THE ETYMOLOGY OF STONEHENGE. At a meeting of the Philological Society held on the 25th of February the following remarks were read on the Etymology of the word Stone-henge, communicated by Edwin Guest, esq. the Master of Caius college, Cambridge. Mr. Herbert, the author of "Cyclops Christianus," adopts a legend which makes Stonehenge the scene where the Welsh nobles fell beneath the daggers of Hengist's followers. He thinks this is corroborated by the name of the locality, which, in the more ancient authorities, is often called Stonehenges, and in one place Simon of Abingdon (a monkish writer of the fifteenth century) writes it Stunehengest. The word Stonehenge, or Stonehenges, or Stonehengest, therefore means, according to Mr. Herbert, the Stone of Hengist. He maintains, and truly, that it is a law of our language that, in compound words of which one element bears to the other the same relation as an adjective to its substantive, then the adjectival or qualifying element takes the first place; he would, therefore, have us believe that Stonehenge cannot mean the hanging stone, the pierres pendues of Wace. Further, he says that the rule above stated admits of one exception, and this is, that when the qualifying element is a proper name it may take the last place, as PortPatrick, Fort-William, &c. But here we must remind Mr. Herbert that such com. pound terms as Port-Patrick, &c. are instances of a Norman idiom which affected our language only from the fourteenth century, while Stonehenge is clearly an English compound. Its elements English; it may be traced to the twelfth century: we cannot, therefore, give to Stonehenge the meaning Mr. Herbert assigns to it. are Some reviewer in the "Quarterly" of last September "conceives that henge is a mere termination of the genitive or adjectival kind, such as Mr. Kemble has given a list of in one of his papers for the Philological Society," the absurdity of which "conception" is too glaring to need expo sure. The true etymology is the one which tradition has handed down to us. In many of the Gothic languages words are found closely resembling henge, and signifying something suspended, as a shelf, a curtain, an ear-ring, &c. as brot-hänge, G. shelves to hang bread on; quirkehänge, a frame to dry curds and cheese upon; thal-hänge, the steep side of a valley; or-hùnge, Sw., an ear-ring. In the south or west of England you may hear in any butcher's shop of the "head and hinge" of certain animals,-the head with some portions of the animal thence dependent. In the Glossary of the "Exmoor Scolding we find " Hange or hanje, the purtenance of any creature, joined by the gullet to the head, and hanging together, viz. the lights, heart, and liver." These are only other applications of the word which appears in the final element of Stonehenge, where henge signifies the impost, which is suspended on the two uprights. And in this signification it is used in our literature. Stukeley tells us he had been informed that in a certain locality in Yorkshire certain natural rocks were called Stonehenge. Again, "Herein they imitated, or rather emulated, the Israelites, who being delivered from the Egyptians, and having trampled the Red Sea and Jordan (opposing them) under their feet, did, by God's command, erect a stonage of twelve stones," &c. (Gibbons. A fool's bolt soon shot at Stonehenge.) Nares gives-"Would not everybody say to him, we know the stonage at Gilgal."-(Leslie.) -as who with skill And knowingly his journey manage will, G. Tooke's" Belides," p. 11. Hence we may understand how our older authorities generally write the name Stonehenges. Each of the trilithons was, strictly speaking, a stonage; and the entire monument might either be called the Stonages, or if the word were used in its collective sense, the Stonage. Stonehengest can only be a clerical blunder for Stonehenges. Besides the word hang-e, there seems to have been another word which did not take the final vowel, and from which the Germans got their vor-hang, a curtain, and we the word Ston-heng in Robert of Gloucester (154). Arst was the kyng y heryed, er he myghte come there Withinne the place of the Stonheng, that he lette rere. This word hang is used in Norfolk for, first, a crop of fruit, i. e. that which is pendent from the boughs; secondly, a declivity—see Forby. It enters into the west of England, stake-hang; the east (Sussex), herring-hang-the place in which herrings are hung on sticks to dry. Hardyng calls the trilithons at Stonehenge, or, perhaps we might more correctly say their imposts, Stonehengles, in which hengle or hengel is nothing but a derivative of hang; and, like its primitive, means something that is suspended. In some parts of the north of England the iron bar over the fire on which the cauldron is hung is, with its appurtenances, called the Hangles. Another word, scallenge, may be noticed. It is used in the west of England for the lych-gate, often found at the entrance of our churchyards. The Dutch call a slate, schalie; in our Old English dialect we find it called skalye; a construction which supported a roof formed of slates may have been called a scallhenge. CORRESPONDENCE OF SYLVANUS URBAN. Lambeth Church-The Roches, and Viscounty of Fermoy-Richard of Cirencester-Postmen in the reign of Charles I.