Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/282

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [is s. n. SEPT. so, igi&

hey were probably provided by her son Richard III. Cicely's head is decorated with a garland of gems, and her face gives the idea of a very handsome woman. past her first youth " (MS. Hardcastle, .\fii-i-nsltf Weekly Chronicle, Supplement, Sat., Sept. 21, 1889)."

CHAS. L. CUMMINGS. Sunderland.

A rather curious incident occurred upon a memorial window being placed in Whit wick Church, Leicestershire, in 1888. The subject depicted was the granting, A.D. 1244, by Grossteste, Bishop of Lincoln, to the above church of the greater and lesser tithes a historical fact ; and the cartoon was designed by a noted ecclesiastical artist in London. Much local interest was aroused when several senior inhabitants of Whit wick recognized in the vicar of 1244, who is shown as kneeling in front of Grossteste, the portrait of a cleric who had been vicar for a great number of years, and then dead for about a quarter of a century. I can say with certainty that the similarity was pure coincidence, and that no thought of any such was in the minds either of the artist or of those who commissioned him.

W. B. H.

NELL GWYNNE AND THE ROYAL CHELSEA HOSPITAL ^12 S. ii. 210). According to the note on p. 202 of the edition of Peter Cunningham's ' Story of Nell Gwyn ' by Gordon Goodwin,

"The supposition to which much of her popu- larity is due that Nell Gwyn suggested the foundation of Chelsea Hospital is altogether base- less. It was Sir Stephen Fox, paymaster-general of the forces, who inspired Charles II. with the idea of the erection of a Royal Hospital 'for emerited soldiers,' and Fox gave munificently to the hospital, ' as became him who had gotten so vast an estate by the soldiers.' The facts connected with the history of the foundation are clearly set forth by Evelyn in his ' Diary,' and he makes no reference to ]Sfell Gwyn having had any concern in the matter."

I have not Mr. H. B. Wheatley's notes at hand, to which the above-named edition is indebted.

.How far back can the tradition about Nell Gwyim? be traced, a tradition perpetuated in a well-known poem of Swinburne's ?

ED WABD BENSLY.

"There is an early tradition that Nell Gwynne niateria'ly assisted in the foundation of Chelsea Hospital, but it is unsupported by official records or contemporary evidence." 'London Past and Present,' by Wheatley and Cunningham, vol. i. 1>. 385.

"The first idea of converting it into an asylum for broken-down soldiers, according to popular tra- dition, sprang from the charitable heart of Nell

(i\\ ynr.e. As the story goes, a wounded and destitute soldier hobbled up to Nell's coach window to ask alms, and the kind-hearted woman was so pained to see a man who had fought for his country begging his bread in the street that she prevailed on Charles II. to establish at Chelsea a permanent home tor military invalids. We should like to believe the story ; and indeed its veracity may not be incompatible with a far less pleasant report that Charles made a remarkably good thing, in a pecuniary sense, out of Chelsea Hospital." 'Old and New London,' by Edward Walford, vol. v. p. 70.

See also ' History of London,' by Loftie, vol. ii. p. 264. A. GWYTHEK.

[MR. A. R. BAYLEY thanked for reply.]

PANORAMIC SURVEYS OF LONDON STREETS (12 S. ii. 5, 135, 197). The " once popular guide-book " referred to by MR. ALECK ABRAHAMS at the last reference was, I believe, first published in 1880. It w.i- compiled by Mr. Herbert Fry. My copy, ' London in 1884,' contains " eighteen bird's-eye views of the principal streets.'.' During my explorations of unfamiliar localities, circa the eighties, I often found this handbook exceedingly useful.

"JOHN T. PAGE.

Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

"YORKER": A CRICKET TERM (12 S- ii. 209). Some years ago the late Mr. W. J. Ford, in an article in The Badminton Magazine, stated that " yorker " was. comparatively modern innovation for " tice," and he added :

"My father, I remember, was quite mystified when we boys brought the phrase home front school, ' familiar on our lips as household words/ Such a ball had always been to him and his generation a ' tice ' (en-ticer?), and nothing but a ' tice ' : yet I warrant that a good many young players of the modern day have never heard the term."

One explanation of the origin of " yorker " is that, in a match played by one of the old touring teams at York, a player secured a wicket by a ball which was overpitched, but short of a full pitch. In a subsequent match, when a batsman was making a stand, the late H. H. Stephenson asked the bowler to " give him a yorker " meaning the kind of ball that had got the wicket at York.

But I have a theory of my own as to the origin of the term. The verb " to jerk : " i- popularly rendered in native Yorkshirese as " to yah'k " to pull out by the roots, as it were. " Yahk it aht," in English "jerk it out ," is quite a common expression, even after forty-five years of a popular Education Act. Years ago, when duties took me to police courts, the effect of Saturday-night satur- nalias was not infrequently reflected on the