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CONTENTS.- No. 132. a very honest man.... who, among other excellent stationery commodities, is particularly eminent for his pens, which I am abundantly bound to acknowledge, as I owe to their peculiar goodness that my manuscripts have by any means been NOTES: "Over against Catherine Street in the Strand," legible: this gentleman, I say, furnished me 321-Among the Shakespeare Archives, 322-Notes on some time since with a bundle of these pens Dorothy Osborne's Letters. 324-English Army List of 1740-Extracts from the Aldeburgh Records, 327-Sir wrapt up....in a very large sheet of paper full Philip Sidney's Personal Appearance" Decimate "of characters, written in a very bad hand. Now Highest Ground in City, 329-Hun," 330. I have a surprising curiosity to read everything QUERIES:-Steepest Macadamised Road in Europe- which is almost illegible; partly from the sweet Bottle Tickets or Wine Labels -Gainsborough's Picture remembrance of the dear Scrawls which I have of The Mall-Chartularies-Surname Puttick, 330-in my youth received from that lovely part of Longevity in Læsse-American War, 1776-Preparatory the creation for which I have the tenderest regard; Schools in the Eighteenth Century-A Poem of Shelley and partly....' Dixons of Beeston-Hoather-The Maker of an Old Communion Paten-Spencer-Earl of Banbury: Win- In 1743, therefore, there were two persons Notes. 66 : In 1697 when Tonson moved to Gray's Inn Gate he adopted the Shakespeare's Head under which he became famous. After 1712 he took a shop in the Strand, opposite Catherine Street, but without altering his sign, and there he died in 1736." At p. 63, Larwood makes the further "Andrew Millar, the great publisher, took the Buchanan Head for the sign of his shop in the Strand, opposite St. Catherine Street, the house where the famous Jacob Tonson had lived in whose time it was the Shakespeare's Head. But Millar preferred his countryman and put up the 36 "OVER AGAINST CATHERINE STREET less known head of George Buchanan (1525–1582), IN THE STRAND." FIELDING'S 'Joseph Andrews' of 1742 was printed, so the title-page runs, "for A. Millar over against St. Clement's Church in the Strand." In the following year Fielding's Miscellanies. were put forth; these were printed for the Author and sold by A. Millar opposite to Catherine Street in the Strand. Clearly Andrew Millar, the bookseller who published the works of James Thomson, of Fielding and of Hume had changed premises in the meantime. The Miscellanies' contained the celebrated allegorical Journey from this World to the Next,' and in discussing its source Fielding humorously remarks: "Whether the ensuing pages were really the vision of some very pious person....or....as infinitely the greatest part imagine, they were the production of some choice inhabitant of New Bethlehem....it will be sufficient if I give an account by what means they came into my possession. Mr. Robert Powney, stationer, who the author of a version of the Psalms, and tutor to Queen Mary Stuart." Mr. Austin Dobson in an article on in The Fielding and Andrew Millar' 66 Sarah Fielding's novel of David Simple came out in 1744, by which date Millar had apparently moved from his first shop near St. Clement's Church to a new one opposite Katharine Street in the Strand. Whether this was the Shakespeare's Head once occupied by the elder Tonson is not clear, as according to Nichols [Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century,' 1812, i. 297] the former shop of Tonson the first was still tenanted by Tonson the third." There being a well-founded doubt of topographical interest to students of the Georgian era, an examination of the contemporary Rate-books has been made with a view to confirming, or disproving, Larwood's very definite statements. A ledger marked St. Mary Le Strand Collecting Book for the Poor Rate for the year 1736 and of the Strand (south side) Jacob Tonson shows that at the corner of Dutchy Lane paid 21. rate. He also tenanted a house of 201. rent in Dutchy Lane at the back of his Strand-facing house. was scarcely justified, when speaking of the year 1736 (p. 40), in saying :— "Jacob Tonson the second died in 1735, Jacob In Rocque's 'Survey' of 1745 Dutchy Tonson the first died in 1736. His great-nephew Lane is the second turning southwards west the third Jacob, carried on the business in Cathe of Somerset House; the first, which im-rine Street, Strand, but the magic of the name he bore was gone." mediately faced Catherine Street, led to the Somerset water-gate. Consequently, Tonson's house was not strictly opposite Catherine Street. The same Rate-book further shows that the eighth house eastwards from Tonson's was occupied by Robert Powney for which he paid 17. 16s. 8d. rate, he being assessed at 551. This locates Powney's stationery business as facing Catherine Street or possibly a little more eastwards between the watergate passage and Somerset House. Similar entries are repeated till 1742 in which year there occur important alterations in the list of occupants. Tonson's two houses are empty, and Millar's name appears for the first time, not as successor to Tonson, but as lessee of a house rented at 607. midway between Powney and Tonson, there being three houses eastward from Millar to Powney, and three houses westward from Millar to Tonson's empty house. It is noteworthy moreover that the Rate-book for 1742 was signed, in addition to the Rector and Churchwardens, by Robert Powney as representative of the inhabitants. Powney's signature is that of a well-educated man, the letters are better formed, bolder and blacker than those of the other signatories, leaving an impression on the mind that he affixed his name at his own dwelling, using for the purpose his own superfine ink and one of those excellent pens that earned the heartfelt gratitude of a great writer. Powney's was the first but not the last house of business in the Strand that Fielding immortalized. In the ledger for 1743 Tonson's name re-appears, but on the opposite or north side of the Strand: he had taken premises rented at 1201., with rates at 41. situate probably between Catherine Street and Exeter Exchange. The Rate-books afford no evidence respecting the signs displayed by the occupants. Whether the