Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/108

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NOTES AND QUERIES, no s. VIIL AUG. 3, 1907.

its connexion with " quaff " is not very remote. Then the epithet by which it is distinguished for the social purpose is one indicative of harmonious feeling, the boon companions by their genial action expressing their good will towards one another because of the days that are no more. Thus " a right gude-willie waught," a bumper charged with peace and good will, is that which appropriately crowns a festive gathering of well- tried friends. Cf. Horace, Carmen II., 7, 19, et seg. THOMAS BAYNE.

GEORGE BUCHANAN ON TOBACCO. I do not remember seeing any reference in tobacco literature to the verses of George Buchanan :

De Nicotiana f also nomine Medicea apellata. Doctus ab Hesperiis rediens Nicotius oris

Nicotianam retulit, Nempe salutiferam cunctis languoribus herbam,

Prodesse cupidus patriae. At Medice Catharina Kdtiap/ta luesq ; suorum,

Medea sseculi sui, Ambitione ardens, Medicseae nomine plantain

Nicotianam adulterat : Vtque bonis cives prius exuit, exuere herbse

Honore vult Nicotium. At vos auxilium membris qui quaeritis aegris,

Abominandi nominis A planta cohibete manus, os claudite, & aures

A peste tetra occludite. Nectar enim virus net, Panacea venenum

Medicaea si vocabitur.

I quote from the Elzevir edition of the
 * Poemata' (1638).

WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Manchester.

GARIBALDI IN ENGLAND. Sir William Cremer, in an interview with a newspaper reporter, referred to a visit paid by Gari- baldi in 1864 to the tomb of Mazzini at Chiswick as a possible explanation of the ^unceremonious hustling of the liberator of Italy out of England. The pilgrimage to Chiswick was made to the grave of Ugo Foscolo, the author of ' I Sepolchri,' who resided in Chiswick High Road in a house -only recently demolished, and dying there, was buried in the churchyard of the parish church, whence his remains were afterwards removed to the church of Santa Croce at Florence.

Mazzini at the close of his life retired to Pisa, where he died. He was not, how- -eyer, buried there, but at Genoa, his native city. JOHN HEBB.

HACKNEY CELEBRITIES. There runs in my mind a stray notion that Grace Aguilar was born in Hackney, or lived there some part of her life. I have an idea, too, that

one of the progenitors of Sir Moses Monte- fiore lived in Morning Lane in the eighteenth century, when that thoroughfare was a pretty, winding, umbrageous lane. These are merely surmises or false impressions, possibly. At any rate, the Varleys, famous aquarellists, were " Hackney lads." Now my object, in view of the completion of the library in Mare Street, is to bring together in ' N. & Q.' a fairly complete list of persons of eminence, worth, and rank who were born or lived in this old borough. The advantage of covering the walls of the building with the lineaments, &c., of famous local persons is obvious.

M. L. R. BRESLAR. Percy House, South Hackney.

THE SUBTERRANEOUS EXHIBITION. The following advertisement from The Illus- trated London News, 11 Feb., 1843, p. 103, col. 1, may be useful to the compiler of the history of the Strand :

"Subterraneous Exhibition, No. 35, Strand. A splendid picture of the Crucifixion has just been added to the Exhibition in the Magic Cave ; also an original painting, by Mr. Cox, of ' The Eve of the Deluge,' which' may now be seen, with sixteen other Views, fitted up with so much ingenuity that the spectator, with a slight help from the fancy, might imagine that he was looking from some real cavern ujxm some of the most exquisite scenes on England s Coast. Open from Eleven in the morn- ing until Ten at night. Admission, Sixpence. Lowther Bazaar, 35, Strand." The entrance to the exhibition seems to have been in the Lowther Arcade.

R. B. P.

THE HAMPSTEAD OMNIBUS. Room may be found in ' N. & Q.' for the following, which appeared in The Daily Telegraph of 29 June, under the heading ' Killing the 'Bus ' :

" Last night the service of omnibuses from High Street, Hampstead, to Oxford Street, ceased run- ning, the competition of the new Hampstead Tube haying been so great that during the past week they have carried scarcely any passengers. Thus a link with the past is broken, for the Hampstead 'bus was the direct descendant of the old passenger coaches. It was by the Hampstead coach that Clarissa Harlowe arrived at ' The Upper Flask ' (now a private house) in 1689, as recorded by Samuel Richardson. A four-horse coach from Mill Hill and Hendon, passing through Hampstead, formed the only means of public vehicular conveyance between those places and London until the begin- ning of the last century ; and as late as 1835 the only public conveyances to London were two coaches, each constructed to carry eighteen persons, the fare from Hampstead to the Bank of England being 1*. 6d. inside and Is. outside. In 1836 the first omnibus was started; but it was not until 1842 that the coaches were practically superseded