Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/383

 ii s. ix. MAY 9. ion] NOTES AND QUERIES.

377

" blast " (as it is variously called), but animals so affected are never now said to be " rotting " or " rotten." Relief is afforded by puncturing the rumen immediately be- tween the hip and last rib. Sheep -rot or liver- fluke is by no means confined to Warwick- shire, and has been described as " the fellest of all ovine diseases." When Milton wrote^

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,

But, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they

draw,

Kot inwardly, and foul contagion spread, the life-history of liver-fluke, which forms one of the most interesting pages of modern natural history, had not been written !

A. C. C.

PHIL MAY AND HIS BIOGRAPHERS (11 S. ix. 305). Will you kindly allow me to inform numerous correspondents that I have no intention of writing a biography, or even magazine reminiscences, of Phil May ? My only object has been to correct erroneous impressions concerning the distinguished artist and the companions of his choice. I may also add that his experience as a " penny-a-liner " was told me by Phil May himself, in the presence of Walter Duncan, in the winter of 1892, at " The White Swan " tavern, Salisbury Court, E.G. Sir Henry Lucy in ' Sixty Years in the Wilderness ' (Cornhill Magazine, March issue) states :

" He was the sort of man who would think nothing of giving his coat to a stranger on a cold night, and walking home in his shirt-sleeves."

This seems to have a " family likeness " with a little incident which occurred at " The Old Bell " tavern, Fleet Street (close to the old Punch offices), one night during the same winter. An aged hawker entered the bar, and offered the customers sets of three studs for one penny. Phil May said to him, " You are just the man I want." He took only one stud, and gave the hawker a five -shilling piece. The barmaid said to Phil May: "I believe, Phil, you would give your coat to the first beggar who asked for it. " "Well, miss," replied the artist, " there would be no harm in that. St. Martin gave his coat to a beggar, and he was a better man than Phil May. I am only a wicked sinner ! " Every one in the bar laughed, but Phil was extremely solemn. About half-an- Jiour afterwards an old woman entered, and offered some pencils. Phil examined them and exclaimed, ' ' Made in Germany ! " " That may be, sir," replied the woman, " but they help to support a poor old woman in Eng- land." Phil May gave her the sum she asked for the pencil one penny.

One day I may send to ' N. & Q.' some anecdotes of Phil May sketching beggars in the streets of London. He often told me his great ambition was to bring out a book entitled ' Phil May's Real Beggars' Opera.' ANDREW DE TERNANT.

36, Somerleyton Road, Brixton, S.W.

BIRMINGHAM STATUES AND MEMORIALS : SIR WILLIAM WILSON (11 S. ix. 278).-- Ori what substantial authority does the often - repeated statement rest that this architect designed the tower of St. Mary's Church at Warwick ? Walpole asserts it in his ' Anecdotes of Painting,' and this seems to have been copied in many places ; but Noble, in his ' Continuation of Granger,' attributes, upon good authority, the work to Francis Smith, a provincial architect (3 S. iii. 349). In 1904 a Warwickshire guide- book had :

" Unfortunately the work was entrusted to a local builder who was his own architect, with deplorable results. It was long thought that Sir Christopher Wren had something to do with the designs, but that calumny is now disproved."

In 'Renaissance Architecture in England,' by the Rev. E. Hermitage Day, D.D. (1910), the tower is attributed to Wren in the following words :

" In the tower of St. Mary's, Warwick, rebuilt after a fire in 169-1, together with the nave and its aisles, Wren worked in a mixture of styles " ;

and the author goes on to describe the tower. Sir William Wilson is not included in the ' D.N.B.' ; and Redgrave's ' Dictionary of Artists, &c., of the English School,' 1878, says : " Little is known of his works. . . .He rebuilt the spire [sic] of Warwick Church."

W. B. H.

Art. By Clive Bell. (Chatto & Windus, 5s. net.) LOVEBS of art owe Mr. Clive Bell thanks for the most stimulating, not to say the most provoking, book on art that has recently appeared. He must already have met with most of the objections of objectors. In his Preface he talks of " two or three stout volumes " which " some day " he will write " if his critics are rash enough to provoke him." We hope sufficient rashness has already been displayed to produce the threatened effect, for one of the strongest impressions left by the book is a sense of its gaps. Not but what these are in themselves so well placed and so definitely bounded as to count for more than many a man's solidities.

Mr. Bell has written these pages to convince us that the essential thing in visual art is " significant form." By " significant form " is intended that which, denuded of everything in the way of associa- tion or representation, is capable of arousing in the spectator aesthetic emotion, a "passionate"