Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/193

. i. MAR. 5, '98. J

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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3ither, containing, of course, a different name, kc.1 Probably they were common enough in their day, although but few may have come down to us. W. I. R. V.

[See Indexes to C N. &Q.']

SAYINGS RELATIVE TO ULSTER TOWNS. Quite a number of towns in Ulster are curiously designated, three of which I will quote. Of Banbridge (co. Down) the saying is, " Like the Banbridge beggars huffed with the whole town." Tandragee (co. Armagh) is referred to as "Tandragee no pinch." Newry (co. Down) is slightingly spoken of as "Newry for rogues." And Ready (co. Armagh) is referred to as " Keady for kittens." This note may suggest to some of your correspondents the propriety of record- ing in '1ST. & Q.' sayings relative to towns known to them. RICHARD LINN.

Hereford Street, Chris tchurch, New Zealand.

WIFE VERSUS FAMILY. It seems a rather queer curtailment on the part of the average being, male or female, belonging to the British division of our race to express, verbally and in print, when reference is made to a man who has passed away childless, that the individual left no family, despite the men- tioned fact of leaving a widow, a being whom the American division invariably reckon as a very important part of a family. Why this strange lack of politeness in the Britisher ?

WIDOW.

United States.

HUGH AWDELEY. Most of the following letter was contributed by me to a weekly review. At the time of writing it I was entirely ignorant of some valuable articles on Awdeley in Nichols's Herald and Genea- ' t, vi. 1 45-57, 351-55.

"On Hugh Awdeley, the notorious usurer, who ' in 1605 possessed onlv 2CK., and died in November, 1662, worth 400,000?.,' there is a pleasantly written article in the ' Dictionary of National Biography,' .s.tt. ' Audley,' chiefly derived from the rare tract issued a few weeks after his death, with the title 'The Way to|be Rich, according to the Practice of the Great Audley.'

" I am able to supply a few additional particulars concerning this worthy. He was the second son of John Awdeley, of London, mercer, who had his country house at one of the Suttons in Kent, by Maud or Maudlin, daughter of John Hare, of London, mercer, and was admitted of the Inner

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Temple in 1603, from which society he was called to the Bar in 1611. By paying down a good round sum he subsequently obtained the lucrative place

of Registrar of the Court of Wards and Liveries. Regardless of the truism that hawks do not pick out hawks' eyes, Awdeley found his most profitable customers among his learned brethren. In the way of business the broad Oxfordshire lands of Sir

Thomas Gardiner, the ',' loyal Recorder' of London, became his ; so did those of Edward Coke, Esq., of Norfolk. In the year 1640-50 he served the office of High Sheriff of Norfolk, as owner of Buckenham Castle in that county. How during the Civil War, and after, the Parliament sought to compel him to yield up for the good of the State some part of his ill-gotten hoardj and how stoutly he fought to retain it. may be read mthe 'Calendars of the Proceedings of the Committees for Compounding and Advance of Money,' so admirably edited by the late Mrs. Everett Green.

"His will (P.C.C. 134 Laud) is not wanting in philanthropy of a sort. Thus, for the ' use of the ppore harboured and kept in the three noted hos-

@' tails in or near London, commonly called Christ's ospitall, St. Bartholomew's Hospitall, and St. Thomas' Hospitall in S9uthwarke,' he gave 100. apiece. To his nurse, ' in regard and recompence and towards a satisfaction of her broken sleeps and paines taken with mee in all my sickness,' ne be- queathed the princely sum of 33&. 6s. 8d. in money and all his household goods. One hundred pounds was to be distributed by his executors among 'popre housholders whose charge is greater than their meanes and endeavours can support,' a decidedly inadequate sum one would think. Another 100*. was to go to the Society of the Inner Temple towards the repairing of their church. But the most curious item of all is his bequest of 400. to be apportioned at the discretion of his executors in shares of 10. apiece among ' forty maiden servants, such as are knowne to bee Protestants and to live under the Episcopall Government and not reputed to bee of the Presbiterian Religion, Quakers, or any other of the new upstart religions,' those who had ' served one Master and Mistris or one Master or one Mistris by the space of three yeares' being eligible as candidates. The will, signed on 4 No- vember, 1662, was proved on 24 November following. Other references to Awdeley are to be found in the ' Calendars of State Papers, Domestic Series.' "

Awdeley died on 15 November, 1662, only a few days after the date of his will, at the house of the Rev. Richard Dukeson, D.D., Rector of St. Clement Danes, where he was lodging. His will was disputed on various grounds. Suits were instituted both at law and in equity, which were not altogether terminated forty years after the death of the testator, when all the parties originally inter- ested had left this world and its goods behind. "A striking exemplification," observes his biographer, "of the saying of the Psalmist, 4 He heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them.' " GORDON GOODWIN.

FIRST EDITION OF BURNS'S * POEMS.' (See 7 th S. vi. 146, 275 ; 8 th S. ii. 163, 199, 210.) The increasing price which this book has fetched, originally published at Kilmarnock in 1786 for the small sum of two-and-sixpence, has been often mentioned. John Payne Collier, in his ' Old Man's Diary ' (pt. ii. p. 24), notes a copy having once been offered to him for eighteenpence, under date 1 August* 1832. The following cutting from the Standard