1830.] The History of Punch.-York Minster. Of the foregoing, and some other Italian authors, Mr. D'Israeli has availed himself in his "Curiosities of Literature: the "Even Pullicinella, whom we familiarly call Punch, (he observes) may receive, like other personages of not greater importance, all his dignity from antiquity; one of his Roman ancestors having appeared to an antiquary's visionary eye in a bronze statue. More than one erudite dissertation authenticates the family-likeness; the nose long, prominent, and hooked; the staring goggleeyes; the hump at his back, and at his breast; in a word, all the character which so strongly marks the Punch-race, as distinctly as whole dynasties have been featured by the Austrian lip, and the Bourbon nose. This statue, which is imagined to throw so much light on the genealogy of Punch, was discovered in 1727, and is engraved in Ficoroni's amusing work on Le Maschere Scenicke e le Figure Comiche d'Antichi Romani, p. 48. It is that of a mime called Maccus by the Romans; But the name indicates a simpleton.' origin of the more modern name has occasioned a little more difference, whether it be derived from the nose, or its squeak. The learned Quadrio would draw the name Pullicinello from Pulliceno,* which Spartianus uses for il pullo gallinaceo, (I suppose this to be the turkey-cock,) because Punch's hooked nose resembles its beak. But Baretti, in that strange book the Tolondron, gives a derivation admirably descriptive of the peculiar-speaking nasal sound. He says-Punchinello, or Punch, as you well know, speaks with a squeaking voice, that seems to come out at his nose, because the fellow, who in a puppet-show manages the puppet called Punchinello, or Punch as the English folks abbreviate it, speaks with a tin-whistle in his mouth, which makes him emit that comical kind of voice. But the English word Punchinello is in Italian Pulcinella, which means 'a hen-chicken.' Chicken's voices are squeaking and nasal, and they are timid and powerless, and for this reason my whimsical countrymen have "Qui eos ex ovis ac pullicenis, Pullicenos hic vocat pullos fasianorum, pavonum, perdicum, anatum, et gallinarum.' Inde nostra vox poucins de pullis gallinaceis.' Pulli, pullici, et pulliceni. Pullitras dixit VARRO in genere gallinaceo, et pullitras opponit vetulis galliuis, de R.R. 3. Et ea, quæ subjicias vetulis potius quam pullitris. Pullitros etiam pullos equinos' dixerunt, qui recentioribus poledri pro pulitris; atque ita scriptum occurrit in Legibus Salicis. Pulletrus anniculus in Legibus Visig. Hinc nos pullitras vel pultras' equulas' vocamus."-Salmas. ad Script. H. A. 227.— E. H. B. 405 given the name of Pulcinella, or Hen- actors, and Baretti, in illustration of his opinion, refers to the comic character Bogiganga, or Mogiganga, in the Spanish of Don Quixote, which also refers to a squeaking nasal sound, from ganga, which in Spanish signifies "a goose." Mr. URBAN, E. H. BARKer. Nov. 6. "Eager is the disposition which the most unpractised men betray for change, and fixed is the conviction which the most ignorant express for the propriety and even the necessity of attempting it."-PARR. 7OUR readers will learn with plea YOUR sure that the advocates for the preservation of the Choir of York Minster in the original perfection and beauty of its costume, have checked the execution of the injurious plans which for a long time have engrossed the attention of the Chapter. All good antiquaries will rejoice that the elegant taste for English architecture which so eminently distinguished the late Dean Markham, enters among the accomplishments of his son the Reverend Archdeacon Markham, whose exertions to save the same beautiful Cathedral which his father protected from injury and innovation with unequalled assiduity and regard, are beyond praise. The final debate on the alteration of the internal arrangement of the choir is fixed for December. It might have been expected that the redemption of the Choir from its ruins, and the restitution of its furniture with the strictest fidelity to the original, would have proved the sole objects of the care and solicitude of those in authority. The interruption which fanciful schemes have occasioned to the steady progress of the repairs, will delay the completion of the interior far beyond the time originally proposed,-not that delay is a question of any weight in the balance with injurious alteration, though the sooner the Cathedral can be perfected the better. It has, however, been deemed judicious to follow the maxim of Sir Nicholas Bacon, "Let us stay a little that we may have done the sooner." It is melan 406 Screen of York Minster. choly to view so fair a building in ruins, the painted glass in holes, the clustered pillars defaced, the costly monuments mutilated, the floor broken up, and all the evidences of extensive destruction. The discoveries under the floor of the choir are very interesting, consisting of a series of Norman pillars, the remains of the crypt of a church more ancient than any part of the present edifice,either above or below ground. These pillars stand within the space of those of the choir, are very finely constructed, ornamented in spiral lines, and have smaller pillars attached to them for the springers of the stone roof, which was destroyed with the Norman choir. The new roof is on. It is a very fine and correct piece of workmanship, and is calculated to protect the building for many ages. Mr. Smirke may be proud of this performance; no living, architect could have executed