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afford-if their war should be successful, they may recover a part of their expenditure; if they are a mercantile people, they may re-establish another coinage by the profits of commerce, and must wait for its operations, which, though slow, are certain; for commerce must inevitably obtain bullion,and consequently coins; and these will be retained by the peop, if famine or war does not make w draught. The balance of trade It always be in favour of a trading people, because they import inore than they export; for goods will not be sent if they cannot pay for them, and they cannot pay for them, unless they have obtained money by former exports. A LOMBARD.

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Mr. URBAN,

Jan, 3. AVING been for some years

H greatly addicted to the perusal

of our antient English Authors (as well those who disperse their thoughts in lofty rhime as in humble prose) I have acquired a partiality for antiquated words and phrases; and perhaps (as a direct consequence), some degree of astonishment that other Readers either do not understand, or do not relish the use of them as I do-and I was particularly struck on finding, by a late perusal of the Utopia (edited by the learned and agreeable bibliomaniac Dibdin), that even this deep-read Antiquary has been sometimes thrown out in his conjeclures; and that, in places where I thought there was little difficulty either in the passages themselves, or in supporting and illustrating them by examples of frequent use amongst contemporary authors; not that I have in every case of doubt been able to find a corresponding or even synonimous word, or have at all times discovered the precise meaning of the word or phrase made use of. But I have been surprized, as well with respect to some of the words observed upon by Mr. Dibdin, as by others, that the frequent usage of the same word has not familiarized it to them.

To begin with the second volume of Mr. Dibdin, p. 5. In his note upon the word "jeopardous", used by Sir Thomas More as an adjective, he says, that such use of it is of rare occurrence among our old Authors. Now, I not only find the same adjective admitted into Bailey's and Ash's Dic

tionaries, and used in other places by Sir Thomas More (vide his General Works, p. 1403.) but I find the same adjective jeopardous, as likewise the adjective jeopardless, and the verb jeopard in the following places (and in many others infinitely too numerous to be set down), vide Erasmus's Paraphrase on the Testament, 1 Corinthians 18, 21, and 22 (reverse of each page). The Bishop's and Cranmer's Bibles are quite full of those words; but see only 5 Judges, v. 18. 3 Daniel, v. 28. 13 John, v. 37 and 38. 15 Acts, v. 26, and 27 Acts, v. 9.

The Ship of Fools (by Cawood), p. 15, 16, has" within his mouth is venim jeopardous and "vile,” and in the same trranslation the verb jeoparde frequently occurs. "For her be jeoperdeth his life,' is in Mun-. day's Banquet of Dainty Conceites (9 Harl. Misc. 244.) "The waye of Honestie is uneasie, painfull jeoper-. douse," &c. is in Taverner's Adagies of Erasmus (1569.) "Jeoparte his person for to slee the Kynge" is in Lydgate's Bochas (1558), p. 43.

Page 6. Here I agree that the word "translating" is now rarely used in the sense of removing or taking away (the translating of a Bishop from one See to another excepted), but I must refer your Readers to Bailey and Ash; and to the following passages, "The portion of my people is translated;" vide Bishop's Bible, Micheas 2. v. 4. "Because of unryghteous dealing a reaime shall be translated," &c. Ditto 10. Son of Sirach, 8. "The bones of our father shoulde be translated out of their places." Do. 2 Baruch 24. "He translateth the mountains or ever they be ware," Do. 9 Job. 5. And "Covetousnesse will translate the hearts of men to infidelitie," is in Fenton's Christian Policy, 1574.

Page 11. The word Pullein or Pullen will be found in the Life of Esope, B.L. "He bought capons and many other pullen." Vide also Bailey aud Ash.

Page 16. The word "skills" was in more common use than Mr. Dibdin supposes. “Jesus did make plain the things which he spoken for two skills," &c. Vide Erasmus's Paraphrase, 10 John, v. 71, 72. "It is little force to thee-it skills thee nothing." Vide Fisher on the seven peuitential Psalmes (1555), sheet N. 4.

1.820.]

Antient Words-Utility of Evening Lectures.

"It skills not whether you din'd or no." Gull's Hornbook, by Decker. "It skills not if the four knaves lie on their backs." Gull's Hornbook. "It skills not greatly who impugns our doom." Shakspeare's Henry VI. Part II.

The word "Knowledge" is used as a verb-active in the same sense as acknowledge in many of the early translations of the Bible, viz. Coverdale's, Cranmer's, the Bishop's, Taverner's, and Matthew's, and even by Wicliff in his Testament (1380). It was in such common use in early days that the accession of the syllable "ac" seems almost unnecessary. It is in Coverdale's Translation of Erasmus, in Musculus's Common Places, in Bishop Fisher's Sermons, in Becon's Sermons, in Marbeck's Notes, and in the Golden Legend.

