250 Replies. HAMMERSMITH TERRACE. 66 It was a cold winter night, and I remember 39, Agate Road, Hammersmith, W. many SOME account of Hammersmith Terrace and its associations is given in Thomas Faulkner's 'History and Antiquities of the Parish of Hammersmith,' 1839, pp. "pleasant row 342-50. Faulkner of houses?? was says, "about the year 1770." With built, his customary vagueness, he states that Arthur Murphy, dramatist, years in the last house of this terrace.22 resided Philip James De Loutherbourg, artist, resided at No. 13, died here on 11 March, 1812, and was buried in Chiswick Churchyard, where his tomb, with an effusive inscription, may be seen. At the Hammersmith Public Library I am told that there is reason to believe that De Loutherbourg lived at Nos. 7 and 8, and that his widow afterwards lived at No. 13 in the Terrace. there is a curious 12-page 4to pamphlet with In this library the following title-page : "" "A List of a Few Cures performed by Mr. and Mrs. De Loutherbourg, of Hammersmith Terrace, without medicine. By God, M.P.....At the Mary-la-bonne Printing a Lover of the Lamb of Office, No. 108, Great Titchfield Street, Oxford Street....Price Sixpence.' The dedication, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, is signed Mary Pratt, July 21, 1789. Other forgotten notabilities who lived in Hammersmith Terrace Wintringham, Bt., Physician to his Majesty were Sir Clifton and Physician to the Army, who died 10 Jan., 1794; and Mrs. Mountain, a songstress," who retired in 1815. charming 66 The barges mentioned by the querist are still moored underneath the backs of the houses, and give the place a quaint oldworld look. Writing of these reminds me of a fire which occurred at a timber-wharf on the riverside, adjoining the west end of the Terrace, about twenty-two years ago. Awakened by a red glare in the sky shortly after midnight, I got up and went out to see where the fire was. the burning timber-yard were blocked by The roadways around the police and firemen, so that I could not approach nearer than the other (eastern) end of the Terrace. down to the water-side, and with two other Here some steps lead young men I engaged a boat and rowed out to the middle of the river, where we had a magnificent and unimpeded view of the blaze. We approached as close as the heat would allow us, sheltering our faces with our hats. 6 6 New Picture of London.' have resided at Hammersmith are named. 1823, p. 442, a few of the celebrities who Probably the best account will be found in Faulkner's History and Antiquities of the torical and Topographical Account of FulParish of Hammersmith,' 1839, 8vo. ham: including the Hamlet of Hammersame author has an earlier work, 'An HisThe smith,' London, 1813, royal 8vo. W. SCOTT. See James Thorne's Environs of London,' 1876, p. 277. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL. ALFRED AND THE CAKES (11 S. i. 129, 211). that this cruel falsehood should be exposed. -There is more to be said. The story appears only in the interpolaIt is high time tion in Asser's Life of Alfred,' as taken from the highly embellished Latin version of the know the date of the MS. Life of St. Neot.' It would be desirable to 6 ventor of it expects us to believe that the That it is false is palpable; for the inLatin! Obviously he gives himself away, neatherd's wife, in chiding the king, did so and confesses that he has "improved by employing two hexameter lines in monkish the story. in an older and more reliable form-in a Moreover, the king displays his arms, yet no one knows who he is! form that by its straightforwardness and It so happens that we possess the story version of the older (probably the much simplicity gains assent at once. older) English Life of the same saint, extant 'Life of St. Neot' is merely a monkish The Latin in Anglo-Saxon in MS. Cotton, Vespasian D. xiv, and faithfully edited by the Rev. The original is at p. 16, but I quote from T. O. Cockayne in The Shrine,' pp. 12-22. Mr. Cockayne's translation : house, and also willingly obeyed him and his ill to Athelney and asked for shelter in a swain's "By God's direction he [the king] came safe wife. warming himself at the fire; the people of the It happened one day that the swain's the ill wife suddenly astirred, and said to the king wife heated her oven, and the king sat thereby with angry mind, Do thou turn the loaves house not knowing that he was king. Then was that they burn not, since daily I see that thou art a mickle eater.' He was immediately obedient to the evil woman, since needs he must. There is no more of this beautiful and obviously truthful story. The housewife was evidently an habitual grumbler, and somewhat out of temper; yet all that she reproached him with was his great appetite! Observe the simplicity of the remark: "He was immediately obedient." Of course How any Englishman can believe that Alfred, of all men, was faithless to his trust, is absolutely amazing. It is like accusing the Great Duke of cowardice, or Nelson of shirking a responsibility. Is there no hope that this libel may be at last withdrawn? Let some of us honour the great king's submissive fidelity. he was. WALTER W. SKEAT. CATALOGUES OF MSS. (11 S. i. 204).