Notes and Queries, Number 27, May 4, 1850

Black Doll at Old Store Shops.—I asked you some time since the origin of the Black Doll at Old Store Shops; but you did not insert my Query, which curiously enough has since been alluded to by Punch, as a mystery only known to, or capable of being interpreted by, the editor of "Notes and Queries."

    A.C.

[We are obliged to our correspondent and also to our witty contemporary for this testimony to our omniscience, and show our sense of their kindness by giving them two explanations. The first is, the story which has been told of its originating with a person who kept a house for the sale of toys and rags in Norton Falgate some century since, to whom an old woman brought a large bundle of rags for sale, with a desire that it might remain unopened until she could call again to see it weighed. Several weeks having elapsed without her re-appearance, the ragman opened the bundle, and finding in it a black doll neatly dressed, with a pair of gold ear-rings, hung it over his door, for the purpose of its being owned by the woman who had left it. The plan succeeded, and the woman, who had by means of the black doll recovered her bundle of rags, presented it to the dealer; and the story becoming known, the black doll was adopted as the favourite sign of this class of shopkeepers. Such is the romance of the black doll; the reality, we believe, will be found in the fact, that cast-off clothes having been formerly purchased by dealers in large quantities, for the purpose of being resold to merchants, to be exchanged by them in traffic with the uncivilised tribes, who, it is known, will barter any thing for articles of finery,—a black doll, gaily dressed out, was adopted as the sign of such dealers in old apparel.]

Journal of Sir William Beeston.—In reply to the inquiry of "C." (No. 25. p. 400), I can state that a journal of Sir William Beeston is now preserved in the British Museum (MS. Add. 12,424.), and was presented to the national collection in 1842, by Charles Edward Long, Esq. It is a folio volume, entirely autograph, and extends from Dec. 10, 1671, when Beeston was in command of the Assistance frigate in the West Indies, to July 21, 1673; then from July 6 to September 6, 1680, in a voyage from Port Royal to London; and from December 19, 1692, to March 9, 1692-3, in returning from Portsmouth to Jamaica; and, lastly, from April 25 to June 28, 1702, in coming home from Jamaica to England. By a note written by Mr. Long on the fly-leaf of the volume, it appears that Sir William Beeston was baptized in Dec. 2, 1636, at Titchfield, co. Hants, and was the second son of William Beeston, of Posbrooke, the same parish, by Elizabeth, daughter of Arthur Bromfield. (See Visit. C. 19. Coll. Arm.) His elder brother, Henry, was Master of Winchester, and Warden of New College; and his daughter and heir Jane married, first, Sir Thomas Modyford, Bart., and, secondly, Charles Long, to whom she was a second wife. To this may be added, that Sir William received the honour of knighthood at Kensington, October 30, 1692, and was Governor of Jamaica from 1693 till 1700. In the Add. MS. 12,430. is contained a narrative, by Sir William Beeston, of the descent by the French on Jamaica, in June, 1694; as also the copy of a Journal kept by Col. William Beeston from his first coming to Jamaica, 1655-1680.

    M.

Shrew (No. 24. p. 381.).—I know not whether it will at all help the inquiry of "W.R.F." to remind him that the local Dorsetshire name of the shrew-mouse is "shocrop" or "shrocrop." The latter is the word given in Mr. Barnes's excellent Glossary, but I have just applied for its name to two labourers, and their pronunciation of it is clearly the former.

I should be glad to hear any conjecture as to the final syllable. The only folk-lore connected with it in this part of the country seems to be that long ago reported by Pennant and others, viz. "Cats will kill, but not eat it."

    C.W.B.

Trunck Breeches.—"X.Y.Z." (No. 24. p. 384) will also find the following in Dryden's Translation of Perseus:—

"There on the walls by Polynotu's hand,
The conquered Medians in trunk-breeches stand."

Certainly a very free translation. See the original, Sat. 3. Trunck is from the Latin truncus, cut short, maimed, imperfect. In the preface to Johnson's Dictionary we have the following:—

"The examples are too often injudicious truncated."

