So also Wordsworth, in addressing the clouds, exclaims, in a noble apostrophe O ye lightnings, Ye are their perilous offspring. And again: Utter your devotion with thund'rous voices.?' And in his homely poem of The Waggoner' he is still true to nature. Benjamin and his team are overtaken by a storm at night among the mountains. It is so dark that he and his horses are perplexed: Astounded in the mountain gap, A rending o'er his head begins the fray again. Lastly, Byron, in the third canto of 'Childe Harold,' describes a thunderstorm in Switzerland, which occurred at midnight on June 13, 1816. He notices the awful stillness which precedes it:All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep, But breathless, until From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud! The description is too long to quote, and, indeed, too well known; but Sir Walter Scott's criticism on it may not be so well known. He says: "This is one of the most beautiful passages of the poem. The 'fierce and far delight' of a thunderstorm is here described in verse almost as vivid as its lightnings. The live thunder 'leaping among the rattling crags,' the voice of mountains, as if shouting to each other-the plashing of the big rain-the gleaming of the wide lake, lighted like a phosphoric sea-present a picture of sublime terror, yet of enjoyment, often attempted, but never so well, certainly never better, brought out in poetry." In conclusion, I would express an opinion that if any other grand natural phenomenon were examined by the light of its poetical expression, the best poetry would conform to the best science. When the poet Campbell, addressing the rainbow, said, I ask not proud Philosophy To teach me what thou art, did he suppose that a knowledge of Sir Isaac Newton's account of that beautiful phenomenon would cool his poetic zeal? Apparently he did, for he goes on to say :— When Science from Creation's face Nevertheless, a little science would have saved him from the absurdity of seeing the rainbow Mirror'd in the ocean vast A thousand fathoms down. The works of Tennyson and Browning bear testimony to the assiduity with which these two great poets cultivated a varied knowledge; and, to go further back, we are reminded of the answer given by Petrarch to one who asked him what he ought to know in order to become a poet. The reply was, "Everything!" and he might have cited his own example in learning all that he could, as well as that of the great author of the 'Divine Comedy,' who embodied in his works literally all the intellectual knowledge of his time. C. TOMLINSON, F.R.S. Highgate, N. TOM LEGGE. In the preface of Mr. G. A. Sala's gossipy 'Twice Round the Clock' the following passage honestly explains how the title of his book came to that versatile author's fancy :— "It would be a sorry piece of vanity on my part to imagine that the conception of the history of a day and night in London is original. I will tell you how I came to think of the scheme of 'Twice Round the Clock.' Four years ago (1855), in Paris, my then master in literature, Mr. Charles Dickens, lent me a little thin octavo volume, which, I believe, had been presented to him by another master of the craft, Mr. Thackeray, entitled-but I will transcribe the title-page in full: 'Low Life; or, one half the world knows not how the other half live. Being a critical account of what is Transacted by People of almost all Religions, Nations, Circumstances, and Sizes of Understanding, in the Twenty-Four Hours, between Saturday Night and Monday Morning. In a true Description of a Sunday, as it is usually spent within the Bills of Mortality, calculated for the twentyWith an address to the ingenious and first of June. ingenuous Mr. Hogarth. "Let Fancy guess the rest."Buckingham.' The date of publication is not given; but internal evidence proves the opuscule to have been written during the latter part of the reign of George the Second; and in the copy I now possess, and which I bought at a 'rarity' price, at a sale where it was ignorantly labelled among the facetic-it is the saddest book, perhaps, that ever was written-in my copy, which is bound up among some rascally pamphlets, there is written on the fly-leaf the date 1759. Just one hundred years ago, you see. The work is anonymous; but in a manuscript table of contents to the collection of miscellanies of which it forms part, I find written By the author, and is to be sold by T. Legg, at the Parrot, Tom Legge.' The epigraph says that it is printed for Green Arbour Court, in the Little Old Bailey.' Was the authorship mere guess-work on the part of the owner of the book, or was Tom Legge' really the writer of 'Low Life,' and, if so, who was Tom Legge'? Mr. Peter Cunningham, or a contributor to Notes and Queries, may be able to inform us." What I