2»* S. VIII. JoLY 9. '69.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



21 



LONDON, SATURDAY, JVLY 9. 1859. 



No. 184. — CONTENTS. 



NOTES ! — English Actors in Germany, by William J. Thorns, 21 — 

 Gleanings from Writers of the Seventeenth Century, illustrative of 

 Proverbs, Words, &c., 22 — "The Light of other Days," 23— Celtic 

 Kemoins in Jamaica, by S. R. Pattison, 24 _ The Prisoners' Basket 

 Carrier, by John Brent, lb. 



Minor Notes : — Lord Erskine and Rev. Wm. Cockin —The Hanove- 

 rian Jewels - A Lover of Matrimony— Old Jokes — Michelet on 

 English Literature and on Shakspeare, 25. 



MiNoK Queries: — Vertue's Draughts _ Sophocles — John de Baalun — 

 Cardinal Virtues — Sir William Sutton — Cartulary of Buttele — 

 Graham: Newton — Countess of Stalford — Sir Walter Scott — 

 Witches worried at a Stake — " A Letter to a Clergyman, See." — " Le 

 Bas Bleu" — Rue in Prisoners' Dock — Sir John Gascoigne — He- 

 raldic Query — Sir Edward Lovett Pearce — " Musomania, or Poets' 

 Purgatory —Bryan Robinson, M.D. _ Quotation — Herbert Knowles, 

 26. 



Minor Qdebies with Answers ; — College of Christ at Brecon- Bib- 

 liographical Queries — II Sepolchro del Santo Sangue — Pregnant 

 Women Pardoned _ Spot's " History of Canterbury," 28. 



REPLIES: -Ussher's Britaunicarum Ecclesiarum Antiqultates, 29 



— Knights created by Oliver Cromwell, 3 1 —The Origin of the curved 

 Form of the old Divisions of Land, by Henry Thomas Riley, 32 — 

 Clapping Prayer-Books on Good Friday, 76. 



RiptiEs TO MiNoii Queries: — Antonio de Dominis — Fresco in the 

 Record Room, Westminster Abbey — Who wrote Gil Bias ? — Coffins 



— Randolph family — The Arrows of Harrow — Woodroof— Min- 

 strels' Gallery in Cathedrals — British Anthropophagi. 33. 



Notes on Books, &c.,39. 



ENGLISH ACTORS IN GERMANY. 



As I was, I believe, the first person to call the 

 attention of English men of letters to the fact 

 that at the close of the sixteenth and commence- 

 ment of the seventeenth centuries, Germany was 

 visited by a company of English players* — a 

 curious point of literary history which Mr. Albert 

 Cohn has since illustrated in various articles in The 

 Athenceum, I trust I may be excused for occupy- 

 ing the columns of " N. & Q." with an extract — 

 a long one certainly — from a communication from 

 that gentleman which appears in l^ke Athenceum 

 of June 25th (No. 1652.), and which throws much 

 new and important light upon this subject : — 



" Should the facts that have been brought to light by 

 others and myself not be deemed a sufficient proof that 

 those plaj-ers were really Englishmen, the following 

 document, addressed to the authorities of the Netherlands, 

 will definiteh' settle at least this part of the question : — 



" ' Messieurs, comme les pre'sents porteurs, Robert 

 Browne, Jehan Bradstriet, Thomas Saxtield, Richard 

 Jones, ont delibere de faire ung voj'age en Allemagne, 

 avec intention de passer par le pais de Zelande, Hollande 

 et Frise, et allantz en leur diet voj'age d'exercer leurs 

 qualitez en faict de musique, agilitez et joeuz de comme- 

 dies, tragedies, et histoires, pour s'entretenir et fournir il 

 leurs despenses en leur diet voyage. Cestes sont partant 

 vous requerir monstrer et prester toute faveur en voz 

 pais et jurisdictions, et leur octroyer en ma faveur vostre 

 ample passeport soubz le seel des Estatz, afin que les 

 Bourgmestres desvilles estantzsoubs- voz jurisdictions, ne 

 les empeschent en passant d'exercer leur dictes qualitez 

 par tout. En quoy faisant, je vous en demeureray ^ tous 

 oblige, et me treuverez tres appareille h me revencher do 

 vostre courtoisie en plus grand cas. De ma chaiubre'h, la 



* See New MonthlyfMagazine for January, 1841, and 

 «N. &Q.,"2"<»S. vii. 21. 



court d'Angleterre ce x'"e jour de Febvrier, 1591. Voatre 

 tres afFecslonn^ a vous fayre plaisir et sarvis, 



«'C. Howard.' 



