2"-! S. V. 120., April 17. '58.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 



319 



a general! Assises held at Bury St. Edmunds for the 

 County of Suffolke. By Samuel Ward, Bachelour of 

 Divinity. London, printed by Miles Flesher, for John 

 Grismand in Ivie Lane at the signe of the Gun. 1627." 



At the end of the second sermon is an address 

 to the author from " your brother in the flesh, in 

 the Lord, and in the worke of the Ministery, 

 Nath. Ward," written from Elbing in Prussia. 

 It appears from this that the two sermons were 

 published by Nathaniel Ward, who blames his 

 brother for being " inexorable for your owne 

 publishing of any thing of your owne ; whether 

 out of judgement, modesty, curiosity, or melan- 

 cholly, I judge not." The writer concludes his 

 address, fearing that he has " learned too much 

 bluntnesse and plumpness of speech among tbe 

 Lutherans." 



Nathaniel Ward became rector of Staindrop in 

 the county of Durham, the parish church of Sir 

 Harry Vane when he was in the North. When 

 the Civil War broke out, Ward, strange to say, 

 became a most' devoted Royalist. He deserted 

 his cure and followed the troopers to the attack 

 upon Milium Castle in Cumberland, where he 

 received his death wound. 



The sermon against drunkards is extremely 

 ({uaint, and as it is of rare occurrence, two or 

 three extracts from it may perhaps amuse some 

 of the readers of " N, & Q." : — 



" Go to then now, ye drunkards. You promise your- 

 selves mirth, pleasure, and jollitie in your cups ; but for 

 one drop of j'our mad mirth, be sure of gallons and tunnes 

 of woe, gall, wormewood, and bitternesse here and here- 

 after — this is the sugar j'ou are to looke for, aTid the tang 

 it leaves behind. — Now, I appeale from your selves in 

 drinke, to your selves in your sober fitts — if you knew 

 there had been a toad in the wine- pot (as twice I have 

 knowne happened to the death of drinkers), or did you 

 see but a spider in the glasse, would you,' or durst you 

 carouse it off? — But thankes bee to God, who hath re- 

 served many thousands of men, and without all com- 

 parison more wittie and valorous, then such pot- wits, and 

 Spirits of the Buttery, who never bared their knees to 

 drinke health, nor ever needed to whet their wits with 

 wine, or arme their courage with pot-harnesse." 



The beginning is most extraordinary : — 



" Seer, art thou also blinde ? Watchman, art thou 

 also drunke or asleepe? Up to thy watchtower, what 

 descriest thou? Ah, Lord! what end or number is there 

 of the vanities which mine eyes are weary of beholding ? 

 Bui what seest thou? I see men walking like the tops of 

 trees shaken with the winde ; like masts of ships reeling 

 on the tempestuous seas." 



The writer gives several stories to controvert 

 " a drunken by-word, Drunkards take no harme," 

 and with one or two of these I shall conclude : — 



" In Barnewel, neer to Cambridge, one at the Signe of 

 the Plough, a lusty young man, with two of his neigh- 

 bours and one woman, agreed to drinke a barrell of strong 

 beare; they drunk up the vessel!, three of them dyed 

 within 24 houres, the fourth hardlj' escaped after a great 

 sickenes. This 1 have under a Justice of Peace his hand 

 neare dwelling, besides the common fame. 



" Two servants of a Brewer in Ipswich, drinking for a 

 rumpe of a turkie, strugling in their drinke for it, fell 

 into a scalding caldron backewards, whereof the one dyed 

 presently, the other lingrinly and painfully since my 

 comming to Ipswich. 



" A Butclier in Haslingfield hearing the Minister in- 

 veigh against druukennesse, being at his cups in the ale- 

 house, fell a- jesting and scoffing at the minister and his 

 sermons. As he was drinking, the drinke or something in 

 the cup quackled him, stuck so in his throat, that he could 

 act get it up nor downe, but strangled him presently." 



SOCIUS DUNELM. 



York. 



WHO COMPOSED " RULE BRITANNIA " ? 



(2"-^ S. iv. 415. 498. ; v. 91.) 



I beg permission to make a few observations on 

 M. Sch(El,cher's communication on this subject. 



In the first place, I must disavow any intention 

 of making this what M. Sch(elcheb calls "a sort 

 of patriotic question." I was and am influenced 

 solely by a desire to attain to a knowledge of the 

 real facts of the case, and must say that an attempt 

 to exalt the fame of a countryman at the expense 

 of truth would not comport with my ideas of pa- 

 triotism. 



M. ScHCELCHER, abandoning his position in re- 

 spect of "Rule Britannia " being borrowed from the 

 song in the Occasiorml Oratorio, now changes his 

 ground, and endeavours to show that most of the 

 passages in Arne's Ode are taken from composi- 

 tions of Handel written prior to 1740, the date of 

 the production of Alfred. I think this position 

 will be found no more tenable than the former. 

 The passage In Michal's song in Saul, " See, with 

 what a scornful air," is, it is true, identical with 

 the first bar of " Rule Britannia ; " but it is also 

 the same as the passage in the song in Galllard's 

 Necromancer (produced in 1723), mentioned by 

 Mr. Roffe, a circumstance which M. Schoelcheb 

 appears to have either overlooked or forgotten. 

 The commencement of " Love sounds the alarm" 

 {Acis and Galatea) is also identical with that of 

 " Rule Britannia" in notes, but differs in measure 

 and accent, and has consequently a difierent effect. 

 I cannot admit that such trivial resemblances as 

 tliese are sufficient to establish a charge of pla- 

 giarism. If they were to be so considered, how 

 many composers must be deprived of the merit of 

 having produced some of their best known works ? 

 I will cite one instance only, Handel's " See the 

 Conquering Hero comes," the first two bars of 

 which may be found at the commencement of 

 " Come Lovers from the Elisian Groves," a solo in 

 Matthew Lock's Psyche, printed in 1675. I pass 

 by the passage from Giustino, and the two quota- 

 tions from Burney's History of Music, as having 

 been already disposed of by Mr. Roffe. 



M. ScH(Ei.CHEB appears to attach considerable 

 importance to the circumstance of " Rule ^^ritaiir 



