Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/189

 10 s. VIIL AUG. 24, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

155

Voltaire seems to have remained at Ferney with few exceptions, till 1778, when he revisited Paris, dying the same year. I- is to be noticed that the extract which ] quoted gives the words, not of Madame Tussaud, but of F. Herve, the editor Madame Tussaud was seventy-eight when her ' Memoirs ' were published. It is possible, therefore, that she mingled what she merely heard from others with her own experiences ; or Herve may have mistaken her relation of what others had told her for her own personal experience. At al events, I am obliged to M. M. for the correc tion. F. H.

MIBAGE (10 S. vii. 390, 453, 495). I remember seeing a mirage in the Solent or, more correctly, off Eastney on my way from Cowes to Ryde by boat, on the morning of 9 Sept., 1893, after crossing from Havre in a westerly gale during the night. ] Relieve one or two have occurred about thos( waters since then. JOHN A. RANDOLPH.

HAMLET AS A CHRISTIAN NAME (10 S. viii 4). I think Hamlet as a Christian name may not have been so uncommon as MB EDWARD PEACOCK thinks. Whilst consult- ing ' Ducatus Lancastrise,' part iv. (Calendar to Pleadings in the reign of Elizabeth), for other information, I chanced upon Hamlet AS a Christian name, and found on searching further that there were six instances between the dates 1573 and 1601. I append dates, names of persons, and places, with brief notes on some of the cases. The places are chiefly in Lancashire and Cheshire. I have preserved the old spelling of names of places.

1. 1573 - 99. Hamlet Bruche - Pulton, Bruch Hall, Warrington, Offename, Wolston Manor. The plaintiff in one case is Sir Peter Leigh, Kt., of Lyme. Bruche's name is also written Hamnett in one entry.

2. 1574-87. Hamlet Holcrofte-Chadwold- shed, Barton, Great and Little Woulden, Culsheth, Harford Manor. This person appears in eight cases between these years, most of them being against people bearing the same surname as himself. One of these is Sir John Holcrofte, Kt. In a case in 1601, in which John Asheton and his wife Elizabeth are plaintiffs, the latter is described as " the daughter of Hamlet Holcrofte." In the ' Acts of the Privy Council,' under date 27 Nov., 1577, there is an order that a certain William Weekes is to be delivered to Hamblet Holcraft to be brought to London for his trial on a charge of murder.

3. 1575-85. Hamlet Ashfon-Rixton Moss, Pulton, Warrington, Glasbrook.

4. 1590 - 91. Hamlet Lee Maghull, Kirkeby.

5. 1599. Hamlet Johnson, otherwise Widoweson Ditton.

6. 1601. Hamlet Rethroppe Lathome, Knowesley, Burscoughe manors and lord- ships. The plaintiff in this case was William, Earl of Derby.

In the same Calendar Hamlet appears once as a surname, under date 1596, thus : John Hamlett Pesforlonge, Culcheth, Cadwoulds-

j.

Again in ' Acts of P.C.' (17 March, 1577) there is a note to the effect that one John Hamlett has been committed to gaol at Winchester as "an impudent imposter." He was set at liberty on 30 Dec. of the same year.

The name must have been in use long before Shakespeare's play appeared, the earliest edition of which was published in 1603. An earlier play with a like title (not by Shake- speare) is mentioned in 1587.

CHR. WATSON. 264, Worple Road, Wimbledon.

A biography of Hamlet Winstanley, the painter and engraver, who was born in 1698 and died in 1756, will be found in the ' D.N.B.,' Ixii. 207. Three of the portraits in Winchester College Hall viz., those of the Rev. John Taylor, M.A., a fellow and bene- factor of the College, and of Mrs. Taylor and Miss Taylor, this fellow's mother and sister- are signed " H. Winstanley : 1731," and are, I imagine, the work of Hamlet Winstanley.

H. C.

I have met with Hamlet as a Christian name more than once, but I can lay my hands on this single instance only at present. On 10 Feb., 1617/18, Hamlett Duncalfe, of Ashby Puerorum, yeoman, aged twenty- five, had a licence to marry (Gibbons, ' Lincoln Marriage Licences,' 1888, p. 72). Reference should be made to a discussion on the name in 5 S. v., vi. W. C. B.

In Dr. Gasquet's 'Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries ' occurs " Dan Hamlet Pencriche, one of the monks of the Clumac priory of Lenton, Notts" (vol. ii. p. 189). I ancv the date to be about 1536-8.

R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate, Kent.

Mr. Hamlet Watling for many years lived at 41, Pearce Road, Ipswich.

EDWARD COOKSON.