Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/167

 us. iv. AUG. 26, i9ii.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

161

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 1911.

CONTENTS. No. 87.

NOTES : Birthplace of Matthew Prior, 161 Theses by Mr. Secretary Thomas Reid, 163 Stuart : Freeman : Parry : Pyke, 164 Scots Guards and the King's Health- First Earl of Lytton Second Duke of Gordon, 165' Mr. Barney Maguire's Account of the Coronation, 1838' Alexander Pope and Rev. Mather Byles Stockings, Black and Coloured, 166" Ware and Wadesmill," 167.

QUERIES : -Thirteenth Barry O'Meara Newman's Paul of Tarsus,' 167 South Carolina Newspapers London Directories of Eighteenth Century' Third Motion of the Earth' Per centum History of England with Riming Verses Masonic Drinking-Mug Charlemagne's Kindred, 168 Lord Chief Justice, Sheriff, and Ventilation Aishe and Gorges Families-Sir T. Middleton W. J. Linton J. Niandser Sir J. Hare T. Hawes Remington J. Hering L. Hill " Burway "-E. Jenner, M.D., 169 Gyp's 'Petit Bob ' ' Ingoldsby Legends': Rebus H. Watkins, M.P. Loyal and Friendly Society of the Blue and Orange Vicar of Wakefield Lord Beauchamp Bagstor Surname " Tea and turn-out," 170.

REPLIES: Maida: Regiments De Watteville and De Rolle, 171 King George V.'s Ancestors Misses Dennett Carracciolo Family, 173 Warner=Capell or Abbott Sir Nicholas Arnold" De La " in English Surnames" Vive la Beige," 174 Johnson and Tobacco " Swale," 175 Belgian Coin with Flemish Inscriptions " Kidkok " Royal Exchange " Bed of roses " Horses' Ghosts Fives Court, 176 The King's Turnspits Rev. Phocion Henley, 177 W. M. Thackeray Touching a Corpse Fox and Knot Street Overing Surname" Castles in Spain " Stonehenge and Merlin, 178 Charles I. : ' BibliaAurea ' Dumbleton, Place Name " Gothamites " Halfacree Surname The Pope's Position at Holy Communion- Club Etranger, 179.

NOTES ON BOOKS:-' The Concise Oxford Dictionary ' 'Some Supposed Shakespeare Forgeries '' The Castles and Walled Towns of England.'

Notices to Correspondents.

Jloies.

THE BIRTHPLACE OF MATTHEW PRIOR.

FROM time to time questions have been asked in ' N. & Q.' as to the birthplace of Matthew Prior. The following notes may help to solve the difficulty.

Dr. Samuel Johnson in his ' Lives of the Poets,' writing about Prior, says :

" Matthew Prior is one of those who have burst out from an obscure original to great emin- ence. He was born July 21, 1664, according to ome, at Winburn in Dorsetshire, of I know not what parents ; others say that he was the son of a joiner in London ; he was perhaps willing enough to leave his birth unsettled, in hope, like Don Quixote, that the historian of his actions might find him some illustrious alliance."

In a note the great lexicographer adds :

" The difficulty of settling Prior's birthplace is great. In the register of his College he is called, at his admission by the President, Matthew Prior of Winburn in Middlesex ; by himself next day Matthew Prior of Dorsetshire, in which

county, and not in Middlesex, Winborne .... in the ' Villare ' is found. When he stood a candidate for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was registered again by himself as of Middlesex. . . .It is observable that, as a native of Winborne, he is styled Filius Georgii Prior, generosi ; not consistently with the common account of the meanness of his birth."

In Prof. Mayor's ' Admission Registers of St. John's Coll., Cambridge,' published by Deighton, 1893 (Part II. pp. 92-3), we find

a. " Matthseus Prior, Dorcestr. (altered by a later hand to Middlesexiensis) filius Georgii Prior, generosi, natus infra Winburn in praedicto comitatu, atque literis institutus in schola West- monasteriensi sub M'rp Busby per triennium,

admissus est pensionarius, &c. &c 2 Aprilis,

1683."

&. " Ego Matthaeus Prior, Dorcesrnensis, juratus et admissus sum in discipulum huius collegii, &c die 3 io Aprilis, 1683."

c. " Ego Matthaeus Prior, Middlesexiensis, juratus et admissus sum in perpetu' socium hujus Coll., &c 3 April: 1688."

As a matter of fact, the first two entries state that he was born in Dorset, though in one of these by a later hand Dorset is altered to Middlesex to correspond with the third entry, which was made five years afterwards. In this last entry no town is mentioned. A writer in The Gentleman's Magazine for 1779 (vol. xlix. pp. 640-1) states that by the College Statutes only two Fellows can be chosen from a county, and offers the sug- gestion that if there were already two Dorset Felloxvs Prior would not be qualified for election, and for this reason probably entered himself as belonging to Middlesex, which was the county of his residence, though not that of his birth.

In the 'Index Villaris' (A.D. 1690) there is no such place to be found as Wimborne in Middlesex. The only towns or villages of the name are Wimborn All Hallows, Wim- born Minster, and Wimborn St. Giles, which are all in Dorset.

Hutchins in his ' History of Dorset ' (1868 Edition, vol. iii., p. 253) says :

" About 1727 (i.e. some six years only after the death of the poet) one Prior of Godmanstone, a labouring man, and living 1755, declared to a company of gentlemen, where Mr. Hutchins was present, that he was Mr. Prior's cousin, and remembered his going to Wimborne to visit him, and afterwards heard that he became a great man.''

" The learned Thomas Baker, B.D., once Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, informed Mr. Browne Willis that he (Prior) was borne here (at Wimborne, Dorset) of mean parents, to con^- ceal which he entered himself at college as of Wimborne, co. Middlesex."

This is borne out by. a letter written three years later by one Conyers Place to his cousin