Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/86

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NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. v. JAN. 27, 1912.

SIR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER. I got from a second-hand catalogue recently an interesting volume which is perhaps worth a little paragraph in ' N. & Q.' It is a copy of Sir Henry Vane's ' Retired Man's Medita- tions ' (16,55). Inside the" cover, on the board of the volume, is the signature John Locke in very faded ink. The signature has been compared with Locke's hand- writing and pronounced genuine. Locke began public life as a secretary to Sir Henry's brother, Sir Walter Vane, when in 1664 he went as envoy to the Court of the Elector of Brandenburgh. This was only two years after Sir Henry had been beheaded on Tower Hill. It is a curious circumstance that the volume contained a scrap of paper on which were written, by some contemporary book- seller, the names of volumes of Jacob Behmen for sale including his ' Answers to Walter,' his ' Principles,' and his ' Aurora.' The interest of this lies in the coincidence that Vane himself is supposed to have been a disciple of Behmen' s.

J. WlLLCOCK. Lerwick.

LAMB OR LAMBE. Twice during rambling reading in one evening I met with Lamb's name with a final e : First in ' The Beauties of the Anti- Jacobin ' (' The New Morality'), 1799, p. 306 :

And ye five other wandering bards that move In sweet accord of harmony and love, C dge and S th y, L d and L be and Co. Tune all your mystic harps to praise Lepaux !

and secondly in Byron's ' Poetical Works,' 1 vol., royal 8vo, Murray, 1851, p. 422, ' English Bards and Scotch Reviewers ' :

Or yield one single thought to be misled

By Jeffrey's heart, or Lambe's Boeotian breed.

The same spelling of Lamb's name is given in an explanatory note (presumably Byron's): " Messrs. Jeffrey and Lambe are the alpha and omega, the first and the last of The Edinburgh Review. ' ' I have no remembrance of the alternative spelling being mentioned by any of Lamb's biographers, but there is a curious contemporary instance in the pub- lishers' account of the ' Specimens of English Dramatic Poets.' The heading in Messrs. Longman's ledger of 1808 is ' Lambe's Speci- mens.' I can quite understand that if the real name of Elia had been " Lambe " it would frequently have been misspelt "Lamb," but I do not at all see why, in three instances during the lifetime of the author, independent persons should have given the uncommon form "Lambe."

W. H. PEET.

RICHARDS OF BRAMLEY HOUSE. On the fly-leaf of a copy of Gwillim's ' Heraldry,' 1660 (fourth edition), in my possession, is the following manuscript note, which may interest some of your readers :

" Richards of Bramley House, Suffolk. James, Esq., created Barronet 22 Feb., 1683/4. this Family was John Richard, who came into England with the Queen-Mother of King Charles the second from Thoulouse in France he had a numerous Issue. James his youngest son was first Knighted by King Charles ye 2 d for saving several Men of Wars, and by ye sd King advanced to ye Dignity of Barronet the 35 year of his Reign, he married first Anne Popeley of Red-house in Bristole, by whom he had two sons b r John his Successor and Arthur and one Daughter Eliza- beth. His Second Wife was Beatrice Herren by whome he left four Sons (viz.) Joseph, Phillip (married to ye eldest daughter of Count Montema Lieut.-General in ye Spanish Servise), 3' 1 James, 4 th Lewis, also one daughter Clara. S r James settled in Spain at Cadiz where he dyed and was succeeded by his eldest son S r John Richards now living unmarried at Cadiz. He bearetn Argent a chevron azure, in base a lyon. Rampant and three Harts gules. Crest, a Demy lyon, a Hart between its paws gules. S r Joseph Richards lies buried in St. Pancras near London

under a Monument, he Died the Day of

1738 aged 53, his motto is Honore et Amore.

W. E. NANSON.

Endclifle, Eccles.

DICKENSIANA. In the ' Pickwick Papers,' Mr. Lowten, clerk to Mr. Perker, Pickwick's solicitor, makes his first appearance at chap. xx., and is frequently heard of in later parts of the book. There are two portraits known of a Thomas Lowten : one noted in John Chaloner Smith's ' British Mezzotinto Por- traits,' as engraved by John Young after Earl, published 1807; the other (also a mezzotint), engraved by Charles Turner after T. Phillips, R.A., 1808. The subject of these portraits is described by Chaloner Smith as " Solicitor ; Clerk of ' nisi prius in Court of King's Bench ; Deputy Clerk of the Pipe ; founder of the Lowteman Society of Solicitors ; died in the Inner Temple, Jan. 2, 1814, aged 67." What was the " Lowtenian Society of Solicitors " ? May it not be possible that some knowledge or recollection on the part of Dickens of the surname "Lowten" in connexion with the law may account for its ^ having been appropriated as in ' Pickwick ' ?

In ' Dombey and Son,' chap, v., we read that Mr. Dombey nominated one Rob " on the foundation of an ancient establishment called (from a worshipful company) the Charitable Grinders, where not only is a wholesome education bestowed upon the scholars, but where a dress and badge n likewise provided for them." It may be