a more faithful imitation of the original. It evinces the true spirit of restoration. Every procurable authority was consulted; modern taste was locked up: but, alas! that monster broke loose during the deliberations on the restitution of the Choir, and destroyed the harmony of the proceedings. To speak plainly; there are two parties, one urging the beauty of a new arrangement in the Choir, the other defending the old. It is my part to consider the object and arguments of those on the former side. Their first object is to displace the entrance Screen, which the architect of the choir fixed where it now stands, doubtless choosing for it the position best suited to the extensive plan of his own church. Their next object is to cut down the height of the same screen, which the architect of the Choir suited in proportion and ornament to his noble building. The plea of showing the great pillars, or the great east window, to more advantage by these injuries, is similar to the excuse always urged when the alteration of an ancient arrangement is propounded, the opening of a pretty prospect. But surely those who designed York Minster were the best judges of its internal costume and effect. Neither its proportions, nor its beautiful ornaments, were the result of chance or accident. Indeed so correct is the architecture in all these particulars, that they must have resulted from profound study, and from skill and talent [Nov. of the very highest order. It is evident that the ancient architect never intended to open the whole beauty of the Choir to the view of the nave. A screen was invariably (in this country at least) placed before the entrance to the Choir, and those features which from without are only imperfectly seen, are, on passing this boundary, fully displayed. The plan proposed to effect this pernicious piece of novelty without altogether removing the screen, is, as I have before named, to cut off the upper part, and terminate the stone-work just above the point of the doorway; the organ to be divided, so as to admit a view of the great east window between,-the same window which is seen so much more advantageously after the screen has been passed. The affectation of showing the beauty of the great pillars, which it is boldly asserted are injured by the gorgeous screen, is truly astonishing. Those who are so very anxious to preserve the beauty of the pillars, scruple not to dilapidate the screen-to rob it of its just proportions, diminish its ornaments, and reduce it to a mere wreck: these mirrors of good taste would be puzzled to prove that a prescriptive right to remain in its present position, does not as fully belong to the screen as to the pillars, or any other constituent member of the Cathedral. The able architect of antiquity thought proper to give the greatest possible breadth to his screen, and he chose for it the most prominent situation; and shall we who owe the little we know of the architecture he practised so well, to his own scientific works,-to the very buildings we condemn, the style of which has been laid aside more than three centuries,shall we their humble imitators presume to assert that he decided wrongly? Can we-who know neither the origin of the style, nor the rule which governed its various proportions-with truth or modesty impugn the taste which designed the plan of York Minster, or the talent which adorned the least considerable of its constituent features! The architect evidently considered that the more ample and prominent the screen was made, the better it would harmonize with the gigantic dimensions of the church, and show its own exquisite enrichments. screen limited to the clear opening of A 1830.] York Cathedral.—Ancient Law Treatises. the pillars would, between its position and its scale, have ill-accorded with the amplitude and space of the aisle, and it would have wanted breadth for the display of statuary and other appropriate enrichments. How shockingly incongruous then to fix the screen beyond the pillars; i. e. within the Choir, as though the screen alone determined its western limit!-thus destroying the straight line of boundary which extends quite across the church through its centre from the angle of one transept to the angle of the other. The propriety and beauty of this line, so distinguished by elegant architecture, should not be overlooked or disregard ed by the reformers of the Choir of York Minster. The scheme is monstrous. The beautiful pillars of the lantern arch, now so greatly admired from the choir, would be hidden; the choir itself would be shortened, or the Lady Chapel reduced to a mere passage. We had flattered ourselves that the false taste which disgraced the abilities of James Wyatt had departed for ever, but there are those who would recal it in one of the noblest churches in the empire. The guardians of York Minster have declared that they can improve the beauty of their Church, which all the world ages ago pronounced to be as perfect in form and proportion as human ability could make it. The disciples of Wyatt, like their master, aim at effect in the alteration of ancient churches; but it is evident that they destroy effect by throwing together the beauties of several distinct members of the building. This is the result of the removal of screens: the harmony of the arrangement is broken, and consequently the beauty of the effect diminished, if not destroyed. Architecture it seems is not exempted from the pernicious experiments of levellers: but in this, as in every other case, its advocates