Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/47

 us. xii. JULY io, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

39

MR. CRANE at the last reference expresses the opinion that " we should not go far wrong in fixing the composition near 1800 " ; and adds that " it would thus be a century younger than Winchester's ' Dulce Domum.' "

This is not the heading under which to discuss the very difficult question as to the date of the words and music of the Wyke- hamist ' Domum.' It would seem, however, far more likely that ' Domum ' was an im- proved edition of ' Omne Bene ' in its original, traditional form than that any one should have taken the trouble to parody ' Domum ' by writing ' Omne Bene.'

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

PARISH REGISTERS (11 S. xi. 397, 501). A few corrections have to be made in the list referred to. " Denham " and " Bromley " should not have appeared among the tran- scripts, for, although they are described as " abstracts " in the Catalogue, they are really only a few pages of notes from the Registers. The earliest date in Lyminge is 1538 (burials), not 1544 ; St. Bridget's, Chester, 1560, not 1580 ; St. Mary at Key, Ipswich, 1559, not 1539. According to Mr. A. M. Burke's ' Key,' the Denham Registers do not begin until 1653, yet the notes above mentioned begin with 1564 for burials, 1582 for marriages, and 1591 for baptisms. Thus when they were made an earlier volume must have been accessible. H. INCE ANDERTON.

GOATS WITH CATTLE (US. xi. 452, 500). I do not think that the prevalent idea is that animals in a general way thrive better when a goat is with them, but that horses keep in better health and do not get the staggers, and cows are much less likely to abort, under these conditions. In the case of horses, it is the smell of the male goat that is supposed to do good ; but as regards cows, either a male or female goat answers the purpose, as these animals are credited with eating certain herbs on a pasture which cause abortion in cattle.

H. S. HOLMES PEGLER, Hon. Sec. British Goat Society.

Here, in Galloway, no herd of dairy cows used to be considered safe from murrain unless a scape-goat pastured with them. The practice is not so common now as formerly I suppose lecturers on dairy management and cheese-making do not prescribe its observance ; but it is still maintained on some farms.

HERBERT MAXWELL.

Monreith.

W. H. DUIGNAN : BIBLIOGRAPHY (11 S. xi. 373, 468 ; xii. 6). To the list given at the above references should be added an interesting paper on ' The Meaning of " Bir- mingham ' and the Origin of " Brumagem," : which the late William Henry Duignan con- tributed to The Birmingham Daily Post of 2 April, 1902. BENJ. WALKER.

Langstone, Erdingtori.

0n

The Incendium Amoris of Richard RoUe of Hampole. Edited by Margaret DeancMv. (Manchester, University Press; London, Longmans & Co., 10s. 6d. net.)

THIS work seems to have been among the most popular of Richard Rolle's works. Two editions of the translation of it made by Richard Misyn in 1435 have appeared within the last twenty years the fifteenth - century text edited by Mr. Harvey for the Early English Text Society in 1896, and an edition done into modern English by Miss Comper which appeared last year. This is the first publication of the original Latin, and will afford to many lovers of Richard Rplle their first idea of his method of Latin writing no negligible study, for his facility in Latin is great, and it is of extreme interest to compare his use of it with that, say, of St. Thomas a Kempis, as well as to note the reaction upon his own thought of Latin as compared with English.

Much reading and re-reading will probably b& necessary to most students before they catch with any ease a characteristic rhythm, the presence of which and its delicate simplicity, too forms so large an element in the poetical quality of the- 'Imitation.' Here the phrases are often long, involved, piled with words in apposition, difficult (till the ear finds their trick) as to distribution of emphasis. Misyn's English rendering somewhat over-emphasizes, one now finds, the tone of Rolle's divers strictures on his fellow-creatures, and makes, inevitably, in the pages of devout exaltation, that kind of slightly imfortunate difference which we perceive in a song transposed from its original key.

Miss Deanesly's work as editor is a very scholarly performance. Her Introduction gives us a detailed complete description of the MS. of the ' Incendium Amoris,' an account of the subject-matter sufficient for her purpose, a short discussion of the relation of Richard Rolle to other mystics, as well as remarkably good discussions of the two extant forms of the text and their history.

A monogram which appears again and again on the folios of the so-called Emanuel MS. identified as that of Joan Sewell, a Brigittine sister of Sion Abbey has furnished Miss Deanesly with the pre- text for another elaborate and highly interesting piece of work an account of the foundation of Sion Abbey. The work of English students on the early years of the foundation has hitherto left something to be desired, and the short monograph on the subject incorporated here is of real import- ance In particular, it may be noticed that the