Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/157

 n s. iv. AUG. 19, 1911.) NOTES AND QU ERIES.

151

West Indies,' 2 vols., 1834) and in the life of the Rev. John Wray (' Pioneer Missionary in British Guiana,' 1892). May I also be favoured by guidance to other sources of information concerning Glen ? I especially wish to know the place, and exact date, of his birth.

CHARLES HIGHAM. 169, Grove Lane, S.E.

SIB G. SITWELL : ' THE NORMANS IN CHESHIRE." In a review of ' The Barons of Pulford,' by Sir George Sitwell, Bt., some years ago, it was stated that he had written, or was engaged upon, a book with the above title. Was it ever published, or privately printed ? R. S. B.

COWPER ON LANGFORD. (11 S. iv. 109.)

THE allusion is to Abraham Langford, the famous auctioneer, whose rooms were in Co vent Garden in the eighteenth century, and occupied the site of the Tavistock Hotel. Langford was born in 1711, and died 17 or 18 September, 1774. He succeeded Chris- topher Cock, another famous auctioneer, and was succeeded himself by yet another George Robins. It was in the rooms which Langford occupied that Hogarth had years before exhibited his ' Marriage a la Mode ' gratis.

Langford dabbled in poetry and the drama. He wrote ' The Lover his own Rival : a Ballad Opera,' in one act, with musical notes, pp. 32 (London, J. Watts, 1736, 8vo). There were other editions (London, 1753, and one in Dublin also). Baker (' Bio- graphia Dramatica ') says that Langford was " better known in the polite than in the poetical world."

There are many contemporary allusions to Langford and his auction sales. Several of these may be found in Nichols's ' Literary Anecdotes,' e.g., ii. 158 (Dr. Richard Pococke's sale), ii. 254 (G. Vertue, plates and prints), ii. 280 (Philip Carteret Webb, curiosities), iii. 199 (John Ives, coins), iv. 554 (Samuel Gale), v. 105 (Dr. Robert Friend), v. 262-7 (Joseph Ames), vi. 75 (Joshua Blew). ' The Annual Register ' alludes also to other sales ; see the volumes for 1766, pp. 65, 69, 71 ; and for 1767, p. 99.

In ' The Annual Register ' for 1769, p. 223, there is an anonymous poem, ' A

Familiar Epistle to a Friend,' in which are several amusing allusions to Abraham Lang- ford. One of these runs :

Some moderns too, by Langford's art Made of the Catalogue a part. The public prints announced the day When hundreds came who could not pay, But yet they needs must come to shew Their veneration for virtii [sic].

The poem occupies several pages.

Langford is buried in St. Pancras Church- yard, and his epitaph, being lengthy and somewhat fulsome, is inscribed on both sides of the stone. It is printed in Lysons's 'En- virons of London,' iii. 357, and is as follows : ' ' His spring of life " was such as should have been Adroit and gay, unvex'd by care or spleen ; His summer's manlwod open, fresh, and fair ; His virtues strict, his manners debonnaire. His autumn rich with wisdom's goodly fruit Which every varied appetite might suit. In polish'd circles dignified with ease, And less desirous to oe pleas' d than please. Grave with the serious, with the comic gay ; Warm to advise, yet willing to obey. True to the fond affections of the heart, He play'd the friend, the husband, parent, part. What need there more to eternize his fame, What monument more lasting than his name ?

Langford's portrait is referred to in Bromley's ' Engraved Portraits,' and Evans's ' Catalogue ' mentions its existence in two states. See also John Nichols and George Steevens, ' Biographical Anecdotes of Hogarth,' 1810, ii. 287, which has references to the portrait of Langford and also to that of his predecessor Christopher Cock. The ' D.N.B.' has a notice of Langford written by Mr. Thomas Seccombe, to which much of the foregoing is supplementary.

It is interesting as a tribute to Langford's fame to observe that Cowper began to write ' The Task' in June or July, 1783, and finished it in September, 1784. It was published in. 1785. As Langford died in 1774, his fame survived him some years, or else Cow- per' s allusion, made eleven years after in ' The Task,' would not have had much point, nor would it have been understood.

A. L. HUMPHREYS.

187, Piccadilly, W.

Abraham Langford duly finds a place in ' D.N.B.,' xxxii. 98, and some additional references are supplied in Musgrave's ' Obituary.' Cowper mentions him again : " A man had need have the talents of Cox or Langford, the auctioneers, to do the whole scene justice " (' Letters,' ed. Johnson, 1820, p. 53). W. C. B.

[MR. A. R. BAYLEY, MR W. T. LYNN, MR. M. A. M. MACALISTER, MR. R. A. POTTS, and ST..SWITHIN also thanked for replies.]