Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/494

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NOTES AND Q UERIES. [ii s. v. MAY -25, 1912.

are to be placed, which, we understand, are to be finished in a style of rather more elegance than most buildings of that description in the neigh- bourhood of the metropolis. Advantage will be taken of the means the ground affords for increas- ing the picturesque beauties of the spot, as well as for general convenience, by the formation of two or three sheets of water in the level situations. Besides the houses round the circus, many other spots are to be let for the erection of detached villas, near the edges of the park, and in other good situations : but exclusive of the different roads for the amusement of those who go in car- riages, there will be a considerable portion of the whole reserved for the recreation and pleasure of th.e promenaders. The proposed intersection of the southern part of the park by the projected public canal from Paddington to Blackwall, would certainly add nothing to the attractions of the place ; but, it should seem, would be, in several respects, inconvenient. When the roads are all completed, this park will unquestionably be a very agreeable place of residence, but not a few will regret the loss of those open and verdant fields which formed one of the most airy and pleasant resorts of the pedestrians of the metro- polis."

It is curious how silent the Press has TDeen over so highly interesting an event.

CECIL CLARKE. Junior Athenaeum Club.

THE COVENTRY SHAKESPEARES. (See ante, pp. 24, 105.) The folio wing entries are taken from the Churchwardens' Accounts in the vestry of Holy Trinity Church, Coventry. The amount paid for ringing the funeral bell indicates roughly -the status of the deceased. Better-off people than the Shake- speares paid 2s. or 3s. for the knell :

1606. '' Rec. for ij peales for Goodman Shax- speare, viijd."

1618. " Paid Shackspeare the Carpenter for mending the kneeling seats about the Communion Table half a day and nayles, viijd."

1631. " Rec. for Thomas Shackspeare his Childe, 3 peales, xviijd."

In the Seat Book it says that in 1632 a seat in the north aisle was allotted to Elizabeth Shaxpeare and another to Thomas Shaxpeare. M. DORMER HARRIS.

COFFEE : CHOCOLATE : FIRST ADVERTISE- MENT. The Publick Adviser, Xo. 1, for 19-26 May, 1657, p. 8, contains the following :

" In Bartholomew Lane, on the back side of the Old Exchange, the drink called Coffee, which is a very wholsom and Physical drink having many vertues, closes the Orifice of the Stornack, fortifies the heat within, helpeth digestion, <juickneth the spirits, maketh the heart lightsom, is good against Eyesores, Coughs, Colds, Rhumes, Consumptions, Head-ach, Dropsie, Gout, Scurvy. King's Evil and many others ; is to be sold both in the morning and three of the clock in the afternoon."

The Publick Adviser, Xo. 4. for 9-16 June, 1657, contains the following :

" In Bishopsgate street, in Queens Head alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West India drink, called Chocolate, to be sold, w r here you have it ready made at any time and also unmade at reasonable rates."

J. B. WILLIAMS.

OLD LINCOLNSHIRE BALLAD. The follow- ing fragment has been known to me for many years. Undoubtedly it is a part of some ballad which has long been forgotten. Pro- bably when perfect it flourished in the time of Charles I., and was related to the Civil War.

Little Dicky looked over his left shoulder,

And he said : " I can see what you none of you

else can see.

I can see the High Sheriff and fifty brave fellows A-coming to take both you and me."

EDWARD PEACOCK.

THE CORNISH LANGUAC4E. The Cornish language was long ago spoken not only in the south-western, but in some of the interior parts of England. In the Duchy during the reign of Henry VIII. Cornish was the, universal language. In 1602 Carew, in his ' Survey,' speaks of it as then declininc- In 1610 Xorden, in his ' History of Cornwall,' says it was then chiefly used in the Western Hundreds. About the middle of that century, however, several parishes dis- played strong attachment to their native tongue ; and in 1640 the Rev. William Jackson, Vicar of Pheoke, conducted divine service in the language, as his parishioners understood none other. About the beginning of the eighteenth century Cornish is said to have been confined to five or six villages. In 1746 Capt. Barring-, ton, sailing on a cruise to the French coast, took with him, from Mount's Bay, a seaman who spoke Cornish, and he was understood on the coast of Brittany. DolJy Pentreath (1676-1788), according to an inscription on her tomb, was the last person to speak it yet Daines Barrington published a letter by William Bodenor, a Mousehole fisherman, written in 1776 in Cornish, in which he names five people in Mousehole who could speak the language, two years only before the death of Dolly Pen- treath. Whittaker, the Vicar of Ruan- Lanihorne, east of Truro, states that there were people still living in 1799 who spoke it. A letter in the British Museum, written to Sir Joseph Banks, dated 1791, mentions