Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/552

 456

NOTES AND QUERIES. no s. VIL JUNE s, 1907.

before 1700 George was not an uncommon Christian name in this country.

F. JAKKATT.

WOBPLE WAY (10 S. iv. 348, 396; vii. 233, 293, 373, 417). I lived in Wimbledon from 1860 till 1867. At that time Worple Lane was a road between hedges, with no houses on either sids. The name of Walpole Lane was never heard. Maps may be relied on geographically, but names in them are not always trustworthy.

JOHN PAKENHAM STILWELL.

"BUMBLE-PUPPY" (10 S. vii. 306). Before the " Doves " Tavern at the north- west end of Hammersmith Bridge was pulled down the site being occupied now by flats, I think there was to be seen in the garden of this favourite resort of Thomson the poet a bumble-puppy table of slate, placed upon uprights, and inclined slightly towards one end, which was furnished with a wooden frame. This fram3 certainly does not appear to make the table resemble in any way either that described in James Godby's ' Italian Scenery,' as quoted by MB. THORNTON, or that in Strutt's * Sports and Pastimes,' where the game is said to be identical with " nine holes " : and in both these cases it appears to be the game upon which bagatelle was founded. But in the "Doves" example a row of nine-holes form entrances for the ball to a correspond- ing row of stable-like partitions or pigeon- holes. I judge from a careful engraving in front of me, where there is not a single hole in the board, as in the bagatelle table. Was the tt Doves " table then really in- tended originally for bumble-puppy ? It seems rather to fit the description of nine- holes, and that nine-holes was a variant form o bumble-puppy, like the game of " troule-in-madame." Strutt in describing nine holes appears to think that, owing to the proscription of skittles by the magis trate, it was adopted in their place undei the name of " bubble- the- justice," because it was a game not prohibited by name in the statutes. Then he describes a game which, as " nine-holes," seems to answei the requirements of the " Doves " frame He says that he had seen a pastime practisec by schoolboys called nine-holes, playec with marbles, which they bowled at a boarc set upright, resembling a bridge, with nin small arches, all numbered. If the marbl struck against the sides of the arches, i became the property of the boy to whon the board belonged ; but if it went throug any one of them, the bowler claimed

umber of marbles equal to the number on

e arch it passed through.

The Hammersmith board certainly seems o meet the requirements of those who layed " troule-in-madame." In ' The benefit of the Ancient Bathes of Buck-
 * ones,' compiled by John Jones at the

ing's Mede, nigh Darby, 1572, 4to, p. 12, re read, says Brand in his * Antiquities ' Bohn, 1854, ed. by Ellis, vol. ii. p. 445) : The ladyes, gentle woomen, wyves, and maydes, lay in one of the galleries walke ; and if the veather bee not aggreeable to their expectacion, ley may have in the end of a benche eleven holes nade, intoo the whiche to trowle immmates, or owles of leade, bigge, little, or meane, or also of opper, tynne, woode, eyther vyolent or softe,, t'ter their owne discretion ; the pastime troule-in- iddame is termed."

Where is the " Doves " bumble-puppy ontrivance now ? and are there any other mtlying taverns or ale-houses where the- ' table " used in the game survives ?

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.

CABLYLE ON PAINTING FOAM (10 S. viL

UO, 373). Here are two earlier instances

f the same allusion in Carlyle. On 10 June,

831, he wrote to Goethe that he had been

' for these last months .... busy with a

^iece " [i.e., ' Sartor 'J, of which he says :

"It is, after all, not a Picture that I am painting ;

t is but a half -reck less casting of the brush, with

ts many frustrated colours, against the canvas :

w-liether it will make good Foam is still a venture."

C. E. Norton, ' Correspondence between Goethe

and Carlyle,' 1887, p. 285.

And in the concluding chapter of ' Sartor,' written about a couple of months later, he says of Teufelsdrockh :

'Seems it not conceivable that striving with

his characteristic vehemence to paint this and the other Picture, and ever without success, he at last desperately dashes his sponge, full of all colours, against the canvas, to try whether it will paint Foam ? "

A note in J. A. S. Barrett's excellent edition of ' Sartor ' (p. 360) says, without naming any authorities, that the painter who threw the brush was Apelles, when trying to paint the foam on Alexander's horse- But the story of the sponge and the painting dog is told of Protogenes, the contemporary of Apelles, e.g., in Lempriere's ' Classical Dictionary.' L. R. M. STBACHAN.

Heidelberg, Germany.

The next day after sending my letter of inquiry to you I found ample information about the foam allusion in Carlyle's ' French Revolution.' In the " Farewell " chapter of ' Sartor Resartus ' is a clearer reference to the same story. Pliny the Elder^in