A botanical poem, the poet and the hoaxer

[Alan_b]

In his book "Circle of the Seasons....." Thomas Forster frequently quotes from a reference source of poetry and verse which is most frequently abbreviated to Anthol. Austr. et Bor.  Some of these verses have become quite well known, such as this one (from the entry for Feb. 25.)

The following verses in old English remind us of the periods of flowers, and are composed apparently with great accuracy, which induces us to quote them.

The Snowdrop, in purest white arraie,
First rears her head on Candlemas daie;
While the Crocus hastens to the shrine
Of Primrose love on St. Valentine.
Then comes the Daffodil beside
Our Ladies' Smock at our Ladye Tyde,
Aboute St. George, when blue is worn,
The blue Harebells the fields adorn;
Against the day of the Holy Cross,
The Crowfoot gilds the flowrie grasse.
When St. Barnaby bright smiles night and daie,
Poor ragged Robbin blooms in the hay.
The scarlet Lychnis, the garden’s pride,
Flames at St. John the Baptist’s tide.
From Visitation to St. Swithen’s showers,
The Lily white reigns Queen of the Flowers ;
And Poppies a sanguine mantle spread,
For the blood of the Dragon St. Margaret shed.
Then under the wanton Rose, agen,
That blushes for penitent Magdalen,
Till Lammas Day, called August’s Wheel,
When the long Corn stinks of Camomile.
When Mary left us here below,
The Virgin’s Bower is full in blow ;
And yet anon the full Sunflower blew,
And became a star for Bartholomew.
The Passion Flower long has blowed,
To betoken us signs of the Holy Rood.
The Michaelmas Daisy amonge dead weeds,
Blooms for St. Michael’s valorous deeds,
And seems the last of the flowers that stood
Till the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude,
Save Mushrooms and the Fungus race,
That grow till Allhallowtide takes place.
Soon the evergreen Laurel alone is green,
When Catherine crowns all learned men;
Then Ivy and Holy Berries are seen,
And Yule Clog and Wassaile come round again.

Anthol. Aust. et Bor.

You may know slightly different versions with more Old English spellings but I have done my best to transcribe the verse exactly as it appears in this photocopy https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=F2K4iE_VTC0C

More to follow...

[Alan_b]

The first two lines of this poem are often quoted by those wishing to wax lyrical about snowdrops and usually attributed to a  church calendar from around 1500.  Now "Circle of the Seasons..." was a 19th century church calendar written by Dr Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster (1789-1860) and the copy I referenced is from 1828.  You can read a little about Dr Forster here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Ignatius_Maria_Forster

But is the quotation authentic?  There are reasons to doubt this.  For example the name 'snowdrop' is relatively recent and was not used by John Gerard.  I am indebted to Simon Garbutt for pointing this out:

I think John Gerard made the first known written reference in English to the what we now call the common snowdrop in his Great Herball of 1597, where he called it the "Timely flowring Bulbus violet" and said it "flowereth at the beginning of Januarie"

Obviously the answer is to trace the source anthology "Anthol. Aust. et Bor." but there one runs into difficulty because it cannot be traced!

I'm not the first person to notice this.  Here is "Eirionnach" writing in "Notes and Queries" in 1871 https://archive.org/stream/notesqueries4711unse/notesqueries4711unse_djvu.txt

CATHOLIC FLORAL DIRECTORIES, ETC.
More than a year ago (Vol. vi., p. 503.) I made
a Query respecting Catholic Floral Directories,
and two works in particular which were largely
quoted in Mr. Oakley’s Catholic Florist, Lond.
1851 ; and I again alluded to them in Vol. vii.,
p. 402., but have not got any reply. The two
works referred to, viz. the Anthologia Borealis et
Australis, and the Florilegium Sanctorum Aspira-
tionum, are not to be heard of anywhere (so far as
I I can see) save in Mr. Oakley’s book. During
the last year I have ransacked all the bibliogra-
phical authorities I could lay hold of, and made
every inquiry after these mysterious volumes, but
all in vain.
The orthography and style of the passages cited
are of a motley kind, and most of them read like
modern compositions, though here and there we
have a quaint simile and a piece of antique spel-
ling. In fact they seem more like imitations than
anything else ; and I cannot resist the temptation
of placing them on the same shelf with McPherson’s
Ussian and the poems of Rowley. In some places
a French version of the Florilegium is quoted :
! even if that escaped one’s researches, is it likely
that two old English books (which these purport
to be), of such a remarkable kind, should be un-
known to all our bibliographers, and to the readers
of “ N. Sc Q.,” among whom may be found the
chief librarians and bibliographers in the three
kingdoms. Is it not strange also that Mr. Oakley
and his “ compiler ” decline giving any inform-
ation respecting these books ?
I shall feel extremely obliged to any correspon-
dent who will clear up this matter, and who will
furnish me with a list of Catholic Floral Direc-
tories. Eirionnach.

Conclusion to follow...

