Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/45

 io* s. i. JAN-. 9, 1904.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

sibly the epitaph belongs to that time. But Gregorovius (' Rome in the Middle Ages,' ii. 99 note, Eng. trans.) says : "A good inscrip- tion was later placed in his honour. This was composed by Petrus Oldradus, Arch- bishop of Milan and Secretary of Adrian I." Adrian was Pope 772-95, and therefore the epitaph (or inscription assuming their identity), if composed by Oldradus, must have been written by him whilst quite a young ecclesiastic. Perhaps some reader of 'N. & Q.' can say what Oldradus was doing about 730. C. S. WARD.

" CONSTAXTINE PEBBLE" (9 th S. xii. 506).

This is a name ironically applied to the enormous dolmen of granite, weighing 750 tons, which existed in the parish of St. Con- stantine, Cornwall, until (I think) the late seventies, when it was destroyed by opera- tions in an adjacent quarry. It is minutely described and figured by Borlase in his quaint ' History of Cornwall '; and a description will be found also, with a woodcut, in Cyrus Bedding's ' Illustrated Itinerary of the County of Cornwall,' 1842, p. 135.

JOHN HOBSOX MATTHEWS. [DR. FOKSHAW sends a long extract from vol. ii. p. 453 of ' The Beauties of England and Wales ' (Longman, 1801); and MR C. S. WARD refers to the inscribed Constantine Stone found at St. Hilary, Cornwall, in 18-53.]

MARRIAGE HOUSE (9 th S. xii. 428, 509). Miss POLLARD says that the Marriage House at Braughing has been pulled down. It is generally stated to have been destroyed some quarter of a century ago ; but I do not think this was the case. The very interesting old half-timbered house on the south side of the churchyard, now divided into tenements, is, I feel certain, the original building.

Another Wedding House was at Anstey. It stood partly upon the lord's waste and partly in the churchyard. At an inquisition held at Hertford in 1630 it is stated that it was anciently given to the town of Anstey to keep the weddings of poor people who should be married in the said town. There had been therefore divers goods belonging to the said messuage and used at the said weddings, but of all such there remained only "four great spytts," all the rest having been consumed or lost. At that date it was apparently no longer used for weddings, but had become a poorhouse and was both " noysome and filthee." It was pulled down quite a century ago, but the site is pointed out by the old people. W. B. GERISH.

[DR. FORSHAW notes that the ' National Gazet- teer,' 1868, states under ' Braughin ' that the Mar- riage House was given by Mr. Jenyns.]

SHAKESPEARE'S SCHOLARSHIP (9 th S. xii. 427). It may be that my statement that "Mr. Churton Collins has proved that Shakespeare was one of the best Latin scholars who ever lived " needs qualification, and that the phrase " an excellent Latin scholar" should be substituted for the stronger expression. What Mr. Churton Collins says is :

"What has been demonstrated is that Shake- speare could read Latin, that in the Latin original he most certainly read Plautus, Ovid, and Seneca, that the Greek dramatists, and all those Greek authors, besides Plutarch, who appear to have

influenced him, were easily accessible to him in

Latin translations."

And again :

"With some at least of the principal Latin

authors he was intimately acquainted and of

{ the Greek classics in the Latin versions he had a
 * remarkably extensive knowledge"

MR. HAINES maintains that Shakespeare's 1 "knowledge of Latin cannot be properly tested until we can determine what part, if any, of * 1 Henry VI.,' and what part of i '2 Henry VI.,' '3 Henry VI.,' 'Taming of j the Shrew,' ' Timon of Athens,' and especially j of ' Titus Andronicus,' were his." I fail to see i this reasoning. Why not take the accepted " Shakespeare" dramas, as Mr. Churton Collins does, and prove theLatinity therein displayed 1 ? In the 'Comedy of Errors' we find that the author of the dramas was acquainted with the ' Mostellaria,' 'Trinummus,' and 'Miles Glpriosus,' and, omitting the doubtful 'Titus Andronicus' and the three parts of 'Henry VI.' (which are "saturated with the tragedies of Seneca"), Mr. Collins proves that in the undoubted 'Richard III.,' 'The Merchant of Venice,' and 'Much Ado' the dramatist shows a knowledge of Horace ; and in 'Hamlet,' 'Lear,' 'Antony and Cleo- patra,' ' Cymbeline,' and ' 1 Henry IV.,' a remarkable acquaintance with Juvenal. By unmistakable parallelisms Mr. Collins has proved that the dramatist had read in Latin translations Plato's 'Alcibiades' and 'Ee- Sophocles, ^Eschylus, and Euripides. Of i these parallelisms it is of interest to note ! that Mr. Sidney Lee maintains that "such i coincidences as have been detected between ! expressions in Greek plays and in Shake- 1 speare seem due to accident," and that they ! are "no more than curious accidents proofs ! of consanguinity of spirit." This Mr. Collins directly and successfully controverts. He says such a contention " is, of course, quite within the bounds of possibility" but that " it is not with possibilities but with proba- { bililies that investigators of this kind are
 * public,' and also the principal tragedies of