want to know is, whether any contributor to N. & Q.' has ever answered the double query; and, if not, can any one do so now? I rather fancy that if the veteran G. A. S. was unable to solve the mystery, that must be a Thoms secundus who could succeed where he failed. However, the solution is worth attempting, and may possibly now be compassed by some such Thoms secundus in 'N. & Q.' Mr. Sala hints at the authorship of the little volume thus :— "There are passages in it irresistibly reminding one of Goldsmith; but the offensive and gratuitous coarseness in the next page destroys that theory. Our Oliver was pure. But for the dedicatory epistle to the great painter prefixed, and which is merely a screed of fulsome flattery, I could take an affidavit that Low Life' was written by William Hogarth. And why not, granting even the fulsome dedication? Hogarth could have more easily written this calendar of Town Life than the Analysis of Beauty'; and the sturdy grandiloquent little painter was vain enough to have employed some hack to write the prefatory epistle, if, in a work of satire, he had chosen to assume the anonymous. Perhaps, after all, the book was written by some clever, observant, deboshed man out of Grub Street, who had been wallowing in the weary London trough for years, and had eliminated at last some pearls which the other swine were too piggish to discern." G. A. S. concludes his racy preface with the observation that "if in the year 1959, some historian of the state of manners in England during the reign of Queen Victoria, points an allusion in a foot-note by a reference to an old book called 'Twice Round the Clock,'......that reference will be quite enough of reward for your friend. Macaulay quotes broadsides and Grub Street ballads. Carlyle does not disdain to put the obscurest of North German pamphleteers into the witness-box; albeit he often dismisses him with a cuff and a kick. At all events, we may be quoted some of these days, dear Gus, even if we are kicked into the bargain." Should this note come under the eyes of the genial G. A. S. he will see he has been referred to and quoted before 1959, and-not "kicked." J. B. S. ORIGIN OF THE DOUBLE F AS AN INITIAL. (See 8th S. ii. 456.)-This subject having been mooted in 'N. & Q.,' I am glad to have an opportunity of saying a few words, as the genesis of the initial f was not mentioned in my History of the Alphabet,' nor, so far as I am aware, has it been explained in any palæographical work. It is not correct to say, as at the above reference, that "the capital F is a combination of two small f's, the curl in the middle being the remnant of the second f." Our capital F is, like our other capitals, a return to the Roman lapidary form, which was used in MSS. written in what are technically called "square capitals." At the same time, it is perfectly true that in the "set Chancery hand" of the fourteenth century a capital F takes the form ff, which appears to consist of two small 's; but if we trace this form backwards for some two hundred years, it will be found that what appears to be the second small ƒ is in reality merely a prolongation of the vertical tick at the extremity of the upper horizontal bar of the capital F. In the twelfth century a fashion arose of prolonging this tick downwards till it became as long, or nearly as long, as the vertical stem of F, thus giving a form somewhat resembling a capital H with a cross-bar at the top. It is this elongated tick which has been mistaken for a second f. People who spell their names with f are merely using an obsolete law hand. Mr. Jones might just as reasonably spell his name Iones. From the "set Chancery" hand came the later "court hands," in some of which, as well as middle of F," which may be considered as the survival of a fragment of the downward tick at the end of the upper bar of F, which got attached to the end of the middle bar; but, as our printing types have not descended from the law hands, the tick at the end of the middle bar of our capital F is, in fact, the tick of the Roman "square capital." GARNETT HAWTREY. (See 8th S. ii. 414.)-in some copy-book hands, there is "a curl in the The statement appearing in the Admission Register of St. Paul's School, that John Garnett (admitted June 24, 1763, aged nine) was the son of a cook in Fetter Lane, London, clearly stands in need of correction in respect of the said scholar's parentage and age (Gardiner's Admission Registers of St. Paul's School,' 1884, p. 128). It may be noted that the father of John Garnett, admitted sizar of Trinity College, Cambridge, January 28, 1775, æt. 24, B.A. 1779, M. A. 1782, D.D. 1810, Dean of Exeter from 1810 to the date of his death in 1813, was John Garnett, D.D. (1709-1782), Bishop of Clogher, of whom a brief account is furnished in Dict. Nat. Biog.,' vol. xxi. p. 5. The Rev. John Hawtrey was the son of the Rev. Charles Hawtrey (died 1770), of King's College, Cambridge, B. A. 1710, M.A. 1714, instituted to the rectory of Wootton Courtney, Somerset, February 26, 1729, Rector of Dunton, Essex, Chaplain to Dr. Weston, Bishop of Exeter, Rector of Heavitree, Devon, and sub-Dean of Exeter, by a daughter of Richard Sleech, D.D., Fellow and Assistant Master of Eton College, and Rector of Hitcham, Bucks. 