-I am the humble owner of some valuable MSS., and have always been rejoiced to have them examined by competent researchers, whether friends of mine own, or no. Yet I am certainly not going to have them entered in any catalogue pro usu publico. The reason is this. Your correspondent suggests that I "could easily send a polite refusal." So I could; so I have once or twice done. What has been the result? The applicant, whom I judged, on his own showing, to be a mere curious incompetent, has written me down, in some paper to which he had access, as a churlish reserver of things of public interest, evidently considering the interest of intelligent persons and "the property of the mob" to be synonymous expressions. 66 22 Lest, after the above, I should be deemed to be a hardshell Conservative, let me say that I am a rather extreme advocate of popular rights. Among these, I do not reckon any right to publish, for pay, an account of papers in private custody. V.H.I.L.I.C.I.V. As regards Nottinghamshire, the clergy were recently circularized; but the result was not very satisfactory, and the movement has made but slight progress here. I can answer best in regard to the capital, having undertaken and recently completed the work myself, so far as the area of the old borough of Nottingham is concerned. Generally, these graveyard transcripts when they relate to persons coming from a are of little more than local interest, except distance. Where such evidence occurs, I think it should be made public. I hope to publish a book on the old Nottingham graveyards and their inscriptions some time during the present year. A. STAPLETON. 39, Burford Road, Nottingham. Who, born for the Universe, narrow'd his mind, M. GAIDOZ calls England "the country in [Several other correspondents thanked for replies.] MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTIONS (11 S. i. 205). -MR. W. B. GERISH'S communication relating to the wonderful progress made in ST. ANNE'S, ALDERSGATE: ECCLESIASthe work of transcribing Hertfordshire TICAL RECORDS AT SOMERSET HOUSE (11 graveyard inscriptions should prove more than welcome to persons interested in families of that county. So far as my experience goes, down to very recent years the outdoor monumental inscriptions of any and every district have been virtually a sealed book to all but residents. Indeed, in the absence of transcripts, even residents rarely care to undergo the trouble of searching for and deciphering originals. S. i. 187). The procedure would be formally to petition the President of the Probate Division, asking him to have a Class List or Inventory prepared of such records and documents as are non-testamentary, showing what bundles, volumes, &c., exist, the precise nature of the documents in each (in general terms), and the period covered by each. such an Inventory is to be found amongst the old Record Reports, a copy should If be made and annexed to a formal petition to the President, signed by literary men of standing, that reasonable access should be granted. I have not the slightest doubt that such a petition would be successful. That records from the year 1475, kept at the public expense, should never be open to public inspection, can be due to nothing but unconscious inadvertence. GEORGE SHERWOOD. CAXTON AND EDWARD IV. (11 S. i. 209).The picture which MR. PEET seeks is 'Caxton showing the First Specimen of his Printing to King Edward IV. at the Almonry, Westminster,' by D. Maclise, exhibited at the Royal Academy of 1851, No. 67, and engraved by Fred. Bromley. See W. Blades, Books in Chains, and other Bibliographical Essays,' 1892 (Book-Lover's Library), pp. 212-21. The picture was the property of Mr. J. Forster, who lent it to the Great Exhibition held in London in 1862, No. 413presumably Dickens's John Forster; but it was not included in the Forster Bequest to the South Kensington Museum, where, however, there is a pencil sketch by Maclise of Caxton's Printing Press.' Bromley's engraving is not scarce, and has been reproduced on a small scale in recent years in one of the printing-trade journals. W. ROBERTS. 