Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850

Mrs. Cornelly's is stated, in vol. ii. p. 753., to be "the corner of Sutton Street," Soho Square, "now D'Almaines's." Mrs. Cornelly's was at the corner of Sutton Street, but has long been pulled down: the Catholic chapel in Sutton Street was Mrs. Cornelly's concert, ball, and masquerade-room; and the arched entrance below the chapel, and now a wheelwright's, was the entrance for "chairs." D'Almaine's is two doors north of Sutton Street, and was built by Earl (?) Tilney, the builder of Wanstead House? The House in Soho Square has a very fine banqueting-room, the ceiling said to have been painted by Angelica Kauffmann. Tilney was fond of giving magnificent dinners, and here was always to be found "the flesh of beeves, with Turkie and other small Larks!"

Cock Lane.—The house in Cock Lane famous for its "Ghost" is still standing, and the back room, where "scratching Fanny" lay surrounded by princes and peers, is converted into a gas meter manufactory.

    NASO.

FOLK LORE

Easter Eggs.—The custom of presenting eggs at Easter is too well known to need description; but perhaps few are aware that, like many other customs of the early Church, it had its origin in paganism.

Sir R.K. Porter (Travels, vol. i. p. 316.) mentions that at a period of the year corresponding to Easter, "the Feast of nooroose, or of the waters," is held, and seems to have had its origin prior to Mahometanism. It lasts for six days, and is supposed to be kept in commemoration of the Creation and the Deluge—events constantly synchronised and confounded in pagan cosmogonies. At this feast eggs are presented to friends, in obvious allusion to the Mundane egg, for which Ormuzd and Ahriman were to contend till the consummation of all things.

When the many identities which existed between Druidism and Magianism are considered, we can hardly doubt that this Persian commemoration of the Creation originated our Easter-eggs.

    G.J.

Buns.—It has been suggested by Bryant, though, I believe, not noticed by any writer on popular customs, that the Good Friday cakes, called Buns, may have originated in the cakes used in idolatrous worship, and impressed with the figure of an ox, whence they were called βουν. The cow or bull was likewise, as Coleridge (Lit. Rem. vol. ii. p. 252.) has justly remarked, the symbol of the Cosmos, the prolific or generative powers of nature.

    G.J.

Gloucestershire Custom.—It is a custom in Gloucestershire, and may be so in other counties, to place loose straw before the door of any man who beats his wife. Is this a general custom?—and if so, what is its origin and meaning?

    B.

Curious Custom.—The custom spoken of by "PWCCA" (No. 11 p. 173.) was also commonly practised in one or two places in Lancashire some ten or twelve years back, but is now, I believe, obsolete. The horse was played in a similar way, but the performer was then called "Old Balls." It is no doubt a vestige of the old "hobby-horse,"—as the Norwich "Snap," who kept his place in the procession of the mayor of that good city till the days of municipal reform, was the last representative of his companion the dragon.

    J.T.

[Nathan also informs us "that it is very common in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where a ram's head often takes the place of the horse's skull. Has it not an obvious connection with the 'hobby-horse' of the middle ages, and such mock pageants as the one described in Scott's Abbot, vol. i. chap. 14.; the whole being a remnant of the Saturnalia of the ancients?"]

QUERIES

WHITE HART INN, SCOLE

In Songs and other Poems, by Alex. Brome, Gent. Lond. 12mo. 1661, there is (at p. 123.) a ballad upon a sign-post set up by one Mr. Pecke, at Skoale in Norfolk. It appears from this ballad, that the sign in question had figures of Bacchus, Diana, Justice, and Prudence, "a fellow that's small, with a quadrant discerning the wind," Temperance, Fortitude, Time, Charon and Cerberus. This sign is noticed in the Journal of Mr. E. Browne (Sir Thomas Browne's Works, ed. Wilkin, i. 53.). Under date of 4th March, 1663-64, he says:—"About three mile further I came to Scoale, where is very handsome inne, and the noblest sighne post in England, about and upon which are carved a great many stories, as of Charon and Cerberus, of Actæon and Diana, and many other; the sighne it self is the white harte, which hangs downe carved in a stately wreath." Blomefield, in his History of Norfolk (8vo. edit. i. 130.), speaking of Osmundestone or Scole, has the following passage:—

"Here are two very good inns for the entertainment of travellers; the White Hart is much noted in these parts, being called, by way of distinction, Scole Inn; the house is a large brick building, adorned with imagery and carved work in several places, as big as the life. It was built in 1655, by John Peck, Esq., whose arms impaling his wife's, are over the porch door. The sign is very large, beautified all over with a great number of images of large stature carved in wood, and was the work of one Fairchild; the arms about it are those of the chief towns and gentlemen in the county, viz. Norwich, Yarmouth, Duke of Norfolk, Earl of Yarmouth, Bacon of Garboldisham, Hobart, Conwaleis, impaling Bukton, Teye, Thurston, Castleton, and many others; Peck's arms are arg. on a chevron ingrailed, gul. three croslets pattee of the field; his wife's are arg., a fess between two crescents in chief, a lion rampant in base gul., which coat I think is borne by the name of Jetheston. Here was lately a very round large bed, big enough to hold fifteen or twenty couple, in imitation (I suppose) of the remarkable great bed at Ware. The house was in all things accommodated, at first, for large business; but the road not supporting it, it is in much decay at present; though there is a good bowling-green and a pretty large garden, with land sufficient for passengers' horses. The business of these two inns is much supported by the annual cock-matches that are here fought."

