92 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2'"i S. No 31., Aug. 2, '56. 



have been printed " Reginald Courtenay." He is, 

 I believe, second son of the late Rt. Hon. Thomas 

 Peregrine Courtenay, next brother to the present 

 Earl of Devon. Patonce. 



JACOB BEHMEN. 



(2"'i S. i. 513.) 



Anon's note, with the word originals in Italics, 

 seems to imply that he charges Newton, Hahne- 

 mann, and others, with being indebted to Jacob 

 Sehmen, without having had the candour to ac- 

 knowledge the fact; a very serious charge, which 

 induces me to mention, as an experience of my 

 own, that a theosopher will make such a charge 

 without knowing iicry much of the man impugned. 

 Some years ago, when beginning to study Beh- 

 men, I was told by an ardent theosopher (I 

 rather think Anon, himself) that Emanuel Swe* 

 denborg had been indebted to Behmen. I had read 

 much of Swedenborg, and besides the internal 

 evidence to the contrary, I knew that Sweden- 

 borg, in one of his letters, had expressly said (the 

 question having been asked) that he had not read 

 Jacob Behmen, for which he also gave a reason. 

 I naturally inquired of this gentleman, " What do 

 you know of Swedenborg ? " when he produced a 

 small volume called The Beauties of Swedenborg, 

 a most unhappy piece of garbling. This was all 

 he knew of the author of several works, in which, 

 as with Behmen also, the internal state of the author 

 is given by himself 



It struck me that this indisposition, in a theoso- 

 pher, to believe that another man, as well as his 

 special Master, might be original, in the proper 

 sense of the word, was highly tmphilosophical, to 

 say nothing of the impropriety of lightly attributing 

 mean conduct to eminent men. 



It would be easy to show that the very extraor- 

 dinary and profound writings of Jacob Behmen 

 would afford no countenance to this particular 

 shortcoming in his pupil. Alfbed RorrE. 



Somers Town. 



THE ARMS or GLASGOW. 



(2°<> S. ii. 13,' 14.) 



In the various remarks of correspondents on the 

 arras of Glasgow, they appear to have omitted the 

 motto surrounding them, which also betokens an 

 early ecclesiastical origin. So far as I am aware 

 there is no very ancient copy of it : the most au- 

 thoritative which I have seen is that used by 

 Robert Sanders, printer to the city and uni- 

 versity, anno 1675, reading "Lord, let Glasgow 

 Flourish through the Preaching of thy Word."" At 

 what period it was clipped down to its present 

 unmeaning dimensions, " Let Glasgow Flourish," 



seems uncertain. In the " Dedication " of the 

 work of John M'^Ure in 1736 (Glasgow's first his- 

 torian) to the magistrates, " wishing them all hap- 

 piness and prosperity, and according to your own 

 motto, may ever flourish through the j>reaching of 

 God's ivord," it had likely then been considerably 

 tampered with, or only employed at full length on 

 state occasions. The piety of the sentiment, and 

 its continued appropriateness to Glasgow as a 

 city, ought to form a reason for the civic autho- 

 rities restoring it to its original. 



Dr. Cleland, in the Annals of Glasgoiv, 1816, 

 vol. i. p. 42., says : 



" The armorial bearing of the city is on a field parti, p. 

 fess nrgent and gules, an oak tree surmounted with a bird 

 in chief, a salmon with a gold stoned ring in its mouth in 

 base, and on a branch on the sinister side a bell langued 

 or, all proper. . . . Prior to the Reformation St. 

 Mungo, or Kentigem, mitred, appeared on the dexter side 

 of the shield, which had two salmons for supporters." 



Respecting obscure matters of this kind there 

 will of course be always much to exercise the 

 fancy, and hence many theories to explain the 

 various insignia of the arms have from time to 

 time been published, leaving us in the same state 

 of conjecture. Dr. Main, an eminent professor of 

 physic in the University of Glasgow, who died in 

 1646, had his Latin verses, " Salmo maris," &c., 

 Englished in rather a homely strain by J. B. in 

 1685, as follows : 



" The salmon which is a fish of the sea, 

 The oak which springs from earth that loftie tree, 

 The bird on it which in the air doth flee, 

 O Glasgow does presage all things to thee 

 To which the sea, or air, or fertile earth. 

 Do either give their nourishment or birth ; 

 The bell that doth to public worship call 

 Saves heaven will give most lasting things of all ; 

 The ring the token of the marriage is, 

 Of things in heaven and earth both thee to bless." 



Similar are extant, from the learned professor 

 downwards to those of the schoolboy who usually 

 had at his finger ends a rhyme now nearly obso- 

 lete, and who cut the knot he could not untie : 



" This is the tree that never grew, 

 This is the bird that never flew, 

 This is the bell that never rang. 

 This is the fish that never swam, 

 This is the drunken salmon." 



Without pretending to be as skilly as those who 

 have tried their hand at interpretation, it has often 

 occurred to me that the different religious em- 

 blems,. as in the bird, may have been intended to 

 figure the dove, or Holy Spirit ; or perhaps in re- 

 ference to the meeting at Glasgow of St. Mungo 

 with St. Columba the " Dove " — the ring as re- 

 presenting the sacrament of marriage and the 

 episcopal see — and the hell, baptized and blessed, 

 to which the greatest sanctity was attached, as 

 typical of the cathedral. There was the fine local 

 situation of Glasgow, adorned by a magnificent 



