Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/73

 ii s.x. JULY 25, i9i4.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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eat a large plateful of hot buttered muffins about an hour beforehand."

The story of the Hon. Mr. Darner or another, who doted on muffins, and who ordered three for breakfast and shot himself in order to evade dyspeptic'' pangs which were his due, is told in Boswell's ' Life of Johnson ' (Croker's ed., 1860, p. 628), and has been discussed in ' N. & Q.' in connexion with Sam Weller's tale about a greedy fellow who was willing to sacrifice himself for a feast of crumpets. Three muffins of even Northern mould might not be too much for a glutton who preferred death to moderation.

ST. SWITHIN.

THE BURNING OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIA- MENT. Of the many pamphlets and broad- sides published after this disaster few at- tempted to be facetious. Before me is a humorous doggerel apparently not published signed " W. Brett, Liverpool, 25 Nov., 1834." The last section is suffi- cient indication of its import and merit :

" This is the Peer who in Town being resident sign'd the report for the absent Lord President and said that the History was cleared of its mystery by Whitbread the waiter adding his negative to that of John Riddle who laughed and said Piddle when told Mr. Cooper of Drury Lane had been down to Dudley and back again and had heard the same day a Bagman say that the House was a blazing a thing quite amazing even to John Snell who knew very well by the smoke and the heat that was broiling his feet through his great thick boots in the Black Rod's Seat that Dick Reynolds was right that the fires were too bright heaped up to such an unaccountable height in spite of the fright they gave poor Mistress Wright when she sent to Josh Cross so full of his sauce both to her and to Weobly who had heard so feebly the Directions of Phipps when he told him the Chips might be burnt in the flues yet never sent the News as he ought to Milne [who] would have burnt in a Kiln those confounded old Sticks and not heated the bricks nor set fire to the house that Josh Burnt."

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

DR. NICOLAS SANDER : HIS CREDIBILITY. MR. H. E. MALDEN in his note on ' The True Story of the First Marriage of John Ponet, Bishop of Winchester ' (11 S. ix. 501), remarks : " No one need believe Sanders unsupported in such a matter." He thus seems to adopt the view of Sander taken by Heylin, Strype, Collier, Burnet, and Froude. I should like, however, with your permission, to set out some testimonies in his favour.

Aubrey in his ' History of Surrey ' (1723), iv. 235, says that Sander's writings, " though not absolutely free from Exceptions, contain many bold Truths made out too plainly to admit of any denial.''

The late Rev. Nicholas Pocock, the editor of Burnet, after remarking in his Preface to Harpsfield's ' Pretended Divorce ' (Camden Soc., 1878), i., that " it has been the fashion ever since the days of Burnet to disparage him [Sanders] as eminently untrustworthy," adds :

" At one time I was of the same opinion, but the more intimately acquainted I became with Sanders s work the more reason I found to change my judg- ment about him."

The late Mr. T. G. Law in his article on Sander in the ' D.N.B.' wrote :

"Recent authorities have shown that, notwith- standing his animus and the violence of his lan- guage, his narrative of facts is remarkably truthtul. In almost every disputed point he has been proved right and Burnet wrong."

The late James Gairdner, C.B., in his ' Lollardy and the Reformation in England (1908), ii. 71, wrote :

" Sanders was much better informed and more

accurate about many things when he wrote than paet historians have believed."

Finally, Prof. A. F. Pollard in ' The Politi- cal History of England, 1547-1603 ' (1910), at p. 369, writes that " his books are now accepted as worthy to be ranked with those of his best antagonists."

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

BUNT-LARK. This is the corn -bunting according to Wright's ' Eng. Dialect Diet.' In a district of Hampshire where the corn- bunting is very rare, the name is given to the yellowhammer or to the meadow-pipit.

W. M. E. F.

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.

WEST NORFOLK MILITIA. I should be glad to receive information as to the whereabouts of any engravings, paintings, or other illustrations of the West Norfolk Militia, especially about the year 1800.

GEO. A. STEPHEN, City Librarian.

Public Library, Norwich.

LIBERALISM : BIBLIOGRAPHY WANTED. Can any one refer me to any pamphlets, articles in reviews, or passages in longer works which set out the theory of " Liberal- ism " in politics, and define what is necessary to constitute a " Liberal " ? I may mention that I know of M. Ostrogorski's 'Demo-

cracy.

ROMANUS.