Notes
ENGLISH AND NORMAN SONGS OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
In a vellum book, known as The Red Book of Ossory, and preserved in the archives of that see, is contained a collection of Latin religious poetry, written in a good bold hand of the 14th century; prefixed to several of the hymns, in a contemporary and identical hand, are sometimes one sometimes more lines of a song in old English or Norman French, which as they occur I here give:
"Alas hou shold y syng, yloren is my playnge
Hou sholdy wiz zat olde man}
} swettist of al zinge."
To leven and let my leman }
"Harrow ieo su thy: p fol amor de mal amy."
"Have mrcie on me frere: Barfote zat ygo."
"Do Do. nightyngale syng ful myrie
Shal y nevre for zyn love lengre karie."
"Have God day me lemon," &c.
"Gaveth me no garlond of greene,
Bot hit ben of Wythones yuroght."
"Do Do nyztyngale syng wel miry
Shal y nevre for zyn love lengre kary."
"Hew alas p amor
Oy moy myst en tant dolour."
"Hey how ze chevaldoures woke al nyght."
It is quite evident that these lines were thus prefixed (as is still the custom), to indicate the air to which the Latin hymns were to be sung. This is also set forth in a memorandum at the commencement, which states that these songs, Cantilene, were composed by the Bishop of Ossory for the vicars of his cathedral church, and for his priests and clerks,
"ne guttura eorum et ora deo sanctificata polluantur cantilenis teatralibus turpibus et secularibus: et cum sint cantatores, provideant sibi notis convenientibus, secundum quod dictamina requirunt."—Lib. Rub. Ossor. fol. 70.
We may, I think, safely conclude that the lines above given were the commencement of the cantilene teatrales turpes et seculares, which the good bishop wished to deprive his clergy of all excuse for singing, by providing them with pious hymns to the same airs; thinking, I suppose, like John Wesley in after years, it was a pity the devil should monopolise all the good tunes. I shall merely add that the author of the Latin poetry seems to have been Richard de Ledrede, who filled the see of Ossory from 1318 to 1360, and was rendered famous by his proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteller for heresy and witchcraft. (See a contemporary account of the "proceedings" published by the Camden Society in 1843; a most valuable contribution to Irish history, and well deserving of still more editorial labour than has been bestowed on it.) I have copied the old English and Norman-French word for word, preserving the contractions wherever they occurred.
I shall conclude this "note" by proposing two "Queries:" to such of your contributors as are learned in old English and French song-lore, viz.,
1. Are the entire songs, of which the above lines form the commencements, known or recoverable?
2. If so, is the music to which they were sung handed down?
I shall feel much obliged by answers to both or either of the above Queries, and
"Bis dat, qui cito dat."
James Graves.
Kilkenny, Nov. 1. 1850.
MISPLACED WORDS IN SHAKSPEARE'S TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
In that immaculate volume, the first folio edition of Shakspeare, of which Mr. Knight says: "Perhaps, all things considered, there never was a book so correctly printed"! a passage in Troilus and Cressida, Act. v. Sc. 3., where Cassandra and Andromache are attempting to dissuade Hector from going to battle, is thus given:
"And. O be perswaded: doe not count it holy,
To hurt by being iust; it is lawful:
For we would count giue much to as violent thefts,
And rob in the behalfe of charitie."
Deviating from his usual practice, Mr. Knight makes an omission and a transposition, and reads thus:
"Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just: it is as lawful,
For we would give much, to count violent thefts,
And rob in the behalf of charity."
with the following note; the ordinary reading is
"'For we would give much to use violent thefts.'"
To use thefts is clearly not Shakspearian. Perhaps count or give might be omitted, supposing that one word had been substituted for another in the manuscript, without the erasure of the first written; but this omission will not give us a meaning. We have ventured to transpose count and omit as:
"For we would give much, to count violent thefts."
We have now a clear meaning: it is as lawful because we desire to give much, to count violent thefts as holy, "and rob in the behalf of charity."
