2nd s. NO 46., Nov. 15. '56.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



389 



shire ; and there may be others, which some of 

 your readers may be so obliging as to point out. 



A. 

 Bichmond. 



"Paid a Knave." — 



" The under-miller is in the language of Thirlage called 

 the knave, which indeed signified originally his lad 

 (knabe, German), but by degrees came to be taken in a 

 ■worse sense. In the old translations of the Bible Paul is 

 made to term himself the knave of our Saviour. The al- 

 lowance of meal taken by the miller's servant was called 

 knave-ship." — Note from The Monastery, p. 178. 



Can any of your numerous correspondents tell 

 me the date of the translations where this word 

 "knave" is found ? Clericus Eusticds. 



[It is surprising that this palpable hoax should have 

 received credence from the time when Dr. Fuller wrote 

 his Church History (see under a.d. 1384) to that when Sir 

 Walter Scott published The Monastery, especially after 

 the exposure of this knavish fraud by the learned Hum- 

 phrey Wanley in 1699. The volume containing the hoax 

 proved to be Tyndale's Bible, published under the name 

 of Thomas Matthew, mdxxxvii., the forger having erased 

 the xvii. It was purchased by Lord Oxford, and stands 

 No. 154. in the Harleian Catalogue of Printed Books, vol. i. 

 p. 9., 8vo. 1743, where it is thus described : " The Bible 

 with marginal notes, black letter, with cuts, 1520. This is 

 the Bible, in which, by an artful counterfeit, described by 

 Mr. Wanley, St. Paul is called an kneawe, &c. : the rasure 

 of the true words the servaunt, and the insertion of the false 

 reading, though discoverable by an exact observer, are 

 so well executed, that the Bible was sold to the Duke of 

 Lauderdale for seventeen guineas, by one Thornton, who 

 indeed first effaced Matthew's Preface, all the dates ex- 

 cept one, of which he erased xvii., and added a note that 

 this Bible, which was the edition of 1637, was printed 

 in 1520, a date earlier than that of any English Bible. 

 It does not appear that this reading was ever really 

 printed." Hearne also informs us, that Mr. Dodwell told 

 him, that on a wager being laid concerning this matter, 

 inquiries were made both in England and Ireland after a 

 Bible which had " Paul a knave," &c., and that the re- 

 sult of all was, that the word knave was not to be met 

 with in any printed Bible. See Wanley's own account of 

 this forgery in Lewis's History of English Translations, 

 p. 47. ; and Wanley's Letter to Dr. Charlet in Aubrey's 

 Letters by Eminent Persons, vol. i. p. 95. This knavish 

 volume was in private hands for some years after the sale 

 of the printed books of the Harleian Library, and was 

 eventually added to the Royal Library. Upon the gift 

 of this magnificent collection to the nation by George IV., 

 it was rejected as imperfect. It now forms one of the 

 literary curiosities in the great collection of early English 

 Bibles in the library of George Offbr, Esq., of Hackney, 

 where it is in excellent preservation, and completed from 

 another copy. We may add, that in WiclifFe's translation 

 of the New Testament, published by John Lewis in 1731, 

 the word knave is used in Rev. xii. 5., " And sche bare a 

 knaue child," meaning a male child.] 



Philip Nichols of Trinity Hall, — This person, 

 a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, was expelled 

 for stealing books from St. John's College libi-ai'y, 

 August 4, 1731. What eventually became of him, 



and where did he die? He is mentioned in 

 vol. i. of the Gentleman's Magazine. 



Henry T. Riley. 



[Philip Nichols (sometimes spelt Nicols), Clerk, Doctor 

 of Laws, Fellow of Trinity College, was unanimously ex- 

 pelled on August 4, 1731, and a copy of the sentence in 

 Latin affixed to the college-gate, signifying that he had 

 been guilty of dissolute living, and of stealing many 

 valuable books of the library of St. John's College and 

 elsewhere, to the great scandal and dishonour of that 

 university. {Gent. Mag., i. 351.) He was afterwards- 

 one of the writers in the Biographia Britannica, and the 

 articles in the first edition signed P. are attributed to 

 him. (" N. & Q." 2""! S. i. 455.) In one of the articles 

 (that of Dr. Joseph Smith) was a letter from Sir Thomas 

 Hanmer, reflecting on Bishop Warburton, in regard to 

 Shakspeare, which the Bishop prevailed on the proprie- 

 tors to cancel. On Warburton's refusing to give this 

 literary Cerberus a sop, Nichols subsequently republished 

 The Castrated Letter of Sir Thomas Hanmer in the Sixth 

 Volume of the Biographia Britannica, with an Impartial 

 Account of the extraordinary Means used to suppress this 

 remarkable Letter, fol., 1763. Bishop Warburton does 

 not fail in noticing it to refer to Nichols's expulsion from 

 the university. Nichols also wrote the Life of- Bishop 

 Hoadly for the Biog. Britan., which gave such offence to 

 the family, that the Bishop's son. Dr. John Hoadly, sup- 

 plied another article for the Supplement of that work. 

 On the publication of the latter article. Lord Chancellor 

 Yorke thus writes to Dr. Hoadly: "Your description of 

 Nichols entertained me. Helluo lihrorum, I suppose, from 

 the strength, depth, and leger-de-main of his cassock. 

 One of that name, a few years ago, was a famous book- 

 stealer in libraries, convicted at the Old Bailey, and 

 perhaps now returned from transportation. Nothing is so 

 natural as that a felon book-stealer should turn hireling 

 panegyrist, or felon libeller, in his regenerate state. It is 

 a metempsychosis devoutly to be expected." — Gent. Mag. 

 xlvi. 166.] 



C. U., Organ Performer to the Prince Regent. — 

 Having in my possession a quantity of manuscript 

 music, by a person who styles himself " C. U., 

 Organ Performer to His lloyal Highness the 

 Prince Regent, An. Dom. 1818," I should feel 

 particularly obliged if you could inform me who 

 " C. U." was. Benjamin Davis. 



[Having referred this inquiry to Dr. Rimbault, ho 

 has kindly furnished us with the following Note : — 



" I have several MS. pieces for the organ by Charles 

 Upton, an organist and composer of the beginning of 

 the present century. They do not possess any particular 

 originality, or show any great scientific skill, but may be 

 called ' respectable.' Probably the ' C. U., Organ Per- 

 former to the Prince Regent,' was this Charles Upton. 

 Mr. Upton's name does not occur among the ' Musicians 

 in Ordinary' to the Prince; nor do I find an 'Organ 

 Performer ' in any of the Royal Household lists of the 

 period. His title was most probably an assumption, from 

 his having played upon some occasion before his Royal 

 Highness. Edward F. Rimbadlt."] 



Precentor of the Province of Canterbury. — What 

 are the duties attached to the office of the Bishop 

 of Salisbury under one of the titles which he bears, 

 viz. "Provincial Precentor of Canterbury" ? It 

 was gravely stated at a clerical meeting the other 



