Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/260

 214 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io» s. iv. SEPT. 9,1905. 38, Highbury Place, Islington, on 21 Nov. 1807, and was buried in St. Saviour's Church yard, Southwark, the parish in which he was born on 23 April, 1730. Granger's Wonderfu Magazine, 1802, contains his portrait. In it it is said :— "His greatest indulgence for these many years past is a daily visit to Bis house at Highbury Place in his own coach, which he has set up these few years, where he drinks tea, but returns home the same evening. He lives in the Bank, where he has very suitable apartments next his office." He was never married, though it was ob- served, when the one and two pound Bank of England notes came into circulation, that for a bachelor he had more little ones than any married man in the kingdom. 11 T>, EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road. OFFICERS OF STATE IN IRELAND (10th S. iv 149).—Haydn's ' Book of Dignities' seems to contain lists of the three classes about which inquiry is made. Another useful book is Chronicle of the Law Officers of Ireland,' by Constantino J. Smyth, 1839. LEO CULLETON. _ SIR THOMAS BROWNE ON OBLIVION (10th S iv. 128).—The passage wanted is this :— " Time sadly overcometh all things, and is now dominant, and sitteth upon a sphinx, and looketh unto Memphis and olcf Thebes, while his sister Oblivion reclmeth semisomnous on a pyramid gloriously triumphing, making puzzles of Titaniar erections, and turning old glories into dreams." The author, however, is not Sir Thomas Browne. The words occur near the end of the i-ragment on Mummies' printed by toimon Wilkm in the fourth volume of his edition of Browne's works (1835). Wilkin gave the piece on the authority of James Crossley, who professed to have copied it from a manuscript in the British Museum, . r!Th£, really w"tten it himself. See D.N.B., vol. vii. p. 71, col. 1, and vol. xiii. P-229, col. 1. EDWARD BENSLY. 23, Park Parade, Cambridge. _ SIR JOHN FASTOLF (10th S. iv. 145).—There is an interesting notice of Sir John Fastolfe ?n locov'8 'ShaksPeareana Genealogica' (pp. 136-8). A paragraph concerning the identification of Fastolf with Falstaff may toe quoted from Sidney Lee's 'Life of William bnakespeare':— "Shakespeare in both parts of 'Henry IV originally named the chief of the prince's associates alter Sir John Oldcastle, a character in the old play. But Henry Brooke, eighth lord Cobham, who succeeded to the title early in 1597, and claimed descent from the historical Sir John Oldcastle. the bollard leader, raised objection ; and when the first Part of the play was printed by the acting-com- pany's authority in 1598 (' newly corrected ' in 1599), Shakespeare bestowed on Prince Hal's tun-bellied follower the new and deathless name of Falstaff. A trustworthy edition of the second part of 'Henry IV.' also appeared with Falstaff s name substituted for that of Oldcastle in 1600. There the epilogue expressly denied that Falstaff had any characteristic in common with that of the martyr Oldcastle.': 'Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.' But the substitution of the name 'Falstaff' did not pass without protest. It hazily recalled Sir John Fastolf, an historical warrior who had already figured in ' Henry VI.,' and was owner at one time of the Boar's Head Tavern in South- wark; according to traditional stage directions, the prince and his companions in 'Henry IV.' frequent the Boar's Head, Eastcheap. Fuller in his 'Worthies,' first published in 1662, while expressing satisfaction that Shakespeare had ' put out of the play Sir John Oldcaslle, was eloquent in his avowal of regret that 'Sir John Fastolf was 'put in,' on the ground that it was making over-bold with a great warrior's memory to make him a 'Thrasonical puff and emblem of mock- valour.' "—Pp. 169-70. ST. SWITHIN. Sir John Fastolf, of Caistor, Norfolk, was long connected with Castle Combe, Wilts, where he left behind him an evil reputation. He married Lady Milicent, widow of Sir Stephen Scrope, whose son and heir was kept out of the estate for fifty-three years, under the plea that he (Sir John) was justified in doing so by the laws of England. In a memorandum still extant the lad complains of the ill-treatment he received at the hands of his father-in-law, who, he says, "sold mee" and "bought mee" (meaning probably that he was bartered in marriage), and that his health suffered from the hardships he endured. The late Mr. G. Powlett Scrope, who in 1852 published an account of the manor of Castle Combe, states that Sir John Fastolf "was generally considered the prototype of Shake- speare's fat knight. Indeed, the behaviour of the real knight to his son-in-law is very much what we might expect from the dramatic Sir John." Shakespeare may have gleaned information of Fastolf's doings when he was in Bath, acting (as it is believed he was) with the " Lord Chamberlain's servants " in 1596 and 1603. In ' Henry VIII.1 he introduces a nonk of Hinton (Hinton Charterhouse, near Bath) as confessor to the Duke o_f Bucking- lam; and Sonnets cliii. and cliv. exactly describe the Bath thermal waters. These illusions identify Shakespeare with the neigb- >ourhood, and strengthen the supposition ound at Castle Combe. W. T. THOMAS A BECKET (10th S. iv. 147).—It would be interesting to know who first tarted "a Becket." None of the old chro-
 * hat the original of the immortal Falstaff was