Mr. Collier also lays aside his aversion to vary from the old copy, and makes a bold innovation: he reads,—
"Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just: it is as lawful,
For us to give much count to violent thefts,
And rob in the behalf of charity."
Thus giving his reasons: "This line [the third] is so corrupt in the folio 1623, as to afford no sense. The words and their arrangement are the same in the second and third folio, while the fourth only alters would to will." Tyrwhitt read:
"For we would give much to use violent thefts,"
which is objectionable, not merely because it wanders from the text, but because it inserts a phrase, "to use violent thefts," which is awkward and unlike Shakspeare. The reading I have adopted is that suggested by Mr. Amyot, who observes upon it: "Here, I think, with little more than transposition (us being, substituted for we, and would omitted), the meaning, as far as we can collect it, is not departed from nor perverted, as in Rowe's strange interpolation:
"For us to count we give what's gain'd by thefts."
The original is one of the few passages which, as it seems to me, must be left to the reader's sagacity, and of the difficulties attending which we cannot arrive at any satisfactory solution."
Mr. Collier's better judgment has here given way to his deference for the opinion of his worthy friend; the deviation from the old copy being quite as violent as any that he has ever quarrelled with in others.
Bearing in mind Mr. Hickson's valuable canon (which should be the guide of future editors), let us see what is the state of the case. The line is a nonsensical jumble, and has probably been printed from an interlineation in the manuscript copy, two words being evidently transposed, and one of them, at the same time, glaringly mistaken. The poet would never have repeated the word count, which occurs in the first line, in the sense given to it either by Mr. Collier or by Mr. Knight.
Preserving every word in the old copy, I read the passage thus:—
"O! be persuaded. Do not count it holy
To hurt by being just: it is as lawful as
(For we would give much) to commit violent thefts
And rob in the behalf of charity."
"To count violent thefts" here would be sheer nonsense; and when we recollect how easy it is to mistake comit for count, the former word being almost always thus written and often thus printed, we must, I think, be convinced that in copying an interlineated MS., the printer misplaced and misprinted that word, and transposed as, if the repetition of it be not also an error.—"For," commencing the parenthesis, "we would give much" stands for cause. The emphasis should, I think, be laid on for; and commit be accented on the first syllable. Thus the line, though of twelve syllables, is not unmetrical; indeed much less prosaic than with the old reading of count.
This correction, upon the principle which governs Messrs. Collier and Knight, and which indeed should govern all of us,
"To lose no drop of that immortal man,"
ought to be satisfactory; for it is effected without taking away a letter. The transposition of two evidently misplaced words, and the correction of a letter or two palpably misprinted in one of them, is the whole gentle violence that has been used in a passage which has been, as we see, considered desperate. But, as Pope sings:
"Our sacred Shakspeare,—comprehensive mind!
Who for all ages writ, and all mankind,
Has been to careless printers oft a prey,
Nor time, nor moth e'er spoil'd as much as they;
Let the right reading drive the cloud away,
And sense breaks on us with resistless day."
Periergus Bibliophilus.
October, 1850.
MASTER JOHN SHORNE
If proof were wanted how little is now known of those saints whose names were once in everybody's mouth, although they never figured in any calendar, it might be found in the fact that my friend, Mr. Payne Collier, whose intimate knowledge of the phrases and allusions scattered through our early writers is so well known and admitted, should, in his valuable Extracts from the Registers of the Stationers' Company (1557-1570), have illustrated this entry,—
"1569-70. Rd. of Thomas Colwell, for his lycense for the pryntinge of a ballett intituled 'Newes to Northumberlande yt skylles not where, to Syr John Shorne, a churche rebell there' … iiijd."
by a note, from which the following is an extract:—
"Sir John Shorne no doubt is to be taken as a generic name for a shaven Roman Catholic priest."
