Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/456

 450

NOTES AND QUERIES.

[128. III. OCT., 1917.

AUTHORS OF QUOTATIONS WANTED.

1. It has a short quick jar upon the ear, this

cocking of a pistol,

But, when you have been called out once or twice,

The oar becomes more and less nice.

What is the correct form of these lines ? I think they corne from Byron's ' Don Juan,' and refer to fighting a pistol duel. WALTER WINANS.

Carlton Hotel, Pall Mall, S.W.I.

2. Birthless and deathless and changeless re-

maineth the Spirit for ever ; Death hath not changed it at all, dead though the house of it seems.

G. A. ANDERSON. The Moorlands, Woldingham.

3. "Chatter about Harriet." Reference t originator of this common quotation wanted. Pre- sumably it refers to Shelley's wife.

4. " He flits across the stage a transient and em- barrassed phantom." Frequently as one meets with the latter half of this quotation, I am surprised to find it ignored by Dalbiac, Benham, Bartlett, Brewer, and all the books of quotations available. I used to think it was in one of Macaulay's political essays, but apparently am mistaken. J. P.

5. In H. G. Wells's novel ' Marriage ' occurs the following : " ' They say there's iron in beer, and I believe it,' misquoted Mr. Pope."

What is the correct quotation, and where found ? F. N. T.

[3. The late MR. W. H. PEET contributed at 11 S. x. 266 an interesting note on this phrase ]

LETTERS FROM H.M.S. BACCHANTE

IN 1812-13. (12 S. iii. 328, 363.)

FEOM a variety of communications that have reached me, I gather that the identity of the writer of these letters has aroused interest, and I venture therefore to embody the following information by way of a reply to my own note.

Written journal fashion, the letters were addressed to his "father" by William Johnson Yonge, who was born on Oct. 15, 1785, as son of the Rev. William Yonge (Vicar of Swaffham in Norfolk between 1779 and 1844) by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of William Johnson of Torrington, there married Dec. 27, 1784. The lord of the manor of Swaffham at that time was Robert Hamond, a son of Susan, youngest daughter of Robert Walpole of Houghton, and brother of Susan, wife of James Hoste. Therefore it is not surprising that the vicar's son, bred | up during the French wars in the heart of I " the Nelson country," although destined for

the Church, should hanker after the sea, and succeed in being appointed chaplain of the Bacchante under Capt. " Billy " Hoste. We are not aware how long he served in the Navy after 1813, but in 1824 he be- came Rector of Rockborne in Hampshire, and so remained for fifty-one years. In 1824 he married Elizabeth, daughter and coheiress of the Rev. Peter Furse of Halston House, North Devon, and by her (who died in 1876) left at his decease in 1875 a son (d.s.p. 1878) and four daughters. A member of the family says :

" We have always been aware that Mr. W. J. Yonge had been chaplain of the Bacchante, because of some curious sketches of episodes of the voyage ; but the existence of the descriptive ' letters ' was unknown until after the death of one of his daughters, when they were found in a small trunk, which is believed to be the original trunk taken to sea by Lord Nelson as a midship- man. It is a curious old thing, studded with brass nails, and with the initials H. N. upon the lid."

The discovery of this little trunk after the lapse of so many years is a matter of extreme interest, but, all things considered, there is no reason for doubting that it really was connected with " the boyhood of Horatio Nelson," and that if it did not actually accompany him to sea in 1771, it probably followed the fortunes of his school days, and journeyed backward and forward from Burnham Thorpe to the schools at Norwich and North Walsham. Southey in his ' History ' tells us that, while the Rev. Edmund Nelson was spending the winter of 1770-71 at Bath, his sonsfwere at home for the Christmas holidays at Burnham Thorpe, where Horatio

" happened to see in the county paper that hi* uncle, Capt. Maurice Suckling, was appointed to the Baisonnable, at a time when war with Spain * . . . . ' Do, brother William,' he said, ' write to my father and tell him I should like to go to sea with Uncle Maurice.' "

The brothers, however, returned to schoo 7 at North Walsham (where the initials H. N. may still be seen carved upon a brick in the wall), and it was not until the following March that the summons arrived for Horatio to join his ship. The coach journey from Norwich to London was performed with his father, but for its continuation to Chatham the boy was alone, save perhaps for the company of his trunk, which may have been the only familiar object in the strange sur- roundings when " he arrived on board, to find his uncle absent, and no one apprised of his coming."

The market town of Swaffham is five miles from the Rectory of Hilborough, for long a