Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/15

 ii s. i. JAN. i, 1910.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

' N. & Q.' ON THE STAGE. In Mr. Gran- ville Barker's fine play ' The Voysey In- heritance,' first given at the Court Theatre on 7 Nov., 1905, Mrs. Voysey, the mother of the family, appears at the end of Act II. to be engrossed in a copy of ' N. & Q.' She remarks to no one in particular :

" This is a very perplexing correspondence about the Cromwell family. One can't deny the man had good blood in him. . . .his grandfather

Sir Henry, his uncle Sir Oliver and it 's difficult

to discover where the taint crept in. . . .Yes, but then how was it he came to disgrace himself so ? 1 believe the family disappeared. Regicide is a root-and-branch curse. You must read this letter

signed C. W. A it 's quite interesting. There 's

-a misprint in mine about the first umbrella -

maker now where was it ? (And so the

dear lady will ramble on indefinitely.) "

In the circumstances of the case her fragmentary remarks are admirable ex- amples of both Philistine complacency and tragic irony. A. R. BAYLEY.

MRS. SARAH BATTLE'S WISH ANTICIPATED " The celebrated wish of old Sarah Battle, 14 immortalized by Charles Lamb " A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game " had been anticipated in striking degree exactly a century to the very month before it was made imperishable in print. That was in The London Maga- zine for February, 1821, and in a letter which appeared in Read's Weekly Journal of 11 February, 1721, giving an account of an imaginary meeting of coffee-house pro- prietors, called to discuss the question whether the provision of newspapers therein repaid its cost, it was written :

"Mr. Cocoa of Pall Mall says that a clean Room, a good Fire, and a sufficient Number of Looking- Glasses well-fix'd, and a handy Waiter, wou'd draw Company before the News."

But just ten years previously a different opinion would seem to have been enter- tained by some coffee-house keepers, for it was advertised in The Daily Courant of 10 January, 1711, as an obvious induce- ment to customers, that

" Bickerstaff's Coffee-house over against Tom's Coffee-house in Great Russel - street in Covent Garden, will be open'd on Friday next being 12th Instant, where will be all Publick News and Weekly Papers."

ALFRED F. ROBBINS.

" REVELS " = PARISH FESTIVALS OR FEASTS : REVEL SUNDAY. There are not so many " revels," in the sense of parish feasts, as there were in my young days, and such as remain are nothing like so noisy. Some continue to exist, in my native dis- trict .of North-East Cornwall, and " Jacob -

stow Revel "- I find advertised for 9 August last in the Launceston newspapers. This took the shape in the present year of " a grand fete " at the Rectory, the proceeds being given towards buying an organ for Jacobstow Church. It was not quite like that eighty years ago, when I was a boy, for I remember well the annual " Revel " at Week St. Mary, a parish so close to Jacob- stow as to be included among the five to which the entries for a cob and pony show at the recent Jacobstow Revel were con- fined. This used to take place on a Sunday in September, and people came from far and near to see their " Mary Week ?z friends on " Revel Sunday, n when, after morning service at the church, there were scenes of much drunkenness and debauchery in the village. The next day was always devoted to a hunt, which was taken part in by the farmers, the labourers joining in the fun as best they could. But the Jacobstow Revel of the present time, w T ith its Rectory string band, afternoon tea, and evening display of fireworks, is a very great improvement on all that. R. ROBBINS.

No AH AS A GIRL'S NAME. A few days ago a girl came to ask me for an out-patient letter for a hospital. She gave her Christian name as " Noah,'* spelling it for me when I hesitated in filling up the recom- mendation. I asked her if she were of the Romany folk, whereat she smiled and said she did not know ; but when I said, " Oh, you 're a juva fast enough," she laughed outright, and acquiesced.

E. E. STREET.

Chichester.

A MODEST AUTHOR. In 1776 William Le Tans' ur of Cambridge published a tract of 16 pp in four-line stanzas, entitled ' The Christian Warrior Properly Armed ; or, The Deist Unmasked.' At the foot of the title-page, before the date, is this couplet : This Book, tho' but for Sixpence sold, Is double worth its Weight in Gold.

It may be a rare book, but I doubt its being a valuable one. A. RHODES.

AMERICAN MISER'S WILL. The following- may prove interesting to your readers who delve in queer wills ; I found it in an old paper the other day :

< l Barksville, Ky., May 10. The will of Dr. Everett Wagner, of this county, has been probated here. Dr. Wagner was a miser and had accumu- lated considerable property. After declaring him- self of sound mind, he says :

" 1 am about to die, and my relatives, who have heretofore shunned me, cannot now do too much