The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-14
SOME CURIOSITIES OF LITERARY
BL UNDERING.


Cotton was magnifying of a shoe which was
Moses or NOah's, and wondering at the
strange shape and fashion OF 1t; But, MIR.
Cotton says she, are you sure 1t is shoe2'
If the lesson which Selden drew from this
excellent question, "The reason of thing
is not to be inquired after till you are sure
the thing itself is so, had been always OBJ
served. how many coniectures, various, inge.
nious, and all distant from the truth,
like those of which Gibbon
tells in mentioning the passages
of Longinus that were lost and found, would
have been stifed! For example, Dugdale, in
the 'Baronage of England" citing Walsing
ham, says that Sir John de Montaeute, grand
son of the first Earl of Salisbury of that name
was the greatest fanatic Qool--,fatuuS is
Walsingham's word) among the followers of
Wiekliffe; being SO transported with zeal
Calling into such an abyss of folly-qut in
tdntG Lapsus est 0esanSa-says Walsingham)
that he caused all the images which were in
the chapel at Schenele, there set up by John
Aubrey and Sir Alan Buxhull (his wife's for
mer husbands) or any of their predecessors,
to be taken down and thrown in obscure
places; ''only the image of st. Katherine (in
regard that many did affect it) he
gave leave that it should stand in his
bakehouse." Dugdale is followed by train
of authors down to DR.. Vaughan, the modern
biographer of WickliFe, who repeat, without
comment, this singular enshrining of st.
katherine. 1t might have been surmised that
thekstatue was of wood, and was doomed to
the oven by the jealous iconoclast, as q spe-
cial mark of reprobation, because it had been
a special object of worship. But this con-
lecture would seem to be far from the truth,
because there was a reason, apart from all
controversy on the worship of saints, why De
Montacute should revere the image of st.
Katharine Tho Saint bod 0iu 70
his fathers mother, the noble Katherine de
Grandson in whose honor Edward III held
the great tournament in which the Order of
the Garter had its beginning for Froissarts
story is no fable, and so Lord Hailes, the severe
annalist, might have learned if he had read
his Rymer and the Chronicles more carefully.
There was, then, reason for the exception
in favor of the image, yet still a wonder re-
mains. Why should it have been thought an
act of affectionate reverence to the memory
of Katherine de Grandson to set up the
image of her namesake in the bakehouse? Is
it probable conjecture that, the chapel
having been built near the oven for warmth,
the reformer, though he would not suffer an
idol in his house of worship, gave all the
honor that conscience allowed, by placing it
in the precinct? If. however, we inquire
whether Sir John de Montacute really did this
wonderful thing, all cenj njecture about his
ASuoOho AOA oOhhB ~ ndy NC opdicu, lOr III
deed he did not do it at all. Dugdale took
the tale from Walsingham- 1t is told in
the very same words by another chronicler,
the Monk of Evesham, in his ''Life of Richard
the Second" Looking at these authorities,
we find that all that is strange in the story is
the work of Dugdale, misplacing single let
ter. According to the two monks, Sir John
did nothing worthy of wonder. He set up the
image, not IN piStriaatnn, in the bakehouse,
| hut fha
chapel. Hearne, the editor of the 'Life of
Richard the Second, did not venture to cor
rupt his authors text; but by foot-note, 81.
| ptStTinun," In Difference to the translation of
the great antiquary, he accepted the bake
! house as the better reading. The Master of
the Rolls also has received pistrtnuRa into
the text of his edition of 1864, allowing
in a note that in Camden the word
was pTtStinun. Henry of Knyghton, who
had the advantage over the other two
chroniclers of being a contemporary, does
not name Sir John de Montacute among the
Lollard knights; but, strangely enough, he
does relate that at the very same time another
image of st. Katherine, wooden image, was
discovered to be the solitary occupant OF
another chapel, the chapel of st. John the
Baptist without Leicester, where the follow
ers of Wickliffe were wont to hold their con-
venticles, and was chopped up and used as
in prose, Knyghton repeats it in Latin
rhymes.
Again, Robert Southey took some pains tc
give a correct text of the PiGgrim's Progress
In his edition, Hopeful having wondered
why Littlefaith had not plucked up heart
and stood one brush with such company o
towards as the three brothers, Faintheart
Mistrust, and Guilt, when they robbed anC
wounded him in Deadmans Lane, Christian
replies that many had called them coward g.
but few had found it SO in the time of trial
that they had made David groan, mourn, aud
roar, had sorely brushed the coats of Morde
cal and Hezekiah, though champions in theil
days, and had handled Peter so that they
made him afraid of a sorry girl. 1t seems
thing for wonder that Bunyan should hav,
ranked Mordecai with David, Hezekiah, anC
Peter; but in truth he did not H,
had set in the place which Southey gives
to Mordecai one who may be the man cele-
brated as second in wisdom to Solomon, anC
certainly was psalmist who in spiritual dark
ness and terror cried from the lowest deep H
q castaway. This was Heman. Some sdito
who had never heard Hemans name-lik
the mere matter-of-fact godfather who, beinI
asked to give the child Bible name, pro
posed Baal-zebub-took the next that came
and changed Hemsn to Hamar. Thel
Southey, or the editor from whom he copied
assured that Bunyan could not have mum
bered Haman among the champions of tn
faith concluded that since it was not Hamal
it must be Mordecai, aud Mordecsi was OK
alted accordingly Mr.. Offer has pointed ou
the progress of this error, which in all proba
bllity was overlooked, not invented, b
Southey.
DR.. Lingard, in his ''History of England,
telling of the unfortunate little army tha