thing of ours to what has been already gathered in the collected field of labour, and more so if, enjoying the fruits of our honest industry, we shall not be accused of the wish to disparage the labours or detract from the reputation which others have acquired LIST OF EMBELLISHMENTS TO THE VOLUME. Those marked * are printed as Vignettes. View of Oxnead Hall, Norfolk * Ancient Sepulchral Stones found at Hartlepool Holy-water Stoup in All Saints' Church, Hastings, (see p. 338); Western Turret of Bath Abbey Church; and the Old Font of Scraptoft, co. Leic.. Youthful Effigy of Edward Courtenay at Haccombe, co. Devon, (see p. 496) Ornamented Tiles at Great Malvern, co. Worcester, (two Plates). Two Caterpillar Amulets found in co. Cork; a Brooch found in co. Ros- common; and a Celt found in co. Tipperary Quarries of Glass from Wotton, co. Surrey, inscribed by John Evelyn 548 BY SYLVANUS URBAN, GENT. CONTENTS. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. Numismatic Inquiries-Question to A. J. K. re- .................. LIFE OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER. By Sir Harris Nicolas-POETICAL WORKS OF PAGE Arms and Name of De Bernay-Missal in the possession of E. Roche, Esq. 20 Oxnead Hall, Norfolk, (with a Plate) of Sleep-Virgil's Camilla...... Some Particulars respecting the English Ecclesiastical Courts Chapter contributed by Dr. Johnson to "The Female Quixote." Memorials of the Great Civil War in England, from 1646 to 1652, 49; Sermons by Archdeacon Manning, 52; Selections from the Writings of the late Sidney Taylor, A.M. 54; Last Days of Francis the First, 56; St. Patrick's Purgatory, 57; Miscellaneous Reviews.. LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.- New Publications, 63; University of Cambridge-Dublin University-Royal Society The Westminster Play, 69; Ethnological Society-Institution of Civil Engineers-Royal Institution at Liverpool-The Charter House, 71; Ancient Music-Foreign Literature .... FINE ARTS.-The School of Design, 73; Institute of the Fine Arts ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES.-Society of Antiquaries, 79; The China HISTORICAL CHRONICLE.-Foreign News, 81; Domestic Occurrences Promotions and Preferments, 85; Births and Marriages OBITUARY; with Memoirs of the Ex-King of Holland; Hon. E. E. Villiers; Gen. Sir John Frazer; Gen. W. Brooké; Major-Gen. Sir Joseph O'Hallo- ran; Lieut.-Col. W. Ingleby; J. Baldwin Brown, LL.D.; Rev. James Farquharson, LL.D.; Rev. John Foster; W. S. Roscoe, Esq.; C. G. Harley, Esq.; William Seguier, Esq.; Mr. William Savage; John Buddle, Esq.; Joseph Harding, Esq.; Mr. Thomas Hollis; M. Casimir Delavigne ; Registrar-General's Returns of Mortality in the Metropolis-Markets-Prices of Shares, 111; Meteorological Diary-Stocks Embellished with a View of OxNEAD HALL, NORFOLK; a Sketch of a FouNTAIN MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. J. P. would be glad to be informed whether the original charter of William the Conqueror to the College of St. Martins-le-grand is extant, and where it is. If it is not known to be in existence, where is the most authentic transcript of it? Mr. DANIEL HENRY HAIGH, of Leeds, who is preparing a work in illustration of Saxon coins, and has already made drawings of every other rare coin in the late Dean of St. Patrick's collection, is anxious to learn who is the present possessor of the two following:-1. Obv. SCIPETIMO, a sword; Rev. EBORACIO, a cross, with crescents and pellets in alternate angles. 2. Obv. a sword; Rev. a cross Calvary; each surrounded by a blundered legend. These are figured in Mr. Lindsay's work on the Anglo-Saxon coinage; but Mr. Haigh is, we presume, desirous to delineate them himself, for which purpose he begs to be favoured with impressions in sealing-wax. J. P. would be obliged to A. J. K. to say upon what authority Hasted, in his History of Kent, asserts that "the manor of Newenden by the name of Andred" was given by Offa to the monks of Canterbury, and what that manor was called in Domesday. Harris says it was given to the Archbishop. A. CONSTANT READER, who has received much gratification from the perusal of a volume of "Wills and Inventories illustrative of the History, Manners, Language, Statistics, &c. of the Northern Counties of England, from the Eleventh Century downward," Part I. is informed that the second part of this work is intended to be published by the Surtees Society, and will shortly be proceeded with. In the mean time the Camden Society has undertaken the publication of the ancient wills which remain in the archiepiscopal registers at Lambeth, and which will doubtless be found full of general interest. A Correspondent would be glad to be informed what means may most effectually be used to prevent the ravages of the insect commonly known as the bookworm; especially whether there is any chemical preparation that will destroy it where it cannot be