248 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 150. 



Therefore I'll rejoice and sing 



Hymns to God, in sacred measure, 



Who to happy pass will bring, 



My just hopes at his good pleasure." 



The late Lord Aston printed a pleasing volume 

 of Select Psalms in Verse, which was published by 

 Hatchard in 1811, in which he gave aversion of 

 the 137th Psalm by Loveling, that seems to me 

 wanting in simplicity. I will take this opportunity 

 to mention that Loveling was the author of the 

 volume of Latin and English Poems, by a Gentle- 

 man of Trinity College, O xford, JjonA. 1741,12nio., 

 which appears to be a reimpression of that in 4to., 

 1738, about which R. H. has a Query in Vol. i., 

 p. 215. 



May I venture to add a Query to your corre- 

 spondent Rt. ? Is the Portuguese version of 

 the 137th Psalm by Camoens, to which he refers, 

 the poem styled " Redondillas ? " And, if so, is it 

 not rather an expanded paraphrase than a version ? 

 Little or nothing is known about Francis Davi- 

 son. I have a copy of Horace, by Chabot, printed 

 at Basle in 1589, bearing his autograph, with the 

 date 1593, and the motto, " Lsetitia juvenem frons 

 decet tristis senem," most beautifully written. 

 The unhappy fate of his father seems to have cast 

 a shade of melancholy over his sensitive mind, 

 which is evident in the choice he has made of 

 psalms expressive of his feelings : 



" Grown a stranger to all gladness. 

 My face with consuming sadness. 

 Withered is and dried. 

 In my youth I am grown aged ; 

 My foes with wrongs ne'er assuaged. 

 My head grey have made." 

 See Nicolas's Life of William Davison, p. 2 13. sq. 



lie is supposed to have been born in 1575, and 

 to have died before 1621. S. W. Singer. 



Mickleham. 



In the edition of Davison's Poems edited by 

 Sir Egerton Brydges, and printed at the Lee 

 Priory Press, this version of the 137th Psalm is 

 inserted at p. 27. vol. iii. part 2., and attributed to 

 Francis Davison. There is a variation in the 

 twelfth line from that printed in your pages : 



" To our mirthless mind recalled." 

 Brydges gives — 



" To our mirthless minds we called." 



In the Preface the editor says : 



«' The versification of Select Psalms by Francis 

 Davison, and by another brother Christopher (as it 

 seems, if it be not a mistake in the copy for Walter), is 

 now added to the Rhapsody from a MS. in the British 

 Museum." 



" Some of these versions are executed with an ele- 

 gance and harmony of language and metre, and a pic- 

 turesque and plaintive spirit of poetry, which, in my 



opinion, exalt the powers of Francis Davison beyond 

 anything in the Rhapsody." 



BOXSALL. 



KOVAL ARMS IN CHURCHES. 



(Vol. v., p. 559.; Vol. vi., p. 178.) 



"With the greatest respect for Mr. Gibson as an 

 antiquary and historian, I must beg leave to differ 

 from him in his view of the setting up the royal 

 arms in churches. Perhaps, if he will refer to the 

 correspondence in the Gentleman s Mag. which I 

 quoted (1841, July, p. 21.), he will alter his opinion. 

 There is an instance given of the arms of Mary n't 

 Waltham. No doubt at the Restoration there was 

 great display of royalty in every possible form, 

 and our churches came in for it in the shape of 

 restored royal arms, as many a parish account- 

 book of that time will testify ; but that they were 

 set up long before that period — soon after the 

 Reformation, and probably before it — I would 

 quote what old Boswell says in his Worke of 

 Armorie, 1572, where, after setting forth and. 

 describing the blazonry of the arms of Elizabeth,, 

 he says : 



" Thus, who readinge, and marking the order of the 

 blazon of the said most noble armes, and seeing the 

 same afterwarde in any church, castle, or other place^ 

 and remember the reverence thereunto due, and not 

 that onely, but will break out, and say, * God save the 

 Queene ! God save her Grace !' Which wordes, so saide 

 and hearde of others, bringeth all the hearers in re- 

 membrance of their obedience and dutie to her, being 

 our most lawful Prince and Governor. And these 

 armes are of all men livinge under her and her Lawes, 

 and within all her Dominions, to be extolled, and set 

 up in the highest place of our Churches, Houses, and 

 Mansions, above all other estates and degrees, whoso- 

 ever they be : and this example of our soveraignes 

 armes, I first put forthe, as principally above all others 

 to be knowne, for the causes aforesaid." 



H. T. Ellacombe. 

 Clyst St. George. 



As the following extract from the register of the 

 parish church of Warrington may possess some 

 interest in connexion with this question, I send it 

 you for what it is worth : 



"1660, July SO. Whereas it is generally injoined 

 by the great Counsell of England that in all churches 

 thorow out the kingdom of England, his Maiestie's 

 Armes shalbe sett upp. Uppon warning publicly 

 given in the parish churche concerninge the providinge 

 of the said Armes and severall other things that are 

 wanting. Those of the parish that uppon the s'd warn- 

 inge did appeare do think it fitt that two Church layes 

 shalbe collected by the new Churchwardens for the pro- 

 vidinge of the s'd Armes, also for the mossinge of the 

 Church, for repairinge of tlie leads, the Clarke'a 

 wages," &c. 



