Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/383

 i2s. vi. JUNE ID, IMC. i NOTES AND QUERIES.

315

and College of that city. The figures are those of St. George and St. Barbara."

A somewhat different version of the story is given by Mr. Henry Weyman, F.S.A., in his useful little Guide to the ancient glass in Ludlow Church. He says that in a south choir window are

" two notable figures, those of St. Barbara and St. George which are said to have been brought from Winchester Cathedral early in the last century, and from which according to a state- ment of the late Archdeacon Lloyd, the Rector of St. Mary's, Shrewsbury, the figures of these Saints in a lancet window in that church have "been copied. If, as is probably the case, some of ^>he glass of these windows came from Winchester, it was brought here by Air. Evans, who restored this window and the adjoining one on the east in 1854 for the Hon. R. H. Clive and the Baroness Windsor, and who was known to have ' restored ' much of the Winchester glass substituting new glass for the old."

It will be noticed that the two accounts differ considerably, the former merely stating that the figures of St. George and St. Barbara were brought from Winchester ; the latter distinctly stating that they came -from the Cathedral, in addition to confusing Messrs. Betton & Evans's work at the College in 1821-29, with the modern memorial windows that they inserted in the nave of the Cathedral.

Unfortunately for inquirers none of these claims can now be accepted. The windows containing the disputed glass were photo- graphed, and the figures of St. George and St. Barbara found to differ in every par- ticular from anything either in the Cathedral or elsewhere in Winchester, while agreeing very closely in style with the rest of the glass in Ludlow.

The same remark applies to the " St. John with cup," and other figures said to "have been taken from Winchester College <}hapol. In addition to being photographed they were carefully measured by a pro- fessional glass painter, and found to be too t>ig to fit the Chapel windows.

A notable feature of much of this Ludlow glass is that the borders of the robes worn l>y the figures are enriched with inserted ""jewels." This form of ornamentation, which did not come into practice until the second half of the fifteenth century, appears prominently in the disputed panels, but does not occur in any figure at Winchester. It might also be added that the orginal figure of St. John with cup from Winchester College Chapel is now at South Kensington ! JOHN D. LE COTJTEUR.

Winchester.

According to Mr. H. E. Forrest's, very interesting little book, ' The Old Houses of Shrewsbury,' second edition 1912, " Gibbons 's Mansion, an ancient half- timber building now disused and much decayed," standing between the Wyle Cop and Dogpole, " acquired fame in more recent times as the workshop of Betton & Evans, glass-staiiiers. " A drawing of the " scanty remains " of this house is reproduced on p. 80 of Mr. Forrest's work.

EDWARD BENSLY.

' NORTHA.NGEK ABBEY' (12 S. vi. 273). The classic passage on this point of nomen- clature is chap. xix. of ' Tristram Shandy,' showing the care that was taken in the selection of his name. His father's opinion was that " there was a strange kind of magic bias, which good or bad names, as he called them, irresistibly impressed upon our characters and conduct." Mr. Shandy re- garded Jack, Dick, and Tom as " neutral names," neither good nor bad in influence. But general opinion has, I think, regarded Richard as a reckless, casual fellow, apt to go to the bad. See the career of our English kings of that name.

The novelist, who is free to name his own characters, has followed this tradition on the whole, though, of course, it is difficult to generalise on such a point without extensive research. But I recall the wild and lovable Richard of ' Ready-money Mortiboy,' the excesses of Mr. Richard Swiveller, and the misfortunes of Richard Feverel. ' The Or- deal of Richard Feverel,' as it has been said, starts like a book which should end well, and then at the end disappoints us. Perhaps we should have guessed the end all along, since the hero was a Richard.

English folklore gives us "As crooked, queer, or curst as Dick's hatband," a phrase common in many counties, said of any person or thing that is well-nigh impossible to manage. The phrase is, or was, used in the North of England by young people who are very talkative or boastful. See 8th S. xii. 37, and other references to 'N. & Q.,' collected at p. 98 of ' Intensifying Similes in English,' by T. H. Svartengven.

Richard, owing to the fame of the Lion- Heart, has been since early times a popular name in England, and ranks fourth among a half-dozen favourite names in mediaeval times (Weekley, 'The Romance of Names,' p. 58-9).