GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. JULY, 1846. BY SYLVANUS URBAN, Gent. CONTENTS. MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.-Restoration of St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell- On Weather Mountains .... Apocryphal Genealogies of Great Families-the house of Herbert The Barony of Stafford, and its Restoration temp. Hen. VIII. Ancient Painting in Newark Church, representing Death and the Gallant, or part of the Dance of Death (with a Plate) Original Letters of Admiral Kempenfelt, in 1759 and 1762 PAGE 2 3 21 23 25 31 33 37 39 41 ib. 42 43 45 ........ .. ...... ... ....... .... Emendation of the passage of St. John naming the Hyssop. Wright's Biographia Britannica Literaria, 49; Lappenberg's History of England, 53; Brogden's Catholic Safeguards, 55; Transactions of the Cambridge Camden Society, 57; Illustrations of Monumental Brasses, 59; Browne's Sacred Architecture, 59; Archdeacon Manning's Sermons, 61; Mill's Sermons on the Temptation, 63; Verses for Holy Seasons, 64; Burgon's Petra, and other Poems, 65; Murray's Colonial and Home Library, 66; Hart's Ecclesiastical Records of England LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.-Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Merchant Taylors' School, British Museum, Royal Society of Literature, Royal Asiatic Society, Geographical Society, Horticultural Society ...... ...... ARCHITECTURE.-Oxford Architectural Society, St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell ..... HISTORICAL CHRONICLE.-Proceedings in Parliament, 80; Foreign ... Promotions and Preferments, 84; Births and Marriages................ Embellished with a Representation of an ANCIENT PAINTING in Newark Church, Registrar-General's Returns of Mortality in the Metropolis-Markets, 111; Notts. 2 MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. We shall still be happy to receive additions to this list. L. remarks, 46 Amongst the interesting portraits now exhibiting at the British Institution in Pall Mall, is the asserted "Marriage of Henry the Sixth and Margaret of Anjou," purchased at the Strawberry Hill sale by the Duke of Sutherland. Your correspondent J. G. N. noticed this picture, and the inventive fancies of Walpole connected with it, in the Magazine for July 1842. I ventured shortly after, in remarking on another painting, to submit a doubt whether it might not (rejecting the supposed portraits of the attendants given by Walpole) be the marriage of Henry under an allegorical allusion to the marriage of Joseph; and chiefly on account of the nimbus round the head of the bridegroom, while the bride has none. A second examination has convinced me that your correspondent is right, and that it is a simple representation of the Marriage of the Virgin, with the parties habited in the costume of the day, of the Flemish school, and in the usual style of Van Eyck, Hemling, &c. &c." In answer to our correspondent, who inquired for particulars respecting the connexion of Dr. John Jamieson, the compiler of the Scottish Dictionary, &c. with the Bruces of Kennet, in the county of Clackmannan, a CADET OF KENNET communicates the following particulars from the Doctor's own MS. notes. The late John Jamieson was great-grandson of the Rev. Alexander Bruce, who got the lands of Gartlet from his father Robert Bruce, esq. of Kennet, by a charter under the great seal dated 2d March 1670. This Alexander was the second son of Robert, by his wife Agnes, daughter of Patrick Murray of Perdowie, who married the Hon. Margaret Colville, daughter of Lord Colville of Culross. The Rev. Alexander Bruce was one of the commissioners for supplies for the county of Clackmannan, and the first minister after the revolution at Kirkhead, in Peebleshire. He married 9th March 1677, Margaret, daughter of James Cleland and Isabel Kennedy his spouse, and died in the year 1704, leaving issue JAMES, Chief Justice of Barbados, who died there 19th September, 1749, leaving issue (See Gent. Magazine for 1749, page 429) DAVID an officer in the army, ALEXANDER a surgeon in Edinburgh, MARY, and RACHEL, born 1727, who married John Cleiland; their first child was David, who was born 16th July 1725, their second was Margaret born 16th May 1727. She married first Colin Broun, and secondly the Rev. John Jamieson, of Glasgow, the father of John Jamieson, D.D., F.R.S., F.S.A. In reference to the letter in our Magazine for January, on the meaning of the English proper name "John," JOHANNES thinks W. D. E. has derived that name quite erroneously from the Sanskrit jăn, person, man. Nor has he shewn what relation there is between John and the Hebrew Javan, Jonah, Jonas, and the Greek Ion, Io, Ionia. But let us look at the Latin Johannes, and we there see the true cognate of the English John, with its medial and radical h. The earliest authority we have for the word is Luke i. 13; and in Hebrew and Arabic it is written "Yahya" and "Yuhanna" whence comes Johannes, John, both words retaining the radical h of the original, a letter neither appearing in the Sanskrit “jăn” nor known in that language, being in fact peculiar to the Hebrews and Arabs. SCRUTATOR remarks that the death of "Nimrod,"-Mr. C. J. Apperley, was recorded in our number for July 1843, p. 103, as having occurred on the 19th May preceding in Upper Belgrave-place. We must presume that this precise specification of a date and place is more trustworthy than the statement of the newspapers, of his death having taken place recently "near Boulogne"; and if the former record had been remembered, we should certainly not have introduced his name into our last number. Errata.