Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/435

 ii s. vii. MAY .si, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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find the Bolt-in-Tun, marked for cleniolition. For nearly five centuries the name and in earlier days the pictorial sign has been shown to the street. The name was a punning rebus upon that of the Bplton family, and the sign was a bolt, or arrow, piercing a tun tun being the old name for cask. The sign may still be seen in the carving about Prior Bolton's window in the church of St. Bartholomew- the-Great, Smithfield, Bolton haying been head of the religious community established there. The house in Fleet-street was granted in 1443 to the Carmelites, whose claustral buildings and gardens and orchards then covered the district still known as Whitefriars, and it was for most of the sub- sequent time a tavern.

" The passing of the Bolt-in-Tun will be regretted by the living generation chiefly because it is one of the last surviving fragments of the old London coaching inns. A portion of the open yard remains ; the office at the side, now used by a railway company tor the collection of parcels, was originally the booking office for stage passengers ; and through the tall arch the coaches turned out into Fleet- street, the clattering of the horses and the winding horn of the guard arousing its echoes. The traveller, wherever bound, then started from the City ; but when the railways came, displacing the stage coaches, they were forbidden to carry their lines actually into London."

F. C. J.

WE must request correspondents desiring in- formation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that answers may be sent to them direct.

JOHN KEATS AND MR. ABBEY. About the year 1907 (I have no note of the exact year or month) there came up for sale at Sotheby's a document throwing light on the relations of Keats with his guardian Mr. Abbey, the tea merchant, of which I have tried in vain to recover the trace. Perhaps some of your readers can kindly help me.

The document, to the best of my recol- lection, was in the form of a letter addressed by Mr. Abbey either to the pub- lisher John Taylor, or to his adviser and Keats's special friend, Richard Woodhouse, and formed part of one of those batches of Taylor-Woodhouse papers of which not a few have at different times found their way into the market, through various heirs and representatives of Mr. Taylor. The par- ticular points of the document in question were a personal account of the poet's mother differing essentially from any hitherto printed, and a lively verbal report from recollection of the conversation actually held between Keats and Mr. Abbey when Keats threw off his guardian's authority, and decided to be a poet and not a surgeon.

Pressure of other work prevented me from following the fate of this document at the sale or afterwards. Being now engaged on a new. and what I hope to make a com- plete critical biography of the poet, I should be particularly obliged to any reader who could give me information as to its pur- chaser at the sale or its whereabouts.

SIDNEY COLVIN.

BOOKSELLERS CONNECTED WITH KEATS. If any of your readers could give informa- tion that would lead to securing a portrait or print of any of the under-mentioned booksellers (aJl in some way connected with Keats), it would greatly oblige me :

John Martin, F.S.A. (1791-1855), of Rod- well & Martin, Hollis Street, Cavendish Square, later librarian to the Duke of Bedford.

Charles Oilier (1788-1859) and James Oilier, publishers, 3, Welheck Street, Caven- dish Square, and 14, Vere Street, Oxford Street. Charles was also a poet, and had a son Edmund (living in 1877 at Old Bromp- ton), who died 19 April, 1886, at Old Bromp- ton.

John Hunt, publisher, brother of Leigh Hunt.

Jas. Augustus Hessey (1785-1870), pub- lisher, partner of John Taylor, of Taylor & Hessey, Fleet Street, probably father of Archdeacon Hessey.

THOS. B. HOLMAN.

A FRIEND OF THACKERAY'S. I have in my possession a manuscript letter of Thack- eray, which has no address or date. It begins as follows :

" You got Sporus's letter from the Reform Club last night ? He received your gilded volumes this morning. He has 2 on 'em now. I also think I perceive likenesses of myself in the Standard Footman, in Sir Oswald Moody, in the Plausible Man, in Felix Flutter, and the Link boy. Cruel woman ! Why do you take off our likenesses in that way ? "

There is more of the letter, but nothing to show to. whom it was written. It is signed : " Yours with a considerable sin- cerity, W. M. T."

Who is the authoress, a friend of Thack- eray, who wrote of the Standard Footman, Sir Oswald Moody, Felix Flutter, &c. ?

Lady Ritchie, who has seen her father's letter, does not know ; and so far all efforts to determine the person have been futile. Can any of your readers throw light on the subject ? THOMAS M, OSBORNE,

Auburn, N.Y,