level down-they level architecture down to their own notions of beauty and costume, instead of levelling it up to the grandeur and sublimity of venerable antiquity. In conclusion, I implore those who have hitherto exerted their abilities to save York Minster from sacrilegious alteration, to persevere against corrupt taste, ignorant meddling, and arrogant pretension. ANTIQUARIUS. Mr. URBAN, 407 Nov. 8. T is very curious to remark" that "IT your correspondent TEMPLARIUS, p. 229, in communicating the facts which he had collected relative to the earliest copies of Littleton's Tenures, should have prefaced them by gravely relating some of the stupid fictions in Geoffrey of Monmouth's history; it is more " "curious to remark that he should have mentioned the AngloSaxon laws, as if they had never been noticed before, or as if Lambard, Wheloc, Selden, Somner, Wilkins, and Turner, had never written any thing about them: it is still more "curious" that your Jurisperitus intimis Templariorum adytis eruditus should have mingled Latin with bad English in such a manner as he has done, and even have given his own quotations from old historians for the real titles of the codes mentioned by them. But it is most "curious" (that' is, most absurd,) that a lawyer should betray such ignorance or forgetfulness, as to "remark that we have no distinct data of the precise period at which ANY Law Treatise was written." The intention of your Correspondent, however, seems to be so good, that we may pardon these and other curiosities for the sake of the smallest contributions toward a "Critical Bibliography of ancient Treatises on the English Law." The canonists and civilians of the middle ages are sufficiently known; but many early treatises which are extant relative to the constitution and laws of our own country, several of which are in print, have not been (so far as I can observe) described collectively. In such a work as Dugdale's "Origines Juridiciales," it is surprising that a more detailed and accurate account of them was not given, than what we there find in two or three short chapters: and though it was not agreeable to Bishop Nicolson's plan to enter further on the subject than he has done in the third part of his English Historical Library, yet his work seems to contain the most useful and important information within a small compass, that can be met with. Though I do not consider myself qualified to enter fully into the merits of all the law MSS. that come in my way, yet I consider the design so important, that I beg your acceptance of 409 Ancient Law Treatises.-Hatfield the Lunatic. these hints and of some trifling contributions. In the Cottonian MS. Nero A. VI. (which was compiled in the reign of Edward III. chiefly from the records of the City of London), there is an anonymous tract in Latin, on the Preambles of Writs, of which 29 different kinds are enumerated. It is very short, and equally perspicuous; it begins, "Hec sunt proprietates Narrationum. Et primo in brevi de Recto," &c. (fol. 109-114b.) At the end the title is given in this short colophon, "Expliciunt Proprietates Narrationum." The second article may serve as a specimen of its method, and is curious for mentioning the ancient practice of marriage at the churchdoor, which is repeatedly alluded to by Chaucer. "In brevi de Recto de Dote,-quantitas tenementi, qua villa, injustum deforciamentum, quod sit recta dos que ipsam contingit de libero tenemento quod fuit, etc. Item quod vir dotavit eam ad ostium ecclesie, hora qua ipsam sponsavit; et tendatur secta.' The last title is, "De secta ad Molendinum ;" and the writs are nearly in the same order as in the "Registrum Brevium," a formulary whereof all the ancient MS. copies that I have seen, differ from each other. I do not know of any critical account of the different texts, nor do I remember any notice of the origin of that compilation. Some of the MSS. contain copies of actual instruments, from which I have drawn out pedigrees. On the subject of Writs, which form an important part of our common law, there is another ancient tract in a MS. of equal antiquity with the foregoing, entitled "Natura Brevium" (Harl. 990, f. 22—29b), which seems to have been the prototype of Judge Fitzherbert's treatise bearing the same title. It begins thus: "Cum sit necessarium conquerentibus iu Curia domini Regis, ut sibi in suis casibus congruum exibiatur [lege exhibeatur] remedium; ad instantiam quorundam sociorum nostrorum doctrinam subscriptam, ut sciatur que brevia et in quibus casibus, tam in accione reali quam personali, dari debeant et concedi; non modo quo debui, set ut scivi componere dignum duxi." It is followed by another tract in French, by the same nameless author, entitled Les Excepciones ad Brevia cassandum," f. 30-35.) which is thus [Nov. introduced by the concluding passage of the former tract. "Set quia consuetudo regni Anglie talis est, quod placita coram Justiciariis per narratores in Romanis et non in Latinis pronunciantur, ideo hujusmodi exceptiones in lingua Romana in scriptis rediguntur." It begins cum excepcion pur br' abatre; and ends with a reference to a case in Michaelmas term, anno 31 Edward I., and with the following colophon and verses: "Explicit Modus cassandi Brevia : "Taylle vos faylle, fey vous ment, Que plegge plede, mes gage rend ; Il est sage, qe prent gage Qe plus vaut, come soun argent." "Accopa decipit, fides mentitur, fide jussor litigat, pignus solvit: ille sapit qui pignus capit quod plus valet sua pecunia.' The Harleian, Cottonian, and