the more convinced I felt that the whole line had been corrupted.

In advocating the restoration of the reading which I have already suggested as the original meaning of Chaucer, I shall begin by establishing the probability of his having intended to mark the moon's place by associating her rising with that of a known fixed star - a method of noting phenomena frequently resorted to in ancient astronomy. For that purpose I shall point out another instance wherein Chaucer evidently intended an application of the same method for the purpose of indicating a particular position of the heavens; but first it must noted, that in alluding to the Zodiac, he always refers to the signs, never to the constellations in fact, he does not appear to recognise the latter at all! Thus, in that palpable allusion to the precession of the equinoxes, in the Frankeleine's Tale

"He knew ful wel how fer Alnath was shove

From the hed of thilke fixe Aries above:"

- by the hed of Aries, Chaucer did not mean the os frontis of the Ram, whereon Alnath still shines conspicuously, but the equinoctial point, from which Alnath was shove by the extent of a whole sign.

This being premised, I return to the indication of a point in the ecliptic by the coincident rising of a star; and I contend that such was plainly Chaucer's intention in those lines of the Squire's Tale wherein King Cambuscan is described as rising from the feast:--

"Phebus hath left the angle meridional, And yet ascending was the beste real, The gentle Leon, with his Aldryan." Which means that the sign Leo was then in the horizon-the precise degree being marked by the coincident rising of the star Aldryan.

Speght's explanation of " Aldryan," in which he has been copied by Urry and Tyrwhitt, is" a star in the neck of the Lion." What particular star he may have meant by this, does not appear; nor am I at present within reach of probable sources wherein his authority, if he had any, might be searched for and examined; but I have learned to feel such confidence in Chaucer's significance of description, that I have no hesitation in assuming, until authority for a contrary inference shall be produced, that by the star "Aldryan" he meant REGULUS, not the neck, but the heart, of the Lion

1st. Because it is the most remarkable star in the sign Leo.

2nd. Because it was, in Chaucer's time, as it now is, nearly upon the line of the ecliptic.

3rd. Because its situation in longitude, about two-thirds in the sign Leo, just tallies with Chaucer's expression "yet ascending," that is, one-third of the sign was still below the horizon.

Let us examine how this interpretation consists with the other circumstances of the description. The feste-day of this Cambuscan was "The last idus of March". that is, the 15th of March "after the yere that is, after the equinoctial year, which had ended three or four days previously. Hence the sun was in three degrees of Aries-confirmed in Canace's expedition on the following morning, when he was "in the Ram foure degrees yronne," and his corresponding right ascension was twelve minutes. Now by "the angle meridional" was meant the two hours inequall immediately succeeding noon (or while the 1st House" of the sun was passing the meridian), and these two hours may, so near the equinox, be taken as ordinary hours. Therefore, when "Phebus hath left the angle meridional," it was two o'clock P.M., or eight hours after sunrise, which, added to twelve minutes, produces eight hours twelve minutes as the ascending point of the equinoctial. The ascending point of the ecliptic would consequently be twenty degrees in Leo, or within less than a degree of the actual place of the star Regulus, which in point of fact did rise on the 15th of March, in Chaucer's time, almost exactly

at two in the afternoon.

Such coincidences as these could not result from mere accident; and, whatever may have been Speght's authority for the location of Aldryan, I shall never believe that Chaucer would refer to an inferior star when the great "Stella Regia" itself was in so remarkable a position for his purpose-assuming always, as a matter of course, that he referred his phenomena, not to the country or age wherein he laid the action of his tale, but to his own.

This, then, is the precedent by which I support the similar, and rather startling interpretation I propose of these obscure words" In mena Libra alway."

There are two twin stars, of the same magnitude, and not far apart, each of which bears the Arabic title of Min al auwâ; one (8 Virginis) in the sign Virgo-the other (8 Virginis) in that of Libra.

The latter, in the south of England, in Chaucer's time, would rise a few minutes before the autumnal equinoctial point, and might be called Libra Min al auwâ either from that circumstance, or to distinguish it from its namesake in Virgo.

