106
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io- s. v. FEB. 10, im
country whence the gold of which they were
made was obtained. I do not know whether
it has been previously noted anywhere that
gold coins of almost precisely the same name
were in circulation in Gascony in the four-
teenth century. In Madox's ' Baronia
Anglica' (London, 1741), on p. 159 (note d),
I find the following :
"Sachent touz, que Mons. Gualhard de Duref- fourt, Seigneur de Duras et de Blanquaffourt, ad receu del Honore et Sage Sire Mons.
Johan Guedeneye, Conestable de Burdeaux
quatorse guianois dour, et dys soudz de la mon[oye] currant a Burdeux, de laquiele somme le dit Seigneur de Duras se confesse pleinement estre paiez et ledit Conestable ent quites, per cestes pre- entes seeles de son seel le xii. jour du mois de ^Novembre 1'au de grace mil ccc quatre xx et sept."
I suppose these French guineas derived their name from Guienne, of which duchy Bordeaux was the capital, and the King of England sovereign duke. The similarity of the names of these two gold coins (minted, one in England, and the other in the King of England's duchy three hundred years previously) is curious, and seems worth noting in 'N. & Q.' W. C. BOLLAND.
" MARMOR" AND THE SEA IN LATIN POETS. MR. E. S. DODGSON mentions approvingly (10 th S. iv. 373) a suggestion that " the reason why the Romans called the sea marmor was
Haughton, and Chettle. He expresses the
belief that his author's hand is discernible in
the drama, while excluding it from the re-
presentative works on the ground of insuffi-
cient evidence. He is disposed, however, to
believe that the lyric 'Sweet Content' and
the * Lullabie Song ' were both Dekker's, and
justifiably quotes them on that assumption.
Headers of the late Prof. Palgrave's * Golden
Treasury ' have the former dainty and melo-
dious gem presented to them under the
somewhat arbitrary title 'The Happy Heart,'
its opening lines arranged as follows :
Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
O sweet content ! Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex'd ?
punishment !
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd To add to golden numbers, golden numbers ? O sweet content ! O sweet, O sweet content !
If one may judge from the reprint in Dekker's * Dramatic Works' just specified, the text thus given misrepresents the original and mars the rhythm by contracting the words "perplexed" and * vexed," the value of the final syllable in each case being ignored. It is not uncommon at present to hear the editorial and critical work of the late Prof. Henry Morley depreciated, but in this connexion, at any rate, he showed taste and discrimination. In the volume of
a streakiness resembling the markings of
marble." The suggestion is interesting and
ingenious, but improbable. The root mean
ing seems to be
because the surface of the sea often presents * Shorter English Poems' which he prepared
o af Mnn u; nn n ~^~,ui:~ <-K . n ..i,.: n ~ n ~f I f or Cassell's "Library of English Literature,
he included Dekker's exquisite lyric, appro-
_ r priately calling it 'Sweet Content,' and
>e "gleam," "shine"; Greek placing an accent over the final syllable of ipw, to shine. Marmor, then, " perplexed " and " vexed " to indicate their white, shining stone. The bright, | Elizabethan character. This should be done
in the ' Golden Treasury.'
THOMAS BAYNE.
TOWNLEY HOUSE, RAMSGATE. The follow- ing paragraph appeared in The Maidstone Gazette of 23 September, 1823 ;
- ' Ramsgate, September 18th. The Duchess of
Kent gave a grand Ball on Tuesday evening at her residence, Townley House, on which occasion the lawn in front of the drawing-room was most bril- liantly illuminated with Venetian and variegated lamps. The excellent band of the 15th Hussars was stationed in front of the house, and played various pieces as the company arrived. The ballroom was most elegantly fitted up with artificial flowers. Werpper's quadrille band attended, and delighted everyone by their charming performance. Dancing commenced at ten o'clock, and the company did not separate until nearly three o'clock in the morning."
Soon after the period when the Duchess of Kent and, as a child, our Queen Victoria re- sided there, Townley House became a semi- nary for young ladies kept by the Misses Hogsflesh. .One is not surprised to find that
is the
sparkling appearance is the property of the sea which would be most prominent to mediterranean peoples like the Greeks and Romans. The Latin poets, from Ennius down, no doubt derived the use of marmor for the sea from the Homeric expression a Aa fjLapfjLapTr]v ( l II.,' xiv. 273). The epithet is also used by classical Greek writers of bright metallic objects, stars, and eyes, so that there can be no question that, as used of the sea, it must be taken in the same sense, viz., " sparkling, gleaming." ALEX. LEEPER. Trinity College, University of Melbourne.
DEKKER'S 'SWEET CONTENT.' In 1873 the works of Thomas Dekker, " now first collected with illustrative notes and a memoir of the author," were published by John Pearson, York Street, Covent Garden, London. The writer of the memoir discusses the anony- mous play 'The Comedie of Patient Grissil,' which appeared in 1603, and is traditionally attributed to the joint authorship of Dekker,
