copies having been observed to differ in various leaves. It would not be easy, perhaps impossible, to decide what these differences are, except by comparing, at the same time, many copies of all these editions: this I have done. Anderson, writing of the first edition in 1611, says,— "It has been said that the British Museum has two editions of this year; but this is a mistake. The title of 1611 has been affixed to the editions of 1613, 1617, 1634, and even 1640, to make, apparently, the copies of the first; but there certainly was no second edition in 1611."* This proves that he knew nothing of the second issue. Lea Wilson also had no knowledge of the second issue. Archdeacon Cotton is, perhaps, the only author who has given an opinion that there are two editions of 1611, printed with the same size type. The smaller type edition of 1613 has been by some supposed to be a second edition of 1611. Dr. Cotton writes, "I cannot but believe that two editions were actually issued in 1611, and to this conclusion I am led by the following facts."† Dr. Cotton then states, that Dr. Daley, Bishop of Cashel, has informed him that he possesses two Bibles dated 1611, and that there are differences in various pages. This I believe is all the information that has been published on this subject. Thus it has been admitted that there were two issues in 1611; but whether these differ only in the reprinting the preliminary and some other leaves, or to a larger extent, had not been proved, and no conclusive evidence has been shown to prove which of the two was the first issued. My object has been to decide these points, and to obtain information I have carefully examined a large number of copies of all the five dates, by comparing the same leaf of all the copies I could place open at the same time. I can now inform your readers who take an interest in the subject, that there are two separate prints or issues of the edition of the folio Bible of 1611. I do not call them two editions because they were issued without distinction, and dated 1611. Every leaf differs in the setting up of the type, and often in the spelling, and there are more than two hundred leaves, of which there are three distinct impressions. There are two titles with the date of 1611 the engraved and the woodcut title. It is uncertain how these were used, whether one title was intended for one issue, and the other .title for the other issue, or what circumstances governed the use of them. I am preparing for publication the result of these examinations, and I shall be glad to obtain information. If any gentleman has any copies of the edition of 1611 or 1613, especially if the copy has either of the titles of 1611, I shall * Anderson's Annals, &c., vol. ii. p. 22, end of List of Bibles. † Cotton's List of Bibles, 1852, p. 60. take it as a favour if he will communicate with me, as his copy may afford some evidence on the subject. Some copies of the edition of 1611 have the title of 1613, and some copies of the edition of 1613 have the title of 1611 in them. FRANCIS FRY. Cotham, Bristol. POLAND. The following supplicatory ode, addressed to the infant Saviour in behalf of Poland, has been discovered by M. Philarète Chasles in a small book of Polish prayers, hitherto unnoticed by any bibliographer, and printed at Wilna apparently in the year 1740; and it is hoped it may find a place in "N. & Q." The author of the verses, whoever he was, seems to have had a most lively presentiment of the woes impending over his country. The prayer has been brought to light at a seasonable moment, and may serve to animate the efforts of the friends of Poland; who are not neglecting human means, while the ode invokes Divine aid. The coincidence is remarkable between this prayer and the recent prayers for their country of the Polish people in their churches. M. Chasles's discovery was first made known through the medium of the Journal des Débats of May 30th, and the verses present an opportunity of appending a translation, and some remarks, in M. Chasles's well-known animated and attractive style. He has omitted, he says, one or two very fine stanzas. AD PARVULUM CHRISTUM CONTRA HOSTES PATRIÆ. Benevolus audi Quæ tuæ sunt laudi, Patriam defende! Patriam defende! Patriam defende! Oxford. Grassantur, Bacchantur! O parvule delicate, Nil ausum, Nil satis est clausum! Patriam defende! Patriam defende! Patriam, author of translations of The Tempest, Amst. 1778, and Macbeth, Amst. 1780. 2. P. Bor Christiaensz, author of Pericles, Grav. 1617. 3. D. Kalbergen, author of Muliassus de Turk, 4to, Amst. 1652. 