Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/341

 12 s.x. APRIL s, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 279 good reason to doubt that the wife was Elizabeth Wrottesley and that the father- in-law was Walter Wrottesley, as given in the Visitations. R. STEWART-BROWN. THE STEAM PACKET (12 S. x. 207). In your issue of March 18 there is an interesting reference to the Steam Packet Inn, in Lower Thames Street, by MR. ALECK ABRAHAMS. It is a curious coincidence that shortly after 4 p.m. on March 17, whilst probably your issue was actually being printed, the upper part of the inn collapsed and the barman was buried in the ruins, being afterwards rescued alive. I have photographs of the scene of the disaster, and should your correspondent care to see. them I shall be glad to show them to him. C. J. Fox (Lieut.-Colonel), Chief Officer, London Salvage Corps. [' N. & Q.' goes to press on Wednesday after- noon. The number with the account of the Steam Packet was on its way to its various destinations when the disaster occurred.] EDWARD STEPHENSON (12 S. x. 230). A biographical notice of Edward Stephenson, ' An Unrecorded Governor of Fort William,' who held office for a little over a day, will be found in The Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. Ixvii. Pt. I., 1898. For details of Stephenson's services under the E.I. Co. in Bengal (1711-1728) and the share he took in the embassy to the Emperor Farrukhsiyar in 1715-1717, see C. R.Wilson's ' Early Annals of Bengal,' vol. ii., Pt. I., and vol. iii. L. M. ANSTEY. TERCENTENARY HANDLIST OF NEWS- PAPERS (12 S. viii. 38, 91, 118, 173, 252, 476; x. 191, 213): 1875. Light Greens. No. 1, July. The Light Green (of which, as well as I remember, three numbers only were issued) certainly began in 1872. The greater part of all the numbers was written by my friend Arthur Clement Hilton of St. John's College. F. H. H. GUILLEMARD. ENGLISH ARMY SLANG (12 S. x. 201, and references there given). " Sweating on leave." I should like to offer the following suggestion for the dictionary of war slang. Towards the end of the war the word " to sweat " came into use as meaning " to hope," e.g., in such phrases as " sweating on leave," " sweating on being demobbed." The word is probably derived from souhaiter, and was presumably learned in billets. F. J. M. STRATTON. JJotes on Johnsonian Gleanings. Part III. : The Doctor's Boyhood. By Aleyn Lyell Beade. (Privately printed for the Author at The Arden Press, Stamford Street, London.) THE zeal of the antiquarian and the genealogist in pursuit of the item of evidence required to com- plete a case is similar to that of the sportsman who pursues a fox. Both are equally prodigal of time and indifferent to fatigue, and to the un- sympathetic onlooker both are equally mysterious. In his first book, * The Beades of Blackwood Hill,' Mr. A. L. Beade displayed that enthusiasm for research which descries the possibility of sensa- tional discovery in the registers of a remote parish or the lumber of an obscure attorney's office, and his enthusiasm certainly adds charm to work intrinsically valuable. In any case, we might be glad to follow him in his investigations, but it is because they are a labour of love that we are able to do so with such unflagging interest. He told us. of his first book that he " spared neither expense nor labour to perfect the work," and during the 16 years that have elapsed since its completion he does not seem to have slackened in diligence. His name is already very well known to Johnsonian students, and their debt to him is sensibly increased by the appearance of vol. iii. of his ' Johnsonian Gleanings.' Vol. ii. was en- tirely devoted to a study of Francis Barber, Dr. Johnson's negro servant, and his relations with his master. Vol i. contained a mass of in- formation regarding Dr. Johnson and his en- vironment in the form of notes. In his present work Mr. Beade has drawn from these and from his first and larger book, he" has added fresh material as the result of subsequent research, he has arranged the whole with infinite care, and pro- duced a chronicle of which the great importance is unquestionable. Ninety years ago, Lord Macaula.y lamented the dearth of information with, regard to the early years of Samuel Johnson, but it seems that it is not too late for the deficiency to be made good, and possibly Mr. Beade does not himself deplore the negligence which has left so much unbroken ground to await his excavations. He possesses the qualifications for his task. No doubt as he is a born genealogist he is not exempt from the temptation to diverge widely from his chosen subject presented by the marriages of aunts and uncles (only those who share his tastes realize that every alliance suggests alluring possibilities of new discovery). But if the temptation assailed him he resisted it. His book tells us a great deal which is not to be found in the various editions of the great biography about the early years of Samuel Johnson, about his parents, and about life in Lichfield two centuries ago, and it contains very little, even in the copious footnotes, that is irrelevant. We commend it to the general reader for its easy style and skilful arrangement of new and curious information. To the student it will appeal even more strongly, first as being a