Now on the 18th of April this Libra Min al auwâ would rise in the neighbourhood of Canterbury at about half-past three in the afternoon, so that by four o'clock it would attain an altitude of about five degrees - not more than sufficient to render the moon, supposing it to have risen with the star, visible (by daylight) to the pilgrims "entrying at a towne's end."

It is very remarkable that the only year, perhaps in the whole of Chaucer's lifetime, in which

the moon could have arisen with this star on the 18th of April, should be the identical year to which Tyrwhitt, reasoning from historical evidence alone, would fain attribute the writing of the Canterbury Tales. (Vide Introductory Discourse, note 3.)

On the 18th of April, 1388, Libra Min al auwâ, and the moon, rose together about half-past three P. M. in the neighbourhood of Canterbury; and Tyrwhitt, alluding to the writing of the Canterbury Tales, "could hardly suppose it was much advanced before 1389!"

Such a coincidence is more than remarkable it is convincing: especially when we add to it that 1388 "is the very date that, by a slight and probable injury to the last figure, might become the traditional one of 1383!"

Should my view, therefore, of the true reading of this passage in Chaucer be correct, it becomes of infinitely greater interest and importance than a mere literal emendation, because it supplies that which has always been supposed wanting to the Canterbury Tales, viz., some means of identifying the year to which their action ought to be attributed. Hitherto, so unlikely has it appeared that Chaucer, who so amply furnishes materials for the minor branches of the date, should leave the year unnoted, that it has been accounted for in the supposition that he reserved it for the unfinished portion of his performance. But if we consider the ingenious though somewhat tortuous methods resorted to by him to convey some of the other data, it is by no means improbable that he might really have devised this circumstance of the moon's rising as a means of at least corroborating a date that he might intend to record afterwards in more direct terms. A. E. B.

or

a reading much less forced than that I was obliged to have recourse to. Now it very singularly happens that in "NOTES AND QUERIES" of this day (page 388.) I find, upon the authority of A.C. M., that there is an Armorican word "menex" "mene," signifying a summit or boundary. Here is an accidental, though most probable, original of the Chaucerian "mene," because the moon's place in longitude at the time specified was precisely on the verge or boundary of Libra: or even in the sense "summit" the word would be by no means inappropriate to that point of a sign in the ecliptic which first emerges from the horizon; with such a reading the lines would stand thus, which is a very slight change from their present form :

In some of your former numbers (Vol. iii., pp. 206. 237. 289.) allusions have been made by your correspondents, showing that traditions may come down from remote periods through very few links. Having myself seen a man whose father lived in the time of Oliver Cromwell, I trust I shall be excused for stating some particulars of this fact, which I think will be considered by your readers as one of the most remarkable on

record.

In the year 1844 died James Horrocks, a small farmer, who lived at Harwood, a short distance from Bolton, in Lancashire, having completed his hundredth year. This circumstance, however, was not so remarkable as that of his own birth, his father, William Horrocks, having been born in 1657, one year before the death of Cromwell, and having married in 1741, at the advanced age of eighty-four, a second wife, a young and buxom woman of twenty-six, by whom he had one child, the above James Horrocks, born March 14, 1744, and baptized at Bradshaw Chapel, near Bolton.

It is believed that the first wife of William Horrocks had been employed in the well-known family of the Chethams, at Castleton Hall, near Rochdale (a branch of that of Humphrey Chetham), by whom they were both much respected; and soon after the second marriage, he and his

youthful wife were sent for to Castleton Hall by the Chethams, by whom they were treated with much kindness; and the remarkable disparity of years in their marriage having no doubt created great interest, a painter was employed to take their portraits, which are still in existence, with the ages of the parties at the time, and the dates, when taken, painted upon them.

I paid the son, James Horrocks, more than one visit, and on the last occasion, in company with James Crossley, Esq., of Manchester, the Reverend Canon Parkinson, Principal of St. Bees' College, and one or two other gentlemen, I took my son with me. It happened to be the very day on which he completed his hundredth year, and we found him full of cheerfulness and content, expecting several of his descendants to spend the day with him. I possess a portrait in crayons of this venerable patriarch, taken on that day by a very clever artist, who accompanied us on our visit, and which is an extremely faithful likeness of the original. Should it please Providence to spare my son to attain to his seventieth year, he also will be enabled, in the year 1900, to say that he has seen a man whose father lived in the time of Oliver Cromwell; thus connecting events, with the intervention of one life only, comprehending a period of very nearly two centuries

and a half.