-June, p. 649. The father of the late Mr. John Wilks was never a Fellow of the Royal Society. GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. Pictures from Italy. By Charles Dickens, Esq. WITHOUT possessing any single writer of our country who has composed a book of Italian travels of eminent merit, we have had, old and new, a very large variety of works on the subject, sufficient to shew whether our transalpine travellers were gifted with that intelligence of judgment and delicacy of feeling which would enable them to view with advantage the treasures of a country that may be called the "Museum of the World." Perhaps Italy, taking it in toto, would make a larger demand upon the talents, tastes, and acquirements of a stranger than any other European country; and it could scarcely be expected that any one mind could be so richly gifted, or any knowledge so exuberant, as to appreciate all its diversified treasures, ancient and modern. The history of the literature of Italy may be justly said to be the history of the progress of the human mind in all the Christian world. To have engraved on one's memory the sacred records of its early history, and our imagination filled with recollections of its poetic glories,-to embrace only an epitome of all that the gigantic labours of antiquaries have brought to light of its mediæval history, to possess some portion of that delicate sensibility, that fine appreciation, and that keen judgment with which Winkelman surveyed the remains of its sculpture as with a master's eye,-to estimate the spirit by which the early masters of painting were directed, when the pencil was guided at once by the force of genius and the spirit of devotion,-to trace also the progress of that enchanting art which nature—at least in modern times— appears to have withheld from every other country to lavish with a partial hand and more willing profusion on the Land of Song ;-great as would be the acquirements which could embrace these subjects, much more would be required before anything like a mental picture of this extraordinary people and country could be presented. Why, one branch of art alone, its architecture, in its rise forming a connecting link between the ancient and modern, would of itself almost demand the labour of a life! And how much even now do we omit to make the history of art complete! Large portions of its noble. galleries are unseen by any stranger's eye; many of its costliest cabinets have never been explored by any foreign hand. We recollect no traveller * That_extraordinary man Constantine Africanus, a native of Carthage, may be considered as a type of the most remarkable scholars of the middle ages. He had travelled for thirty-nine years to Egypt, to India, to Persia, to the remotest parts of the known world, in pursuit of knowledge, and, according to the encyclopædiacal comprehensiveness of the studies of that epoch, had embraced with one vast intelligence all that could and could not be known; could read and write all dead and living languages, had conversed with the highest literary characters of the east and west, and beaten them at their own weapons at public and private debates; had searched, collected, and translated all the most precious treasures of Greek, Chaldaic, and Arabic lore; and, after having been tossed about from land to land, and persecuted and banished as heretic and sorcerer, he found a shelter from envy and ignorance at the court of the Normans in Apulia, under whose patronage he resided at Salerno, until, deeming even that school an unsafe harbour against the tempests of life, he retired to the monastery of Monte Cassino, where he never lost sight of his favourite pursuits to the end of his days.- See Mariotti's View of the History and Literature of Italy. of our own country who has given any account of that beautiful miniature sculpture which is seen glowing on the onyx, the cameo, and other costly gems; or of the no less matchless forms of beauty rising from the silver surface of the coins of Sicily and Ionia; or of the drawings of the ancient masters, those faithful guides to our knowledge of their purpose and intent in their finished and elaborate pictures. Each of these branches of art, of which two are only to be found in Italy (as pearls in their native bed,) in their proper form and lustre, seem entirely to have escaped observation, or not met with that taste and acquirement which could estimate and explain their transcendant worth and beauty. Then we should require to be informed of the living as of the dead, and turn to the workman as well as to his work. We must become acquainted with the spirit of their modern institutions, the government, the laws under which this national mind has been developed and improved. We must be admitted into those social and domestic circles which would unfold to us the private feelings and habits and intercourse of the inhabitants; and, lastly, we must possess that warmth of feeling and delicacy of taste which would make the very land we trod on as a sacred spot under our feet, which would animate and fill the splendid scenery we viewed with historic forms and deeds of imperishable fame, and, as we journeyed on, from every alpine height, and from every myrtle plain, -from every forest dark with its gigantic pine, and every sunny shore glowing with its eastern palm, we should build up in our fancy a princely coronet once more to adorn Ausonia's aged brows, and hear from every solitary echo a voice that spoke of brighter days to arise over the silent and melancholy decay of a "forlorn and weary land." The task, however, which is too