Page 39. I think that both John son and Bailey give us the illustration of the word swing as here used—“The power of money is no other than the unrestrained tendency of it," &c. Vide Johnson's fifth illustration.

Page 46. I do not think that the mode of expression-he dotes for age -very uncommon. The word for, in the sense of because, is explained by Mr. Dibdin himself in the preceding page; and Addison is quoted both by Johnson and Bailey in the first example, "An old woman begins to dote," &c.

Page 66. Johnson is certainly mistaken when he asserts that wain is a contraction of waggon. Both the words are genuine Saxon, and I should contend that wain is the older, and is still a prevailing provincial word. What is more antient in English astronomy than Charles's wain? "He maketh the waynes of Heaven." 9 Job 9. Bishop's Bible. See also Magna Charta, Hen. 3. Article 15. Blackstone's edition," Villanus eodem modo amercietur salvo waynnagio suo si inciderit in misericordiam nostram ;" thus translated by Rastell, &c. any others villain than ours, shall be likewise amerced, saving his wainage, if he fall into our mercy."

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Page 141. Recklessness is Saxon for carelessness and not for rashness. Vide the Articles of the Church. See also Ash and Bailey, and ag hundred Divines.

Page 167. Wiped, in the sense here put, is not an expression peculiar to

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master Raphe Robinson. You will find it both in Ash and Johnson, rendered-to cheat, to defraud, and it is so used in the second volume of Erasmus's Paraphrase. St. James, fol. 26.

"If Fortune blow backwarde, he shall ether bee wyped be sydes all his goods, and be banished to goe on begging," &c. Bailey quotes it (in the same sense) from Spenser.

Page 169. The usage of the verb "to crack," (to boast or vapour) is by no means peculiar to Robinson. Every Divine, from Latimer and Hooper to Beveridge and Tillotson, uses it in the same sense. In the controversy between Bishop Jewell and Harding, it is many times repeated. Sir Thomas More uses it in other parts of his works; and Shakspeare, more than once or twice, "What cracker is this same that deafs our ears," King John. See also the Bishop's Bible, 51 Jer. 55, “and made great crakes with your words." Yours, &c.

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OBSERVATOR.

(To be continued.)

Mr. URBAN,

Jan. 4.

N your last Volume, Part II. p.493,

there is a Letter on the utility of Evening Lectures, signed "A Member of the Church of England." I have, for a great length of time, felt deeply interested in the vast importance of the more general adoption of this measure; and cannot but deplore in common with many others, the consequences that have resulted from the long-acknowledged want of it; being confident that the numbers who dissent from the Church, whether upon the plea of doctrine or discipline (but more particularly the latter), have been greatly increased by this deficiency in the service of the Established Church. Your Correspond. ent has related the gratifying effects of an Evening Lecture, in a place which he has lately visited. With your leave I will take another course, and briefly observe upon the state of the city wherein I live, and where, I am sorry to say, there is no such practice. With fourteen parish churches, and two chapels for Dissenters, the place is tolerably well supplied with accommodations for the population, which is about 12,000 persons. At nearly all the churches the morning service is regularly read,

and

and a sermon preached every Sunday. At ten of them the evening service is read between the hours of two and four o'clock in the afternoon, mostly without the addition of a sermon; and only at two churches are there Lectures, which are preached at four o'clock in the afternoon; and though well attended, would, I have no doubt, attract a much greater congregation, if the service began at six or half-past six o'clock. At both the Dissenting Chapels (which toge gether are capable of containing 2000 persons), there is worship in the morning, afternoon, and evening; and though one of the Chapels has been rebuilt lately, and the other considerably enlarged, they are in the evening crowded exceedingly.

The inhabitants of several of the parishes, have endeavoured, without success, to obtain the establishment of an Evening Lecture in their Churches; many of the objections mentioned by your Correspondent have been urged," the expense of lighting," ""the danger of imitating the Methodists," and "the possibility of affording greater facilities to youth in forming improper connexions," with other equally frivolous and unimportant objections, have in most cases silenced the application. The result is, that many hundreds of young persons in this place are left to idle away the precious hours of the Lord's Day in loitering to and fro in the streets, or employing their time in a manner infinitely more dangerous to their morals.

