Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/429

 9*8. XL MAY 30, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

421

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY SO, 190S.

CONTKNT8.-No. 283.

NOTES : -Walter Montagu, 421 Chancellor Kvans's Early L'tV, -122 Tragedy at Heptonstall, 123 Study and Teach- ing of Latin, 421" Adoxographical " " Twopenny dam "

" Pou sto" Plagiarism and Platitude, 425 -Old Argyll Rooms "Sweetheart" " Herod," 426.

QUKKIKS :-" Packet-boat " Plaistow and Burke Jan- senist. Crucifix Arms of Hanover Living Dead, 427 I)e la Marche -Painting by Swain "We '11 go to sea no more " " Quadering " Bowmen Irving Potatoes, Whisky, and Leprosy Kastner Cui-kpp Folk-lore. 428 Hatbands "Sleep the sleep of the just." Waverley Abl.ey " Philip and cheyn.ye " " Hour" of Napoleon III.

Besilev Svvedenborjj's Early Life Senancour Fac- simile of First Folio, 429 -" Vicereine," 430.

KKPLIKS : Japanese Monkeys, 430 -Snakes' Antipathy to Hurst-hair -lioths and Huns Ludlow Clerks Detinii ion of (lenius-'La Belle Dame sans Merci '" Rollick," 432

Uoad Waggons from Liverpool City of the Violet Crown -IVpys, 1716-" Mary had a little'lamb" The Old WitV. 4:c'> -""Sniping" Sharpe, Phillips, and Colt-ridge, 431 -Obelisk at St. Peter's Flogging and the Kennela, 435 "Vira posse priore frui " " So many gods," &c. Scotch Ballad : ' Habbie Simpson,' 436 Mayors' Title and Precedence "Travailler pour le Roi de Prusse," 437 " Folks" Arthur Graham Fountain Pens, 438.

NOTKS ON BOOKS :-Dasent's 'Popular Tales from the Norse 'Temple Scott's ' Prose Works of Swift' Stutta- ford's 'Story of Cupid and Psyche ''English Catalogue of Hooks ' ' Devon Notes and Queries ' ' Nights at the Opera.'

Notices to Correspondents.

WALTER MONTAGU. THE principal events in his life may be briefly stated. He was the second son of the first Earl of Manchester, and born in the parish of St. Botolph without Aldgate, London, in or about 1603. On 27 January, UU8, he was admitted a Fellow-Commoner of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, one of his associates there being Thomas Fuller, the Church historian. After leaving the university ho was sent to France in some political capacity, and it was while on this mission that he attracted the attention of Henrietta Maria, whose favour to him con- tinued to the end of her life. " He was," says John Forster, "especially befriended by Queen Henrietta." Subsequent journeys to France, also in the interest of those in power, seem to have been appreciated, judging from the sums of money which he received for his services. In 1635 he made known his intention of joining the Church of Koine, which he did. In 1043 he was, for reasons of State, arrested at Rochester, and imprisoned in the Tower, where he remained until 1647 ; and in 1649, by an order of the House of Commons, he was finally expelled the country. Ho then took up his permanent residence in France, and through the in- fluence of Mary de ! Medici was, soon after

settling there, appointed Abbot of the Bene- dictine monastery of Nanteuil. His next appointment was to the wealthy abbacy of St. Martin, near Pontoise, which he was asked to resign in favour of the Cardinal Bouillon in 1670, retaining, however, the income of a commendatory abbot. His latter days were spent in Paris, where he died in the Hospital of Incurables, on 5 February, 1677. He was buried at Pontoise.

Montagu's first work appeared in 1648, with an engraved frontispiece by Marshall, followed by this title-page :

"Miscellanea Spiritualia : Or Devovt Essaies : Composed By The Honourable Walter Montagu Esq. Ecclus. 51. Videte oculis vestris, quia modicum laboravi, & invent mult-am requiem. London, Printed for W. Lee, D. Pakeman, and G. Bedell, And are to be sold at their shops in Fleetstreet. MDCXLVIII."

The work is dedicated " To the most Sacred Majesty of Henrietta Maria, Daughter of France, and Queen of Great Britain," in language of the most fulsome adulation ; the only natural expression in it is where he likens his imprisonment in the Tower to " a civil death." Following this dedication there is 'A Prefatory Addres to The Court,' which, if history is to be relied on, very likely did not receive much attention or appreciation in that quarter. We gather, however, from one or two allusions, that Montagu, like many more of his courtly contemporaries, had his unregenerate days. Perusing the Table of Contents, we are encouraged to hope that much will be found in the work both instruc- tive and interesting. Montagu divides his book into what he calls Treatises, of which there are twenty - one (with subdivisions), embracing such suggestive subjects as *A Map of Humane Nature,' ' Of Religion,' 'Of Devotion,' 'Concerning Scurrility, or Foulness of Speech,' ' Whether to be in love, and to be devout, are consistent,' ' Of Solitude,' kc. I have no hesitation in saying that a more dis- appointing book one could scarcely read : page after page of long-drawn-out sentences, destitute alike of logical coherence and even of common sense. I am sure Patrick Carey, Montagu's contemporary and co- religionist, had this work in view when he penned the following lines in his 'Trivial Poems, and Triolets ' (1651 ; edited from manu- script for the first time by Sir Walter Scott, Loud., 1820, p. 14) :

But tell niee pray, if euer you

Read th' English of Watt Montague,

Is 't not more hard then French ?

And yett that will much easyer bee

Then" the strange gibbring mish-mash, wee

Shall hence-forth neare att th' Bench.