Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/59

 2 S. N 3., JAN. 19. '56.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

51

councell-men, recorder, and other officers, whose appointments were vested in the corporation :

" The form here directed to be used in choosing the Mayor, is still punctually observed (says Mr. Gribble, i. e. in 1830) ; but although the ceremony of ballotting is kept up, such an occurrence as a contest at the election of a Mayor is, I believe, never known ; it is always equally well understood, both before and after the ballot, who is to fill the office." P. 353.

" The cups (it is added, p. 277.) are of wood, and are furnished with shallow brass pans, in which are holes through which the balls drop. One of them bears this inscription : POTTS AND BALLS, MDLVI." "

Whether, so far bnck as 1690, municipal bodies were, or were not, " Normal schools of agitation," I cannot determine ; but some very prudent regu- lations are laid down in bye-laws 39. and 40., which intimate that occasional improprieties of speech and conduct broke out in the deliberations of the worshipful corporation of Barnstaple. In these bye-laws

" It is ordained nd established, that there shall not be spoken or USP ' oy the said Common Councell, or any of them, any tw eemly, irreverent, or reproachful words, one to the othev >f them ; but that every of them shall, in decent, conu, , and quiet manner, speak and answer unto the matter propounded ; and if any of them demean him- self otherwise, and be faulty and offend therein, the party so misdemeaning himself and offending to be fined 3s. 4d. . . . Also, for avoiding of confusion, and disorderly and superfluous speeches and talk in the assemblies of the said Common Councell, it is ordered and established, that none shall speak or talk while another is speaking, neither talk one with another after silence is commanded to be kept by Mr. Mayor ; but that every one shall give atten- tive ear to him that speaketh, untill he hath ended his speech, who shall direct all his speech to the Mayor, if present, and if absent, to the Alderman, and that to the matter propounded and then in question, upon paine of paying for every such offence 12d." P. 366.

These specimens of " the wisdom of our ances- tors," may not be uninteresting to some of your readers. G.

Barum.

BEZALEEL MOREICE.

Miscellanies, or Amusements in Prose and Verse, 8vo., 1712; An Essay on the Poets (in verse), 8vo., 1712. The first of these bears upon the title "by Mr. Bezaleel Morrice ;" and the second, although anonymous, being from the same press, in the same vein, and forming part of the same volume, may also be ascribed to this mysterious hero of The Dunciad :

" Heav'n rings with laughter : of the laughter vain, Dulness, good queen, repeats the jest again ; Three wicked imps, of her own Grub Street choir, She deck'd like Congreve, Addison, and Prior; Mears, Warner, Wilkins, run: delusive thought! Breval, Bond, Bezaletl, the varlets caught."

Book ii. 1. 121., &c.

SCRIBLERUS would load us to believe that the 2"<i S. N 3.]

name is fictitious ; remarking upon the pas- sage :

" As for Bezaleel, it carries forgery in the very name ; nor is it, as the others are, a surname. Thou may'st de- pend upon it no such authors ever lived ; all phantoms."

And having no annotated edition of Pope to turn to, I am unable to say if modern researches into the heroes of The Dunciad have thrown more light upon this " spiflicated poet."

Looking over the above- noted pieces by Be- zaleel Morrice, for the provocation he had given the waspish Pope, I find, in the Miscellanies, the "Complaint of Melpomene to Jupiter on behalf of herself and Sister Muses against the Criticks;" which looks like a Grub Street growl at such literary scalpers as Pope and Swift. Again, in his Essay, Belzaleel starts off with a shy at the Mohawks of literature :

" Ye bards of small desert, but vast conceit ! " and takes offensively high ground, when he thus dictates to the poets of the Augustan age :

" With due submission, thus receive your law, And rules to frame your future conduct draw ; Pass mighty Homer and the Mantuan by, 'Tis much too rash to dare to climb so high ! "

If it was then known that Pope was engaged upon a translation of the " mighty Homer," here was sufficient offence to secure the unhappy Be- zaleel a niche in The Dunciad. J. O.

P.S. Since writing the above, I have seen An Epistle to Mr. Welsted, and a Satyre on the English Translations of Homer, Bickerton, 1721 ; in which Bezaleel Morrice follows up the preceding ad- monition by an attack upon the published work. The passage in The Dunciad is, indeed, a parody upon another in this pamphlet.

Columluss Signature. W. Irving, in the Ap- pendix to his History of (he Life and Voyages of Columbus, No. 35., has given a confused account of a Signor Spatorna's explanation of Columbus's signature, which leaves the difficulty somewhat darker than before.

Would you think it worth while to lay before your readers my method of deciphering this sig- nature, which Mr. Irving states has been a matter of some discussion ? It might call forth a re- joinder, such as would set this question at rest.

The signature runs thus :

S S A S

x M y

Xpo ferens

El Almirante.

From the fact of Xpo (Xpy, I should conjec- ture,) being written in Greek letters, and from