Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/131

 ii s. XIL AUG. H, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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I myself have several times examined these Token Books, by the kind permission of their custodians, and can point out that the first mention of Globe Alley appears in the book of 1612 (23 Surrey Arch. Coll], the book for 1611 being missing.

(6) And now for the second part of MB. HTJBBABD'S argument for the hypothetical Globe Alley, an argument derived from an examination of Visscher's view of London, 1616, and the statement in the deed between Brand and Memprise which appears on the Close Rolls of 1626.

MB. HUBBABD asserts without reservation that the way or lane " commonly called Globe Alley," as the deed of 1626 expresses it, is that shown in Visscher immediately opposite the modern Clink Street. MB. HUBBARD'S faith in the literal accuracy of Visscher's representation of the Clink is far greater than mine. He does not notice the servile copying of Visscher from -an earlier map of the Braun and Hogenberg type ; that the earlier map was extremely defective ; that Visscher merely supple- mented the bare area of that map by a playhouse of a conventional character ; that the words " The Globe " indicated what Visscher knew to be somewhere there ; that Visscher ignored the Rose Playhouse ; that we do not know what was below the border- line of the engraving where the Globe would have appeared, a border-line which has cut out of the map all that was below it ; and that as a result of these and other considera- tions the unsupported representations of Visscher are, so far as the Liberty of the Clink are concerned, wholly unreliable.

For the reasons which are set out in a brief note in The Antiquary for August of this year, I myself think the lane indicated in Visscher represents the first part of Maid Lane.

(c) As regards the evidence for an hypo- thetical Globe Alley derived from the Sacrament Token Books of Southwark, I shall treat fully of these books when discussing the position of the " Park," and show, from them alone, that there has been but one Globe Alley, the one we have always known, and that no trace of the hypothetical Globe Alley is there to be found. Rather than take up room by what would be repetition, I beg to refer to my remarks later when dealing with the position of the Park.

I contend, therefore, that, for the reasons stated, and for those to follow, MB. HUBBARD'S hypothetical Globe Alley has but an imagin- ary existence, and that a transference of the name to another alley on the south, at the

side of Maid Lane, between the years 1644 and the year 1681 when the existing Grlobe Alley appeared under that name in Morden and Lea's map leaving the hypo- thetical alley to bear another name, has no evidence to support it.

WILLIAM MARTIN.

(To be continued.)

"!T is MORE (OB WORSE) THAN A CRIME, IT is A BLUNDEB " (11 S. xii. 66). Since I wrote my note I have referred to Harbottle and Dalbiac's ' Dictionary of Quotations (French and Italian).' 1901, in which is the following :

" C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute. Generally attributed to Fouche, but really said, by Boulay de la Meurthe (vide Sainte-Beuve, ' M. de Talleyrand,' chap. ii. ed. 1870, p. 79)."

I have consulted this edition of ' Monsieur de Talleyrand,' par C.-A. Sainte-Beuve. The author says that Talleyrand extricated himself from the difficult position in which he was concerning his alleged complicity in the affair of the Due d'Enghien by a clever saying (un mot).

To a friend, who advised him to resign (he was then Minister of Foreign Affairs), he replied :

" Si, comme vous le dites, Bonaparte s'est reiidu coupable d'un crime, ce n'est pas une raison. pour que je me rende coupable d'une

sottise."

Sainte-Beuve writes that the saying which had become celebrated, viz., " C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute," was spoken by another, and a foot-note says :

" This saying has been attributed to Pouche", and it is, indeed, like him. These historic say- ings travel about until they find the name to endorse them which they suit best. I have been assured that the saying was uttered in reality by Boulay (de la Meurthe). Duclon, who was at that time an auditor in the Council of State, testified that he had heard him say it."

I do not think that this hearsay evidence justifies the positive assertion that Comte Boulay de la Meurthe was the author of the saying. If Dudon heard him utter it, little is proved thereby. There are plenty of instances of politicians in our own day using epigrammatic sayings or phrases which have been invented by others.

It remains that the saying was claimed as Fouche's in the ' Memoires ' published in 1824, when Sainte-Beuve was only 19 or 20 yours old. The ' Memoires ' were asserted by Fouche's sons to be spurious, an intel- ligible assertion considering the machinations which appear in them.