embè aquelles. Anin à lous occells, che dizen tat prou ben en ein voz L'ome nosap comochodochi yen ay jes de plazer, d' ausir la mitat de paraulles, en el mon. This is a part of that language which Scaliger nameth Idiotismus Tectofagicus or Langue d'oc, counterdistinguishing it unto the Idiotismus Francicus or Langue d'ouy, not understood in a petty corner or between a few mountains, but in parts of early civility, in Languedoc, Provence and Catalonia, which put together will make little less than England. Without some knowledge herein you cannot exactly understand the works of Rabelais: by this the French themselves are fain to make out that preserved relique of old French, containing the league between Charles and Lewis the sons of Ludovicus Pius. Hereby may tolerably be understood the several tracts, written in the Catalonian tongue; and in this is published the Tract of Falconry written by Theodosius and Symmachus; in this is yet conserved the Poem Vilhuardine concerning the French expedition in the holy war, and the taking of Constantinople, among the works of Marius Æquicola an Italian poet. You may find in this language, a pleasant dialogue of love; this, about an hundred years ago, was in high esteem, when many Italian wits flocked into Provence; and the famous Petrarcha wrote many of his poems in Vaucluse in that country.R 8 country.] In the MS. Sloan. 1827, I find the following very odd passage; respecting which, most certainly, the author's assertion is incontrovertible, that "the sense may afford some trouble." I insert it, not expecting that many readers will take that trouble-but it appeared too characteristic to be omitted. "Now having wearied you with old languages or little understood, I shall put an end unto your trouble in modern French, by a short letter composed by me for your sake, though not concerning yourself; wherein, though the words be plain and genuine, yet the sense may afford some trouble. "MONSIEUR,-Ne vous laisses plus manger la laine sur le dors. Regardes bien ce gros magot, lequel vous voyez de si bon œil. Assurement il fait le mitou. Monsieur, vous chausses les lunettes de travers, ne voyant point comme il prati que vos dependants. Il s'est desïa queri de mal St. Francois, et bride sa mule a vostre despens. Croyez moi, il ne s'amusera pas a la moutarde; mais, vous ayant miné et massacré vos affaires, au dernier coup il vous rendra Monsieur sans queue. "Mais pour l'autre goulafie et benueur a tire la rigau, qui vous a si rognement fait la barbe, l'envoyes vous a Pampelune. Mais auparavant, a mon advis, il auroit a miserere jusques a vitulos, et je le ferois un moutton de Berry. En le traittant bellement et de bon conseil, vous assuyes de rompre un anguille sur les genoux. Ne lui fies poynt: il ne rabbaissera le menton, et mourra dans sa peau. Il scait bien que les belles paroles n'escorchent pas la guele, les quelles il payera a sepmaine de deux Jeudies. Chasses le de chez vous a bonne heure, car il a estè a Naples sans For the word (Dread) in the royal title (Dread sovereign) of which you desire to know the meaning, I return answer unto your question briefly thus. Most men do vulgarly understand this word dread after the common and English acceptation, as implying fear, awe, or dread. Others may think to expound it from the French word droit or droyt. For, whereas, in elder times, the presidents and supremes of courts were termed sovereigns, men might conceive this a distinctive title and proper unto the king as eminently and by right the sovereign. A third exposition may be made from some Saxon original, particularly from Driht, Domine, or Drihten, Dominus, in the Saxon language, the word for Dominus throughout the Saxon Psalms, and used in the expression of the year of our Lord in the Decretal Epistle of Pope Agatho unto Athelred King of the Mercians, anno 680. Verstegan would have this term Drihten appropriate unto God. Yet, in the constitutions of Withred King of Kent,* we find the same word used for a Lord or Master, si in vesperâ præcedente solem servus ex mandato Domini aliquod opus servile egerit, Dominus (Drihten) 80 solidis luito. However, therefore, though Driht, Domine, might be most eminently applied unto the Lord of heaven, yet might it be also transferred unto potentates and gods on earth, unto whom fealty is given or due, according unto the feudist term * V. Cl. Spelmanni Concil. loran lui vault autant que l'isle de France, et la tour de Cordan + lui vault le mesme avec la Louvre. "Serviteur très-humble, "THOMAS BROUNE." *Note ;-"Alloran, Allusama, or Insula Erroris; a small desolate barren island, whereon nothing liveth but coneys, in the Mediterranean sea, between Carthagena and Calo-de-tres-furcus, in Barbary." + Note;-"A small island or rock, in the mouth of the river Garonne, with one tower in it, where a man liveth, to take care of lights for such as go to, or come from, Bordeaux." ligeus, à ligando, unto whom they were bound in fealty. And therefore from Driht, Domine, dread sovereign, may, probably, owe its original. I have not time to enlarge upon this subject: pray let this pass, as it is, for a letter and not for a treatise. I am, 9 ligeus.] "Or liege lord."