3. M. Nieuwenhuyzen, author of Desdemona, 8vo, Amst. 1789. Wanted, any information regarding the authors of the following Swedish translations from Shakspeare: P. Westerstrand, Julius Cæsar, Stockholm, 1839, 8vo; H. Sandström, Macbeth, Stockholm, 1838, 8vo; Anon, Lear, Upsala, 1818, 8vo; Anon, Tempest, Stockholm, 1836, 8vo. There is a Danish translation of The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice, by S. Meisling, Copenhagen, 1810. Can you give me any information regarding the translator? Imitations of Shakespear and Spenser, 12mo, 1770. Query, what are the titles of these ShakZETA. sperian imitations? PIONED: FLORAL CROWNS (3rd S. iii. 42, 364.) One of the older commentators has adduced a decisive reason against "pioned" having any reference to the pæony, viz. that the latter does not flower in April. Besides, though now found wild it is not a native of Great Britain; it is never elsewhere mentioned by Shakspeare; and neither in the colour of its flowers, nor in the language of flowers, nor according to the symbolism so prevalent in Shakspeare's day, can it be said to form chaste crowns for cold maids--rather indeed the reverse, if it possess the medicinal virtues attributed to it. From Winter's Tale, it appears pretty clearly, that the "chaste crowns were of a colour sympathetic with that of the cold maids who wore them, and were formed of primroses. Perdita associates the two; and thus shows the prevalent idea of the time, when she says: That die unmarried, ere they can behold I would add that, according to a frequent construction in Shakspeare, the antecedent to "which spongy April," is not necessarily brims; but may be, "Thy banks": the clause, "with pioned and twilled brims," being adjectival or attributive, qualifying banks. I submit these arguments to M. F., as they have converted me from his belief. BENJ. EASY. "Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims." It seems to me that MR. KEIGHTLEY and your correspondent M. F. have made for themselves the only difficulty to be found in the above passage, by taking for granted that by the "banks" mentioned are meant river-banks; whereas it is evident that they are the banks of Ceres, that is to say banks forming the whole or a part of the fences which separate cornfields and other fields, T 66 and out of which quick hedges grow. "Pioned" no doubt means dug; and for twilled I think we may be allowed to read tilled. In February and March it is still the practice to do some sort of digging and tilling to hedge banks, if nothing more; at any rate to throw up on them the soil pioned" or dug out of the ditches for the purpose of clearing them. These banks thus dug and tilled, spongy April afterwards trims with spring flowers; March would be far too early for peonies and lilies, even if the former were ever to be found growing wild, which I greatly doubt. Those who are in the habit of observing the operations of hedging and ditching, and who "know" many "a bank" whereon the wild flowers blow, will be at no loss to understand the S. H. M. passage in question. WHIG DISCOMFITURE AT DUNDEE. Amongst the MSS. belonging to the Faculty of Advocates is one of a miscellaneous description very like a common-place book, and written about the beginning of last century. In it are preserved very singular odds and ends, and amongst them the ensuing lines, as to which it would be desirable that some explanation should be obtained. which particular "discomfiture" it refers we have obtained no clue: "ON THE WHIG DISCOMFITURE AT DUNDEE. "Whether shall we goe and borrow Now we are few and bin in foro, "We rul'd the roast, I had na doubt; Alas! it proves a hailesaile rout, "For all our fierce confederacie They beat us from the magistracie, Whilke we hade caiked; And when they saw that we turned saucie, "The graceless curates and the Tories, I fear the godless, saulles Tories, "And then the gentlemen of Angus And pray to God they do not hang us To "For a' the wark we made and dune; "We ken fatt made the Tories bissie: In holie wrath we'll tak' our vissie, "Well does she mynd the days of yore Quhen we were high in place and power, Alas! our mynes wer sprung before "Our good old cause begins to dwyne, We've gottine water in our wyne, "O fa will now look in to help; For fear we gett a devilish skelp, SIEGE OF HARFLEUR, 1415. J. M. Sharon Turner, in his History of England (3rd Magister edit., 1830, ii. 402, 406), says, that " Ægidius is mentioned several times in [the Priest's Chronicle], and reads as if a Master Giles had been the king's chief engineer." He presumes, however, that Egidius Romanus, or De Columna, author of De Regimine Principum; and how Cities should be governed in Times of War, is meant. A copy of this Principum is in the Harleian Collection, marked 4802. Its staple is of a moral and prudential instruction to kings. Its military instructions begin in the latter part of the work, "and its lessons are most full on encampments, sieges, and defences." It was written about a hundred years before the siege of Harfleur. Master Ægidius, author of the Principum, was Bishop of Berry, and died in 1316 (Fab. Bib. Med., vol. i. p. 52; and Cave, Hist. Lit., 657). Sir Harris Nicolas almost endorses Sharon Turner's opinion; at least to the extent of admitting that the supposition is one of "great probability (Nich., Agincourt, 3rd edit. 1833, p. 58). Sir Harris Nicolas has given the Priest's Chronicle alluded to, in extenso, in his Agincourt, translated from the Latin. The original is preserved in the Cott. MSS. Julius, E. iv.; and the Sloane MS. 1776, in the British Museum. In that Chronicle, Master Giles is spoken of three times. The instances follow: "This town is but small, but very fairly fortified, and surrounded with walls embattled; and therefore, according to Master Giles, very difficult to be attacked, and very easily