Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/84

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [10* s. n. JULY 23, 190*.

Heralds' College." Washington himself re sponded at some length to a request for a account of his family, though he had littl time or inclination for such research. Cp New York Geneal. and Biog. Record, xxxii 200, 208, October, 1902.

" Poor Richard's " autobiography evince clearly enough that he investigated th genealogy of the Franklin family ; but w -are rather startled by the fact, recently de veloped, that he made of it a protractec study. Cp. * Benjamin Franklin as a Genealo gist,' Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. xxiii. No. 1, pp. 1-22 (1899).

There have been many Americans of un doubted democracy who have undertaken more or less extensive genealogical research or have confessed that pedigree is something more than a word. In the present genera- tion we have had Oliver Wendell Holmes, in 'The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table' (1859, 1882, &c.), declaring, somewhat facetiously, it is true, in favour of "a man of family," while James G. Blaine has told us that President "Garfield was proud of his blood; and, with as much satisfaction as if he were a British nobleman reading his stately ancestral record in Burke's ' Peerage,' he spoke of himself as ninth in descent from those who would not endure the oppression of the Stuarts, and seventh in descent from the brave French Protestants who refused to submit to tyranny even from the Grand Monarque."

"General Garfield delighted to dwell on these traits, and, during his only visit to England, he busied himself in searching out every trace of his forefathers in parish registries and on ancient army rolls. Sitting with a friend in the gallery of the House of Commons one night, after a long day's labor in this field of research, he said, with evident elation, that in every war in which for three cen- turies patriots of English blood had struck sturdy blows for constitutional government and human liberty, his family had been represented. They were at Marston Moor, atNaseby, and at Preston : they were at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, and at Mon- mouth ; and in his own person had battled for the same great cause in the war which preserved the Union of the States." Cp. 'Memorial Address on the Life and Character of President Garfield ' Washington, D.C., 27 February, 1882, pp. 6-8.

The foregoing illustrations might be multi- plied many times, did space permit or occa- sion require. They will serve to show that genealogy in America is not without some support " in high quarters."

EUGENE FAIRFIELD McPiKE. Chicago, U.S.

SHAKESPEARIANA. ' 1 HENRY IV.,' III. i. 131.-

I had rather hear a brazen canstick turned. Wright's note reminds us that the turning of candlesticks was carried on in Lothbury^ and

he adduces a quotation that proves the point. It seems worth notice that we obtain fuller details from Stow's 'Survey of London.' In treating of Lothbury, Stow says :

"This street is possessed for the most part by founders, that cast candlesticks, chafing-dishes, spice-mortars, and such like copper or laton works, and do afterward turn them with the foot, and not with the wheel, to make them smooth and bright with turning and scrating (as some do term it), making a loathsome noise to the by-passers that have not been used to the like, and therefore [!] by them disdainfullie called Lothberie."

A delicious etymology. I presume that a " wheel " means a " lathe." But how one turns a candlestick "with the foot" only, I do not clearly understand.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

' 1 HENRY IV.,' II. iii. 38. Hotspur, read- ing a lukewarm letter about the plot con- templated, says :

" 0, I could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skimmed milk with so honourable an action ! Hang him ! Let him tell
 * e king."

W. J. Craig says in his notes to the miniature edition of Messrs. Methuen :

"Divide myself: I have not met this expression Isewhere, but it may mean ' I will mangle my good name.' "

Surely the passage means, to paraphrase it,

I could kick myself, or beat myself, for

)eing such a fool as to urge this spiritless

reature to join in the affair." But that being

inatomically impossible, Hotspur premises,

I could 'divide myself,' make myself into

wo, that one half of myself might beat the

>ther." HIPPOCLIDES.

tt ' POOR ALLINDA'S GROWING OLD." (See 1 st S. ii. 264.) According to a story told by the irst Earl of Dartmouth (see Burnet's ' Own Time,' Oxford edition, 1823, vol. i. p. 458), " is uncle Will Legge, at Charles II. 's request, sed to sing to the Duchess of Cleveland, rho was getting elderly, a ballad beginning with these lines :

Poor Allinda 's growing old, Those charms are now no more ;

y which she was to understand that the ing no longer cared for her. When writing is delightful 'Story of Nell Gwyn,' more ban half a century ago, Peter Cunningham ndeavoured to trace the source of these erses through '1ST. & Q.,' but in vain, "hrough the kindness of Mr. G. Thorn )rury, than whom, I think, few are more itimately acquainted with the bypaths of eventeenth-century ballad literature, I am