Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/321

 10 & x. OCT. 3, iocs.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

261

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1908.

CONTENTS. No. 249.

NOTES : Sydney, 1789-1908, 261' Englands Parnassus,' 262 Sir W. Neville Hart and his Descendants, 263" Wharf" Hubert A. Holden : Henry Holden " Santapee," Guiana Term, 264 Snakes drinking Milk Sherlock : the Name " Motte " : "Mot," 265 Birth Announcements, 266.

QUERIES : Staffordshire M.P.S, 266 'The Angler's Com- panion,' 267 Dolly Monroe French Gazette ' Ginevra ' Sir Christopher Hawkins, Bt. Wotton and the Evelyns Cromwell and the 117th Psalm Anna, a Place-Name Authors of Quotations Wanted " Ville of Sarre" Oulds in Ireland St. Godwald Oldest Inhabited House in Scot- land-Sir Henry Hyde, 268 Grabble, a Place-Name Changes in Handwriting " Cripple Carrying " Howe= Russell Voreda, Roman Town Mrs. Conwai Hackett, 269 " Plane sailing " or "Plain sailing," 270.

RKPLIES : Seventeenth - Century Quotations, 270 Waterloo: Charlotte Hove: Anglo-Saxon "Ghost- Words," 271 Dolls in Magic Longfellow's 'Psalm of Life,' 272 " As the farmer sows his seed "" Cardinal " of St. Paul's Holbeach Church Anatole France " Plus je connais les hommes " Taine : " Tenir une queue de vache," 273 Salford: Saltersford Death after Lying Tollgate Houses French Words in Scotch, 274 Loten's Museum Napoleon's Carriage ' Childe Harold ' Rush- lights, 275 Spanish Works in Borrow "T' Wife Bazaar" Epitaph in Owen MSS. Queen Elizabeth's Household, 276 Dunbar and Henryson Chrystal Magna : Maylor Grange " Cadey " Constables of the Tower Alphonso : Haakon, 277 Kingsley's ' Lorraine 'Campbell : its Pro- nunciation, 278.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Thomas Ken and Izaak Walton ' 'Intermediate English Grammar ' ' History of the Society of Jesus in North America.'

Booksellers' Catalogues.

Notices to Correspondents.

SYDNEY, 1789-1908.

THE recent magnificent entertainments at Sydney are especially interesting in con- nexion with the dramatic and magnificent rise of the city, in little more than a century, from an uninhabited bay to the position of what, from certain points of view, makes it, next to the metropolis, the place of the greatest importance in the Empire. From the extraordinary volumes of " Collectanea " formed by the Rev. Daniel Lysons, to which I have already referred (10 S. viii. 325), I extract the following, printed in large fair type in broadside form : VISIT OF HOPE

TO SYDNEY COVE

NEAR BOTANY BAY.

WHERE Sydney Cove her lucid bosom swells, Courts her young navies, and the storm repels ; High on a rock amid the troubled air Hope stood sublime, and wav'd her golden hair ; Calmed with her rosy smile the tossing deep, And with sweet accents charm'd the winds to sleep ; To each wild plain she stretch'd her snowy hand, High- waving wood, and sea-encircled strand.

"Hear me," she cried, "ye rising Realms ! record Time's opening scenes, and Truth's unerring word, There shall broad streets their stately walls extend, The circus widen, and the crescent bend ; There, rayed from cities o'er the cultured land, Shall bright canals and solid roads expand. There the proud arch, colossus-like, bestride Yon glittering streams, and bound the chasing tide ; Embellish'd villas crown the landscape-scene, Farms wave with gold, and orchards blush

between.

There shall tall spires, and dome-capt towers ascend, And piers and quays their massy structures blend ; While with each breeze approaching vessels glide, And northern treasures dance on every tide ! " Then ceas'd the riymph tumultuous echoes roar, And Joy's loud voice was heard from shore to shore Her graceful steps descending press'd the plain, And Peace, and Art, and Labour, join'd her train.

"Mr. Wedgwood, having been favoured by Sir Joseph Banks with a specimen of clay from Sydney Cove, has made a few medallions of iib, representing Hope encouraging Art and Labour, under the in- fluence of Peace, to pursue the employments neces- sary for rendering an infant colony secure and happy. The above verses were written by the author of ' The Botanic Garden,' to accompany these medallions." Dated in MS. at foot (in Lysons's handwriting) 1789.

Whilst to some modern ears the sonorous lines of Erasmus Darwin, author of ' The Botanic Garden ' and of the ' Visit of Hope,' may appear too highflown for the subject- matter, the prophetic instinct of the writer is surely most conspicuous and astonishing, and his romantic predictions have been ful- filled to an extent which would doubtless have dazzled the seer.

The medallions mentioned at the foot of the poem are alluded to by Miss Meteyard in her ' Life of Josiah Wedgwood ' (ii. 567- 568) :

" With the mineral [a kind of plumbago] Sir Joseph Banks had forwarded [in 1789J some clay from the same colony, which upon trial Wedgwood found to be of excellent quality. To give proof of this, the idea occured to him to form from it some medallions, with a view to encouraging the arts, and to inspire hope amidst many difficulties in the breasts of those distant colonists."

Mr. F. Rathbone, the well-known authority on Wedgwood pottery, informs me that he has possessed in his time some fifteen of the medallions. Those made of Australian clay have the relief and body in the same colour. The blue and white ones are later, and are still made at Etruyia. He tells me that an Australian friend of his is of opinion that Sir Joseph Banks had little or nothing to do with sending the clay to Wedgwood, but that it came from Governor Phillip. The MS. date subjoined by Lysons can hardly be taken as authoritative. Perhaps some correspondent may be able to verify or correct it. J. ELIOT HODGKIN.