Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/235

 12 8. V. SKPT., 1919.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Dragedy ' that it was written before ' The Revenger's Tragedy.' Dr. Stoll ('John Webster,' Appendix I.) combats this view, irguing that a comparison of their metrical characteristics favours the presumption that he dates of registration and publication of he two plays indicate approximately the lates of composition. He points particu- arly to the more sparing use of rime and the ibundant light and weak endings in ' The Uheist's Tragedy ' as marks of a later stage n the development of Tourneur's metrical echnique. I think there can be no doubt hat Dr. Stoll is right. Many small points )f difference between the two plays show hat they are separated by a considerable nterval of time. For instance, the con- ractions ha 1 ( = "have") and o' for "of" not followed by the definite article) are as tbund-ant throughout the text of ' The Atheist's Tragedy ' as they are rare in The Revenger's Tragedy.' But there are ither peculiarities in ' The Atheist's Tragedy ' >f greater significance in their bearing on the [uestion of its date. The diction of this play 5 much more elaborate and stilted than that if * The Revenger's Tragedy.' Unlike the itter play, its text bristles with polysyllabic touns terminating in -tion. Now the ,bundance of these -tion words is equally Loticeable in Tourneur's ' Funeral Poem on he Death of Sir Francis Vere,' written in 609. This strongly favours the pre- umption that they were written much about he same time. And there is another small >oint that confirms this presumption, ["ourneur, as I have remarked, has few incommon words in his plays. This makes t the more noticeable that three times in one cene of ' The Atheist's Tragedy ' (I. iv.) he ias the word " hability " (Fr. habilete). He blso uses this noun, as well as the adjective ' hable," in ' Vere.' I have noted it lowhere else either in his plays or poems.

It is curious that although ' The Second laiden's Tragedy ' (licensed 1611) resembles The Atheist's Tragedy ' in its compara- ively sparing use of rime, it seems closer to The Revenger's Tragedy ' in plot, metre, .nd diction. Tourneur here shows no narked partiality for nouns in -tion. Vhether we are to infer that this partiality, o clearly exhibited in ' The Atheist's Dragedy ' and ' Vere,' was only a passing >hase, or that ' The Second Maiden's Dragedy ' was written many years before it cached the licenser's hands, is a question ipon which I hesitate to express an opinion. H. DUGDALE SYKES.

En field.

PYRGO PARK AND OLD BOW BRIDGE.

IT ought not to be forgotten, when the ancient estate of Pyrgo Park (between Romford and Brentwood, and occupying a delightfully picturesque position in rura-1 Essex, although only a walking distance from industrial East London), again comes up for private sale, by Lord O'Hagan, that it includes an interesting association with the Old Bow Bridge across the Lea River at a point dingy and forlorn as it now is which is compact with thronging memories of the long past. The present mansion at Pyrgo, raised in the Classic Italian style, erected upon the site of a former residence, but not upon the actual site of the ancient Palace, was built in part in 1836 from a design by Sabin, and completed in 1852 by Messrs. Cubitt & Sons. In 1862 it was enlarged under the able and active super- intendence of Barry, and during the occu- pation of Lord O'Hagan it has been further greatly improved by the addition of the picture gallery, by the conversion of the conservatory into a lounge and billiard-room, &c. So, if a thousand years ago the status of the old Manor of Havering-Bower was more exalted among the conglomerating Saxons and other tribes from oversea, the conditions were far less luxurious. The county historians tell us that Havering-Bower is one of the manors into which the Haver- ing Liberty was divided, that " Liberty " being 9 miles in length from north to south, and 4| miles in its greatest width from east to west, but near the Thames it is not above three-quarters of a mile. In the time of the Saxons it wap an old demesne of the Crown, the park covering 1000 acres ; and, being one of the royal palaces, it was created into a " Liberty," independent of the adjoining Hundred of Becontree, or, indeed, of any jurisdiction, either ecclesiastical or civil, of the county : de facto itself a tribunal for life and death. The reason of this seems to have been that, the kings of newly united " Angle-land " having here a hunting lodge at which they passed much of their time, their officers should take cognizance of crimes and misdemeanours within the pale of the demesne, and that offenders should receive sentence under their more immediate inspection ; or else it was a privilege usually belonging to royal palaces.

The name of Havering is plainly derived from two Saxon words, and means " Goats' Pasture." Philip Morant, the eighteenth-