Vide also Shaw, Museum Liverianum, or rather examples given in Richardson's Dictionary. Shaw, in speaking of the feathers of certain birds, says,

"They appear as if cut off transversely towards their ends with scissors. This is a mode of termination which in the language of natural history is called truncated."

The word trunck-hose is often met with.

    WREDJID KOOEZ.

Queen's Messengers.—"J.U.G.G.," who inquires about Queen's messengers (No. 12. p. 186.), will, I think, find some such information as he wants in a parliamentary paper about King's messengers, printed by the House of Commons in 1845 or 1846, on the motion of Mr. Warburton. Something, I think, also occurs on the subject in the Report of the Commons' Committee of 1844 on the Opening of Letters in the Post-office. I am unable to refer to either of these documents at present.

    C.

Dissenting Ministers (No. 24. p. 383.).—The verses representing the distinctive characteristics of many ministers, by allegorical resemblance to flowers, were written by the lady whose paternal name is given by your correspondent. She married the Rev. Joseph Brooksbank. I think it quite improbable that those verses were ever published. It seems that two of the three names mentioned in your description of this "nosegay" are erroneous. The first is indisputable, RICHARD WINTER, a man of distinguished excellence, who died in 1799. "Hugh Washington" is certainly a mistake for HUGH WORTHINGTON; but for "James Jouyce" I can offer no conjecture.

    J.P.S.

Ballad of "The Wars in France" (No. 20. p. 318.).—Your correspondent "NEMO" will find two versions of the ballad commencing,

"As our king lay musing on his bed,"

in appendices 20 and 21 to Sir Harris Nicolas's History of the Battle of Agincourt, 2nd edit. They are not, I believe, in the first edition. I have a copy of the ballad myself, which I took down a few years ago, together with the quaint air to which it is sung, from the lips of an old miner in Derbyshire. My copy does not differ very much from the first of those given by Sir H. Nicolas.

    C.W.G.

["J.W." (Norwich), and "A.R." (Kenilworth), have each kindly sent us a copy of the ballad. "F.M." informs us that it exists as a broadside, printed and sold in Aldermary Church-yard, Bow Lane, London, under the title of "King Henry V., his Conquest of France, in Revenge for the Affront offered him by the French King, in sending him (instead of the tribute due) a ton of tennis balls." And, lastly, the "Rev. J.R. WREFORD" has called our attention to the fact that it is printed in the collection of Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England, edited by Mr. Dixon for the Percy Society in 1846.

Mr. Dixon's version was taken down from the singing of an eccentric character, known as the "Skipton Minstrel," and who used to sing it to the tune of "The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood."]

Monody on the Death of Sir John Moore (No. 20. p. 320.).—This Query has brought us a number of communications from "A.G.," "J.R.W.," "G.W.B.," "R.S.," and "The Rev. L. COOPER," who writes as follows:—

"The undoubted author is the late Rev. Charles Wolfe, a young Irishman, curate of Donoughmore, diocese of Armagh, who died 1823, in the 32nd year of his age. His Life and Remains were edited by the Archdeacon of Clogher; and a fifth edition of the vol., which is an 8vo., was published in 1832 by Hamilton, Adams, and Co., Paternoster Row. At the 25th page of the Memoir there is the narration of an interesting discussion between Lord Byron, Shelley, and others, as to the most perfect ode that had ever been produced. Shelley contended for Coleridge's on Switzerland; others named Campbell's Hohenlinden and Lord Byron's Invocation in Manfred. But Lord Byron left the dinner-table before the cloth was removed, and returned with a magazine, from which he read this monody, which just then appeared anonymously. After he had read it, he repeated the third stanza, and pronounced it perfect, and especially the lines:—

"'But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.'

"'I should have taken the whole,' said Shelley, 'for a rough sketch of Campbell's.'

"'No,' replied Lord Byron, 'Campbell would have claimed it, had it been his.'

