Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/76

58 NOTES AND QUERIES. a ix. JULY 10,1021. immortality. This was all that Bacon and Milton and Keats did, and they did it modestly. "Correctly to predict their own immortality" is certainly not vanity, but to announce it bombastically by lowering others most certainly is. This was my point—and not a debatable relative superiority—which has overlooked.

May I add as a pendant to my estimate of Dante's inferiority to Shakespeare in certain powers what Dr. Paget Toynbee, in his recent 'Britain's Tribute to Dante' (ad ann. 1819), chronicles thus:—

(11 S. x. 483; 12 S. i. 13, 77, 129, 230, 317, 435; ii. 114). My uncle, Mr. J. Passmore Edwards, was, I believe, the first to print " contents bills " as they are usually called in newspaper offices by a w r eb machine, in connexion with The Echo, of which he was the proprietor. This must have been in the early '80's of the last cen- tury, or possibly the late '70's. I remember the installation of the little machine (American, I think), in an upper room in Catherine Street, Strand, which quickly printed the bills on a reel of paper, instead of the older press, in which the sheets had to be fed in by hand. The slow process of the earlier mode of printing necessitated these contents bills being set up before the edition of the paper to which they referred ; and, as the most important news frequently came in at the last moment, it was often found that this, which would be most effective in selling the paper, could not be put in the bills. The installation of the web machine enabled the bills, with the latest " lines," to be printed simultaneously with the paper. Although bills setting forth the contents had long been utilized to advertise the morning papers, it was the evening papers that gave the lead in the big headlines designed to catch the public eye. The morning papers were slow in giving up the older form of bill, which detailed in smaller type the headings of many features of the paper. This is still in vogue with the suburban and some provincial papers. Some of the London morning papers long seem to have regarded it as hardly re- spectable to issue a contents bill at all ; The Times was, I think, about the last to May I take this opportunity to put on record another instance of enterprise in connexion with The Echo ? It must also '' be in the early '80's that I heard John Bright speak at a meeting of the Liberation I Society at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Before concluding his speech he had put into his hand a copy of The Echo containing the opening passages of the speech, and he publicly commented on this journalistic enterprise. FREDK. A. EDWARDS. SIR BENJAMIN HAMMETT (12 S. ix. 12) Was Alderman of Portsoken Ward, 1785-98, knighted August, 1786, Sheriff of London 1788-9, elected Lord Mayor in 1797, but !He was M.P. for Taunton, 1782-1800; died July 22, 1800. Will [P.C.C. 6C3 .Adderley] proved Aug. 30, 1800. He was a member of the Haberdashers' Company, I of which he was Master in the year 1785-6. tration. His son, John Hammett, succeeded j ous ' City Biography ' which credits him I with the qualities of " meanness, ignorance I native of Taunton, son of a barber in that town, and afterwards a footman in the ser- vice of " Vulture " Hopkins, the noted 'James Esdaile (Lord Mayor, 1777-8), ad- vanced him money which enabled him to make successful building speculations. In 1781 he became a partner with his father- in-law in the banking firm of Esdaile, Hammett and Esdaile established in that year, in which the name Hammett remained until 1832 ; the bank (then Sir James Esdaile, Esdaile, Grenfell, Thomas Co.) finally stopped payment in 1837. ALFRED B. BEAVEN. INSCRIPTIONS AT ST. NICHOLAS, DEPT- ,FORD (12 S. ix. 4). For a full account of ' Captain George " Sheloocke " referred to in jthe above list, see Sir John Laughton's ! ' Life of Captain George " Shelvocke," ' in the D.N.B.,' vol. 52, pp. 46-8. R. B. Upton.
 * come into line in this respect.
 * declined to accept office and paid the fine.
 * In Parliament he voted with Pitt's adminis-
 * him as M.P. for Taunton, and retained the
 * seat till his death. The somewhat scandal -
 * and impudence " records that he was a
 * usurer, whose wife's sister, daughter of Sir