Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/281

 12 s. vii. SEPT. is, 1920. NOTES AND QUERIES.

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THE LIGHTS OF LONDON. This familiar phrase was used, I believe, by Mr. G. Sims as the title of a melodrama I have not seen. I was surpised the other day to find it as far back as 1773 in Henry Mackenzie. As few are likely nowadays to read the tear-drenched story of 'The Man of the World,' I give the passage. In Part I., chap. 21, Annesly is being transported. Going down in a boat the precise places are not indicated to the ship which is to carry him off, he "kept his eager eyes fixed on the lights of London, till the increasing distance deprived them of their object." At that period the lights cannot have been very brilliant. They cannot have been BO to modern ideas when Tennyson wrote in 'Locksley Hall' (first published in 1842) the striking lines :

And at night along the dusky highway, near and

nearer drawn, Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a

dreary dawn.

I do not know why a " dreary " dawn should flare more than any other, and suspect the adjective came in to echo "nearer."

Lord Tennyson in the ' Eversley ' edition of his father's works adds the following note to the lines : "A simile from old times and the top of a mail-coach. They that go by trains seldom see this."

But they that go by motor-cars and climb heights may frequently do so to-day. London is visible as a luminous haze in the sky from several high points how far off perhaps some correspondent can say.

No doubt Tennyson's lines are a reminis- cence of his own, like the great world spinning down the grooves of change which recalled travel on the first train from Liver- pool to Manchester in 1830. Before the introduction of gas and electric lighting any powerful concentration of light in London does not seem probable. Yet Portia ex- claims in ' The Merchant of Venice,' V. i., How far that little candle throws his beams !

V. R

WILLIAM BILLYNG AND HIS DEVOTIONAL VERSES. At 4 S.iii. 103, 229, allusion is made to a remarkable parchment, then at Lomber- dale House. It is a devotional poem on the 'Five Wounds of Christ,* dating from the end of the fifteenth century. Since English verse is not common at this period, and there is an attempt at form in the alliteration and rhythm of the poem, it is surprizing that it

does not appear to have been included in any anthology. It is probably very little known, as it has never been in print, except when it was edited by William Bateman, and forty copies were privately printed at Manchester in 1814. Not only the verses, but also the identity of the writer become interesting. Mr. Bateman has taken it for granted that the author was a monk. It is signed by William Billyng and the editor has ignored the significance of the mark attached to the signature. This is plainly the mark of a wool stapler, formed as usual by the cross of St. John Baptist, with two streamers issuing on the right, and the base shaped into a W. A curved lateral stroke which makes the cross may be a perverted B.

The question was, who was William Billyng ? I find at Deddington in Oxford- shire a brass inscription to William Billyng merchant of the staple at Calais, who died in 1533, and to his wife Elizabeth, who died in 1522. I also find that John, second son and heir to William Billyng of Deddington married twice ( ' Visit of Oxfordshire ' 1566 and 1574).

Billyng is a Cornish name, and one family were seated formerly at Treworder. But it is, I believe, also known in Northamptonshire. I should like to know more about William Billyng, the writer of the verses. Is there an example of the merchant's mark used by William of Deddington, and was he related to Sir Thomas Billyng the Judge, who died in 1481 ? I also find that a John Billyng and another man bought lands in Deddington in 1498. (Charter in Bodley's Library). Deddington would not be the only habita- tion of a woolstapler, and the answer to the question of identification might be sought in the records of some town Guild.

J. KESTELL FLOYER.

Esher.

DUCKS AND DRAKES. This common expression for lavish expenditure does not seem to me to be quite fully accounted for in the 'N.E.D.,' where it is described aa "throwing a flat stone or the like over the surface of water " so as to rebound once twice, thrice, or more. We used to say " a duck and a drake and a penny white cake and a screwball " for four rebounds. I think that the origin of the phrase has been throw- ing of actual coins, included in "or the like,'* and referred to in quotation c. 1626.

J. T. F.

Winterton, Lines.