detected in a book, but where there is yet every reason to suppose it to be. MR. URBAN,-In the account which you have given in your December Number of the Queen's visit to Cambridge, there are one or two errors which should be cor rected. At p. 643 it was stated that the degree of D.D. was conferred on Dr. Oliphant, Regius Professor of Divinity, on occasion of the Queen's late visit to Cambridge. This is altogether a mistake, he having been D.D. before his appointment as professor. From the paragraph which follows, it would appear as if the performance of the Coronation Anthem, together with Roubiliac's statue of Sir Isaac Newton, were in the senate house. Both these statements in reality refer to the visit to Trinity Chapel on the evening of the 25th, when four noblemen Undergraduates (of whom Lord Gifford was not one) held torches and candlesticks, while the royal party examined the statue. The paragraph (nearly at the top of left-hand column, p. 643) beginning" The royal party then visited Trinity College," &c. should run thus: In the course of the evening the royal party visited the chapel of Trinity Col lege. At p. 650 it is stated that Gen. Finch represented Cambridge until the general election in 1820. This was not he took the Chiltern Hundreds at the close of the year 1819, in Dec. of which year Lieut.- Col. F. W. (now Sir F. W.) Trench was elected in his stead. In p. 661 of the same_number, it is mentioned that the Rev. Thomas Heberden was Senior Wrangler in 1775. Now Prof. Vince was first on the Mathematical Tripos in that year. Mr. Heberden was a Senior Optime. so; D. E. D. remarks: "From Mr. WODDERSPOON's list of churches in Suffolk, where the chancels are of the same altitude as the nave (see your last No. Gent. Mag. p. 573), the following must be deducted, there having been no chancels to those churches for very many years: Dallinghoo, Letheringham, Bawdsey, Orford, Kessingland, Kirkley. The following typographical errors should be corrected: for Little Wanham read Little Wenham; for Aldborough read Aldeburgh; for Little Glenham read Little Glembam; for Blickling Hundred read Blithing Hundred; for Sacstead read Saxstead; for Rishanger read Rishangles; for Peltaugh read Pettaugh. Errata.-Dec. p. 585, in note, line 34, for Appersley read Apperley; p. 590, line 45 of the text, for oregina del mondoo read regina del mondo; p. 592, in note, line 7, for Waring read Wadding; p. 594, line 21 of the text, for pillulent read pillottent; p. 595, line 52, for Majedad read Majeslad (or Majestad); ib. line 6 from bottom, for Grignon read Grignan. GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. 1. Life of Geoffrey Chaucer. By Sir Harris Nicolas. Pickering. 2. The Poetical Works of G. Chaucer. By T. Tyrwhitt. Moxon. WHOEVER wishes to see and appreciate the transcendent brightness of Chaucer's genius, should cast an eye on the darkness which surrounded him. With the single and solitary exception of Roger Bacon, Chaucer was the first Englishman whose writings have survived to perpetuate his own fame and to delight future ages, and, therefore, he is justly called "the father of the English poets."*. When it is our purpose to estimate an author's works, we take them at their positive value, abstracted from all considerations of the times and circumstances in which he lived, and the degree of good or ill fortune which attended him; but, when we look to the genius or the acquirements of the writer himself, we must also take into account the comparative education of his contemporaries, the peculiar advantages, if any, which he possessed over them, or the impediments which the surrounding darkness presented to his progress and advancement. anthor and his work are not to be confounded. He who was only a man of moderate stature in one age, might have started up a giant in the next. The illustrious person whose name we have already mentioned, the elder Bacon, was one whose mind possessed the highest constituents of genius. In a dark age, he anticipated some of the most brilliant dis The coveries of posterity, but he lived three centuries too soon for his own fame and for our advantage. As relates to Chaucer, the proper subject of our present research, whether as regards himself or his writings, we shall return to the inquiry with a confirmed feeling of his transcendent powers, and an assurance of his permanent reputation. Though written in an age comparatively dark, and though he had no model on which to form them, his poems are as yet unequalled in many qualities of the highest order, and his name is inferior only to the very greatest in the temple of Fame. If we look to the poet himself we shall be astonished when we see how immeasurably superior he was to every one of his own time, so as not only to excel them in the degree of his capacity, but to stand apart in its very quality and essence. We can see no one like him or approaching