Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/196

 158 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i 2 s.ix. Aua.2o.i92i. to a generation more interested in the reward of labour than in its performance. At present a few thrifty women try to secure a few bags of grain for their fowls, but it is a common custom for the farmer to turn out his own fowls on the stubbles with a hen- house on wheels set down in the field ; these birds pick up the " shelled" corn, which in a hot season like the present is considerable. It would seem as though the farmer was formerly expected to be liberal towards the gleaners ; thus we have Thomson (' Autumn ') saying : The gleaners spread around, and here and there, Spike after spike, their scanty harvest pick. Be not too narrow, husbandmen ! but fling From the full sheaf, with charitable stealth, The liberal handful. Think, O grateful think ! How good the God of Harvest is to you, Who pours abundance o'er your flowing fields. While Bloomfield ('Farmer's Boy Summer '), actually says : No rake takes here what Heaven to all bestows ; Children of want, for you the bounty flows ! And every cottage from the plenteous store Receives a burden nightly at its door. Finally, Clare tells us (' Shepherd's Calen- dar August ') that the gleaner was actually at work before the stubbles were clear : The reapers leave their rest before the sun, And gleaners follow in the toils begun To pick the litter's ear the reaper leaves, And glean in open fields among the sheaves. VALE OF AYLESBURY. MILTON AND ELZEVIER (12 S. ix. 28, 116). I am grateful to PROFESSOR BENSLY for giving me all this information concerning Milton's letters. It incidentally shows up my ignor- ance, but then I had warned my readers that I practically knew nothing about him but his works. I came accidentally across that letter, unaware of the fact that it had already been published. It may interest PROFESSOR BENSLY, if he is not aware of it already, to learn that Elzevier had been introduced to Williamson by Temple, who writes to him on Feb. 20, 1635 : He is the son of that Elzevir of Leyden whose print hath run through ye world with so much approbation. Himselfe is both a printer and seller of books at Amsterdam and in very good credit there. Probably Elzevier had become wary of what he should print or not concerning Eng- lish affairs : Temple had put him on his guard. For in another sentence in this letter to Williamson he asserts that he has taken some pains in suppressing scandalous pamphlets " wherein ye honour of ye Royall Family was something interested.'' This letter of Temple's may suggest the reason why Elzevier declined to have any- thing to do with the publishing of Milton's letters. Temple's letter is to be found in P.R.O., S.P.F., Holland, 198. V. DEL COURT. 47, Blenheim Crescent, W. 11. THE ' INGOLDSBY LEGENDS' (12 S. viii. 473; ix. 97).- -For " Mr. Munro," see letters in The Observer, July, 24, 1921. For, Mr. John Grosvenor of Oxford, surgeon : Thomas Gataker, Puritan divine : John Pye Smith, divine : Brigadier Sir George De Lacy Evans : Edw. Cocker : and very many others mentioned in the Legends, see the ' D.N.B.' Hayden's dictionaries and Bayle's explain many other references. Interesting details are scattered through * N. & Q.,' and accounts of events referred to by ' Ingoldsby ' are not uncommon in the daily Press, e.g., Twining's, Telegraph, Feb. 22, 1910 ; St. Mary Roncevall, British Medical Journal, July, 1914, &c. For many years I have been annotating the Legends at my leisure, and I know the Ingoldsby country, especially Thanet, and find the work of annotation endless. One is astonished not only at the wit and humour, but at the extraordinary knowledge and fund of information, archaeological, sacred, profane and mundane. An " Ingoldsby Coterie " would find interesting and inform- ing occupation in the co-operative compila- tion of a companion to the Legends. W BRADBROOK A. BRYANT (12 S. ix. 111). He published his maps from his private residence, 27, Great Ormond Street, London. Nothing is known of him (vide Mr. T. Chalb, ' Maps of Somerset ') except what can be gathered from his publications. He was a rival of the Greenwoods and published the following maps of the counties of England : Bedford, 1826 ; Bucks, 1825 ; Chester, 1831 ; Glouces- ter, 1824 ; Hereford, 1835 ; Hertford, 1822 ; Lincoln, 1828 ; Norfolk, 1826 ; Northamp- ton, 1827 ; Oxford, 1824 ; Suffolk, 1826 ; Surrey, 1823 ; Yorkshire (East Riding), 1829. Apparently Greenwood and Bryant were surveying some of the counties at the same time. PRESCOTT Row. The Homeland Association, Ltd., 37, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, W.C.2.