Page images
PDF
EPUB

attended other of the larger markets in England, or whether our finding them at Hereford arises from some connexion between the two places. The explanation of the name Haverfordwest has not yet been satisfactorily made out. In early documents it is called "Hereford West"; and even down to the time of Elizabeth, state warrants describe it as "Hereford in partibus occidentalibus", although Haverford is always found in contemporaneous use. Hereford itself is sometimes called "Hereford East"; and there seems no more easy solution of the reason why Haverford should have the suffix "West", than the supposition that the original form was Hereford; and hence the necessity of the distinction. The information about the Haverford merchants is obtained from a well got up volume lately issued by the present Town Clerk of Hereford, which I recommend to the favourable notice of our members.

I am, Sir, yours obediently,

AN OLD MEMBER.

Archæological Notes and Queries.

Query 165.-HUMECILLUS.-A correspondent wishes to know the meaning of humecillus. He cannot find the word in any Latin dictionary, classical or mediæval, accessible to him.

Miscellaneous Notices.

THE MINIATURES AND ORNAMENTS OF ANGLO-SAXON AND IRISH MSS. This is the title of a most superb and elaborate work recently published by Professor Westwood. It constitutes a volume in imperial folio, with fifty-four magnificent plates, most carefully executed in exact facsimile of the originals, in gold and colours. A descriptive text accompanies each plate, serving as a history of British palæography and pictorial art. The author has been engaged on this Magnum Opus for several years, and for that purpose has paid repeated visits to France, Germany, Italy, and other parts of Europe. It is one of the most sumptuous works of the century, and is all the more valuable from the scientific care exercised in its compilation. There is only one drawback connected with it, and this is its great costliness, which, however, has been a matter of necessity. No such work could have been produced without large outlay. We understand that the subscription list has absorbed nearly the entire number of copies printed. Professor Westwood has stipulated with the publisher that two hundred should be the entire Edition, and that the stones should then be destroyed-this HAS been done. No New Edition can ever appear, as the cost of production is £30 a copy. Mr. Quaritch's

name appears on the title page; and we have heard that a few copies may still be procured from him at £21 each. Would that we could review it!

A DICTIONARY OF THE WELSH LANGUAGE is announced as in course of publication by the Rev. D. Silvan Evans, Rector of Llanymawddwy, Merionethshire, late Welsh lecturer at St. David's College, Lampeter; and we are both gratified and surprised at the intelligence. We borrow the author's words in setting forth this proposed undertaking:

"The incompleteness of all the existing Dictionaries of the Welsh tongue, considerably the most copious, and for centuries past the most cultivated branch of the Celtic, has been long felt and generally deplored, not only by those who speak the language, and employ it as their literary medium, but by philologists and students of Celtic history in Germany, France, and other parts of Europe. The present work has been undertaken with the view of supplying this deficiency, and materials for its completion are abundant. Besides printed books, and such MSS. as are publicly accessible, the Editor is enabled, by the courtesy of the present possessor, to avail himself of the magnificent and unrivalled collection of Welsh MSS. preserved at Peniarth, formerly known as the Hengwrt Library.

"The undertaking is obviously a most onerous one, and the Editor, while thankfully acknowledging the assistance which he has already received, earnestly invites the cooperation of all Welsh scholars and others interested in the advancement of Celtic philology."

We fully participate in the feelings of anxiety thus pointed out by the author; for we look back on the history of previous undertakings of this nature, and we are aware of the impediments offering themselves to the production of any literary work in modern Celtic, and especially Welsh society. The author does not say whether his proposed dictionary is to be on a scale larger or smaller than those already existing; whether it is to exceed Owen Pughe's two volumes, or to be limited, like Spurrell's, to one. We have no doubt that the possessor of the Peniarth Library would willingly aid by giving access to his invaluable MSS.; but we find nothing said as to the cooperation of living scholars in the various Celtic dialects. As a knowledge of the ancient tongues of western Europe has now become so much more widely extended than formerly, and as philological studies have been placed on so much broader and more solid bases than heretofore, it is to be hoped that the cooperation of scholars in Irish, Gaelic, Cornish, Armoric, and other dialects, may be obtained; or otherwise the finish of the work may be dubious, notwithstanding the acknowledged scholarship of Mr. Evans himself.

