Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/585

 10 s. VIIL DEC. 21, 1907.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

483

To DR. MURRAY, ox BEGINNING H. I 'm glad that you 've done so I hear you say

With the words that begin with D, And have left H. B. to be glad and gay With the glory that waits on G : And you laugh, ha ! ha ! defying fate, As you tackle the terrible aspirate The H that appals the Cockney crew, Lancashire, Essex, and Shropshire too ; For they cannot abide the hunter's horn, And hold e'en heavenly hosts in scorn ; And I fear there are some who can't quite say Why you didn't give " hat " when you worked at A ; Whose utterance leaves some doubt between The human hair and an air serene, The harrow that creeps, and the arrow that flies, The heels where chilblains are wont to rise And the nice fat eels that are baked in pies ! We all rejoice, on this New Year's Day, To hear you are fairly upon your way To honour and happiness, hope and health ! I would you were nearer to worldly wealth.

1 Jan., 1897.

PROF. SKEAT'S prose is always welcome, and so, I feel sure, will be his poetry.

RALPH THOMAS.

THE MYSTERY OF HANNAH LIGHTFOOT.

(See ante, pp. 321, 402.)

WHO was Isaac Axford of the parish of St. Martin's, Ludgate, married to Hannah Lightfoot at Keith's Chapel on 11 Dec., 1753 ?

In tracing his career there will be found good reasons for attaching some importance to one of the authorities which the late MB. THOMS affected to mistrust. According to a correspondent of The Monthly Magazine, who dated his letters from Warminster in Wiltshire, Isaac Axford was shopman to Bolton, the grocer on Ludgate Hill. Some time after the disappearance of Hannah he retired to his native county, and in the course of time married a Miss Bartlett. During the remainder of his life he resided at Warminster, where he died in the year 1816 at the age of eighty-five. See ' Hannah Lightfoot,' &c., by W. J. Thorns, pp. 5, 6, 7, 11, where the whole correspondence is repro- duced ; also 3 S. xi. 90.

A reference to the local records, all of which I have verified, will show that these facts are not imaginary. One Isaac, the son of John and Elizabeth Axford, was baptized at Erlestoke, Wilts, on the 17th of August, 1734 ; while an Isaac Axford of the same parish, described as a widower, married Mary Bartlett, of Warminster, at Holy Saviour's Church, Erlestoke, on 3 Dec., 1759. Finally, the parish register of War-

minster records the burial of Isaac Axford on 19 April, 1816. Although he was thus in his eighty-second year, and not eighty- five, as stated in The Monthly Magazine of July, 1821, the fact that his wife died at Warminster on the 10th of January, 1791, seems to corroborate the statement that the last years of his life were spent in that town.

Still, since the criticism of MB. THOMS has cast a doubt upon the authority of The Monthly Magazine, its information is not absolutely conclusive, and MB. A. HALL, writing at 8 S. ii. 264, suggests that

the identity of the two Axfords has not been proved one marriage taking place in London, the other in Wiltshire." Yet, presuming that the letters in The Monthly Magazine which describe the history of Axford were fabricated by Olive Serres, it must be confessed that she utilized the local registers for her purpose in a mar- vellous manner, while MB. THOMS'S fantastic theory loses its force if the facts are corro- borated. There certainly is corroboration, for there exists a positive family tradition that Isaac Axford of St. Martin's, Ludgate,. the husband of Hannah Lightfoot, the " Fair Quaker," was the same Isaac Axford who married Mary Bartlett at Erlestoke, Wilts, and who died at Warminster in April, 1816. Two years ago I had an interesting correspondence on the subject with Mr. Frank Curtis, of Warminster, who married a Miss Axford, the great-granddaughter of Isaac Axford, and his letters are before me as I write. Mr. Curtis relates the following narrative :

"Isaac Axford was a grocer in London, and the story told to my wife by her grandfather, Isaac, son of the said Isaac Axford, concerning his father's marriage with Hannah Lightfoot, is that as they came out of church after the marriage ceremony she was taken from him at the door, put into a coach, and driven away. Her husband rode after them on horseback until the horse dropped. As- the coach approached the turnpike they shouted ' Royal Family,' the gates being immediately opened, while he had to wait and pay the toll. He went to the King and begged for his wife, but he never saw her again."

Possibly, it will be objected that this picturesque, but highly coloured narrative, told by an old man who probably was familiar with the correspondence in The Monthly Magazine, was influenced by the various accounts of the story of Hannah Lightfoot published in the early part of the nineteenth century. This may be, but it is improbable that either the son of Isaac Axford or the Wiltshire correspondent of