Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/543

 ii s. iv. DEC. 30, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

537

THEOPHILUS LEIGH, D.D. (11 S. iv. 429). There is a short notice of this Master of Balliol, " a man more famous for his sayings than his doings," with some of the sayings surviving in family tradition, in chap. i. of the Rev. J. E. Austen Leigh's ' Memoir of Jane Austen,' sixth edition. For Mrs. Thrale's letter to Dr. Johnson in which the Master's pun is given about splitting the table and dividing the board, seeHayward's edition of Mrs. Piozzi's ' Autobiography, Letters, and Literary Remains,' second edition, vol. i. p. 159.

Jane Austen's mother was a daughter of the Rev. Thomas Leigh, a younger brother of Theophilus. EDWARD BENSLY.

It appears that this gentleman was the second son of Theophilus Leigh, of Adlestrop .and Longborough, by his second wife, the Hon. Mary Brydges, eldest daughter of Sir James Brydges, eighth Baron Chandos of Sudeley ; she died in 1703. The Hon. Mary Brydges' s second brother, Henry, was Rector of Adlestrop and Prebendary of Rochester. TERTIUS.

MR. WILLIAM WEARE : THURTELL (11 S. iv. 244, 394, 458). The following letter, referring to these people, appeared in The Times, 1820 :

" SIR, Notwithstanding the words ' Front i nulla fides,' 1 think we are seldom deceived in our judgment of persons, if we do accurately examine their exterior. I am induced to make this remark, from a circumstance which occurred last Sunday week. In my way up Conduit street to church, my attention was attracted by a very smartly dressed man and his companion, preparing to enter a gig, standing at a public house, the landlord of which was arranging some- thing in or about the gig for them ; and I was insensibly led to amuse myself by surmising in what class of life could these men be, who, dressing extravagantly (as one certainly was), and having a gig, live, nevertheless, at a dirty public house.

" The men were not ill looking in the face, of good height, and stout, and in the prime of life.

" I looked at them, or rather at one of them, -very attentively, and now recall that my looks -were avoided.

" The whole appearance was, however, so xinusual, that I could not arrive at any other conclusion, but that there was very great inconsistency.

" I now find, by your paper, and by an inquiry I made at the public house, that this party was the murderer John Thurtell, and Hunt, starting for the scene of their outrage, after they had cleaned themselves from the dirt they had received in destroying their victim.

" How frequently do we find that inconsistency} trifling as it may appear to some, is the forerunner, the result, or the companion of vice J S."

D. J.

VANISHING LANDMARKS OF LONDON : THE Swiss COTTAGE " (11 S. iv. 464, 514). I regret to hear that this old tavern is about to become a thing of the past, as it was one of the landmarks of my boyhood. It was within its walls that Hocker, after the murder of Mr. Delarue, rested for a time before his capture. This tragic incident, of which an account will be found in Howitt's ' Northern Heights,' took place in 1843 or 1844, to the best of my recollection (I am away from my books), and created an im- mense excitement in the St. John's Wood and Hampstead districts. My family was residing in the neighbourhood at the time, and one of my earliest recollections is of being taken by my nurse to view the scene of the murder on the day following the tragedy. Childish memories connected with the horrible never seem to fade, and I yet have before my mind's eye the narrow lane, bordered with hawthorn hedges, in which the crime was committed. A sketch of it, still in my possession, was published in The Illustrated London News.

W. F. PRIDEAUX. [Hocker was executed 28 April, 1845.]

THE REV. ILIEF (11 S. iv. 210).

It is not improbable that the Rev. Thomas Iliff, of Lincoln College, Oxford (B.A. 1760), and of Nuneaton, Warwickshire, was a master at Westminster School. He was Curate and Lecturer of St. Mary-le-Strand, Lecturer of St. Michael Bassishaw, and Librarian at Westminster Abbey. He re- sided during many years in Devereux Court, Strand, and subsequently in Dean's Yard, Westminster. He is supposed to have had eight children by his wife Frances, viz. : Edward Henry, Thomas (a major in the H.E.I.Co.'s service), William, Daniel, Richard, Charles, Frances, and Susannah (married to John Morgan, father of Sir Charles Morgan, and subsequently married to the Rev. William Bingley, author of ' Animal Biography '). He died 15 August, 1803, aged 66 years, and was buried at St. Mary's, Newington, Surrey. The will of the Rev. Thomas Iliff, of Dean's Yard, Westminster, clerk, dated 3 May, 1803, was proved in the P.C.C. 30 September, 1803 (779 "Marriott"), and twice subsequently (on 4 October, 1803, and 10 August, 1822).

The eldest son, Edward Henry Iliff, one of the residuary legatees, became an actor, and for some time played in an inferior capacity at the Haymarket Theatre. He was the author of ' A Summary of the Duties of Citizenship,' 8vo (1795); 'A Tear of