The stout yeoman and (among others) the father-lasher and the coney-fish

A History of British Fishes, by William Yarrell; the third edition, edited by Sir John Richardson. 2 vols, 1859.

Mr Yarrell having died in 1856, this edition includes a memoir of him, in which he is described thus: "His aspect was that of a stout yeoman ... his mild but fearless eye, and his open forehead, showed, even to a stranger, a man at peace with himself and with his fellow men." His portrait does indeed show a man with an open countenance, and an intent gaze, as if he is considering what the species and characteristics of the portrait-maker might be. He was a great collector and student of natural history specimens, and his History of British Fishes was first published serially in 1835-36; according to the Oxford DNB, in this work "he paid particular attention to species that were a source of food, and he would often eat the specimens he collected to test whether they might be added to those known to be fit for the table." He also seems to have been a careful collector of vernacular fish-names -- my eye was caught by the long-spined sea bullhead, also known as the father-lasher, rock dolphin or lucky proach; the ocellated blenny, or butterfly fish; the great pipe-fish or needle-fish, known in Scotland as the tangle-fish; the twaite-shad; and the burbot or eelpout, "sometimes called the Coney-fish, from its habit of lurking and hiding itself in holes like a rabbit."

A linguistic pioneer

In a series of reprints of French historical documents comes L'éclaircissement de la langue française, by Jean Palsgrave, published in Paris in 1852. That's interesting, I thought - a Frenchman with what looks like an English surname. Then I came to a facsimile of the title page of the original (published in 1530), where he is described as "maistre Jehan Palsgraue Angloys natyf de Londres" and to the main text, which is in English (albeit Tudor English - "The true soundynge of the french tonge resteth in gyvyng to every frenche worde by hymselfe his naturall frenche sounde, and in soundynge frenche wordes, as they come to gether in sentences, lyke as the frenchmen use to do" - and some of it somewhat technical - "In the thyrde accident, that is to say, circumlocutynge of the preter tenses they differ moche from verbes actives"). So I looked up Palsgrave in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and found John Palsgrave, died 1554 - an interesting man, who was tutor to Henry VIII's sister Mary prior to her marriage to King Louis XII of France, and later to Henry's illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond. His great work on the French language was a pioneering endeavour to enable speakers of English to converse fluently in French as it was spoken at the time, which he did by means of in-depth linguistic analysis of the vernacular of both languages, making him a fascinating source for the history of both languages.

Another distinctive name

Two dialogues in English, between a doctor of divinity, and a student in the laws of England, of the grounds of the said laws, and of conscience (London, 1687) has an ownership signature of Lupton Topham -- whose name reminds me irresistibly of Lipton's Tea! Do a Google search, and the first result which comes up is the online version of the Victoria County History, for vol. 1 of the history of the North Riding of Yorkshire, entry for the parish of Coverham, from which I learn the following:

"The Fitz Hughs retained Bellerby, and in 1518 Sir Thomas Parr was said to have died seised of the manor of Coverham, although his title was disputed by Lord Scrope of Bolton. The manor probably escheated on the attainder of William Parr, Marquess of Northampton, in 1553. From this time its descent is obscure, but it was probably, like the demesne lands of Middleham (q.v.), mortgaged by the Crown and ultimately sold to the freeholders. From the freeholders it has probably been purchased in recent times by the Tophams, Thomas Topham being lord in 1879 and Mr. Lupton Topham Topham of Lutterworth, Leicestershire ... being the present lord."

I am learning miscellaneous heraldic terms, in pursuit of the identification of owners of heraldic bookplates, but I think mastering the technicalities of land tenure terms is probably beyond the call of duty!

The next Google result takes me to ancestry.com, which has records for three Lupton Tophams, the first of whom (born 1702, died 1769) was born to parents named Christopher Topham and Barbara Lupton, but the other two of whom had fathers named William and William Watkinson -- plus a Lupton Topham Topham whose father was Edward Charles Topham. So the name doesn't seem to have passed directly from father to son. There is probably an extremely tedious thesis to be written on the subject of the use of surnames as forenames ... !

