Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 7.djvu/572

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vn JUNE 15, 1907.

occurs during the course of a speech by Sir William Wyndham in connexion with the motion for repealing the Septennial Act. The report of the Parliamentary debate on this subject began in No. 89 of The Bee, and extended into No. 96. The numbers are not dated, and in the circumstances perhaps this is immaterial, as the exact date and order of the various speeches may be obtained elsewhere. Walpole's speech came after Sir William Wyndham's and apparently just before the division which rejected the motion. The claim of priority, there- fore, would seem to be in favour of Wynd- ham. W. ROBERTS.

The first Lord Ly tton seems to have firmly believed that Sir Robert Walpole was responsible for the saying " Every man has his price." Not only did he write a blank- verse comedy probably the very worst he ever wrote, both as to comedy and as to verse with the title ' Walpole ; or, Every Man has his Price,' in which he makes the minister exclaim in Act II. sc. i., Every man has his price, I must bribe left and right, and again in Act III. sc. ii.,

Every man has his price, my majority 's clear ; but in " Not so Bad as We Seem ' Lord Wilmot narrates an interview with the statesman, in which this passage occurs :

" ' Sir Robert,' says I, ' we men of the world soon come to the point ; 'tis a maxim of yours that all have their price.' ' Not tjuite that,' says Sir Robert, 4 but let us suppose that it is.' "

CLIFTON ROBBINS.

HOUSES OF HISTORICAL INTEREST (10 S. v. 483 ; vi. 52, 91, 215, 356, 497 ; vii. 312, 413). It is a long time since I ventured to suggest for the consideration of the London County Council that a commemo- rative tablet should be placed on Charles Lamb's Islington house, and two years ago I was informed that the Council was taking steps to have this done. I am unable to explain the delay that has ensued. No doubt whatever exists with regard to the house. It is no longer a detached building, and a third of it has been sliced away, but the principal rooms remain as they were in Lamb's time, and a curious old arm-chair in which the author of " Elia " is said to have sat when engaged on his literary work is still preserved in the office of Messrs. Webb & Co., the owners of the property. Any uncertainty which may have existed with respect to the house, and which the Editor's note shows is not yet entirely dis- pelled, has been due partly to the loose way

in which Lamb described his residence, and partly to the changes of nomenclature that have been made in the district. Lamb in his letter to Thomas Allsop (6 Sept., 1823) describes the cottage as being at " the end of Colebrook Row, on the western brink of the New River " ; and in a later letter to Robert Southey (21 Nov., 1823) he Says he is at " Colebrook Cottage, Colebrook Row, Isling- ton. A detached whitish house, close to the New River, end of Colebrook Terrace, left hand from Sadler's Wells." It will be observed that in one letter Lamb describes the cottage as being at the end of Colebrook Row, and in another as being at the end of Colebrook Terrace, which has since been in- cluded in Duncan Terrace. Colebrook Row was on the eastern bank of the New River : Colebrook Terrace, or, as it was originally called, " New Terrace," was on the western bank. Lamb's cottage was really a detached house at the end of this terrace, facing Cole- brook Row. In course of time the cottage was looked on as belonging to Camden Street, at the end of which it stood, and it was named No. 19, Camden Street. In 1890, when the third edition of Mr. Wilmot Harri- son' s 'Memorable London Houses,' as cited by the Editor, was published, the house still retained that designation. Mr. Harrison made a slight error in describing the house as 19, Camden Terrace, but in other respects he was correct. In the same year, 1890, the designation No. 19, Camden Street, was altered to No. 64, Duncan Terrace, which the house still retains. No. 64, Duncan Terrace, is therefore Cole- brook Cottage, in which Lamb resided for about three years. The statement made by Mr. Laurence Hutton and some other writers that Lamb's cottage was No. 19, Colebrook Row, is probably due to a con- fusion with No. 19, Camden Street.

I have followed Lamb's spelling of " Cole- brook " Row, although it is not correct. The word was not a contraction of " Coin- brook," as Talfourd seems to have imagined, but was the surname of Sir George Cole- brooke, then Lord of the Manor of High- bury, in which the district was situated.

W. F. PRIDE AUX.

MR. BRESLAR does not guide us correctly " In the Footsteps of Charles Lamb." Mr. Martin's work of that title is to be preferred. Of course George Dyer did not walk " down the steep shrubby declivity into the canal," but deliberately marched " right forwards into the midst of the stream that runs by us" (' Amicus Redivivus'). The New