66 On the 23rd of the same month Humphrey Prideaux writes to his friend John Ellis with reference to the very same election in the University of Oxford mentioned in the letter cited by MR. ROBBINS : Williamson first stood, but found such opposition that he was forced to desist " (p. 66 in the Cam. Soc. edition of Prideaux's letters to Ellis). The editor, Sir E. M. Thompson, quotes from Wood's 'Life,' p. lxxxiii, a passage under 19 Feb., 1679, in which the following words occur: "Dr. Eadisbury, of Brazennose, who audaciously, and with too much conceit of his own worth, stood against the said Mr. Finch," &c. In a letter of Thomas Povey to Pepys, dated 31 Aug., 1672, we have "Cook, a youth of the principal estate in Norfolk, stands at Lyn." 22 But "stand" in the sense of to be a candidate is found far earlier.* See, e.g., Cooper's 'Thesaurus Linguæ Romanæ et Britannicæ,' where, s.v. Peto, honores petere is rendered by "To stande for offices," and Ambio by sue or stand for an offyce (quoted from ed. of 1573). How much further back can this usage be traced? EDWARD BENSLY. 22 'ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN: THE COMMANDMENTS (11 S. i. 185).-I think we ought to make quite sure before we amend fourth commandment to fifth comm ndment " in chap. x. How did such a variation arise at all? 22 It may have been intentional, as the speaker was a Swiss of the fifteenth century, when it was usual to number the Commandments differently from now. In chap. ix. Sir Walter quotes Chau er, and had surely read The Pardoner's Tale,' where that great poet explains to 66 us that the seconde heste" is this: "Tak nat my name in ydel or amis." See my note on The Cant. Tales,' C 641. I wonder when the commandments were first numbered as they are now. 6 WALTER W. SKEAT. 66 66 In In Surely MR. BAYNE is a little hypercritical I remember, too, seeing in Derby some casks in assuming that there is a misprint of fourth and boxes warehoused in this manner for fifth commandment in his quotation. in the bottom floor of a building. The Roman branch of the Church makes the stang-riding "the effigy was carried in first two into one, thus putting each number this manner, tied on a stang or stave. a place forward, but, keeping the total to ten, fact, amongst Derbyshire folk the name divides the last into two. M. L. of a pole of this kind was a stang." In the villages where the spring or well was some distance from the houses-often the casethe children went for pails of water, bringing it home on a stang put through the handle of the pail. THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop. 2 6 'A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE PUBLICK BUILDINGS, &C., IN LONDON, 1734 (11 S. i. 189). A second edition of this work was published in 1736. Anderson, British Topography,' 1881, gives the title thus: 'A new critical review of the public buildings, statues, and ornaments, in and about London and Westminster,' second edition, London, 1736, 12mo. He does not supply the name of the publisher. Lowndes also mentions the 1736 edition as having been sold at the Nassau sale for 78. The publishers of the second edition were possibly the same as those of the first. Lowndes unhesitatingly attributes the authorship of the book to "James Ralph," and terms it "a satirical piece." Presumably, this second edition is the one to which MR. ABRAHAMS refers. W. SCOTT. STAVE PORTERS (11 S. i. 10).-I think the origin of this sign must be in accordance with the editorial note, and for this reason. Among the Beaufoy tokens there is one which Mr. Burn describes-erroneously, I think-as the Two Drovers; but there is nothing to indicate with certainty that this is so, for the token bears a representation of two men with staves. These are evidently the cowl-staves, or stangs, used to carry burdens, supported on the shoulders of two bearers, and seen in the sign of "The Two Brewers," "The Two Draymen," &c., who are represented thus carrying a cowl, which is a tub or barrel used for conveying water or beer. Thus also the sign of "The Bunch of Grapes is represented by two cowl-staff porters bearing an enormous bunch of grapes between them; and we may even go back as far as the days of Pompeii (A.D. 70) for an instance in which two slaves are bearing a wine-amphora between them, suspended from such a staff. This was the sign of a wine merchant. J. HOLDEN MACMICHAEL. Two men carrying a load too heavy for one, slung on a stave or pole between them from shoulder to shoulder, would virtually be "stave porters." When a lad I saw blocks of stone carried in this way, by means of a short, but stout pole thrust through or under a chain passed round the block. THE CRADLE OF HENRY OF MONMOUTH (11 S. i. 183).— "Aug. 8. Sunday. Saw at the Vicar's, Mr Ball, Henry the 5th cradle, made of wood." This is an extract from the diary of the Hon. William Hervey in 1779, and removes all doubt as to the vicar. The diarist had served in North America under General Gage, and at this time was visiting him at High Meadow in Newland. S. H. A. H. DEW-PONDS (10 S. xi. 428, 474; xii. 17).