More and more Moriers

(or possibly - those of a sensitive disposition may wish to look away now - The More The Morier)

An Enquiry into the Foundation and History of the Law of Nations in Europe (2 vols, 1795), by Robert Ward, has the signature D. R. Morier on the title page. Looking this up on OLIS, the University library catalogue, I found: Morier, David R. (David Richard), 1784-1877. Looking up David Richard Morier in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, I found I'd already looked up his son, Sir Robert Morier, while researching Sir Robert's grand-daughter, who became the Hon. Mrs Cunnack (see entry for 24 May 2012). But the bookplates in Ward's Enquiry state clearly "d.d. The Hon. Mrs Cunnock, 1955" -- given that title and date are the same, and the surname differs in only one letter, I think this must be a lapse in concentration on the part of a predecessing librarian. Next on the shelf is The Law of Natiions, Founded on the Treaties and Customs of the Modern Nations of Europe, translated from the German of Prof. G. F. von Martens and published in 1803. On the title page are three signatures: in the middle, below the title, is that of D. R. Morier; below it, above the imprint, is that of R. B. D. Morier, with the date March 1855 -- that must be D.R.'s son, Robert Burnet David -- and at the top of the title page is another Morier signature, with initials J. P., and in the ODNB is an entry for D.R.'s eldest brother, John Philip. All three Moriers were diplomats, who would have had an interest in international law. Given the coincidence of initials, I think it's certain that the Morier family who owned these books and the Moriers in the ODNB are the same, and that the Hon. Mrs Cunnack (not Cunnock) is the former Hon. Alice Elizabeth Millicent Erskine-Wemyss (although I still don't know her connection to Somerville).

Another exotic-looking name

Bound with the Manuel des consuls de commerce is a copy, published in 1826, of De la juridiction des consuls de France a l'étranger, by the Chevalier Laget de Podio -- about whom I can find nothing, save that a M. Laget de Podio was among those on board the Carlo Alberto arrested during the Duchesse de Berri's failed attempt to restore the Bourbon monarchy in 1832.

This is War

Manuel des consuls de commerce, des négocians maritimes et des armateurs en course, by Louis Lareynie-Labruyere (whose full name, apparently, was Jean-Baptiste-Marie-Louis La Reynie de La Bruyère), published in Paris in 1809 --

Included at the beginning are various decrees issued by the Emperor Napoleon relating to a trade blockade of the British Isles. Any ship, of whatever nation and whatever her cargo, setting sail from an English port, or from an English colony, or from land occupied by English troops, is a legitimate prize, and liable to capture by French warships or privateers.

More royals

The supporters on my mystery coat of arms (I discovered after a bit of investigation of heraldic beasts, where it was sorely tempting to be sidetracked!) are yales, and the arms are those of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, who founded, and whose arms are used by, both St John's and Christ's Colleges, Cambridge (as are her Tudor rose and portcullis badges). So how does a Cambridge college binding come to be in Somerville? The donor of the book was Mrs Octavia Adler, whose address is given in an old copy of the college register as "Kings and Princes, West Chiltington, Sussex". And there is indeed an 18th century farmhouse called Kings and Princes in West Chiltington - although not even Google can satisfy my curiosity as to how it came by that name! Google can, however, supply the information that her husband Herbert Marcus Adler was an alumnus of St John's College, Cambridge - so I assume he either had his own book bound in a college binding, or acquired the book from the college by some (I hope legitimate!) means.

Learned and right royal ...

The spirit of liberty : papers and addresses of Learned Hand --
I was assuming that "The Learned Hand" was a pseudonym, but it turns out that the author was in fact christened Learned Hand, or in full Billings Learned Hand, his mother's maiden name having been Learned. "His mother's family traditionally used surnames as given names" says Wikipedia -- which could have unfortunate consequences; I have several cousins who bear the no doubt honourable but somewhat infelicitous surname of Daft.

I'm now puzzling over a late Victorian or Edwardian heraldic binding, with an earl's coronet, a Tudor rose and the House of Commons portcullis on the spine, and a coat of arms on the boards which must have some royal connection, as the central escutcheon shows the three lions of England quartered with three fleurs-de-lys. The supporters are some kind of cross between a lion and a goat, I think ...