17, Hilldrop Crescent, N. DANIEL HIPWELL. ISAAC TAYLOR. "GUY FAWKES, GUY!"-As we are informed by the press that the old-fashioned celebration of the 5th of November is flickering out, even in old-fashioned Lewes, which was foremost in its anti-Papal enthusiasm, it would seem desirable to place on record, for the benefit of future Brands and Hones, any ditties sung by the grimy celebrants of the doom of the miserable Guido. That there were many such versicles chanted hoarsely round the land is certain; and now seems the time, if, indeed, it be not too late, to rescue these staves from the oblivion of, Il rauco suono del Tartarea tromba. Norwich. JARNDYCE.-A diligent search through the indices to 'N. & Q.' fails to discover any reference to the name of Jarndyce. It is currently believed that Charles Dickens took his idea of 'Bleak House' from a deserted mansion at Acton, in Suffolk, the former residence of an eccentric miser named Jennens, who died intestate in 1798, when his vast estate "fell into Chancery," and has originated several law suits. This gentleman, William Jennens, however, did make an inadequate testament, constituting his wife (who, however, predeceased him) life tenant of all his estates; but he appointed no executors, no reversionary heir to his wife's life interest, nor did he dispose of one farthing of his vast personalty. This virtual intestacy was solved by two of his oldest surviving relatives, called "cousins german once removed," and next of kin, who administered; he had no child, nephew, niece, brother, sister, uncle, or aunt surviving, having, at the great age of ninety-seven, outlived all immediate relatives. His property was thus divided or appropriated strictly according to statute; the heir-at-law was found to be the first Earl Howe, great-great-grandson of Charles Jennens, of Gopsal, eldest uncle of the deceased, who thus took the real estate. The personalty was divided among the descendants of Lady Fisher and Mrs. Hanmer, two aunts of the deceased. It is said that this cause, last disposed of on March 5, 1878, is about to be revived; hence this note. A. HALL. TRANSLATORS=COBBLERS. Some years ago, "translator was a cant name for one who "translated" two or more old shoes into one new. In this connexion it is curious to find Mercurius Pragmaticus' (No. 27, March 14-21, 1647/8) saying: "These [the General Assembly] are the vile Cobblers of Controversy, the dull a-la-mode Reformers, or Translators of Antiquity, that have pull'd the Church all to peeces, and know not how to patch it up againe." Mr. Parker's 'History of Wycombe' that this weighing business was continued up to the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act :— "After partaking of luncheon, the Mayor and Council attended at the Bar Iron Warehouse in White Hart Street, when each member of the Council was weighed, and his weight was duly recorded. Such was the order of proceedings, during the past generations, but how far back the practice thus described originated it would be difficult to determine; however we may assume that it was of remote antiquity." R. J. FYNMore. THE AGE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.-If Alexander's dates are 356-323 B.C., as stated by his biographers, then he was only thirty-three at his death. In 'Tristram and Iseult,' part iii., Matthew Arnold, with a poet's freedom of touch, gives the age as thirty-five : Prince Alexander, Philip's peerless son, Helensburgh, N.B. THOMAS BAYNE. 'SIMPLE SIMON.'-In my childhood I learnt the nursery rhyme of 'Simple Simon,' but it had been long out of my mind until a few days ago, when I was reading one of Francesco Sansovino's 'Novelle' (ix. 8), written about the middle of the sixteenth century. A gentleman, Messer Simon della Pigna, loving neither wisely nor well, is beguiled by the object of his unwelcome attentions into a sack, and there treated by the lady's husband, who has planned the affair with her, as Scapin treats Géronte in the Fourberies,' but far more vigorously as well as for a different end. Previously to this, Simon questions the lady about something which awakens suspicion in his mind, and is answered with a gross falsehood; whereupon the novelist observes: "Messer Simon, who might well be called Simpleton (Scempione), believing what the lady told him to be true, made himself easy.' ." Simon, then, has been a simpleton (scempione means a gross simpleton) for nearly 350 years, on the evidence of the above story. Why? 105, Albany Road, Camberwell, S.E. F. ADAMS. GELERT IN INDIA.