-Historical Notes on the Culture of Beet Root-Early State of St. James's Park -"Heydon with One Hand," and Elizabethan Duels-Sir Bevis Bulmer and the Mines of MendipConcealors, or Informers of Land concealed from the Crown. LAMBETH CHURCH. "Diruit, ædificat, mutat quadrata rotundis." MR. URBAN,-The above may appropriately be assumed as the motto of the whole race of architects. They begin by pulling down, they end by turning everything topsy-turvy. Encouraged by some remarks in one or two of your previous magazines on the subject of Lambeth Church, I was tempted, some days ago, to make a voyage of discovery on my own account. I had no time for a minute inspection, though quite sufficient to be struck with amazement bordering on dismay, if not disgust, at the reckless and tasteless manner in which some of these "restorations," as they are derisively called, have been perpetrated. Good old Elias Ashmole, to be sure, has stood his ground. His monumental slab is simply restored, and it rests where it has always rested, near the vestry-door, -no thanks, as I am informed, either to rector or architect. The Tradescant monument, too, is well, because simply, restored; but this stands in the churchyard, and was therefore not within the exact range of architectural demolition. But let us re-enter the church. There is a brass here and a brass there, perched up perpendicularly against the wall, and far removed from the respective bodies they once covered; and for the translation of one, a Howard brass, there was no sort of pretence, as it lay on its stone, within the communion rails, and hardly exposed even to the soft tread of the incumbent. Turning more directly towards the north transept, the eye is embarrassed by a whole heap of mural slabs, &c. pitched up pellmell from the top to the bottom, after the most approved broad-cast method, and very much resembling those lumps of mud and cow-dung with which your idle village boys are apt to amuse themselves by bespattering a barn-door. Hence the idea, no question, and it must be confessed that it has been well carried out. Finally, to crown the whole of these professional eccentricities, we stumble upon an unhappy wight, one "Christopher Woods," fairly eviscerated after the Falstaff fashion, his monumental slab, hard by the north transept, having had a large square hole cut into its centre, so as carefully to remove the date, for the purpose of admitting the hot air of a flue! "Imperial Cæsar, dead and turn'd to clay, Shall stop a hole to keep the wind away." The sexton seemed fully to understand the value of these lines, according, as they did, with his vocation; nevertheless I added an impromptu bearing more immediately upon the point: Unhappy Woods, with Julius doom'd to pair, and so I turned on my heel, gave my shilling to the showman, and walked away, muttering" a plague on both your houses," parsons and architects. Yours, &c. L. THE FAMILY OF ROCHE AND VISCOUNTY OF FERMOY. MR. URBAN,-In the memoir of your late learned and ingenious Correspondent Mr. Roche (June, p. 658), you have fallen into a misapprehension in stating that he was descended from Maurice Roche, who was mayor of Cork, and received a Collar of Esses from Queen Elizabeth. person was the ancestor of the family of ROCHE OF TRABOLGAN, of which the pedigree will be found in Burke's Landed Gentry. That But the preceding article in the same work, under the title of ROCHE OF LIMERICK, shows that the late Mr. James Roche of Cork was of a distinct branch of the family, the first of which there named is John Roche of Castletown-Roche, co. Cork, whose signature is attached to the Declaration of the Irish Roman Catholics in 1641, as a member of the parliament or council then held at Kilkenny. He is stated to have "descended from the Viscounts Fermoy," but the line of his descent is not shown. Mr. Burke, however, further states that the late head of this branch of the family, George Roche, esq. of Granagh Castle, co. Limerick (who was living at the time of his publication,) "claims the ancient Irish peerage of Fermoy." Such claim will now have de. scended to his nephew, Stephen Roche, esq. of Ryehill, co. Galway, named in your Obituary. It has, however, recently been announced in the public papers that the peerage of Fermoy is likely to be revived in the person of Edmund Burke Roche, esq. of Trabolgan, now M.P. for the county of Cork. This, of course, could only be a revival of the title, and not a restoration of the ancient peerage, if the Roches of Limerick are the elder branch. There is also a current impression in the county of Cork that there is a flaw in the descent of Mr. Roche of Trabolgan, and I have reason to know that such report is well founded. The facts, indeed, afford an explanation to what appears otherwise unaccountable in Burke's account of the family. He states that Edmund Roche, who died in 1750, had by Barbara, daughter of James Hennessy, five sons,-1. Edmond; 2. Francis; 3. Edward; 4. James; and 5. Richard. Their uncle Francis Roche of Trabolgan died unmarried in 1755, when the estate of Trabolgan descended to Edward, the third of the brothers. He died without surviving issue, in 1828; and, his younger brothers, James and Richard, having died unmarried, he bequeathed his estates to his nephew Edward (the father of the present M.P. for the co. Cork), being the only son and heir of the eldest brother, Edmond. The cause of this descent of the estate, concealed by Burke, was this,-that the two elder sons, Edmond and Francis, were born before their mother's marriage. Mr. Roche of Trabolgan, therefore, though now "the representative of his branch of the family" (as Mr. Burke styles him in his Heraldic Illustrations, 1845, where the arms of Roche are assigned to him without difference), so far as he possesses that estate, is not its legitimate heir in blood. On the death of Colonel Edward Roche, in 1828, its representation devolved on the descendants of the daughters of his grandfather. One of these was married