Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/247

 ii s. ix. MAR. 28, 1914. j NOTES AND QUERIES.

241

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 191k.

CONTENTS. No. 222.

NOTES : John Wilkes and the ' Essay on Woman,' 241 Richard Cornwallis : Calybutt and Fincham Families, 242 Birmingham Statues and Memorials, 243 -The Pied Piper Once More 'King Lear,' II. ii., 245 St. Botolph's, Aldgate, 1742 " Chiltern," 246 " Hiren " The Albanian Title " Mpret "Tramps' Marks Eltofte, 247.

QUERIES : Shirburn Church Old London Violins Dirent-Jearrad Family, 247 Leyson Family Communion Table by Grinling Gibbons in St. Paul's ' Gulliver ': Bristol Barrels Sussex Drinking Custom Fresh Wharf, 248 Von Bbckmann Family Edw. French, Watchmaker P. McTeague Moss, an Actor Major-General Miller- Validity of a Presidential Seal Mar echio Reference Wanted May wood, 249 Curzon and Clerkenwell Milo as a Surname Motto on a Ring Cornish Carol Arthur Owen of Johnston Prints transferred to Glass J. W. Gilbart's Mother Lines in Peele's ' Edward I.' George II. 's Natural Children, 250 -Anthony Jackson's Wife- Sir Mackenzie Douglas, 251.

REPLIES : Railway Smoking - Carriages, 251 " Men, women, and Herveys " ' Memoirs of Sir John Langham ' Ayloffe, 252 Egyptian Book of the Dead Light Brigade at Balaclava Magistrates wearing Hats on the Bench Reversed Engravings " Sough," 253 Famous Cornish Regiment of 1643 David Burges " Tallest one- piece flagstaff " Blackfriars Road Early Map of Ireland " Meg's diversions," 254 Lesceline de Verdon, 255 Sir Roger L' Estrange 's -Poem "Rucksack," 256 Second Folio Shakespeare Justification of King John Places in Dickens Birmingham Statues Lamb's " Mrs. S " Rabbit Rime Red Hand of Ulster, 257.

NOTES ON BOOKS :-' Early Wars of Wessex ' ' Book- Auction Records ' Place - Names of Nottinghamshire and Gloucestershire ' Archseologia ^Eliana ' ' L'lnter- me"diaire.'

Booksellers' Catalogues.

JOHN WILKES AND THE 'ESSAY ON WOMAN.'

(See ante, pp. 121, 143, 162, 183, 203, 222.)

SOME mystery has always prevailed as to how the Government first acquired know- ledge of the existence of the parodies. If the " Case for Counsel " (Add. MS. 30,885, f. 155) is to be credited, its existence in manuscript form was long known to Sand- wich, for

41 it has been publickly and often read many years ago at the Beefsteak Club by tbe very Lord who moved against it in the House of Peers.

Wilkes charged the Ministry with having seized it in the illegal seizure of his papers. Anticipating that it would be used against him, he, soon after winning his Habeas Corpus case on 6 May, 1763, caused his legal friend Gardiner, of the Bar, to pay Kearsley to insert the mock announcement of the Carteret Webb and Lovell Stanhope. This advertisement, inserted in The Public
 * Essay ' as shortly to be published by

Advertiser, was proved as part of the case against him. He seems to have been in error, for we read that

" his stolen goods, which were only some enclosed

in a letter, on 12 May were returned to him with all his other papers, which did not concern the prose- cution^ by Watson the [King's] Messenger." Add.

This is not quite true, for we find reserved for the censorious eye of my Lord Sandwich in September following appointed Secre- tary of State five sheets of a curious piece in Wilkes 's writing headed

"Instructions for our well beloved John Earl of Sandwich Our Embassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Most Catholick King Given at Our Sublime Court of St. Paul Co vent Garden." It is endorsed by Blackmore and Watson the Messengers, and it must suffice to say that it is in matter and manner very character- istic of its profligate author (Guildhall MSS. 214/1). '

Walpole, indeed, supports Wilkes in the following oft-quoted passage, upon which most modern historians and biographers have based their assertions :

"One of the copies had been seized among his

papers by Philip Carteret Webb And now did

Lord Sandwich, who had hugged this mischief for months in his breast, lay open the precious poem before his brother Lords."

In justice to the memory of " Jemmy Twitch er " this charge deserves to be examined with some care.

True it is that the Ministry were prepared to stoop to the dirtiest tricks to compass Wilkes's ruin. Thus we find Halifax waiting (to Webb ?) on 3 July, 1763, from Bushey Park (Guild. MSS. 214/3) :

"SiR, The paper he [a certain " very honest

srson "] will show you, which you will understand stter how to make a proper use of than I can tell you, he extracted from the brief which Mr. Wilkes's attorney or attorney's clerk showed him, but this must be kept a profound secret as the knowledge of it would ruin the attorney and my honest man. I desire you would see him and talk

to him that the Attorney and Sollicitor-General

may be. immediately informed how our enemies' batteries lay."

What this paper was I do not know. Conceivably Wilkes was fool enough to let the attorney see a proof of his parodies, which were printing at this very time. But I think it unlikely, and I cannot conjecture what such a work would be doing in a law brief.

Sandwich, however, only became a Mini- ster on 6 September following. In the meantime Jennings, who did not enter Wilkes's service till June (he corrected his questioner in the Lords' who suggested May),