" This document proves a great deal more than the 

 English nationality of the players. It has been supposed 

 hitherto — and I cannot deny that I entertained the same 

 opinion — that those companies of players originally only 

 intended to visit the Netherlands, an opinion founded 

 upon certain documents mentioning the Low Countries 

 onlj'. It is true, that as early as the last decennium of 

 the sixteenth centurj-, traces are to be found of their ap- 

 pearance in Germany, but this is not conclusive as to 

 their original intention of visiting Germany. On this 

 point the foregoing passport sets the matter at rest. 



" There is another point of difference : it is alleged that 

 our players cannot have performed in English, consider- 

 ing the scantj' knowledge of the language which must 

 have prevailed on the Continent in those times. But the 

 English origin of certain old German plays has been dis- 

 tinctly traced. They were composed at the time when the 

 ' English comedians ' displayed their art in Germany, and 

 it is universally admitted that the German authors of 

 those plays got acquainted with their English prototj-pes 

 through the medium of the ' English comedians.' Is it 

 probable that the latter performed their plays in the Ger- 

 man language? Is it probable that itinerant players 

 were sufficiently conversant with that language to speak 

 it from the stage? Is it not much more probable that 

 they performed in their mother-tongue, tru.sting to their 

 mimic art to succeed with a public which at that time 

 was very modest in its pretensions, and most likely was 

 sufficiently attracted by the novelty of the thing ? More- 

 over, a fragment of an English moral-play which, from 

 the character of its type, appears to have been printed 

 abroad, is preserved (see Athen., No. 1506.), and it may 

 be fairly conjectured that it is connected with our Eng- 

 lish actors — a connexion which, it is true, will have to 

 be placed on a firmer basis than has hitherto been esta- 

 blished, and to which I shall revert at a more favourable 

 occasion. 



" As to the duration of the stay of the company alluded 

 to in the Netherlands, and as to the time of their arrival 

 in Germany, I am not now in a position to give any re- 

 liable data. Perhaps their performances in Germany 

 have some connexion with the coeval theatricals of the 

 Duke Henry Julius of Brunswick, who began his dramatic 

 career with his play of Susanna, printed in 1593. For 

 various reasons, it is evident that he worked under the 

 influence of the ' English comedians.' Here we will only 

 mention that the names of his clowns, such as Jahn 

 (Jack, Jenkin), Jahn Clam (Clown), &c., are identical 

 with those used by Jacob Ayrer, who, as is well known, 

 borrowed his from contemporary English designations. 

 A stronger evidence perhaps is to be found in the simi- 

 larity one of the Duke's plaj'S — Tragedia von einer 

 Ehebrecherin — bears to the plot of The Merry Wives of 

 Windsor. The Ehebrecherin y^RS first printed in 1594; 

 The Merry Wives of Windsor only in 1600 ; but all the 

 modern commentators agree that this play must have 

 been written, and probably was performed, at a much 

 earlier date, on account of the allusion in Act IV. to the 

 Duke Frederick of Wurtemberg, who visited Windsor in 

 1592, and other evidences. To this subject also we will 

 have to revert in a more detailed manner than your 

 valuable space admits. 



" In conclusion, I shall say a few words on the players 

 mentioned in the above document. 



"A Richard Jones, on the 3rd of Januarj', 1588-9, sold 

 to Edward Alleyn his theatrical property for 37/. 10». 

 (See Memoir of E. A., pp. 4. 198.) Again, in Henslowe's 

 Diary (edited by J. P. Collier for the Shakspeare So- 



