Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/383

 us. vii. MAY io, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Sir Robertson Nicoll referred with regret in his recent address at the Booksellers' Provident Institution. It was a great place for saunterers during the luncheon hour, and many a bargain has been picked up from the old bookstalls sufficient to pay for several lunches. A trade was also done, we are sorry to add, in copies of books that had been sent for review, one shop being especially noted for this.

Mr. Whitten entertains us also with pictures of newcomers to London. "The garrulous Cyrus Bedding. .. .took up his quarters at Hatchett's Hotel, Piccadilly." The first thing he did next morning was to ascend the Monument, and after- wards he " shot the rapids at London Bridge," and " within a few days he saw the burial of Pitt in Westminster Abbey." Another new- comer was Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was eighteen when he arrived by coach from Plymouth, " taking more time on the journey than the Lusitania takes to cross the Atlantic." He arrived at " The White Horse Cellar Tavern " in Piccadilly. A third new-comer, a Dorsetshire squire, when he saw the lights of Brentford, imagined he was at his journey's end, " but as mile succeeded mile of illumination, he asked in alarm, ' Are we not yet in London, and so many miles of lamps ? ' At last, at Hyde Park Corner, he was told that this was London ; but still the lamps receded and the streets lengthened, until he sank into a coma of astonishment. When they entered Lad Lane, the Cheapside coaching centre, a travelling companion bade the West- Countryman remain in the coffee-room while he made inquiries. On returning he found no trace of him, nor did he hear more of him for six weeks. He then learned he was in custody in Dorsetshire a lunatic. The poor fellow was taken home, and after a brief return of his reason he died. He was able to explain that he had become more and more bewildered by the lights and by the endless streets, from which he thought he should never be able to escape." Mr. Whitten, commenting on this, says : "I have always respected this Dorsetshire squire. Other arrivals seem tame in comparison."

In ' The City Man's City ' we come upon the " little Green Shop " Birch's, now Ring & Brymer's, but always " Birch's." " Its delicacies have been the manna of the City for these two hundred years." Then to Leadenhall Street, where one passes the site of the old India Office, in which Lamb sat at his desk for thirty-five years ; then to the Minories, with its little church of Holy Trinity, where the caretaker shows a box containing a head supposed to be that of the father of Lady Jane Grey, to which reference was made in ' N. & Q.' in 1885 (0 S. xii. 241).

Coming to the Strand, we find it to be full of memories : Exeter Hall ; the old Gaiety ; the Strand Theatre ; Beaufort Buildings, where Whitings machined The Athencenm and All the Year Round (the circulation of the Christmas number of the latter was so large that the printing machine often broke down) ; Coutts's Bank, moved to the south side on the site of the Lpwther Arcade, the delight of all children searching for toys ; and Hungerford Market, now occupied by Charing Cross Station and Hotel.

" Stepping westward," we meet Carlyle with his manuscript of ' Sartor Resartus.' Did he, as has been stated, offer it to Dilke for The Alhenceum,

and never forgive him its refusal ? " Tied with Jeannie's tape from her workbox," it went to Murray in Albemarle Street ; then to Fraser at 215, Regent Street, where it ultimately found its home. " Here on a January night in 1832 he met at Fraser's table James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, and wondered to see this ' poor herd body blown hither from his sheepfolds, and how, quite friendless as he was, he went along cheerful, mirthful, and musical.' Lockhart was there, and John Gait ; but the talk, even so, was ' utterly despicable,' and nothing was said ' that did not even solicit in mercy to be forgotten.' "

So one might go on, and each step would show the new London in place of the old. The book contains twenty-four beautiful illustrations by Mr. Frank L. Emanuel. Mr. Whitten is to be congratulated on having made a charming addi- tion to works on London, and its small price (six shillings) should cause it to have a large sale.

The British Archivist. Edited by Richard Hoi- worthy. March, 1913. Vol. I. No. L (C.A. Bernau.)

WE are glad to offer a welcome to this new and promising publication, whose editor is not unknown to readers of ' N. & Q.' Its aim so the introductory editorial informs us is to furnish material to the working genealogist and student of archives, and to furnish this upon the now approved principle of strict completeness, all matters being set out as they appear in the source, un violated by "selection," even where the details are trivial. It has, however, a more original merit than this one which deserves the attention and approval of all students. In addition to the body of the magazine there will appear in each number a series of supplements, which will not follow the pagination of the rest, but run separately. The number is so put together that these can be detached ; and when a serial article is completed, the parts can be taken out and bound together in one volume. Each worker may thus separate out from the general mass the par- ticular line of information he wants, and have it ready to his hand, without the trouble of hunting through back numbers, or of turning from one volume to another when working over what is in itself a coherent body of facts. This seems to us a very useful invention.

The ' (Supplements ' so prepared in the number before us are five : Mr. Guimaraens's ' Protestation Oath Rolls, 1641/2'; Mr. Snell's 'Chancery De- positions " Before 1714 '"; 'Monumental Inscrip- tions of Bromley, co. Kent.' by the editor ; ' Feet of Fines, "Divers Counties," Henry VIII.,' by Mr. Ernest F. Kirk ; and the first of a series of Aiithen- ticated Pedigrees Grimaldi. In the body of the work the main article is Mrs F. Nevill Jackson's highly interesting account of the recently dis- covered collection of Edouart's silhouettes nine thousand, all named and dated which she has been so fortunate as to have acquired ; and there is also an instructive pedigree (Newton) abstracted from the Bill and Answer in a Chancery Suit of 1758.

The Nineteenth Century for May is strong in the matter of articles of social and political interest. Bishop Welld on's paper on ' The Church and the Labour Party' is both candid and hopeful, and deserves the consideration even of those who may