A Printed at A. Friedel's Lithographic. Establishment, 252. Tottenham CCR & Polytechnic Inst? 309 Begent St. GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. MAY, 1839. BY SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT. CONTENTS. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.-Shakspere's Killing the Calf-Painted Coaches- GUTZLAFF'S CHINA OPENED..... THE OLD BUN-HOUSE AT CHELSEA (with a Cut) THE ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE AT DORCHESTER (with a Plan). The Testamentary Jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts -Jer. Bentham-Lord Eldon-Lord Melville-Sir S. Romilly-Lord E. Cocker's Arithmetic, 496.-London Subsidy Roll in 1411 POETRY.-A Lament for Walsingham, 500.-Poem by Philip Earl of Arundel, REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Bathurst's Life of Bishop Bathurst, 505.-Marlés' History of India, 510.Jefferson's History of Carlisle, 516.-Love's Exchange, 521.-Ignatia, and other Poems, 522.-Goëthe's Correspondence with a Child.... LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. PAGE 450 451 466 467 473 474 481 484 487 489 491 497 499 504 522 New Publications, 523.-Geographical Society, 524.-Geological Society.... 524 ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES.-Society of Antiquaries, 525.-Numismatic Society, ib.-Burial-place of Durnovaria, 527.-Roman Antiquities at Winchester ..... HISTORICAL CHRONICLE.-Proceedings in Parliament, 532.-Foreign Promotions and Preferments, 536.-Births, Marriages. CLERGY DECEASED, &c. &c. .... 531 534 537 539-551 551 Bill of Mortality-Markets-Prices of Shares, 559.-Meteorological Diary- 560 Embellished with a Plan of the ROMAN AMPHITHEATRE at Dorchester and a View of the OLD CHELSEA BUN-HOUSE, MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. JUVENCUS remarks :-" In the review (Jan. p. 64,) of the publication of the Surtees Society, on the records of the Priory of Finchale, some remarks are extracted relative to the old mimic performance of Killing the Calf,' in which, according to an anecdote of Aubrey, Shakspere excelled when a boy. I am not, however, aware that any one has hitherto pointed out any allusion to this exhibition in the Plays of Shakspere; but does not such an allusion lie concealed in the following passage? "Polonius. I did enact Julius Cæsar; I was kill'd i' the Capitol. Brutus kill'd me. "Hamlet. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there.' AN IDLER remarks:-" In the 86th number of Johnson's Idler are these words, I had the misfortune next day of seeing the door thronged with painted coaches, and chairs with coronets, and was obliged to receive all my husband's relations on a second floor.' Neither Johnson's nor any other Dictionary that I have looked into, explains what is meant by painted coaches: I have asked several persons both old and young, if they understood the expression, and all have replied in the negative-it may therefore be worth while to record that in the early part of the last century those were called painted coaches, on which the arms of the proprietors were emblazoned, and thus Peggy Heartless means to shew that her hus band's relations did not visit her in hackney coaches. In a few years more some other Idler may think it expedient to explain what is meant by chairs with coronets,' but as some few are still seen in the streets upon court days, this seems unnecessary at present." To RUSTICUS.-The religious houses were perpetually rendering themselves subject to the penalties of a præmunire, in various ways, but especially in two: 1, by acquiring land, in defiance of the Sta. tutes of Mortmain, and 2, by intercourse \with Rome, in breach of the Statutes of Provisors. To secure themselves against the possible enforcement of these penalties, they lost no opportunity of procuring General Pardons, which it was customary to issue under the great seal at Coronations, and upon other occasions which were thought to call for a special exercise of the royal prerogative of mercy. G. K. inquires where this often-quoted line is to be found "Vox et preterea nihil," The letter of C. dated near Norwich, 7th April instant, has been received, and he is assured that no such practices as alluded to have had any sanction by the person addressed.-April 10, 1839. Forgeries of Ancient Coins.