Heaven at last! or, the convolutions of Scottish family history

A three-volume edition of The book of the farm : detailing the labours of the farmer, farm-steward, ploughman, shepherd, hedger, cattle-man, field-worker and dairy maid, by Henry Stephens. Sounds fascinating as a glimpse of The Way Things Were, and was apparently the 'bible' of the BBC TV series Victorian Farm - but I'm not sure Somervillians will have made much practical use of it! Stamped on the cover of each volume is a Scottish clan badge, the central device being a crescent, and the motto on the surrounding strap and buckle being 'Denique coelum' - At the last, heaven. Simple to type the motto into Google and find out it belongs to the Clan Melville - but their device is a hound's head, not a crescent. Maybe some side-branch of the clan? Google Images found me the following, on the University of Toronto's register of British Armorial Bindings:

which is exactly what I've got, and comes with the information that it was used by the families of Melville of Murdocairnie in Fife 1672, and of Melville of Strathkinness also in Fife 1773. So how does it come to be on a book published in 1844? A bit more ferreting around, and I discover that the Strathkinness estate, which by then had been joined with the Bennochy estates of the Whyte family,  was inherited in 1883 by John Balfour of Pilrig, who assumed the name and arms of Melville of Strathkinness.

So how did the books come to Somerville? Written on the bookplates is the information that they were given by Mrs Stotherd, but there is no Stotherd listed in the College Register, so she must have been a well-wisher rather than an old member. But there is one Stotherd in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, who ended up as director-general of the Ordnance Survey, and who in 1875 married as his second wife one Elizabeth Janet Melville. Serious genealogists may like to pursue this further; I think I'd better get back to my books!

Ukraine to Canada, Cornwall to Australia (and Vlad the Baptizer)

An 1819 edition of the Traité d'économie politique by Jean-Baptiste Say was given to the Library by the Hon. Mrs Cunnack in 1955. M. Say has a long list of distinctions, the first of which is "Chevalier de Saint-Wolodimir". Who, I wondered, is the splendidly-named Saint Wolodimir? A quick trip to Google revealed a Ukrainian Orthodox saint spelt Volodymyr with a cathedral in (somewhat unexpectedly!) Toronto, Canada; he was Grand Prince of Kiev 980-1015 and known as The Baptizer, having been responsible for the conversion to Christianity of his subjects. His name is more familiarly (and therefore a little less exotically) rendered as Vladimir.

The name Cunnack also seems to have undergone a far-flung transportation, being associated mainly with Cornwall and Australia. But who was the Hon. Mrs Cunnack (no forename given), and what was her connection with Somerville? No Cunnacks in the index of the college register - so I had recourse once again to Google, where I found that a search for "hon cunnack" turned up the Hon. Alice Elizabeth Millicent Erskine-Wemyss (born 1906, the daughter of Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss), who married Major Francis Henry Cunnack in 1953. She looks to have been an intellectual character - she was given an honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Toulouse for her work on French Protestantism in the 18th and 19th centuries. She is mentioned in the online catalogue of Balliol archives for her work in classifying the Morier family papers (her mother's maiden name having been Morier), and Agatha Ramm, former Fellow of Somerville, wrote a biography of her grandfather Sir Robert Morier - but that's the closest Somerville connection I can find.
 

A gentleman philosopher

Volume 2 of The light of nature pursued, by Abraham Tucker (vol. 1 seems to have got lost ...) --

Wikipedia describes Abraham Tucker (1705-1774) as "an English country gentleman, who devoted himself to the study of philosophy." He was the son of a wealthy city merchant, who entered Merton College, Oxford as a gentleman commoner and studied philosophy, mathematics, French, Italian and music. In 1727 he bought himself a country estate and settled down to a life of amateur scholarship. The light of nature pursued was published in two sections, the first four volumes in 1765 and the final three posthumously, having been composed despite the fact that he had lost his eyesight, by virtue of an ingenious apparatus which he devised, and which enabled him to write clearly enough for his daughter to transcribe.

