Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/355

 ii s. iv. OCT. 28, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

349

by the editor himself, and three other written by him also appear. A tune calle<

' Portland Street ' was also written for th collection by S. W. New, organist of Littl Portland Street Chapel, London.

The book is not dated, but from the style of the music and wording I should think it was published some time during the sixties. Evidently more than one volum appeared, for Mr. E. T. King of Amersham tells me that he has vols. i. and ii., and h< believes there were five or six altogether Another person living at Amersham, anc himself a native of the town, informed me that Mr. Birch was the first organist at the parish church, for before he came the singing was led by a string band. It is thoughl that Mr. Birch came to Amersham about 1855, and continued to reside here til c. 1868, when he removed to Caversham as music-master, at Mr. E. West's school. Can any reader give me further information about him when and where he was born, and the date of his death ?

Who was the Rev. W. J. Hall who edited the ' Selection of Psalms and Hymns ' to which the music in * The Standard Psalmist is set ? Was he a Minor Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral, and the same person who in 1865 was appointed Rector of St. Clement's, Eastcheap, and was still Rector there in 1885 ? Any particulars about him will be welcome. L. H. CHAMBEBS.

Amersham.

BISHOP CHIRBURY AT RHOSCROWTHER. Among the incumbents of Rhoscrowther, Pembrokeshire, occurs " David Chirbury, presented 1451, Ap. 14. Bishop of Dromore, Ireland " (Patent 29 Henry VI. p. 1. m. 9).

I seek information about the bishop, e.g., why he came to Rhoscrowther, where he was buried, &c. R. H. S.

RHOSCROWTHER, PEMBROKESHIRE : IN- CUMBENTS. My list of incumbents goes back, with three blanks, to 1324. What documents should be searched for earlier incumbents ? R. H. S.

NORRIS SURNAME. Can any of your readers tell me the origin of the surname Norris, and when and where it is first met with ? W. N. H.

C. F. LAWLER. I wish to obtain informa- tion concerning C. F. Lawler, who flourished at the end of the eighteenth century, and is credited in the B.M. Catalogue with the authorship of a considerable number of pamphlets written under the assumed name

of " Peter Pindar," which name was the property of Dr. John Wolcot the satirist. Beyond the fact that he is noticed in bio- graphical dictionaries of the time as the author of ' Selim, a Tale,' I can obtain no information about Lawler.

H. ROWLANDS S. COLDICOTT. 69, Cowley Road, Oxford.

EDWARD LONG MS. Charles Edward Long, the grandson of Edward Long the historian of Jamaica, quotes at 2 S. vii. 426 from a manuscript memoir written by his grandfather concerning the historian's early life. Can any one give me information about this MS. ?

H. ROWLANDS S. COLDICOTT.

LlONS MODELLED BY ALFRED STEVENS.

The lions surmounting the railing round the Duke of Wellington's monument in St. Paul's Cathedral are identical with those on the railing in front of the Law Institution in Chancery Lane. Can any one say or suggest how this came about ? Stevens designed his lions with a peculiar frill round the neck, and is thus referred to in Architecture for May, 1898, in a review of Mr. Walter Crane's book * The Bases of Design ' :

' The Assyrians sculptured their lions with carefully marked manes and faces that were ornamented in such a way as to typify strength, energy, and dignity. Nowadays in sculpturing such animals there is a tendency to embody photographic accuracy, with the consequent loss of the leonine character. Alfred Stevens recog- nized that weakness, and added a little formalism

his lion on the outer railing of the British Museum, which was probably unequalled in modern work and now the lion has been re- moved."

From this it would appear that the Museum

railings once bore similar lions. As the

^aw Institution building dates from before

he art of Stevens, who was unknown until

ne designed the Wellington monument

ifter 1852, the lions now in front of it could

not have been so placed in the first instance.

Are they the lions which were formerly on

he British Museum railings, now transferred

o Chancery Lane ? If not, what became

>f those at the Museum ? W. B. H.

FELIX SMITH AND Louis XVIII. Wil- iams in his ' History of Watford,' 1884, gives i brief account of one Felix Smith, the church pganist, and narrates the following incident oncerning him :

" Once he performed a strange ceremony, the ccasion being the return of Louis XVIII. to ^rance from his residence near Aylesbury. .mith was seated at his door in the High Street, Watford, which was approached by a flight of teps : he was armed with a dagger, which it was