Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/319

 us. m. APRIL 22, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

313

the advantage of my absence to get that he never spake for all the while I was in England." Ibid, part viii., p. 438.

But Bowyer himself seems to have been capable of like underground intrigues against a colleague or rival, as is evident from a letter of Sir Thomas Tasburgh to Cecil of 26 May, 1599 (ibid., part ix. p. 180) ; and I have dealt with the incident thus fully as showing the fashion in which the Clerkship of the Parliament was at one time sought, and upon what manner of man it was thought likely to be bestowed.

ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

John Browne was appointed Clerk of the Parliaments 13 May, 13 Car. I. (1637).

George Rose the elder held the office from June, 1788, till his death 13 January, 1818, when he was succeeded by his son (Sir) George Henry Rose under a reversion granted 24 October, 1795. The latter retained the post till his 4eath, 17 June, 1855. ALFRED B. BEAVEN.

' NICHOLAS NICKLEBY ' : ' : POPYLORUM TIBI" (11 S. iii. 244). MR. FITZGERALD'S utterance is so cryptic that it may be as well to point out that the words "populorum " do not occur in what he quaintly calls

tibi

the " Latin version " Laudamus.'

of the 'Te Deum HABMATOPEGOS.

I should be glad to have an explanation of MR. FITZGERALD'S point about Pickwick at the reference above. HIPPOCLIDES.

'PICKWICK' DIFFICULTIES (11 S. iii. 267). ~ The expression " old-strike-a-lieht " is common in this part of Kent. What its precise meaning is, it is difficult to say. It is usually applied to " heavy," bumptious, lazy individuals. The expression old " stick- in-the-mud " is frequently used in the some sense. 'R. VAUGHAN GOWER.

Ferndale Lodge, Tunbridge Wells.

[For " Stick-in-the-Mud," see ante, pp. 106, 175, 257. Further replies next week.]

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS'S POCKET-BOOKS (11 S. iii. 267). Reynolds' s notebooks, cash bo:>ks, &c., were for many years, and until quite recently, in the possession of Mr. Algernon Graves, and everything in them of value was printed in Graves and Cronin's * History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds. P.R.A.' (privately printed in four volumes). Mr. Graves sold his Reynolds MSS. to a well - known private collector, whose name I do not feel at liberty to reveal, If MR. BLEACKLEY can get access to the above-named work, I am sure he will find

anything that Reynolds may have entered in his notebooks concerning his sitters.

W. ROBERTS.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (11 S. iii. 228, 274). The author of the drinking song " Sae will we yet " was Walter Watson (1780-1854), a handloom weaver of Chryston, near Glasgow. He published three volumes of verse, and in th.6 year preceding his death a selection was issued with a prefatory memoir by Hugh Mac- donald. " Sae will we yet " is included in Whitelaw's anthology ' The Book of Scottish Song ' (Blackie & Son), and it finds a place in Wilson's ' Poets and Poetry of Scotland.' Charles Rogers gives an im- perfect version in the second volume of ' The Modern Scottish Minstrel.' The stanza of the lyric with the line inquired for is as follows :

Let the miser delight in the hoarding of pelf, Since he has not the saul to enjoy it himself : Since the bounty of Providence is new every day, As we journey through life let us live by the way.

Watson receives appropriate notice in the 'D.N.B. THOMAS BAYNE.

The song "And sae will we yet" was written by Walter Watson early in life, and appeared in 'The Scottish Minstrel' in 1850. In 1853 he published a slender volume of 4 Poems and Songs,' in which he made con- siderable alterations in the song under consideration. It is called ' Sit down, my Crony,' and two of the six original stanzas are omitted, one of them being the second stanza, which contained the line "As we journey through life let us live by the way."

W. SCOTT.

COBBETT AT KENSINGTON AND BARN

ELMS FARM (11 S. iii. 267). The site of Cobbett's residence in Kensington was, I think, occupied by Messrs. Tucker, tallow chandlers, 117, Kensington High Street, i.e., until the premises were pulled down some time ago, though what became of the enormous grill which I remember seeing preserved there I cannot say. This gigantic implement, which Cobbett intended to serve as a sign at No. 183, Fleet Street, while he was editing his Weekly Register there, was literally large enough to grill Cobbett himself upon, in accordance with his statement that if the Bank of England ever returned to cash payments, he would give Castlereagh leave to put him on a gridiron, while Sidmouth stirred up the fire, and Canning stood by.

J. HOLDEN MACMlCHAEL.