Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/309

 12 s. ii. OCT. u, i9i6.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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and " frank, plain, and English all over." The papers of that day kept an author " bound to furnish daily a quantum of witty paragraphs. Sixpence a joke and it was thought pretty high too was Dan Stuart's settled remuneration in these cases." The length of no paragraph was to exceed seven lines. Fox Bourne gives a specimen of one of these which appeared with the pen-name of " Tabitha Bramble," and may or may not have been written by Lamb ; it was printed in The Morning Post of April 19, 1798:

Impromptu on reading a notice to the creditors of Homer, a linendraper, and lately a bankrupt :

That Homer should a bankrupt be

Is not so very Od-d'ye-se,

Since (but perhaps I'm wrong instructed)

Most Ill-he-had his books conducted.

Lamb relates how he would get up at five, so as to turn out his witty paragraphs before breakfast, and leave home for the India Office at eight o'clock.

Stuart was proprietor of the paper for only eight years, during which, according to Grant's estimate, the yearly profits were from 5.000Z. to 6,OOOJ. In 1803 he sold the property for 25.000Z. In 1826 the paper was considerably enlarged, so as to give more space for Parliamentary and other reports. Thus it was among the first to print notices of music and the drama.

In October, 1821, The Morning Post had a poem by Macaulay, ' Tears of Sensibility.' He intended it as a burlesque on the style of the magazine of the day, but the editor evidently took it seriously, as did Macaulay's mother, *o whom he replied somewhat indignantly :

" I could not suppose that you could have suspected me of seriously composing such a farrago of false metaphors and unmeaning epithets." Trevelyan's ' Life,' new edition, vol. i. p. 109.

The poem obtained "more attention and received more praise in Cambridge than it deserved." Here is the first verse :

No pearl of ocean is so sweet

As that in my Zuleika's eye.

No earthly jewel can compete

With tears of sensibility.

In 1835 Disraeli became a contributor, and in August he writes to his sister that in its " columns some great unknown has suddenly ari-en. . . .all attempts at discovering the writer have been bullied, and the mystery adds to the interest the articles excite."

This was just the sort of mystery that Disraeli would revel in, and the secret re- mained until divulged in the first volume of his ' Life ' by Monypenny. When Disraeli

made his maiden speech on the 7th of Decem- ber, 1837, The Morning Herald and The Standard passed it over in silence, but The Morning Post reported it, and 'complained that it was delivered " amid discourteous interruptions from the Radirv.N."

JOHN COLLINS FRANCIS. (To be continued.)

NEGRO, OR COLOURED, BANDSMEN IN THE ARMY.

WHAT is their history ? This question might appear to be answered to some extent by a paragraph which was published in The Pall Mall Gazette of July 1 9 last ; but apart from one's general doubt as to newspaper para- graphs concerning history, there is in this a glaring error which may well destroy all belief in the story. It will be seen that the Duke of York is spoken of as Commander-in- Chief in 1783. In that year Prince Frederick was 20 years old, and was usually called the Bishop of Osnaburgh. -In 1784 he was created Duke of York and Albany, and having in 1780 been commissioned a colonel in the army, he was in 1 784 made Lieut enant- General Colonel of the Coldstream Guards. In 1795 he was appointed Field-Marshal on the Staff, and in 1798 Commander-in-Chief in Great Britain. (See ' A History of the British Army,' by the Hon. J. W. Fortescue, vol. iv. part ii. p. 876, and the ' Dictionary of^National Biography.')

Here is The Patt Mall Gazette paragraph :

" The announcement that a negro has enlisted in the Welsh Guards recalls the days when many of our regiments had black bandsmen. These were first attached to the Army in 1783 owing to one of the Guards' bands having refused in a body to play at an entertainment organized by the "officers. As none of the men was attested they could not be punished for insubordination, so the officers petitioned the Duke of York, then Commander-in-Chief, that bandsmen should in future be made subject to military law. The Duke would not agree to this, but he brought over from Hanover for the Guards a complete German military band, which included negn> players for the bass drum, cymbals, and triangles. Nearly every regiment in the Service hastened to re- organize its band, engaging coloured performers for all percussion instruments. Down to 1841 the band of the Scots Guards included a negro musician."

It is not clear whether the writer means one band for one regiment, or one only f,,r the brigade.

In a little book called ' The Natural His- tory of the "Hawk" Tribe,' by J. W. Carleton, illustrated by A. Henning (no date,.