LITMIR.BIZ

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      But the day of deliverance was close at hand: the battle of Bannockburn, so fatal to the English, was fought on the 24th June; and on the 2nd of October the Constable of Rochester Castle is commanded to conduct the wife, sister, and daughter of Robert Bruce to Carlisle (usque Karliolum), where an exchange of prisoners was made. Old Hector Boece, who, if Erasmus can be trusted, "knew not to lie," informs us, that "King Robertis wife, quhilk was hald in viii. yeris afore in Ingland, was interchangeit with ane duk of Ingland"3 [Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford]. And the aforesaid Barbour celebrates their restoration in the following lines:—

      A NOTE ON ROBERT HERICK, AUTHOR OF "HESPERIDES."

      In the summer of 1844, I visited Dean Prior in company with my brother, in order to ascertain if we could add any new fact to the scanty accounts of the Life of Herrick recorded by his biographers. The events of his life have been related by Dr. Drake, (Literary Hours, vol. iii., 1st edit. 1798.—3rd edit. 1804), by Mr. Campbell, by Dr. Nott (Select Poems from the Hesperides, &c. Bristol, 1810,) by a writer in the Quarterly Review, vol. iv. 1810, by Mr. Wilmott in his elegantly written Lives of Sacred Poets, vol. i., 1834, and in the memoirs prefixed to the recent editions of Herrick's Poems published by Clarke (1844), and Pickering (1846). On examining any of these biographies, it will be found that the year and place of Herrick's death have not been ascertained. This was the point which I therefore particularly wished to inquire into.

      Dean Prior is a village about six or seven miles from Totnes: the church, with the exception of the tower, had been recently rebuilt. The monuments and inscribed stones were carefully removed when the old fabric was taken down, and restored as nearly as could be to corresponding situations in the new building. I sought in vain, amongst these, for the name of Herrick. On making inquiry of the old sexton who accompanied us, he said at first in a very decided tone, "Oh, he died in Lunnun," but afterwards corrected himself, and said that Herrick died at Dean Prior, and that an old tombstone in the churchyard, at the right hand side of the walk leading to the south side of the church, which was removed several years ago, was supposed to have covered the remains of the former vicar of Dean Prior.

      Being baffled in our search after "tombstone information," we called at the vicarage, which stands close by the church, and the vicar most courteously accorded us permission to search the registers of the marriages, births, and burials, which were in his custody. The portion of the dilapidated volume devoted to the burials is headed thus:—

      After some careful search we were gratified by discovering the following entry:—

      I fancy I met with a selection from Herrick's Poems edited by Mr. Singer, several years ago, comprised in a small neat volume. Can any of your readers inform me whether there is such a book? I possess Mr. Singer's valuable editions of Cavendish, More, and Hall's Satires, and would wish to place this volume on the same shelf.

      Totnes, Feb. 21. 1850.

      WHAT IS THE MEANING OF "LÆRIG?"

      This query, evidently addressed to our Anglo-Saxon scholars by the distinguished philologist to whom we are all so much indebted, not having been hitherto replied to, perhaps the journal of "NOTES AND QUERIES" is the most fitting vehicle for this suggestive note:—

      TO DR. JACOB GRIMM.

      Allow me, though an entire stranger to you, to thank you for the pleasure I have derived, in common with all ethnological students, from your very valuable labours, and especially from the Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache. At the same time I venture, with much diffidence, to offer a reply to your question which occur in that work at p. 663.:—"Was heisst lærig?"

      Lye says, "Hæc vox occurrit apid Cædm. At interpretatio ejus minime liquet." In the Supplement to his Dictionary it is explained "docilis, tyro!" Mr. Thorpe, in his Analecta A.-S. (1st edit. Gloss), says, "The meaning of this word is uncertain: it occurs again in Cædmon;" and in his translation of Cædmon he thus renders the passage:—"Ofer linde lærig=over the linden shields." Here then lærig, evidently an adjective, is rendered by the substantive shields; and linde, evidently a substantive, is rendered by the adjective linden. In two other passages, Mr. Thorpe more correctly translates lindum=bucklers.

      Lind, which Lye explained by the Latin labarium, vexillum, that excellent scholar, the late lamented Mr. Price, was the first, I believe, to show frequently signified a shield; which was, probably for lightness, made of the wood of the lime tree, and covered with skin, or leather of various colours. Thus we have "sealwe linde" and "hwite linde" in Cædm., "geolwe linde" in Beowulf.

      All this is superfluous to you, sir, I know—"Retournons à nos moutons," as Maistre Pierre Pathelin says.

      The sense required in the passage in Brythnoth seems to me to be:—

      And in Cædmon:—