Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/482

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. iv. DEO. 9, 1911,

CBYSTAL PALACE TICKETS (US. iv. 405). The season ticket for the Great Exhibition of 1851 is relatively of more importance than the concert tickets quoted. Probably, also, a great number are still extant. The text is not worth quoting, as the ticket has on the face only its purpose, and on the back rules as to its use being restricted to the owner, whose signature it bears. Its size a gentleman's card is identical with that of the season tickets subsequently issued for the Exhibitions of 1862 and 1871. The three examples before me belonged to the late Sir Frederick Hendriks.

ALECK ABRAHAMS.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED (US. iv. 329, 414).

It chaunst (eternall God that chaunce did guide). Spenser's ' Fairie Queene,' Book I. canto xi. stanza 45.

H. DAVEY.

The lines quoted by MR. PIERPOINT at p. 408 are from Lander's ' Ode to Southey,' written at Florence in 1833, and first printed in The Athenceum 4 January, 1834. As printed in Landor's Works,' 1846 and 1876, they run as follows : We hurry to the river we must cross,

And swifter downward every footstep wends ; Happy, who re.ich it ere they count the loss Of half their faculties and half their friends !

STEPHEN WHEELER.

The lines by James Smith, of ' Rejected Addresses ' celebrity, and Sir George Rose's impromptu retort have often been quoted, but not always correctly. James Smith was himself an attorney, and the cruel epigram on his own profession was made at a dinner at his house in Craven Street. Sir George Rose was a member of the Inner Temple and a Bencher. Many of his telling witti- cisms and sparkling epigrams still linger amongst some of the older members of his profession. He died in 1873 in his 91st year. The following may be accepted as the correct version of the lines in question : At the top of this street ten attorneys are found, At the bottom the river with barges is crowned. Fly, Honesty, fly to some safer retreat, For there's craft in the river and craft in the street !

Sir George replied :

Why should Honesty fly to some safer retreat, From the lawyers and barges, 'od rot 'em ? For the lawyers are just at the top of the street, And the barges are just at the bottom.

J. E. LATTON PICKERING. Inner Temple Library.

With

reference to R. C. some 16 years aj

C. WILLIAMS'S

inquiry, some 10 years ago I hea.rd the verses repeated by a late Solicitor-General, who gave them as follows : In Craven Street, Strand, the lawyers abound, And down on the river the barges are found. Fly, Honesty, fly to a safer retreat, There's craft on the river and craft in the street.

The retort is as follows :

Why, Honesty, fly to a safer retreat ? Better stick to good friends while you've got 'em ; For the lawyers are up at the top of the street, And the barges are down at the bottom.

TRIN. COLL., CAMS.

As a grandson of one of the ten attorneys, I am very familiar with the epigrams. They will be found in full at 9 S. iii. 440, where it is stated that they were written at a dinner in Lincoln's Inn.

R. J. FYNMORE.

Sandgate.

[MR. H. C. BEDDOE and MR. W. B. KINGSFORD also thanked for replies.]

NELSON: " MUSLE " (11 S. iv. 307, 351, 373, 414). In response to SIR J. K. LAUGHTON'S inquiry in his extremely kind mention of my reply, I would say that my mother (nee Mary Graham) was Irish, of Dublin parentage, though I have always understood that her family claimed descent from the great Scottish clan. Her " grandmother Mackenzie," who, it was believed, died a centenarian, was, I think, Scotch ; so it may have been from her (she lived for many years with my mother's parents in Capel Street) that the phrase came. Bivalves, like jelly-fish, have been frequently chosen as examples of sluggish vitality. I remember reading that Dr. Whewell, discussing the possibility of the stars being habitable, observed, " But perhaps they [the inhabitants] are oysters, and don't care ! "

May I mention that my quotation, " Orson is endowed with reason ! " rather failed in its application through the acci- dental addition of " s " to the final word, "reason" ? HERBERT B. CLAYTON.

39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennington Lane.

Nelson could hardly have uttered the words in any bellicose sense. MR. CLAY- TON'S interpretation seems the most likely : that the great commander, being tired of watching for the enemy, meant to intimate that even an admiral should be thankful for small mercies at times. Compare the speech of Sir Arthur Wellesley to his staff on receiving the news that the Government of the day had superseded him after the