Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/372

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. x. NOV. 7, wa

SCOTT'S POEMS ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. In Lockhart's ' Life of S^ott ' (iii. 327) there is the following anecdote :

" In the course of the day when ' The Lady pf Ahe Lake ' first reached Sir Adam Ferguson (in 1806), he was posted with his company on a point of ground exposed to the enemy s artillery, somewhere no doubt on the lines of Torres Vedras. The ,.men were ordered to lie prostrate on jfche ground ; while they kept that attitude, the captain, kneeling at the head, read aloud the description of the battle in Canto VI., and the listening soldiers only interrupted him by a joyous huzza when the French shot struck the close above them."

In The Times of 18 Sept., 1914, there was published a letter describing the behaviour of the 1st Hampshire (37th) Regiment, ap- parently at Mons, as follows :

" I have heard from private sources of their splendid behaviour, and of the grand way in which the company officers saved the situation. One, P, read ' Marmion ' aloud in the trenches while subjected to a continuous Maxim fire, in -order to keep up the spirits of his men."

I do not claim this as an independent coincidence, as the gallant P, no doubt, Joiew his Lockhart as well as his ' Marmion,' but it is a fine record for an author of battle poetry. M. H. DODDS.

RECTORS OF UPHAM AND DTTRLEY. Since this list was printed (ante, p. 63) two more names of Rectors have been found i.e., between the days of John Hurte, 1529, and Thomas Jeffrys, 1569. In 1558 John Martiall or Marshall, B.C.L. Oxon, was collated to the rectory on the death of Robert Godwyn, of whom, however, I can learn nothing. Of 3Iartiall, who became B.D. of Douai, an account is given in ' D.N.B.' Date of Godwyn's collation unknown.

E. L. H. TEW.

TJpham Rectory.

WILKES AND LORD THITRLOW. During the illness of George III. in 1788 Thurlow, who was Lord Chancellor, is supposed to have behaved with gross treachery towards his ministerial colleagues, making overtures to the Opposition with the object of retaining office in case the Government was changed on the appointment of a regency. Then, when the King's recovery appeared prob- able, he altered his tactics and made loud demonstrations of loyalty. On 15 December he delivered a speech in the House of Lords which contained the famous apostrophe, " When I forget my King, may my God forget me." According to Lord Stanhope ('Life of Pitt,' ii. 10), Wilkes, who was standing under the throne, eyed the Lord "Chancellor askance, and muttered : " God

forget you ! He '11 see you d d first ! " It is impossible, however, that Wilkes could have been present in the House of Lords to hear Thurlow's speech, for according to his Diary, which is in his own handwriting (Add. MS. 30,866), he was residing at his cottage in the Isle of Wight at the time. It is very probable, however, that he " prompted the witticism " when he heard what the Lord Chancellor had said, as Dr. Holland Rose, more cautious than Stanhope, has suggested in ' William Pitt and the National Revival,' p. 420.

HORACE BLEACKLEY.

' CHICKSEED WITHOUT CHICKWEED.' The eleventh volume of ' The Cambridge History of English Literature ' says of this book : " New edition, 1860. The first edition seems to have disappeared." Now in 1850 the book was my first reading-book, and I still possess it in its original covers. These are most elaborate. At the four corners are representations of children reading, writ- ing, " summing," and " praying " respec- tively. As frontispiece is a woodcut of a " felucca " so, I think, it is called with the name " T. Armstrong " in the corner of the woodcut. The publishers are " Darton & Co., Holborn Hill"; the printer, "Chap- man, Star Street, Paddington." For tail- piece it has a woodcut of the old-fashioned locomotive. The price is " Sixpence." On a fly-leaf are advertisements of " Catechisms by the Rev. T. Wilson on the sams system as Blair's." Possibly some of your readers can fix the date of the edition.

HENRY BRIERLEY.

Wigan.

" SPIRIT " IN THE ' N.E.D.' The article on this word in the new double section (' Speech-Spring ') would have been the better for a quotation from some early eighteenth -century writer illustrating more particularly the different uses of spirit in the pharmacy of the time. Quincy (1718) says that " what passes under this name in Pharmacy cannot with any Strictness be termed a Principle " ; and he enumerates " three very different sorts under this Denomination," viz., " the Spirit of Ani- mals, as what is procur'd from Hartshorn," which he describes as salts in solution ; the " inflammable Spirit of Vegetables, and what is procured by the help of Fermenta- tion," which he regards as " a very subtile Oil blended with a small portion of volatile Salts " ; and " what is forced from Vinegar, Vitriol, and such like Acid Substances.' '