and securely to be defended." -Nich. Agin. p. 189. "Whilst these things were going on, the king was to have made an attack by means of mines; extending by a vault through subterranean ways, to have undermined the walls on the side of the Duke of Clarence. But this work, which was begun contrary to the opinion of Master Giles, in the sight of the enemy (for, on account of the neighbouring hill and other causes, it could not be done otherwise)-being by counter-mines, and other skilful projects, twice frustrated through the enemy's industry, and already a third time-produced no advantage."Ib. p. 198. "And amongst these various anxieties a siege was very perilous on that side, on account of the difficulty of communication between the king and the Duke of Clarence, which could only be effected in boats, or by a long circuit; as well as from the probability of the enemy sallying out upon them, because that place was nearer and fitter for their incursions. The same Duke, according to the advice of Master Giles, and by order of the king, caused a trench of great depth and breadth to be dug betwixt him and the enemy, and the earth dug out to be cast towards his own men. . . . He caused this trench moreover to be constructed by his lancemen and bowmen, having appointed masters of the works, and assigned certain feet of ground to each lance and to each bow, until the whole work was entirely accomplished.”—Ib. p. 200. These extracts, though they afford seeming ground for an ingenious, deep-thinking, and critical inquirer to suggest a doubt as to the actual presence at Harfleur of Master Giles as the king's chief engineer, have nevertheless an air about them of speaking of one who was a participator in the expedition. Nowhere does the chronicler allude to Master Giles as a writer of the past, whose work was the guide for the operations against Harfleur: he seems rather to have enriched his narrative with the opinions of the engineer, as expressed on the spot. Were such expressions as those in the above extracts used in despatches of the present day, we should be at no loss to regard engineers as present in the sieges to which they might refer, whether we know of their presence or not; nor should we doubt of their presence in previous sieges, if referred to in like manner. Even Master Giles's presence at Harfleur would not have been questioned, only for the existence of a work on the science of war, written before cannon came into use, by a prelate bearing the same name. The doubt which Sharon Turner has expressed might be satisfactorily removed, and the real fact elicited, by a closer examination of De Regimine Principum. Master Giles's opinions or advices have been quoted three times. Are those opinions to be found in the Principum in relation to the particular situation of Harfleur, and to the incidents of the siege in which the opinions of a Master Giles are alluded to? If discovered, they will be traced in connection with the most general principles for conducting sieges. MAGIC PEAR OF COALSTON.-Thomas Brown, merchant, and an Edinburgh baillie, in 1696 bought the lands of Eastfield. His nephew, Charles Brown of Cleghorne, married the heiress of Coalston. The uncle or nephew was a book. seller by trade. The lady of the Earl of Dalhousie was the daughter of George Brown, a descendant of this marriage, and the last male heir. He was an advocate, and on December 18, 1756, became what was then the usual designation of Senators of the College of Justice - a paper lord, under the title of. Coalston. He died November 6, 1776. The fate of the house of Coalston was said to depend upon a magic pear. Lady Dalhousie, in a letter dated in 1808, writes: "They have a pear in the family, which they esteemed their Palladium; it is reported that Betty Mackenzie, when she married George Brown of Coalston, the first night she came to the house of Coalston, dreamt that she had eat the Pear, which her father looked upon as a bad omen, and expressed great fear that it should be an intimation of the destruction of the house of Coalston." The Lady Betty was daughter of George, first Earl of Cromarty. Her husband died without issue male in 1718; and the estate devolved upon the heiress, who, as before mentioned, was the wife of Charles Brown of Cleghorne. The Marquis of Dalhousie, who succeeded to Coalston on the death of his mother, having died also without issue male, the estate has passed to his eldest daughter. ANCIENT CEREMONY IN PORTUGAL. J. M. "The antique custom of breaking the shields, -a rite which has descended from the age of chivalry, has been celebrated with due pomp and solemnity. This ancient ceremonial takes place whenever a king of Portugal dies.” Guardian, Dec. 4, 1861. I had made a note of this at the time, intending to ask for an explanation; but finding the following passage in Sandford's Genealogical History of the Kings of Portugal, I extract it, in the hope that it may be interesting to some of the readers of " N. & Q.": "And here I cannot omit to inform of the ceremony used by the Portuguese in bewailing their dead kings, and performed by them upon the news of the death of this king Sebastian. First there parted from the magistrate's house a citizen