"The Memoir contains the fullest details on the subject of the authorship, Mr. Wolfe's claim to which was also fully established by the Rev. Dr. Miller, late Fellow of Trinity, Dublin, and author of Lectures on the Philosophy of Modern History."

[With regard to the French translation, professing to be a monody on Lally Tollendal, and to be found in the Appendix to his Memoirs, it was only a clever hoax from the ready pen of Father Prout, and first appears in Bentley's Miscellany. No greater proof of the inconvenience of facetiæ of this peculiar nature can be required than the circumstance, that the fiction, after a time, gets mistaken for a fact: and, as we learn in the present case, the translation has been quoted in a French newspaper as if it was really what it pretends to be.]

IRON RAILINGS ROUND ST. PAUL'S

As the removal of the iron railing which surrounds St. Paul's Churchyard is now said to be in contemplation, P.C.S.S. imagines that it may not be unacceptable to the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES," if he transcribes the following account of it from Hasted's Kent, vol. ii. p. 382, which is to be found in his description of the parish of Lamberhurst:—

"It was called Gloucester Furnace in honour of the Duke of Gloucester, Queen Anne's son, who, in the year 1698, visited it from Tunbridge Wells. The iron rails round St. Paul's Churchyard, in London, were cast at this furnace. They compose the most magnificent balustrade, perhaps, in the universe, being of the height of five feet six inches, in which there are, at intervals, seven iron gates of beautiful workmanship, which, together with the rails, weigh two hundred tons and eighty-one pounds; the whole of which cost 6d. per pound, and with other charges, amounted to the sum of 11,202l. 0s. 6d."

    P.C.S.S.

MISCELLANEOUS

NOTES ON BOOKS, CATALOGUES, SALES, ETC

If there was any ground, and we are inclined to believe there was, for the objection urged by the judicious few against that interesting series of illustrations of English history, Lodge's Illustrious Portraits, namely, that in engraving the portraits selected, truth had often times been sacrificed to effect; so that one had a better picture, though a less faithful copy,—such an objection cannot be urged against a work to which our attention has just been directed, Harding's Historical Portraits. In this endeavour to bring before us the men of past time, each "in his habit as he lived," the scrupulous accuracy with which Mr. Harding copies an old portrait has been well seconded by the engravers, so that this work is unrivalled for the fidelity with which it exhibits, as by a Daguerrotype, copies in little of some very curious portraits of old-world worthies. The collection is limited in extent; but, as it contains plates of individuals of whom no other engraving exists, will be a treasure to illustrators of Clarendon, Granger, &c. Among the most interesting subjects are Henry VIII. and Charles V., from the remarkable picture formerly at Strawberry Hill; Sir Robert Dudley, son of Elizabeth's favourite; Lord Russel of Thornhaugh, from the picture at Woburn; Speaker Lenthall; and the remarkable portrait of Henry Carey Viscount Falkland, dressed in white, painted by Van Somer, which suggested to Horace Walpole his Castle of Otranto.

Messrs. Sotheby and Co. will sell on Thursday next, a small but superb collection of drawings by modern artists; and on the following Monday will commence a six days' sale of the third portion of the important stock of prints of Messrs. Smith; comprising some of the works of the most eminent engravers of the continental and English schools, including a matchless collection of the works of the Master of Fontainebleau, engraver's proofs of book plates, and a few fine drawings.

We have received the following Catalogues:—J. Peteram's (94. High Holborn) Catalogue, Part CXI., No. 5. for 1850 of Old and New Books; and J. Miller's (43. Chandos Street) Catalogue No. 5. for 1850 of Books Old and New.

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES

WANTED TO PURCHASE

(In continuation of Lists in former Nos.)

ARNOT'S PHYSICS.—The gentleman who has a copy of this to dispose of, is requested to send his address.

JOLDERVY'S COLLECTION OF ENGLISH EPITAPHS, or any other.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS

Although we have this week again enlarged NOTES AND QUERIES from 16 to 24 pages, in fulfilment of our promise to do so when the number and extent of our communications called for it, we have been compelled to omit many Notes, Queries, and Replies of great interest.