laborious for one, may be divided among the exertions of many. Nor have we wanted men of talent, scholars, antiquaries, and artists, who have gone forth well instructed in their respective branches of knowledge; so that we have reaped much information from the result of their successful labours. Still there was ample room for one who should catch the living manners of the country as they rise; who, gifted with a quick perception, a discriminating judgment, habits of observation, knowledge of human nature, and happy powers of embodying his thoughts in language, should survey the different walks of life, and give us lively portraitures of the natural manners, and the most striking peculiarities of the people; the artificial systems of the great, and the indigenous habits of the vulgar; peep behind the mask of the carnival, creep through the corridor of the convent, listen to the intrigue of the boudoir, paint like Watteau the evening promenade in the ilex lawns of the Borghese gardens; or, like Jan Steen, mingle with the rustic crowd that are tuning their light guitars, and emptying their sunny wine-flasks round the porch of the Albergo Meloni. There would be no want of amusing contrasts in such a land of lights and shades as this, if the pencil could be found to mark them. There might be seen, for instance, the most republican country in Europe with a despotic king on every throne; the most irreverent portion of all Catholicism living at Rome under the Pope's eye. One might see a priest saying mass beside the naked statues of the Graces, and might hear churchmen invoking the heathen gods as if they never had heard of the New Testament. One might find pictures of Venus and the loves on the gates of St. Peter's, and hear of people sent to prison for not communicating at Easter; listen to a mother talking of her daughter having a fit of love, as if she had had a fit of the ague or a fever; hear of a celebrated author dying of laughter on being told of his sister's infamy; look at a row of skeletons sitting dressed in green silk gloves and red velvet slippers; listen to a Capuchin friar mumbling his prayers on the very spot where Cicero lived; and see the Bishop of Tivoli taking tithes of the corn growing on the fields of Horace's Sabine farm. The pencil that drew Gil Blas could have done this, and we had expected the same from the author of the Pickwick Papers. When Le Sage, in his inimitable novel, painted Spanish intrigues and Spanish character, he understood the Spanish language; but Mr. Dickens's mistake was in describing the interior of a house, when he did not possess the key which unlocked the outer door. He went to Italy not knowing a word of the Italian language: he could see, but he could not speak. His "brave courier" was his interpreter ; his winged Mercury, the tongue of his mind; and so the bright original text was turned into a dull prosaic column of " interpretation" at the side of it. It is extremely difficult for an Englishman in Italy to get admission into the saloons of the great: few advance beyond the hospitable banker's door. Without an intimate knowledge of the various provincial dialects, and a quick, instinctive nicety of ear, it is impossible to understand the humours and allusions of the common people; and so Mr. Dickens must have been content to wrap his mantle about him, and be a silent spectator of the land he went to dwell in and describe. When Milton visited Italy, he brought to that country a mind enriched by long years of intense study in all that related to her history and literature, ancient and modern. He wrote in the language of ancient Rome; he conversed in the dialect of modern. To what the Italians called an "angel's beauty" he added, what they no less admired, a "scholar's knowledge.' How they received him and how they admired him, let their letters-let their poems tell! How honoured he was at Florence and at Rome! How dear too he was to Manso, who had been Tasso's friend! may 66 With genius only inferior, and with acquirements perhaps as great, in later times Gray also resided when young in the land of song, and rich was the harvest of knowledge which he there piled up for future use, as we have had very peculiar opportunities of knowing. Scholar, artist, musician, poet, all were united in high excellence in his single mind; and England well be proud when men, gifted as these men were, go forth to pay their homage to the land from whose hand they had drawn the pure nectareous stream," and to imbibe through the eye a living picture of those scenes on which memory and fancy had so long loved to dwell. It cannot be otherwise travel where we may, if we bring nothing, we carry nothing away. When we were in Italy nothing oppressed us so much as the constant feeling of our ignorance; we knew that we were living among treasures of "unsummed gold" that it would take lives to exhaust; we saw everything but in a dim mysterious twilight; we gathered only a few wild leaves from every scattered branch: and what, alas! does memory hold now in her frail and faithless hands? a handful of dust plucked from the Forum; a withered violet that bloomed unseen on Pæstum's marble plain! But all this is far back in the past; long years of clouds and darkness have rolled between ;—and yet we still seem at distant intervals to breathe the fragrant air of its enchanted shores,-and majestic figures pass and repass, in severe and solitary beauty, before our eyes, as they alone were the rightful inhabitants of that terrestrial paradise; and sounds, too, are sometimes heard by us, such as the world owns not now,-sounds of immortal song, rising, |