Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/179

 12 s. iv. JUNE, 1918.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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along with a Mr. Westby, to King Charles II the " Narrative and Complaint " which was signed by thirty-five General Baptists of Lincolnshire. After Vernier's rebellion another address was prepared and presentee to the King, Feb. 23, 1661, by Grantham for the General Baptists. In 1662 he was twice arrested, and for fifteen months was a prisoner in Lincoln Gaol. In 1666 he became the " Messenger " of the Lincolnshire Bap- tists. Under the Conventicle Act of 1670 he was imprisoned again for six months at Louth. About 1686 he removed to Norwich, where his closing years were full of con- troversies with the other Nonconformists of the city, while he was on better terms with the clergy of the Established Church. He died Oct. 17, 1692, a great crowd attend- ing his funeral. He was credited with the knowledge of at least eight languages, and published twenty-one works, the greatest being ' Christianismus Primitivus,' issued in 1678. It is really a collection of treatises rather than a single work, and was published at the request of the Baptists of Lincoln- shire.

Thomas Purdy accepted a call to the pastorate of the Baptist Church, Rye, Sussex, in July, 1767. He remained pastor until 1813, but unfortunately the last years were marked by strife. Then he obtained a licence for his house, and this was used until his death in 1816.

ARTHUB S. LANGLEY.

Louth, Lincolnshire.

" FLAT CANDLE " (12 S. iv. 106). The ' New English Dictionary ' under " Flat," 15, says that a flat-candle is a candle used in a flat-candlestick, one with a broad stand and a short stem, and quotes from Dickens (' Haunted House,' v. 22) " a bedroom candlestick and candle, or a flat candlestick and candle put it which way you like."

C. A. COOK.

As I remember it sixty years ago, this was a short form of the correct but cum- brous phrase " a flat candlestick with a candle in it." At that time neither gas nor oil was used in our house, but only candles ; and it was necessary to distinguish between the tall candlestick with a " mould " candle for the parlour, and the flat candle- stick with a common candle for the bed- rooms DIEGO.

The term " flat candle" was in common use in the middle of the nineteenth century as an abbreviation of " flat candlestick," which was usually of metal with wide flat

base for bedroom use ;^an extinguisher was appended to the handle or the stem, and often a pair of snuffers put through an opening in the stem. At night the flat candles were set ready for the use of those going to their bedrooms-

AXFBED WELBY. 18 Chester Street, S.W.I.

I have always understood a " flat-candle " to be short (on the model of "flat-boat" for " flat-bottomed boat ") for " candle in a flat-bottomed candlestick." It occurs^ apparently with this significance, in Bon Gaultier's ' Lay of the Briefless ' : I roused a man in a dimity shroud, With a night- cap and flat candle.

C. C. B.

As in my early years " dip " or tallow candles were in general use, I am able to say that I remember the "flat candles" referred to. They were literally flat, as being composed of two wicks, on which the repetition of the process of dipping, by which these candles were made, had caused the tallow covering to meet between the wicks, and so form one candle. They were principally used by cobblers, I believe. These workers wanted better light than that produced by the ordinary make of dips.

W S. B. H.

I have made and sold many thousands of flat candles. In making dip candles threads of cotton are dipped many times in hot tallow. When the candle was about half an inch thick, two were placed together, sticking being uncongealed, and the two candles were then dipped a couple of times to make " flats." They were used by cobblers to heat their tools until the intro- duction of the cheaper benzoline lamps.

R. C. NEWICK. Glebe Road, St. George, Bristol.

The " flat candle " mentioned by Dickens was made for use in stable work as well as for coach lamps, and had two wicks It was not made in a mould, but by the usual method of dipping in a vat of hot melted 'at. The candle wicks were strung on rods about four feet long, and when the sixteens ame to the final dip, two candles were aushed close to each other, and the last dip attached them together, making them into one, producing candles the size of eights, in the junction each candle had two wicks, and gave out a better light. It is more than "orty years since I last saw a flat candle.