Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/609

 10 th S. V. JTOE 30, 1906.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

501

LONDON, SATVEDAY, JUNE 30, 1906.

CONTENTS. No. 131.

NOTES ! Cobden's Earliest Political Writing, 501 Punc- tuation in MSS. and Printed Books, 502-Robert Greene's Prose Works, 604 " Chart "St. Michael's Church, Bur- leigh Street "Rag," "Bagging": "Brimer," "Bri- made," 507 Richard Townsend's Epitaph John, Lord Trevor Bloomsbury's Famous Houses, 508.

QUERIES : John Dyer 'Sussex Drinking-Song,' 508 Floral Emblems of Countries" Mother of dead dogs" "Sunken Land of Bus" Wheels instead of Feet North Sea Bubble "Poor Folks' Stairs " Holdich on Crowland Abbey Arkle : Neilson, 509 Aristopbanes's 'Wasps' Burney Family America v. United States " Minority waiter," 510.

REPLIES : Santorin and St. Irene, 510 Gray's ' Elegy ' : its Translations The Henry Brougham, Steamer, 511 ' Emblemes d'Alciat ' Masham Family Greek and Roman Tablets Portmanteau Words and Phrases, 512 Bury Family Baskish Inscriptions in Newfoundland- Order of the Royal Oak Cateaton Street, 513 Dr. Let- sum or Lettsom Society Ladies Holborn Rime v. Rhyme, 514" Rose of Jericho," 515 "Dog's Nose," 516 Bream's Buildings Butler of Toderstaff Catterton Smith Blandina Daniel Tuvill or Tutevil ' Pan- charis ' : 'Minerva,' 1735, 517 Lady Coventry's Minuet Cox's ' History of Warwickshire '-* West's Picture of the Death of General Wolfe Kipling's 'With Scindia to Delhi ' " Eshin' " : " Beltin' "=Caning Allan Cunning- ham's ' King of the Peak,' 518.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'The History of England from Addington's Administration to the Close of William IV.'s Reign' 'The Old Testament in Greek' 'Documents illustrating Elizabethan Poetry ''The People's Pray rs' ' French Abbreviations, Commercial, Financial, and General' 'Famous Sayings and their Authors' "The Universal Library " "Muses' Library" "Nights at the Opera."

Notices to Correspondents.

COBDEN'S EARLIEST POLITICAL WRITING.

MR, WILLIAM CATHRALL, who was joint- editor with Mr. Archibald Prentice of The Manchester Times, stated soon after Cobden's death that the great Free Trader was a contributor to that newspaper, and wrote letters about once a fortnight, which were signed '* Libra." An examination of the file in the British Museum has resulted in the discovery of only one communication under that pseudonym. This was printed in The Manchester Times of 27 Sept., 1834, and is presumably the earliest of Cobden's political writings; and there is a spice of piquancy in the fact that it is a tilt at The Times the journal with which in after life he was so frequently in conflict. As a matter of curiosity this article may be worth reprinting :

THE 'TIMES' AND LORD BROUGHAM. To the Editors of The Manchester Times.

GENTLEMEN: I am not anxious to be ranked amongst the unqualified admirers of Lord Brougham's political conduct. His has been the fate of almost every other great genius to be

carried occasionally by the force 9f conscious powers into eccentricities which minds of less subtlety can, without difficulty, see and avoid. He is not without advantages, however, even in this point of view, above the characters of most of the public men of this country whose talents entitle them to a comparison with him.

In industry he rivals even Pitt, whilst in his comprehensive views of the moral influences of our nature he surpasses that time-serving statesman. With more than the energy of Burke, he cannot become by his enemies charged with the apostacy of that great man. Equal in patriotism to the liberal and enlightened Fox, he is free from the laxity in public and private life which, owing to a too great facility of disposition, characterized him. Whilst in native and acquired talents the subject of my remarks perhaps excels all the three eminent names just quoted, it is doubtful, I think, whether in the absolute use and command of his powers he can be regarded as equal to either.

Lord Brougham is the creature of impulse hence springs his weakness. He is the terror of his partisans, even in the very act of leading them to victory. Hence arise also his tergiversations, often so clumsy, that his obtusest antagonist even of the tory benches could not equal them. From this cause too, arises the undignified display which the Lord Chancellor has made in the House of Lords, where he has exhibited not merely the want of personal dignity a quality which we do not prize even in dull men, and never look for in a man of genius but a total absence of that tran- quillity or consistency of mind and purpose which one would think that the decorous self-respect of great talents must ever impart to their possessors. I [am led into these remarks whilst referring to a series of extraordinary attacks which have lately been made in the Times London journal upon the reputation of Lord Brougham. Having been an attentive reader of that newspaper, 1 call their attacks extraordinary, because they evince a desti- tution of even a portion of that energy of mind and dexterity of tact which have for upwards of twenty years pre-eminently distinguished the conductors of that journal.

It is with no malevolent feeling that I call atten- tion to the errors of your metropolitan namesake. I believe the country owes much to the Times London newspaper, but the Public owes to itself the upholding of the integrity and honour of the press, which must receive a stigma not easily effaced should that journal go unchastised for its unprincipled conduct in the case before me. To enable your readers to judge clearly of the merits of this question, I will give them a few extracts from the Times the same Times be it borne in mind, and which are to be found within the period of eight months in its columns :

This misstatement is Persons acquainted one of the almost daily with the furniture of instances of the mode in Lord Brougham's mind which the enemies of the know that it is like the Lord Chancellor conduct specimens of an up- their opposition to that holsterer's showroom eminent man. The base- some piece of every set, ness of it is its antidote, but nothing in complete- It not only does not in- ness dfed arrangement jure the object of the a lumber of fineries, odds attack, but it recoils and ends at once more with violence on the and less than ueccessary