advent of a pushing Scotchman and the rapidly rising reputation of Dodsley in Pall Mall impelled Tonson "the third" to make himself more prominent in the public eye is matter for surmise, but this new evidence of leasing a more expensive house suggests that Mr. Straus in his 'D.N.B.' in the article on 'Andrew Millar' perpetuates Larwood's mistake, but the late Mr. G. A. Aitken in the article on Tonson,' though giving no date, was well aware that the owners of the Shakespeare's Head had removed from the south side to the north side of the Strand. It appears curious that occupants of shops at this point of the Strand emphasized their proximity to Catherine Street, thoroughfare of no particular note in itself, and now fore-shortened in the laying out of segmental-shaped Aldwych. It might be "situated a few doors from opined that Somerset House " were a more arresting direction. But at the material dates Somer set House was an old building and privately owned, and not Chambers's classic structure where business is transacted which affects every person throughout the land. Moreover, a large proportion of those who sought diversion at Drury Lane Theatre and at Covent Garden Theatre and coffee-houses perforce passed through Catherine Street. That the dry bones of the Rate-books may be galvanized into life permit me to quote the words of Mr. Grosley who wrote of the London of 1765. The shops in the Strand AMONG THE SHAKESPEARE (See ante, p. 301.) DOCTOR BENTLEY OF NEW PLACE. IN the last years of King Henry VIII. and the first of King Edward VI. a gentleman of distinction resided in Shakespeare's future home in Stratford. Doctor Thomas Bentley Probate by his widow followed Richard Bentley, a yeoman of Stratford redemption of one and all mankind," and whose turbulent opposition at the election therefore not by the prayers of men or of the Bailiff in 1505 called for the inter-angels or the Virgin Mary. He willed that vention of the Warden of the College, Doctor his body should be buried within the Parish Rafe Collingwood. Possibly he was his son, Church. His will was signed on Jan. 26, and the associations and friendships of his 1549, and witnessed by Stratford men, his youth may have brought him back after neighbours: John Jeffreys of Sheep Street, strenuous years as a college don and a Court and Thomas Dickson alias Waterman of physician to his pleasant native town. He Bridge Street, Laurence Baynton of High was educated at Oxford, at New or Uni-Street, mercer, and William Minsky, a versity College. He filled the office of draper. Proctor in 1507, graduated in medicine, as on Mar. 4, 1550. Squire Clopton did not well as in arts, taking his M.B. in 1516 and find either the Doctor or his widow an his M.D. in 1519, and became Doctor of amenable tenant. Neither kept the house Physic to the King and President of the in repair or obeyed the orders of the manorial College of Physicians. Retiring to Stratford court, or paid the rent at the times agreed he took a lease of New Place from Squire upon. So at any rate Clopton alleged, who Clopton on Nov. 20, 1543, for forty years declared that at Bentley's death New Place at a rent of 101. per annum with land at was "in great ruin and decay.' Later Ryon Clifford and Ingon for his cattle and Widow Bentley married Master Richard horses. The ancestral occupation of yeo- Charnock of Welcombe, and so forfeited manry and his collection of silver plate her right to the house. Clopton made (which probably owed something at least forcible entry but failed to evict the to his wealthy patients at Court) seem to lady and her husband. Having lost the have given him pleasure in his old age. lease she put in a suit in Chancery about He possessed no less than three cups with the year 1552. Charnock was in possession covers, ten pots with covers, one pot without of New Place before Apr. 29, 1552, when he cover, two salts with covers, a nest of was fined for not keeping clean his part of goblets with covers "besides spoons. He the stream in Walkers Street, otherwise had a wife, Anne, two daughters, Anne and Chapel Lane; and he had not vacated the Dorothy, and one son, William. In or house, apparently, until shortly before about 1547 he exchanged his lease for Apr. 23, 1558, when Richard Symons by a another which was for the lives of himself slip of the pen entered his name for the and his wife in widowhood. He owned the like offence in the Minutes of the Court lease of a house in Oxford called George Leet and then erased it. Hall." This house was let to Herman Evans, the University stationarius or virgifer. Among his bequests was one to William Clarke, whom I have brought up of charity, John Shakespeare would serve his seven of two heifers, to be delivered unto the said years of apprenticeship, and having become William at such time as he should fortune a householder would set up for himself, To one daughter he left a paying 68. 8d. for his "freedom cow, to the other a cow and a calf, and to Mystery, Craft or Occupation of the Glovers, both silver plate. To his son he left silver Whittawers and Collarmakers, of which it plate. The residue of his estate including was necessary to become a member. all his jewels he bequeathed to his well- times a year, also, he paid his 2d. " quarbeloved wife to distribute as she should teridge. The brotherhood met in their think necessary to the pleasure of God, and Hall, on dates arranged, for the consideration for the wealth of his soul and all Christian of matters affecting their "commodity on souls. His wife was executor, and the summons of their beadle or reeve. supervisors were his friends Thomas Blount Absence involved a fine of 12d., and refusal and Robert Wyncock. The former may to attend of 6s. 8d. have been Thomas Blount of Kidderminster, in the name of the Master and Warden, to be married. a kinsman of the Dudleys and " a favourer of True Religion," that is, a Protestant. Doctor Bentley committed his soul to Almighty God, only trusting and firmly believing to be saved by the Faith that the JOHN SHAKESPEARE, GLOVER, 1552-3. to the Four Summons was issued who were elected annually on the first Wednesday after Michaelmas when the yearly Accounts were presented. Half the fees and fines went to the Borough Council, by whom the rules and proceedings of the |