-A writer in the Pioneer Mail of Allahabad (Aug. 3, 1892) gives the following analogue of the folk-story best known to us in its Welsh form of ' Beddgelert' ('Gellert's Grave'): "The Banjaras occasionally keep dogs, and it was, we believe, a Banjara dog which gave rise to the Bethgelert legend of India. The story comes from at least half a dozen different parts of India, the substance being identical though the localities differ. This is how it runs: "Once upon a time a poor man owed a large sum of money to a Baniya; and as he could pay nothing the Baniya came to seize his property, but found all that he had was a dog. Well,' said the Baniya, ' since you have until his master woke up. nothing else, I will take the dog; he will help to watch interesting to note the varied forms which this story has taken. WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Manchester. dealing with them: (1) by leaving them as they FIRST THEATRE ROYAL IN THE PROVINCES. Writes Mr. Belville S. Penley, at p. 35 of his recently published work on 'The Bath Stage': "Another and more important step taken by Palmer to defeat opposition was to petition Parliament for an Act to enable the King to grant him a patent. The only patent houses in existence at that time were Drury Lane and Covent Garden, and no new letters patent could be granted by the King without the sanction of Parliament. To the younger Palmer was entrusted the task of securing the necessary Act, which was warmly supported by the Mayor and Corporation of the city. Surmounting the many difficulties which lay in the way of his undertaking, he succeeded in getting it passed, and in 1768 his Majesty George III. granted letters patent, under which the Bath Theatre obtained the title of Theatre Royal.' This was the first Act ever passed in this country for the protection of theatrical property, and the Bath Theatre was the first Theatre Royal of the provinces." Precise and circumstantial as all this reads, the premier distinction claimed for Bath seems to me, as the Scotch say, not proven." Mr. J. C. Dibdin has already shown us, in 'The Annals of the Edinburgh Stage' (p. 147), that a company acted 'The Earl of Essex' under a royal patent at the old theatre in the Caledonian capital on December 9, 1767. This was the first legally performed play in Scotland. In all fairness, it must be conceded Mr. Penley that the first temple of Thespis north of the Tweed honoured with the title of "Theatre Royal" did not open its doors to the public until exactly two years after the date mentioned. But the fact that the Edinburgh patent was in existence so early as the year 1767-unless his data be incorrectly marshalledto my mind puts the Bath annalist out of court. The CHURCH BRASSES.-I have read with much interest the remarks by Mr. T. W. King, Rouge Dragon, in the part of the Essex Archæological Transactions just issued. He very properly objects to the wholesale destruction of brasses in churches which has taken place in recent years, and he also objects, but whether with equal propriety may be a question, to the custom of removing brasses with the slabs in which they are embedded from the floors of churches and placing them upright against the walls. Now, I happen to be the patron and lay rector of a small parish in Surrey. In the chancel within the communion rails are very fine brasses (late fifteenth century) of a man and woman and several children. slab in which they are embedded is much worn and decayed, and the brasses are in places at least one-eighth of an inch above the slab, and parts of the figures of the children have already been broken off. Every time the vicar goes to the communion-table (the brasses are on the north side) he treads on them, and there is a danger of breaking off more pieces. I am willing to put the chancel of the church in such a state of repair, ornamental and otherwise, as may befit the sacred character of the place, and also the architecture of the church. But there are only three ways of Comber. W. J. LAWRENCE. BERKSHIRE VILLAGES IN KENILWORTH.'When 'Kenilworth' comes out with notes, some remarks are due upon the villages mentioned in course of talk in Giles Gosling's hostelry. Sir Walter has collected the Berkshire village names Were they supplied to him by a with great care. Wootton, Bessesley (now local correspondent? known as Besselsleigh), Padworth, and Drysandford (more properly written Dry Sandford, and so named in distinction from Sandford on Thames, on the opposite shore) are all familiar names. But "Prance of Padworth" should not have been hanged at Oxford Castle. His offence, if committed at home, would have been expiated at Reading. EDWARD H. MARSHALL, M. A. Hastings. HAYDN'S DICTIONARY OF DATES' AND ASTRONOMY.