Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/479

 s. m. NOV., ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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the adjacent Cross itself were very welcome, as a rule, to the pious population of the ancient Tower Hamlets, no matter by whom they were got from the sea ; and it was not until far later that the English trade- interests grew strong enough to procure the limitation of this international " free- dom of the seas " to certain kinds of fish for the storage of which English vessels were not suited.

However, the remaining privilege has been carefully protected and maintained, in these days of submarines and other sea- faring " piracies," by a Dutch boat being always in evidence in the Pool. Capt. Villam has now " held the fort " for nearly three years ; for, if he sailed for Holland, he might not be able to get back, and then the still valuable trade-right and its his- torical significance would lapse to the annoyance of the much -harassed Govern- ment of Queen Wilhelmina. So the Hollander captain lives aboard his schooner in the Pool, and, like any Wouter Van Twiller, phlegmatically waits for the end of the War to give him the relief-boat wanted, and bring mayhap another Dutch fleet of eel-boats in the Thames. Me.

COVENTRY STREET, LEICESTER SQUARE. Before the demolition or mutilation of Nos. 10, 11, 12, it is desirable to place on record some note of these shops, occupied for at least a century by Messrs. Lambert, silversmiths. The houses presumably of the early eighteenth century had lost nearly all suggestion of their age, but the charming old shop-fronts, with their small panes and area gratings, were a delightful survival. In Country Life for Nov. 14, 1908, the late Mr. H. B. Wheatley provided some interesting notes to photographs of these and other old London shopfronts, and although they are there incorrectly described as "in Cranbourn Street," the data provided are valuable. The firm's earliest existing order-book not the first begins with 1808, but clearly the shopfronts are at least twenty years earlier (compare with No. 6 St. James's Street), and possibly the business originated with Hart & Warham, who appear in the Directories in 1794. The three houses were joined, pro- bably about 1860,

" so the shop was quite extensive and. thoroughly old-fashioned, both outside and in. The show- cases and table-cases were full of old church plate and second-hand silver of all kinds. Thackeray was fond of haunting these old shops, and was an honoured customer of Messrs. Lambert. He loved to drive a bargain, and not long before his

death it is said that he bought a silver bowl, and pleaded for a lower price for the sake of a poor author."

Originally there were five doors dividing the shopfronts, but two one in Arundel Street, and the door of No. 10 were closed, and utilized as show windows.

Col. Lambert, F.S.A., a well-known an- tiquary, was head of the firm, and lived above the shop until his death. His library included numerous works on London, and additions and notes in some of the volumes now before me are of considerable interest. AXECK ABRAHAMS.

51 Rutland Park Mansions, N.W.2.

OLD LIMEHOUSE. The threatened demo- lition of the picturesque old buildings on the riverside at Limehouse deserves a short note. These quaint houses, with their brilliant colouring and little balconies full of flowers, include the harbour-master's office, a barge-builder's premises, and the Bunch of Grapes public -house (the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters in ' Our Mutual Friend '). Dickens knew the district well, and found Rogue Riderhood, the Hexhams, and other characters here (Dickensian, August, 1917, pp. 219-20, and Morning Leader, Feb. 6, 1912). Now the old tenements are to be swept away for a wharf extension of the Works Department of the Stepney Borough Council. Several of Whistler's etchings immortalize this corner ; there are also pictures of it in Wyllie's ' London to the Nore ' and ' London Past and Present ' (Studio Extra), pp. 55, 56. J. ARDAGH.

ST. CASSIAN AND ST. NICHOLAS. The following remark on two saints, which occurs in a lucid investigation of some elements of the Russian Revolution by Prof. Sir Paul Vinogradoff (see the July number of The Quarterly Review), may deserve to be recorded in ' N. & Q.' :

" St. Cassian, who arrived in heaven in brilliant garments, was accorded one memorial day in four years, viz., February 29th, while St. Nicholas was honoured by many feast-days, because he appeared before the Lord in clothes worn and soiled by labour."

St. Nicholas, the celebrated Bishop of Myra (06. c. 345 A.D.), has still his common calendar-day (kept both by the Eastern and Western Church) on Dec. 6. As to St. Cassian, let me only add what is perhaps not generally known that he lived in a monastery at Bethlehem, then in the Egyptian desert, and afterwards at Massilia, where he defended the milder monastic rule of Pachomius, and died c. A.D. 435.

H. K.