Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/160

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. iv. JUNE,

I might appropriately mention here that Mr. John Wild, bookseller, of St. Dunstan-in- the-West, London, married Miss Lucy Sharpe of the parish of Ramsey by licence Sept. 17, 1685. The Ramsey register also records the burial in 1719 of Abraham Fenton, newsman.

SOMEBSHAM.

Wiles (James), bookseller and superintendent registrar, 1839-50.

KlMBOLTON. Craddock (George), bookseller and sub-distributor

of stamps, Front Street, 1850. Gudgeon (George Burnham), bookseller and

stationer, Church Lane, 1850.

Hall (Charles), bookseller, Front Street, 1850-64. Clarke (B.), bookseller, High Street, 1864. Wallis (Jas. Albert), High Street, 1877. Pratt (Mrs. Harriet), High Street, 1885-90. Wallis (Mrs. Adelaide Selina), High Street, 1885-

1894. James (Miss Annie), High Street, 1894.

ELLINGTON.

Spencer (Gilbert), apprentice, 1565. Son of John Spencer, late of Ellington, Hunts; put himself apprentice to William Seres, stationer of London, for ten years (Arber).

CALDICOT.

Cowper (Richard), apprentice, 1576. Son of Giles Cowper of Colcot, Hunts, apprentice to William Norton for twelve years beginning July 25, 1576 (Arber).

GBAFHAM.

Dunton (John), apprentice, 1673. Native of Grafham (May 4, 1659). At the age of 14 apprenticed to Thomas Parkhurst, a bookseller in London.

GODMANCHESTER.

Tyffen (John), bookseller, 1660-61. This is the earliest bookseller I have found in the county. It is recorded in Peile's ' Christ's College,' 1913, ii. 26, that " John [Tyffen] was admitted at S. John's, 1660-61, as son of John, bookseller of Godmanchester."

HEMINGFOBD ABBOTTS.

Archdeacon (John), printer, 1795. Printer to the University of Cambridge. Died Sept. 10, 1795, aged 70 ; buried at Hemingford Abbotts.

YAXLEY. Cowell (E.), bookseller, 1864.

EABITH. Robinson (J.), bookseller, 1864.

HOtTGHTON.

Burton (J.), printer, 1908.

FLETTON.

Caster (Geo. C.), printer, 1877-1914. The well- known Peterborough printer, specially in- terested in local history and topography. Died Jan. 12, 1914, in his 65th year, and was buried in Fletton Cemetery.

I close by noting that John Slatter, Rector of Stibbington 1731-9> was the son of an Eton bookseller. He died March 28, 1739, aged 50. HERBERT E. NORRIS.

Cirencester.

" D D LITTERY FELLERS." A prominent newspaper of New York has more than once quoted this phrase, and attributed its- origin to Zack Chandler, formerly U.S. Senator from Michigan.

James Russell Lowell wrote from Madrid' to an intimate friend in Boston about his ministerial anxieties keeping him awake- night after night : ' : It was not myself I was- thinking of but the guild. I didn't wish another of those ' d d littery fellers ' to come to grief." This confession, dating presumably from 1877, indicated that some man of letters had already been a target for hostile criticism, and that the picturesque- locution was then a familiar quotation.. The writer of the present communication was unable to get any information about its origin from the literary editors of New York and Boston, although he had believed for more than forty years that Simon- Cameron of Pennsylvania first used the- now famous expression.

Reference to newspaper files of March ^ 1876, made the matter clear. Richard Henry Dana, author of ' Two Years before the Mast,' was rejected as Minister to England on account of the hostility of Senator Cameron. On p. 376 of vol. ii. of the biography of Richard Henry Dana by Charles Francis Adams there is a clear statement about the affair :

" No matter how much his [Dana's] nomina- tion to that mission might have interfered with projected political arrangements, supposing that it did so, it would not have been within the power of Mr. Cameron to prevent its confirmation had he been able to advance no more valid objection than that the nominee was a citizen of Massa- chusetts, or that, as he himself, it was alleged, felicitously but somewhat profanely expressed it,- he belonged to the literary - class. The words (' one of those damn literary fellers ') in which, as was currently reported, he conveyed hie meaning in this last respect, became, indeed, a permanent contribution to American political parlance, and is almost the only thing elicited by the struggle over Dana which took a firm hold on the public mind and memory. There was about them a humor and point as well as a terseness which caused them to pass at once into the vernacular. So far as Mr. Cameron was con- cerned, the contest could, therefore, have been in its results in no way unsatisfactory ; for he both carried his point, and at the same time made a lasting contribution to American political

THOMAS FLINT. Concord, New Hampshire.

" MAISONETTE " : " MANSIONETTE." " Maisonette " is a word which of late years has come much into use, and has been well understood to convey the idea of the now almost obsolete " bijou residence," though