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TOM MOORE'S FIRST!

It is now generally understood that the first poetic effusion of Thomas Moore was entrusted to a publication entitled Anthologia Hibernica, which held its monthly existence from Jan. 1793 to December 1794, and is now a repertorium of the spirited efforts made in Ireland in that day to The set is comestablish periodical literature. plete in four volumes: and being anxious to see if I could trace the "fine Roman" hand of him whom his noble poetic satirist, and after fast friend, Byron, styled the "young Catullus of his day," I went to the volumes, and give you the result.

No trace of Moore appears in the volume containing the first six months of the publication; but in the "List of Subscribers" in the second, we see "Master Thomas Moore;" and as we find this designation changed in the fourth volume to “Mr. Thomas Moore, Trinity College, Dublin!” (a boy with a black ribband in his collar, being as a collegian an ex officio man!"), we may take it for ascertained that we have arrived at the wellspring of those effusions which have since flowed in such sparkling volumes among the poetry of the day.

Moore's first contribution is easily identified; for it is prefaced by a note, dated "Aungier Street, Sept. 11, 1793," which contains the usual request of insertion for "the attempts of a youthful muse," &c., and is signed in the semi-incognito_style, "Th-m-s M-re;" the writer fearing, doubtless, lest his fond mamma should fail to recognise in his own copy of the periodical the performance of her little precocious Apollo.

This contribution consists of two pieces, of which we have room but for the first: which is a striking exemplification (in subject at least) of Wordsworth's aphorism, that "the child is father to the man." It is a sonnet addressed to "Zelia," "On her charging the author with writing too much on Love!" Who Zelia was whether a lineal ancestress of Dickens's "Mrs. Harris," or some actual grown up young lady, who was teased by, and tried to check the chirpings of the little pre

Queen Elizabeth. I fear his memory deceived him, or why should a man of his sound learning afterwards incline to vail bonnet to the dogmatist Warburton? whose knowledge of dogs, by the way, must have been marvellously small, or he could never have imagined them to overtop one another in a horizontal course. Overrun, over

shoot, overslip, are terms in hunting, overtop never; except perchance in the vocabulary of the wild huntsman of the Alps. Trash occurs as a verb in the sense above given, Act I. Sc. 2. of the "Who t'aduance, and who to trash for Tempest: over-topping." I have never met with the verb in that sense elsewhere, but overtop is evermore the appropriate term in arboriculture. To quote examples of that is needless. Of it metaphorically applied, just as in Shakspeare, take the following example:

"Of those three estates, which swayeth most, that in a manner doth overtop the rest, and like a foregrown member depriveth the other of their proportion of growth." Andrewes' Sermons, vol. v. p. 177., Lib. Ang.-Cath. Theol.

Have we not the substantive trash in the sense of shreddings, at p. 542. book iii. of a Discourse of Forest Trees, by John Evelyn? The extract that contains the word is this:

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Faggots to be every stick of three feet in length, excepting only one stick of one foot long, to harden and wedge the binding of it; this to prevent the abuse, too much practised, of filling the middle part and ends with trash and short sticks, which had been omitted in the former statute."

Possibly some of the statutes referred to by Evelyn may contain examples of the verb. In the meantime it will not be impertinent to remark, that what appears to be nothing more than a dialectic variety of the word, namely trouse, is of every-day use in this county of Hereford for trimmings of hedges; that it is given by Grose as a verb in use in Warwickshire for trimming off the superfluous branches; and lastly, that it is employed as a substantive to signify shreddings by Philemon Holland, who, if I rightly remember, was many years head master of Coventry Grammar

School:

Clamor, to curb, restrain (the tongue): "Clamor your tongues, and not a word more."

The Winter's Tale, Act IV. Sc. 4.

Most judiciously does NARES reject Gifford's corruption of this word into charm, nor will the suffrage of the "clever" old commentator one jot contribute to dispel their diffidence of this change, whom the severe discipline of many years' study, and the daily access of accumulating knowledge, have schooled into a wholesome sense of their extreme fallibility in such matters. Without adding any comment, I now quote, for the inspection of learned and unlearned, the two ensuing extracts:

"For Critias manaced and thretened hym, that onelesse he chaumbreed his tongue in season, ther should ere lōg bee one oxe the fewer for hym.". Apoptheymis of Erasmus, translated by Nicolas Vdall, MCCCCCXLII, the First Booke, p. 10.

