Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/277

 10 s. vm. SEPT. 21, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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sites. One of the alcoves of the old London Bridge may be seen in the grounds of Guy's Hospital, another is in Victoria Park, whilst a country house in North Kent was built with stones taken from the same structure. Temple Bar is at Theobald's ; the famous heptagonal pillar from Seven Dials has been re-erected near Wevbridge ; the gateway and railings from the late Baron Grant's unfinished palace at Kensington are at Sandown Park; and the front of Old Mercers' Hall in Cheapside is at Swanage. Hungerford Suspension Bridge went to Clifton, while the statue of Charles I., from Soho .Square, was purchased by Sir W. S. Gilbert."

To this it may be added that the earth excavated for the docks on the site of St. Catherine's Hospital levelled the area of Eaton and Belgrave Squares. The bricks and stones of the Caledonian Asylum were used in building two blocks of flats at Widdenham Road, Holloway. The familiar reticulated limestone wall of New- gate Prison was largely redressed and used for the new Central Criminal Court.

ALECK ABBAHAMS. 39, Hillmarton Road, N.

EPITAPHS. The following appears to occur in more than one locality :

Reader, pass on, nor idly_ waste your time On bad biography and still worse rhyme ; For what I am this cumbrous clay ensures, And what I was is no concern of yours. A recen* book of English travel places a variant of it at Ewyas Harold, Hereford- shire ; and a periodical of 1847 refers to it as " in a village of Suffolk."

The first-named source also gives the following, at Llanthony Abbey :

Thomas Price he took a nap In our common mother's lap, Waiting to hear the trumpet say, " Awake, my dear, and come away."

W. B. H.

I recently copied in the churchyard of Mitchel Troy, near Monmouth, the following epitaph, which does not appear to have been given in ' N. & Q.' It is near the south porch :

In memory of Philip | Stead Who died des | ember The 13 th | 1736 Aged 67.

Life is Unsartain And deth is so shuer Sin is The Wound Christ is the Cuer.

I think from its quaint spelling it is worth recording. B. B B.

EPITAPH OF THOMAS BECKET THE BOOK- SELLEB. In The European Magazine, vol. Ixv. p. 53 (1813), are the following

" Lines to the memory of Mr. Thomas Becket, formerly of Pall Mall, Bookseller, who died Novem- ber 15, 1813, aged 91 ; and of his Second Daughter,

Margaret Becket, who died on the 18th of the same month, aged 47. Intended to be inscribed on their Tomb-Stone by the sorrowing Andrew Becket, Son

Siste Viator. Stop, trembling Eld ! stav, generous youth,

Lo ! the rude tomb of Thomas Becket ; The friend of Honour and of Truth :

What need of heralds then to deck it ? Her parents' worth to equal Margaret tried ; But found the effort vain : and nobly died ! "

This quaint epitaph surely deserves preservation. WILLIAM E. A. AXON.

Manchester.

CAT FOLK-LOBE. It has been already noted in ' N. & Q.' that a black cat is lucky. The following recent instance of the super- stition is taken from The Betford Times of 9 August :

" A black cat, which is a somewhat uncommon visitor to a cricket field, on Saturday followed the Worksop captain from the pavilion when he went to inspect the wicket before commencing the match at Shirebrook. It kept at his heels Sfrom starting to the top wicket, across to the bottom, and back again to the pavilion. Whereupon the super- stitious member of the team congratulated Capt. Hunter on impending good luck, and predicted a victory for Worksop over the champions. He turned out to be a much truer prophet than some of those who pay a shilling a line to announce their prophetic skill in the sporting papers, for Worksop, after a very tight finish, came out on top with a wicket to spare."

Football teams are sometimes in the habit of taking a black cat on to the field with them, in the hope that it will bring good luck.

CBICKETEB.

SHAKESPEABE AS A PLAYEB. The follow- ing extract from ' Studies and Romances,' by Mr. H. Schiitz-Wilson, published in 1873, will be interesting to Shakesperean students. If authentic, it might be possible yet to trace the original letters from which the description of the first production of ' Hamlet,' with Shakespeare as one of the performers, has been taken :

" I have before me two curious letters, which have strangely escaped destruction, in the former of which Herbert [Grey, a relative by consanguinity or marriage of the Sidneys of Penshurst and the Pembrokes of Wilton], in the fresh flush of delight,

described the performance [of 'Hamlet'] while

in the second he recorded his impression of the poet as a player. Herbert says that Shakspeare lacked somewhat the very torrent, tempest, and whirl- wind of passion : that he was calm and balanced, playing best characters which centred round a certain steadfastness of grave nobleness : but that his voice was singularly sweet and stately, always tuned by an inner lofty intensity, and expressing subtly every shade of meaning or variation of feeling. The scene between Hamlet and the Ghost, acted by Taylor and by Shakspeare, produced an extraordinary effect upon the spectators ; and, near