Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/32

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. xn. JULY n,

DEAN DONNE AND THE DONNES OF NORFOLK. Dr. Jessopp in his 'Life of Dr. Donne' (1897, p. 225, Appendix B) says :

" My belief is that neither of Dr. Donne's sons had any male offspring. It is hardly conceivable that if at the end of the seventeenth century any descendants of the Dean entitled to perpetuate his illustrious name had been still living, the fact should have remained undiscovered down to our own time."

Now Dean Donne died 31 March, 1631, and in a pedigree given in 'Letters of Lady Hesketh to the Rev. John Johnson' (1901), by Mrs. Catharine Bodham Johnson (nee Donne), the first record runs :

"Roger Donne, of Ludham, Norfolk, Gent., born April 17 th, 1675, died Nov. 9 th , 1722, son of Wm. Donne of Letheringsett, Norfolk, born 1645, died 1684, descended from Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul's."

The pedigree from which the above is an extract is copied from one made by the Heralds' College for the poet Cowper in 1792, and Cowper always spoke of the Dean as an ancestor. But that the later Norfolk Donnes are actually descended from the Dean remains to be proved, and, so far, only rests on a persistent family tradition. Some writers on what authority I know not state that the Dean on his father's side was sprung from an ancient knightly family of Wales, "the Dwnns of Dwynn in Radnorshire," says Dr. Jessopp ; and I have been informed by one of the family that the arms of a certain Owen Dwn in the fifteenth century are identical with those of the Norfolk Donnes, viz., Quarterly, 1 and 4, Azure, a wolf salient argent ; 2 and 3, Gules, a chevron ermine between three birds. But Mr. Fox-Davies asserts that no authority for the use of these bearings has been established at the College of Arms.

The name Donne has from very early times been common in Norfolk : thus in the fourteenth century I find David Donne, a landowner at Rougham in 1321 ; John le Donne, of the same place, in 1346 ; and John Donne, instituted to Matlask, with Branweth, York, by the prior and convent of Merton, 24 October, 1386. I do not find such a place as Branweth, but quote from Mr. Walter Rye's 'Rough Materials for the History of the Hundred of North Erpingham, Norfolk,' p. 619.

Sir John Fastolf, writing to John Paston, 3 July, 1459, refers somewhat spitefully to a Laurence Donne, in connexion with the church of St. Olave (South wark, no doubt) ; and Sir John Paston, writing 25 August, 1478, complains that one Donne had falsely testified that the Duke of Suffolk was patron of Fastolf's benefice of Dray ton, near Norwich.

In my casual seeking I have not come across any Donnes in Norfolk in the sixteenth century, but they emerge again in the seven- teenth, and I find Daniel Donne, rector of Ickburgh, 1626 ; of Caldecote, 1636 : and, I presume, this same Daniel, vicar of Besthorpe, 1630-46. In 1685 died Thomas Donne, of Holt, at the age of seventy, as is recorded on his memorial in the dilapidated church of St. Peter, Hungate, in Norwich.

In 1705 Thomas Donne was presented to the rectory of Sculthorpe by Robert Donne, Gent. ; and Tkomas Donne, probably the same, was rector of South Creake from 1710 to 1739, to which the presentation was also made by a Robert Donne. In 1732 we find Roger Donne, brother of Cowper's mother, rector of Catfield ; he died 13 July, 1773.

It is noticeable how, from before Chaucer's time, members of the Donne family have ranked amongst the clergy of Norfolk.

I have no pretensions to be a student of genealogy, but send these loosely connected notes in the hope of eliciting further infor- mation.

The origin of the name Donne seems to be rather obscure ; Bardsley does not mention it.

JAMES HOOPER.

Norwich.

MR. LANG AND HOMER. In the long con- troversy respecting the authorship of the Homeric poems, Mr. Lang's ' Homer and the Epic,' which appeared about ten years ago, occupies a very important place. The Athenceum reviewer remarked that it was not quite clear whether he was a chorizont in the matter of the two great poems traditionally ascribed to that name ; and the author acknowledged, in answer, that he was not clear on that point himself, as it really depended upon whether they were of nearly the same date. That the ' Odyssey ' is some- what later than the * Iliad ' has been almost universally held ; and I may here call atten- tion to an able little work by Miss A. M. Clerke, 'Familiar Studies in Homer,' which appeared in 1892, and has some thoughtful remarks on this point. The first impression made on reading Mr. Lang's book is that he is not a chorizont ; but he speaks ambiguously throughout. At p. 3, for instance, we read :

" If we were offered the unhappy choice whether we would lose Homer and keep the rest of Greek poetry, or keep the rest and lose Homer, there could be little doubt as to our choice. We would rescue the Iliad and the Odyssey."

The last sentence would lead one to infer that both were by Homer. But the inad- vertent expression in the first sentence is very amusing, equivalent to "Shall we lose A. and