Page:Notes and Queries - Series 7 - Volume 5.djvu/33

7 S. V. 14, ’88.]  being designed for a voyage to the East Indies, and employed by the Right Worshipful the East India Company residentiary in London to be their agent at the port of Bantum, in the East Indies.

Michael Dunkin administered to the will as guardian of Margaret Browne November 20, 1667, the brothers and Sambrooke having renounced. Francis Mann, guardian of Margaret Browne, administered October 16, 1673. The latter’s guardianship having ceased, Margaret Hodges administered July 1, 1676; on September 17, 1677, Margaret Bridges (alias Browne), wife of Robert Bridges, administered; and lastly, on March 14, 1680/1, letters of administration were granted to Margaret Hodges, wife of Francis Hodges, on behalf of Mary Browne, alias Blenerhassett—whom Blore calls (Mary) Hanset, of Norwich, and says her sister Margaret, named in the will, was married in Ireland—wife of Edward Blenerhassett.

—A minor Dantesque problem of some curious interest has been recently solved, as shown in the ‘Fifth Annual Report of the Dante Society,’ Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1886. Appendix ii. of this ‘Report’ is named “Dante and the Lancelot Romances,” and is the writing of Mr. Paget Toynbee. His theme is that passage in Dante’s ‘Paradiso,’ canto xvi., which runs:—

(“Smiling, she [Beatrice] looked like her who coughed at the first frailty recorded of Guinevere.”) Previous commentators have gone so far as to show that the allusion is to the Lady of Malehaut, who coughed when Lancelot gave Guinevere his first kiss; but it remained for Mr. Paget to light upon the actual passage in one of the Lancelot romances, and to set it forth in print. He finds a French MS., eighteen copies of which, divided between the libraries of the British Museum and of Paris, give the incident in considerable detail. Ten of these writings belong to the thirteenth century, and four to the fourteenth. The Lady of Malehaut is in love with Lancelot, and is intimate with Guinevere. Gallehault brings together Guinevere and Lancelot in his own camp, the Lady of Malehaut and two other ladies remaining within sight, but at some distance apart. A long dialogue of enamoured courtesy ensues between the queen and the knight. The crucial passage is as follows:—

This passage settles the question (which Dantesque commentators have differed about) as to what was the feeling or intention with which the Lady of Malehaut coughed, whether to check Guinevere or to encourage her, and consequently what was the feeling or intention with which Beatrice smiled. We now see clearly that the Lady of Malehaut was vexed, and the smile of Beatrice must have had a spice of sarcasm in it. Mr. Toynbee, we may observe, has not correctly translated the words “sestossi tot a exient.” They mean, not “coughed all openly,” but “coughed on purpose—coughed with full intention”—she “forced a cough.” The MS. used by Mr. Toynbee is noted as “Lansdowne 757, fol. 71,” &c., in the British Museum. Walter Map (or Mapes), the famous chaplain of Henry II., is the reputed author of this version of the romance.

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The preface is signed S. Langley, and states that the work was “intended for the Congregation