him at the longest interval; his was one of those creative minds that occasionally appear, as it were to remind us of the original fertility of nature. As a matter half of amusement, half of instruction, we took our copy of Leland+ from the shelf to turn over the pages in which the poet and his contemporaries are mentioned, and we were not a little surprised both at the * Johnson pronounces Chaucer "to be the first English versifier who wrote poetieally;" (v. Pref. Dict. p. 1;) but, as Johnson has used the word versifier and not poet, we may suggest that there were some writers of early romances previous to his time who can claim the merit of versifying poetically; though, probably, this class of literature was not in Johnson's mind at the time, and, indeed, was not at that time much known or easily accessible. The Earl of Salisbury, who lived in Chaucer's time, and who was beheaded by Henry the Fourth, was a poet, and was a friend of the famous Christina of Pisa. The French and Italians had made at this time considerable proficiency and improvements in poetry. + Leland Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis, ed. A. Hall, 1709, 8vo. copiousness of the list of authors and the multitude of the productions. The greater part of the writers of that age were Carmelite Friars, with names as long as the beards which touched their girdles. One illustrious man was called Nicolaus Longospathanus; he was a great writer on occult philosophy. Then there was a Dominus Roger Vento-fluctus, with his reverend companions friar Coccoporus and Walter Vinisalvo, and a William Snethigamius, all of whom spent their lives in filling monastic libraries with their learned productions; though, from some inexplicable cause or other, their labours are known only to here and there a person in the present day, who is more than ordinarily studious of antiquity. We ourselves must own that our knowledge in this quarter is but superficial, and, with the exception of the following treatises, we are not aware of any that we can be said absolutely to have mastered-they are De Rebus Creatis in Specie-de Utensilibus-de Septem Experimentis, necnon de non ducendâ Uxore. This last is a capital discourse, and proceeds, we believe, from the learned pen of friar Hugo Lobbeshamus. Then there is a work but little known called Capita Originalium, another De Proportionibus, very interesting, and a Ferculum Zizaniorum, which, we believe, raised the author to high preferment in his abbey. Of such a nature were the productions of the numerous and celebrated authors who flourished in Chaucer's days: they were the fruit of much labour and learning, but they have all well nigh sunk and mouldered into the earth, while the native flowers of his genius are still blooming in immortal and increasing beauty, though now in an age most peevish and splenetic, and in a climate growing more and more ungenial to them.* It is not true, as some assert, that Chaucer lived in an ignorant and dark age. It was the perversion of learning, and not the want of it, that was to be lamented; in the monastic cloisters, and in the refectories of the abbots, were churchmen who could read and interpret the Fathers of the Church, and disentangle the subtilties of the schoolmen. But, as their religion was corrupted by superstition, so their philosophy degenerated into sophistry.† Chaucer, it has been observed, has a double claim to rank as the founder of English poetry from having been the first to make *To show the rise of our national poetry from its source in Saxon times, and how little of it, previous to Chaucer, deserved the name, we transcribe a short passage from the learned Introduction to Havelok (Rex. 6.) p. xlviii. by Sir F. Madden. The notices, as he observes, "are few and scanty," but we can scarcely hope to find any more. 1. Song of Canute, 1069. 2. Verses ascribed to St. Godric, died 1170. 3. Few lines preserved by Camden of the same period. 4. Prophecy set up in 1189. 5. For the same time, Henry II. the Metrical Comp. of Lagamon, 1196. Orm. Legends of St. Katherine, St. Margaret, St. Julien. 6. From this time to middle of next century, poems of John de Guldevorde, the Biblical History, Poet. Paraphrase of the Psalms (v. Warton) and the Moral Ode (v. Hicks). 7. Between 1244 and 1256, part of a Med. of Augustin versified, MS. Durham. 8. The earliest songs in Ritson and Percy, 1264. 9. Close of Henry III. Romances, Sir Tristram, K. Horn and K. Alisaunder. Havelok, 1270-1290. This last date comes down to within 38 years of Chaucer's supposed birth. According to Ellis's Hist. Sketch (Engl. Poets) there were four poets alive in Chaucer's days whose works are known to us, Gower, Barbour, And. of Wyntoun, and Lydgate. "If we look over the list of authors quoted by Chaucer and other writers of that period, we shall find it considerablý numerous. The libraries of monasteries suppli ed |