Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 7.djvu/35

 us.vii.Jan.ii, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 27 Other tombstones near are :— John William Busfield Died July 21th. 1885. A [?] P. Frere died at Aigle 24 June 1888. Louisa Sophia Lushington who Died at Avignon July 19 A.D. 1854 Aged 30 years. Cap. Edmund Royds 14 King's Light Dragoons Died 27th March 1838 Second son of Clement Royds Esq. of Palinge Lancashire. Frances. Wife of the Revd William Clarke Born Oct'11th. 1822 Died Ascension-Day, Mai 21st. 1857. Reverend Thomas Alford Burdon B.A. Trim Coll. Cambridge Late Curate of Bromley Middlesex Died at Avignon 18 May, 1873 in his Twenty Sixth year. William Trench Johnson Eldest son of Evans Johnson, D D Archdeacon of Ferns Ireland who departed this life 16 Novr 1867 Aged 34 year3. Colonel Robert Clifford Lloyd 76 Regiment. Died at Avignon 13 Janvier, 1863 A L'Age de 53 Ans. These are not all of the English graves at Avignon; some are past deciphering. It is 6aid Bishop Colenso is buried here, but I could not find his grave. Perhaps some reader can enlighten me as to this. J. Harris Stone. Avignon. Bushes in Lincoln's Inn Fields, circa 1730.—One of the best of the Besant-Rice London novels, ' The Chaplain of the Fleet,' contains a wealth of descriptive matter con- cerning the Fleet market at its most inter- esting period—the early eighteenth century. The Chaplain, greatest of all the marrying parsons, named " Dr. Shovel," can readily be identified as " Dr." John Gaynam, who was active in this work from about 1709 to 1740 (Burn's' History of the Fleet Marriages,' first edition, p. 25 ; second edition, p. 49). Describing the company over whom this worthy presided each evening at" The Bishop Blaize," Besant (?) writes (chap, x.):— " It was thought the work of a fine fellow, a lad of spirit, to be hidden, with other lads of spirit, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, or some such quiet place, behind the bushes until there might pass by some unfortunate wretch alone and un- protected," &c. We can, from other allusions, place this for date as circa 1730, and the writer is therefore at fault in assuming Lincoln's Inn Fields to be a waste of bushes and under- growth dense enough to allow of such alarms. Its use for many previous years as a resort for fights, exercising horses, and holding sporting contests is common know- ledge. This, and the fact of its being a dumping - place for all manner of refuse, suggest, that then it was nothing but a fiat field more mud and filth than grass. In 1735 it was enclosed and beautified, with grass and gravel walks (vide ' Survey of London,' vol. hi., 'St. Giles in the Fields,' p. 20). There is little margin between the date first mentioned and this definite record of improvement into respect- ability, but I suggest that even at an earlier period—say in 1725—such conditions as the novelist describes would not have been tolerated by the influential occupants of the surrounding houses. Aleck Abrahams. Octagonal Meeting-Houses.—It may not be generally known that John Wesley counselled his followers :— " Build all our preaching house3 (if the ground will admit) in the octagon form." I presume that this was for the purpose of seating everybody where he could see the preacher ; Wesley was not, in all proba- bility, thinking of the symbolic significance of the octagon when he prescribed the form. There is an Octagon Chapel, St. Michael's, in Bath. St. Swithin. Francois Casanova.—In the "Notice des Tableaux exposes dans les Galeries du Musee National du Louvre 3e Partie. Ecole Francaise, lie Edition, 1880," by Frederic Villot, p. 55, is a biographical note on Francois Casanova. Therein it is asserted that he was born in London in 1730, and that he was reported (" on a pre- tendu ") to be a natural son of George II. Unless the ' Memoires de Jacques Casa- nova,' vol. i. chap, i., Rozez and Gamier editions, are wrong, Francois was born in 1727 ; and Jean in 1730. Is there any evidence anywhere which would justify the suggestion that George II. was the father of Francois ? According to Jacques, his father Gaetan and his mother Zanetta Casanova left Venice for London in 1726, where the latter made her debut on the stage, and in the following year Francois was born in London. According to the notice in the Catalogue of the Louvre, he exhibited about 1756-7, at the Luxembourg, a battle picture, which added greatly to his reputation. He exhibited in the Salons of 1763, 1765, 1767, 1769, 1771, 1775, 1779,