Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/427

 us.viLMAY24,i9i3.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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The house, now known as 28, Finchley Road (the home of the St. John's Wood Arts Club), has had an inscription placed on it by the London County Council. The identification of it is due to Mr. Foot. Hood moved into his new house at Christmas, 1843, and the history of the next fifteen months is one of the most pathetic in the annals of the world of letters. Hood strove cheerfully to continue his work, in spite of constant uneasiness and pain, and to have a smile for his beloved wife, who nursed him tenderly during his last illness, and to whom he addressed those exquisite lines, Those eyes that were so bright, love, have now a

dimmer shine, But all they've lost in light, love, was what they

gave to mine.

The end came peacefully on the 3rd of May, 1845. Hood was buried, as all know, at Kensal Green, and after a brief eighteen months his devoted wife was laid beside him. Mr Eyre, commenting: on the fact that Hood always signed his work " Thomas Hood," says that his son was christened "Tom," and should be referred to as Tom Hood. We can- not agree with this. The author of ' The Song of the Shirt ' will always be known as " Tom Hood " ; he was so styled in his lifetime by his friends, many of whom we can remember. His son, whom we knew well, should be distinguished as Tom Hood the Younger ; he was a handsome man, and specially genial to those who had known his father.

Mary Lamb, after her brother's death, removed to Alpha Road, and died there in 1847. William and Mary Howitt had a small house in Avenue Road. Huxley lived the greater part of his long life in the Wood, and in 1872 built his new house in Marlborough Road ; he bargained that each member of his family should have a corner of his or her own, and that the common living rooms should be of ample size.

In June, 1863, George Eliot and Lewes bought the Priory. Their " dear good friend Owen Jones " determined every detail of colouring and arrange- ment. George Eliot enjoyed her "new, pretty, quiet home," spent much time in " the study of Beethoven's Sonatas," and took "deep draughts of reading," this consisting of Euripides, Latin Christianity, and so forth, current literature being completely avoided.

In Cornwall Terrace lived Silk Buckingham, who among many other ventures started The. AthencEum. Later we find Hep worth Dixon, Shirley Brooks, and John Oxenford, and so we might continue to the present day, for although many literary men have made homes at Hamp- stead, they are not all forsaking the Wood, and one finds William Rossetti, Clement Shorter, Buxton Forman, and many others still faithful to its old traditions.

Mr. Beckles Willson in a short Introduction truly asks : " What other London district has so many artistic and literary associations ? " and refers to the contrasts between the residents at different times- Huxley and Madame Blavatsky, Herbert Spencer and the Third Napoleon, "dreaming of empire." The many illustrations include the old stile in Boundary Road ; a plan of Regent's Park in 1827 : the interior of St. John's Wood Arts Club, and Frith's studio. Among the portraits are those of Shelley's Jane Williams, George Eliot, Hood, Miss Howard (Comtesse Beauregard, whose story was recently discussed in ' N. & Q.'), and Huxley.

The Leopards of England, and Other Papers on Heraldry. By E. E. Dorling. (Constable & Co.)

THE first article of this attractive little book lays no claim, the writer says, to contain anything new, nor anything that cannot be gleaned from books and a study of armorial seals by any one who will be at the trouble. But we fully agree with him that it was worth while to put together this clear, de- tailed, and interesting account of the history of the royal arms of England and of the changes which from time to time have been made in them, there being assuredly many to whom it will be welcome- and even new. Mr. Dorling makes pleasantly ex- plicit, here and there, those ardours that always seem to hark behind a shield. Except for the ques- tion of their origin, and why they are three, the "leopards" of England make a straightforward piece of history enough, at least from the moment we get them fairly settled, in 1198, on the shield of Coaur-de-Lion. "Passant" and "guardant" were terms not then invented; and "leopard" was the name used tor the same beast as the heraldic " lion," only walking as in the royal shield. Mr, Dorling rejecting the tradition of two leopards for Normandy and one added for Aquitaine be- lieves that it was because of the better possibilities in design that the number three was adopted.

The next article is an interesting descrip- tion of the restoration of the King's Beasts on the stone bridge over the moat at Hampton Court. The original Beasts were set up in Henry VIII. 's time, half being his and half hi& queen's Jane Seymour's. These, save for in- considerable though useful fragments, have been destroyed, and it has fallen to Mr. Dorling to design beasts and shields as nearly as latter-day acumen could make them like the old ones to take- their place. These are here figured and described.

The book winds up with extracts from the Ziirich Roll, illustrated by copies the writer has made from the facsimile of the old document published in 1860. The Ziirich Roll, dating from the second; quarter of the fourteenth century, is a series of parchment sheets sewn together to make a roll

something more than thirteen feet long, which , printed on both sides, 559 drawings of shields

bears,

and crests, of which a large proportion those which are treated of here are punning or canting arms of German houses. Most of the arms here given have distinct humour in them, which here and there becomes frankly ludicrous, as in the case of " Stubenwid," where the good knight bore on his shield sable, and also stuck straight on his helm as a crest a stove argent, having on it small red roundels to represent the fire.

The other articles, not less instructive, are more technical. The best is that on the font at Holt, aw octagonal structure with three tiers of sculptures, on bowl, chamfer, and stem, of which twelve are heraldic. These are learnedly discussed by Mr. Dorling, who points out that they are specially noteworthy as an instance of an historical statement made by means of arms. He inclines to the belief that the primary significance of a coat is territorial rather than personal. Hardly second in interest to the Holt font is the armorial glass in Salisbury Cathedral, here described and illustrated and attempted to be explained.

We may add that the book is delightfully printed, and, from the well-calculated length of the line, unusually pleasant to the eye in reading.