Sept. 25. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



293 



History of old French Ahhies. — I shall be 

 much obliged to any reader who will kindly in- 

 form me where may be found a history of the old 

 French abbies. If there be no Monasticon Gal- 

 licum, is there any work in which there is any ac- 

 count of the Abbey de Valle Sanctae Marias in 

 Normandy ? H. T. E. 



[The History of the Abbey de Valle Sanctae Marine 

 will be found in Monstier's Neustrea Fia, seu de omni- 

 bus et singulis Ahbatiis et Prioratibus totius Normanice, 

 p. 785., fol., Rothomagi, 1663. It is a kind of Monasti- 

 con Gallicum.] 



Cvlverheys. — In Walton's Angler, one verse 

 quoted from " Jo. Davors, Esq.," ends thus : 

 " Pale gander grass, and azure culverkeys." 



What plant is the last named ? Hans. 



[Nares thus explains it: "Culver-keys; the flower 

 or herb Columbine. Culver being Columba, and the 

 little flowrets like keys."] 



Etymology of " Lyn" or " Lin."— 



" Whlche thing also I never lin to beate into the 

 eares of them that be my familiers." — Preface by 

 Thos. Cranmer, late Archbp. of Canterburie, to Mat- 

 thewe Parker's Bible. 



" For I confesse my guilt and never lyn, 

 With teares my penitence to manifest." 



Ancient Devotional Poetry. 



What is the etymology of this word ? The 

 meaning is obvious. A. W. 



Kilburn. 



[Though this word, which is of very frequent occur- 

 rence, is to be found in Jamieson, Nares, Brockett, 

 Halliwell, &c., none of these authorities give its ety- 

 mology. It is obviously derived from the Anglo-Saxon 

 linnan, which occurs twice in Beowulf, and is explained 

 by Kemble, in his Glossary, by cessare.] 



PARADISE LOST. 



(Vol. vi., p. 195.) 



I transcribe from the Facetice Cantab, a more 

 successful version of the Miltonic myth to which 

 your correspondent Jarltzberg alludes : 



" The beauty of Milton during the period that he 

 pursued his studies at the University of Cambridge, 

 and to a much more subsequent period, was a subject 

 upon which his friends frequently dwelt. 



" Wandering one day during the summer, as was his 

 custom, beyond the precincts of the university, he at 

 length became heated and fatigued, and seeking the 

 shade of a spreading tree, he laid himself down to me- 

 ditate, and soon fell asleep. 



" During the time that he slumbered two foreign 

 ladies passed near the spot in a carriage, who, asto- 

 nished at the loveliness of his appearance, in the heat 



of their admiration alighted, and viewing him as they 

 thought unperceived, the younger, who was extremely 

 handsome, drew a pencil from her pocket, and having 

 written some lines upon a piece of paper, put it with a 

 trembling hand into Milton's. They then entered 

 their carriage and proceeded on their journey. 



" Some of his academic friends had silently observed 

 this adventure undiscovered by the fair admirers, not 

 knowing it was their friend Milton who was uncon- 

 sciously playing the enchanter, but approaching the 

 spot they recognised him, and awaking him told him 

 what had passed. Milton opened the paper, and to 

 his no small surprise read the following verses from the 

 Italian poet Guarini ; 



' Occhi, stelle mortali, 

 ]Ministri de michi mali, 

 Se chiusi m' accidete 

 Apperti che farere.' 



Which are translated : 



* O eyes ! O mortal stars ! I find ye, 

 Author of lovely pangs that blind me ; 

 If thus when shut you've power to wound me. 

 Open, alas ! how hadst thou bound me ? ' 



Milton was eager to discover this fair incognita, and 

 it was probably this incident which afterwards carried 

 him to Italy in hopes of discovering her abode, but in 

 vain." 



Disraeli tells us (^Curiosities of Literature, pp. 

 482, 483.) that the story was probably an invention 

 of George Steevens, and copied from a French 

 story purporting to be of the fifteenth century. 



I have shown^ my willingness to believe such a 

 romantic little tale by transcribing it at full 

 length, and now feel quite entitled to say that it 

 entirely contradicts itself. Milton was admitted 

 to Cambridge a.d. 1624, took his A.B. degree in 

 1628, and the degree of A.M. in 1632. In some 

 one or other of the intermediate years, the part of 

 Sleeping Beauty must therefore have been acted by 

 him, if acted at all, at Cambridge ; and certainly 

 this seems quite inconsistent with the fact that he 

 did not commence his travels until 1638, but re- 

 mained quietly at Horton in Buckinghamshire. 

 Facts and figures are stubborn things, and very 

 unpoetical in common estimation ; but Truth is a 

 goddess, and must be worshipped for her own 

 sake. Had the discovery of the fair incognita 

 been the object of Milton's travels, he must in- 

 deed have been " a laggard in love," or gifted with 

 undying constancy to an ideal object, or must 

 have deemed her a terrestrial Hebe, an Ama- 

 ranthine flower that would bloom on for ever in 

 unfading juvenescence. Perhaps the following 

 facts may afford some clue to the mystery. 



In \kiQ first of Milton's Elegies, addressed to his 

 friend Charles Deodate, the youthful poet, then 

 only nineteen years old, dwells enraptured upon 

 the beauties of the London ladies in general. It 

 was written from his father's house in Bread 



