2°* S. IX. Jan. 14. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



31 



Sessions of the County of Norfolk to transfer 

 such statute labour of persons residing within 

 three miles of the sea banks to make and repair 

 any of them, which are not and ought not to be 

 made and maintained at the particular charge of 

 any person or persons, or at the charge of any 

 township, or by Acre-shot, or other common 

 charge. 



This act is continued by 3 Car. I. c. 4. and 

 16 Car. I. c. 4. The next act is 7 James I. cap. 

 xx. The Preamble commences : — 



" Whereas the sea hath broken into the County of 

 Norfolk, and hath surrounded much hard grounds, be- 

 sides the greatest part of the marshes and low grounds 

 within the Towns and Parishes of Waxtonesham, Pall- 

 ing, Hickling, Horsey," and about seventy other parishes 

 in Norfolk and sixteen in Suflolk. 



" For remedy of so great a Calamity it is enacted, 

 That the Lord Chancellor shall from time to time award 

 Commissions under the Great Seal to the Lord Bishop of 

 Norwich, and to eleven or more Justices of the Peace of 

 Norfolk and to Six or more Justices of Suffolk," 



who have powers given them to levy a tax for 

 the repair of the breaches and various other 

 necessary purposes. 



This Act, which at first was temporary, was 

 continued by 3 Car. I. c. 4. s. 28., and made per- 

 petual by 16 Car. I. c. 4. The Act of Elizabeth 

 was also only temporary. 



I have been unable to discover any other Act 

 on this subject; nor do I know under what Act 

 the Commissioners of Sea Breaches recently levied 

 a rate on these parishes. Nor, though I have 

 heard that there is an Act, as your correspondent 

 says, to make it penal to cut the " marrum," have 

 I discovered one. But by the 15 & 16 Geo. II. 

 c. 33., " plucking up and carrying away starr, or 

 bent, or having it in possession, within five miles of 

 the sandhills, was punishable by fine, imprison- 

 ment, and whipping." This refers to Lancashire 

 and the N.W. counties. I copy it from Halliwell, 

 who quotes it from Moor's Suffolk Words. I can 

 show that" marrum" was anciently called "starr" 

 in Norfolk. 



I have, I fear, made this reply extend to a very 

 unreasonable length ; but I am very anxious to 

 learn (and willing to impart also, when I know) 

 anything concerning the drainage of the marshes 

 formed by the rivers discharging themselves into 

 the sea at Yarmouth. I formerly put a Query 

 on this subject in " N. & Q.," but it elicited no 

 reply. It is somewhat singular that so little 

 should be known about it, as the Abbey of St. 

 Bennet's in the Holm had such large possessions 

 in these marshes, which probably was the cause of 

 the Bishop of Norwich (who succeeded to the 

 property of that abbey) being made a commis- 

 sioner by the act 7 James I. cap. xx. But I find 

 from the review in the Athenaum of the Chronicle 

 of John of Oxnedes — a monk of this abbey — 

 that some information is there given as to inun- 



dations at Hickling, Horsey, &c, in one of which 

 nine score persons perished, and the water rose 

 a foot above the high altar in Hickling Priory. I 

 have not yet seen the work itself, but hope to do 

 so, and to discover in it something bearing on the 

 question. E. G. R. 



THE "TE DEUM" INTERPOLATED? 

 (2" d S. viii. 352.) 



What is the " offensiveness " of the three ver- 

 sicles in the " Te Deum " (11 — 13), "enumer- 

 ating the Three Persons of the Trinity " ? Sup- 

 posing the " Te Deum" to have been written, 

 according to the current tradition, when an emi- 

 nent Father of the Church was baptized, the 

 same threefold enumeration would doubtless take 

 place in the baptismal formula, as enjoined by 

 our Lord himself {Matt, xxviii. 19.). What of- 

 fence, then, if it appeared simultaneously in a 

 hymn composed on the occasion ? 



On examining the text of the " Te Deum," as 

 it exists in the oldest records, we find no shadow 

 of a pretext for supposing that the three versicles 

 in question " are interpolated." The Latin text, 

 which is unquestionably the oldest, has them ; so 

 hus the old German or Teutonic, into which the 

 " Te Deum " was rendered in the early part of 

 the ninth century (" seculi IX initio in Theotis- 

 cam linguam con versus") ; in fact, no old version 

 is without them. Even Sarnelli, of all conjectural 

 critics apparently the most slashing and crotchety, 

 who would fain omit versicles 2 — 10., leaves vv. 

 11 — 13 intact. According to his suggestion the 

 versicles would run ttius: 1, 11, 12, 13, &c. ; not 

 that there seems to be the least pretence for this 

 omission, any more than for that of vv. 11 — 13. 



Any attempt to infer # the interpolation of the 

 three versicles from the supposed " sequence of the 

 hymn," (first the even versicles answering the 

 odd, and afterwards the odd answering the even), 

 must be taken with a grain of salt. That the 

 " Te Deum" was originally divided as it is now, 

 there seems great reason for doubting. Its pre- 

 sent number of versicles is 29. But in the Teu- 

 tonic version, already referred to, the whole 29 

 make only 16 distinct portions, thus : — 1, 2 ; 3, 

 4; 5, 6; 7—9; 10—13; 14—16; 17; 18, 19; 

 20 ; 21 ; 22, 23 ; 24. 25 ; 26 ; 27; 28 ; 29. Again ; 

 three versicles of the hymn as it now stands, 4 — 6, 

 are but an expansion of a single verse of Isaiah 

 (vi. 3.). Little can be inferred, then, from the 

 sequence or correspondence of the versicles, as we 

 now have them in their separate state. 



We are thus led to ask the question, What can 

 have first suggested the idea of an interpolated 

 " Te Deum " ? Can it by any possibility be Bona- 

 ventura's astounding parody ? There, the " Te 

 Deum laudamus " becomes " Te matrem Dei lau- 

 damus ; " and the three versicles, 11 — 13, are 



