Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/299

 12 S. VII. SEPT. 25, 1920] NOTES AND QUERIES.

243

Butler and Gregory Stapleton find place in the 'D.lS.B. r Arthur Young, after stating that St. Omer contained little deserving notice, added :

" and if I could direct the legislatures of England and Ireland should contain less : why are Catholics to emigrate in order to be ill educated abroad, instead of being allowed institutions that would educate them well at home ? "

Although there was no siege of St. Omer in 1710, the immunity of the town was due in no way to the good-will of the Duke of Marlborough. It is said that Marlborough had vowed special vengeance upon the place because its authorities had refused to oblige him by procuring from the English college certain papers which the Duchess of Hamil- ton desired him to obtain for her in a lawsuit against William Bromley, then candidate'for the Speakership of the House of Commons. Marlbororgh seems to have hoped to get from St. Omer documentary evidence of the "papistry '' of his enemy. Bromley, how- ever, became Speaker on Nov. 25, 1710.

The archives of the College Royal Anglais were unfortunately destroyed by the Revo- lutionary administration of the town under the Terror. The buildings were trans- iormed into a hospital after the battle of Hondschoote, September, 1793, but remained English property till 1834, when they were purchased by the State for 250,000 frs. They have been used continuously as a

Hospital from 1793 to the present day. In* May, 1796, the institution took the name of 'Hospice de 1'Humanite,' but in 1813 it became definitely a Military Hospital. The fasade to the Rue St. Bertin is one of much dignity, of a type common in St. Omer during the eighteenth century, with tall yellow brick pilasters the full height of its three storeys, and high dormered roof.* The building was restored in 1845.

Originally known as Sithiu the town, received its present appelation in the tenth century in honour of St. Omer, Bishop of Therouanne, who founded a church and monastery here in the seventh century. Omer was a Benedictine monk of, the Abbey of Luxouil in Franche-Gomte, and-Svas called; to the see of Therouanne about 637 by Dagobert. King of France. He died in 670 Latinized his name becomes Audomarus- hence the adjective and noun " audomarois " descriptive of the town and its inhabitants,

M. Justin de Pas has found references to ft' "Mai=:on d'Erigleterre " in St. Omer at the end of the fourteenth century, and again a hundred years later ; and in 1763 there was a ''maison et cabaret portant pour enr seigne le Roy d'Angleterre."

F. H. CHEETHAM.

12 S. vi. 145.
 * For inscription over entrance see ' N. & Q.'

DOROTHY OSBORNE'S LETTERS.

THESE letters are known to us only in the editions of Judge Parry to whose literary sense and enthusiasm we owe their publication in full. All the letters but seven ( Nos. 8, 11, 23 28, 30, 44, 53, of the ' Everyman's Library ' edition) which remain in private possession, and to which I have not had access, are in the British Museum (Add. MS. 33975).

I have collated these with the text given in the ' Everyman's Library ' edition, and find in the latter a considerable number of divergences from Dorothy' s MS. (apart from the fact that the Judge's text is in modernized spelling, that even proper names are frequently re -spelt, and that contractions or initials have been expanded).

It may be useful to possessors of this edition to indicate these divergences. Most^ but not quite all, are found in the Judge's earlier editions of the Letters.

Everyman's Library Text. Original MS. (modernised),

to persuade him (as a friend) " " (as a friend) to persuade him "

" unpleasant " " unpleasing " (" vpleasing " in MS.) J

" have met " " met

" in London ' " engagement " hear that " I had

Letter.

1

p. 22, 1.5*

2

p. 24, 1. 7

1.10*

p. 25, 1. 2

3

p. 30,

.13

.18

.4*

p. 31,

.9*

p. 32.

.3

.10

.18

1.19

I had ' worst ' used ' years

it was


 * From bottom.'

' at London " ' agreement "

" hear " I had had a " " I have " " the worst "

" uses "

" year "

" 'twas "