Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/538

 442

NOTES AND QUERIES. cio s. vn. JIVE s, 1907.

little Town of Dartford, two Men from any other Parish in Kent ; the Match for a Guinea per Head.

Well! But where shall they play? or when? why these generous Gentlemen resolving to put the poor Dartfordians to as much fatigue as they cou d (although the Match was formerly proposed on Walworth - Common near Camberwell) now say they, we'll make them walk four or five Miles further, we '11 meet at Islington agreed, but now the Time when? why we'll give these poor Lads but little Time to pick out their two Men, Wed- nesday last was the Day appointed, and agreed on.

The Day came, and these Lads came from Dart- ford that Morning, and were at the Place at eleven in the Morning. But now follows the Generosity of the London Club, the Field is to be seen ; the Dartfordians play generally on a Place they call the Brink, a Place as smooth as a London Bowling Green, so say these Gentlemen, we '11 carry them to a Field as rough as if it was plough'd last Summer ; and they not being us'd to such rough Usage, when they see the Field will refuse to play ; so we shall get the Deposit, and come off with Credit. This fail'd, for after the Dartfordians had shewn some small Resentment to such gross Usage, they con- descended to play ; this unexpected condescention put them on other Projects, one of which took ; 'twas this.

Come let 's see your Men ! agreed ; and up cock d a little Taylor, a Country Taylor good Lord ; who wou'd not once expect that these pretended Heroes wou'd objected [nic] against him, and disdainfully have said. You promis'd to bring eleven Men, but you have brought but ten, and one eighth [sic] Part of a Man ; we scorn to play, unless you take eight Taylors more to compleat him a Man.

But alas ! I am asham'd to tell you, the Taylor, the Country Taylor, with his Batt Rampant and his Cucumber Couchant (which by the Bye they took to be a Ball) so affrighted them ; they swore they wou'd not play unless the Taylor ty'd one Hand behind him, take me right, the Taylor was a good Bowler, and they wou'd not suffer him to bowl, which being his Master-piece is the same thing as tying one Hand behind him.

The Dartfordians insisted on their Man, their Taylor I mean ; the London Gentry was affrighted at his terrible rntt, turn'd their Balls to Quips and their Batts to Quibbles, and wou'd not turn them- selves to any thing, not even to play for half a Guinea, a Crown, nay half a Crown, which the Dartfordians offer'd rather than come in vain, so they were oblig'd to return. Taylor ! What have you done, thou certainly hast affrighted almost as many Men as thy Countryman Wat Tyler did, and perhaps with the same Weapon ?

But rather ye Londoners, what have ye done ? ye have made the poor Wee is meet of Dartford take a Journey of 36 Miles in vain. The Country has lost a good Taylor, who will certainly now believe himself to be a Man, and I hope he will put a

Basket Hilt to his Buckram Needle

Farewell.

Revenge brave Taylor, this absurd Abuse, \Vith Thimble, Needle, Shears, and Warlike Goose.

And when one reads such a report as this, one understands how Mr. Pickwick must have felt when he envied the ease with which the friends of Mr. Peter Magnus were amused. ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

DODSLEY'S FAMOUS COLLECTION OF POETRY.

(See 10 S. vi. 361, 402 ; vii. 3, 82, 284, 404.)

VOL. IV., ED. 1766, CONTENTS AND AUTHORS,

223. To Lady H y [Hervey]. By Mr. de Voltaire. In Voltaire's works, ed. 1837, ii. 806. this compliment is given to " Laura Harley, 1727, and the first word, " H y," is altered to Laura. In the French version on the same page the first line runs

Desirez-vous connaitre, Harley, la passion ? The English rendering is reprinted in H. P, Dodd, ' Epigrammatists,' 2nd ed., p. 349.

223-4. On Sir Robert Walpole's birthday. August 26. By the Hon. Mr. D ton [Dodington,. D.N.B.'].

224-8. The lawyer's farewell to his muse ; written in the year 1744. By Sir William Blackstone ('D.N.B.').

Blackstone was entered at the Middle Temple on 20 Nov., 1741, as "William Blackston, third son of Charles Blackston of the city of London, deed., citizen and maker of bows." Whatever his intentions may have been, he never entirely freed himself from the chains of literature. This poem has often been reprinted. Mr. Irving Browne in ' Law and Lawyers in Literature ' prints with it (pp. 230-34) a second poem,.. ' The Lawyer's Prayer,' by Blaokstone.

228-9. By Miss Cooper [M'C], now Mrs. Madan, in her brother's [Ashley Cowi>er's] Coke upon Littleton.

An account of Miss Cowper will be given in a later number.

229-39. Solitude, an ode. By Dr. Grainger ('D.N.B.').

The ninth and tenth lines were altered by Grainger into

Or at the purple dawn of day Tadmor's marble wastes survey, an allusion to the account of Palmyra by Wood and Dawkins, and the striking effect of the prospect upon them at daybreak.

239-42. Ode to R fc Hon. Stephen Poyntz ('D.N.B.'). By Sir C. Hanbury Williams ('D.N.B.').

243-4. Ode on the death of Matzel, a favourite Bull-finch, address'd to Mr. St pe [Stanhope], to whom the anther had given the reversion of it when he left Dresden. By the same. The bird was killed by a cat on a night of June, 1748. The ode first saw the light in this collection. The letter sent to Philip Stanhope (Lord Chesterfield's natural son) by Sir Charles with it, and the verses them- selves (but without verse vii.), were printed by Mrs. Stanhope in her edition of Chester- field's letters. The originals were in her possession. In a postscript to his letter to