Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/433

 ii s. i. MAY 28, 1910.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

425

Poughkeepsie. Nicholas Power, printer, near

Court -house, 1794.

Providence. J. Carter, printer, 1793. Salem. W. Carlton, Bible and Heart, 1793.

Tho. C. Cushing, printer, 1793. Trenton, Isaac Collins, printer, 1783-93. Willianisburg. William Hunter, printer, 1757. Wilmington. Ben]'. Ferriss, 1774.

BARBADOS. Bridge Town. David Harry, printer, Broad

Street, 1730.

W. Beeby, Broad Street, near Custom-house, 1753.

W. C. B.

" PUN.'' This word occurs in John Taylor's " Mercurius Aquaticus ; or, the Water- Poets Answer to all that hath or shall be Writ by Mercurius Britanicus. . . . Printed in the Waine of the Moone Pag. 121, and Number 16, of Mercurius Britanicus. 1643." The preface (A ij) is in the best pamphleteering style, and declares that

"I Thorny Aylo Water-Poet Laureat . . . . doe resolve once and but once to take into little consideration, one that calls himself e by the high and mighty title of Mercurius Britanicus, who by Order of the House is made Receiver Generall of all Quibbles, Crops, Clinches, Puns, Halfe-jests, jests, fine sentences, witty sayings, rare truths, modest and dutiful! expressions that are to be found within the Line of Communication (to the utter undoing of poor Mercurius Aulicus, did not such a doughty Squire as my selfe daigne to take up that Paper which Aulicus scornes to touch for feare of fouling his fingers.) "

On pp. B iij and B iij b is given

" A catalogue of other notable Passages.

1. Truths, God blesse us

Tis high time for the Parliament, and they had never mo e need to write for helpe to forraigne States.

2. Politique Aphorismes.

No Councell nor estate in the World but will take hints af [sic] inferiours especially those that are scientificall and knowing men. . ..

7. Jests, halfe-jests, Puns, clinches, and Quibbles.

I dare throw Winter or Summer with you that there 's none of these in the whole book.

8. Downeright Popery.

The Canonization of M r Pym before his going into Purgatory, and sacrifising at his hearse.

9. Good Poetry.

As M r Pym's Elegy.

To which add three tales of a Tub, or jbhree blew beanes in a bladder, and you have the in- gredients of the last weeks Britanicus."

Unfortunately, though this instance is nineteen years earlier than the first given in ' N.E.D.,' it throws no further light on the origin of the word.

Q. V.

HAIRDRESSER TO THE BAB. John Carter, Who died on the 7th of May at his residence RoWanhurst, Herne Hill, after a long illness, at the age of seventy-three, has well been called " the Hairdresser to the Bar," for to his shop by Temple Bar, kno\vn as Wolsey's Palace, came judges, juniors, and all the great men of law for close on half a century for hair-cutting, shaving, and chiropody, and to have their hats ironed. It is said that Carter was the first to introduce hair- brushing by machinery, and that he would never employ an assistant who Was not an Englishman. I was his oldest customer, and Went to the shop in 1848, when he was a boy of thirteen. The proprietor's name Was at that time, I think, Honeyman. Carter, after serving as an assistant, became proprietor some forty years ago. He belonged to the Baptist denomination, being for many years a deacon at Bloomsbmy Chapel, built by Sir Morton Peto in 1849, the late William Brock being the first minister. E. M.

PHINEAS FLETCHER'S c LOVE ? : A READ- ING. In his dainty lyric Fletcher has this- triplet, detailing certain points of vantage and manoeuvres associated with the subtle agent whom he has under consideration :

Oft leaps he from the glancing eyes ;

Oft in some smooth mount he lies ;

Soonest he wins, the fastest flies.

Prof. Saintsbury includes the poem in his useful volume of ' Seventeenth -Century Lyrics,' and in a note indicates doubt as to the accuracy of the third line quoted. * ' I should suspect, 1 * he says,

Soonest he wins, he fastest flies.

It is a small matter, but the meaning suggested by the text is so obvious that there seems to be no reason for disputing its authenticity. The two clauses of which the line consists have the same subject ; and although in prose the article would be appro- priately prefixed to each of the superaltives, it is not indispensable in verse that this should be the case. THOMAS BAYNE.

WILLIAM GINGER, PUBLISHER. To many the name of William Ginger will be familiar as the bookseller from whom the Earl of Ashburnham made his first purchase, and so started on his career as one of the greatest collectors of modern times. The incident of the purchase is alluded to in Messrs. Sotheby's sale catalogue of the first portion of the Ashburnham Sale. It seems that Ginger was also a publisher, for I have a copy of Terence "in usum Scholae West-