62 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2»d S. VII. Jan. 22. 'oO. 



Nbs Maxbmis is dead I 

 Yet we will have an epitaph shall be read, 

 Where many a thousand weeping eyes 

 Shall tipple for sorrow — if they be wise." 



The author goes on in the same ludicrous style 

 to describe at some length the proceedings of a 

 supposed Parliament of Noses, discussing certain 

 rules, orders, and statutes passed by it; and the 

 lively fragment concludes thus : — 



" For the more men drinke, the more thoy may, 

 And that will be the ready way 

 To make a good nose of a bad, 

 Whereof dilligence neede be had ; 

 For, if neede require, 

 A good red nose will serve a dier 

 To dye a lively hue, 

 A crimson in graine. 

 That never will staine, 

 A purple or blew. 

 These gifts, and many mo. 

 The very truth is so. 

 Are given to good faces 

 Besides a merrv heart. 

 And a trueth that will not start 

 From friends in friendly places. 

 Then came in the ale-drapers bill. 

 Saying their drinke was brewed very ill, 

 With bromestalkes and bayberryes, the Divell and all." 



Ccetera desunt, and I am sorry for it : how the 

 droll performance concluded, we can only guess ; 

 but we may imagine that in the two remaining 

 pages Bartholomew Fair was reverted to, in a si- 

 milar strain, for popular amusement at that joyous 

 and pig-devouring season. I infer that Mr. Mor- 

 ley did not notice this tract, because he was not 

 aware of its existence ; and if any of your readers 

 can give me information regarding it, and espe- 

 cially if they can tell me where a perfect copy of it 

 is to be found, they will do me a singular service. 

 In connexion with the same subject, and as I do 

 not find any corresponding specimen in Mr. Mor- 

 ley's book, though of course he duly mentions 

 Jacob Hall and his performances on the tight- 

 rope in several places, I will subjoin one of that 

 famous exhibitor's hand-bills, as delivered at Bar- 

 tholomew Fair, in order to invite spectators into 

 the booth, which he and Mr. Richard Lancashire 

 (a new name, I believe, in the history of per- 

 formances of the kind) had erected in some part 

 of Smithfield : the particular locality is not stated ; 

 but the printed broadside before lae is headed by 

 the royal arms and the initials " C. R.," and we 

 are moreover told in the document that Jacob 

 Hall was "the sworn servant to his Majesty" 

 Charles II. It is precisely in these terms : — 



" These are to give Notice to all Gentlemen and Others, 

 That there is Joyned together Two of the Best Com- 

 panies in England, viz, Mr. Jacob Hall (Sworn Servant 

 to bis Majestic), and Mr. Richard Lancashire, with 

 several Others of their Companies ; by Whom will be 

 performed Excellent Dancing and Vaulting on the Ropes ; 

 with Variety of Rare Feats of Activity and Agility of 

 Body upon the Stage ; as doing of Somersets, and Flip- 

 flaps, Flying over Thirty Rapiers, and over several Men's 



heads ; and also flying through scverall Hoops : Together 

 with severall other Rare Feats of Activity, that will be 

 there presented : With the Witty Conceits of Merry Will : 

 In the performing of all which They Challenge all Others 

 whatsoever, whether English-men or Strangers, to do the 

 like with them for Twentj' rounds, or what more They 

 please." 



Such bills as these were, no doubt, delivered to 

 those who passed by the booth in the fair ; and I 

 have a similar placard relating to " A Triall of 

 Skill" in a Fencing Match at the Red Bull Thea- 

 tre, "at the upper end of St. Johns- Street." 



J. Payne Collier. 



Maidenhead. 



EARLY ENGLISH HEXAMETERS. 



As Longfellow has recently given us another 

 poem in hexameters, some specimens of the eai-ly 

 use of that metre in English may not be uninter- 

 esting. It is well known that some attempts were 

 made to introduce it into our literature in the 

 days of Queen Elizabeth ; and, though the fact 

 is doubtful, Spenser himself is supposed to have 

 employed it. The innovation did not please the 

 public of that day. The principles on which the 

 verse was constructed could not easily be ex- 

 plained : for, while Greek and Latin metres were 

 always regulated merely by the quantities of the 

 different syllables, it was impossible to make what 

 an English ear would recognise as metre without 

 a certain cadence in the accents; and to make 

 verses that should be truly metrical in both re- 

 spects was about as arduous a task as ever poet 

 undertook. The modern practice is to disregard 

 quantity entirely. Six accents, properly arranged, 

 make what is now considered a correct English 

 hexameter. But the Elizabethan poet could not 

 so far depart from the classical standard. The 

 thought of making two short syllables do duty for 

 a spondee, or a vowel followed by two consonants 

 for the last foot of a dactyl, — • 



— — I— v v.-! — — I 1 — <~> ^\ 



" Here in front you can see the vei-i/ dint of the bullet, 



would have seemed to him preposterous. His 

 verse accordingly was characterised by a most 

 painful appearance of lal)our, and was generally 

 not successful after all. Richard Stanyhurst, a 

 native of Dublin, translated the first Four Books 

 of the ^neid into hexameters in 1583. It was 

 the most notable effort of the kind ; but so inhar- 

 monious was the result, that even those who ap- 

 plauded the attempt, desired the whole repolished. 

 The verse, indeed, could hardly by any effort be 

 regarded as metre. Not only were the quantities 

 arbitrary, but the scanning also was framed upon 

 principles opposed to the ordinary pronunciation 

 of English, — as, for instance, the elision of final 

 vowels before words commencing with vowels. 

 Thus, in the line — 



" You me bid, princesse, to scarifie a festered old sore " 