P.S. A very interesting narrative of all the facts of this case was published in the Manchester Guardian a few years ago, comprising many curious particulars not noticed by myself, a copy of which I shall be glad to send you, if you think it worthy of insertion in "NOTES AND QUERIES." THOMAS CORSER.

Stand Rectory. [We accept with thanks the offer of our valued correspondent.]

DR. YOUNG'S NARCISSA.

A pamphlet was recently published at Lyons and Paris, by a Monsieur de Terrebasse, intending to prove that the daughter-in-law of Dr. Young, so pathetically lamented by him in the Night Thoughts under the poetical name of " Narcissa," was not clandestinely buried at Montpellier; that Dr. Young did not steal a grave for her from the Roman Catholics of that city; and that consequently the celebrated and touching episode in Night III. is purely imaginary. This opinion of M. de Terrebasse, first given to the world by him in 1832, and now repeated, has been controverted by the writer of an article in the Gazette Médicale of Montpellier. The tomb, it is said, of Elisabeth Lee, Dr. Young's daughter-in-law, was discovered a few years since at Lyons; and M. de Terrebasse endeavours to prove, from that circumstance, and from a comparison of facts and dates, that this

Elisabeth Lee was the "Narcissa" of the poet. Not having seen M. de Terrebasse's pamphlet, and being indebted to the Journal des Savants for this brief account of it, it seems difficult to discover from it how M. de Terrebasse can pretend so summarily to invalidate the solemn and touching assertions of the poet, which assuredly are anything but flights of fancy.

"Deny'd the charity of dust to spread
O'er dust! a charity their dogs enjoy,
What could I do? what succour? what resource?
With pious sacrilege a grave I stole;
With impious piety that grave I wrong'd;
Short in my duty, coward in my grief!
More like her murderer than friend, I crept
With soft suspended step, and muffled deep
In midnight darkness, whisper'd my last sigh.”
Night Thoughts; Narcissa.
In the notes to an edition of the Night Thoughts,
printed in 1798, by C. Whittingham, for T. Hep-
tinstall-

"It appears," it is stated, "by the extract of a letter just printed, that in order to obtain a grave, the Doctor bribed the under gardener, who dug the grave, and let him in by a private door, bearing his beloved daughter, wrapped up in a sheet, upon his shoulder. When he had laid her in this hole he sat down, and, as the man It appears also, that expressed it, rained tears.' some time previous to this event, expecting the cata

strophe, he had been seen walking solitarily backward
his purpose."-See Evang. Mag., Nov. 1797.
in this garden, as if to find the most solitary spot for

from the Evang. Mag. may possess.
I do not know what authority this letter quoted
J.M.
Oxford, May 20.

Minor Notes.

Curious Epitaph.-The following lines are on a stone in Killyleagh churchyard. I have a faint recollection of seeing a similarly constructed epitaph in Harris's History of the County of Down, which was perhaps composed by the same person. Is any of your readers acquainted with any English inscription in the same style?

"Mysta, fidelis, amans, colui, docui, relevavi,

Numen, oves, inopes, pectore, voce, manu. Laude orbem, splendore polum, cineresque beatos, Fama illustravit, mens colit, urna tenet."

It will easily be seen that the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth words are to be read in connexion, as are those that follow these, and those next in succession.

The person on whose tomb the lines occur was the Rev. William Richardson, who died in 1670, having been minister of Killyleagh for twenty-one years. By the way, is not mysta a strange designation for a Presbyterian minister? I should think it would be now considered as objectionable as sacerdos. E. H. D. D.

Killyleagh, co. Down.

The Curse of Scotland (Vol. i., pp. 61. 90.; Vol. iii., p. 22.).—

"The queen of clubs is called in Northamptonshire Queen Bess, perhaps, because that queen, history says, was of a swarthy complexion; the four of spades, Ned Stokes, but why I know not; the nine of diamonds, the curse of Scotland, because every ninth monarch of that nation was a bad king to his subjects. I have been told by old people, that this card was so called long before the Rebellion in 1745, and therefore it could not arise from the circumstance of the Duke of Cumberland's sending orders, accidentally written upon the card, the night before the battle of Culloden, før General Campbell to give no quarter.”