With regard to its composition he says:

"This work, which has engaged the attention of the Editor for many years, will comprise not only all the legitimate words occurring in the printed and manuscript literature of Wales from the earliest times to the present, including the ancient Glosses, but also some thousands of genuine, though hitherto unregistered, words orally collected in different parts of the Principality. Each word in its different significations will be illustrated by

ample quotations from approved sources, and, as far as possible, its earliest appearance in the language will be indicated. The synonyms will be given in the cognate dialects of the Celtic; and in addition to the proximate origin and relation of a word, its affinities with the classical and other languages belonging to the same family will be pointed out. Fanciful etymologies and explanations will throughout be diligently avoided."

We will only add that we hope he will be on his guard against that spirit of theory, conjecture, and wild assumption, which has so much interfered with all intellectual operations in Celtic matters, and that he will not hasten to produce his work before it has been well concocted and tested. He should remember how long it took Zeuss to produce his Grammatica Celtica, and Williams his Cornish Dictionary; nor, though delays are vexatious, should he be annoyed at finding himself slow rather than quick in his work. Under any circumstances he may feel assured of our cordial good will, and count upon what humble support we may be able to give him in his arduous undertaking.

BELLS IN OLD PARISH CHURCHES OF DEVONSHIRE.-A most interesting work on this subject has been compiled by the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe, Rector of Clyst St. George. It was originally read as a paper before the Exeter Diocesan Architectural Society, but has now assumed the proportions of a medium quarto volume, with eighteen plates of illustration, and is about to be published by subscription, with a Supplement containing an account of bell-founding, with many illustrations; a history of various Societies of Ringers from the Guild of Ringers in the time of Edward the Confessor; the Law of Church Bells, and a List of Bell Literature; Ancient Ecclesiastical Bells from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales; with many other Articles connected with the subject. Appended to this will be an account of the bells in all the old parishes of Cornwall. We may observe that in the south of England much attention is now paid to the history and condition of church bells; and in particular the Sussex Archæological Society lately issued a long and interesting account of all the church bells in that county, drawn up by an Oxford member. Something of the same kind might be attempted in Wales, though necessarily on a small scale; for the parsimonious spirit which has always stifled the Welsh Church has seldom left more than one bell for each parish-happy, too, if that one be not cracked! Still something, as at Cardiff, Llandaff, Carmarthen, St. Asaph, Wrexham, Gresford, etc., might and ought to be attempted. This good work would find much appropriate support and means of publication in our own pages. The author of this Devonshire book is also doing something to make the bells useful as well as soothing, as we find by the following paragraph copied from the Marlborough Times :—

"Great Bedwyn.-A simple and very ingenious arrangement has been adopted for chiming the fine old bells of this church. It is that invented by the Rev. H. T. Ellacombe, Rector of Clyst St. George, Devon, which has been used for some years in various churches in the west of England, but is little known elsewhere. It combines, with great simplicity, the following

very decided advantages. It brings all the bells under control in the body of the church, where they are chimed for service, with perfect ease, by one man or boy. Being independent of the belfry, it interferes in no way with with the ringers when a peal is to be rung. The chiming gear being distinct from the clappers, it does away with the practice which is so common, but so destructive, of 'clocking' the bells, or tying the clappers, by which numbers of fine bells are cracked. The apparatus has been put up at a cost of about £1 per bell."

AN INTERNATIONAL CELTIC CONGRESS was held at the town of St. Brieuc, in the Côtes du Nord, on the 15th of October last. It was got up by the Société d'Emulation of that department, and is considered to have been successful. The object was to examine and discuss local antiquities, and to bring together antiquaries taking interest in Celtic questions. It is to be hoped that an account of the proceedings will be published, and will reach us; had the Editor's health permitted, he would certainly have endeavoured to attend this Congress himself; for the objects indicated by the Society's programme seemed well selected, and the country itself is interesting in the highest degree; add to which, personal intercourse between Cambrian and Breton archaeologists is highly desirable.

