Notes and Queries, Number 54, November 9, 1850, page 19 by Various Authors
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ns.--
"At the banquet held on this occasion, he vowed before God and the swans, which according to usage were placed on the table, to punish the Scottish rebels."--Keightley's History of England, vol. i. p. 249. ed. 1839.
What authority is there for this statement respecting the swans? What was the origin and significance of the usage to which allusion is here made?
R. V.
Winchester.
Automachia.--I am the possessor of a little book, some 2½ inches long by 1½ wide, bound in green velvet, entitled Automachia, or the Self-conflict of a Christian, and dedicated
"To the most noble, vertuous, and learned lady, the Lady Mary Nevil, one of the daughters of the Right Honourable the Earl of Dorcet, Lord High Treasurer of England."
The book commences with an anagram on the lady's name:
"Add but an A to Romanize your name Another Pallas is your anagram, Videlicet Maria Nevila Alia Minerva."
And then follow some "Stanzes Dedicatory," subscribed--
Most deuoted to your honourable vertues.--J. S."
On the last page is--
"London, printed by Milch Bradwood, for Edward Blount, 1607."
The Automachia is a poem of 188 lines, in heroic metre, and is followed by a shorter poem, entitled "A Comfortable Exhortation to the Christian in his Self-conflict."
Do any of your correspondents know of the existence or authorship of this little work? It is not in the British Museum, nor could the curators of the library there, to whom it was shown, make out anything about it.
The discovery of its authorship might tend to throw some light on that of "The Pedlar's Song," attributed to Shakspeare, and appearing in Vol. i., p. 23. of "NOTES AND QUERIES." The song contains the line--
"Such is the sacred hunger for gold."
And in the Automachia I find the "auri sacra fames" described as--
"Midas' desire, the miser's only trust, The sacred hunger of Pact