Notes and Queries, Number 31, June 1, 1850

In Short

This issue of a long-running periodical acts as a collaborative clearinghouse for historical, linguistic, and folkloric inquiry. Through a dense mosaic of reader-submitted "Notes," "Queries," and "Replies," it explores everything from the technical labor of cataloging parish registers to the arcane origins of harvest-home customs and the meaning of obscure literary epithets. It survives as a vital time capsule of intellectual life in 1850, capturing the collective obsession with preserving the minutiae of the past before it vanished from the national memory.

The Story

The issue opens with a practical, grounded contribution concerning the meticulous labor of transcribing parish registers—a task the author insists is of "national importance" for verifying family descent and property rights. This sets a tone of industrious preservation that permeates the following pages. From this grounding in administrative history, the text pivots to the literary, debating the authenticity of "Hudibrastic" verses and the evolution of the proverbial "he that fights and runs away." The reader is then ushered into the social history of the seventeenth century, viewing the domestic habits of the Countess of Pembroke, who used small gifts of buckskin gloves and silver to solidify her status and maintain social bonds.

As the narrative progresses, the focus shifts toward the mysterious and the ritualistic. A section on "Folk Lore" reveals a world where the Bible and a key are used to divine a suitor’s identity, and where a ring fashioned from the silver of twelve unmarried souls is believed to cure fits. The inquiry then expands into the scientific and the antique, examining the life of Cornelis Drebbel and his "perpetual motion" globe, which promised to capture the cyclical nature of the cosmos within a glass sphere. The middle section of the issue is dedicated to the resolution of these mysteries through the "Replies" of informed correspondents. Here, the text clarifies the etymology of "feast" and "fast," dissects the heraldic significance of a cup in the Godin family crest, and debates the grim "Asinorum Sepultura"—the burial of the excommunicated beneath a pile of stones.

The final arc of the issue functions as a repository for the editor’s administrative musings and a catalog of contemporary publishing. The editor addresses his contributors with a mix of weary patience and professional gratitude, explaining the logistical difficulty of curating such a constant flow of information. The volume concludes with a list of "Books and Odd Volumes" wanted by readers and a series of advertisements for new scholarly works, including Macaulay’s history and Southey’s common-place books. The journey ends where it began: in the quiet, persistent effort to organize, categorize, and preserve the scattered remnants of history, literature, and folklore for a curious and growing public.

How It Unfolds

The call to order The issue initiates a methodical examination of parish records, treating the act of transcribing 1558-era documents as a noble, necessary duty for the preservation of national title and history.

The literary debate Scholars engage in a rigorous dissection of classical proverbs and apophthegms, tracing the lineage of famous verses through Erasmus and Plutarch to settle disputes over their true origin.

The social observation The focus turns to the specificities of the seventeenth-century aristocracy, using the personal day-book of the Countess of Pembroke to illustrate the intricate, symbolic rituals of gift-giving.

The folkloric exploration The text documents the superstitions of the rural population, exploring the mechanics of divination and the folk medicine used to treat physical ailments through communal contribution.

The scientific inquiry Correspondents attempt to reconstruct the lost mechanical wonders of the past, questioning whether a Dutch philosopher’s "cylindrical wonder" was an early, complex form of the orrery.

The communal resolution The "Replies" section provides a forum for consensus, where experts correct misconceptions about etymology and heraldry, and scholars exchange findings on the history of the "Turkish Spy."

The editorial threshold The issue concludes with a candid look at the management of the journal, where the editor admits to the exhausting labor of curation while inviting the reader to continue the search for knowledge.

The People

The periodical is populated by a cast of inquisitive minds who operate under pseudonyms like "Pen-and-Ink" or "Janus Dousa." These contributors are unified by their desire for precision; they are the amateur detectives of the Victorian era. The Countess of Pembroke stands out as a historical figure of authority, whose recorded habit of kissing her cousins and distributing buckskin gloves reveals the quiet, transactional nature of noble social life. The philosopher Cornelis Drebbel emerges as a tragic, intellectual figure—a man of immense mechanical skill who, despite his service to emperors, is reduced to a "lion" offered as a gift between kings. Meanwhile, the unnamed editor serves as the patient, overworked anchor of the entire enterprise, struggling to manage a deluge of manuscripts while maintaining the dignity of the publication. Each contributor, whether a clergyman, a country gentleman, or a scientific antiquarian, acts as a guardian of a specific fragment of information, united by the shared goal of preventing the past from slipping into irrelevance.

In Its Own Voice

Regarding the necessity of preserving the past, the text argues that individual effort is the only way to safeguard history:

"No man, much less the minister of a parish, who has abundant calls upon his time, can be expected to sit down to the task of transcribing his registers through many consecutive hours; but there are few who could not give occasionally one or two hours to the work."

Reflecting on the nature of truth and how it shifts through time and perspective, a contributor quotes a classic observation:

"'Love and hatred,' says Plutarch, 'corrupt the truth of every thing;' as experience sufficiently declares it, when we see that which comes to pass, that one and the same thing, in one and the same city, at one and the same time, is related in different manners."

What It's Really About

At its core, this book is an exploration of the fragility of collective memory. It posits that history is not merely found in grand narratives, but in the "odd volumes" and marginalia of human experience. The underlying argument is that the preservation of truth requires a decentralized, democratic effort. By questioning the origins of folk remedies, the meaning of a coin, or the heraldry of a noble family, the contributors suggest that the past is a living puzzle. It is about the tension between the desire for objective accuracy and the inevitable corruption of truth caused by time, superstition, and the varied, unreliable ways that human beings relate their own experiences.

Why Read It Today

Reading this is akin to stepping into a dusty, well-organized library where the patrons are actively debating the contents of the shelves. It will appeal most to those who find joy in the "gossip" of history—the small, true details that textbooks often ignore. The experience is one of delightful, fragmented discovery; you move from a discussion on the burial of the excommunicated to the specific ingredients of a harvest feast.

However, the reader should be prepared for the period’s density. The language is formal and occasionally scholarly, and the frequent use of Greek and Latin without translation demands a degree of patience. You will encounter the casual, often unexamined, class-conscious attitudes of 1850, as well as an intense focus on genealogy that can feel dry to the uninitiated. Yet, what lingers is the warmth of the intellectual community. It captures a time when the world felt smaller, when a query sent to a London office might be answered by a gentleman in Amsterdam or a rector in Lancashire, and when the simple act of transcribing a register was seen as a profound, patriotic contribution to the survival of the human story.