especially the Hargrave collection of MSS. in the British Museum, will afford ample scope for the investigations of any lawyer who may devote his attention to our ancient law-books. As for Lord Hales's MSS. they are unfortunately "buried in one of those sepulchres of ancient MSS." the library of Lincoln's-inn; and the sight of one of them was on one occasion denied to a barrister of that society, and to an order from two benchers, by their uncourteous keeper; nor is there any other catalogue of them in existence, but the scanty list published in Dr. Bernard's general Catalogue, in 1690, at Oxford, in folio. MELAS. W. H. R. says "In p. 380, is recorded the death of a Mr. D. M. Dight, who preserved the life of George III. thirty-two years ago, by seizing the pistol from Hatfield at Drury-Lane Theatre." On referring to the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. LXXX. p. 478, I find a detailed account of the attempt on the life of Geo. III. by Hatfield, on the 15th of May 1800, from which it appears, that, on His Majesty entering the Theatre Hatfield stood up, and levelling a horse pistol at the Royal box, fired it, but that Mr. Holroyd, of Scotland Yard, fortunately raised the arm of the assassin so as to direct the contents of the pistol towards the roof of the box; that Hatfield then dropt the pistol, which Mr. Wright, a Solicitor of Wellclose-Square, found under the seat; but neither in the account of this transaction, nor in the trial of Hatfield, is the name of Dight ever mentioned." WILLIAM BERRY, COMPILER OF "COUNTY GENEALOGIES." SINCE INCE the last number of our Magazine was published, we have been called upon to defend ourselves before a Special Jury of the Country, in the Cburt of King's Bench at Westminster, in an action brought by the above-named compiler of Genealogies, to recover damages for a presumed libel in our Magazine for August 1829, when we reviewed his compilation; and, as we have nearly completed our circle of one hundred years without incurring even the imputation of libellers (the present instance alone excepted) we must offer a few observations upon the subject; although there can be but little need to say more than that the Jury, after hearing the whole of the plaintiff William Berry's witnesses, and the ingenuity and eloquence of the present Lord Chancellor Brougham, did, without our offering any evidence, decide in our favour-or, in other words, the Jury found a verdict for the defendant, on the plaintiff's own evidence. The case was shortly thus :-The plaintiff William Berry having taken up the pursuit of travelling into the counties of England to collect GeneaJogies, and then of printing them, with the additions of any other pedigrees which he considered fit accompaniments, did, in a prospectus which he published, call himself" William Ber ry, late, and for fifteen years, Registering Clerk in the College of Arms;" and we, having ascertained that there was no such officer as Registering Clerk," and that the plaintiff had been simply a writing clerk, in the private employ of two members of the College,* who were Registers of the Corporation, did think it an important part of our duty as reviewers to state those facts. 66 In the course of our review, it became also necessary to point out some few of the numerous defects of the work. In 1810 the plaintiff printed a book, where he gave himself the very designation for using which he sought to obtain damages of us; viz." William Berry, fifteen years Clerk to the Registrar of the College of Arms." GENT. MAG. November, 1830. As we had taken considerable trouble to ascertain the truth of our remarks, we were of course much surprised to find that the plaintiff, immediately after our publication, employed an at torney to commence an action against us, which action has been in progress from that period until its termination in this present month; and although the plaintiff was in the earliest stage informed that if any fact had been misrepresented, his correction of the error should find insertion in our pages, yet nothing but the tender mercies of the law would satisfy him. The Editor of the Literary Gazette, alluding to this discreditable proceeding, observes that "the author had recourse to the wretched law of libel, in the hope of catching a farthing or a shilling damages, and thus punishing his critic with the usual ruinous expense by which justice is defeated, and the reverse done. He was nonsuited; and, if he had not been so, there must have been an end of all fair and honest criticism." to The law of libel is certainly discreditable to the Legislature. In its present undefined and uncertain state, it enables any person to harass with legal proceedings, even an indefinite period, either the editors, publishers, or printers of any publication which has the integrity and candour to expose the unfounded pretensions We are deof literary assumption. cidedly of opinion that some means should be devised by the Legislature (when a plaintiff is insolvent) to render the attorney engaged in these disreputable cases responsible for the costs incurred by a defendant, on the Judge's certifying that the action was "frivolous and vexatious." A regulation of this kind would soon put an extinguisher on that petty system of annoyance to which the conductors of the public press are too frequently exposed. The following report of the trial is mainly extracted from the Times newspaper of Nov. 2. It took place in the Court of King's Bench, Nov. 1, before Lord Tenterden and a Special Jury. |