Various - Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850

In a vellum book, known as The Red Book of Ossory , and preserved in the archives of that see, is contained a collection of Latin religious poetry, written in a good bold hand of the 14th century; prefixed to several of the hymns, in a contemporary and identical hand, are sometimes one sometimes more lines of a song in old English or Norman French, which as they occur I here give:

It is quite evident that these lines were thus prefixed (as is still the custom), to indicate the air to which the Latin hymns were to be sung. This is also set forth in a memorandum at the commencement, which states that these songs, Cantilene , were composed by the Bishop of Ossory for the vicars of his cathedral church, and for his priests and clerks,

"ne guttura eorum et ora deo sanctificata polluantur cantilenis teatralibus turpibus et secularibus: et cum sint cantatores, provideant sibi notis convenientibus, secundum quod dictamina requirunt."— Lib. Rub. Ossor. fol. 70.

We may, I think, safely conclude that the lines above given were the commencement of the cantilene teatrales turpes et seculares , which the good bishop wished to deprive his clergy of all excuse for singing, by providing them with pious hymns to the same airs; thinking, I suppose, like John Wesley in after years, it was a pity the devil should monopolise all the good tunes. I shall merely add that the author of the Latin poetry seems to have been Richard de Ledrede, who filled the see of Ossory from 1318 to 1360, and was rendered famous by his proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteller for heresy and witchcraft. (See a contemporary account of the "proceedings" published by the Camden Society in 1843; a most valuable contribution to Irish history, and well deserving of still more editorial labour than has been bestowed on it.) I have copied the old English and Norman-French word for word, preserving the contractions wherever they occurred.

I shall conclude this "note" by proposing two "Queries:" to such of your contributors as are learned in old English and French song-lore, viz.,

1. Are the entire songs, of which the above lines form the commencements, known or recoverable?

2. If so, is the music to which they were sung handed down?

I shall feel much obliged by answers to both or either of the above Queries, and

Kilkenny, Nov. 1. 1850.

In that immaculate volume, the first folio edition of Shakspeare, of which Mr. Knight says: "Perhaps, all things considered, there never was a book so correctly printed"! a passage in Troilus and Cressida , Act. v. Sc. 3., where Cassandra and Andromache are attempting to dissuade Hector from going to battle, is thus given:

Deviating from his usual practice, Mr. Knight makes an omission and a transposition, and reads thus:

with the following note; the ordinary reading is

To use thefts is clearly not Shakspearian. Perhaps count or give might be omitted, supposing that one word had been substituted for another in the manuscript, without the erasure of the first written; but this omission will not give us a meaning. We have ventured to transpose count and omit as :

We have now a clear meaning: it is as lawful because we desire to give much, to count violent thefts as holy , "and rob in the behalf of charity."

Mr. Collier also lays aside his aversion to vary from the old copy, and makes a bold innovation: he reads,—

Thus giving his reasons: "This line [the third] is so corrupt in the folio 1623, as to afford no sense. The words and their arrangement are the same in the second and third folio, while the fourth only alters would to will ." Tyrwhitt read:

which is objectionable, not merely because it wanders from the text, but because it inserts a phrase, "to use violent thefts," which is awkward and unlike Shakspeare. The reading I have adopted is that suggested by Mr. Amyot, who observes upon it: "Here, I think, with little more than transposition ( us being, substituted for we , and would omitted), the meaning, as far as we can collect it, is not departed from nor perverted, as in Rowe's strange interpolation:

The original is one of the few passages which, as it seems to me, must be left to the reader's sagacity, and of the difficulties attending which we cannot arrive at any satisfactory solution."

Mr. Collier's better judgment has here given way to his deference for the opinion of his worthy friend; the deviation from the old copy being quite as violent as any that he has ever quarrelled with in others.

Bearing in mind Mr. Hickson's valuable canon (which should be the guide of future editors), let us see what is the state of the case. The line is a nonsensical jumble, and has probably been printed from an interlineation in the manuscript copy, two words being evidently transposed, and one of them, at the same time, glaringly mistaken. The poet would never have repeated the word count , which occurs in the first line, in the sense given to it either by Mr. Collier or by Mr. Knight.

Preserving every word in the old copy, I read the passage thus:—

"To count violent thefts" here would be sheer nonsense; and when we recollect how easy it is to mistake comit for count , the former word being almost always thus written and often thus printed, we must, I think, be convinced that in copying an interlineated MS., the printer misplaced and misprinted that word, and transposed as , if the repetition of it be not also an error.—"For," commencing the parenthesis, "we would give much" stands for cause . The emphasis should, I think, be laid on for ; and commit be accented on the first syllable. Thus the line, though of twelve syllables, is not unmetrical; indeed much less prosaic than with the old reading of count .