Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/259

 io" S.V.MARCH n. 1906.) NOTES AND QUERIES.

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old chemists and druggists or apothecaries, in which reference is made (pp. 133-4) to three different versions of Dr. Lettsom's amusing quatrain, as follows :

"Dr. Lettsom's prescriptions were always signed which is said to have been displayed over his door when a country doctor. The sentiment of the fourth line is, however, not, I think, sufficiently humane to have come from one who had earned the title of 'Amicus Humani Generis,' and I am not speaking without my book in saying that the version in ' Old and New London ' is not the correct one ; it is there given as
 * I. Lettsom,' a habit which called forth an epigram

When any patients call in haste,

I physics, bleeds, and sweats 'em ; If after that they choose to die, Why, what cares I ?

I lets 'em.

But the late Mr. H. S. Cuming told me that his father was told by Dr. Lettsom himself that the lines really were :

If any folk applies to I,

1 blisters, bleeds, and sweats 'em ; If after that they please to die,

Well, then I lets 'em.

The version given by Mr. Gorton, the present proprietor of the "Golden Sun," No. 146, White- chapel High Street, where the pills, as originally prepared from a private prescription of Dr. Lettsom, are still sold, is :

I, John Lettsom,

Blisters, bleeds, and sweats 'em ; If after that they please to die, I, John, lets 'em."

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

CAPT. JAMES JEFFEREYS, OF BLARNEY CASTLE (10 th S. iv. 404, 496). The following extracts from a paper contributed many years ago to the Kilkenny Archaeological Society Journal (New Series, vol. v. pp. 416-17), by Mr. A. G. Geoghegan, gives valuable information re- garding the widow of James St. John Jeffereys, of Blarney Castle, which is well worthy of recapitulation :

" In looking over some family papers, and bundles of old letters, I discovered one written more than half a century ago, by Mrs. Jeffereys, of Blarney Castle, County Cork, which contains an account of a circumstance interesting in itself as an instance of heroism on the part of the narrator towards her brother, the Earl of Clare, and so valuable, as bringing to light a remarkable event connected with the history of those troubled times, that I feel I am only discharging a duty in sub- mitting it to the notice of the Society. Of the authenticity of this letter there can be no doubt. It had been in the possession of my father, the late Gerald Geoghegan, who had the honour of Mrs. Jeffereys' acquaintance, from the day on which it was written ; and on his death it came, along with other documents, into my possession, where it now remains. The letter is dated 9, Molesworth Street, July, 1807 ; and among other matters, Mrs. Jeffereys writes as follows :

' 'My late brother, the Earl of Clare, always was an active, faithful servant to his King and country,

and ever supported the Protestant interest both in Ireland, and in the House of Lords, in England, whenever that question was discussed. On the day Lord Fitzwilliam was recalled, when my brother (as Chancellor) was returning from the Castle, after having assisted at the swearing in the newly arrived Lord Lieutenant, a ferocious mob of no less than 5,000 men, and several hundred women, assembled together in College Green, and all along the avenue leading to my brother's house. The male part of the insurgents were armed with pistols, cutlasses, sledges, saws, crowbars, and every other weapon necessary to break open my brother's house ; and the women were all of them armed with their aprons full of paving stones. This ferocious and furious mob began to throw showers of stones into my brother's coach, at his coachman's head, and his horses ; they wounded my brother in the temple, in College Green ; and if he had not sheltered himself by holding his great square official purse before him, he would have been stoned to death before he arrived (through the back-yard) at his own house; where with several smithy sledges, they were work- ing hard to break into his hall door, while, some others of them had ropes ready to fix up to his lamx> iron to hang him the moment they could find him when I arrived, disguised in my kitchen-maid's dress, my blue apron full of stones. I mingled vyith this numerous mob, and addressed a pale sickly man, saying, "My dear jew'l, what 'ill be- come of hus ! I am after running from the Castle to tell yeas all that a regiment of Hos is galloping down here to thrample hus, &c. Oh ! yea, yea, where will we go?" Then they cried, "Hurry, hurry the hos is coming to charge and thrample hus ! Hurry for the Custom House." And in less than a moment the crowd dispersed.

" ' I then procured a surgeon for my brother, and a guard to prevent another attack, and thus I saved Lord Clare's life, at the risk of being torn limb from limb, if I had been recognised by any of the mob.'"

The riots on the departure of Lord Fitz- william, in 1795, are noticed in contemporary journals. Mr. John Prendergast, barrister- at-law, contributed the note given below :

"At the date of Mrs. Jeffereys' interesting- letter, Lord Clare lived at No. 5, Ely Place, which is not far from Molesworth Street, Mrs. Jeffereys' residence. And when the mob were alarmed by her clever stratagem (so courageously adventured upon), and fled from Lord Clare's house, they ran off to make a similar attack on the Custom House, then the residence of the Right Hon. J. Beresford, who was charged with sacrificing the public money and the public convenience, by building suites of splendid apartments in it for his family and dependants. The attack on Lord Clare's house, so graphically described by Mrs. Jeffereys, was probably the occasion of an occurrence that was never made public, and yet is of an interest, namely, thatLord Clare got barricades erected in his hall to withstand any effort of a mob to enter by force."

Further details concerning the Earl of Clare (whose family name was Fitz Gibbon) will be found in Burke's ' Extinct Peerage.' CHARLES DALTON.

32, West Cromwell Road, S.W.