Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/132

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. XL FEB. w, IMS.

essay of * Great Place,' and Jonson also makes use of it : Cicero. Great honours are great burdens, but on

whom

They are cast with envy, he doth bear two loads. ' Catiline,' Act III. sc. i.

Mrs. Pott illustrates the note with a quota- tion from ' Henry VIII.,' which she adduces once more under 'Promus' No. 1110, "Not an honour, but a burden." Needless to say, the Shakespeare passage has no right to appear under No. 708.

Dr. Theobald devotes a chapter of his book to ' Mines and Forges,' and quotes the saying of Democritus that truth is concealed in deep mines and caves. This saying, which occurs in Laertius, 'Life of Seneca,' is referred to by Bacon no fewer than fifteen times, and it is thus noted in the 'Promus,' No. 1395 : -

Pyonner in the myne of truth. Dr. Theobald quotes from Shakespeare and Bacon, but his parallels only prove that the poet was acquainted with the fact that there are mines in the earth, and that it is possible for a literary man to make them furnish him with illustrations and figures to adorn his writings. The idea is as old as Tubal Cain, and it has been battered out of shape any number of times since Adam delved into the apple to get at the pips, and found truth " within the centre " with a vengeance ! Shakespeare never parallels Bacon properly, but Jonson does :

Such knowledge as is digged out of the hard mine of history and experience." ' Filium Labv- rinthi.'

"A truepioner in that mine of truth which (he said) lay so deep." Letter to Burghley, 1592.

In his ' Underwoods,' in the poem on Sir John Beaumont, Jonson speaks of " creeping common piemen" that "sweat to fortify a Muse"; and in No. 31 of the same collection of verses he has :

He can approve

And estimate thy pains, as having wrought In the same mines of knowledge. The saying is also alluded to by Lady Haughty in ' The Silent Woman,' Act IV. sc. ii.

C. CRAWFORD. (To be continued.)

SIR CHRISTOPHER PARKINS OR PERKINS,

IN the 'D.N.B.,' xlv. 3, there is a very good sketch of the versatile career of this ex -Jesuit Dean of Carlisle, whom Queen Elizabeth frequently employed as a diplomatic agent abroad. But it contains one passage which seems to need a little

further consideration, namely, the passage in which it is stated that the dean

" was born apparently in 1547, and is probably distinct from the Christopher Perkins who was elected scholar at Winchester in 1555, aged 12, and subsequently became rector of Eaton, Berk- shire (Kirby, p. 133). He was educated at Oxford, and graduated B.A. on 7 April, 1565 ; but on 21 October next year he entered the Society of Jesus at Rome, aged 19."

"Eaton, Berkshire," is evidently a mistake for " Easton, Hants " (see Kirby 's ' Winchester Scholars,' p. 133) ; and the writer, when he drew the inference that the dean and the scholar were probably distinct persons, can hardly have been aware of the following facts. In March, 1596, the dean (he did not actually become dean until some months later) learnt that an objection had been taken to his employment by the queen, because, so it was said, he had received his education abroad. To meet this objection he drew up and sent to Sir Robert Cecil a paper, the contents of which are epitomized in the * Calendar of Hatfield House MSS.' (Hist. MSS. Com.), pt. vi. p. 122. In this paper he asserts that he first went out of England after he was twenty years of age, and denies that his education had been "strange," seeing that he was first at Winchester and then at Oxford. There seems to be no reason why the dean's account of his early life should be disbelieved, and the fair inference to be drawn from it is that he was the scholar who is entered in the original 'Register of Winchester Scholars,' under the year 1555, thus :

"Xpoferus parkyns de Redynge xii annorum primo die Augusti preteriti. Sarum."

"Sarum" denotes the diocese from which the lad came, and goes to show that "Redynge" means "Reading, Berks." Against the above entry the note " Rector de Easton " has been put in the margin. Upon this note perhaps the safest comment to make is that, if it is correct, the scholar of 1555 became a beneficed clerk at a remarkably early age. For, according to the Composi- tion Books at the Record Office, the compositions which were made in respect of the first fruits of Easton Rectory, Hants, from 1536 onwards were as follows :

15 Dec., 1559, "Christopherus Perkyns, clericus."

16 Dec., 1559, "John Deveres, clericus." 21 April, 1571, David Padie

28 June, 1577, William Barlowe. (See 'D.N.B.,' iii. 233.)

20 Sept., 1625, Edward Meetkirke. (See ' D.N.B.,' xxxvii. 21.)

Why were there two compositions in December, 1559? The correct answer to that question would perhaps also settle the