Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/481

 ii s. iv. DEC o, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

475

As for the " folish babeling " at " sent Bartilmews,' the following extract from Strype's edition of Stow's ' Survey of London ' will be sufficient explanation :

" Upon Festival days the Masters made solemn meetings in the Churches, where their Scholars disputed logically and demonstratively. The boys of divers Schools did cap or pot verses, and contended of the principles of Grammar. The same was long since discontinued. But the arguing of the School-boys about the principles of Grammar hath been continued even till our time, for I myself, in my youth, have yearly seen (on the eve of St. Bartholomew the Apostle) the Scholars of divers Grammar Schools repair unto the Churchyard of St. Bartholomew the Priory in Smithfield, where (upon a bank boarded about under a tree) some one Scholar hath stepped up, and there been opposed and answered, till he were by some better Scholar overcome and put down. And then the overcomer taking the place, did like as the first : and in the end, the best opposers and answerers had rewards, which I observed not. But it made both good School- masters and also good Scholars (diligently against such times) to prepare themselves for the obtain- ing of this Garland."

So in Smith's ' Old Yorkshire ' (ii. 150) : " On St. Bartholomew's Day, on which the fair ended, the Scholars from the Grammar Schools of Leeds, Wakefield, and other places, were brought to Lee Fair (at Woodkirk) for disputation, or to ascertain their proficiency in classical learning, yearly down to the early part of last century."

MATTHEW H. PEACOCK.

GIBBER'S 'APOLOGY' (11 S. iv. 381). It ought, perhaps, to be noted that the epigram on Mrs. Tofts, which the manuscript annotator thought had been imputed to Sir Richard Steele, is usually regarded as Pope's. SeeElwinand Courthope's edition, vol. iv. p. 444. It appeared in Pope and Swift's ' Miscellanies,' 1727. The epithet applied to her beauty in the first line should be " bright," not " great," while her song is styled " charming."

With regard to the identification of the second of the " two persons now living," Mr. E e of ' The Laureat,' with Giles Earle, there is a letter of this last-named person to Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of Suffolk, in which he writes :

" I hope those that wish me best had rather I should mind my business here for a little time, repair my farm-houses, and put my estate in order, that has been neglected these ten years." 10 Aug., 1717, vol. i. p. 15, in ' Letters to and from Henrietta, Countess of Suffolk, and her Second Husband, the Hon. George Berkeley,' 1824.

This corresponds very well with what Gibber j says :

" He .... turned his back xvpon his frolicks abroad, to think of improving his- estate at home ;

in order to which, he clapt collars upon his coach - horses .... In these unpolite amusements he has. . . .look'd about him like a farmer for many years." ' Apology,' 1756, vol. i. p. 13.

The substitution by his friends of Tom for Giles is illustrated by a letter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's to Sir James Steuart in 1761 : " You may have heard of a face- tious gentleman vulgarly called Tom Earle, i.e., Giles Earle, Esq." If "a certain gentleman," the recipient of Gibber's dedi- cation, is Dodington, there is especial point in "it would give you less concern to find your name in an impertinent Satyr," as Bubb Dodington, under the name of Bubo, had been Gibber's fellow-sufferer from the lash of Pope's satire. But how do the words of the Dedication,

" Whether the Retreat of Cicero, in cost, mag- nificence, or curious luxury of antiquities, might not outblaze the simplex munditiis, the modest ornaments of your Villa, is not within my reading to determine,'*'

square with the sumptuousness of Eastbury and its furniture ? (See MB. W. P. COURT- NEY'S account at 10 S. xii. 462.) Is this Gibber's playfulness, or is he referring to Dodington's villa at Hammersmith, so dear to Thomas Carlyle ? " That un- common virtue, your Integrity," so specially singled out by Gibber, seems a more appro- priate compliment for Henry Pelham than for Dodington.

Those who know the ' Apology ' will share COL. PRIDEATJX'S surprise that it has not been published in any series of reprints.

EDWARD BENSLY.

"HAD I WIST" (11 S. iii. 129, 172). Another instance of the use of this phrase, and, though not in the ' N.E.D.,' curious enough to be added to those quoted by me, occurs in Marlowe's ' Edward II.,' when Warwick, in answer to Pembroke's proposal to carry the earls' prisoner Gaveston to King Edward and bring him back again, exclaims :

Pembroke, what wilt thou do? Cause yet more bloodshed ? Is it not enough That we have taken him ; but must we now Leave him on "Had I wist," and let him go?

Mmmo's 'British Dramatists,' p. 113, col. 1. " Must we now leave him on ' Had I wist' ? " plainly means : Must we now leave him, and thereby run the risk of having cause to regret our compliance ? for he may not come back, and then all we should be able to say would be, "Had we but known," we should not have allowed him to go.

J. F. BENSE. Arnhem, the Netherlands.