The Oxford DNB reveals that he married the daughter of a neighbour who was "cursitor baron of the exchequer and receiver of the tenths" (now there's a distracting collection of titles ...). It describes The light of nature pursued as "noticeably unsystematic and occasionally rambling in tone" (much like this blog!).

Greek Testaments and German scholars (with a few smells and bells thrown in)

A copy of the seventh edition (1874) of Alford's Greek Testament, rather handsomely bound in full leather with the arms of Christ Church gilt-stamped on both front and back boards (although the binding hasn't lasted too well; several of the boards are loose and the spines are crumbling).

Henry Alford was vicar of Wymeswold, in Leicestershire, from 1835 to 1853 (where he had the church comprehensively restored by A. N. W. Pugin), then moved to London, to the Quebec Chapel.

This is where I go off at a tangent, yet again ... Why the Quebec Chapel? Was there a community of Canadians around there? And if so, wouldn't they have been French Canadians, so why would they have had a chapel presided over by an Anglican minister?

I am (as so often) barking up entirely the wrong tree. Quebec Chapel was a chapel-of-ease to the church of St Marylebone, and so called because it stood in Quebec Street, which was named to commemorate the capture of Quebec by General Wolfe in 1759. The chapel itself was described by Edward Walford in Old and New London as 'a square, ugly edifice ... with no pretensions to ecclesiastical fitness'; it was replaced in 1911 by a building designed by Sir Walter Tapper in all the splendour of Edwardian Gothic, and is now, as the Church of the Annunciation, Marble Arch, a parish church in its own right, and determinedly Anglo-Catholic with full smells and bells. I wonder what Henry Alford, who, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 'ably defended evangelicalism against ritualism', would have thought ...

Which brings me back to the Revd Mr Alford. In 1857 he was appointed Dean of Canterbury, in which post he continued until his death in 1871. He was a man of many talents, whose poetry was well-regarded and whose hymns (including the harvest hymn 'Come, ye thankful people, come') are still sung; he also (from the ODNB again) 'composed piano, organ, and vocal music, sang and played, carved in wood, painted in watercolours, and published a book on the Riviera'. He was also a distinguished biblical scholar who recognized the importance of the work being done by contemporary German theologians; his pioneering edition of the New Testament was based on the texts established by German scholars and included detailed and comprehensive linguistic notes - quite unlike previous English-language commentaries, which had been overwhelmingly homiletical.

And how does Somerville come to have a set of volumes on which the arms of Christ Church feature prominently? There are no inscriptions or bookplates of previous owners, or indications that they were a gift to Somerville - the only clue to their history is a pencilled note inside the first volume saying '4 vols 6/6/-'. So I conclude that they were bought by a Christ Church man, who had them rebound in a fine leather binding displaying his college's arms, but then he (or his heirs) sold them.

The healing power of poetry

A now rather fragile copy of John Keble's lectures on poetry (the original Latin text) in two volumes was given to the Library by Henry George Woods, President of Trinity 1887-1897. His wife, Margaret Louisa Woods, was a novelist and poet, well-known in literary circles in her day but now largely forgotten. The lectures are entitled "De poeticae vi medica" -- "On the healing power of poetry" -- and dedicated to William Wordsworth.

From the Koran to Orlando, via toy theatres

George Sale's translation of the Koran was first published in 1734, and was the first scholarly translation of the Koran into English (the only earlier English version was by Alexander Ross, chaplain to Charles I, and was a translation of a French translation). Sale was by profession a solicitor; how he came to be an Arabic scholar is unclear, and a certain amount of his knowledge probably came second-hand from French and Latin sources, but his 'Preliminary discourse' to the Koran, in which he set forth all that was known at that time about the religion of Islam, was significant enough to be translated separately into several European languages.