"From no sorte of menne in the worlde did he

refrein or chaumbre the tauntyng of his tongue.”— Id., p. 76.

After so many Notes, one Query. In the second folio edition of Shakspeare (my first folio wants the whole play), I find in Cymbeline, Act V. Sc. 3. the next beautiful passage:

"Post. Still going? This is a lord: Oh noble misery
To be ith' field, and aske what newes of me:
To-day how many would have given their honors
To have sav'd their carkasses? Tooke heele to doo't,
And yet dyed too. I in mine owne woe charmn'd,
Could not find death, where I did heare him groane,
Nor feele him where he strooke. Being an ugly

In the antepenultimate line, Britaine was more than a century ago changed by Hanmer into Roman, therefore retained by Warburton, again rejected by Steevens and Johnson, once more replaced by Knight and Collier, with one of his usual happy

notes by the former of the two, without comment by the latter, finally left unnoticed by Dyce. My Query then is this. What amount of obtuseness will disqualify a criticaster who itches to be tinkering and cobbling the noblest passages of thought that ever issued from mortal brain, while at the same time he stumbles and bungles in sentences of that simplicity and grammatical clearness, as not to tax the powers of a third-form schoolboy to explain? * If editors, commentators,

* In a passage from L. L. L., lately winnowed in the pages of "N. & Q.," divers attempts at elucidation (whereof not one, in my judgment, was successful)

critics, and all the countless throng who are ambitious to daub with their un-tempered mortar, or scribble their names upon the most majestic edifice of genius that the world ever saw, lack the little discernment necessary to interpret aright the above extract from Cymbeline, for the last hundred years racked and tortured in vain, let them at length learn henceforth to distrust their judgment altogether. W. R. ARROWSMITH.

Hill, do presently withdraw, to peruse the statutes now in force against priests and Jesuits. "Ordered, That Mr. Whittacre, Mr. Morley, do presently go to Denmarke House.

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VERNEY PAPERS THE CAPUCHIN FRIARS, ETC. In the appendix to Notes of Proceedings in the Long Parliament, by Sir Ralph Verney, edited by Mr. Bruce for the Camden Society in 1845, are "Notes written in a Cipher," which Mr. Bruce gives in the hope that the ingenuity of some reader will discover their meaning. I venture thus to decypher the same:

"The Capuchins' house to be dissolued.

No extracts of letters to be aloued in this house.
The prince is now come to Greenhich three lette.
Three greate ships staied in France.
Gersea a letter from Lord S' Albones.
£11 per diem Hull,

The king's answert to our petition about the militia. If a king offer to kil himselfe, wee must not only advise but wrest the weapon from.

A similitude of a depilat. Consciences corrupted."

I ought to state that in one or two instances the wrong cypher has evidently been used by mistake, and this has of course increased the difficulty of decyphering the notes.

With reference to the note "The Capuchins' House to be dissoiued," may I be allowed to refer to the following votes in the House of Commons, of the date 26th February, 1641-2:

"Ordered, That Mr. Peard, Mr. Whistler, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Prideaux, Mr. Selden, Mr. Young, Mr.

having been made, it was gravely, almost magisterially proposed by one of the disputants, to corrupt the concluding lines (MR. COLLIER having already once before corrupted the preceding ones by substituting a plural for a singular verb, in which lay the true key to the right construction) by altering "their" the pronoun into "there" the adverb, because (shade of Murray!) the commentator could not discover of what noun "their" could possibly be the pronoun in these lines following:

"When great things labouring perish in their birth,

Their form confounded makes most form in mirth." And it was left to MR. KEIGHTLEY to bless the world with the information that it was "things."

Under date 2nd March, 1641-2, are the follow

"Mr. Holles brings this answer from the French Ambassador, That the Capuchins being sent hither by Articles of Treaty between the Two Crowns, he durst not of himself send them without Order from the King his Master, or the King and Queen here: And said farther, That the Queen had left an express Command for their stay here; and that he would be ever ready to do any good Office for this House, and to keep a good Correspondency between the Two Crowns; and if this House pleased, he would undertake to keep them safe Prisoners at Somersett House; and that the chapel there shall have the doors locked, and no Mass be said there.

"Ordered, That Mr. Hollis do acquaint the French Ambassador, that this House doth accept of his Offer in securing the Persons of the Capuchins, till this House take farther Order: and that the Doors be locked, and made fast, at the Chapel at Somersett House; and that no Mass be said there.

