Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/503

 9* s.x. DEC. 20, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

495

owler was one who smuggled wool either by the light of day or in a smaller way than that of the regular professors of the " trade," a trade which was certainly not considered a dishonourable one by the great majority of the class from which the smugglers sprang. For accounts of conflicts between owlers and parties of soldiers, before the revenue officers were thought of, see the Weekly Journal, 23 September and 28 Octobei, 1721.

J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL.

POPPLE (9 th S. x. 208, 294, 370). There is also the surname Popplewell, formerly well known in this neighbourhood, and the place- name Poppleton, which occurs in Yorkshire. " Popple " is an old form of poplar (see Halli- well). Perhaps it is worth mentioning that in Nottinghamshire I have frequently heard piles (haemorrhoids) called " the popples."

0. C. B.

Epworth.

An earlier instance of this good old word occurs in Horstmann's ' Altenglische Legen- den,' 1881 :

Bot hale and faire hir child scho fand, With the water poples him playand.

. 14, 1. 268. A. SMYTHE PALMER.

See ' Heart of Midlothian,' chap, xviii. p. 208, People's Edition : " Over a' the bits of bonny waves that are poppling and plashing against the rocks." P. J. F. GANTILLON.

THE COPE (9 th S. x. 285, 374). Will MR. MATTHEWS kindly give me the name of any one of the " many Anglican churches " in which " the curious practice prevails of cele- brating the Communion vested in a cope"?

W. C. B.

REFERENCE WANTED (9 th S. x. 387). The idea in Leopardi's lines is borrowed from Juvenal, Sat. xiv. 279 :

Audiet Herculeo stridentem gurgite solem. For references see Mayor, adloc.,or Clarendon Press edition. The idea entertained by Epi- curus, Posidonius, and others of the Epicurean school of philosophy was that the sun hissed as it was daily extinguished by the water of the sea (cf. Val. Flaccus, ii. 36, 37 ; Statius, 'Silvas/.ii. 7, 27). H. A. STRONG.

University College, Liverpool.

SHAKESPEARE'S SEVENTY - SIXTH SON~NET (9 th S. x. 125, 274, 412). In reply to Q. V. it may interest him to know that. Rawley's ' Resuscitatio ' (1657) is not "our primary authority" for Bacon's letter to Sir John Davies in which he alludes to himself as a " concealed poet," The original letter is in

Lambeth Palace MS. S. 976, fo. 4. That it is the original letter there can be no doubt, and it is signed by Bacon himself, and still bears the seal which he attached to it. " The allusion to ' concealed poets,'" says Spedding, "I cannot explain." Nor, apparently, can any other student of Bacon's life and works. I lay no stress, as Q. V. does, upon the two words being printed in italics in the 'Re- suscitatio.' What the Baconians ask is a feasible explanation of Bacon's expression "concealed poets," what poetry he was con- cealing, and what was the necessity for such concealment.

MR. W. E. WILSO'N also asks me to explain the statement of Henry Chettle that "divers of quality [it should be "worship"] have reported his (Shakespeare's) facetious grace in writing which approves his art." I have authorities at my back who maintain that this is an entirely mistaken allusion to Shakespeare. Chettle expressly says that Green's letter was ^ written to divers play- makers," and "by one or two of them" offensively taken ; that is, that certain of those to whom the letter was addressed took exception to his statements, such as Mar- lowe being an atheist, &c. Now Shakespeare was not one of those to whom the letter was written. In the letter he was described as "an upstart crow," one of the "puppits" against whom the play-makers addressed are particularly warned. This theory was very ably supported by Mr. Howard Staunton in the Athenaeum, 7 February, 1874, identify- ing " young Juvenal," the possessor of the ''facetious grace in writing," as Nash, and the other play-makers addressed as Marlowe and Peele. Mr. F. G. Fleay adopts a similar view, that "Shakespeare was not one of those who took offence," and Dr. Ingleby also admits that Chettle's commendatory lines cannot apply to Shakespeare. Even if they did, they are of little value, as Chettle acknowledges he was not personally acquainted with Shakespeare, but got his information from "report." Thus does "con- temporary evidence" resolve itself into "con- temporary rumour."

As to Ben Jonson's testimony, Baconians generally agree that Jonson was in the ^secret with both Bacon and Shakespeare. Shake- speare may not have concealed it even from his friends, who may have supported him in his assumption of the authorship the members of the theatre for their own sakes, and his other friends for his. If Sir Henry Irving at the present day were to produce plays by the Lord Chancellor, tacitly attri.

buted to himself, and the "soft impeach.