Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/297

 10 S. XL MAB. 27, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

241

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 37, 1909.

CONTENTS. No. 274.

NOTES: Charles Lamb's Capt. Starkey, 241 Shake- speariana, 242 Patagonia and the Patagpnians, 244 Bishop Mordecai Carey British Museum Tickets Kitcy Fisher's Death, 245' Tyrrell's March,' 246 " Generous " Drydenon Milton's Portrait ' The Girl I left behind Me ''246 Abraham Lincoln and ' Mortality 'Death of the Oldest Postboy King's 'Classical Quotations' Armorial Wine-Bottles, 247.

QUERIES: "Purfly" Thomas May's 'Julius Caesar Ben Meir's Chronicles St. Paul's Cathedral Choristers -' Time and Truth reconciling the World to Shakespeare ' Authors Wanted De la Motte de la Garr(5 of Caen 'The Old Farm-house,' 248 Anne Steele, the Hymn- WriterJohn Kelsall, 1767" Though lost to sight," <fec.

Cross Banner Dickens Quotation " Monstrous childe

of Ffennystanton "Manor Court Terms, 249 Aplin Family Belfour Family Roast Pigs crying " Who '11 eat me ? " " Gaunox," 250.

sRE PLIES : Indian Names, 250 The Liquid N in English Tuesday Night's Club, 251 Chantrey and Oliver, Miniaturists Barnard & Staples "That 's another pair of shoes" Hesse-Danish Alliance, 252 Sir Isaac Gold- smid " Blow the cobwebs away "Sir Patrick Houstoun, 253 Oscar Wilde Bibliography Bruges : its Pronunciation

Haggard : Ogarde Jews and Jewesses in Fiction, 254

Roses as Badges Nicholas as a Feminine Name Index Saying, 255 Authors Wanted J. Bew, Bookseller " Jager" "Incut," 256 Laton Family of Yorks Drayton on Valentine's Day Dickens and Valentine Lines "Punt" in Football, 257 " Rabbits " for Luck Thistle and Saint Automaton Chess-PlayerHippocrates and the Black Baby, 258.

\OTES ON BOOKS : Bruckner s ' Literary History of Russia' 'The Edinburgh Review' 'The Newspaper Press Directory.' Notices to Correspondents.

CHARLES LAMB'S CAPT. STARKEY.

"MY sister, who well remembers him. . . . thinks that he would have wanted bread before he would have begged or borrowed .a halfpenny." Such was Charles Lamb's method of drawing the mantle of charity -over the memory of old " Capt." Starkey.

In his youth Starkey had been usher in a school kept by a certain William Bird, "in the passage leading from Fetter Lane into Bartlett's Buildings." Here both Mary and Charles Lamb were taught Mary during Starkey's ushership, which, however, ceased about a year before Charles began his attendance. Bird was styled " an eminent writer and Teacher of languages and Mathe- matics " ; but Lamb, reviewing his early days, says of the school :

" Heaven knows what ' languages * were "taught in it then ; I am sure that neither my -Sister nor myself brought any out of it but a little of our native English. By ' mathematics,' reader, must be understood ' cyphering.' " After leaving this school, Starkey seems to have lived alternately in Newcastle-upon- Tyne and London, occupying himself by

electioneering in one place and school- keeping in the other. Then he assisted at a school in Sunderland, from which he stepped into some temporary office under the comp- troller of customs in the same town. This was followed by a fruitless effort to find employment in Newcastle and an equally abortive endeavour in London, after which he returned to obtain in Newcastle " a place " in the Freemen's Hospital, where, after a residence of twenty-six years, he wrote his ' Memoirs ' in 1818. He died on 9 July, 1822.

A copy of this pamphlet, " Memoirs | of the | Life | of | Benj. Starkey, | Late of Lon- don, | but now an inmate of the | Freemen's Hospital, in Newcastle. | Written by Himself. Fac-Simile of his Hand-Writing. Printed and Sold | by William Hall, Groat Market, j Newcastle," got into the hands of William Hone, who forthwith wrote a summary of it, which he published in his ' Every-Day Book ' for 9 July, 1825, prefacing it by a ten-line poem of his own and a reproduction of Starkey's portrait. Reading this, Lamb " started as one does on the recognition of an old acquaintance in a supposed stranger," conferred with Mary in the matter, and penned, in the form of a letter to the editor, his account of Capt. Starkey a delightful mixture of memories of his own early days, and apology for the existence of a fellow- being who did no great harm in the world, and thought he had a right to live because he was a living being. This was first printed in the ' Every-Day Book ' for 21 July, 1825.
 * With a Portrait of the Author, | and a |

Now, in spite of Lamb's efforts to cover the old man's failings and of Mary's un- willingness to give credence to the account of the various queer tricks he practised to obtain money, facts witness very strongly against Capt. Starkey. He was well known in Newcastle as of uncommonly smooth manners when borrowing coppers, for which, by the way, he was always ready to give his promissory notes. One of these curio- sities lies before me :

" I do by these presents promise to pay to my respectable and Worthy friend Mr. John Straker the Sum of Two pence this day received as Witness my hand this 23 day of May in the Year of our Lord 1815. Benjamin Starkey."

The ' Memoirs ' probably owed their origin to the number of these written promises-to- pay lying unredeemed in every direction where pence had been obtainable. The old man could not well have sought to borrow on fresh notes-of-hand where old ones lay dishonoured and neglected. The sale of