July 28. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



67 



Old Phrases. — In receipts for the payment of 

 rent, about the beginning of the last century, oc- 

 cur small additional sums for " trophy," " tronis," 

 and "troness" money. Also a payment made 

 " for the tax granted for drumhs and roullers (?)." 

 What do these items refer to ? W. Denton. 



[Trophy, tronis, or troness money is a duty of four- 

 pence paid annually by housekeepers or landlords, for the 

 drums, colours, &c. of their respective companies of mi- 

 litia. Eoullers are probably the mounted guard.] 



Mennenius. — Ashmole cites this writer thus : 

 Mermen. Delic. Ord. Equestr. Will any of your 

 correspondents favour me with the whole title of 

 this work ;. its date and place of publication, and 

 whether 4to. or 8vo. ? G. 



["Dellciae Eqvestrivm sive Militarivm Ordinvm, et 

 eorvndem origines, statvta, sj'mbola et insignia, iconibvs 

 additis genuinis. Hac editione, multorum ordinum, et 

 quotquot extitere, accessione locupletata, serieque tem- 

 porum distributa. Studio et industria Francisci Menne- 

 nii Antverp. Coloniae Agrippinae, apud loannem Kinc- 

 kium sub Monocerote. Anno mdcxiii., 8vo."] 



PETNNB, COWLEY, AND POPE. 



(Vol. xii., p. 6.) 



I have great pleasure in complying with Ma. 

 Peter Cunningham's request in reference to 

 Cowley's presumed allusion to Prynne as " the 

 Homer of the Isle " of Jersey. I say Cowley's 

 presumed allusion, because although I am Inclined 

 to think that Prynne was the person at whom 

 Cowley aimed, the question is not entirely free 

 from doubt. The difficulty arises thus : 



Cowley, in that one of his Miscellaneous Poems 

 quoted by Mr, Cunningham, and which is en- 

 titled " An Answer to a Copy of Verses sent me 

 to Jersey," wrote as follows : 



" You must know. 

 Sir, that Verse does not in this island grow 

 No more than sack ; one lately did not fear 

 (Without the Muses' leave) to plant it here. 

 But it produc'd such base, rough, crabbed, hedge 

 Ehymes, as ev'n set the hearers' ears on edge. 



Written by Esquire, the 



Year of our Lord six hundred thirty-three. 

 Brave Jersey Muse ! and he's for this high stile 

 Call'd to this day the Homer of the Isle. 

 Alas to men here no words less hard be 

 To rhime with, then Mount-Orgueil is to me. 

 Mount-Orgueil, which in scorn o' th' Muses' law 

 With no yoke-fellow word will daign to draw. 

 Stubborn Mount-Orgueil ! 'tis a work to make it 

 Come into Rhime, more hard than 'twere to take it." 



Pope, in a note to The Dunciad, as Mr. Cun- 

 ningham has reminded us, quoted a part of this 

 passage, and filled up the blank with the name of 

 " Williani Prynne." Two reasons may be alleged 

 why Pope may have been mistaken : 1. Cowley 



No. 300.] 



apparently quotes from some poem in which these 

 words occur : 



« Written by 



Esquire, the 



Year of our Lord six hundred thirty-three." 



But neither these words, nor anything like them^ 

 can be found in any of the Jersey writings of 

 Prynne. 2. It may be said Prynne could not 

 be the culprit if the book was written, as Cowley 

 leads one to suppose, in the year 1633. Prynne 

 notes in his Mount-Orgueil, the book which is 

 supposed to be alluded to, " I arrived in Jersey 

 January the 17, 1637 ; " and it is not only evident 

 from the whole tenor of Prynne's poems, but is 

 distinctly asserted in his dedication of Mount- 

 Orgueil to Sir Philip Carteret, the Lieutenant- 

 Governor of Jersey, that the principal poems in 

 his volume were written by Prynne whilst he 

 was a prisoner in that island. He tells Sir 

 Philip Carteret that his lines — 



" . . . . there grew. 

 And so in justice are your proper due." 



But, in spite of this anachronism, I am, for my 

 own part, inclined to accept the allusion as made 

 to Prynne, and to claim for him the title of " the 

 Homer of the Isle." 



In the same volume in which Prynne's Jersey 

 poems are contained, there is ordinarily found 

 appended to them a collection of short poems and 

 inscriptions written by Prynne whilst in the 

 Tower of London, and published under the 

 title of Comfortable Cordials. One of these in- 

 scriptions, originally written in Latin, concludes 

 thus : " Ita ominatur Gulielraus Prynne ; Martii 3, 

 1633," which he thus translates : 



" Of this opinion William Prynne was, the 

 Third day of March six hundred thirty-three." 



It seems to me probable that Cowley misre- 

 membered these lines, and that they are the 

 original of his 



« Written by 



Esquire, the 



Year of our Lord six hundred thirty-three." 



The peculiarity of the omission of the "one 

 thousand," the identity of the number "six 

 hundred thirty-three," and Cowley's allusions to 

 Mount- Orgueil, are in my mind very nearly con- 

 clusive. Prynne was a person likely to be very 

 lightly esteemed by Cowley. The coarseness and 

 peculiarity of the lines would be helped to main- 

 tain themselves in Cowley's memory by the 

 rhyme, but it would only be so far as the rhyme 

 was concerned. He would not sufficiently in- 

 terest himself in Prynne's poems to discover that 

 part of the volume was written in the Tower of 

 London, a fact not mentioned in the title-page. 

 Finding the lines I have quoted in the volume, he 

 would conclude that they, like the rest, were 

 written in Jersey ; and citing them memoriter., 

 with nothing to guide him but the rhyme, I can 