"Ordered, That the Lord Cramborne and Mr. Hollis shall acquaint the French Ambassador with the desires of this House, that the Capuchins be forthwith sen away; and to know if he will undertake to send them away; and, if he will, that then they be forthwith delivered unto him.

"That Mr. Hollis do go up to the Lords, to acquaint them with the Resolutions of this House, concerning the Capuchins, and desire their Lordships' con

currence therein."

not much later than that of the book. There is no clue to the author. If they are thought worthy of insertion in "N. & Q," I beg to inquire, through the medium of your columns, whether they are to be found in any collection of early English poems? and whether the author is known?

The ungallant sentiment of the first three stanzas is obvious. The fourth is not so plain; nor is its connexion with the others evident, though it is written without anything to mark a separation; and the word "finis" is placed below it, as if to apply to the whole. I should be obliged if some one of your readers would give some explanation W. H. G.

of it.

Winchester.

"Wen [sic] nettylles in wynter bryngythe forthe rosses red,

And a thorne bryngy the figges naturally, And grase berry the appulles in every mede, And lorrel cherrys on his crope so hye, And okkys berry the datys plentyusly, And kykkys gyvythe hony in superfluans, Then put in women yower trust and confydenc. "When whythynges walke forrestys hartyse for to chase,

And herrings in parkkys the hornnys boldly bloe, And marlyons * ... hernys in morrys doo unbrace, And gomards shut ryllyons owght of a crose boow, And goslyngs goo a howntyng the wolf to overthrow, And sparlyns bere sperrys and arms for defenc, Then put yn women yower trust and confydenc. "When sparrowes byld chorchys and styppyllys of a hyght,

And corlewys carry tymber yn howsys for to dyght, Wrennys bere sakkys to the myll,

And symgist bryng butter to the market to sell, And wodcokkys were wodknyffys the crane for to kyll,

And gryffyns to goslynges doo obedienc,

Then put in women yower trust and confydenc.

"O ye imps of Chynner, ye Lydgatys pene,

With the spryght of bookkas ye goodly inspyrryd,
Ye Ynglyshe poet, excydyng other men,
With musyk wyne yower tong yn syrryd,
Ye roll in yower rellaty vys as a horse immyrryd,
With ooyddes penner ye are greatly in favor,
Ye bere boys incorne, God dyld yow for yower labor.
Finis."

a curious and interesting question, and one that deserves very particular attention," I beg to correct an error into which he and others have fallen, as to the date when Junius ceased to write under the signature Atticus. The Atticus forwarded by Junius to George Grenville on the 19th October, 1768, was, there is every reason to believe, the last from the pen of that writer, who was then preparing to come before the public in a more prominent character. When another correspondent adopted the signature Atticus, Woodfall gave his readers warning by inserting the following notice in the Public Advertiser :

"The Address to the Freeholders of the county of Middlesex, signed Atticus, in our next. The Printer thinks it his duty to acquaint his readers that this letter is not by the same hand as some letters in this paper a little time since, under the signature Atticus.". Pub. Ad., March 19, 1769.

The printer took the like course when writers attempted to "impose upon the public" by using the signatures Lucius and C., and then freely inserted their letters; but when the same trick was tried with Junius, the printer did not scruple to alter the signature, or reject the contribution as spurious.

The genuine Letters of Atticus have had a narrow escape lately of being laughed out of their celebrity by writers in some of our most respectable periodicals. The authenticity of these letters up to the 19th October, 1768, is now fully established. The undecided question of the authorship of Junius requires that every statement should be carefully examined, and (as far as possible) only well-authenticated facts be admitted as evidence in future. WILLIAM CRAMP.

Minor Nates.

Irish Bishops as English Suffragans. In compliance with the suggestion of J. M. D. in your last volume, p. 385., I abridge from The Record of March 17th the following particulars:

"At a recent meeting of the Archæological Society the Rev. W. Gunner stated that from a research among the archives of the bishops and of the college of Winchester, he had found that many Irish bishops, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were merely titular bishops, bearing the titles of sees in Ireland, while they acted as suffragans to bishops in England. A Bishop of Achonry, for instance, appeared to have been frequently deputed by William of Wykeham to consecrate churches, and to perform other episcopal duties, in his diocese; and the Bishops of Achonry seemed frequently to have been suffragans of those of Winchester. No see exhibits more instances of this expatriation than Dromore, lying as it did in an unsettled and tumultuous country. Richard Messing, who succeeded to Dromore bishopric in 1408, was suffragan to the Archbishop of York; and so died at