Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/215

 ii s. x. SEPT. 12, ion] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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The topics of ' Up to Midnight ' are Meredithian, but the introductions, setting, characters, and in particular the style, are Peacpckian. In these dialogues the dis- tinction Oliver Elton makes between Mere- dith's talk and Peacock's namely, that, in spite of the unnaturalness of Meredith's hit-or-miss repartee, his dialogue " gives more of the sense of actual excited talk than Peacock's personages " breaks down. The characters of ' Up to Midnight ' talk Peacock, not Meredithese.

WILLIAM CHISLETT, Jun. Stanford University.

(Queries.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

FIELDING QUERIES : SACK AND " THE USUAL WORDS." In chap. iv. book ix. of ' Tom Jones ' it is said that the Serjeant

" then proposed a libation as a necessary part of the ceremony in all treaties of this kind .... Jones no sooner heard the proposal than, immediately agreeing with the learned Serjeant, he ordered a bowl, or rather a large mug, filled with the liquor used on these occasions to be brought in, and then began the ceremony himself. He placed his right hand in that of the landlord, and, seizing the bowl with his left, uttered the usual words, and then made his libation."

I fail to find any reference to this cere- mony in the volumes of ' N. & Q.,' and I would be indebted to your readers for an accurate and detailed description. I believe " the liquor used on these occasions " was sack, or malmsey, a strong, light-coloured wine from Spain, the Canaries, the Azores, or Madeira ; but is this wine prepared in any way to make it sack ? Sophia, by the way, asks for sack-rohey at Upton (book x. chap. v.). How was this prepared ? And what were " the usual words " ? and what is implied by the phrase " and then made his libation " ?

Just at this time, when there stands again a thin red line on the plains of Waterloo, it may be well to recall those significant words which Edward Gibbon wrote more than one hundred years ago :

" Our immortal Fielding was of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who drew their origin from the Counts of Hapsburg. The suc- cessors of Charles V. may disdain their brethren of England ; but the romance of ' Tom Jones,' that exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the Imperial Eagle of Austria."

Now if anything that is future and un- certain can yet be deemed imminent and certain, we may be assured that in the coming year we shall witness the fall of the house of Hapsburg, and the production of a new edition of ' Tom Jones.'

FREDERICK S. DICKSON.

215, West 101st Street, New York.

PALMERSTON IN THE WRONO TRAIN. In some book of memoirs recently published there is an amazing letter from Lord Pal- merston to Queen Victoria, saying that he had fully intended to go to Windsor, but went to the wrong station in London, and arrived at Broadlands instead. Can any of your readers give me the reference ?

G. W. E. B.

SITE OF THE GLOBE THEATRE. We are told by Mrs. Stopes in her latest book, ' Burbage and Shakespeare's Stage ' (London, 1913), that Dr. Martin has written a pam- phlet on ' The Site of the Globe,' with many deeds and maps illustrative of its position. Has this pamphlet been published ? The lady does not give the initials of the author, and his being an international name, it is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack to try to find the entry in the British Museum Catalogue.

Dr. Wallace, as we know, has published in The Times an extract from a title-deed which locates the site of the Globe on the north side of Maiden Lane (now Park Street)"; but Mrs. Stopes contends that the scrivener who drew up the deed in question lost his bearings, and I presume the errors (for he must have gone wrong in two, if not more instances) were not discovered by the several individuals who read and signed the deed, nor by others who afterwards copied the description into several leases of shares in the theatre. Such things will happen. The scrivener omitted also to specify the fact that the Park given as one of the boundaries belonged to the Lord Bishop of Winchester; and the Clerk of the Sewer Commission made a mistake when he de- scribed the bridge to the playhouse as lying on the north side of Maiden Lane.

Globe Alley is shown to the south of Maiden Lane on the map published in Strype's edition of Stow's ' Survey of London ' (London, 1720), and in the in- denture quoted by Mrs. Stopes (Sir Mathew Brend to Hilary Memprise in 1626) the alley or way is described as " leading to the Globe " ; but this may only mean that its northern end, or the passage at right angles