Jan. 1. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



commemorated by his afflicted father in the fol- 

 lowing touching monody, affixed to the same tree : 



Sane Ego quam felix annis melioribus Ulmum 

 Ipse manu sevi, tibi dilectissime Fili 

 Consecro in seternum, Gulielme vocabitur Arbos 

 Hsec tua, servabitque tuum per secula nomen. 

 Te generose Puer nil muneris hujus egentem 

 Te jam perfunctum vitaa bellique labore, 

 Adscripsit Deus, et coelestibus intulit oris, 

 Me tamen afflictum, me consolabitur aegrum 

 Hoc tibi quod pono, quanquam leve pignus amoris. 

 Hie Ego de vita meditans, de sorte futurft, 

 Ssepe tuam recolam formam, duloemque loquelam, 

 Verbaque tam puro et sacrato foute profecta, 

 Quam festiva quidem, et facili condita lepore. 

 At Te, qui nostris quicunque accesseris hospes 

 Sedibus, unum oro, moesti reverere Parentis, 

 Nee tu sperne preces quas hac super Arbore fundo. 

 Sit tibi non invisa, sit inviolata securi, 

 Et quantum natura sinet, crescat monumentum 

 Egregii Juvenis, qui sisvo est Marte peremptus, 

 Fortiter ob patriam pugnando, sic tibi constans 

 Stet fortuna domus, sit nuUi obnoxia damno, 

 Nee videas unquam dilecti funera nati. 



Bkatbeooke. 



SIE HENRY WOtTON AND MILTON. 



The letter which sir Henry Wotton addressed 

 to Milton, on receiving the Mashe presented at 

 Ludlow-castle, appears to admit of an interpreta- j 

 tion which has escaped the numerous editors of 

 the works of Milton ; and I resolve to put this 

 novel conjecture on its trial in the critical court of 

 facts and inferences held at No. 186. Fleet Street. 



Sir Henry Wotton thus expresses himself on 

 the circumstance which I conceive to have been 

 misinterpreted : 



" For the work itself [a dainty piece of entertain- 

 ment, by Milton] I bad viewed some good while before 

 with singular delight, having received it from our 

 common friend Mr. R. in the very close of the late 

 R.'s Poems, printed at Oxford ; whereunto [it] is added 

 (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out 

 the principal, according to the art of stationers, and to 

 leave the reader con la bocca dolce." — ReliquicB Wot- 

 toniancE, 1672. 



In the poems of Milton, as edited by himself in 

 1645, the date of this letter is " 13th April, 1638 ;" 

 and as the Poems of " Thomas Randolph, master 

 of arts, and late fellow of Trinity colledge in Cam- 

 bridge," were printed at Oxford in that year, in 

 small quarto, it may be assumed that the gift of 

 Mr. R. was a copy of that Tolume, with the addi- 

 tion of the Maske, as printed in the same size in 

 1637. Such was the conclusion of Warton, and 

 such is mine. The question at issue is. Who was 

 Mr. R. ? Warton says, " I believe Mr. R. to be 

 John Rouse," the keeper of the Bodleian library. 



Is it not more probable that Mr. R. means Robert 

 Randolph, master of arts, and student of Christ- 

 church — a younger brother of Thomas Randolph, 

 and the editor of his poems ? 



I must first dispose of the assertion that the 

 friendship between Rouse and Milton " appears to 

 have subsisted in 1637." There is no evidence of 

 their friendship till 1647 ; and that evidence is the 

 ode to Rouse, to which this address is prefixed : 

 " Jan. 23. 1646. Ad Joannem Rousium, Oxonien- 

 sis academiae bibliothecarium. De libro poematum 

 amisso, quern ille sibi denuo mitti postulabat, ut cum 

 aliis nostris in bibliotheca publica reponeret, ode." 

 It seems that Milton did not send the volume of 

 1645 till a copy of it had been requested ; no evi- 

 dence, certainly, of old friendship ! I admit the 

 probability that Wotton and Rouse were friends ; 

 but why should Rouse officiously stitch up, as 

 Warton expresses it, the Mask of Milton with the 

 Poems of Thomas Randolph, and present the 

 volume to Wotton ? Did he give away that which 

 is still wanting in the Bodleian library? 



Admit my novel conjecture, and all the diffi- 

 culties vanish. Thomas Randolph, says Phillips, 

 was " one of the most pregnant young wits of his 

 time ; " and Robert, who was also noted as a poet, 

 could scarcely fail to offer the poems of his brother 

 to so eminent a person as sir Henry Wotton. As 

 sir Henry yearly went to Oxford, he may have 

 made acquaintance with Robert ; and Robert may 

 have been introduced to Milton by Thomas,_who 

 was for eight years his cotemporary at Cambridge, 

 and in the enjoyment of much more celebrity. 

 The Maske may have been added as an experi- 

 ment in criticism. 



The rev. Thomas Warton was a man of exten- 

 sive reading, an excellent critic, and a fascinating 

 writer — but too often inattentive to accuracy of 

 statement. He says that Randolph died the 17th 

 March, 1634 : Wood says he was buried the 17th 

 March, 1634. He says it is so stated on his monu- 

 ment : the monument has no date. He says the 

 Poem^ of Randolph contain 114 pages: the volume 

 cpntains 368 pages ! He says the Maske is a slight 

 quarto of 30 pages only : it contains 40 pages ! 

 t it not fit that such carelessness should be ex- 

 posed? BoLTON COENEY. 



FOLK LOBE. 



Unlucky to sell Eggs after Sunset. — The follow- 

 ing paragraph is extracted from the Stamford 

 Mercury of October 29, 1852 : 



« There exists a species of superstition in north Not- 

 tinghamshire against letting eggs go out of a house 

 after sunset. The other day a person in want of some 

 eggs called at a farm-house in East Markham, and 

 inquired of the good woman of the house whether she 

 had any eggs to sell, to which she replied that she had 

 a few scores to dispose of. • Then I'll take them home 



