Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/503

 ii s. i. JUNE is, mo.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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is unquestionably the best, most informing, most graphic and realistic account of the characteristics, incidents, and personalities of the principal Australian goldfields in their early romantic period that has ever been penned. J. F. HOGAN.

Royal Colonial Institute,

Northumberland Avenue.

"Do NOT PLAY AGNES " (11 S. i. 290). When Dr. Johnson wrote these words to Mrs. Thrale was he not referring to Agnes in Moliere's ' L'Ecole des Femmes l ? Two years before the date of this letter Johnson was accompanying the Thrales on a visit to Paris. EDWABD BENSLY.

The learned doctor's allusion would appear to have conveyed a caution to Mrs. Thrale, not, in the first instance at least, to avoid affecting a more youthful dqmeanour than belonged to her, but to abstain from acting the part of an artless, innocent young creature. In the second sentence, however, 4 ' Do not think to be young beyond your time," that sense got merged in the broader one of trying to behave like a younger woman than she really was ; at least, so the quotations seem to indicate.

The reference of course is to the character of Agnes in Moliere's ' L'Ecole des Femmes,' that young woman having become the type of the simple, unsuspecting maiden of the French stage, who makes the most embarras- sing declarations in utter ignorance of the indiscretions she is committing. Arnolphe, her guardian, sends her to school to be brought up as a sort of Quakeress, with the intention of marrying her ultimately ; but she, poor girl, immediately defeats his cherished plans on finishing her education by falling in love with the very first man who accosts her.

Faire V Agnes has become a French colloquialism for " acting the ingenue. "-

N. W. HILL.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF LONDON (11 S. i. 407). A beginning has been made on this subject. One of the publications issued by the British Museum authorities is a bibliography of London. As this work, however, does not appear to be generally accessible, I am unable to speak of its nature and contents.

In the Museum's ' Catalogue of Printed Books : Academies,' Part III. is devoted to London ; and in its ' Catalogue : Peri- odical Publications/ Parts III. and IV. include London press productions.

London again is taken up in Fortescue's
 * Subject Index to Modern Works in the

Museum, 2 vol. ii. pp. 768-82, and in Ellis and Bickley's ' Index to Charters and Rolls,' vol. i. pp. 458-84,

A list of London topographical books is furnished in Anderson's ' British Topo- graphy,' pp. 178-213.

Lowndes supplies a catalogue of anony- mous publications, pp. 138594.

Watt, ' Bibliotheca Britannica,' Part IV., devotes nearly twelve closely printed columns to works affecting London.

These, of course, are merely instalments of an immense and ever-growing subject.

W. S. S.

The idea occurred to me some time ago of compiling an exhaustive bibliography of the City parishes, to comprise printed books, magazine and newspaper articles, and original MSS. (including records). Whether this project will ever mature is at the moment a little doubtful however.

W. McM.

LATIN LAW PLEADINGS (11 S. i. 448). In 1731 the statute 4 George II. cap. 26, enacted that after 25 March, 1733, all the pleadings in the courts of justice in England and Court of Exchequer in Scotland should be in English : 1730 is a mistake. It is obvious why two dates are mentioned. In one place the date of the statute is in- tended to be given, and in the other the date when the actual change took place is given. This statute enacted that the plead- ings

"shall be in the English tongue and language only, and not in Latin or French, or any other tongue or language whatsoever, and shall be written in such a common legible hand and character, as the Acts of parliament are usually ingrossed in, and the lines and words of the same to be written at least as close as the said Acts usually are, and not in any hand commonly called court hand, and in words at length and not abbreviated."

So that the statute not only prohibited the pleadings being "in an unknown lan- guage," but also prohibited " lawyers and attornies " from using "a character not legible to any but persons practising the law."

ASTABTE of course means the written pleadings such as writs, declarations, pleas, repli. ations, indictments, informations, records, &c., mentioned in terms in the statute.

The following extract is from ' Ency- clopaedia of the Laws of England,' 2nd ed., vol. ii. p. 134 :

" William the Conqueror ordained that pleadings should be in French. In the reign of Edward III. it was enacted by statute that all pleas should be