If, Mr. Urban, this was the state of one place only, there would be much to regret; but when we know the same may be said of almost every village, and by far too many towns in the kingdom, when the sublime service which our ancestors in their wis dom designed for the evening, is read so early in the afternoon, as to be almost a continuation of the morning service; when these things, I say, are almost general, some new regulation does indeed seem to be necessary. In answer to one objection alleged by your Correspondent, “that the Service of the day is sufficiently fatiguing, without additional or superfluous duty," I would ask, why not read the Evening Service in the evening, instead of the afternoon And then, with the addition of a sermon,

you have all that constitutes what is commonly called an Evening Lecture. If any pious Clergyman (and of such, I trust, our venerable Establishment can boast, and proudly boast, of many) would make trial of this alteration, an extended audience would soon satisfy him that he had conferred a real blessing on his flock; and a perse verance in so excellent a practice would ensure to his Church a still increasing, rather than a diminishing congregation.

Should your Correspondent be inclined to favour us with some further remarks, I hope he will convey them in a spirit that will better beseem "A Member of the Church of England ;” and that he will not again apply to the teachers of those who differ from us, the epithet of "Religious Mountebanks." Such language as this is neither becoming in a Churchman nor a Christian, and more especially when indiscriminately applied to a class of men, amongst whom, he can. not deny, are to be found many eminent for their piety and virtue.

A LAYMAN, AND A MEMBER OF
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

Mr. URBAN, Somers' Town, Jun. 9.
N your last Volume, Part ii. p. 488,

J. G. refers to the account of the late Queen's journey from Harwich to London, on her Majesty's first landing in this country, as given by Dr. Watkins. Some of the circumstances of this journey are yet fresh in my memory. I was at that period at Tolleshunt Darcey, within a few miles of Colchester; and with other boys strongly invited by our friends to see the fine sight of a new Queen passing through that town. Doubtless, the route of the Princess, with all the particulars, is to be found in your pages; but the reason of her being taken to spend the night at Witham, in the house of Lord Abercorn, although unprepared, and as I recollect, in the absence of his Lordship, was obviously the more equal' division of the journey, which would indeed have been considerably broken by another stage as far as Chelmsford. The Princess's first stage was to Colchester, where she took some refreshment at the house of Mr. Enneu, the then town clerk, and where Mr. Great, the grocer, a descendant of either a bigh or low Dutch family of

the

1820.]

Tolleshunt Knights.

the name of Von Grot, long settled in Colchester, had the honour of present ing her Highness, on his knees, with a box of candied Eringoe roots, one of the staple articles of that antient town. To proceed with my gossip, Mr. Urban, the late respectable Dr. Clubbe of Ipswich, son of the Rev. Mr. Clubbe, author of the " Antiquities of Wheatfield," in turning over the pages of which, you and I have had a laugh in days long past, served his apprenticeship to the brother of this Mr. Great, who was an apothecary. Much about the time of which I speak, Mrs. Enneu sustained a loss of that kind, very ill relished by those who are fond of good eating-she had all her turkies stolen, and that, as was guessed, by no ordinary professional thief.

I have mentioned Tolleshunt Darcey in the adjoining parish church, Tolleshunt Knights, about the year 1701, I saw, as I recollect, in the North wall, a very antient monument of soft stone. Upon this tomb reclined at length a knight armed cap-a-pie, with two figures at his feet, traditionally said to be his two spaid bitches. As the story went, this knight aided by his two spaid bitches, waged a furious combat with his holiness the Devil, on a certain dispute as to the future site of a house called Barn Hall; the Devil insisting that it should not stand where the building was commenced, and in consequence, pulling all down by night which had been reared by day. Though the knight fought bravely, he does not appear to have been equally tam Mercurio quam Marti; for, making an unpardonable blunder in certain responses, which, by the laws of the combat, he was necessitated to make, the subtle Devil vanquished, and declared he would have him, whether he were buried by sea or by land, in church or churchyard; and so, in order to outwit the Devil, he was buried in the church wall. Now, as I have not been at Tolleshunt Knights from that time to the present, I wish much to know whether the knight lies snug and safe in the church wall still.

Seriously, I should be glad to be informed by any of your Correspondents in that part of Essex, whether this antient monument, which was in tolerable good preservation, although

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without the slightest vestige of in-
'scription, in 1761, be still in being, or
whether it has undergone the usual
fate of such in our country churches ?
Yours, &c.
JOHN LAWRENCE.

Ancient Anecdotes, &c. from VALERIUS MAXIMUS, by Dr. CAREY, West Square. (Continued from vol. LXXXIX. ii. p. 509.)

Ta time when Valerius wrote

of

(the early part of the first century of the Christian æra), so cautious were the citizens of Marseilles to guard against hostile surprises, that no stranger, who approached their city with a sword or other weapon, was permitted to enter the gates, until he had delivered it into the hands of cer tain officers stationed there for that purpose, who kept it in their custody during his stay, and returned it to him at his departure.-Lib. 2, 6, 9.

