Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/377

 us. VIL MAT 10, i9i3.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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held at the Guildhall 16 July, 1779.. when it was decided to offer the Government, then threatened and harassed by the fear of an invasion by the combined fleets of France and Spain, the services of twenty -four com- panies of volunteers. This offer was quickly followed by a proposal from the Deputy- Lieutenants and Justices of the Peace for the Tower Royalty to raise six companies on a similar plan, with the stipulation that the men should not be obliged to serve out of the Hamlets. These volunteer companies were raised parochially as, for example, the Whitechapel Volunteers, the Mile End Volunteers, the Hackney Volunteers and the magnates of each parish were generally in command. It was perhaps one of these companies that Dickens had in his mind's eye when he invested Gabriel Varden with a sergeantship in the Royal East London Volunteers.

After 1783 most of these local associations were disbanded, but upon the outbreak of the Napoleonic scare they were quickly revived amid much excitement. In 1794 volunteer companies were raised, some dependent as companies on militia, others as independent units. This was followed in 1798 by the formation, for purely local defence, of armed associations. The Hamlets of the Tower had each its separate corps again, raised parochially. Excellent coloured illustrations of a volunteer of each corps in full dress, together with short de- scriptions, are publicly exhibited in the hall of the Mile End Public Library, Stepney, E.

On p. 301 of Macmillan's edition of the novel is a picture depicting Gabriel Varden resplendent in his gorgeous uniform. This is a reprint of " Phiz's" original illustration.

GURNER P. JONES. Stepney Reference Library, Mile End, E.

THE RED HAND OF ULSTER (11 S. vii. 189, 275, 334). Why the sign of the red hand was so potent at Constantinople may. perhaps, be explained by the following from the late W. E. Curtis, whose account pos- sibly can be trusted in this instance, he being on the ground. In the mosque we call St. Sophia there is

"on one of the columns in the south-east part of the interior a mark resembling the imprint of a bloody hand, which is said to have been made by Mahomet II., as his horse stood upon the bodies of the Christians who had died defending the house of God. This mark is about fifteen feet from the floor, so that there must have been several tiers of corpses under the feet of his horse."

ROCKINGHAM.

Boston, Mass.

AUTHOR WANTED (11 S. vii. 330). Man is immortal till his work is done. The authorship of the poem containing this line was claimed for James Williams, Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, in an obituary notice of him in The Guardian for 17 Nov., 1911. Sed queer e The Guardian for 24 Nov. in the same year.

G. W. E. RUSSELL.

This was investigated in The Guardian some two or three years ago ; many clues were given, but no single origin discovered. The quotation in the plural form ("Men are immortal ") occurs, without any hint of borrowing, in a letter from David Living- stone, March, 1862, describing the death of Bishop Mackenzie in Africa. This letter is preserved at St. Paul's College. Burgh, Lines. W. E. B.

In The Guardian in 1911 Dr. Pope of Oxford claimed the authorship for the late Dr. Williams of Lincoln College, and wrote :

" My authority for the statement that this line was written by the late Dr. Williams was Dr. Williams himself. He spoke of it to me more than once, and on the last occasion told me he was very glad to have written it."

In the same letter Dr. Pope mentioned having received several interesting com- munications on the subject, including one pointing out that the words were spoken on 30 Dec., 1860, by Dr. A. B. Evans, then of St. Andrew's, W T ells Street. This was more than a year before Dr. Livingstone's letter of 18 March, 1862, announcing the death of Bishop Mackenzie, to which Mr. Boulter, of St. Paul's College, Burgh, referred during the discussion in The Guardian.

A. C. C.

A correspondence on the authorship of this saying was carried on in The Guardian during 1911 : 17 and 24 Nov., 1 and 8 Dec. Mr. R. W. M. Pope of Keble Road, Oxford, wrote in the issue of 17 Nov. ascribing the line to James Williams, D.C.L., Fellow of Lincoln, just then deceased. Other corre- spondents, however, traced the line much further back. Mr. L. Phillips, writing from the Theological College, Lichfield, says that Archbishop Maclagan tracked the line as far as Whitefield's sermons, but even there it was given as a quotation. S. L. writes (8 Dec., 1911) :

" Fuller's ' Church History,' vol. ii., on Bede's death says : ' Thus God's children are immortall whiles their Father hath anything for them to do on earth.' "

WM. H. PEET.