Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/243

 12 8. III. MARCH 24, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

237

"half built by 1883, and the Pont Street Mews (opening into Walton Place) bears the date 1879-80. Should the date of the falling-in of Prince's Racquet Court be 1876 instead of 1886 ? B. C. S.

SUNDAY OBSERVANCE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (12 S. iii. 145). The mention by James Smith of barbers exercising their trade on Sundays gives interest to the following extract taken from The Gloucester Journal of July 30, 1728, where it will be seen that the local Company cf Barbers -certainly did not favour the custom.

The extract is as follows :

Gloucester, July 24, 1728.

Notice is hereby given, That it is agreed by the Company or Fraternity of BARBERS in this City, that from and after the 5th of August next, no Member of the said Company shall presume to IShave or powder Wigs or Hair on the Lord's Day, commonly call'd Sunday (Assize-Sundays ex- cepted) on Pain of forfeiting the Sum of Fifty Shillings for every such Offence, Forty Shillings whereof shall be apply'd to the Use of the said Company, and the Remainder to the Informer, besides the Penalty inflicted by a Statute Law made in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.

P.S. If any Person in the adjacent Places do presume to Shave, &c., as above-mention'd 'they will be prosecuted as the Law directs.

The Company's order evidently was not complied with, as the following notice from The Gloucester Journal of Nov. 2, 1731, shows :

Civit' Glouc. By Order of the Right Worship- ful the Mayor, and the Aldermen of this City, This NOTICE is given, That

Whereas by an Act made on the 29th of King Charles II. for the better Observation of the Lord's Day (commonly call'd Sunday) It is Enacted, That no Person shall do any Worldly Business on the said Lord's Day, and that all Persons so offending, shall forfeit Five Shillings : AND whereas (in particular) the Barbers of this City have follow'd their Trade of Shaving, and Powdering Wigs and Hair on the said Lord's Day, contrary to the Statute above-mentioned : To prevent the same, the Magistrates are re- solved to put the said Statute in Execution against any such Offender. And for the En- couragement of any Person that shall give Information to any of the aforesaid Magistrates against any one so offending he shall receive Five Shillings as a. Reward from the Company of Barbers, provided the Offender is duly convicted thereof.

X.B. The said Company of Barbers will also give the like sum of Five Shillings to any person that shall give Information of the aforesaid Offence being committed by anyone living nea r the said City upon the Conviction of such Offender.

ROLAND AUSTIN.

Gloucester.

THOMAS GRAY (12 S. ii. 285, 399, 526 ; iii. 32, 99, 153). At the fourth reference MR. TANNER said : " It is well known that the false alarm carefully engineered by the undergraduates of Peterhouse, which caused him hurriedly to descend his escape into a bath placed at the bottom, was the cause of his removing to Pembroke." May I call the attention of English scholars to a letter on ' Gray's Ladder of Ropes,' by Prof. George L. Kittredge of Harvard University, printed in the New York Nation of Sept. 27, 1900 (Ixxi. 251) ? He there quoted a letter written by the Rev. John Sharpe on Mar. 12, 1756, or six days after the date of Gray's admission to Pembroke, as follows :

" Mr. Gray, our elegant Poet, and delicate Fellow Commoner of Peter-house, has just re- moved to Pembroke-hall, in resentment of some usage he met with at the former place. The case is much talked of, and is this. He is much afraid of fire, and was a great sufferer in Cornhill ; he has ever since kept a ladder of ropes by him, soft as the silky cords by which Romeo ascended to his Juliet, and has had an iron machine fixed to his bedroom window. The other morning, Lord Percival and some Petrenchians, going a hunting, were determined to have a little sport before they set out, and thought it would be no bad diversion to make Gray bolt, as they called it, so ordered their man Joe Draper to roar out flre. A delicate white night-cap is said to have appeared at the window ; but finding the mistake, retired again to the couch. The young fellows, had he descended, were determined, they said, to have whipped the butterfly up again."

Prof. Kittredge concludes his letter as follows :

" The successive accretions to this simple anecdote are instructive. Gray rose and looked out of the window. Gray ran down the ladder in his night-gown. Gray fell into a tub of water at the foot of the ladder. Gray was chilled and had to be wrapped up in a watchman's coat. Gray was so overcome that he had to be ' carried into the college by the friendly Stonehewer, who now appeared on the scene.' . . . .Crescit eundo.'"

ALBERT MATTHEWS. Boston, U.S.

'JONATHAN WILD, THE GREAT' (11 S. ii. 261 ; 12 S. ii. 442 ; iii. 38, 74). I do not think MR. J. PAUL DE CASTRO'S dismissal of a literary view of Mr. Andrew Lang given, not because, as is assumed without evidence, he had been " pressed " by me with a blunt inquiry, but after careful consideration of all the relevant facts as " a mere opinion, unbuttressed by any stated reasons," should pass without protest. This kind of criticism lends itself to obvious retort, for where are MR. DE CASTRO'S " reasons " against the Fielding author- ship ? He holds that " itjehould not be