16 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 166. 



lyiier to hym agayne : and whan he had delyuerde to 

 theym the ringe, he departed from theym sodenly.' 



" This command, as may be supposed, was punc- 

 tually obeyed by the messengers, who were furnisht 

 with ample powers for authenticating their mission. 

 The ring was received by the Royal Confessor, and in 

 after times was preserved with due care at his shrine 

 in the Abbey of Westminster."] 



The Bourhons. — "What was tlie origin of the 

 Bourbon family ? How did Henry IV. come to 

 be the next heir to the throne on the extinction 

 of the line of Valois ? E. H. A. 



[Henri IV., King of Navarre, succeeded to the throne 

 on the extinction of the house of Valois, as the head of 

 the house of Bourbon, which descends from Robert of 

 France, Count do Clermont, the fifth son of St. Louis, 

 and Seigneur de Bourbon. On the death of Louis I. 

 in 1.34], leaving two sons, this house was divided into 

 the Bourbon, or elder branch (which became extinct on 

 the death of the Constable of Bourbon, in 1527), and 

 the younger branch, or that of the Counts de la Marche, 

 afterwards Counts and Dukes of Vendome. Henri 

 was the son of Antoine de Bourbon, Due de Vendome.] 



Eeplt'c^. 



(Vol. vi., p. 460.) 



The Query confirms Professor De Morgan's 

 excellent article in The Companion to the Almanack 

 for 1853, "On the Difficulty of correct Descrip- 

 tion of Books." The manuscript note cited by 

 H. J., though curiously inaccurate, guided me to 

 the book for which he inquires. I copy the title- 

 page : " Die Bc.trilhte Pegnesis, den Leben, Kunst, 

 iind Tugend- Wandel des Seelig-Edeln Floridans, 

 H. Sigm. von Birken, Com. Pal. Cces. diirch 24 Sinn- 

 hilder in Kupfern^ zur schuldigen nach-Ehre fih'- 

 .stellend, und mit Oesprach und Reim- Gedichten er- 

 hl'drend, durch ihre Blumen-Hirten. Niirnberg, 

 1684, 12mo." I presume the annotator, not under- 

 standing German, and seeing " Floridans " the 

 most conspicuous word on the title-page, cited him 

 as the author; but it is the pastoral academic 

 name of the late Herr Sigmond von Birken, in 

 "whose honour the work is composed. The emblem, 

 with the motto "Bis fracta relinquor," at p. 249. 

 (not 240.), is a tree from which two boughs are 

 broken. It illustrates the death of Floridan's 

 second Avife, and his determination not to take a 

 third. The chess-board, plate xiv. p. 202,, has the 

 motto, " Per tot discrimina rerum," and comme- 

 morates Floridan's safe return to Nuremberg after 

 the multitudinous perils ("die Schaaren der Ge- 

 fahren") of a journey through Lower Saxony. 

 They must have been great. If typified by the state 

 of the board, on which only a black king and a 

 white bishop are left — a chess problem ! 



I bought my copy at a book-sale many years 

 ago, and, after reading a few pages, laid it aside as 

 insufferably dull, although it was marked by its 

 former possessor, the Rev. Henry White, of Lich- 

 field, " Very rare, probably unique." On taking 

 it up to answer H. J.'s Query, I found some matter 

 relating to the German academies of the seven- 

 teenth century, which I think may be interesting. 



Mr. Hallam {^Literature of JEio-ope, iv. v. 9.) 

 says : 



" The Arcadians determined to assume every one 

 a pastoral name and a Greek birthplace ; to hold their 

 meetings in some verdant meadow, and to mingle with 

 all their own compositions, as far as possible, images 

 from pastoral life ; images always agreeable, because 

 they recall the times of primitive innocence. The 

 poetical tribe adopted as their device the pipe of seven 

 reeds bound with laurel, and their president, or direc- 

 tor, was denominated General Shepherd or Keeper — 

 Custode Generate." 



He slightly mentions the German academies of 

 the sixteenth century (in. ix. 30.), and says : 



" It is probable that religious animosities stood in 

 the way of such institutions, or they may have flourished 

 wiilwut obtaining mucfi celebritt/." 



The academy of Pegnitz-shepherds (" Pegnitz- 

 shafer-orden") took its name from the little river 

 Pegnitz which runs through Nuremberg. Herr 

 Sigmond von Birken was elected a member in 

 1645. He chose Floridan as his pastoral name, 

 and the amaranth as his flower. In 1658 he was 

 admitted to the Palm Academy ("Palmen-orden"), 

 choosing the n^nxa Der Erwacsene (the adult?), 

 and the snowdrop. In 1659, a vacancy having 

 occurred in the Pegnitz- Herdsmen (" Pegnitz- 

 Hirten ") he was thought worthy to fill it, and in 

 1679 he received the diploma of the Venetian 

 order of the Recuperati. He died in 1681. This, 

 and what can be hung upon it, is Die Beti'iibte 

 Pegnitz., a dialogue of 406 pages. It opens with 

 a meeting of shepherds and shepherdesses, who go 

 In and out of their cottages on the banks of the 

 Pegnitz, and tell one another, what all seem equally 

 well acquainted with, the entire life of their de- 

 ceased friend. It would not be easy to find a 

 work more clumsy in conception and tasteless in 

 execution. Herr von Birken seems to have been 

 a prosperous man, and to have enjoyed a high pas- 

 toral reputation. His works are enumerated, but 

 the catalogue looks ephemeral. There is, however, 

 one with a promising title : Die Trockene Trunkcn- 

 heit, oder die Gehrauch und Misshrauch des Tahachs. 

 His portrait, as " Der Erwachsene," is prefixed. 

 It has not a shepherd-like look. He seems about 

 fifty, with a fat fiice, laced cravat, and large flow- 

 ing wig. There are twenty-four emblematical 

 plates, rather below the average of their time. 



As so secondary a town as Nuremberg had at 

 least three academies, we may infer that such in- 



