Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/433

 9*8. IX. MAY 31, 1902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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IN PRAISE OF 'N. & Q.' There are more than a few readers of ' N. & Q.,' I am sure, who can recall the pleasurable anticipations with which, away back in the early nine- ties, they were wont to open each Thurs- day's Star and discover the column * Books and Bookmen,' contributed, over the pseu- donym *' Taller," by Mr. Clement Shorter to that lively evening paper. To some readers, too, and certainly to the writer of this note, the most attractive feature of the Illustrated London News for a number of years was the 'Literary Letter,' which Mr. Shorter wrote during a portion of the time he was editor of that journal. It is not too much to assert that the Sphere con- ducted by Mr. Shorter the youngest, but, alike on account of its excellence as a pictorial record of current events and the literary character of its letterpress, the foremost of English, if not, indeed, of all illustrated weeklies, would to many of us lack its chief interest did it not contain C. K. S.'s 'Literary Letter.' On somewhat similar lines is his column 'Jottings of a Journalist' in the Tatler, which he also edits. With this long preamble I introduce Mr. Shorter's " praise/' In the issue of the latter journal of 14 May, under ' Jotlings,' he writes:

"In that interesting little paper Notes and Queries, a paper that is a perpetual joy to me, I find some discussion as to the famous epigram on the four Georges, which has often been incorrectly attributed to Thackeray, doubtless from the rough and ready recollection that he lectured about those monarchs. The epigram, of course, was by Walter

Savage Landor Mr. Stephen Wheeler, who is

the best living authority on Lindor, or, at least, shares that distinction with Prof. Colvin, sends to Notes and Queries,"

C. K. S. informs readers of the Tatler, "an interesting verse written on the fly-leaf of the first edition of Landor's 'Imaginary Conversations.'" JOHN GRIGOR.

105, Choumert Road, Peckham.

ROSSETTI'S 'RUGGIERO AND ANGELICA.' One rock-point standing buffeted alone, Vexed at its base with a foul beast unknown, Hell-birth of geomaunt and teraphim.

These lines occur in Rossetti's well-known sonnet entitled ' For Ruggiero and Angelica, by Ingres,' one of his ' Sonnets on Pictures. The sonnet gives us in words what the pic- ture gives us in form and colour the de- livery of Angelica from the foul sea- beast the Ork by the knight Ruggiero on his griffin- horse. As everybody knows, the story may be found in Ariosto's ' Orlando Furioso,' x. 92- 113. It had been told before by Greek and Latin poet of a knightly hero Perseus and a king's daughter Andromeda. I write now to

draw attention to Rossetti's mysterious de- scription of the foul sea-monster. Ariosto's "Orca":-

Hell-birth of yeomaunt and teraphim. The " Ork " was sent to devastate Ebuda (the Hebrides) by Proteus :

Proteo marin, che pasce il tiero armento Di Nettuno che 1' onda tutta regge.

What iii the world has Proteus to do with " geomancy " and the Jewish cult of '* tera- phim ' 1

Where did Rossetti find the word "geo- maunt " 1 The word occurs nowhere else in any English author. It looks like the Italian word " geomante," a word occurring in Dante's ' Purgatorio,' xix. 4. This " geomante " means a geomancer, one who practises geo- mancy. Geomancy was a kind of divination by means of certain arbitrary arrangements of dots on the ground, one of which was known as " the Greater Foriune " (" la Mag- gior Forluna "). The word " teraphim," wilh which " geomaunl " (a geomancer) is slrangely coupled, denotes properly images represenling the household gods of the ancient Hebrews. I suppose that Rossetti may have vaguely connected both ihe words "geomaunl" and " teraphim " with the idea of magic. But it may be that what Rossetti really wrote was " geomaunce and teraphim." Compare Go wer's 'Confessio Amanlis,' vi. 1295 :

The craft which that Saturnus fond,

To make prickes in the Sond,

That Geomance cleped is.

Readers of Rabelais will remember Ihe use made of ihis mode of divination in bk. iii.

ch. XXV. COMESTOR OXONIENSIS.

ROBERT BUCKENHAM. In the * D.N.BV vol. vii. p. 199, there is an account of Robert Buckenham, D.D. (Cambr., 1531), who in March, 1535, " crossed the seas to L*>uvain to assist in the proseculion of William Tyndale." In a lelter dated 31 July, 1535, he is described as u Dr. Bockenham, late prior of the Black Friars at Cambridge" (' Cal. of Letters and Papers, Henry VIII.,' vol. viii. No. 1151; see also vol. ix. No. 1097). Was this Buckenham identical with ihe Roberl Buckenham whose name appears in the lists of archdeacons of Lewes in Hardy's 'Le Neve,' i. 263, and in Dallaway and Cartwright's 'City of Un- chester,' 109?

These lists assign different dates to Arch- deacon Buckenham. Hardy's lisl runs Ihus : Edward More, 1528; Roberl Buckenham, S.T.P., 1531 ; John Shirry, 1547. In Dalla- way and Carlwrighl's lisl ihe dates are: 1531, Edward More; 1547, Roberl Bucken- ham, D.D. ; 1551, John Sherrey. Perhaps