on horseback, covered himself and his borse, all in black, with a great ensign in his hand, likewise of black, bearing it on his shoulder, that it might trail on the ground; after him followed three old men on foot in mourning weeds, with three scutcheons in their hands like shields or targets, bearing them high upon their heads without any figure upon them, but all black; then followed some citizens of the same magistrates and other inferiors in great numbers. All these went through the principal streets of Lisbon, and coming to the steps of the Cathedral Church, which is near unto the place from whence they parted, those which hold the scutcheons mount up certain degrees, and one of them, lifting up his shield, cries with a loud voice, People of Lisbon, lament your King Sebastian, who is dead.' Then all the people weep and cry. Having ended his words, he breaks his scutcheon as a vain thing, striking it on the place where he stands. Then proceed they on, and being come to the new street, ascending the stairs of the little church of our Lady of Olivera, another of them which carried the scutcheons pronounceth the same words the former had done, and breaks his shield in the same manner. The like is done by the third upon the stairs of the hospital. So as all the three scutcheons being broken in those places, they all return home, and thus is the ceremony ended."-P. 79. E. H. A. THE ANGLO-SAXONS AND ASIATIC TOPOGRAPHY. There is a curious reference to the tumuli of the Troas in the poem of Elene which is worth notice. When the Empress finds herself baffled by the affected ignorance of Judas, upon the subject of the place of deposit of the true cross, she proceeds to cross-examine by requiring him to I reconcile this want of knowledge of an historical fact of his own country, of no very remote date, with his own and his countrymen's perfect knowledge of the details of the Trojan war; e. g. the number of the slain, of their barrows, &c.: "Hû is þæt geworden on bisse werbeode, Durh gefeoht fremedon, þæt was fær micel, Dare placendra deadra gefeallen Under bordhagan, ge þa byrgenna Under stanhleo bum, and pa stowe swa some [Vv. 642-653. Grimm's edition. H. C. C. THE IMPERIAL COLOUR OF CHINA.-In China, the descendants of the Confucian family are permitted to wear dresses of the imperial colour. They may, or may not, have a pedigree substantiated by vouchers, extending over a period of about twenty-four centuries, and including perhaps seventy or eighty generations, yet, from the known jealousy of the imperial government, and the respect paid to learning, such a privilege could not have been transmitted through spurious races, unless we fall back on the supposition that the origin of the privilege has been lost that the reputed Confucians are not from one parent stock, and even to hazard an hypothesis that the imperial colour was derived from the local taste of the original inhabitants of Shantung, and remained peculiar to the occupant of the throne, and to those only from whom the imperial mind first took the idea*, the priesthood of course excepted. China is essentially an agricultural country. The emperor seems to declare that, with him, "the empire is peace," when, annually, he handles the plough. May not, therefore, the imperial yellow signify the golden crops and brightness of sunshine sustaining animal and vegetable life, while the wavy skirts indicate the coast of the empire, thus fully and vividly, as it were, impersonated? Warlike races have taken their imperial colour from blood. Black and white, as the types of darkness and spirituality (?) or impassiveness, have been selected for mourning; while, in some countries, blue has been chosen; but whether from any connection with the origin of the dye, or merely from economical or other motives, we know not. Accident and caprice often originate in the simplest manner customs which posterity puzzles itself with complicated hypotheses to explain. Queries. SP. DID THE FIRST DANISH INVADERS COME DIRECTLY FROM DENMARK. Thierry (Norman Conquest, Book II.) says, "In three days, with an east wind, the fleets of Denmark and Norway, two-sailed vessels, reached the south of Britain anno 787 ;" and Lappenberg (vol. i. p. 273) says the first landing took place on the coast of Dorsetshire from three ships. If they started from the most southerly point of Denmark, and landed in Portland Bay in lat. 50° 35', the point of the coast nearest Dorchester- the city where the reeve Beaduheard lived, who went to question them they must have had at least 680 miles to sail. Now if we go even further south, and take Hamburgh in lat. 53° 24′ as the point of rendezvous, we shall find that, with an east wind, they would have to make a port 2° 49′ south of the one from which they start; and sail for seventy-two hours at a rate of nine and a half miles per hour. But their sailing night and day *It is a curious fact that the borders of the emperor's yellow dresses are embroidered to represent the waves of the sea, while on the upper parts are flowers, animals, sceptre, it may be further remarked, is much in form and dragons (supposed to be fabulous). The imperial like the common hoe in use amongst the field labourers of China. |