In Cruttwell's Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain (Lond. 12mo. 1801), vol. v. 208., is the following:—

"Osmondeston, or Schole. The inn here was once remarkable for a pompous sign, with ridiculous ornaments, and is said to have cost a thousand pounds; long since decayed."

I shall be glad to be referred to any other notices of this sign, and am desirous of knowing if any drawing or engraving of it be extant.

    C.H. COOPER.

Cambridge, 21st Jan. 1850.

PASSAGES FROM POPE

In addition to the query of "P.C.S.S." (No. 13. p. 201.), in which I take great interest, I would beg leave to ask what evidence there is that Quarles had a pension? He had, indeed, a small place in the household of James the First's queen, Anne; and if he had a pension on her death, it would have been from James, not from Charles.

I would also, in reference to Pope, beg leave to propound another query.

In the "Imitation of the 2nd Sat. Book I. of Horace," only to be found in modern editions, but attributed, I fear, too justly to Pope, there is an allusion to "poor E–s," who suffered by "the fatal steel," for an intrigue with a royal mistress. E–s is no doubt John Ellis, and the royal mistress the Duchess of Cleveland. (See Lord Dover's Introduction to the "Ellis Correspondence," and "Anecdotes of the Ellis Family," Gent. Mag. 1769. p. 328.) But I cannot discover any trace of the circumstances alluded to by Pope. Yet Ellis was a considerable man in his day;—he had been Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the reign of Charles II., and was Under-Secretary of State under William III.; he is said to have afterwards sunk into the humbler character of a "London magistrate," and to have "died in 1788, at 93 or 95, immensely rich." I should be glad of any clue to Pope's allusion.

    J.W.C.

Feb 12. 1850.

"Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather and prunello."

    Essay on Man, Epistle IV. 203.
Will your correspondent "P.C.S.S." (No. 13), evidently a critical reader of Pope, and probably rich in the possession of various editions of his works, kindly inform me whether any commentator on the poet has traced the well-known lines that I have quoted to the "Corcillum est, quod homines facit, cætera quisquilia omnia" of Petronius Arbiter, cap. 75.? Pope had certainly both read and admired the Satyricon, for he says:—

"Fancy and art in gay Petronius please,
The scholar's learning with the courtier's ease."

    Essay on Criticism, sect. 3
I find no note on the lines either in the edition of Warton, 9 vols. 8vo., London, 1797, or in Cary's royal 8vo., London, 1839; but the similarity strikes me as curious, and deserving further examination.

    C. FORBES.

Temple.

BELVOIR CASTLE

In Nichol's History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, vol. ii., part i., containing the Framland Hundred, p. 45 of the folio ed. 1795, occurs the following quotation, in reference to the rebuilding of Belvoir castle by Henry, second Earl of Rutland, in 1555:—

"That part of the more ancient building, which was left by both unaltered, is included in the following concise description by an ingenious writer, who visited it in 1722:—

'Ædes in culmine montis sitæ, scilicet,
αιπεια κολωνεν
'Εν πεδιω απανευθε περιδρομος ενθα και ενθα'

aditu difficilis circa montem; cujus latera omnia horti 50 acrarum circumeunt, nisi versus Aquilonem, quò ascenditur ad ostium ædium ubi etiam antiqua jauna arcuato lapide. Versus Occidentem 8 fenestræ et 3 in sacello; et ulterior pars vetusta. Versus Aquilonem 10 fenestræ. Facies Australis et Turris de Staunton, in qui archiva familiæ reponuntur, extructa ante annos circa 400. Pars restat kernellata," &c. &c. &c.

The description goes on for a few more lines; but it matters not to continue them. I should be much obliged by any of your readers giving an account of who this "ingenious writer" was, and on what authority he founded the foregoing observations, as it is a subject of much interest to me and others at the present time.

    ALYTHES.

Jan. 28. 1850.

MINOR QUERIES

MSS. formerly belonging to Dr. Hugh Todd.—I shall feel most grateful to any of your correspondents who can afford me any information, however imperfect, respecting the MSS. of Dr. Hugh Todd, Vicar of Penrith, and Prebendary of Carlisle, in the beginning of the last century. In the Cat. MSS. Angliæ, &c., 1697, is a catalogue of nineteen MSS, then in his possession, five of which are especially the subject of the present inquiry. One is a Chartulary of the Abbey of Fountains, in 4to; another is an Act Book of the Consistory Court of York, in the fifteenth century, in folio; the third is the Chapter Book of the Collegiate Church of Ripon, from 1452 to 1506; the fourth contains Extracts and Manuscripts from Records relating to the Church of Ripon; and the last is apparently a Book of the Acts of the Benefactors to that foundation. In a letter to Humphrey Lawley, dated in 1713, Dr. Todd says he was engaged in a work relating to the province of York, and the greater part of the MSS. in the catalogue above mentioned appear to have been collected as the materials.

    JOHN RICHARD WALBRAN.