Notes and Queries, Number 09, December 29, 1849Various
History
Notes and Queries, Number 09, December 29, 1849
Various
Questions and answers -- Periodicals
I may here observe that the words ICH WART are particularly distinct on
a helmet, pictured in the Journal of the British Archæological
Association, which the Secretary, Mr. Planche, in such matters the
highest authority, regards as a tilting helmet. It may there have been
in the original ICH WARTE, meaning I bide (my time).
But the centres and this inscription are the least difficulty. A second,
frequently met with, is by far more puzzling. I could not give your
readers any idea of it without a drawing: however it is found
imperfectly depicted on the plates I have before mentioned in Nash's
_Worcestershire_, and the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and I think I
recollect also a very rude copy in a volume of Hearne's _Miscellaneous
Works_, which I examined in the Gottingen Library, but whether belonging
to the work or a MS. addition I cannot now call to mind. The fanciful
and flowery form of its letters gives great scope to the imagination in
assigning them their particular position in the alphabet, and the
difficulty of reading them is enhanced by the doubts of German
archæologists whether they are initials or component parts of a
sentence. Herr Joseph v. Hammer Purgstall, however, in his version
RECORD DE SCI GNSI, or in full _Recordamini de sancta Gnosi_, deduces
thence his principal proof of Gnostic heresy amongst the calumniated
Templars, in which I am sorry to say he has been too servilely followed
in England: e.g. by Mr. Godfrey Higgins, in his posthumous _Anaclypsis_
(p. 830 note), as well as by E.G. Addison, _The Temple Church_ (p. 57),
and by Mr. R.W. Billings more especially, who tacks to his account of
this building an "Essay on the symbolical Evidences of the Temple
Church, where the Templars are proved Gnostic Idolators, as alleged by
Edward Clarkson, Esq." Had the learnedly hypothetic Austrian seen the
engravings of the Crypt at Canterbury Cathedral (_Archæologia_, viii. p.
74.), and Ledwick's remarks on it in conjunction with the carvings at
Glendalloch (_History of Ireland_, p. 174.), or those of Grymbald's
Crypt at Oxford, he might have been expected to have attributed their
monstrosities to his order, with as little hesitation and as thorough a
contempt of chronology, or proved connection, as he has the curious and
innocent sculptures of the church at Schöngrabern in Bohemia (vide
_Curiositäten_, vol. viii. p. 501.).
WILLIAM BELL, Phil. Dr.
* * * * *
MINOR NOTES.
_Prince Modoc._--At p. 57., "ANGLO-CAMBRIAN" refers to the report of the
Proceedings of the British Association at Swansea, in Aug. 1848,
extracted from the _Athenæum_ newspaper. In the course of a discussion
which took place on Prof. Elton's address, it was observed (if I
recollect rightly) by the learned Dr. Latham, that a vocabulary of the
so-called Welsh-Indian dialect has been formed, and that it contains _no
trace_ of any Celtic root.
J.M.T.
December 10. 1849.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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