The above extract from a communication to the Gentleman's Magazine for 1791, p. 141., is quoted in Mr. Singer's Researches into the History of Playing Cards, p. 271.; but the reason assigned by the writer does not explain why the nine of diamonds should have acquired the name in question. The nine of any other suit would be equally applicable. L.

The Female Captive: a Narrative of Facts which happened in Barbary in the Year 1756. Written by Herself, 2 vols. 12mo. Lond., 1769.Sir William Musgrave has written this note in the copy which is now in the library at the British

Museum:

"This is a true story. The lady's maiden name was Marsh. She married Mr. Crisp, as related in the narrative. But he having failed in business went to India, where she remained with her father, then agent Victualler at Chatham, during which she wrote and published these little volumes. On her husband's success in India, she went thither to him.

"The book having, as it is said, been bought up by the lady's friends, is become very scarce."

Y. S.

Pictorial Antiquities.-The following memorandum, in the autograph of Edward, Earl of Oxford (the Harleian collector), seems worth preserving: "A picture of Edward IV, on board at Kensington. "A whole length of him at St. James's, in a nightgown and black cap.

"A portrait of his queen in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.

"Jane Shore at Eaton (sic).
"Richard III. at Kensington.

"Picture of Henry V. and his family at Mr. West's. "A picture of Mabuse at St. James's, called Albert Durer.

"Matthew Paris with miniatures, in the British Museum.

"William of Wickham's Crozier at Oxford.

"Greek enamellers in the reign of the two Edwards. "An old altar-table at Chiswick; Lord Clifford and his lady kneeling; Consecration of Thomas à Becket at Devonshire House, both by Van Eyck."

"Froissart illuminated, wherein is a miniature of Richard II., in the Museum."

One might have thought that these notes were made for the use of Horace Walpole's History of Painting; but their writer, the second Lord Oxford, died in June, 1741, long before Walpole could have thought of such matters. They perhaps may afford clues to other antiquaries.

Queries.

ENGLISH POEMS BY CONSTANTINE HUYGHENS.

It is probable that some of your friendly correspondents in Holland may have it in their power to indicate where the English verses of Constantine Huyghens are to be found which he refers to in his Koren Bloemen, 2de Deel, p. 528. ed. 1672, where he has given Dutch translations with the following superscriptions: "Aen Joff Utricia Ogle, uyt mijn Englesh;" and "Aen Me-Vrouwe Stanhope, met mijn Heilige dagen, uyt mijn Engelsh."

Huyghens appears to have had a thorough knowledge of our language, and his very interesting volume contains translations of twenty of Dr. Donne's poems, very ably rendered, considering the difficulty of the task. He refers to this in his Martyr [Charles I.] many years since had deaddress to the reader, and says that an illustrious clared that he could not have believed that any one could have successfully accomplished it. Huyghens confesses that the Latinisms with which wrestle with; and that it was difficult to express our language abounds, had given him much to in pure Dutch such words as ecstasy, atomy, influence, legacy, alloy, &c. The first stanza of the song, "Go and catch a falling Star," may perhaps be acceptable to some of your readers, who may not readily have access to the book:

"Gaet en vatt een Sterr in 't vallen,

Maeckt een' Wortel-mensch* met kind, Seght waer men al den tijd die nu verby is vindt, En wie des Duyvels voet geklooft heeft in twee ballen: Leert my Meereminnen hooren, Leert my hoe ick 't boose booren, Van den Nijd ontkommen moet,

En wat Wind voor-wind is voor een oprecht gemoed."

One more example of his translation, from the epigram on Sir Albertus Morton, may be allowed, as it is short:

"She first deceased; he for a little tried

To live without her; liked it not, and died." "Sy stierf voor uyt:, hy pooghd' haer een' wijl tijds te derven,

Maer had geen' sin daer in, en ging oock liggen

sterven."

Considering the affinity of the languages, and the frequent and constant intercourse with Hol

• Mandrake.