178 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 71. 



After further argimient from Bertram, Diana 

 answers : 



" 1 see that men niaAe roprs in such a scarre 

 That we'll forsake ourselves." 



This Rowe altered to " malve hopes in such uf- 

 faiis" ami Malone to " make hopes in such a 

 scene y Others, and among them Mr. Knight and 

 Mr. Collier, retain the old reading, and vaiidy en- 

 deavour to give it a meaning, understanding the 

 virord scarre to signify a rock or cliff, wilh which 

 it has nothing to do in this passage. Tliere can 

 be no doubt that "make ropes^' is a misprint for 

 " make hopes" which is evidently required by the 

 context, " that we'll forsake onrselves." It then 

 only remains to show what is meant by a scarre, 

 which signifies here anything that causes surprise 

 or alarm; what we should now write a scare. 

 Siiakspeare has used the same orthography, scarrd, 

 i. e. scared, in Coriolanus and in Winter s Tale. 

 Tiiere is also abundant evidence that this was its 

 old orthngraf)hy, indicative of the broad sound the 

 word then had, and which it still retains in the 

 north. Palsgrave has both the noun and the verb 

 in tliis form : " Scari-e, to scar crowes, espouvcn- 

 tail." And again, " I scarre away or fcare away, 

 as a man doth crowes or such like ; je escar- 

 mouche." The French word might lead to the con- 

 clusion that a scarre might be used for a skirmish. 

 (See Cotgrave in v. Escarmouche.) I once thought 

 ■we should read " in such a icarre," i. e. conflict. 



In Minshen's Guide to the Tongues, we have : 



" To Scarre, videtur conGctum ex sono oves vcl 

 aliud quill abigcntium et tenoreni illis inciiliLiuiuni. 

 Gall. Ahiirir ratione eadem : " vi. to feare, to fright. 



Objections have been made to the expression 

 "make hopes;" but the poet himself in A'»/<>- 

 Henry VIII. has "more tlian I dare make faults,'' 

 and repeats the phrase in one of his sonnets ": surely 

 there is nothing more singular in it than in the 

 common French idiom, '■'■ faire des esperauces." 



S. W. Singer. 



GGOROE HERBERT AND THE CHURCH AT LEIGHTON 

 BROMSWOLD. 



(Vol. iii., p. 85.) 



I have great j)leasure in laying before your 

 readers the following particulars, which I collected 

 on a journey to Leighton Bromswold, undertaken 

 for the jiurpose of satisfying the Query of E. II. 

 If they will turn to A Priest to the Temple, ch. xiii , 

 they will find the points to which, with others, my 

 attention was more especially directed. 



Leighton Church consists of a western tower, 

 nave, north and south porches and transepts, and 

 chancel. There are no aisles. As Prebendary of 

 the Prebend of Leighton Ecclesia in Lincoln Ca- 

 thedral, George Herbert was entitled to an estate 

 in the parish, and it was no doubt a portion of the 

 increase of this property that he devoted to the 



repairing and beautifying of the House of God, 

 then "lying desolate," and unfit for the celebration 

 of divine service. Good Izaak Walton, writing 

 evidently uj)on hearsay information, and not of 

 his own personal knowledge, was in error if he 

 supposed, as from his lamiuage he appears to have 

 done, that George Herbert almost rebuilt the 

 church from the foundation, and he must be held 

 to be incorrect in describing that part of it which 

 stood as " so decayed, so little, and so useless." 

 There are portions remaining earlier than George 

 Herbert's time, whose work may be readily dis- 

 tinguished by at least four centuries; whilst at one 

 end the porches, and at the other the piscina, of 

 Early English date, the windows, which are of dif- 

 ferent styles, and the buttresses, afi()rd sufficient 

 proofs that the existing walls are the original, and 

 that in size the church has remained unalteretl for 

 ages. As George Herbert new roofed the sacred 

 edifice thioughout, we may infer this was the chief 

 structural repair necessary. He also ei-ected the 

 present tower, the font, put four windows in the 

 chancel, and reseated the parts then used by the 

 congregation. 



Except a western organ gallery erected in 1840, 

 two pews underneath ir, and one elsewhere, these 

 parts, the nave and transepts, remain, in all proba- 

 bility, exactly as George Herbert left them. The 

 seats are all uniform, of oak, and of the good old 

 open fashion made in the style of the seventeenth 

 century. They are so arranged, both in the nave 

 and in the transepts, that no person in service 

 time turns his l)ack either upon the altar or upon 

 the minister. (See "Notes and Queries," Vol. ii., 

 p. 397.) The pidpit against the north, and the 

 reading-desk, with clerk's seat attached, against 

 the south side of the chancel-arch, are both of the 

 same height, and exactly similar in every respect ; 

 both have sounding-boards. The fbnt is placed 

 at the west end of tiie nave, and, together with its 

 cover, is part of George Herbert's work; it stands 

 on a single step, and a drain carries off the water, 

 as in ancient examples. The shallowness of the 

 basin surprised me. A vestry, corresponding in 

 style to the seats, is formed by a wooden inclosure 

 in the south transept, which contains " a strong 

 and decent chest." Until the erection of the 

 gallery, the tower was open to the nave. 



The chancel, which is raised one step above the 

 nave, is now ])artly filled wilh high pews, but, a3 

 arranged by the pious prebendary, it is believed 

 to have contained only one low bench on either 

 side. The communion table, which is elevated by 

 three steps above the level of the chancel, is 

 modern, as are also the rails. There is a double 

 Early English piscina in the south wall, and an 

 ambry in the north. A plain cross of the seven- 

 teenth century crowns the eastern gable of the 

 chancel extei-nally. 



No doubt there were originally " fit and proper 