-I. Y. informs us, that a fellow is going the round of the provincial towns, and has lately paid a visit to London, where he has disposed of false coins to the unwary. He has a stock of forgeries of the rarest AngloSaxon pennies, and of several very uncommon Greek coins, among them some of Heliocles. We trust that he will ere long overreach himself, and be brought within the pale of the law. J. G. N. remarks:-" The inscription on the seal mentioned in p. 338, is doubt. less a rhyming couplet, and should be divided thus ALEZ OST· REVENEZ · TOST • In English, "At once proceed, Return with speed." ANLLYTHRENOG remarks, "In the review of the Essay on the Neo-Druidic Heresy (p. 395), this statement is quoted: If either the Coelbren or Peithinen be any where used in connexion with the art of writing, such passages remain yet to be produced;' and the reviewer informs us, the Bardic letters were furnished by Edward Williams.' We have no Coelbren y Beirdd passages truly; but we certainly have a very common traditionary belief in such an alphabet: so common, that I think it must have ex isted, and I beg to refer the essayist to the earliest English publication I can remember just now, 'Randle Holme's Academy of Armory, 1681,' for an account and engraving of the Bardic Letters." S. J. wishes to be informed whether there has been any portrait published of Bishop Nicolson,-the author of the Historical Libraries; or of Dr. Hugh Todd, prebendary of Carlisle, (1685 to 1720,) the author of several publications, and "a great benefactor (in MSS.) to the Dean and Chapter of Carlisle. Mr. Soames, in his History of the Anglo-Saxon Church, p. 134, says of St. Swithin, Bishop of Winchester, that his name "is yet familiar to English tongues, from its proverbial association with rainy summers." It would have been more correct to have said his festival. In p. 286, Mr. Soames says, that Saint Edmund, "like another Sebastian, was transfixed with spears." Should he not, with reference to both martyrs, have written arrows? GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. CHINA OPENED; OR, A DISPLAY OF THE HISTORY, &c. OF THE CHINESE EMPIRE. BY THE REV. C. GUTZLAFF, &c. 2 vols. 1838. IT may be considered as a temporary relief to the mind-wearied and disturbed with the rapid changes, the personal animosities, the civil broils, the political commotions, and the stormy and tumultuous revolutions of the Western World-to turn for awhile to the other side of the planet, and cast a reflecting eye on the permanent stability, the calm, orderly, and unmoved tranquillity of the greatest, the most venerable, and the most singular of all the Asiatic Nations.* China offers to the view of the political inquirer the remarkable spectacle of a durable and unshaken despotism existing in full force at the present day -having existed in the same manner as far as history extends, and the commencement of which it is impossible to surmise. The same people who, in the present day, under the euphonous appellation of Hoppo and Hong merchants, are trading with us, probably under the same kind of government traded with the Pharaohs of old ;-sent their silks, and gems, and perfumes, to Sabaco and Sesostris,† and filled the warehouses of ancient Thebes with their chintzes and calicoes, as they now do those of modern London. Bottles of Chinese porcelain have been found in the most ancient and previously unopened tombs in Egypt. Their political civilisation and commercial enterprise commenced at the earliest æra that can reasonably be supposed. It is true, that some of the luxuries to which "the flowery natives of the celestial empire,"-" the empire of great intelligence and purity,"-the land of " the imperial dragon," are at present addicted, may be of less remote origin;-green tea and birds' nests, sea-slugs and soy, bears' paws and buffalo hides, the glory of a Chinese epicure's table, may have been discovered by the greater ingenuity, the keener instinct, and the sacra fames of modern gourmands. The Chinese who corresponded with Amenophis, and sent a bill of lading to the younger Menes, may not perchance have beaten gongs, or used rattles; may not have walked with bamboos and lanthorns, and umbrellas; may not have worn their hair in long tails, admired fox-skin jackets, or decorated their caps with peacock's feathers; but the radical features, the genius, and habits of the people were probably the same. They probably then, as now, eschewed milk and butter, held beef and mutton in abhorrence, were much addicted to the savory diet of what Lycophron calls the Topkovμovipn, wore no shirts or body linen, shot with bows and "Weighing all the good and bad qualities of the respective natives in an impartial scale, we do not hesitate to award to the Chinese the palm of superiority over all other Asiatics."-Vol. i. p. 8. The civilisation of China was coeval with that of Egypt, the cultivation of literature there with the cultivation of literature in Greece, and the extension of the empire with the extension of that of Persia."-Vol. i. p. 312. + Callimachus calls the pig πελώρον θήριον : it is also called μόνιος ἄγριος, singularis ferus, and by Apollinaris driuayens, a grege abhorrens ;--and thus the French sanglier, and Italian cingialo, from the Latin “ singularis." See Bochart, Hieroz. P. i. lib. 3, c. 19, 66 |