Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/504

 416

NOTES AND QUERIES.

s. i. MAY 21, MO*

omnibus run from the "Yorkshire Stingo" in Marylebone, which, as is well known, is pronounced " Marrybun." There is also the slang phrase "to pad the hoof"; and "to take one's foot in one's hand " is to depart

or make a journey: "Andrew made his

bows, and, as the saying is, took his foot in his hand " (1 Smollett).

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

"FEED THE BRUTE" (10 th S. i. 348). This phrase refers probably to the following story, which went the rounds of the American papers some years ago. A married lady was asked how she managed to get on so well with her husband. She answered, "I feed the brute his stomach with food and his head with flattery." This story may have first appeared in P^lnch, though the bitter, cynical humour seems to me more American than English. M. N. G.

One is under the impression that this was PwwcA's truthfully humorous answer to the question of the hour, "How to be happy though married." J. H. MACMICHAEL.

In 'Lady Windermere's Fan,' Act I., pro" duced at the St. James's Theatre 22 February' 1892, the Duchess of Berwick says : " Noio I know that all men are monsters. The only thing to do is to feed the wretches well. A good cook does wonders," &c. But this may be an adaptation by Oscar Wilde of an earlier apophthegm. A. K. BAYLEY.

WELLINGTON'S HORSES (10 th S. i. 329). Some of the particulars required by your corre- spondent will be found in the answers to previous inquiries in ' N". & Q.' See 8 th S iv 447, 489 ; v. 53, 154, 215.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

SHAKESPEARE'S GRAVE (10 th S. i. 288, 331, 352). I wish to thank DR. FORSHAW for his kind reply to my query about Shakespeare's grave, and to express my sorrow that I offended him by calling the lines on the tombstone doggerel. Evidently the ideas as to what constitutes poetry differ on the two sides of " the pond."

Does "the prevailing tradition that the bust was copied from a cast after nature" apply to the bust which is at present in the btratford Church, which was placed there about 1746 by John Ward, the grandfather of Mrs. Siddqns, and the leader of the com- pany of strolling players to which DR. FOR- SHAW refers, or to the original bust which it replaced, and to which it bears no resemblance either jn attitude or features, and which is

figured in Dugdale's 'Warwickshire'? I might add that as I formerly lived in Gloucester- shire, within four miles of Stratford, I do not need to go to Wheler's ' Stratford ' to lean* about the existing form of the monument. ISAAC HULL PLATT. The Players, New York.

The point MRS. MC!LQUHAM raises seemed so interesting to me that I determined to visit Stratford to obtain the correct measurements. My journey well repaid the time thus expended, for Mr. W. Bennett, the parish clerk, informed me that the ques- tion of distance had never been raised before. The correct height of the monument from the floor is six feet three inches, and the nearest distance from the monument to the slab over Shakespeare's grave is eight feet three inches. Mr. Bennett, who assisted me with the measurements, informed me the general impression was that the lines were the outcome of Shakespeare's aversion to the removed bones in the charnel-house which almost immediately adjoins both monument and tombstone.

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D.

Baltimore House, Bradford.

Allow me to refer to the sixth edition of Halliwell-Phillipps's ' Outlines,' in which full information may be found. In regard to the original tombstone once covering the remains of Shakspeare, Halliwell-Phillipps observes :

"The original memorial has wandered from its allotted station, no one can tell whither a sacrifice to the insane worship of prosaic neatness, that mischievous demon whose votaries have practically destroyed the priceless relics of ancient England and her gifted sons." Vol. i. p. 240.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A, Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

WILTON NUNNERY (10 th S. i. 248, 318). DR. FORSHAW dismisses my request for evidence with an airy "There is no doubt" sed quaere. Scott, who cites no authority, would appear to have borrowed his account from Aubrey (' Letters,' ii. 479), whose story, whencesqever derived, is stigmatized as " improbable " by the 'D.N.B.' (xxvi. 222). The Pope had assented to the retention of ecclesiastical property by the spoilators, whose title was further confirmed by 1 & 2 Phil. & Mar. c. 8, and though the Crown refused to avail itself of the permission accorded, I know of no subject whose conscience was so tender ; and in point of fact the Earl of Pembroke appears to have been still resident at Wilton House in August, 1558 (see 'S. P. Dom. Mary,' xiii. 63). If it was restored to the nuns between that date and the death of the