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NOTES AND QUERIES. [- s. NO 21, JUNE u. '56.
Hibernis patriam venisti ulturus ab oris?
Aut Glenco, aut stirps te Feniciana tulit : Sis felix, quicunque, precor, memorande ; nee unquam,
Jam sella dorsum, frena nee ora premant. Humani generis vindex, moriente tyranno,
Hanc libertatem, quam dabis, ipse tene."
" Feniciana " must be an allusion to Sir J. Fenwick. Can any one say what did become of this so-called " human! generis vindex ? "
EDWARD Fox. Poorstock, Bridport.
EDWARD CAPERN.
As you chronicle a little of everything worth preserving, in your inimitable miscellany, perhaps it may be worth while to insert in it a short ac- count of a most extraordinary man, recently brought before the literary world, Edward Capern, the Bideford poetical postman, who will hereafter be ranked among the worthies of Devon ? Born of the humblest parents, nursed in bitter poverty, with no educational advantages beyond the dame and Sunday school, he was sent forth at the early age of nine years to earn his bread, and struggle with the world ; he was long prostrated by severe disease, and doomed to suffer disappointment from a serious defect in his vision : few have pursued knowledge under greater pain and difficulties* But he was gifted with an exquisite taste for the beautiful in all things, an aptitude for design, a most decided taste for music, the sweet interpreter of nature, a man versed in the language of flowers and birds, of bubbling brooks, and streams, and gushing fountains ; in short, as the " Poet of Rural Life." His private character is as amiable as his poems are admirable. Though a poor walking postman at ten shillings a week he is a perfect gentleman in manner, modest and unassuniing. Rumball, the phrenologist, accidentally saw him at a friend's house in Bideford lately, and, never hav- ing heard anything about him, he was requested to examine his head, which is said to be very like Goldsmith's. Rumball says, " How he has re- mained in his present condition I know not, but if there is any truth in phrenology, he has the de- velopment of poetry, painting, veneration, con- sciousness, benevolence, and ideality, stronger than any head I ever examined in my life." He still continues his daily toil of thirteen miles every day, and is contented and happy. His friends have published a neat volume of selections from his poetry, which has been largely patronised by a great many of the nobility and gentry, under the auspices of Earl Fortescue, the Lord Lieu- tenant of Devon, and it is not a small proof of his poetical merit and moral integrity that Mr. Savage Landor, on reading his book, sent him a donation of five pounds, with a request that he would
dedicate the next edition of his book to him.
" Laudari a laudato vho " is praise indeed.
All the first edition of his Poems was sold off immediately ! WM. COJ.LYHS, M.R.C.S.
Cliudleigb., Newten, Devon.
THE ARMS OF GLASGOW.
These arms are an oak tree full-leaved, with a bird perched on it; a bell hung on one of its branches, and below, across the trunk, a fish ^ with a ring grasped in its mouth. In writing of the festival celebrating the opening of the water-works, to bring fresh water from Loch Katrine to the city, the writer in the North British Daily Mail of the day described the city arms, cast in iron, over the entrance to the great tunnel on the works, and thus explained the bearings on the shield : The green oak tree for the " green " (the public common of the city) ; the fish for the River Clyde and its fisheries ; the bell for the cathedral, and the ring for the unity of the city* The bird seems to have escaped the re- porter's notice. The explanation besides differs from what I have before heard on the subject; various versions, learned and popular, are afloat. One has got into school-boys' mouths, as follows :
" The tree that never grew, The_/?sA that never swam, The bird that never flew, And the bell that never rang."
One bearing, the ring, in this instance too, so far as I recollect, is left unaccounted for, or rather unnoticed, in the rhyme ; but I may have lost a portion of the legend. I have a faint recollection of some extraordinary tale of horror that used to be current amongst us at school, accounting for the whole matter. A murder of course was the pivot : it was discovered by the singing of the bird; the fish was caught close to the tree, with the ring in his maw. The dead body of the slain (maiden, I think it was,) was thereby discovered and iden- tified ; and the murderer, in trying to escape by the bell-rope into the tower of the cathedral, set the bell a-ringing, and so was caught, and exe- cuted by being hung on the branches of the green oak tree ; which, of course, may be all vouched for as truth, with the usual fairy tale reservation, that " if all tales be true, this is true too." I always thought thejish and ring had to do with St. Peter, and his representative " in cathedra" (to whom, by all legends and accounts, the original settle- ment and cultivation of the land on which the city now stands is ascribed), viz., St. Mungo. I should like to hear if there is any other theory about the city arms, or if anything positive is known about the matter: all the accounts I have heard being rather mythical. The name of the city is pure Celtic : of that there can be no doubt,