Somerville's copy was printed in London by Orlando Hodgson, but has no date. St Peter's has a copy which matches it exactly as to title, edition and pagination, also lacking a date but conjectured to be eighteenth century. I think it's very unlikely that Somerville's is eighteenth century, however, as the type of paper used isn't right -- it's wood-pulp rather than rag paper. A search for Orlando Hodgson as publisher in Olis gives a date range of roughly 1820-1840 (and a very distracting selection of titles: Hodgson's British naval songster ; The Whole of the dreadful confessions of Joseph Hunt, relative to the horrid murder of Mr. Weare ... ; Pretty sights in Brighton ; The life of Richard Turpin, a notorious highwayman ; The Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and London railway guide : containing a description of the Birmingham Grand junction and Manchester & Liverpool railways, and of every interesting object on either line ... ); a quick search in Google turns up a webpage which at first sight seems unpromising, as the address is www.toytheatre.net, but it proves to be some interesting nuggets about the man I'm looking for, including his marriage certificate, and the information that he's listed in the London Commercial Directory for 1843 as a bookseller and publisher but couldn't be traced thereafter, the connection with toy theatres being that his printing output included sheets for the scenery and characters to be used in the plays for toy theatres which he also published. So (to get back to the rather different subject of Sale's Koran), having discovered (again thanks to Google) that wood-pulp paper didn't come into commercial use until around the 1840s, I've put down a conjectural date of 1840ish for Somerville's copy.

One further distraction - how common was the name Orlando in early Victorian times? A quick search of the 1841 census throws up 300 results, almost all with very English-looking surnames. Could they be named after the character in Shakespeare's As you like it? I tried Lysander (from A midsummer night's dream, and also a famous Spartan general) but found only two. Was there a famous British Orlando who might account for the name's relative popularity (there were 1,284 Horatios in the 1841 census)? So I tried the Oxford DNB - only two Orlandos, both 'also known as': John Mitchell (1785-1859), army officer and writer, aka Captain Orlando Sabretache, and Louis Stanley Jast (1868-1944), aka Orlando Furioso - and a librarian. How very intriguing ... but this particular librarian is straying rather far from what she is supposed to be doing, which is cataloguing books, and had better get back to it! (Anyone else wanting further distraction is recommended to investigate how the city of Orlando, Florida, got its name ...)

Educating women

Added today: Intellectual education and its influence on the character and happiness of women, by Emily Shirreff (new edition, 1862). Which has some fascinating chapter-titles: 'Education of girls more difficult than that of boys' ; 'Value of even slight acquaintance with mathematics' ; 'Variety of pursuit desirable on many accounts for women' ; 'Promising element in the character of obstinate children' ; 'Girls should be prepared for the trials of delicate health' ; 'Danger of exciting pleasure' ; 'Frivolity not confined to the fashionable' ; 'This system encourages thoughtless marriages'. Which is undoubtedly an unrepresentative selection, and very unfair on a woman who was briefly Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, and an early champion of the view that women were quite capable of being highly educated; she gave a copy of her book on the education of women to Frances Power Cobbe, who in turn gave it to Somerville.

Of Vincent Stuckey Lean (with contribution from a satyrical puppy)

Slight change of modus operandi - instead of retiring to the stacks to catalogue in the post-lunch sopor of the early afternoon, I am buzzing over in the post-elevenses rush of caffeine and glucose!

Today's subject: four volumes (in five parts) of proverbs, folklore and superstitions collected by Vincent Stuckey Lean and published posthumously in 1902-4. Now, Mr Lean seems to have been A Good Thing, especially from a librarian's point of view, as he left a bequest of £50,000 to build a new public library for Bristol. However, as a folklorist he doesn't seem to have made his mark: he doesn't appear in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, nor does he have his own Wikipedia entry - possibly because his method of compilation seems to have been to sit in the British Museum reading through everything from Chaucer onwards, rather than working 'in the field'. He therefore proffers such gems as the following, under 'Oxford' in his section on 'Local Proverbs': 'They hold scholars to be as it were Bl' Oxford men - unnecessary guts that study only to grow hungry', from Thomas May's The life of a satyrical puppy, called Nim, who worrieth all those satyrists he knowes, and barkes at the rest, published in 1657 (it being a joke at the time to refer to Oxford as Blocksford, as in blockhead).

And now, as lunchtime approaches, I too grow hungry - and I've spent so long trying to find out about Mr Lean that I don't have time to catalogue the books!