Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/133

 ii s. i. FEB. 12, MO.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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all marks of friendship at first sight, which I always think more extraordinary than love of the same kind.

" Oct. 8. Dined at Madame de Loss's, wife to the Prime Minister, with the Nelson party. The Electress will not receive Lady Hamilton, on account of her former dissolute life. She wished to go to Court, on which a pretext was made to avoid receiving company last Sunday, and I understand there will be no Court while she stays. Lord Nelson, understanding the Elector did not wish to see her, said to Mr. Elliot, ' Sir. if there is any difficulty of that sort, Lady Hamilton will knock the Elector down, and

inc. I '11 knock him down too.' She was not invited in the beginning to Madame de Loss's ; upon which Lord Nelson sent his excuse, and then Mr. Elliot persuaded Madame de Loss to invite her.

" Oct. 9. A great breakfast at the Elliots', given to the Nelson party. Lady Hamilton repeated her attitudes with great effect. All the company, except their party ^nd myself, went away before dinner ; after which Lady Hamilton, who declared she was passionately fond of champagne, took such a portion of it as astonished me. Lord Nelson was not behindhand, called n KIT.- v, .ciferously than usual for songs in his own praise, and after many bumpers proposed the Queen of Naples, adding, ' She is my Queen ; she is Queen to the backbone.' Poor Mr. Elliot, who was anxious the party should not expose them- selves more than they had already done, and wished to get over the last day as well as he had done the rest, endeavoured to stop the effusion of champagne, and effected it with some difficulty ; but not till the Lord and Lady, or, as he calls tin -MI, Antony and Moll Cleopatra, were pretty far gone. 1 was so tired, I returned home soon after dinner, but not till Cleopatra had talked to me a great deal of her doubts whether the Queen would receive her, adding, 'I care little about it. I had much sooner she would settle half Sir William's pension on me.' After I went, Mr. Elliot told me she acted Nina intolerably ill, and danced the Tarantola. During her acting Lord Nelson expressed his admiration by the Irish sound of astonished applause, which no written character can imitate, and by crying

every now and then, ' Mrs. Siddons be .'

Lady Hamilton expressed great anxiety to go to Court, and Mrs. Elliot assured her it would not amuse her, and that the Elector never gave dinners or suppers. * What ? ' cried she, ' no guttling ! ' Sir William also this evening per- formed feats of activity, hopping round the room on his backbone, his arms, legs, star and ribbon all Hying about in the air."

The Right Hon. Hugh Elliot, brother to Lord Minto, was British Minister at Dres- den, and about forty. The next day, by a ruse, Mr. Elliot lured Nelson to Hamburg, to meet a frigate, which, however, did not arrive for several days.

The above accounts are taken from Mrs. St. George's * Journal kept during a Visit to C4ermany in 1799-1800,' edited by the Dean of Westminster (not published), 1861, pp. 75-82. D. J.

" RUMTUM," A SINGLE -SCULLING BOAT. Till Dr. Craigie, who is editing R for our great ' New English Dictionary,' asked me to define a " rumtum,' 2 and tell him where the word came from, I had never heard how it happened to be applied to the handy, short, single-sculling boat with outriggers and a sliding seat which all we scullers know so well. The first I saw was at Chester, one Sunday morning in August, 1890, or there- abouts ; and I was told that it was one of Salter's " rumtums " from Oxford. A very nice little boat it was ; and many a scull did I have in it. But Salters said the other day that they were not the inventors of the boat or its name ; so I applied to Jack Biffen at Hammersmith, and he explains the whole thing :

" Hum turns were first introduced on the Thames aboxit 22 years ago by Mr. J. Alexander, boat builder, Putney. My boat builder, Mr. S. Butler, was apprenticed there ; and why we fix the date at 22 years is, he has worked for us 17 years, and 3 years at Maidstone, and these boats were built while he was apprenticed, the first being constructed by T. Robinson, sen. The dimensions of the present ones are : length, 22 ft. ; width, 1 ft. 8 in. ; depth centre, 8 in. ; depth aft, 81 in. ; depth forward, 9 in. ; slide, 2 ft. long; and spread of riggers (or width), 3ft. 8 in., as a sculling boat. The origin of the word I cannot vouch for ; but it is a waterside tale that two gentlemen in the theatrical profession, whose names were Mr. Theodore Gordon, proprietor of the Hammersmith Music-Hall, and Mr. Rob. Cunningham, chairman of the same hall, each had a sailing dinghy of the same pattern : one was called ' Rum-turn,' and the other ' Ha-Ha ' and Mr. Alexander, struck with the name of the former, called his new style of boat after it. It is a positive fact that these two gentlemen had these boats, as at first they were kept on our raft ; but they afterwards took them to Putney. I might say that the NeAycastle Christmas Handicap, through being rowed in these boats, did a lot to make them popular : they were at first open boats ; but for the last six or seven years have been canvassed in. J. BIFFEN."

Salters of Oxford say that the dimensions of the " rumtum " as given by Biffen are practically the same as those of the " whiff " at Oxford. The name " rumtum " was, I suppose, taken from the chorus of a popular song ending " Ri rum turn tiddy i do," or something of the kind, which one heard in the streets many years ago. A friend tells me it is mentioned in Grimaldi's ' Life.'

F. J. FURNIVALL.

" TYRLY TIRLOW " AND THE COVENTRY PLAY OF THE NATIVITY. In ' The Cam- bridge History of English Literature,' vol. ii. p. 378, Prof. Padelford refers to the influ- ence which those dramatic elements in the Christmas church - services exercised on