Notes and Queries, Number 27, May 4, 1850 | Page 4

Hall in the immediate neighbourhood. The divorc��e married a Mr. Phillips, and dying without surviving issue, the estates passed to a distant branch of her family. About ten years ago I made a careful search (by permission) at Hanbury Hall for the supposed Monmouth MSS., but found none; and I ascertained by inquiry that there were none at Enstone Hall, the seat of Mr. Phillips's second wife and widow. The MSS. might have been carried to Burleigh, and a friend obtained for me a promise from the Marquis of Exeter that search should be made for them there, but I have reason to believe that the matter was forgotten. Perhaps some of your correspondents may have the means of ascertaining whether there are such MSS. in Lord Exeter's library. I confess my doubt whether so cautious a man as Thomas Vernon would have retained in his possession a mass of correspondence that might have been fraught with danger to himself personally; and, had it been in the Burleigh library, whether it could have escaped notice. This, however, is to be noted. After Vernon's death there was a dispute whether his MSS. were to pass to his heir-at-law or to his personal representatives, and the court ordered the MSS. (Reports) to be printed. This was done very incorrectly, and Lord Kenyon seems to have hinted that private reasons have been assigned for that, but these could hardly have related to the Monmouth MSS.
SCOTUS.
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PARNELL.
The following verses by Parnell are not included in any edition of his poems that I have seen. {428} They are printed in Steele's Miscellany (12mo. 1714), p. 63., and in the second edition of the same Miscellany (12mo. 1727), p. 51., with Parnell's name, and, what is more, on both occasions among other poems by the same author.
TO A YOUNG LADY
_On her Translation of the Story of Phoebus and Daphne, from Ovid._
In Phoebus, Wit (as Ovid said) Enchanting Beauty woo'd; In Daphne beauty coily fled, While vainly Wit pursu'd.
But when you trace what Ovid writ, A diff'rent turn we view; Beauty no longer flies from Wit, Since both are join'd in you.
Your lines the wond'rous change impart, From whence our laurels spring; In numbers fram'd to please the heart, And merit what they sing.
Methinks thy poet's gentle shade Its wreath presents to thee; What Daphne owes you as a Maid, She pays you as a Tree.
The charming poem by the same author, beginning--
"My days have been so wond'rous free,"
has the additional fourth stanza,--
"An eager hope within my breast, Does ev'ry doubt controul, And charming Nancy stands confest The fav'rite of my soul."
Can any of your readers supply the name of the "young lady" who translated the story of Phoebus and Daphne?
C.P.
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EARLY ENGLISH AND EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE.--"NEWS" AND "NOISE."
I am anxious to put a question as to the communication that may have taken place between the English and German tongues previous to the sixteenth century. Possibly the materials for answering it may not exist; but it appears to me that it is of great importance, in an etymological point of view, that the extent of such communication, and the influence it has had upon our language, should be ascertained. In turning over the leaves of the _Shakspeare Society's Papers_, vol. i., some time ago, my attention was attracted by a "Song in praise of his Mistress," by John Heywood, the dramatist. I was immediately struck by the great resemblance it presented to another poem on the same subject by a German writer, whose real or assumed name, I do not know which, was "Muscanbl��t," and which poem is to be found in _Der Clara H?tzlerin Liederbuch_, a collection made by a nun of Augsburg in 1471. The following are passages for comparison:--
"Fyrst was her skyn, Whith, smoth, and thyn, And every vayne So blewe sene playne; Her golden heare To see her weare, Her werying gere, Alas! I fere To tell all to you I shall undo you.
"Her eye so rollyng, Ech harte conterollyng; Her nose not long, Nor stode not wrong; Her finger typs So clene she clyps; Her rosy lyps, Her chekes gossyps,"
&c. &c.
_S.S. Papers_, vol. i. p. 72
"Ir m��ndlin rott Uss senender nott Mir helffen kan, Das mir kain man Mit nichten kan p��ssen.
O liechte kel, Wie vein, wie gel Ist dir dein har, Dein ?uglin clar, Zartt fraw, lass mich an sehen. Und tu mir kund Uss rottem mund, &c.
Dein ?rmlin weisz Mit gantzem fleisz Geschnitzet sein, Die hennde dein Gar hofelich gezieret, Dem leib ist ran, Gar wolgetan Sind dir dein prust," &c. &c.
_Clara H?tzlerin Liederbuch_, p. 111.
In all this there is certainly nothing to warrant the conclusion that the German poem was the original of Heywood's song; but, considering that the latter was produced so