Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/250

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io' s. i. MARCH 12, 1904.

Olivebank, and there he died on 30 July, 1773 (Scots Magazine). The site of the mansion is now occupied by a railway station. Carlyle mentions having met Hamilton, who, in the course of conversa- tion, defended Cheap against some passages in Byron's 'Narrative,' which, he said, was in many things false or exaggerated (' Auto- biography,' p. 193). W. S.

CLEMENT SMYTH.

MR. A. E. BAYLEY'S useful list of early members of Oriel College, Oxford, at 9 th S. xi. 283, includes a Clement Smyth who became M.A. in 1453. This graduate was not impro- bably identical with the Winchester scholar elected or admitted in 18 Hen. VI., who is mentioned in the College Eegister thus :

"Clemens Smyth de Suthwerk in com. Surr. re. [i.e., recessit] ad Collegium Oxon [i.e., New College] anno domini mccccxliiij. [Marginal note :] Inform. Wynton. 12 [i.e., 12th Head Master]."

After the usual two years of probation he was Fellow of New College, 1446-53 (Boase, 'Oxf. Univ. Eegister,' p. 19); recessit 1453, transferens se ad obsequium (New College Eecords). He was head master at Eton from about 1453 to 1457 or 1458, when he became a Fellow there (Maxwell Lyte's 'Eton College,' p. 66 ; Cust's ' Eton College,' pp. 20, 51). He held the head-mastership at Winchester for about two years, 1462-4* (Kirby's 'Win- chester Scholars,' pp. 60, 76), and then was head master of Eton again until about 1469 (Maxwell Lyte and Cust, loc. cit.). He was canon and prebendary at Windsor 1467-9, as the dates are given in Le Neve's ' Fasti,' by Hardy, iii. 388 ; but it appears from the 1 Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1467-77,' p. 236, that in February, 1470/1, he exchanged benefices with John Crecy, canon and pre- bendary of St. John in the Collegiate Church of St. Mary, Warwick. See also Dugdale's

Warwickshire.' i. 437, edition 1730. He probably died before 22 February, 1502 (? 1502/3), when William Clerk was admitted to the Warwick prebend, vacant through the last incumbent's death (Dugdale).

My reason for thinking that the Oxford graduate was the Wykehamist is that in March, 1453/4, the graduate received a dis- pensation, Mr. Chyld being allowed to read for him (Boase, P- 19), and this Chyld was probably William Chyld, Fellow of New


 * P er . h ap8 these dates should be 1466-7. See

\ictona History of Hants,' ii. 366 ; and Christopher

WHW^T ? Clem SmithiiB' in Richard

gth e " 3g k of P ern8 > whlch was referred to at

College, M.A. January, 1452/3 (Boase, p. 19 ; Kirby, p. 58). In Leach's ' Winchester College,' p. 200,* the scholar and subsequent head master at Winchester is identified with a Clement Smyth who was master of the scholars at Higham Ferrers College, Northants, in December, 1443 ; but the dates render it scarcely possible that the Higham Ferrers master was identical with the Win- chester scholar. According to Bridges and Whalley's ' Northamptonshire,' i. 213, ii. 44, a " Mag. Clem. Smy tn, A.M., Presbyter," was instituted rector of Wapenham on 16 May, 1453, and vacated the living in or before 1467 ; and a person of the same names and degree was instituted rector of Lodington on 20 May, 1486, and vacated the living in 1489. On the question whether this person was identical with the Higham Ferrers master or with the Eton and Winchester master, I should prefer not to hazard any guess. Can MR. BAYLEY, or any other reader,, throw light on that question, or give informa- tion as to the career of the Clement Smyth who is said (Boase, 19) to have been Fellow of Oriel College in 1446 ? H. C.

TASSO AND MILTON.

EEADING through a translation of part of Tasso's ' La Gerusalemme Liberata ' by my brother-in-law, Mr. C. W. Neville Eolfe, I find attached to it a comparison of some of the stanzas of the fourth canto with some passages in 'Paradise Lost' which may possibly interest readers of ' N. & Q.' :

"It would at once occur to any reader of the fourth canto of Tasso that in the description of the Council of Demons some parallels might be found in ' Paradise Lost.' Without in the least suggesting plagiarism in such a master as Milton, it is not saying too much to conclude that such a student of Italian as he was had at least read Tasso, and per- haps unconsciously here and there borrowed from him an idea. However that may be, these com- parisons are always interesting, and each may judge for himself whether such likeness as exists sprang from the treatment of the subject by two master minds arguing from similar premisses, or whether it was due to one borrowing the idea from the other.

" I think few would deny that Milton's Satan i an archfiend more subtle and more finely conceived than the Pluto of Tasso. In common with Dante, Tasso portrayed the Author of Evil after the mediaeval model of his day, and painted him in colours so revolting that every trace of his pre- vious condition is lost."

18 December, 1443," read "Stafford's Register (11, 6b) on 15 December, 1443," a correction which, will appear in Mr. Leach's account of Higham Ferrers College in a forthcoming volume of thV 'Victoria History of Northamptonshire;'
 * Where for "Chicheley's Register (11, 6) on