Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/201

 iis.v.MAB.2,i9ii] NOTES AND QUERIES.

161

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCO. >, 1:>1>.

CONTENTS. No. 114.

NOTES : Charles T>icken, 161 Sarum Missal: Manu- script Additions. 163 Fitz william Family, 161 'Rejected Addresses ' " The Brass Angel " Sr.. John's Gate Inscription, 165 Roger Ridley Matrimonial pre-Con- "

tract Link with Battle of Naseby Birth land nor sea," 166.

neither by

QUERIES : Jeffreys'* Colleague : Northern Circuit, 1684 Arms of Charles v. Queen Caroline Token Hans Sachs's Poems Officer's Kit. 1775 Chevalier Johnstone Byron's Aberdeen Tutor "Pimlico order " T>gend of the Last Lord Lovll, 167 Manmntel o- Moliere Walter Brisbane Henry Blake Phases of Culture Biographical Information Wanted Fulsby. Lincoln- shire Kirby's ' Winchester Scholars 'Sir Robert Drury

Isaac Jamineau, 168 Amersham Rectors Clergy buried at Amershara German "Romans de cape et d'epee" Statue of George IIF., Berkeley Square Author Wanted Author of Song Wanted Book - Plate : Owner Wanted Nottingham as a surname, 169 Ruddock Family, 170.

REPLIES : Grise :Grey :Badger, 170 "Sung by Reynolds in 1820," 172 Arithmetic among the Romans T. Gower, 173 "Christiana Resrina Bohemia nata Herevia" Families in Male Line, 174 Kea_ts's ' Ode to a Nightingale '

Lairds of Drumminnor Jennings Case, 175 Cleopatra's Portrait, 176 Robert Bruce. Earl of Ross Pant.hera - Keeston Castle, Pembrokeshire ' Richards of Bramley House Women and Tobacco, 177 " Best of all Good Company " Dickens : Mr. Magnus's Spectacles County Bibliographies, 178.

"NOTES ON BOOKS: 'The Story of Garrard's ' ' Six Lectures on the Recorder ' ' The Book-Lovers' Anthology.' ^Notices to Correspondents.

CHARLES DICKENS. FEBRUARY ?TH, 1812 JUNE OTH, 1870. (See ante, pp. 81, 101, 121, 141.)

Household Words appeared for the first time on Saturday, the 30th of March,. 1 850. The title of the new publication had long been the subject of cogitation. Among many other suggestions were Mankind, The Household Voice, The Comrade, The Rolling Tears, and The Holly Tree, and it was only at the last moment that the title Household Words was decided upon. Dickons thinking it a very pretty name. Wills became Assistant editor.

The first number contained the beginning of a tale by Mrs. Gaskell, and the second opened with a short story by Dickens. ' A Child's Dream of a Star.' The idea came to him as he was travelling alone by night to Brighton and looking at the stars. The little tale is one of the sweetest that ever was written of a brother and sister, constant child companions, who used to wonder all daj^ long. They wondered at the

beauty of the flowers ; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky ; they wondered at the depth of the bright water ; they wondered at the goodness and the power of God, who made the lovely world. There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others ; they made friends of it, watching it together every night until they knew when and where it would rise, and always bidding it good night ; so that when the sister dies the lonely brother still con- nects her with the star, which he then sees opening as a world of light, its rays making a shining pathway from earth to heaven, while angels with his little sister among them wait to receive the travellers up that sparkling road. His sister's angel would linger near the entrance to the star, and ask the leader who had brought the people thither, " Is my brother come ? " and he would say " Xo." Ever after the brother fancies that he belongs less to the earth than to the star where his sister is ; and all through his life he is consoled, under the successive bereavements that befall him ; by a renewal of that vision of his child- hood ; until at last he feels that he is moving as a child to his child-sister, and thanks his Heavenly Father that the star had so often before opened to receive the dear ones who now await him ; and one night, as he is dying, his children standing round his bed, he cries, as he had cried so long ago, " I see the star ! "

I have by my side as I write this the first volume of Household Words, open at the page. This little poem in prose, which occupies but three columns, is probably known but to few, as it did not appear in the author's collected works until after his death. My copy is as clean and fresh, the ink as black and the paper as white, as on the day of its publication, the 6th of April, 1850.

In the light of the present day the early numbers of Household Words do not look very attractive. The print is small and close, and the contents, although adapted for reading in the quiet evenings at home enjoyed in those days, would find but a languid reception now. They contain what is known as good, wholesome reading a homely tale, ' Lizzie Leigh,' by Mrs. Gaskell ; ' Sickness and Health,' a " heavy " story Dickens called it, by Harriet Martineau ; and articles on Australia, Hullah's popular music, London fires, and Greenwich Observa- tory, with a jocular reply to Ledru- Rollins'