Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/28

 18 NOTES AND QUERIES. "SINGLE WHISKEY" (12 S. viii. 489). This use of the adjective is illustrated by 'N.E.D.,' vol. ix., p. 80, col. 3, under Single, 13 : "of beer, ale, &c. : Weak, poor, or inferior in quality ; small. Now archaic." The earliest example given is of 1485, " a vessell of single bere to the gonners," and there is one from the London Gazette in 1704, in which "single French brandy" is mentioned. EDWARD BENSLY. LOWESTOFT CHINA (12 S. vii. 49, 115, 196). Several answers to the original query appeared last year, yet the following version may be acceptable. It is from the widow of Sir James Smith, the botanist (d. 1828), and at this time in her 96th year. She writes in 1868 : Surely, dear Mr. Reeve, this is not the first time you have inquired of me concerning Lowestoft china ? Either you, or Dr. Hooker it might be ; whichever it was. I sent him all that I knew a-bout it, and that all is very little, for I am one of the sceptics, and have been filled with doubt and surprise at the reports that I have heard. But I am told I am quite mistaken, and that it surely had arrived at a great state of perfection ; that foreign artists had been employed ; and that, if what is shown is not Lowestoft china, what other is it ? For there is a peculiarity in it which is totally different from Chelsea, or Derby, or Worcestershire, or Staffordshire. This I admit. One peculiarity has been observed. The bottoms of the saucers have very slight undulations, looking, as is said, like a ribbon that requires ironing to be perfectly flat and smooth. This I noticed ; and, I must add, I have seen the same in real Chinese china. There is a uniformity in certain little flowers and roses which is seen in no others. The shapes are good, and as the manufacture advanced the painting was improved, armorial bearings were represented and gilding. In my early youth there was a manufactory ; that I often went to and saw Mr. Allan dab a piece of white clay on a wheel, and, with his foot turning the wheel, with his right hand he formed a handsome basin or cup in a minute or two. The china basins, cups, saucers, pots, jugs everything was made here, painted here, by poor sickly-looking boys and girls, for it was a very unwholesome trade baked here ; and they had a shop in London, which I suppose, took off the bulk of their manufactured articles. I remember the great water-wheel which ground the clay a fearful monster, sublime, I must say for it " hid its limits in its greatness " ; but the beautiful lake that supplied it with water, and was covered with water-lilies, was one of my favourite resorts. Gillingwater tells us that Mr. Hewling Leeson found the clay on his estate in 1756, made experi- ments, was defeated ; other persons took it up, and were also hindered through jealousy ; another trial proved unsuccessful, but repeated efforts succeeded, and the manufacture began, and went on till about the end of the century, or early in 1800, when my brother bought a few articles at the final sale by way of remembrance, but these, though pretty, are by no means the choicest specimens. A man in the town has a whole dinner service, with I think ducal bearings ; and only last summer Mr. Bohn (the well-known publisher) gave 5 to an old man for one little cup, which the poor fellow intended as a legacy to his daughter and he unwillingly sold it ; but 5 bribed him or it might be more ; the original price was probably 4d. or 6d. at most. This is far away the best explanation of this most interesting question, and is from the ' Memoirs and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L.' W. W. GLENNY. Barking, Essex. PBISONEBS WHO HAVE SURVIVED HANG- ING (12 S. vii. 68, 94, 114, 134, 173, 216, 438 ; viii. 73). An earlier instance than any cited is in Henry Knyghton's * Chronicle ' as follows : In 1350, a criminal named Walter Wynk- bourne was hanged at Leicester, and having been taken down after the lapse of the usual period, was found to be yet alive. Some were for recommencing the execution, but the more humane took him to sanctuary in the church of St. Sepulchre in that town, until the will of the King should be known. Edward III., the then monarch, happened to be with the religious in Leicester Monastery at the very time, and an application was at once made to his clemency. The King thereupon forgave the criminal in Latin, Deus tibi dedit vitam, ct nos tibi dabi- mus castam. W. B. H. PETER BECKFORD (12 S. viii. 489). He was born in 1740, the son of Julines Beckford, who hailed from Jamaica. Julines was not a hunting man, but five years after Peter's birth his father purchased the house and manor of Stapleton or Steepleton- Iwerne in Dorsetshire, together with certain rights in Cranborne Chase, from one Thomas Fownes, who bought the place from George Pitt in 1654. Mr. Fownes was, I believe, the first gentleman in England who mastered a pack of hounds exclusively for fox- hunting. He hunted the Cranborne Chase district till his money became exhausted, and he sold his pack to Mr. Bowes, a York- shireman. Peter Beckford practically lived the whole of his life at Stapleton and died there. His son was created 3rd Baron Rivers and his great-granddaughters, the Misses Pitt, still own the place, I believe. Peter Beckford is understood to have started by hunting deer, as a youth, with a few buck- hounds. Later in life he ran a pack of harriers, and later still he presided over a pack of foxhounds. The country he hunted