Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/258

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NOTES AND QUERIES. no s. XL MA*, is, 1909.

SHAKESPEARE AND ENSOR. In 1756 the poet Dyer wrote : " My wife's name was Ensor, whose grandmother was a Shake- speare, descended from a brother of every- body's Shakespeare." She was a member of the well-known family of Ensor of Willen- cote, near Tamworth. The Ensor pedigree is given at length, and the Shakespeare connexion is discussed, in The Herald and Genealogist of 1865.

The writer of the article was unable to trace a connexion with Shakespeare. Can any of your readers inform me whether the point has ever been cleared up, or dis- cussed any further ? References to notes on the Ensor family will be appreciated. W. ROBERTS CROW.

Clare Cottage, Bramley Hill, Croydon.

BISHAM ABBEY CARTULARY. Can any one tell me where to find the Cartulary of Bisham (otherwise Blusterham) Abbey ? I think it will throw light on the history of the place from which I write.

JOHN W. STANDERWICK.

Broadway, Ilminster.

THACKERAY: ROUNDABOUT PAPER

'ON RIBBONS.'

(10 S. xi. 141.)

THOSE who, like myself, can well re- member the interest and excitement caused by the launching of Thackeray's new venture that first number of The Cornhill Magazine on whose opening page were the last printec lines on which the dying eyes of Macaulaj rested must be glad to read the spiritec attempt of THOMAS RANDOLPHTJS to unrave the mystery contained in Thackeray's tribute to his contemporaries in the world of letters At the best such an attempt can be only a series of guesses, but it is not the less worth making.

I think no exception can be taken t< T. R.'s selection of historians. The list o novelists is perhaps more open to attack T. R. rightly says that "authors in whon Thackeray is known to have taken an in terest by reviewing or otherwise noticin them should obviously have the preference. Applying this test, we find that in the firs Roundabout Paper, ' On a Lazy Idle Boy Thackeray asks if novel-writers themselve read many novels, and he goes on to enu merate several of the best-known writer of the day, mentioning them, not by thei names, but as the authors of popular works

)ickens, for instance, is referred to as the uthor of 'The Tale of Two Cities,' and Unsworth as the author of ' The Tower of ondon.' In addition to these two novel- ts, he indicates Charles Lever, Robert urtees, G. P. R. James, Alexander Dumas, 3ulwer-Lytton, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, and tie Trollopes, mere et fils. It will be bserved that all these writers, with the xception of Dumas and Surtees, figure n. T. R.'s list. My own opinion is that urtees, and not Mrs. Stowe, is meant by he letter S. My reason is not so much that ot perhaps qualified for a British Order, ince ' Queechy ' is included by " Mr.
 * trs. Stowe was an American, and therefore
 * loundabout " himself, but that I do not

hink Thackeray would have mentioned

lady without adding a complimentary epithet. George Eliot is a " star of the first magnitude " ; Mrs. Norton and Mrs. Oliphant are " fair twinklers." T. R. may reply, How about " charming K " ? But '. rejoin that I do not think Kingsley is in- tended by K. It would, according to my eading of Thackeray, be foreign to his con- seption of the fitting to apply the epithet ' charming " to a man. It was not done in Mid- Victorian days. I believe K was Miss Julia Kavanagh, the author of ' Nathalie,' and many other novels that had their vogue in " the days that were earlier."

Assuming that Americans were admissible bo the Order, I think that H may stand for Hawthorne, who, with the exception of Emerson (not a writer of fiction), and Long- fellow (a poet), was by far the most con- spicuous transatlantic author in 1860. Holmes had not then, I believe, written any novels ; and Hannay, though I admit he is a likely candidate, enjoyed no great popularity. L is doubtless Lever, though George Lawrence's ' Guy Livingstone ' had an enormous sale, and he was a friend of The Cornhill people. I remember meeting him a few years later at a Pall Mall Gazette luncheon given by George Smith at his delightful villa at Hamp- stead, on which occasion Matthew Arnold made to me a memorable remark.

I do not see why Meredith should not be included, as ' The Ordeal of Richard Feverel ' at once placed him in the front rank of British novelists. I have another pleasant recollection of my dear old friend " Ted " Peacock coming to my father's house with his brother-in-law's book in his hand, and telling us of the furore it had created.

F is a difficulty. In 1860 Froude could hardly be called a novelist, or Fraser a " magazine of wit," though Thackeray may