Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/201

 S. I. MAR. 5, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

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wards by Tate Wilkinson, to whom the collection belonged. It may be interesting to note that Mrn. Webb once played Falstaft', on her benefit night at Covent Garden, and on another occasion (29 July, 1789) Midas at the Haymarket. WM. DOUGLAS.

135, Helix Road, Brixton Hill.

In noting her death the Gentleman's Magazine mentions her as a " celebrated and admired actress"; and from other reliable sources Mrs. Webb's merit in a certain line of business was undeniable. On the Edin- burgh stage she filled important parts, and is described as being " very useful, and to sing very sweet." For fifteen years she held a prominent position at Covent Garden and the Haymarket, and on Mrs. Green's retire- ment in 1780 was the recognized Mrs. Hard- castle, Mrs. Heidelberg, and Mrs. Croaker, giving point and colour to many characters in the long - forgotten plays which were showered upon the stage by George Colman the younger, Reynolds, and a host of minor dramatists. Boaden, in a feeble joke at the expense of Mrs. Webb's corpulency arid fiery face, speaks of the heavy loss sustained by the stage in her death. Those who may be interested in gossip about this lady will find enough and to spare in ' The Secret History of the Green Rooms'; and Anthony Pasquin, in 'The Children of Thespis,' overtops his inherent indelicacy in singing her praises. Among her original parts Lady Dunder in 'Ways and Means,' Lady Waitfor't in 'The Dramatist,' and Lady Acid in * Notoriety ' should not be passed by. Of her eccentric performances were Lockit, * Beggar's Opera,' Haymarket, 1781, when the characters were transposed, Midas for her benefit, and Falstaff. There is a portrait of Mrs. Webb as Lady Dove in ' The Brothers,' by De Wilde, in the Garrick Club, from which the print in Bell's 'British Theatre' is taken.

ROBERT WALTERS.

Ware Priory.

" MERRY " (8 th S. ix. 108, 270). The follow- ing satisfactory indeed, I think conclusive explanation of "merry" in "Merry England," "Merry Carlisle," <fec., seems to have been over- looked by all of us who wrote on the subject at the second reference. In the glossary appended to Mr. Robert Jamieson's translation in the old Scottish idiom of the Danish ballad 'The Elfin Gray ' from the ' Ksempe Viser,' given in Note K to ' The Lady of the Lake ' (Scott's 'Poetical Works,' 12 vols., 1868), "merry" is thus explained :

" Merry (Old Teut. mere), famous, renowned ; answering in its etymological meaning exactly to

the Latin Mactitx. Hence merry -men, as the address of a chief to his followers; meaning, not men of mirth, but of renown. The term is found in its original sense in the Gael, mara, and the Welsh mawr, great ; and in the oldest Teut. romances mar, mer, and mere, have sometimes the same signification."

Stawarth Bolton, in 'The Monastery,' chap, ii., speaks of "Merry Lincoln"; but this does not seem so natural at all events, not so familiar as "Merry Carlisle" and " Merry England." JONATHAN BOUCHIER.

HOWTH CASTLE (8 th S. xii. 249, 354, 416 : 9 th S. i. 54). In the grounds of Cuckfield Place, Sussex, the ancient seat of the Sergisons, is a tree locally known as the " Doom Tree," which, according to popular tradition, drops a branch just before a member of the family dies : And whether gale or calm prevail, or threatening

cloud hath fled, By hand of Fate, predestinate, a limb that tree will

shed: A verdant bough, untouch'd, I trow, by axe or tem-

pest's breath, To Rookwpod's head an omen dread of fast ap-

proaching death.

Cuckfield Place is the original of " Rookwood Hall" in Harrison Ainsworth's famous romance, and he thus alludes to it in his preface :

"The supernatural occurrence forming the ground- work of one of the ballads which I have made the harbinger of doom to the house of Rookwood is ascribed by popular superstition to a family resident in Sussex, upon whose estate the fatal tree (# gigantic lime with mighty arms and huge girth of trunk) is still carefully preserved. Cuckfield Place, to which this I may state,

to which this curious piece of timber is attached, is, , the real Rookwood Hall, for I have

not drawn upon imagination, but upon memory, in describing the seat and domains of that fated family." See ' Strange Pages from Family Papers,' by the Rev. T. F. Thiselton Dyer.

Mr. Dyer also states, on the authority of Sir Bernard Burke, that

"opposite the dining-room at Gordon Castle is a large and massive willow tree, the history of which is somewhat singular. Duke Alexander, when four years old, planted this willow in a tub filled with earth. The tub floated about in a marshy piece of land till the shrub, expanding, burst its cerements. and struck root in the earth below. Here it grew and prospered till it attained its present goodly size. It is said that the Duke regarded the tree with a sort of fatherly and even superstitious regard, half believing there was some mysterious affinity between its fortune and his own. If accident hap- pened to the one by storm and lightning, some misfortune was not long in befalling the other."

H. ANDREWS.

POPE AND THOMSON (8 th S. xii. 327, 389, 437; 9 th S. i. 23, 129). In the absence of further definite proof on the question of Pope's alleged