THE BUILDER of Feb. 8, 1868, contains a beautiful set of plans and elevation of "The Cliff," a villa just built at Eastbourne by one of our correspondents, Mr. Vale, the well-known architect of Liverpool. The design, in the Italian villa style, is light and effective; but the plan shews the anomalous idea of warming the whole building by a single shaft or chimney. Without wishing to impugn our friend's taste, or the accuracy of his calculations, we can only say that we think he runs great risk of failing in his object, and wish him well through the needless difficulties which his theory imposes upon him. His powers of design are all brought out in the present instance; but these have become so widely known at Liverpool as to need no commendation from ourselves.

Reviews.

LE CATHOLICON DE IEHAN LAGADEUC, ETC.

THIS is a valuable edition of a curious Breton dictionary given to the antiquasian world by M. Le Men, one of our active Armorican correspondents, printed and published at Lorient; and the more creditable to the literary zeal and public spirit of the editor, because, as we have been informed, it has been put forth at his own risk and cost; limited to only three hundred copies, so that it can hardly be remunerative. M. Le Men, as our members probably know, is Keeper of the Archives for the department of Finistère. His name has not appeared in our

pages for some years, on account of illness and domestic affliction; and we therefore welcome the issuing of this volume as a sign of his return to a life of literary and archæological industry. We have styled it a curious work, and so it is; for the original work characterizes a period of literary activity in Brittany during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and as it is little known in England, even to Celtic scholars, we give a brief sketch of the literary history of that period among our Armorican brethren, for which we are indebted to the pen of M. De Subainville in a local periodical, the Revue critique d'Histoire et de Littérature: "Three periods may be distinguished in the history of Armorico-Breton literature: the first begins at the establishment of the Bretons in Armorica" (rather a misty epoch, by the way), "and ends with the commencement of the fifteenth century; the second lasts during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and the third is the modern period, comprising the present and two preceding centuries. The first of these periods is very little known to us: a few proper names, a few words scattered up and down amidst Latin charters, this is about all that remains to us of it. For the second period we are more fortunate, represented, as it is, by several documents of a certain length; but which, at the commencement of the present century, were either inedited, or preserved in printed works themselves as scarce as MSS. The first document made accessible to philologists is the Mystery of the Life of St. Nonne, published in 1837. Zeus had no other printed text at his disposal than this when he was studying Armorico-Breton of that period. Since then M. De la Villemarqué has brought out his edition of the Grand Mystère de Jesus. These two Mysteries are not the only monuments of Breton dramatic art which date from the sixteenth century; for we can also cite the Mont du Calvaire, printed in 1517; the Vie de l'Homme, 1530; the Mort de la Vierge, 1530; the Vie de Ste. Barbe, 1550. But happy are those who can meet with them! The third monument of the Armorican language of that period, which, however, has been published within our own century, is the Catholicon recently edited."

We now go on in the words of M. Le Men's preface: "Jean Balbi, a Genoese Dominican, who lived in the thirteenth century, and who is better known under the name of Jean de Janua or Januensis, is the author of a kind of classical encyclopædia bearing the title of Catholi con seu summa Grammaticalis, and containing a grammar, a treatise on rhetoric, and a dictionary. This work, which appears to have had a great reputation in the middle ages, was printed at Mayence, in 1460, by J. Faust and Schoeffer (see Brunet, Manuel, etc., under the word Janua); and four years later served as a model to J. Lagadeuc, a priest, who was a native of Plougonven near Morlaix, when compiling a dictionary in Breton, French, and Latin, for the poor students of his country ('ad utilitatem pauperum clericorum britannia')."

The first known edition of the Catholicon is that printed at Tréguier by Jean Calvez in 1499, of which there are probably only two copies remaining, one of them being in the Imperial Library at Paris, the other in the Public Library of Quimper. The present edition is, to a certain extent, an abbreviated one, M. Le Men having omitted much

« PreviousContinue »