Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/238

 230 NOTES AND QUERIES. Ln s. vil mab. 22. wis. Mr. B. Bridges, " Nonconformist Minis- ter," was imprisoned in the Tower for pre- senting to the House of Commons (on 31 March, 1603) a petition complaining of the tyrannical proceedings of the ruling ecclesi- astics, and praying for a redress of his grievances. (Brook's ' Lives of the Puri- tans,' 1813). Can any reader of ' N. & Q.' help me to identify him ? F. K. P. Zodiac Club.—I should be greatly obliged for any details concerning a Zodiac Club, or dining coterie, which, I am informed, existed in London some thirty years ago. I under- stand that the members were mostly literary men. X. Ling Family. — N. Ling published the First Folio of ' Hamlet.' Is anything known of him or his family ? Did he or any of his family ever reside in Bread Street, the birthplace of Milton and of Tobias Crisp ? C. H. P.I CHANTREY. (11 S. vii. 170.) Sir Henry Russell has left us many interesting notes about Chantrey, with whom he became very intimate, and to whom he sat for his bust. " ' My sittings,' he says,' instead of being an effort were a treat; I never passed a more agreeable time than I spent under his hands. His conversation was at once amusing and instructive. I never oonversed with any man whose native powers of mind appeared to me more vigorous than his were. He was capable of distinguishing himself in any course that he had followed. I found him fond of talking of the humbleness of his own origin. He began life as a farmer's boy. I had heard that he first showed his peculiar faculty in cutting figures out of bits of sticks as he sat under the hedge tending his master's sheep ; and as he seemed rather to invite than to repel the subject, I soon found an oppor- tunity of asking him the question. He said that what I had heard was not the fact; that at the farm on which he first worked their mistress used to give the boys a pork pie as a treat for dinner on Christmas Day, and that there was always some ornament of dough in the middle of the top crust. One year it occurred to him to ask to be allowed to provide the ornament, and he accordingly modelled in dough a sow with a litter of pigs, which were baked and served up with the pie. "And what," I asked, " would you give for that sow and her pigs now?" "Ah!" he said, with deep emphasis, " I would give a great deal for them.' One day when I and my father were visiting him, pointing to a model of his bust of Milton's Satan uttering his address to the sun, he said, " That head was the very first thing that I did after I came to London. I worked at it in a garret, with a paper cap on my head, and as I could then afford only one candle, I stuck that one in my cap, that it might move with me and give me light whichever way I turned."'" Constance Russell. Swallowfieid Park. Reading. The statement in the editorial note to this query, that Chantrey was born at Jordanthorpe, is no doubt correct. I would, however, crave permission to ask a question. In an ' Official Guide to the Midland Railway ' (Cassell & Co., 1883) in my possession it is stated that "the village of Norton was the birthplace of Chantrey, the great sculptor. On the village green an obelisk has been erected to his memory. ' The Sheffield Year - Book ' also refers to the obelisk, and contains the statement, " Chantrey was a native of Norton." Are Jordanthorpe and Norton in some sense synonymous terms ? The obelisk on Norton Green is, I am told, of grey granite; it was erected by public subscription, and unveiled on 4 April, 1854. I should be glad to obtain a copy of the inscription thereon, and also of that over Chantrey's grave in Norton churchyard. John T. Page. Long Itchington, Warwickshire. Like myself, Sir Francis Chantrey served his apprenticeship to a woodcarver at Shef- field. He Was born in a small cottage known locally as Jordanthorpe, standing less than half a mile from the parish church at Norton, a Derbyshire village situated some four miles or more from " the City of Soot." A sketch of the house as it Was then, reproduced from a drawing by an artist named Shore, may be seen (p. 374) in ' Chantrey Land,' by Harold Armitage, published by Sampson Low, Marston & Co. (1910). Mr. Armitage records that, having " learned his letters at home, and at six years of age imbibed such education as it was in the power of Dame Rose to bestow, he was sent to the village school kept at that time by Thomas Fox. He attended very irregularly, for no doubt there was much for him to do on the farm or in the work- shop." It is further stated that the forms in use at that time at the school-house in question were the workmanship of the future sculptor's father, who was a local carpenter and small farmer. The father died when young Francis was twelve years old, and the mother ulti- mately married a serving-man who could not spell his own name, and was known as Job Hall. Harry Hems. [A. C. also refers to ' Chantrey Land.']