Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/475

 2 s. VITI. MAY 14, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 389 To the Overseers of the Towre. . 05 00 00 To mr John Bence sent for the hire of his horse. . . . ' 01 00 00 for my horse hire downe from London 00 10 00 For 37 daies being from the first of february to the 8th of mch at 2s the day for my expence and diet 03 14 00 To mr Benes his sonne 01 00 00 To mr Benes himself 02 00 00 For a dinner with mr Hooker and mr Morres and the rest of the Overseers of the Towre 02 00 00 To the hoigh man for his fraught downe 08 00 00 Sum. . 34 00 00 More for 10 barrells of the best powder at 4 17s. 6d. the barell. . . . 48 15 00 Totall. . 82 15 00 Aldeburgh, Suffolk. ARTHUR T. WlNN. (To be continued.) CAPTAIN ROBERT WYARD. In accordance with the terms of a bequest made by Capt. Wyard in 1677, I preached on April 23 my eightieth sermon on the text, Ps. cvii. 23, 24, " They that go down to the sea in ships,-that do business in great waters ; these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep.' 1 That Capt. Wyard was a man of some importance during the Commonwealth is evident from the fact that a very fine gold medal, of the value of 50, was presented to him, illustrating a naval action in the North Sea on July 31, 1650, when, with one ship of 22 guns and after a long fight, he beat off six Royalist frigates, whose armament amounted to 118 guns, and brought his convoy safely to their desti- nations. The master and officers and men received medals similar in design and of values from 5 to five shillings. One of the inferior medals, the property of the late Rev. James Cooke, was sold by Messrs. Knight, Frank and Rut ley in Jan., 1917, for 310. The reason for this somewhat singular bequest was that Capt. Wyard, who was a native of Earl Soham, had been 'ship- wrecked on Feb. 25 and April 23, and in thankfulness for his escapes he left a charge of 5 on land in Worlingworth for the preaching of a sermon on the above text on the anniversaries of his shipwrecks, the money to be divided between the preacher, the poor people present, the bell-ringers and the parish officials. The subject is so interesting and the Psalm itself so beautiful that it has never been difficult, especially in time of war, to interest the poor people present, and the benefaction has, I think, been useful in reminding the parish of its duty to remember our seamen. Robert Wyard was baptized here on May 7, 1612, and was probably 38 years old at the time of the naval action. I have written this letter in the hope that some of your readers may be able to give me information about Capt. Wyard which can be added to our parish records. . R. ABBAY. Earl Soham. ' MARTIN CHTJZZLEWIT ' : ELIJAH POGRAM. Has any contributor pointed out the original germ of the Hon. Elijah Pogram's eulogium on Mr. Hannibal Chollop, which appears in chap, xxxiv. of ' Martin Chuzzle- wit ' ? In the Appendix to vol. ii. of Mr. R. H. Thornton's ' American Glossary ' there is a collection of verses, anecdotes, " tall talk," &c., from various American sources. One specimen of the last-named is quoted from The San Francisco Call of Dec. 3, 1856, and runs thus : An Illinois lawyer, in defending a thief, said to the jury : " True, he was rude, so air our bars. True, he was rough, so air our buffaloes. But he was a child of freedom and his answer to the despot and tyrant was that his home was on the bright setting sun." In Mr. Pogram's version this appears as : Bough he may be. So air our Barrs. Wild he may be. So air our Buffalers. But he is a child of Natur' and a child of Freedom ; and his boastful answer to the Despot and the Tyrant is, that his bright home is in the Settin' Sun. Dickens adds that part of this referred ' to a Western postmaster, who, being a public defaulter not very long before, had been removed from office ; and on whose behalf Mr. Pogram (he voted for Pogram) had thundered the last sentence from his seat in Congress, at the head of an un- popular President. Dickens's first visit to the United States was in 1842, and ' Chuzzlewit ' was pub- lished in 1843. But although this appeared in The San Francisco Call in 1866 no date is given to the oration, and it may well have appeared in the Eastern press about the time of Dickens's visit, and slowly worked its way (in the pre-railway era) across the American Continent. It seems to me more probable that this was Dickens's original source than that The San Francisco Call " lifted " it from ' Martin Chuzzlewit.' R. S. PENGELLY. 12, Poynders Road, Clapham Park.