-MS. Sloan. 1827. Yours, &c. TRACT IX. OF ARTIFICIAL HILLS, MOUNTS, OR BUrrows, IN MANY PARTS OF ENGLAND: WHAT THEY ARE, TO WHAT END RAISED, AND BY WHAT NATIONS. IN My Honoured Friend Mr. W. D.'s1 Query. In my last journey through Marshland, Holland, and a great part of the Fens, I observed divers artificial heaps of earth of a very large magnitude, and I hear of many others which are in other parts of those countries, some of them are at least twenty foot in direct height from the level whereon they stand. I would gladly know your opinion of them, and whether you think not that they were raised by the Romans or Saxons, to cover the bones or ashes of some eminent persons? WORTHY SIR, My Answer. CONCERNING artificial mounts and hills, raised without fortifications attending them, in most parts of England, the most considerable thereof I conceive to be of two kinds; that is, either signal boundaries and land marks, or else sepulchral monuments or hills of interment for remarkable and eminent persons, especially such as died in the wars. 1 Mr. W. D.] "The initials, in both the preceding editions, are "E. D.:" but it has been clearly ascertained that this is an error. The query was Sir William Dugdale's; and his reply to the present discourse will be found vol. i, p. 381. A reference to Dugdale's History of Embanking and Draining, will shew that he availed himself of the reply he obtained to his enquiry for he has transcribed the quotations from Leland and Wormius in illustration of the Saxon and Danish mode of sepulture; and has given almost verlatim the passage referring to Germanicus. As for such which are sepulchral monuments, upon bare and naked view, they are not appropriable unto any of the three nations of the Romans, Saxons, or Danes, who, after the Britons, have possessed this land; because upon strict. account, they may be appliable unto them all. For that the Romans used such hilly sepultures, beside many other testimonies, seems confirmable from the practice of Germanicus, who thus interred the unburied bones of the slain soldiers of Varus; and that expression of Virgil, of high antiquity among the Latins, facit ingens monte sub alio Regis Dercenni terreno ex aggere bustum. That the Saxons made use of this way is collectible from several records, and that pertinent expression of Lelandus,* Saxones, gens Christi ignara, in hortis amœnis, si domi forte ægroti moriebantur; sin foris et bello occisi, in egestis per campos terræ tumulis, (quos burgos appellabant) sepulti sunt. That the Danes observed this practice, their own antiquities do frequently confirm, and it stands precisely delivered by Adolphus Cyprius, as the learned Wormius † hath observed. Dani olim in memoriam regum et heroum, ex terra coacervata ingentes moles, montium instar eminentes, erexisse, credibile omnino ac probabile est, atque illis in locis ut plurimum, quo sæpe homines commearent, atque iter haberent, ut in viis publicis posteritati memoriam consecrarent, et quodammodo immortalitati mandarent. And the like monuments are yet to be observed in Norway and Denmark in no small numbers. * Leland in Assertione Regis Arthuri. 2 appliable unto them all.] Mr. Pegge, in a paper published in the Archæologia, on the Arbour Lows, in Derbyshire, expresses the same opinion; ascribing these burrows or tumuli to Britons, Romans, Saxons, and Danes,-and not to any one of those people exclusively. Some he supposes to be British, from their being dispersed over moors, and usually on eminences; not placed with any regard to roads, as the Roman tu muli generally are. The Danish lows would frequently exhibit a circle of stones round their base. But the contents would furnish the best and perhaps the only sure criterion to judge by; kistvaens and stone coffins, rings, beads, and other articles, peculiar to the Britons, being found in some; Roman coins, urns, and implements in others, and the arms and utensils of the Saxons or Danes in others.-Archæologia, vii, 131, &c. |