6

This passage supports my conjecture on a very corrupted passage in Peele's Edward I. ed. Dyce, vol. i. p. 128.

“ Farewell and be hang'd half Sinon's sapon's brood."' The reading I proposed instead of these unmeaning words, was,

“ false Sinon's spawn and brood;" and I see no reason for rejecting or altering it. That half is a corruption of false, no doubt can be entertained, false being an epithelon perpetuum of Sinon. So p. 352 of our present play:

“ Others report 'twas Sinon's perjury." and in Cymbeline, act iii. sc. 2.

-like false Æneas,
Were in his time thought false, and Synon's weeping

Did scandal many a holy tear."
P. 359. " And stricken with sweet smelling violets,

Blushing roses, purple hyacinth."
Read,

" With blushing roses, purple hyacinth." P. 364. " The masts whereon thy swelling sails shall hang

Hollow pyramids of silver plate." Read,

" Hollow pyramides of silver plate.” See Ant. and Cleopatra, act v. sc. 8.

“My country's high pyramides my gibbet."
P. 366. " The heir of Fury, the favourite of the Fates."
Omit “ the.”
P. 372. Jarbas, who is jealous of Dido's love for Æneas, says,

“ Aye, this it is which wounds me to the death,

To see a Phrygian far set to the sea,

Performed before a man of majesty." Perhaps we should read,

" To see a Phrygian o' the farthest sea." unless "set" is for "seated;" and then the line would require another kind of correction. P. 375. " I think some fell enchantress dwelleth here,

That can call them forth when as she please." Read,

“ One that can call them forth,'' &c. P. 388. " How prettily he laughs : go, ye wag.” Read,

• How prettily he laughs : go, go, you wag.”. P. 390. « Too, too forgetful of thine own affairs,

Why wilt thou betray thy son's good sense ?" Probably the reading is,

" Why wilt thou thus betray,'' &c. P. 394. " For being entangld by a stranger's looks." Read, entangled.

P. 397. “ But I cried out, Æneas, false Æneas, stay !". The word [stay) should be omitted.

P. 399. “ Dido. Jarbas, talk not of Æneas, let him go.". I should omit (Jarbas] and read,

* Oh! talk not of Æneas, let him go." P. 399.

". Not far from hence there is a woman famouséd for arts." This unmetrical line might be reformed, by omitting the four first words, and reading

" There is a woman famouséd for arts." Superfluous words arising sometimes from stage directions, sometimes from altered readings, sometimes from marginal notes, and sometimes from actor's interpolations, form one of the most common causes of error in the text of old plays. Another instance occurs. P. 401. Anna cries out

“ Dido is dead! Jarbas slain. Jarbas (my dear love.)" These last words might probably be the tender effusion of some sentimental

and amorous actress, or rather female actor; they are evidently not of the author's dictation. Again,

P. 348. • Methinks that town there should be Troy; yon, Ida's hill." I should read, " Methinks that should be Troy; yon, Ida's hill."! P. 372. Dido says,

• Æneas, leave these dumps, and let's away,

Some to the mountains, some unto the soil,

You to the vallies, thou unto the house. Perhaps « soil" is used here for the flat fertile land, as in Cymbeline, act ii. sc. 2.

" Now for our mountain sport, up to yond hills ;

Your legs are young; I 'll tread these flats," &c.
Vol. III. p. 209.“ Smile on me, and these two wanton boys."
Read,

• Smile on me, and [on] these two wanton boys." P. 214.

In my veins
Runs blood as red, as royal, as the best

And proudest in Spain--there does, old man !"
The probable reading is,

" And proudest (Lord) in Spain," &c. P. 228.

6. That damn'd Moor, that devil, that Lucifer."! Read,

66 That damned Moor." & P. 296. " Eleazar. I love you; yes, faith ! I said this I love you

I do: leave him.

