8W 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°'> S. NO 57., Jan. 31. '57. 



ments and footpaths, if they only knew their proper 

 places thereon. And I will not for the future 

 contribute to any school where this is not made a 

 prominent part of education. 



Mr. Telford, by making a towing-path on each 

 side of a canal, and appropriating each path to the 

 traffic in one direction, first introduced good man-- 

 ners amongst bargemen. May we hope that our 

 national education will teach our peasantry such 

 good manners in this respect, that a man who 

 keeps invariably to his left in walking shall, in a 

 few years, be looked upon as a ticket of leave- 

 holder or intending garotter. Vryan Rheged. 



Orays '''■ Elegy ^ — lean add another to the 

 list of Latin versions of Gray's Elegy, in 1"' S. 

 i. 101. The following is the inscription on the 

 title-page : « 



" Elegiam a T/ioma Grayio In CiBmeterio Enstico Con- 

 scriptam l.atine Reddidit H. S. Dickinson, M.A. Ipswich, 

 E. Deck, Printer, mdcccxlix." 



The first stanza is, — 



" !Nola Sonans obitum pulso notat aere diei, 

 Eauca petit lento vacca bovile gradu : 

 Fessus abit, tectoque cubens succedit arator, 

 Nox vicit, et mecum possidet arva quies." 



"OXONIENSIS. 



^MtXitS, 



WAS GEOBGG HERBERT THE COMPILER Or " JACXJLA 

 PRUDENTUM, OR OUTIiANDISH PROVERBS," ETC.? 



For two centuries this work has been circulated 

 with the venerated name of George Herbert, so 

 that to question its authenticity at this late period 

 may perhaps be tliought hypercritical. Its literary 

 history, however, is so very obscure, that it seems 

 expedient to elicit the opinions of the readers of 

 " N. & Q." respecting it, among whom will doubt- 

 less be found many a lover of " the sweet singer 

 of the Temple." 



The first edition appeared eight years after 

 Herbert's death with the following title : 



" Outlandish Proverbs, selected by Mr. G. H.* Lon- 

 don, Printed by T. P. for Humphrey Blunden, at the 

 Castle in Corn-hill. 1640. 12mo." 



This edition consists of 1032 Proverbs, all num- 

 bered. Copies of it are in the Bodleian and Gren- 

 ville libraries. The words, " By Mr. G. H.," are 

 obliterated with a pen in the Bodleian copy ! 

 This correction has been noticed by the compilers 

 of the Bodleian Catalogue, as they have entered 

 the work under Proverbia, and not under the ini- 

 tials G. H., which they have also suppressed. 

 .. The second edition, with,,;the name in full, ap- 



* The initials G. H. were those of two other celebrated 

 living writers at this time, namely, George Hakewill and 

 George Hughes. See Bodleian Catalogw, vol. ii. p. 223. 



peared in 1651, eleven years after the first edition, 

 and nineteen after the death of George Herbert. 

 This edition is entitled, — 



"Jacula Prudentum: or Outlandish Proverbs, Sen- 

 tences, &c. Selected by Mr. George Herbert, late Orator 

 of the University of Cambridg. London, Printed by T. 

 Maxey for T. Garthwait, at the little Xorth door of St. 

 Paul's. IGol. 12mo." 



This book contains 1190 Proverbs, but unnum- 

 bered ; and these make 70 pages. Then follow 

 some miscellaneous articles commencing with 

 page 171 (!), as if part of some other work. 

 These addenda are — 



" 1. The Author's Prayers before and after Sermon. 



2. Mr. G. Herbert to Master N. F. [Nicholas Ferrar] 



upon the translation of Valdesso. 



3. Lines in Memory of Lord Bacon, and to Dr. Donne. 



4. An Addition of Apothegms by several Authors." 



Nos. 2. and 3. are the undoubted productions of 

 Herbert. But on a careful examination of the 

 contents of this volume the suspicion naturally 

 arises that it may be a spurious production ; in 

 fact, the work forcibly reminds one of Curll's 

 miscellaneous volumes. 



It must be remembered, that in the following 

 year, 1652, Barnabas Oley, the editor of J. Priest 

 to the Temple, or the Country Paison, published the 

 first edition of that work, with his Life of Her- 

 bert ; but neither in this nor in the two subsequent 

 editions which passed under his eye* do we find 

 the "Prayers before and after Sermon," which are 

 placed at the end of the Country Paison in all the 

 later editions, excepting the reprint in The Cler' 

 gymaiis Instructor, Oxford, 1827. When it is 

 remembered how punctiliously George Herbert 

 walked according to canonical rule in small as 

 well as in great matters, it seems highly impro- 

 bable that he would use these two unauthorised 

 prayers in Divine service. Walton tells us, that 

 when Mr. Duncon visited Herbert in his last ill- 

 ness, Herbert said to him, — 



" Sir, I see bj' your habit that you are a priest, and I 

 desire you to pray with me : which being granted, Mr. 

 Duncon asked him. What prayers? To which Mr. Her- 

 bert's answer was, ' O Sir ! the praj'ers of my Mother, the 

 Church of England; no other prayers are equal to them! 

 But at this time, I beg of you to pray only the Litany, for 

 I am weak and faint : ' and Mr. Duncon did so." 



Again, it is remarkable that this work of 

 "Proverbs" is not once mentioned by Barnabas 

 Oley nor by Izaak Walton, in their biographies 

 of Herbert ; nor by Dr. Peckard in his enumera- 

 tion of Herbert's works in The Life of Nicholas 

 Ferrar, 1790, p. 208, The worthy angler, in his 



* Oley's Life of Herbert f^rst appeared in 1652, with ad- 

 ditions in 1671 and 1675. Walton's Z^j/e of Herbert was 

 first published in 1670. Dates are very useful in biblio- 

 graphical researches. The Country Parson and Jacula 

 Prudentum were subsequently bound together with a new 

 title-page as Herbert's Remains, 1652, 



