Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/89

 11 S. X. AUG. 1, 1914.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

with whom he had previously been intimate, treated him with marked coldness ; and, on his expressing some innocent wonder at the circum- stance, was at length informed, to his dismay, by General Burgoyne, that the sermon. .. .was,

throughout, a personal attack upon Mr. C ,

who had at that time rendered himself very un- popular in the neighbourhood by some harsh conduct to the poor, and to whom every one in the church, except the unconscious preacher, applied almost every sentence of the sermon."

The bruising and playwriting parson, O'Beirne, was afterwards Bishop of Meath. He contributed to The Englisman and to 'The Bolliad.'

Some time before the end of 1781, when he took The Grove at Harrow, Sheridan occupied a large house at Heston, the village that lies about half a mile westward from Osterley Park, the owner of which appears to have incurred his resentment. In 1782, Sarah Anne, the only daughter and heiress of Robert Child, the London banker, and owner of Osterley Park, eloped with, and became the first wife of, John Fane, tenth Earl of Westmorland.

After his first wife's death, besides nume- rous town houses, and the house at Isle- worth already mentioned, Sheridan appears to have occupied at one time a large cottage at Wanstead, so as to be near Mrs. Canning, who had retired there after her husband's death, and a villeggiatura at Barnes.

The remaining insertions at the end of the volume are extracts from the preface to the fifth edition, dealing with criticisms of the book contained in The Westminster and Quarterly Reviews ; an extract from The Edinburgh Review for December, 1826, giving a flattering account of Moore's style throughout this work ; and lastly the follow- ing verses :

Lines addressed to the Lord Forbes by R. B. S. on being asked the Reason of the Author's Absence from Church.

While you sit yawning in the Kirk

Starch'd up like some puir punded Stirk

Hearing how Noses do the wark

O' Bagpipe Notes

And wishing that some Highland Dirk

Might stop their throats

I " gang my gent "[sic] where fancy leads

'Mang lanesome glens and flowery meads

Seeking some nook where no one heeds

The Warld apart

To ponder o'er my own misdeeds

Wi' ruefu' heart.

The blossoms of my life are fled

And small 's the fruit gain'd in their stead

Each graft from wisdom's stock, is dead

Or feebly thrives

And all my mind at random sped

As folly drives

He too, wha' stands on Poortith's brink

Had mickle better laugh, than think

He 's glad to gi' the Jad a wink

E'en for a Wee

A plackless poke without a chink

Is bad company !

Yet when by chance, I Ve got my day,. 'Mang sonsie Lads and Lasses gay, Wi' Mirth, wi' Sang, wi' frolic play, Each sigh I miss sends me a lift Abune the brae

Fortune's bliss ! '.

Yet trust me we'el 'mang faults enow, A heart that 's warm, a heart that 's true, An' whiles I 'm sober, whiles I 'm fou, George ! by my faith

1 've baith for Jane and baith for you Come Gude Come Skaith !

I suppose the recipient of the above verses was George John, Viscount Forbes, son of the sixth Earl of Granard. The Lord Forbes was born in 1785, became a major- general in the army, married in 1832, and died in 1836 during his father's lifetime. George, sixth Earl of Granard, was born in 1760, succeeded to the title in 1780, and married in 1779 the Lady Selina Rawdon, sister of Sheridan's fellow-Harrovian and friend, Francis Rawdon-Hastings, first Mar- quess of Hastings and second Earl of Moira. But I cannot find any lady of the Forbes- family whose name was Jane !

A. R.

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THOMAS HOLCROFT.

(See ante, pp. 1, 43.)

1781. " Duplicity : a comedy, as it is performed* at the Theatre-Royal in Covent Garden. By Thomas Holcroft. London, Printed for G. Robinson, Paternoster Row, 1781." Octavo,. viii+2 + 1-80 pp.

This piece was produced at Covent Garden,. 13 Oct., 1781. The book was reviewed in The Monthly Review, November, 1781 (65: 370) ; noticed in The Universal Magazine for the same month (69: 279); and reviewed in the January, 1782, number of The Euro- pean Magazine (1: 47).

" Duplicity : a comedy as it is performed in Covent Garden. By Thomas Holcroft. The Third Edition. London : Printed for G. Robinson, Paternoster Row, 1782."

A book with the above title-page is iden- tical in letterpress and pagination, and well survives the broken-letter test of similarity, Two obvious errors from the first edition are however, corrected in " the third edition " r the erroneous roman numerals (vii) on p. vii. are made to read (viii), and the erroneous