Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/381

 10 s. XL APRIL IT,

NOTES AND QUERIES.

this theatre (Lyceum). I have had to notice and refute much wilder guesses than this." Vol. ii. p. 71, note.

The following guess, made by himself in The Antiquary for January, 1895, is hardly happy :

" Pimlico is another foreign word, and is also misspelt by the substitution of i for the first vowel. As a London name it came into use a little earlier than Piccadilly. A certain man, probably a prize-fighter or something of the sort, had a tavern at Hoxton in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, where he sold good nut-brown ale. His name was Benjamin Pimlico, and his tavern before 1589 was near Hoxton Church, where Pimlico Walk still exists. But the district of Pimlico seems to have been called from Pimlico Wharf, near Victoria Station, a place to which timber from America was floated, and where it was landed. It was removed only last year, when that part of Grosvenor Canal was filled up for an addition to the station. It must have been named, and Benjamin Hoxton must also have been named, from a seaport on Pamlico Sound, in North Carolina, whence cargoes of timber and other merchandise came." Vol. xli. p. 22.

It is true that a few English people were living in the sixteenth century in what is now North Carolina, then Virginia, for there was born the first white child of English parents Virginia Dare. But the colony was soon completely wiped out, and the first permanent settlement in Virginia took place in 1607. The Bermudas were first settled in 1610-12. A patent for " Carolana " was granted to Sir Robert Heath in 1629, but no settlement was made under it. In 1654 F. Yardley wrote a letter in which he mentioned, but did not name, three rivers, one of which is supposed to have been the Pamlico. In 1663 a charter for Carolina was granted to certain pro- prietors, and the first settlement took place in 1664. Pamlico (in the form " Pamply- coe ") first occurs in a document dated '8 Sept., 1663 (' Cal. of State Papers, Colonial, p. 160 ; ' N. Carolina Col. Records,' i. 54). Other early forms are " Panticoe " (1666), " Pamptico " (1671), and " Pamptucough " (1709). The division into North Carolina and South Carolina did not come until later. Hence Mr. Loftie's notion that there was a " seaport " in North Carolina in 1589, from which timber was " floated " to London, is wide of the mark.

Apparently all English writers on the subject regard Pimlico as a foreign word. Perhaps this view is correct, but as yet Pimlico as a place-name has not been found outside of the British Isles except in the Bahamas, where, as the present communi- cation shows, it is apparently recent and derived from the bird. On the other hand,

there are in the British Isles the following Pimlicoes :

1. Pimlico, Hoxton. Previous to the pub- lication at London in 1615 of Hughes's letter, this Pimlico was alluded to in the following works : 1609, Dekker's ' Worke for Ar- mourers ' ; 1609, ' Pimlyco, or Runne Red Cap ' ; 1610, Jonson's ' Alchemist ' (Act. V. sc. i. ; Act. V. sc. ii.) ; 1611. Middleton's ' Roaring Girl ' (Act IV. sc. ii. ; Act. V. sc. i.) ; 1614, Jonson's 'Bartholomew Fair ' (Act. I. sc. i.) ; 1614, Cooke's ' Greene's Tu Quoque ' (probably acted before 1604) ; while Ben Pimlico was mentioned in 1598.

2. Pimlico district. First mentioned in 1626 (Wheatley's ' London Past and Present ' ).

3. Pimlico Garden, Bankside. Stated (1 S. i. 383) to have been mentioned in Aubrey's ' Surrey.' This work I cannot find in the libraries here, but Aubrey died in 1697, and (according to the 'D.N.B.') made his per- ambulation of Surrey in 1673. The follow- ing passage from Walford's ' Old and New London ' has not before been cited in ' N. & Q.'

" In the neighbourhood of the theatres were several public gardens near the Thames, then a pellucid and beautiful stream. There were the Queen's Pike Gardens (now Pye Gardens), where pike were bred in ponds ; the Asparagus Gardens, and Pimlico Garden. The last-named was a very fashionable resort, and famous for the handsome dresses of the promenaders. Indeed, ' to walk in Pimlico ' was a proverbial phrase for an intro- duction to the very elite of society." Vol. vi. p. 56.

4. Pimlico, a hamlet, and Pimlico House, near Cottisford, Oxfordshire.

5. Pimlico Hill, Oxted, Surrey.

6. Pimlico and Pimlico Wood, Cudham, Kent.

7. Pimlico House, Hadley Green, South Minims, Middlesex.

8. Pimlico, Dublin. Mentioned in 1663.

9. Pimlico, barony of Ballyadams, Queen's County, Ireland. This place has not before been referred to. It will be found on several maps, among them ' Philips' Handy Atlas of the Counties of Ireland,' London, 1881.

Three distinct places in London, four places elsewhere in England, and two places in Ireland make a fairly good col- lection of Pimlicos in the British Isles. It seems proper, also, to call attention to the " Pimligo " just north of Bodmin, Corn- wall, plotted on John Gary's ' New Map of England and Wales,' 1794.

In common with many other Americans who frequently visit England, the writer is deeply interested in London topography, and shares COL. PRIDEAUX'S hope that some