Isabella. * Damnation,' vanish from me.'! Surely this unfeminine word should be taken from the lips of Isabella, and transferred to Eleazar, to whose character and temper it would be more appropriate. P. 314.

consumed with loathed lust,

Which thy venerous mind bath lowly ruin'd." Read,

1. Venereous." P. 346. Hero and Lea er.

“ For as a hot proud horse highly disdains

To have his head controll'd, but breaks the reins,
Spits forth his ringled bit, and with his hoofs
Checks the submissive ground; so he that loves,

The more he is restrained, the worst he fares."
Read “ hoves” for “ hoofs,” a form in which the plural of hoof often occurs,
and is here required by the rhyme.
P. 432. Elegies.

" Grecinus (well I wot), thou tolds't me once

I could not be in love with two at once."
I take this to be a careless oversight of the author.
P. 433.

" Let merchants seek wealth with perjured lips,

And being wrecked, carouse the sea tired by their ships." In this distich, both lines are wanting in metre and sense; but I think a slight alteration will go near to put them in their proper form:

" Merchants seek wealth,--the sea tired by their ships ;

And being wrecked, -carouse with perjured lips." The meaning of which is, they carouse, being perjured, on account of a false insurance on their ships, P. 552. “ My mistress dieting also drew me from it,

And love triumpheth o'er his busking poet." Read,

My mistress' dieting also drew me fro it,

And love triumpheth o'er his buskin poet." P. 576.

" Then he who rules the world's star-spangled towers,

A little boy drunk tea-distilling showers." Read,“ teat-distilling.” He is speaking of the infant Jupiter, nursed in Crete. Bll, Dec. 1, 1840.

J. M.

66

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

pp. 567.

cessors.

The History and Antiquities of Syon this foundation for sixty nuns or sis

Monastery, the Parish of Isleworth, ters, and twenty-five brethren, and and the Chapelry of Hounslow : com- directed it to be entitled, The Monaspiled from Public Records, Ancient tery of St. Saviour and St. Bridget of Manuscripts, Ecclesiastical and other Syon. Authentic Documents. By George In the choice of a patron the conJames Aungier. London, 1840, 8vo. queror of Agincourt was guided by

Henry Lord FitzHugh, who also proSYON Monastery,* the principal cured as inmates for the new estabsubject of Mr. Aungier's volume, was

lishment certain religious persons who a foundation of great interest in its

had been members of the Chief House origin, in its character, and in the

of the Order of Bridgetines, situate at fortunes of its inmates and their suc

Wastein, or Vatzen, in Sweden. (Aun. It was one of two Monas- gier, 25.) The Bridgetines followed teries founded by Henry V. at the

the rule of St. Augustine, with certain commencement of his reign, before he

modifications, which are said to have became a warrior and a hero; and it is

been dictated to Saint Bridget by our singular to mark the terms in which

Saviour in a vision, from which cir. the foundation-charter speaks of the

cumstance the order received its united character of the monarch from whom designation of St. Saviour and St. it proceeded, and the blessings anti- Bridget. Of these modifications, one cipated from the contemplated estab

related to the number of persons in lishment. Stimulated, we are told,

every monastery, which was fixed at by a consideration of the glories of the eighty-five. Thirteen of these, who Church triumphant, and the example

were priests, represented the Apostles of his predecessors, the King, who, as

(St. Paul included), and the remaining the charter declares, was a true son seventy-two are said by several writers of the God of Peace, who gave peace,

(Dug. Mon. vi. 540; Aungier, 21,)

to have answered to the number of our taught peace, and finally left it to his well-beloved disciples as a thing in the

Lord's disciples. We presume that highest degree to be desired,” dedi.

this is a mistake; vide Luke x. 1, 17. cated this foundation to the Trinity, Probably the intention was to present the Virgin, the Apostles, the Disciples,

a complete model, or pattern, of the and All Saints, and especially to the

Church, but how it was made out most holy Saint Bridget, who estab

does not appear. The nuns lished a religious order, “and obtain

fixed at sixty; the men at twenty-five ; ed from heaven, that, in whatsoever

of whom thirteen, as we have said, kingdom a monastery of the same re- were priests ; four were Deacons, ligious order should be founded, there who represented Saints Ambrose, peace and tranquillity by the mediation Augustine, Gregory, and Jerome, of the same should be perpetually es

the four great Doctors of the Church ; tablished.” (Aungier, 26.) Urged by and the remaining eight were laythese ardent longings for the blessings of peace, the monarch, who was just The chief object of the particular upon the eve of embarking upon one devotions prescribed by this rule,” of the most unjust wars that ever ori- remarks Alban Butler, ir

are the pasginated in human ambition, settled sion of Christ, and the honour of his

Holy Mother; and these subjects It is improperly termed Syon Nun- gave rise to certain peculiarities in

the dress of the members of the order. nery in the Monasticon, vi. 540.

