Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/190

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. VIL M AR. s, 1913.

15. Thomas Haines Thompson, 20 years assist- ant sexton of this p., d. 25 Feb., 1823, a. 6(4). The Rector, Vestry, and Churchwardens have caused this stone to be erected to record the memory of an honest man.

16. William Henry, only s. of John and Ann Peacock, of Piccadilly, d. April 9, 1823, a. 21.

17. Mrs. Lydia, w. of Mr. (William ? ) Snowdon, of Rider Street, d. April 20, 17, a. 7- years.

G. S. PARRY, Lieut. -Col. 17, Ashley Mansions, S.W.

(To be continued.)

ST. ALBAN THE MARTYR, HOLBORN. The references,made to St. Alban's, Holborn, in the note about the Jubilee of The Church Times (ante, p. 161) are a reminder that this -church also celebrates its Jubilee this year. .It was consecrated on the 21st of February, 1863, and dedicated on St. Alban's Day (the 17th of June) of the same year. The Daily Chronicle under ' The Office Window ' of Friday, February 21st, contains the iollowing :

" St. Alban's, Holborn, celebrates the jubilee of Its consecration. But the first service in con mection with St. Alban's was held over a fish shop in Baldwin's Gardens on May 11, 1862. The following month the services were transferred -to a cellar below the basement of a printer's shop in Greville Street. This cellar has been described by Mr. Mackonochie, the first Vicar of St. Alban's. It. ' was about 20 feet long. The printing machines overhead rattled down dust on the worshippers beneath. The printer's boys in the midst of even- song used to come down to turn on the gas for the rooms above, borrowing chairs from the congregation to enable them to reach the meter The gamins of the neighbourhood crowded round iihe windows of the house, and noisily joined in the Gregorian tones which proceeded from the .basement.' " G.

' NOTES ON CADNEY CHURCH, BY THE VICAR, REV. E. A. WOODRUFFE-PEACOCK. Under this title the Vicar pleads for pecuniary aid to restore Cadney Church, near Brigg, in Lincolnshire. His pamphlet thereon has casually fallen into my hands. The writer informs his readers u< that the forefathers of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American poet and essayist, lived in Cadney village for many generations, but have- left their irecord only in the old parish register, which begins in 1564, not in the church or graveyard, so far as I can discover." At 11 S. iv. 115 (5 Aug., 1911) I referred to Emerson's visit to England.

It would have greatly interested my olc friend the Rev. Thos. Mozley,* who veneratec the churches and everything else appertain ing to his native county of Lincoln, to reac that Cadney Parish Church, after nearly

24 June, 1893.
 * See my obituary notice of him. Athenaeum

$00 years of existence, will, during the pring of this year, be reopened " after wenty years of abandonment for divine worship, on account of its state of disrepair." The connexion of this church and village with the family history of R. W. Emerson will interest his American compatriots, as t certainly does me and other Lincolnshire blks. WILLIAM MERCER.

EXPECTORATION AND EXPLETIVES. Con- templating the American habit, Sydney Smith, with as much heed to veracity as to grammar, somewhere asserted : " No English gentleman has spat upon the floor since the Heptarchy." To this I was glad to give credit, but I find from a letter written oy Lady Sarah Spencer in May, 1808, that iien of rank yet loved to do it on a carpet :

"The event of greatest importance I know of to-day is the arrival and down-lying of a beautiful new carpet in the drawing-room below. It affords conversation to all the visitors, and afforded Mama an excuse for turning out Lord Bulkley's great dog whom he had brought in with him, two very good effects, you will allow, to be produced by a new carpet. Alas ! poor carpet ! In how short a time will it be trocl and spit upon by dogs and men without scruple, and never thought of from -week s end to week's end." ' The Correspondence of Sarah Spencer, Lady Lyttelton,' p. 9. Even a parvenu would not so disgrace a carpet and himself nowadays.

I should say that it is not always among the aristocracy that refinements in manners and customs begin, or in noble families that they are most strictly insisted on. My lord is too often a law to himself, and does not care how his behaviour may strike those who are not his social peers. Not long ago I heard of the son of an exalted personage having to be told not to smoke in a public ballroom. He afterwards threw the fag-end of a cigarette on the carpet in one of the " sitting-out " rooms ; but that, I hope, had more attention paid to it next day than if it had been the early nineteenth-century floor-covering at Spencer House, Wimbledon.

Of Lavinia, Lady Spencer, the mother of Lady Lyttelton, one of the nieces said :

"I do not like my Aunt Spencer. I object to being called 'Dear Devil' when she is in a good temper, and sworn at when she is not."

I do not remember that either of my humble grandmothers used language that was over proof, but I have a note from ' Lives of the Chief Justices ' which runs :

"The Duchess of Marlborough, calling in 1738 on Murray, afterwards Lord Mansfield, to consult him, would not leave her name ; but his clerk, in de- scribing her, said, ' 1 could not make out, sir, who she was, but she swore so dreadfully that she must be a lady of quality.' "