To the article of "Roche of Limerick," "The Most Noble, Potent, and Honourable, Ulick Roche, Viscount de Rupe and Fermoy, in the county of Cork, so created by King Edward IV.; but the present The genealogy is Lord is out-law'd." deduced from "Charles the Great, Emperor of the West, and King of France, down to Maurice Fitz-John Lord la Roche and Fermoy," the son of John living in 11 Ric. II.; after which, omitting the intervening generations, the writer proceeds : "From whom descended in a direct male line David Roche, Lord Viscount Roche of Fermoy, who liv'd in the reigns of King Charles I. and King Charles II. and did quarter the arms of the said Elizabeth de Clare [the foundress of Clare-hall in Cambridge). "This Lord was a very strenuous actor for the interests of King Charles I. in Ireland, and after his death for those of King Charles II., for which he forfeited, after the reduction of Ireland by the usurper Oliver Cromwell, a very great estate, com. puted to be now set for above fifty thousand pounds per ann.; and, going abroad with a regiment, help'd to do all the service he could to King Charles II. in his exile; but after the Restoration, returning into England with the King, he sollicited for his estate and honours being restor'd to him again (as he might have well expected, considering his services,) but all to no purpose; for the King had such counsellors at that time about him, that this Lord and a great many more lost their honours and estates for their loyalty; and the said estates were confirm'd to those who acquir'd them by their not being altogether so strictly loyal. "This Lord dying without issue, was succeeded by his brother, John Roche, Lord Viscount Fermoy, and he marrying Catharine, daughter of David Condon, Esq., left issue by her two sons, and a daughter Eleanor. "Of the sons, David the eldest succeeded, and was bred to the sea, having the late Queen Anne's Letter, but was unfortunately drown'd at Plymouth in the Great Storm in 1703, and was succeeded RICHARD OF MR. URBAN,-Having recently received, from whom I have no idea, part of a late number of a periodical publication called the Archæological Mine, containing strictures on a letter from me which you did me the honour to insert in the Gentleman's Magazine for March last, upon the disputed authenticity of the history of Richard of Cirencester, I would now request your permission briefly to resume the subject, with no intention of engaging you in a controversy, which indeed one whose name is avowed must wage upon very unequal terms with an anonymous opponent. The tone of the strictures alluded to rather indicates that a sore place has been touched; but neither severity of criticism nor difference of opinion would be deprecated, though I do object to being misrepresented. It is stated positively, that I claim to have "thoroughly investigated" (printed in Italics) the work in question; which imagined discovery of my weakness is so pleasing to the writer, that it is afterwards exultingly repeated three times. But I will defy any one to contradict the assertion, that No such claim was advanced on my part in my letter to you; for really I never even supposed that I had "thoroughly investigated" the subject. My communication does indeed contain such an expression, but, plainly and undeniably, to state the doubts, which I entertained, (as I do still) whether such an investigation had been undertaken by some who contend for the genuineness of Bertram's production. With regard to the complaint, that the copy of Richard of Cirencester which I used was the edition 'translated and edited by J. A. Giles, LL.D.,'" the description so printed in italics is not a quotation of my words. When mentioning what edition I had seen, I did not deem it necessary to specify (which it appears I ought to have done) that I did not consult the translation for the purpose of judging of the original by his brother Ulick the present Lord, who is marry'd to Anne, the widow of Purcell, Esq. and daughter of Carr, of the county of Northumberland, Esq., but as yet has no issue; and the next Collateral Branch is Roche of Ballindangan, Esq., who is in the service of the King of Sardinia." I am not aware of an article upon the family of Roche Viscount Fermoy occuring in any other Peerage, and, if any such is known to your readers, I shall feel obliged by their pointing it out. Yours, &c. CORCAGIENSIS. CIRENCESTER. work, especially as I distinctly referred more than once to the Latin. If in Dr. Giles's publication that original is not given correctly, his readers cannot be held responsible, since in every reprint of a book we must be dependent on the care and fidelity of the editor. A principal motive to the conclusion, declared in my former letter upon this topic, was the noncompliance of C. J. Bertram with the demand to produce his professed ancient manuscript, together with his failure to give a satisfactory account of it; and I repeat my conviction that these circumstances throw a shade of strong suspicion over his entire story. I would also further, as explanatory of my previous line of argument, suggest this consideration. Since the work of the nominal Richard of Cirencester was never heard of till near the middle of the 18th century, long before which period the writings of several British antiquaries of deservedly high reputation had been by printing rendered accessible to any one, it is idle to claim for Bertram's production the credit of affording new information relating to Roman Britain, until it be shown that no portion of such information has been or can be derived from previously known native publications. A comparison