in his convenient manual -the 8vo. edition of his Dictionary-first published in the year 1844, and lately reprinted, says that Plum is perhaps plump or plumper, and, referring to Plump, there tells us that to "Plim is still a pro vincialism: to swell, to increase in bulk." I have frequently heard the word so used by Cornish friends. Taking this for the origin of the word, a plum may be considered to be (consequentially) a sum swelled or increased to any given bulk, e.g: that of 100,000l., the largest expected or looked upon as attainable in the days of the writers quoted as using it. The explanation sought by your correspondent seems to be satisfactorily arrived at. It is difficult to say what would be deemed a plum by our monied men of the present day, when we hear a man called a millionaire without being startled. Bloomsbury. Q. MR. HEWETT'S Queries are matter for a volume. If the mention of my name be an invitation to me to reply, I can only say that I am sure music has science in it, and also art which pretends to be science. As I wrote the articles Acoustics, Cord, Pipe, Scale, Tuning, in the Penny Cyclopædia, I may refer to them as containing very nearly or exactly my present opinions on the subject. Y. B. N. J. is wrong in supposing that I either said, or seemed to say, that only three of the authors proposed by Bernard have been printed at the University press. I said, and I was right, that only three of the volumes of Bernard's proposed series have been published. Wallis's edition of Ptolemy, a very well-known work, was not in that series, for two reasons. First, it was in another series. Meibomius published his two-volume collection of musical authors as well known as Wallis's Ptolemy, but not so easily procured - in 1652; it did not contain either Ptolemy or Bryennius, which were intended for a third volume. Wallis, learning that insufficiency of means prevented Meibomius from proceeding, published the Ptolemy in 1682, and again in the third volume (folio, 1699) of his collected works. In this last folio also appeared, for the first time, Bryennius, and Porphyry's commentary on Ptolemy. Secondly, Wallis's Ptolemy was published in 1682; Bernard's series was first thought of, at the instigation of Bishop Fell, about 1673. (T. Smith, Vita Bernardi, 1704, p. 23.) The synopsis, which sets forth the matter and the volumes, was not completed till many years after, and was never published till 1704, as an appendix to the life just cited. This synopsis settles the manuscripts which were to be used, a work of long time and great labour. and last volume could have been settled until long It is very unlikely that its fourteenth after Wallis's publication; and there is nothing to show that Wallis was even cognizant of the existence of any written programme of Bernard's plan. Those who have Meibomius's two volumes and Wallis's Ptolemy should consider them as three volumes of one set, in spite of a little difference of size. A. DE MORGAN, BECKFORD'S LETTERS. (2nd S. iii. 487.) I am indebted to the Query of C. S. for the pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with those charming volumes, Letters from Italy, Spain, and Portugal, by the author of Vathek; and, in turning over a few of the earlier pages, rich beyond measure with thoughts of rare beauty, clothed in language of the most marvellous felicity, I soon These two matters having both relation to found that, without noticing mere ordinary coinmusic, I answer both in one. MUSICAL ACOUSTICS (2nd S. iii. 507.) : GEOMETERS (2nd S. iii. 518.) GREEK cidences of thought, I should meet with enough to justify Mr. Beckford's quiet remark, that "some justly-admired authors had condescended to glean a few stray thoughts from his letters." The following extracts will show that Moore at least did not disdain to appropriate one of the most striking thoughts in the MS., lent him, I believe, by the author; a privilege also extended, and it will be seen with similar results, to Mr. Samuel Rogers: "I left them to walk on the beach, and was so charmed with the vast azure expanse of ocean, which opened suddenly upon me, that I remained there a full half hour. More than two hundred vessels of different sizes were in sight, the last sunbeam purpling their sails, and casting a path of innumerable brilliants athwart the waves. What would I not have given to follow this shining track! It might have conducted me straight to those fortunate western climates, those happy isles which you are so fond of painting, and I of dreaming about."- Beckford, Letter II. [1780.] "How dear to me the hour when daylight dies, And sunbeams melt along the silent sea; For then sweet dreams of other days arise, And memory breathes her vesper sigh to thee. "And, as I watch the line of light, that plays Along the smooth wave to the burning west, I long to tread that golden path of rays, And think 'twould lead to some bright isle of rest." Moore, Irish Melody. A few pages farther on I find the following in a letter from Venice (Aug. 1, 1780): "Our prow struck foaming against the walls of the Carthusian garden before I recollected where I was, or could look attentively around me. Permission being obtained, I entered this cool retirement, and putting aside with my hands the boughs of figs and pomegranates, got under an antient bay-tree on the summit of a little knoll, near which several tall pines lift themselves up to the breezes. I listened to the conversation they held with a wind just flown from Greece, and charged, as well as I could understand this airy language, with many affectionate remembrances from their relations on Mount Ida." Again, Letter from Venice, No. VI. : "An aromatic plant, which the people justly dignify with the title of marine incense, clothes the margin of the waters. It proved very serviceable in subduing a musky odour which attacked us the moment we landed, and which proceeds from serpents that lurk in the hedges." Now turn we to Rogers's Italy, p. 66., ed. 1830: Adventurer-like I launched 66 Into the deep, ere long discovering All verdure. Everywhere, from bush and brake, Then in close converse, and, if right I guessed, Delivering many a message to the winds In secret, for their kindred on Mount Ida." There is, in the third Letter from Venice, another passage that Rogers has copied nearly verbatim, but I cannot find at this moment my reference to his poems. A glance forwards over the remaining Letters has shown me several remarkable coincidences with Moore, Rogers, and The preterite dared is of quite modern introduction. The word is not found in our authorised version of the Scriptures. Durst, therefore, in reply to ANON's first Query is a thoroughly English word. In reply to his second Query, "whether durst is related to dare in the same way as must seems to be to may," there appears here a slight confusion of ideas. Properly speaking must has no more relation to may than there exists between any other two verbs in the language. May is the present, and might the past tense of the Ang.Saxon verb Magan, German Mögen, always used in the sense of expressing ability. The Ang.Saxon verb most is defective, only existing in a single tense, the present or indefinite. modern English must, which is its lineal_descendant, labours under the same defect. It is always used to express the idea of necessity or obligation. The German equivalent verb, Müssen, is not subject to the same deficiency, forming its preterite in the same manner as other verbs. The should n't," are in the conditional mood, and are Such phrases as "I durst n't," "I could n't," "I really auxiliaries to a verb understood, implying a hypothetical state of things irrespective of time. Our mother tongue, the Anglo-Saxon, possessed no inflections to mark the difference between the simple expression of past time and the statement of a possibility whether past or future, nor is its congener, the German, much better off. In this respect the classical tongues have much the advantage. The verb must only existing in a single tense, is frequently the cause of ambiguity and circumlocution. We can say for instance, "I can do this to-day, I could have done it yesterday," but we cannot say, "I must do this to-day; I must have done it yesterday." We say, "I was obliged to do it yesterday; the phrase "I must fact, but the expression of what would have taken have done it," conveying not the statement of a place under given circumstances. Liverpool. J. A. P. |