— The Geographical Journal, August, 1909, pp. 174-95, contains a paper entitled Some Observations on Dew-Ponds,' by Mr. Edward A. Martin, F.G.S., read before the Royal Geographical Society on 22 April, 1909, with diagrams and discussion on the paper. FREDK. A. EDWARDS. 66 CAPT. BROOKE AND SIR JAMES BROOKE (11 S. i. 130, 213).-I heartily thank MR. J. N. DOWLING for his reply to my query. I was hoping that Capt. Brooke -greatgrandfather of the Rajah-would prove to be the son (Capt. Arthur Brooke) of Henry (Fool of Quality') Brooke, or a kinsman, because Henry Brooke and his brother, and Henry's nephew Robert, and others of that clan were all men of temperament like the Rajahs-honourable, daring, truthful, romantic, and careless of money; but they had not Malaya to civilize. It would have been nice to think they were related, but it is not possible, for it is not true. 79, Coleman Street, E.C. thing in a story regarding an admirer of Dr. Chalmers's pulpit oratory. This enthusiast, he said, once in his own hearing described a great occasion in the sentence, It was fell preachin', thon! THOMAS BAYNE. 66 WM. MUIR. ALONZO THE BRAVE' (11 S. i. 167, 215).— My authority for stating (ante, p. 115) that Sam Cowell wrote the words of Alonzo the Brave,' i.e., the well-known comic song, and not the "lugubrious ballad "-is a book entitled 120 Comic Songs Sung by Sam Cowell, published years ago by H. D'Alcorn, 25, Poland Street, W. Under the heading 'Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogine in this book is printed: The words by Sam Cowell; the Music arranged by J. Harroway, R.A." 66 WILLOUGHBY MAYCOCK "YON: ITS USE BY SCOTSMEN (11 S. i. 22 22 When I was young, and in the Midlands, “ yon was accounted inadmissible to talk polite; but it was allowed to pass unchallenged in some verses my grandmother used to repeat in a way which impressed me then, and impresses me still. They started with As Miss and Master went to town, They met a poor lad coming down, All rags and tatters, pale and wan. Miss saw first him, and thus began: Look, brother, look at yon poor lad !" 'Wan 22 and began 22 rimed just as they would do in The Earthly Paradise.' 66 43, 131).—It is distressing to learn from my courteous critic T. F. D. that there are people in Glasgow who say was yon 22 when they might be expected to use this 22 or that." 66 But for the assurance that the statement rests on personal knowledge, one would be 22 I regret the ambiguity that undoubtedly my allusion to "thon." obsolete or " would have been characterizes "Archaic 22 66 yon, better than " earlier," as the distinguish between purpose was to 66 thon 22 and 66 and not to imply that the one is a different form of the other. The recognition of "thon " as a distinct term prompted the remark that it "sometimes had little more force than that of the definite article." It may, however, interest PROF. SKEAT to know that the two words (probably owing to local peculiarities of pronunciation) are used in some parts of Scotland as identical. version of the legend about Baird and the In one Pyramids the ironmaster's scornful query appears in the form, Whatna fule sank his money in thon? 22 Again, the A. K. H. B., author of the Recreations of a late Country Parson,' used to illustrate the same 66 I think "yon" was frequently applied to something more or less remote from the speaker: a near object which was not "this" have been more strictly observed in earlier Perhaps the distinction may times. One other living language has a limitation to correspond. In Spanish aquel refers to what is distant from two interlocutors, ese to what is nearer to the one who listens than it is to him who talks. ST. SWITHIN. MAKING ONE'S PARISH (11 S. i. 206).VI., and Elizabeth, persons unable or unBy certain statutes of Henry VII. Edward willing to work were compellable to remain, for the purposes of relief, in the parish where they had settled. An Act of Charles II. fixed the period in which a man acquired ** a This forty days ran from the time when settlement" by residence as forty days. notice of the new abode was given to the parish officers; but notice was dispensed with in the case of apprenticeship, where the will explain the old woman's statement residence was more or less notorious. This to mean that John was in need of relief, and, to get it, had to go back to his parish of settlement. R. S. B. has any means of access to The Illustrated HANDLEY CROSS (11 S. i. 208).-If P. D. M. Sporting and Dramatic News of 20 Nov., 1886, he will find, under the signature of interesting article, not only with regard "The Mouse in the Corner," a long and to the genesis of Handley Cross,' but also John Jorrocks, the hero of that delightful as to the original prototype of the immortal sporting novel. The writer adduces some |