Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/275

 n s. v. MA* 03, 1912. j NOTES AND QUERIES.

a.> witchcraft was concerned, were only too ready to give credence to frauds and impostures of the most transparent nature. In most witch trials of which we have any account trickery, gross trickery, is very easily to be detected, or leaves obvious traces of its presence. The case now under con- sideration is only one of many of the same kind. It is actually cited as evidence of the justice of the jury's finding, that after the prisoners had been convicted, the chil- dren who were said to have been bewitched, and who had been speechless and senseless during the whole of the proceedings, at once recovered their wits and powers of speech ! It is amazing that any one should have been imposed upon by such trickery, or that the evidence put forward by the prosecution should ever have received a moment's serious consideration ; but the fact that the case w r as a trumped-up affair is no reason why Sir Thomas Browne should be charged with having sealed the fate of the prisoners. All that can be alleged against him is that he not of his own motion, but when directly appealed to by the Judge gave testimony as to his belief in witchcraft an expression of belief in which 99 out of every 100 of his educated contemporaries would have concurred. To attempt to fix him with responsibility for the hanging of these two women is wholly unwarranted by the facts reported.

From the Bibliography to Vol. VII. of ' The Cambridge History of English Litera- ture ' it would seem that an edition of Sir Thomas Browne's ' Works ' is contemplated by the Syndics of the University Press. When this edition appears, which is, I believe, to be furnished with notes, it is to be hoped that Browne's connexion with this trial will be presented in its true light.

MALCOLM LETTS.

CHARLES DICKENS.

FEBRUARY TTH, 1812-JtnsrE 9rn, 1870.

(See ante, pp. 81, 101, 121, 141, 161, 182, 203.)

DICKEXS'S new office was No. 11, Wel- lington Street North, at the corner of York Street. There he furnished rooms, and occasionally had friends to dinner, getting Wills to do the catering, specially requesting that there should be " something to cut at." While his readings were on, these rooms were frequently his quarters for the night, thus saving the journey to Gad'shill. He wrote to his daughter Mamie that the rooms were " really a succes=, as comfortable.

cheerful, and private as anything of the* kind can possibly be." He had for his neighbour in York Street Mr. Bohn, who for many years lived over his business premises with his wife and family ; while the third house down Wellington Street, No. 14.- had been the office of The Alhenteum (and my father's home) since the removal from Catherine Street on the 27th of November, 1837. To this house my father brought his wife and daughter ; there I was born on the llth of September, 1838; also my brother, Edward James, on the 1 8th of February. 1844. He became printer of The Athenaeum, and was one of the originators of The Referee. My father resided at Wellington Street until the summer of 1862, when he went to live in the suburbs ; but in 1881, owing to increasing weakness, he returned to the old house, that he might continue to work for the- paper so dear to him ; and there he died on the 6th of April, 1882.

Directly opposite, in the Chartist days, was the office of Reynolds's Newspaper. Reynolds and his family resided above the shop, and being a Chartist would frequently go to Trafalgar Square to address the people assembled there. On his return crowds would follow him, cheering lustily. As window - smashing was in fashion in those days, my father was often anxious about his office windows.

On the 22nd of March, 1860, Dickens and the other householders in the street were annoyed by receiving notice from the Board of Works that the numbers of the houses were to be changed and the word " North '' to be omitted, the street to be known in future as Wellington Street. The Athe- naeum was altered from 14 to 20, and All the Year Round from 11 to 26. The notice to alter was peremptory, only one week being allowed ; failing the alteration being made, the occupier was to be liable to a penalty of forty shillings and for the expense incurred by the Board in painting the fresh number. On the 26th of May, no change having been made in the name of the street, my father wrote to the Board a reminder of the notice he had received, which he had attended to imme- diately, and induced his neighbours to attend to also ; he asked what penalties had been incurred by the Board for such neglect, seeing that they had threatened him with a fine of forty shillings for any failure on his part to comply with the demand.

Appropriately enough, the last paper Dickens wrote for All the Year Round was