Reasonable, however, as is Mr. Collier's conjecture, it is not borne out by the facts of the case. The name Sir John Shorne is not a generic name, but the name of a personage frequently alluded to, but whose history is involved in considerable obscurity. Perhaps the following notes may be the means, by drawing forth others, of throwing some light upon it. In Michael Wodde's Dialogue, quoted by Brand, we read—
"If we were sycke of the pestylence we ran to Sainte Rooke; if of the ague, to Sainte Pernel or Master John Shorne."
Latimer, in his Second Sermon preached in Lincolnshire, p. 475. (Parker Society ed.), says,—
"But ye shall not think that I will speak of the popish pilgrimages, which we were wont to use in times past, in running hither and thither to Mr. John Shorn or to our Lady of Walsingham."
On which the editor, the Rev. G. E. Corrie, remarks that he was—
"A saint whose head quarters were probably in the parish of Shorn and Merston near Gravesend, but who seems to have had shrines in other parts of the country. He was chiefly popular with persons who suffered from ague."
Mr. Corrie then gives an extract from p. 218. of the Letters relating to the Suppression of Monasteries, edited by Mr. Wright for the Camden Society; but we quote from the original, Mr. Corrie having omitted the words given in our extract in Italics:—
"At Merston, Mr. Johan Schorn stondith blessing a bote, whereunto they do say he conveyd the devill. He ys moch sowzt for the agou. If it be your lordeschips pleasur, I schall sett that botyd ymage in a nother place, and so do wyth other in other parties wher lyke seeking ys."
In that extraordinary poem The Fantassie of Idolatrie, printed by Fox in his edition of 1563, but not afterwards reprinted until it appeared in Seeley's edition (vol. v. p. 406.), we read—
"To Maister John Shorne
That blessed man borne;
For the ague to him we apply,
Whiche jugeleth with a bote
I beschrewe his herte rote
That will truste him, and it be I."
The editor, Mr. Cattley, having explained bote "a recompense or fee," Dr. Maitland, in his Remarks on Rev. S. R. Cattley's Defence of his Edition of Fox's Martyrology, p. 46., after making a reference to Nares, and quoting his explanation, proceeds:
"The going on pilgrimage to St. John Shorne is incidentally mentioned at pages 232. and 580. of the FOURTH volume of Fox, but in a way which throws no light on the subject. The verse which I have quoted seems as if there was some relic which was supposed to cure the ague, and by which the juggle was carried on. Now another passage in this same fifth volume, p. 468., leads me to believe that this relic really was, and therefore the word 'bote' simply means, a boot. In this passage we learn, that one of the causes of Robert Testwood's troyble was his ridiculing the relics which were to be distributed to be borne by various persons in a procession upon a relic Sunday. St. George's dagger having been given to one Master Hake, Testwood said to Dr. Clifton,—'Sir, Master Hake hath St. George's dagger. Now if he had his horse, and St. Martin's cloak, and Master John Shorne's boots, with King Harry's spurs and his hat, he might ride when he list.'"
That there is some legend connected with Master John Shorne and "his bote, whereunto they do say he conveyd the devill," is evident from a fact we learn from the Proceedings of the Archæological Institute, namely, that at the meeting on the 5th Nov. 1847, the Rev. James Bulwer, of Aylsham, Norfolk, sent a series of drawings exhibiting the curious painted decorations of the rood screen in Cawston Church, Norfolk, amongst which appears the singular saintly personage bearing a boot, from which issues a demon. An inscription beneath the figures gives the name "Magister Johannes Schorn." It is much to be regretted that fuller details of this painting have not been preserved in the Journal of the Institute.
The earliest mention of Master John Schorne is in the indenture for roofing St. George's Chapel at Windsor, dated 5th June, 21 Henry VII. (1506), printed in the Reliquiæ Antiquæ, vol. ii. p. 115., where it is covenanted
"That the creastes, corses, beastes, above on the outsides of Maister John Shorne's Chappell, bee done and wrought according to the other creastes, and comprised within the said bargayne."
William J. Thoms.