Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/569

 12 s. viii. JUNE ii, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 467 of his day, and these were collected into two volumes bearing the title, ' The Poetical Works of C. B. Ash of Adbaston,' published by Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1831, the last date that I can discover in connexion with him. Glimpses of him are to be traced in various parts of the country. Some lines headed ' Epistle. To a Friend on his calling upon me when I was from home, for the purpose of tasting my Anno Domini ' are dated Sept. 5, 1805, from ''Liverpool; 1, Bedford Place, St James's." Many of his collected pieces were published separately. One of these ' The Hermit of Hawkstone : a Descriptive Poem,' by Charles Ash, author of 'Adbaston,' 'The Heath Girl,' &c. was published at Bath, *' printed by Meyler and Son, Abbey Churchyard," 1816; and another, ' The Flagellator,' was also published at Bath in 1814. In his collected poems there are various indications that he was at one time an actor, as, for example, his ' Triumphs of Thespis ' and ' Essay on the Art of Acting ' (in a note thereto he states he "is no stranger to a theatrical life"); also, in a dedicatory poem to Ad- baston ("by a Lady," Bristol, 1814), ap- pear the lines : For rural joys, and wisdom's gifted page, You quit the gaudy pageants of the stage. With these few hints I first sent a query to the valuable notes and queries columns of The Somerset County Herald, and through the courtesy of that paper received ad- ditional information (see date Sat., Feb. 7, 1920), obtaining the following from the Reference Library, Bath : " Charles Bowker Ash was at Bath between the years 1813-16 and appears to have been associated with the Bath Stage. His poem ' Adbaston ' was addressed from the Theatre Royal, Bath, 1814." This seems to end his con- nexion with Somerset, which is not mentioned in his own poems, though a song was " set to music by John Pindar, Esq, of Bath." A writer in The Somerset County Herald considered that " it would seem nearly cer- tain that C. B. Ash was also a schoolmaster at Eccleshall, Staffordshire," for he wrote a Prologue in 1821 to be spoken at a pro- vincial grammer school (a note indicating this to be Eccleshall), and other poems of the same date that lend colour to this suggestion by internal evidence. The next indications appear from the following facts : ( 1 ) his collected poems were printed for Messrs. Longman, &c., by S. Silvester, at the Albion Press, High Street, Market Drayton ; (2) one of his poems, ' The Hermit of Hawkstone ' (annotated, like most of his longer poems) shows a know- ledge of that district ; (3) a poem of his signed " Roderick Flagellum " and dated from " Cumberland Cottage, 14 miles North of the Wrekin, April, 1819," and another on Sept. 1, 1819, indicate that he resided in Shropshire. Inquiries there have eli- cited no definite information, only hints of a writer of the name of Ash (who may or may not have been the poet) who lived at or near Stafford House on the road from Market Drayton to Childs Ercall ; but reports as to this gentleman, who appears to have been eccentric, vary, one stating he died a year or two after 1861, and another that he resided there some 42 years ago. Inquiries round Ash's native place have also been unavailing. It is not necessary to discuss his poems here, but it may be of interest to add that he wrote ' A Layman's Epistle to a Certain Nobleman.' The name of the nobleman is not given, but this poem ("written and printed previous to the decease of the Noble Personage ") was evidently addressed to Lord Byron, criticizing him for writing ' Cain.' Lastly, in the advertisement to the revised edition of ' Adbaston ' (a poem which throws some little light on his early days), in his collected works, he writes with pride : % Since this poem was first printed at Bath in 1814, it has been revised, and several alterations have been made in it, for which I am indebted to the friendly suggestions of Mr. Coleridge, author of ' The Remorse ' and other works, who, in the kindest manner, not only gave me con- siderable encouragement, but, entirely without my knowledge or solicitation, took much trouble in making many marginal notes in a copy, that, afterwards, fell into my hands by accident. In Simms's ' Bibliotheca Staffordiersis,' after a few biographical notes and detailing a number of his published poems, it is stated that water-colours by him were in the Salt Library, Stafford, together with " Maps of the various Parishes of the County of Stafford." RUSSELL MABKLAND. "FLIPPANCY." The use of this word in the sense of vividness or fluency is not in the ' N.E.D.' (though this sense of the adjective is), but it occurs in a note of Cobbett's to the trial of Lord Stafford (' State Trials,' pub- lished 1810), where he says : " The following