Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/501

 ii s. i. JUNE is, mo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

493

at the trifling sum of 20,?., it being hoped that " the smallness of the rate would prevent a prudent man from disputing it. Hampden refused to pay it, but without

JOHN BAVINGTON JONES.

passion or noise. Dover.

Presumably the words of Hampden in- quired after are these :

"I could be content to lend as well as others: but I fear to draw upon myself that curse in Magna Charta which should be read twice a year against those who infringe it." See Forster's 'Sir John Eliot,' i. 407-8.

The words appear as a quotation, but the source whence they come is not clearly stated. Perhaps Whitelocke or Rushworth, from whom Forster drew much material, may have been his authority. But in any case, the words quoted above were not a refusal to pay the ship *money. They embody Hampden' s refusal to pay a previous imposition known as the forced loan'of 1627. The actual words of his refusal to pay the ship money are not, I think, recorded verbatim. See Carlyle's ' Cromwell, l i. 80 (People's Edition) :

"11 January, 1635, the parish [of Great Kimble] did attend, ' John Hampden, Esquire,' at the head of them, and by a Return still extant, refused to pay the same or any portion thereof."

He adds in a foot-note that a facsimile engraving of the Return is contained in Lord Nugent's 'Memorials of Hampden,' London, 1832, i. 231. W. S. S.

VIRGIN MARY CALLED "EMPRESS OF HELL" (11 S. i. 428). In 'A Hymn to the Virgin Mary to preserve King Henry, 2 edited by Dr. Furnivall for the Early English Text Society from a volume of miscellaneous MSS., of rather uncertain date, in the library at Lambeth Palace, the Blessed Virgin is thus invoked :

blessed mary, the flowre of virginite !

O quene of hevyn Imperialle !

empress of helle, and lady of chastite !

The volume is entitled ' Political, Religious, and Love Poems,* and was one of the publications for 1866. F. NEWMAN.

G. H. will find that the description " empress of hell " is not very uncommon in pre -Reformation religious literature when in the vernacular. Though the distinction between hell and purgatory was well under stood, it was not uncommon, when pur- aatory was meant, for the word ' 4 hell n to be employed in its place. Two examples occur to me at the present moment. The

Blessed Virgin is called " empresse of helle " in a prayer in the English version of the Prymer as it appears in the late Rev. William Maskell's ' Ritualia Ecclesiae Angli- canse l (ed. 1846, vol. ii. p. 78) ; and 1 find I have a reference to a similar passage in J. E. Vaux's ' Church Folk-lore. 1

L. S. M.

ST. LAWRENCE'S TEARS (11 S. i. 447). The late Miss Clerke, in her now classic ' History of Astronomy during the Nine- teenth Century,* writes (p. 371, ed. 1) :

" The falling stars of November did not alone attract the attention of the learned. Similar appearances were traditionally associated with August 10 by the popular phrase in which they figured as ' the tears of St. Lawrence.' ' ' To show that the expression is not con- fined to this country, I may perhaps be allowed to quote from the ' Astronomisches. Lexikon ' of August Krisch, who writes :

" Perseiden (Laurentiusstrom), im Volksmunde axicb. ' Thranen des heiligen Laurentius genannt, ist ein Sternschnuppenschwarm, dessen Auftreten jahrlich zwischen den 9 und 14 August fallt, und dessen Radiationspunkt bei 7 Persei liegt."

One of the first books, I believe, to men- tion 10 August as the principal day of the shower was T. Forster's ' Pocket Cyclo- paedia of Natural Phenomena,' 1827. Of course the alteration of the calendar in the previous century would affect it.

W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

" In the first week of this month the conditions have not been favourable for a sight of the ' Tears of St. Lawrence,' on account of bright moonlight, but by the llth, when the maximum of the August meteors is attained, the waning power of night's- luminary will allow them to be seen." The Daily Telegraph, 1 Aug., 1901.

J. HOLD EN MACMlCHAEL. [Further replies acknowledged.]

" HOWDE MEN": ROBIN HOOD'S MEN (11 S. i. 346). It is with great diffidence that I do not quite agree with Miss LEGA- WEEKES as to the archery ; I think that was a secondary and subsequent part. With me it opens a very extensive study which I need not more than mention here. Church- wardens' accounts all over the country testify that Robin Hood was an important personage in May games (see Brand's ' Popular Anti- quities,' sub voce ' Morris Dancers '). There is a deal of evidence in favour of Robin Hood being a survival of a solar myth (see Academy vol. xxiv. pp. 181, 231, 250, 384).

In the University Library, Copenhagen, is a MS. account, in mixed Latin prose and