   

[Alan_b]

"Eirionnach" got his reply here https://archive.org/stream/notesqueries10londuoft/notesqueries10londuoft_djvu.txt

I have just read EIRIONNACH'S Note on Catho-
lic Floral Directories. That Dr. Thomas Forster,
F.L.S., a retired medical physician, is the author
of the Catholic Annual, containing the extracts
from the Anthologia Borealis et Australis, and the
Florilegium Sanctorum Aspirationum, there seems
no doubt, as I have seen a copy so presented by
him to a private library.

and another (later?) reply from https://archive.org/stream/notesqueries4711unse/notesqueries4711unse_djvu.txt

[Seventeen years ago it was discovered by our valued
correspondent William Pinkerton, F.S.A., that th«
Anthologia Borealis et Australis is a purely imaginary
title for certain pieces of prose and verse, the # production
of Dr. Forster, and has no existence save in his Circle of
the Seasons and Pocket Encyclopaedia. See " N. & Q.,'*
l' 4 S. ix. 569.]

I'm afraid I have not discovered what sort of publication "Notes and Queries" was and some of the dates are ambiguous (probably referring back to earlier queries without making that obvious).  But what seems beyond doubt is what is quoted immediately above, that it was all a literary hoax.  In fact you might even be able to get hold of Forsters privately printed publication referred to here which I presume incorporates all his 'fake' poetry: http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Harmonia_Musarum_containing_Nug%C3%A6_Cantab.html?id=_wQ_mAEACAAJ&redir_esc=y


So, next time you quote:

"The Snowdrop, in purest white arraie,
First rears her hedde on Candlemass daie..."

attribute it correctly as a literary hoax perpetrated by Thomas Ignatius M. Forster.

[Anthony Darby]

What do you mean by the name 'snowdrop' is relatively recent Alan? James Lee (1776 edition of his book "An Introduction to Botany") has Snowdrop (Galanthus) and Greater Snowdrop as Leucojum.

[Alan_b]

Thanks, Anthony, a useful contribution.  There are versions of the poem I quoted that use more Old English spellings (as in the version of the first two lines I quoted in my previous post).  But the use of Old English is not contemporaneous with the use of the name snowdrop.  Gerard writing in 1597 did not use the name snowdrop nor, I believe, did Shakespeare ever refer to a snowdrop.  But by 1776 the name was in use.  Now we need to see if we can find some writing earlier than 1776 (but presumably later than 1597) that refers to a snowdrop.  For it seems the name arose somewhere in the time period. 

[Anthony Darby]

This link suggests the name "Snowdrop" 'appears for the first time in 1633 in Thomas Johnson's revised edition of Gerard's Herball, with a footnote beneath the entry 'timely flow'ring bulbous violet' - 'Some also call them snowdrops', and [it says] there is an unmistakable drawing? https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=ZAfSAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT27&lpg=PT27&dq=historical+references+to+the+name+snowdrop&source=bl&ots=TzeyY7bjtu&sig=Lt3TjGquUtlOowgU8mcGHkfrvcQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DOrRVMLBGaTamAX1noKABw&ved=0CEAQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=historical%20references%20to%20the%20name%20snowdrop&f=false

[Alan_b]

So maybe we have reached about the 400th anniversary of the snowdrop, by which I mean the use of the name snowdrop?  Gerard, writing in 1597, apparently did not know the name but Thomas Johnson in 1633 did. 

[Anthony Darby]

So maybe we have reached about the 400th anniversary of the snowdrop, by which I mean the use of the name snowdrop?  Gerard, writing in 1597, apparently did not know the name but Thomas Johnson in 1633 did.

A quote from Wiki: "The common name snowdrop first appeared in the 1633 edition of John Gerard's Great Herbal (in the first edition (1597) he described it as the "Timely flow'ring Bulbus violet"). The derivation of the name is uncertain, although it may have come from the German word Schneetropfen, which was a type of earring popular around that time. Other British traditional common names include "February fairmaids", "dingle-dangle", "Candlemas bells", "Mary's tapers" and, in parts of Yorkshire,"snow piercers" (like the French name perce-neige)."

[Alan_b]

And yet

"The Snowdrop, in purest white arraie,
First rears her hedde on Candlemas daie"

(which seems to be the most frequently quoted variant of the spelling - one 's' in Candlemas) is always attributed to a church calendar of English flowers c 1500, as here for example http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/Snowdrops-love-winter/story-11220439-detail/story.html

[Alan_b]

Somewhat to my disappointment, I have found a reference here from someone who had already reached the same conclusion as I did regarding authorship http://www.ecoenchantments.co.uk/mysnowdropmagicpage.html .  Is the originator of the web page a V C Sinden?  I think so but it's hard to be certain.  The material seems well-researched (despite the reference to 'magick').   

[David Nicholson]

You may know slightly different versions with more Old English spellings but I have done my best to transcribe the verse exactly as it appears in this photocopy https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=F2K4iE_VTC0C

Alan, just in the interest of clarity the term 'Old English' is usually used in historical and historically related etymological research to describe the language spoken and written by Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and Southern Scotland between roughly the mid-4th Century and the mid-12th Century. This was heavily Germanic by influence. After that and perhaps until the late 15th Century as the language developed and began to also take on French overtones it is usually referred to 'Middle English'.

[johnralphcarpenter]

So many scholars on this Forum!

[Alan_b]

Thanks, David; I clearly meant 'Middle English' from what you say.  History is one of my weak points.  English changed a lot between Chaucer and Shakespeare.  I don't think Shakespeare ever spelled head as hedde, for example, although I could be talking through my hat here.