H GENT. MAG. VOL. XV.

were

men.

a

Upon the caps of the sisters were sewn property. But the monastic life, exfive pieces of red cloth, like five drops cept in some peculiar instances, was a of blood, allusive to the five wounds of forced and unnatural state ; and all our Saviour; the thirteen priests contrivances to remedy known and wore, on the left side of their mantles, felt inconveniences in it, did but let in a red cross of cloth, edged round with new evils. The approximation of perwhite, and emblematic of the mystery sons of different sexes, even under the of the Incarnation ; the four deacon's greatest possible restrictions, could wore upon their mantles a white cir. not but tend to excite feelings cle, upon which were sewn four red which it should have been the object pieces fashioned like tongues, emble- of every part of the monastic economy matic of the incomprehensible wisdom to deaden-feelings which experience and spiritual illumination of the doc- pronounces to be unconquerable, and tors whom they represented; the lay which embue those of whom they take brethren wore a white cross with five possession with a determination which red pieces, emblematic of the wounds. despises obstacles, and a subtilty which (Aungier, 23, 24; Bowles's Hist. of defies contrivances. It is without Lacock Abbey, 194.)

surprise, then, that we learn from Alban Another peculiarity of this order Butler, that, although some few double was, that all the monasteries belonging monasteries yet remain, the greatest to it were designed to be double, part of the existing establishments of that is, they were to contain both Bridgetines have deviated from this men and women, living in the same part of their patron's rule, and are establishment, although separated by now single. In these double monas. what Alban Butler terms

an invio.

teries the Abbess was chief; the men lable inclosure," and worshipping in were subject to her in temporal matters, the same church, where “the nuns but in all spiritual affairs the women keep choir above in a doxal [i. e. be- were subject to the men. hind a dorsale, a curtain or screen,] Another observable peculiarity of the men underneath in the Church.” the Bridgetine sisterhood was the ex. (Lives of Saints, Oct. 8, St. Bridget.) treme strictness with which they en. Butler adds, that the men and women forced silence, managing their intercan never see each other, i. e. we pre- course in the places in which speaking sume in the church; but it would seem was not allowed by means of signs. that the ladies formerly might occa

“ In the churche, says the rule, sionally catch a glimpse of their male “quyer, freytour [i. e. the refectory], companions, for in the Bridgetine cloyster, dortour [i. e. the dormitory], regulation it is very properly reckoned and in the

silence is ever amongst lyght defautes, “ if any sus. to be kepte ; and so, also, in the ter loke, or besyly caste her eyen in to library, in the chapter, “in the wasthe brethres quyer, gasynge up on

chyng howse in tyme of waschyng, in them, excepte the tyme of comenynge all place nyghe the chirche," and in and levacions of the sacrament of the the belfray in tyme of ryngyng.” Mr. auter, and other tymes permyttyd by Aungier has printed the list of the the rewle.” (Aungier, p. 254.)

signs* used in these places to express These double monasteries originated the most common wants, and many of in an anxiety, and it may well be be- them are not unamusing; for instance, lieved to have been a sincere, and pious a sister who desired a book, was dianxiety, to remedy in the best possible rected to wag and move her right hand manner two difficulties which beset as if she were turning the leaves (p. the monastic life of women. They 405); one who wished for mustard, were intended, first, to enable the was to hold her nose in the upper part nuns to partake with the greatest ease of her right fist, and rub it (p. 408) ; and security in those religious rites one who would have fis

was to wag which could be performed only by men ; and secondly, to relieve them

* First printed in the Excerpta Histofrom the troubles and impositions to rica, (p. 414,) with an account of the which secluded women must necessa- MS. from which it is extracted, and rily be exposed in the management of other particulars relating to Syon.