of the Cirencester Itinerary with that of Antoninus alone will by no means suffice to decide the question; and the apparently greater copiousness of the former than of the latter seems to me far from difficult to comprehend and account for. When from such sources as have been pointed out the existence and (clear or obscure) identity of sites of Roman stations had been ascertained, the well-known practice of the Romans in similar cases would justify any one in assuming the actuality of roads also between those stations and the principal of, if not all, the others in the vicinity. And I beg to ask, whether such an origin of the amplification of the Bertramite Itinerary is not more consistent with the general want of distances in the new portions, than that any ancient manuscript should have proved so continually defective precisely in those particular places. Yours, &c. ARTHUR HUSSEY. Rottingdean, June 18. [We have referred to the number of "The Archæological Mine," (a periodical produced by Mr. A. J. Dunkin of Dartford) in which the remarks to which our correspondent refers were published. We find that the writer asserts that the edition of Richard of Cirencester "trans lated and edited by J. A. Giles, LL.D." is in fact a reprint of Mr. Hatcher's edition of 1809, but without the notes which illustrate it, and without the concordance between Richard and Antoninus, which Hatcher gives fully. The writer further states that he has before him a letter written by the late Mr. Hatcher, in which that gentleman indignantly alludes to Dr. Giles's perpetuation of his (Mr. Hatcher's) early errors; and he also mentions that the original correspondence of Bertram with Dr. Stukeley is now in the hands of Mr. Britton.]-EDIT. POSTMEN IN THE TIME OF CHARLES I. MR. URBAN,-This reign is remarkable in the history of that valuable establishment the Post Office, as the period to which we can trace the germ of the present system, in the authorised and systematic conveyance of the letters of merchants and others by the royal runners of the post. It is true that merchants had been directed by a proclamation issued in the year 1591, not to use "disavowed persons" to convey their letters, but the government of James I. did all it could to stop the practice. The commencement of the regular carriage of the people's letters is enveloped in obscurity, and the best information upon the subject is afforded, as far as I am aware, by the Report of the Secret Committee on the Post Office (as to the opening and detaining of letters) in 1844, and in the Appendix of documents supplied by the Public Record and State Paper Offices. Letter-carrying by other messengers than their own was always regarded by our sovereigns with great suspicion. The practice of thus using the royal posts, originating most probably in an act of grace, prevailed to a very considerable extent long before its advantages in a commercial point of view were duly estimated, and attained almost the position of a right upon a certain payment being made. The expenses of the post-master being regularly paid as a part of the royal establishment, and the conveyance of other than royal letters being optional, it is difficult to believe that no advantage could have accrued to that personage by the facilities he afforded the mercantile community. Such, however, is said to have been the case so late as the year 1635. Perhaps the old payments, being fixed at an earlier period, had not been adapted to the increasing prices of the times, and the scale of payment for conveying letters, &c. was not well adjusted; or the “deputies" had taken too good care of themselves. Of course it could not be intended to mean that the transmission of the letters of private individuals was not paid for by them. About the year 1635 the office of the Master of the King's Posts had come by descent from the patentee of James I. (Lord Stanhope of Harrington, the King's Vice-Chamberlain,) to Thomas Witherings; and he had also succeeded in obtaining the mastership of the "outward" posts, i. e. for abroad. That person proposed a re-organization of the in-land posts, which, instead of producing any revenu to the state, were then maintained at a cost of 34007. per annum. This scheme consisted chiefly of fixed rates of postage; horse posts vice foot posts; and permission for the public generally to use the establishment. The subsequent history of the Post Office is traced in the report already referred to. What I wish to lay before your readers is an illustration of the state of affairs just preceding the new management by Witherings, afforded by some legal proceedings arising out of a squabble between the working post-masters of the "Westerne Roade;" viz. from London to Plymouth. The earlier requirements of that branch of the establishment are difficult to make out; but what would the traders and in. habitants of the counties of Hampshire, Dorset and Devon now say to the decision that the stages of Postes" to Plymouth were not necessary, "but only in time of war," and being then only usually maintained were to be discharged? Such was said to be the case, and so it was ordered by a warrant under the Royal Privy Seal, dated 21 March, 8 James I. At that * See also "Notes and Queries," Nos. 73 and 166. In the first-named number some particulars are given in answer to the question as to the truth of Polwhele's assertion that the Protector's Attorney-General, Prideaux, invented the Post Office. In No. 166 is an interesting article by Mr. Bruce, in which some proclamations of James I. (printed in the Appendix above referred to) are turned to excellent account. GENT. MAG, VOL, XL. H |
