280
ttOTES AND QUERIES.
[2* S. NO 14., APRIL 5. '56.
" Veni Creator Spiritus " (2 nd S. i. 148.) MR.
COWPEE is under a mistake about the authorship
of this beautiful hymn, which could not, by any
possibility, have come, as he imagines, from the
pen of our distinguished countryman Stephen
Langton, as it was well known in the ninth cen-
tury, and often sung in the offices of the church,
long before that abp. mounted the primatial throne
of Canterbury. Rhabanus Maurus, one of the
celebrated scholars of our own still more cele-
brated Alcuin, wrote the " Veni Creator Spiritus,"
and it is to be found, with an Anglo-Saxon inter-
linear translation, in the " Hymn-Book of the
Anglo-Saxon Church," printed by the Surtees
Society, which is doing such good service to our
national literature and records by its publications.
What our patriotic Langton wrote was quite
another hymn to The Holy Ghost the " Veni
Sancte Spiritus," the sequence which is now given
in the Roman Missal to be said or sung at mass
on Whitsunday, &c. If MB. COWPER will look
again into the Spicilegium Sulesmense, he will find
that the anonymous English Cistercian speaks not
a word about the "Veni Creator Spiritus," but
merely says :
" Magister Stephanus de Langetuun, gratia Dei Can- tuariensis archiepiscopus, ait in quadam egregia sequentia quam de Spiritu Sancto composuit, ita : ' Consolator optime, Dulcis hospis animae, Dulce refrigerium.' "
This and the three other strophes which the old English monk cites, are not however from the " Veni Creator Spiritus," but from the " Veni Sancte Spiritus." Both hymns begin with words so much alike that the mistake was very easily made by MR. COWPER, to whom, nevertheless, every lover of liturgical studies ought to be thankful for having pointed out this valuable contemporaneous testimony to the authorship of so devotional an effusion, furnished by the Des- tinctiones Monasticae, now published for the first time by Dom Pitra. D. ROCK.
Newick, Uckfield.
The Order of St. John of Jerusalem (2 nd S. i. 197.) In reference to the existence of the Order in England I would observe, that a gentle- man writing to me within the last fortnight says, that he has lately been created a Grand Cross of Malta, and appointed Seneschal of the Anglian Langue. E. H. A.
Irish Language in the West Indies (1 st S. v. 537.; vi. 256.) It has struck me- on perusing all the Volumes of " N. & Q.," from i. to xi. last Christmas, that MR. BREEN must have read " Paddy's Metamorphosis " in Tom Moore's Satiri- cal and Humorous Poems, He will find in that poem, which was written in 1833, that about fifty years prior to that date a plan was commenced for
shipping off Irishmen for settlers abroad, and that
a West India island was chosen for the scheme.
Such was the success of the first colony, that a
second soon followed. These, in sight of the long-
look'd for shore were
" Thinking of friends whom, but two years before, They had sorrow'd to lose, but would soon again meet.
" When hark ! from the shore a glad welcome there
came
' Arrah, Paddy from Cork, is it you, my sweet boy ? ' While Pat stood astounded to hear his own name Thus hail'd by black devils, who caper'd for joy !
" Can it possibly be ? half amazement half doubt, Pat listens again rubs his eyes and looks steady ; Then heavens a deep sigh, and in horror yells out, ' Good Lord ! only think, black and curly already ! ' "
See Moore, vol. is. p. 148. J. C. G.
Liverpool.
Crediton Church, co. Devon (2 nd S. i. 211.) Your correspondent will find in Jenkins's History of Exeter, 1806, p. 247., the following mention of Eadulph :
" 3rd Eadulphus, 'on the death of Putta, was conse- crated Bishop of Devon at Crediton, to which place he removed his see, and built a magnificent church. He con- tinued bishop twenty-two years, and dying, was buried in his own church."
J. SANSOM.
Superstition regarding Banns of Marriage (2 nd S. i. 202.) Whatever may be the true rea- son for it, the same custom prevails in Scotland as in Worcestershire for a young woman to abstain from attending church the Sundays on which the " proclamation " or publication of her banns takes place. Perhaps modesty may be assigned as the chief cause ; nothing, certainly, of what may pro- perly speaking be termed the superstitious feeling being involved.
According to the law of the church of Scotland, " the proclamation is to be made before divine service begin for three several sabbaths " (Steuart of Purdivari's Collections, 1802, p. 98.). It is how- ever common amongst the more wealthy, by the payment of an additional fee at the registry or " booking," for the parties to be what is called " cried " three times at once on the same Sunday, and which may be considered only in the light of a convenient arrangement of the law, seemingly winked at by the authorities, that the intended couple may be made one generally on the follow- ing Monday.
I recollect once asking Mr. Combe, who super- intended the establishment which was at Mo- therwell, near Hamilton (named by the country people " Babylon ") formed on Mr. Robert Owen's social system, how the women, his adherents, felt on the subject of marriages effected there. He confessed that, however valid such marriages might be in the eye of the Scotch law, yet the women never appeared to be satisfied that they had been