-Whilst willingly bearing my testimony to the general care with which astronomical information is brought up to date in the new (twentieth) edition of this valuable and well-known work -even the discovery of Jupiter's fifth satellite, in September last, being mentioned-I should like to point out two errors, that the readers of N. & Q' may follow Captain Cuttle's advice, and "make a note" of each of them in their copies. "CROSS-PURPOSES."-On Boxing Day, 1666, says Mr. Pepys, "mighty merry we were, and danced; and so till twelve at night, and to supper; and then to cross-purposes, mighty merry; and then to bed." There are many references to this parlour game or amusement from Mr. Pepys onward, but I do not find any clear account of it. I shall be obliged to any reader of 'N. & Q.' who can refer me to one, or, better still, send it. Oxford. J. A. H. MURRAY. "BROUETTE."-Théophile Gautier, in the "Versailles" chapter, section iv. of his Tableaux de Siége,' says: "Le frontispice d'un petit livre du temps, que nous consultons pour faire cet article, nous fournit un curieux détail de moeurs: Une jeune dame franchit la grille du Labyrinthe, traînée en brouette par un vigoureux porteur. L'usage de la brouette était d'ailleurs fréquent sous Louis XIV. et la cour se promenait dans le jardin voiturée fort commodément de la sorte." sort of sedan-chair 1. At p. 860, under "Saturn," we are told that the ring surrounding that planet was "discovered to be twofold by Messrs. Ball, Oct. 13, 1665." This statement was formerly made in many astronomical books, apparently for the first time in one on telescopes by William Kitchiner, in 1825. Doubt was first thrown upon it by myself in 1880, in a letter to the Observatory, in which I pointed out that it was founded upon a remark in the Philosophical Transactions for 1666, with reference to an omitted drawing which it was desirable to find that the true meaning of the suggestion (for it was no more) might be understood. This led to search, and a few copies of the Transactions were at last found containing the engraving, which had been suppressed in the greater number. I do not clearly understand what is meant by Afterwards the late Prof. Adams discovered in brouette here. The primary meaning of brouette is the archives of the Royal Society the actual draw-wheelbarrow; but it also means a "Bath-chair ing, or rather paper cutting, made by William Ball (Gasc and Spiers), and a in 1665, which led Sir Robert Moray, who wrote (Roubaud). I can scarcely suppose that the magthe notice respecting it in the Philosophical Trans-nificent courtiers of Louis Quatorze were in the actions, to suspect that the ring was double. This habit of "taking the air" in the immortal conconjectured duplicity, however, was of a totally veyance in which Mr. Pickwick went to the shooting different kind from a division in the breadth of party. "A female markis," as Sam Weller says, the ring (which was first discovered by Cassini with her falbalas and vertugadin, trundling about ten years later), and has no real existence, the the grounds of Versailles in a wheelbarrow would appearance being due either to an indistinct view have been a sight for gods and men! On the of the planet, or (as Prof. Adams suggested) to the other hand, if the brouette in which the " 'jeune folding of the paper with which the cutting was dame was "voiturée was either a sedan-chair made. or what we call a Bath-chair, so ordinary a circum2. At p. 1029, under "Uranus," we are told stance would hardly be worth mentioning, and would that that planet is attended by eight moons or not be "un curieux détail de moeurs," as Gautier satellites, six of which were discovered by Sir calls it. Gautier uses the word traînée, which favours William Herschel. The whole number really the "Bath-chair" meaning; a wheelbarrow would, I known amounts to only four, two of which (after-suppose, be poussée. Sedan-chairs must bave been wards named Titania and Oberon) were discovered by Herschel in 1787, and two (called Ariel and Umbriel) by Lassell and O. Struve respectively in 1847. Herschel was mistaken in supposing that he had discovered four more, the objects seen having been probably very faint stars seen near the planet, though unsuccessful attempts have been made to identify one or other of them with the satellites common enough at that period. See the scene of Mascarille and the chairmen in 'Les Précieuses Ridicules.' A sedan-chair, however, would be neither traînée nor poussée, but portée. Were what we call Bath-chairs known in either France or England in the seventeenth century? Are not wheelbarrows used at the present day as a means of personal conveyance in China? I |