The _Ter Tria_[3], about which your correspondent J. S. inquires, is neither a rare nor a very valuable book; and if his copy has cost him more than some three and sixpence, it is a poor investment of capital. Mine, which is of the second edition, 1669, has the following book-note:
"The worthy Faithfull Teate indulges himself in the then prevailing bad taste of _anagramising_ his name: see the result after the title. A better play upon his name is that of Jo. Chishull, who, in lashing the prophane wits of the day, and eulogising the author, has the following comical allusion thereto:
'Let all wise-hearted sav'ring things divine _Come suck this_ TEAT that yields both milk and wine, Loe depths where elephants may swim, yet here The weakest lamb of Christ wades without fear.'"
The _Ter Tria_ was originally published in 1658; its author, F. T., was the father of the better known Nahum Tate, the co-translator of the last authorised version of the Psalms,--a _Teat_ which, following the metaphor of Mr. Chishull, has nourished not a few generations of the godly, but now, like a sucked orange, thrown aside for the more juicy productions of our modern Psalmists. Old Teate (or Tate, as the junior would have it) is styled in this book, "preacher at Sudbury." He seems subsequently to have removed to Ireland, where his son Nahum, the laureat, was born.
[Footnote 3: "Ter Tria; or the Doctrine of the Three Sacred Persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. Principal Graces: Faith, Hope, and Love. Main Duties: Prayer, Hearing, and Meditation. Summarily digested for the Pleasure and Profit of the pious and ingenious Reader. By F. T. Tria sunt omnia."]
_Parvise_ seems to have been a porch, used as a school or place for disputation. The _parvise_ mentioned in the Oxford "Little-Go" (Responsions) Testamur is alluded to in Bishop Cooper's book against Private Mass (published by the Parker Society). He ridicules his opponent's arguments as worthy of "a sophister in the parvyse schools." The Serjeant-at-law, in Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, had been often at the _paruise_. In some notes on this character in a number of the _Penny Magazine_ for 1840 or 1841, it is farther remarked that the choristers of Norwich Cathedral were formerly taught in the _parvise_, _i. e._ porch. The chamber over a porch in some churches may have been the school meant. Instances of this arrangement were to be found at Doncaster Church (where it was used as a library), and at Sherborne Abbey Church. The porch here was Norman, and the chamber Third Pointed; and at the restoration lately effected the pitch of the roof was raised, and the chamber removed.