The ancient Gauls, under a firm belief of the immortality of the soul, often lent sums of money, which were not to be repaid, until the leaders and the borrowers met in the other world.—Lib. 2, 6, 10.

In one of the Thracian tribes, the birth of a child was a subject of lamentation; and a funeral was attended with cheerful rejoicing.— Lib. 2, 6, 12.

It was a custom among the Lycians, that, during the period of mourning for a deceased relative, the men should wear the feminine dress, in order that the shame of appearing in that unmanly garb might the sooner induce them to lay it aside, and, together with it, their unavailing regret.Lib. 2, 6, 13.

In the year 501 (U. C.*) the Consul C. Cotta, having occasion to absent himself from his army while engaged in a siege, appointed an officer, a near relative of his own, as temporary commander in his stead. During his absence, the besieged made

*(U. C.)-Although, to the Classical Reader, this needs no explanation, it may be proper to apprise the English Reader, that the numbers accompanying the (U.C.) are the dates of the years from the foundation of Rome, which I shall, henceforward, thus briefly mark, in particular cases, where the dates may be of importance in estimating the manners and customs of different ages.

a fu rious

a furious sortie, set fire to the besiegers' works, and nearly succeeded in storming their camp. In resentment of which disgrace, the Consul, on his return to the army, ordered his unfortunate vicegerent to be severely scourged; degraded him from his rank, and condemned him to serve on foot as a common soldier.-Lib. 2, 7, 4.

The Dictator Postumius Tubertus (U. C. 322) punished his own són for having, without orders, quitted his post, to engage the enemy. Although the valiant youth returned victorious from the combat, the father ordered him to be beheaded: [and, if I be not very much mistaken, the punishment of decapitation, in the Roman army, was always preceded by a severe application of the rods.]-Lib. 2, 7, 6.

The Consul Manlius (413 U. C.) exercised similar severity against his own son, who, being personally challenged by the commander of a hostile party, had privately gone forth to encounter his challenger, had gallantly defeated and slain him, and returned laden with his spoils.-Lib.2,7,6. While the Consul Calpurnius Piso was carrying on the war against the fugitive slaves in Sicily (U. Č. 620), a body of Roman cavalry, under the command of C. Titius, suffered themselves to be surrounded and ignominiously disarmed by a party of the enemy. As a punishment for their disgraceful and un-Roman submission, the Consul condemned Titius to stand at head quarters from mora till night, bare-footed, with his vest ungirt, and his gown curtailed and this penance was continued during his whole remaining term of service; with the additional aggravation of an exclusion from all society, and a prohibition to enjoy the comfort of bathing, which, by a Roman, was deemed almost as necessary as his food. Nor did the Consul confine bis severity to the unfortunate commander of the troop: he further punished the whole corps, by dismounting them, and transferring them to the companies of slingers, the least respectable portion of a Roman army.-Lib. 2, 7, 9.

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know" the best mode of producing germination in exotic seeds," that in the year 1793, M. Humbolt discovered that metallic oxydes favour it in proportion to their degree of oxydation. This fact induced him to search for a substance with which oxygen might be so weakly combined as to be easily separated, and he made choice of oxygenated muriatic, gas mixed with water. The seeds of cresses soaked in this gas showed germs at the end of six hours; but not in common water till the end of thirty-two hours. The action of the first fluid on the vegetable fibres is quickly announced by a great number of air-bubbles, which cover the seeds, a phenomenon not exhibited by water till at the end of from thirty to forty-five minutes.

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In 1796, he resumed the subject in new series of experiments, and found that, by joining the stimulus of caloric to that of oxygen, he was enabled still more to accelerate the progress of vegetation. He took the seeds of garden-cresses, peas, Frenchbeans, lettuce, and mignionette, équal quantities of which he put into pure water, and the gas at the temperature of 88 Fahrenheit; the cresses exhibited germs in three hours in the gas, but not in water till the end of twenty-six hours. These experiments have since been repeated by several distinguished philosophers. Professor Pohl at Dresden, caused to germinate in oxygenated muriatic acid, the seed of a new kind of Euphorbia, taken from a collection of dried plants, 120 years old. Jacquin and Vander Schott, at Vienna, threw into this acid all the old seeds which had been kept 20 or 30 years at the Botanic Garden, every previous attempt to produce vegetation in which had been fruitless, and their latent germinating powers were for the most part stimulated with success ; even the hardest seeds yielded to the agency of this acid. Among others which germinated were the yellow bonduc, or nickar-tree (guilandina bonduc), the pigeon cytisus (cytisus cajan), the dodonœa angustifolia, the climbing mimosa (mimosa scandens), and some new kinds of the homea. See Encyclopædia Londinensis, article Germination. E. BIRCH.

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