Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/192

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NOTES AND QUERIES. in s. i. MAB. 3, ieia

With regard to the earlier cradle, there seems no reason to question the pedigree given to it in the sale catalogue. It had belonged to the Rev. Peregrine Ball, Vicar of Newland, co. Glos., 1745/6-94. He, it is believed, claimed that it had descended to him from an ancestor who had performed the duty of male-rocker to the infant prince, and who bore the same name of Ball. Hence this cradle also must have been once at Court- field, where Lady Montacute, heiress of Thomas de Monthermer, had care of the child. In The London Magazine of March, 1774 (p. 135), it is described as the cradle of Edward II., though doubtless in error.

Mr. Ball's son gave his heirloom to Mr. Whitehead of Hambrook, Frenchay, near Bristol, whence it probably came into the collection of Mrs. Barnes of Redland Hall, at the sale of which (22 Oct., 1833) the Rev. Mr. G. W. Braikenridge purchased it. It is described in Grose's ' Antiquarian Reper- tory l (vol. ii. pp. 371-2), 1808, and in Bingley's ' Tour through North Wales, * 1774, as well as in Coxe, 1801.*

The cradle measures 3 ft. 9 in. in length, is 3 ft. high, and is slung from a post at each end. It is surmounted by an eagle. There is no heraldic device upon it.

Inquiries made at Newland and at Mon- mouth elicited not only no trace of the Rev. Peregrine Ball, but denials of his having been a vicar there ; nevertheless, he appears -duly (Mr. F. S. Hockaday tells me) in the rediscovered Diocesan Registers of co. Glos. as having been presented to Newland by the Bishop of Llandaff, 11 Feb. 1745/6.

The cradle is to be seen in the Hall of the Armoury at Windsor.

ST. CLAIB BADDELEY.

DR. JOHNSON'S BOOTS. PROF. RALEIGH edited in 1908 'Johnson on Shakespeare.' In his Introduction (p. xxviii) he refers to a point in Johnson's notes missed by Boswell, and says further :

" Again, is it not certain that Boswell, if he had known it, would have told us that his hero wore his boots indifferently, either on either foot, and further, which is yet a stranger thing, believed that all other boot-wearers practise the same impartiality ? "

Prof. Raleigh goes on to refer to Johnson's note upon a passage in ' King John.'- The passage runs as follows (IV. ii. 197-8 ) : Slippers, which his nimble haste Has falsely thrust upon contrary feet.

sold at Messrs. Christie's, 27-28 Feb., 1908.
 * Of. The Time?, 13 Feb., 1908. The cradle was

The Doctor's comment runs thus :

' ' I know not how the commentators understand this important passage, which, in Dr. Warburton's edition, is marked as eminently beautiful, and, in the whole, not without justice. But Shake- speare seems to have confounded a man's shoes with his gloves. He that is frighted or harried may put his hand into the wrong glove, but either shoe will equally admit either foot. The author seems to be disturbed by the disorder which he describes."

In a long and interesting letter to The Nation, dated 19 Aug., 1908, Mr. Thomas Seccombe refutes Prof. Raleigh's conclusions. Inter alia Mr. Seccombe says :

" The lowest organizations of footgear, such as slippers (it should be superfluous to point out), are made without heels, and are interchangeable. For other reasons, the most highly organized forms of footgear, such as waders and jack-boots, are also made on the ' straight ' principle. The jack-boot, for instance, which was at one time peculiar to the tribe of postilions, would have lost half its utility, so great was the friction of the right calf against the pole, had not the legs been interchangeable. But in the intermediate forms of shoe, or ' low,' ' high-low,' the tasselled Hessian (dear to the heart of Jos. Sedley), and the ' lesser people ' of the boot tribe generally, no such lawless state of indifference can have ever prevailed ; and it is absurd to suppose that Johnson was oblivious of distinctions which were made in medieval armour, and were universally observed by the whole race of cordonniers from the time of St. Crispin downwards. Johnson slightly confuses counsel, it may be confessed, by using the word ' shoe ' as a synonym for ' slipper,' an effeminate word for which he ex- perienced a contempt similar to that he felt for the word ' liqueur,' and for the French character."

Mr. Seccombe adds the interesting news that

' the boot with which Johnson by kicking a stone refuted Berkeley is said to be preserved in

)he library of Mr. A. M. Broadley, and, like his extra-illustrated edition of Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale in 35 volumes elephant folio is said to be destined for the birthplace of the illustrious Imlac at Lichfield."

I note that slippers may be called ' ' inter- changeable, " but that the ordinary person, either in King John's time or our own, would Drobably get the habit of putting one foot nto one definite slipper, which would so it it as to make the other seem less apt. [n the first place, one foot is, I believe, }he wrong slipper would feel uncomfort- able on it. Callosities, too, of a painful nature existing on one foot only might be unduly pressed by a slipper which usually went well on the other foot.
 * enerally bigger than the other, so that

I am not sufficiently expert in boots to say what is the footgear worn by Johnson in the engraving of ' Johnson in Touring Garb l which figures between pp. 220 and