12 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 140. 



Legend respecting the Isle of Ely. — Can any 

 reader of " N. & Q." inform me which of the 

 Popes it was who, according to a legend I have 

 somewhere met with, effected the unique meta- 

 morphosis of changing the wives and children of 

 the clergy of the Isle of Ely into eels, and thus 

 gave it its present name, as a punishment for re- 

 fusing to comply with his edict for the celibacy of 

 the clergy ? I think the legend is referred to in 

 some part of Dr. Prideaux's works, but I have no 

 means of certifying the fact. J. R. C. 



Cambridge. 



[According to Prideaux, the edict was issued by 

 St. Dunstan. He says, " From Heli some think the 

 Isle of Ely took its name ; others say no, but from a 

 multitude of eels, into which the married priests with 

 their wives were transformed, that refused to obey 

 St. Dunstan's ordinance that priests should live single." 

 — Mathias Prideaux's Introduction for Reading all 

 Sorts of Histories, p. 276. edit. 1672.] 



THE TRUSTY SERVANT AT WINCHESTER. 

 (Vol. v., p. 417.) 



The author inquired for by M. Y. R. W. is 

 Gilbert Cousin, of Nozeroy, in Franche Comte 

 (better known under his Latin name of Cognatris), 

 whose collected works were published at Basle in 

 3 vols, folio, 1562. He was one of the restorers 

 of literature in the sixteenth century, and having 

 lilled the office of secretary to Erasmus, acquired 

 ^uch enlightened sentiments in regard to religion, 

 as to render him at a later period of life suspected 

 of a tendency to Protestantism ; in consequence 

 of which a Bull was obtained from Pius V. for his 

 imprisonment, and he died in the course of his trial 

 before the Inquisition in 1567, — another victim 

 to the merciless system of the papal creed. In 

 his treatise entitled " Ojkcttjs, sive de Officio Famu- 

 lorum," composed at Freiburg in Brisgau (a city 

 of the Grand Duchy of Baden, in the upper cu'cle 

 of the Rhine), in the year 1535, and addressed to 

 Ludovicus k Vero, Abbot of the Convent of Mons 

 ^. Mariae et Charitatis, he thus writes on the sub- 

 ject of painted figures of the Trusty Servant 

 (0/)p. vol. i. p. 223.): — 



" De famulo dicendi finem faciam, venerande Me- 

 caenas, si pro coronlde adjecero Probi Famuli imagi- 

 nem, quern Galli quidam effingunt conclavibus suis. 

 J^Iaec ad hunc habet modum. Pileum rubrum et elee/ans 

 erat in capite, nee inelegans inter ula tegehat corpus ; ros- 

 trum erat suillum, aures asinince, pedes cervini. Dextra 

 manus erectu, et in palmam explicata ; humero sinistro 

 pertica lihrabat duas aquae situlas, quaruni altera pendebat 

 a tergo, altera dfronte. Sinistra palam gestabat plenum 

 vivis pruinis. Addita erat singulorutn interpretatio. 

 fono famulo debetur elegans cultus. Suillum ros- 

 trum adraonebat, non decere famulum esse yXiaxP^*' 



ac fastidiosi palati, sed quovis cibo oportere contentura 

 esse. Auriculas designabant, famulum oportere patien- 

 tibus esse auribus, si quid forte dominus durius dixerit. 

 Dextra erecta admonebat fidei in contrectandis rebus 

 herilibus. Cervini pedes, significabant celeritatem in 

 peragendis inandatis. Situla; et ignis, industriam ac 

 celeritatem in multis negotiis simul peragendis." 



The description here given is quoted, nearly in 

 the same words, by Laur. Beyerlinck, in his 

 Magnum Theatrum Vitte Humance, tom. iii., Venet. 

 1707, p. 525., under the title of " Famuli Probi 

 Schema ;" and it will, I think, readily be admitted, 

 that the figure at Winchester College, although 

 differing in some respects from the one described 

 by Cousin, yet In its general features and purport 

 is the same. It is therefore highly probable that 

 the figure was originally painted in the sixteenth 

 century, and the design borrowed from our Gallic 

 neighbours. The costume in which this figure at 

 present appears, would not give it an antiquity of 

 much more than a century and a quarter ; but in 

 the Memorials of Winchester College, published 

 by D. Nutt in 1846, an entry is quoted from a 

 Compotus of the year 1637 in the following words, 

 " Pictori pingenti Servum et Carmlna, 135. Qd. ;" 

 and the writer justly remarks, " It may be con- 

 sidered doubtful whether this entry accounts for 

 the original execution, or only a restoration of the 

 work." A more diligent examination of the old 

 College accounts would probably throw further- 

 light on the subject, and also show at what periods 

 the figure had been repainted, and, no doubt, al- 

 tered according to the fashion and ideas of the 

 time. This view is borne out by the earliest en- 

 graving of the figure in my possession, entitled, 

 " A Piece of Antiquity painted on the wall ad- 

 joining to the kitchen of Winchester College, 

 which has been long preserved, and as oft as 

 occasion requires, is repaired." This print is in 

 folio, and was published in 1749, and has the verses 

 both in Latin and English. In one corner may be 

 read the faint traces of the engraver's name, Mosley 

 sculp. It has been recently republished from the 

 original plate, with the addition of the name 

 " H. C. Brown, Winchester." The next en- 

 graving, in point of date. Is inserted in the History 

 and Antiquities of Winchester, 12mo. 1773, vol. i. 

 p. 91., entitled " The Trusty Servant," W. Cave 

 del. Winton, without the verses. I have also an 

 8vo. print of rather later date, badly engraved, in 

 which the English verses only are given, and the 

 scoop or dustpan omitted in the left hand of the 

 figure (as it is seen in the earlier copies). Subse- 

 quent to this Is a small and very incorrect repre- 

 sentation In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1812, 

 vol. i. p. 114.; and more recently (but before 

 1842) is a large and handsome engraving (both 

 plain and coloured) published by James Robins 

 and D. E. Gilmour, at Winchester, in which a 

 background of landscape and cottages is intra- 



