Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/361

 n s. x. OCT. 31, 1914.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

355

FOREIGN TAVERN SIGNS (11 S. x. 229, 275, 298). In The Manchester Guardian of October 8 last it is reported that the Halifax Licensing Bench on the previous day granted permission for the alteration of the name of a local public-house from " The King of Prussia" to "The King of Belgium." There was formerly a tavern in Hallgate, Wipin, called "The King of Prussia," but it disappeared some years ago. The names of these inns probably date from the time of the Seven Years' War, when Frederick the Great was a popular personage in England. At Aughton, Lancashire, in 1758, the church bells were rung on " the King of Prussia's birthday," the ringers being paid the sum of 5s. 4td.

There is an inn at New Springs, Wigan, called "The Von Blucher," and the open space in which it stands takes its name from the inn. Probably this dates from 1815, but perhaps it will be changed before 1915.

F. H. C.

THOMAS ARROWSMITH, ARTIST (10 S. xii. 309, 355). I had a query about this artist in your issue of 27 March, 1886 (7 S. i. 249). He was born at Newent in Gloucester-shire in 1776. On 18 Nov., 1880, I went to ('. W. Pratt's shop, Cavendish Street, C.-on-M., Manchester, to see a small oil paint- ing in a case of the famous Daniel Lambert, which is an excellent portrait. The sub- joined is written at the back of the painting : " Taken by T. Arrowsmith, an artist deaf and dumb, and presented by him to Mr. Daniel Lambert as a token of respect, June, 1808."

Dean's ' Manchester and Salford Direc- tory ' for 1809 contains an entry showing that Thomas Arrowsmith was in that year n sident in Manchester, and his address is -.liven as 26, Piccadilly. He is stated to have painted many exquisite likenesses in Roch- dale and neighbourhood between 1806 and lsi'4. He once resided at Liverpool, where his brother, J. P. Arrowsmith, died at Pembroke Garden on 14 April, 1829. At the Temporary Reference Library, Piccadilly, Manchester, I have consulted ' The Art of Instructing the Infant Deaf and Dumb,' by John Pauncefort Arrowsmith, illustrated with copper plates, drawn and engraved by the author's brother, an artist born deaf and <l in ub (London, published by Taylor & H< -s.y, 93, Fleet Street, and sold by T. Arrowsmith, 37, Sloane Square, 1819). The frontispiece of the book is a three-quarter likeness of "Mr. Arrowsmith, The Artist & Subject of this Work, [who] was born Deaf & Dumb," drawn and engraved by himself.

Some particulars respecting this artist will, perhaps, be of interest :

" My mother [says the author] had three children who lived to be educated besides him. In a few months after my brother's birth it was discovered that he could not hear, but in every other respect he was perfect and sensible."

One remarkable trait of the deaf artist was that he took the highest delight in music, and some evidences of this are quoted from a letter written by G. Chippendale of Win wick, near Warrington, to The Bath and Cheltenham Gazette of 14 Jan. 1818. See the foot-note in this book, pp. 74-6.

Mr. Chippendale says :

" Some years back, probably five or six, a young gentleman of the name of Arrowsmith, a member of the Royal Academy at Somerset-House, of what degree I cannot remember, came down into this country, and resided some months in Warrington in the exercise of his profession as a miniature and portrait painter. He was quite deaf, so as to be entirely dumb. He had been taught to write, and wrote an elegant hand, in which he was enabled to express his own ideas with facility ; he was also able to read and understand the ideas of others expressed in writing. It will scarcely be credited that a person thus circumstanced should be fond of music, out this was the fact in the case of Arrow- smith. He was at a gentleman's Glee Club, of which I was president at that time, and as the glees were sung, he would place himself near some articles of wooden furniture or a partition, door or window-shutter, and would fix the extreme end of his finger nails, which he kept rather long, upon the edge of the wood, or some projecting part of it, and there remain until the piece under performance was finished, all the while expressing, Toy the most significant gestures, the pleasure he experienced from the perception of the musical sounds. He was not so much pleased with a solo as with a pretty full clash of harmony, and if the music was not very good, or, I should rather say, if it was not correctly executed, he would shew no sensation of pleasure. But the most extraordinary circumstance in this case is, that he was most evidently delighted with those passages in which the composer displayed his science 111 modulating his different keys. \Vhen such passages happened to be executed with precision he could scarcely repress the emotions of pleasure he received within any bounds ; for the delight he evinced seemed to border on ecstasy. This was expressed most remarkably at our Club when the glee was sung with which we often conclude. It is by Stevens, and begins with the words, Ye spotted snakes,' &c., from Shakespeare's 'Mid- summer Night's Dream.' In the second stanza, on the words ' Weaving spiders, come not here,' &c., there is some modulation of the kind above alluded to, and here Mr. Arrowsmith would be in raptures, such as would not be exceeded by one who was in immediate possession of the sense of hearing. These facts are very extraordinary ones, and that they are facts can be proved by the evidence of six or eight gentlemen who were present, and by turns observed him accurately."

FRED L. TAVAR& 22, Trentham Street, Pendleton, Manchester.