Aug. 7. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



135 



cates himself from the services of the church and the 

 miuistrations of her ministers. H. T. Ellacombe. 

 Clyst St. George. 



Shakspeare Emendations (Vol. v., pp. 410. 436. 

 554.). — In the passage discussed (but not to my 

 mind satisfactorily settled) by Me. Singer and 

 A. E. B., there is another difficulty. " I am put 

 to know " seems an awkward phrase for " I must 

 needs know," which, as A. E. B. justly says, must 

 be the meaning. Would it not be somewhat 

 clearer if read, " I am not to know," i. e. " I am 

 not now to learn ? " This emendation is so much 

 in the style of those in Mr. ColUer's folio, that I 

 think it worth offering. 



I wish I could offer anything as plausible in- 

 stead of " all at once," in the passage in As You 

 Like It (discussed Vol. v., p. 554.), which I believe 

 was originally some single word, a climax to 

 " insult and excite." All at once seems to me not 

 merely surplusage, but almost nonsense; but it 

 has hitherto passed unquestioned, except by a 

 very slight quere of Steevens. C. 



Bronze Medals (Vol. v., p. 608.). — 6. Laura 

 Corsi was the wife of Jean Vincent Salviati, Mar- 

 quis of Montieri, who died November 26, 1693. 

 She was the mother of several sons ; Salviati is one 

 of the oldest Florentine families. It appears in 

 history as far back as a.d. 1200. 



4. As to Aragonia, I have no doubt this alludes 

 to the celebrated Mary of Aragon, sister of the no 

 less famous Joan of Aragon, who was the mother 

 of that Marc Antony Colonna whose name is bound 

 up with the battle of Lepanto. They were both 

 daughters of Ferdinand of Aragon, Duke of Mon- 

 talto, third natural son of Ferdinand King of 

 Naples. Mary became the wife of Alphonso 

 d'Avalos, one of Charles V.'s best generals. Brau- 

 tome says he met her when she was near sixty, and 

 even then her autumn surpassed all the springs 

 and summers in the room. Thuan (ad ann. 1552) 

 speaks of the island of Ischia as chiefly remarkable 

 for her retreat : " Maxime Mariae Arragonise 

 Avali Vastii viduaB secessu nobilem." Jerome 

 Ruscelli collected together all the pieces of poetry 

 written on her by the wits of the day. It was 

 printed at Venice in 1552, 4to., by Griffins. He 

 calls her the archetype of beauty. 



2, Mk. Boase appears to be right in his conjec- 

 ture about Conestagius. There is another work by 

 the same author, Historia della Guerre della Ger- 

 manice inferiori di Jeronimo Conestagio Gentilhuomo 

 Genovese, published at Venice, 1614, and at 

 Leyden, 1634. C. K. W. 



Baxter (Vol. vi., p. 86.). — If my memory serves 

 me, R. G. will find extracts of Baxter's blasphemies 

 concerning Christ's Long Parliament, and the regi- 

 cides sitting with Him therein, in Sikes on Paro- 

 chial Communion. I do not remember having read 



there, that he expunged the passages after the 

 Restoration ; but Leslie, in his Snake in the Grass, 

 charges the Quakers, Fox and Burrough, with ex- 

 punging the fierce and warlike language from their 

 books, in the editions printed after 1660, when the 

 sword was taken away from the saints, and using, 

 from thenceforth, a language of peace. The 

 editions printed between 1650 and 1660 are the 

 valuable ones. A. N.^ 



Meaning of ^^ slow" in Goldsmith's " Traveller^* 

 (Vol. v., p. 135.). — Mb. Coenish has given a wrong 

 version of the anecdote relative to the above word, 

 putting a piece of nonsense into Johnson's mouth 

 which he never uttered. Johnson thus tells the 

 story himself in Boswell : 



" Chamier once asked him what he meant by ' slow, . 

 the last word in the first line of The Traveller : 



' Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow : ' 



Did he mean tardiness of locomotion ? Goldsmith, 

 who would say something, without consideratioi^ 

 answered, ' Yes.' I was sitting by, and said, ♦ No, sir j 

 you do not mean tardiness of locomotion : you mean • 

 that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in soli' 

 tude.' Chamier believed then that I had written the 

 line as much as if he had seen me write it." 



This affords a curious illustration of the sayings 

 that poets, like prophets and the utterers of oracles, 

 often do not understand their own words. 



A "slow fellow," in school phrase, means a 

 mopish unsocial person ; and " slow " is applied to 

 anything stupid or tiresome. Jabltzbeeg. 



Bells on Horses' Necks (Vol. vi., p. 54.). — This 

 custom still exists in parts of Worcestershire and 

 Herefordshire, where the two counties join. Foui: 

 or five bells of good size are suspended under a 

 frame of wood, which is covered with worsted 

 fringe, and carried by the leader horse. 



This practice is of use to denote the approach of 

 a team in any of the numerous winding lanes, 

 which, though adding to the beauty of the land-, 

 scape by their thick hedges and lofty elms, yet, 

 being narrow and thus shut in, do not allow of 

 two waggons passing at every part. J. D. A^^ 



Bells on horses' necks are seen occasionally in 

 North Lincolnshire. In bygone times they "were, 

 fastened to the harness of horses, to give notice 

 of their approach, as the roads were at that time 

 without stone, and consequently so bad that the 

 drivers could not turn upon the side with much 

 expedition. K. P. D. E. 



The custom of hanging bells on the necks of 

 horses, inquired after by A. C, obtains in most of 

 the counties of England. I have notes of having 

 observed it in Derbyshire, Cheshire, Nottingham- 

 shire, Leicestershire, Yorkshire, Shropshire, Lan- 

 cashire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, 

 Devonshire, Cornwall, Cambridgeshire, Northamp- 



